Arrival in Ho Chi Minh City
I started off to a new chapter in my journey. Leaving Dublin
resulted in an emotional roller coaster. After being back for over two years I
had settled quiet well back in Dublin and it was harder to leave this time. The
good thing is I can always come back and I know I will always feel at home. After one week back in Germany seeing family and friends my Dad
drove me to the airport in Munich where I departed to Ho Chi Minh City. I was
excited about the internship as it was exactly what I wanted to do and I was so
looking forward to gain some experience in the field as a researcher in Asia in
the Water & Climate change centre.
I had booked myself in a small guesthouse in District 1 called
Madame Cuc. I had stayed there previously and the staff is very kind. They gave
me a special rate after I explained to them that I’m here for an unpaid
internship. Saigon, District 2 is frantic! So busy, mad traffic, lots of noise,
different smells of delicious food but also not so pleasant smells of rotten
food and the rest is up to your imagination ;)
The first thing I did on Sunday night was looking for a restaurant
to have some delicious ‘Rau mung sau toi’ (green vegetables/spinach with garlic)
and com (rice) with it. Before that decided to check out the place where I had to take
the company bus the next morning at 7am to go to the Water and Climate Change Centre
(WACC). 35 to 40min on foot from my guesthouse; doable but let’s see how it feels in that humidity. If I also want to do 20min of Yoga in the morning then
I better get up at 5.40am. I’m jet lagged anyway, so I guess that doesn’t
matter.
The first few days in WACC were really just to understand the
organization, their structures, and projects, to get to know the employees and
the other interns. There are two more interns from the Netherlands there, doing
their research for their thesis. One is an
Economist and the other one a Hydrological Engineer. I’m curious about their
topics and I’m sure we can learn from each other.
1st field trip - Tra Vinh province
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| River to the left and shrimp pond to the right |
After just one week in the office, I went on a
field trip with a research team of 12 people for 4 days down to Tra Vinh province in the
Mekong Delta.
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| WACC Team |
The purpose was to do some test interviews with rice and shrimp
farmers to understand their motivation and ability to change their behaviour of
cropping and to transform due to increasing salinity intrusion. I really
enjoyed riding on our motorbikes to the different villages and hamlets, talking
to several farmers, listening to their problems, challenges, observations and
success stories.
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| Interview with Khmer farmers |
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| Khmer's farmers Shrimp pond |
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| Successful shrimp farmer showing us his white-leg shrimp |
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| White-leg shrimp |
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| Vitamins for shrimps - 'ANTI STRESS' - that made us laugh! |
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| Some shrimp farmers mix bananas into their fodder |
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| Paddle wheels generating oxygen for the shrimps |
It was a mixed approach overall and ability as well as
location of the land seemed to be the most important. Farmers were usually
successful when they were close to a cannel or river and when they were not
surrounded by too many farms.
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| Beautiful Lotus ponds with fish + ducks + banana trees |
One severe problem, which was mentioned from
numerous farmers was the pollution of the canals and rivers with wastewater
from failed shrimp harvesting, shrimp diseases and farmers described the water
was full of fertiliser and pesticides. This has massive implications on their
new shrimp breeding as well as other farmers rice irrigation and harvest. It
was a really good experience overall, I learnt a lot and got a much better
insight into the research study.
Every evening we had such tasty food, my
favourite were theses Tiger Prawns – just amazing! Look at the size of them ;)
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| Bigger than a Saigon Beer :) |
Back in the office I worked with some colleagues on the field report
for our director in the institute. The research team had also decided to change
parts of the questionnaire, which didn’t work so well and I was also involved in getting an improved version ready.
Excursion to Go Cong - Visiting a monk from Plum Village
I had a contact for mindfulness & meditation in Saigon. When I
got in touch with them it turned out they were literally around the corner of
my guesthouse. Therefore I just said hello after returning from my fieldtrip
and it turned out that some members would go on motorbike trip the next day to
Go Cong, which is 2 hours south of HCMC on a motorbike. I spontaneously agreed
and the next day at 7am I found myself on a motorbike going to Go Cong! Welcome
to Vietnam :) It came exactly at the right time as I was stuck in finding a
room and a little bit frustrated. This trip did me well. Leaving this mad city
centre behind me and driving into a rural landscape with less traffic and lots
of beautiful scenery was such a treat! I was so grateful that I got invited. We
even had to take a ferry to cross over the Mekong. We arrived at a small
village and stopped at a small beautiful garden, where we met the first monk.
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| Monks home |
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| Beautiful garden with a small lotus pond |
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| Seedling farm |
We parked our motorbikes and got invited for some lunch! That felt good.
Afterwards we had some tea and a chat before we had siesta.
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| Time for Vietnamese tea |
We were allowed to
walk across the road to the Lotus Pond, where a huge iron sheet hut was placed
in the middle, which we could access on foot.
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| Lotus Pond |
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| Lotus flower |
Stunning, such beautiful scenery
and we are allowed to have our lunch break here. After 20 min the sky opened up
and we were able to watch the lashing monsoon rain from a dry spot.
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| View from the Iron sheet hut |
It was such
lovely sound and so peaceful. We met the monk again after the rain had stopped
for an hour before we made our way back to HCMC. We had a stunning drive, as we
were able to watch the gorgeous sunset while riding through such peaceful
scenery and during our ferry cross over.
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| Bridge being build - but up to now the ferry is the mean of transport |
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| Gorgeous sunset |
What a beautiful day! Thank you Trung!
My new home in HCMC
After a few days in WACC, I have decided to let go of the idea to be
based in Tra Vinh and to focus on my own research project. It seemed like there
are much more opportunities staying in the office in HCMC. However, that also
meant to start looking for a room! I was not really prepared to live in Saigon,
but well, nothing I can do. I better get used to it! Charlotte, the other
intern was so nice to introduce me to two FB groups – Expats Saigon and Housing
Saigon. That did help a great deal in trying to find a suitable room. Finding a
room in HCMC felt like a rollercoaster ride! One day you felt over the moon as
you thought you had found your new home and a few days later other expats come
back to you with excuses and blaming the Vietnamese landlord that they all had
to move out. But after almost 2 weeks living in a guesthouse in District 1, I
finally found a cute and quiet room in District 2 on the 2nd floor,
with a balcony.
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| My lovely room in my new home! |
I’m sharing the house with three Vietnamese girls, where one of
them is running a business and we have two dogs. The house
is massive; I would describe it almost like a Villa.
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| Our beautiful house! |
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| Our road in District 2 We have a big roof terrace where I am sitting at the moment writing this blog entry ;) But believe me most of the time it is too hot out there to even thinking of sitting there! |
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| Roof terrace |
Independence
I had arranged to rent a motorbike from a private girl here in
HCMC and I was just waiting to move into the house, so I could get the bike. So last week, I
finally got the bike – it was a Sunday morning and I felt I was
independent again! I was curious to drive around the neighbourhood, discover
the unknown places and finally get to work on a motorbike again! Yes, that created
happiness in me :) On top of it all, it was my favourite kind of bike I had
bought in 2010 when I had just moved to
Danang – Yamaha Sirius same model & design! I’m loving it! Such a cool bike
:)))
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| Yamaha Sirius - My rented motorbike :) |
Food & coffee
Tham’s boyfriend Ngu was so nice to pick me up with his bike and we
drove around HCMC a little bit, had some tasty Vegetarian food in a really
reasonable priced restaurant not far from my home. The other day we stopped at
a really cute coffee place in District 3 called ‘sách’ (meaning books), which
was located just beside a small river and the wooden tables and chairs were set
up on the pavement. It was so nice to sit there and watching people driving or
walking past. Two things are always important in Vietnam: Good food and good
coffee! :)
Rainy season has officially started
So far we were really lucky as the locals told us that the rainy
season is late this year. Yeah, and they were so right! Since one week rainy
season has started, but I don’t complain. So far it is much less rain than in
Danang during monsoon season and apparently it will also only last for one
month! Let’s see how it goes, but the tendency is that it starts raining around
lunchtime or in the afternoon. Rain poncho is essential, but other then that,
it is not so bad. It’s still hot!
Next business trip on the cards
The director of the Water & Climate change Center mentioned to
me another project they are involved in. This comprises of consultancy work for
the German company ‘GIZ GmbH (Gesellschaft fuer Internationale Zusammenarbeit)’
and looks at flooding and drainage problems in 5 different coastal cities in
Vietnam. This project is done in cooperation with an Architectural company in
HCM city to design climate change adaptation measures. Our role in WACC is to
understand the motivation and ability of local citizens, members of the people
committee and the Department of construction. We might be travelling next week
already and we will kick off the week with a meeting on Monday morning with GIZ
and the Architects in HCM city. I’m curious to see some designs and to
understand the project in a bit more detail.
Driving in HCM city
Driving a motorbike here is Saigon is a different kettle of fish
than in Danang ;) I was not scared to drive; the bigger problem is to know
which road to take! No proper maps except of Google maps, but driving and
looking at your I-phone at the same time isn’t working for me especially in
Saigon’s traffic. Anyway, I was so courageous yesterday to go an excursion to
test out the way to the stadium where the Yoga event was happening the next morning
and I also needed to find the way from my house to turtle lake in District 3,
where we will be picked up on Monday from our director. 5 min after I sat on my
bike driving over the first bridge toward the direction of ‘downtown’ it
started to lash down! We all stopped at the side of the road, got our rain
ponchos out and back on the bike again. It was actually easier to find my way
in the pouring rain, as there were less motorbikes and everybody drove a way
slower. I found both places, that was all good, however finding my way back was
a bit more challenging as I was twice stuck in one-way streets. Nevertheless I
made it back home in one piece and that’s all what matters.
1st International Yoga Day in HCM city
I had picked up a leaflet from a bakery here in District 2 about an
event in a stadium for the International Yoga day on Sunday morning. My
colleague Luan was so nice to check the location online and I printed the map.
After my excursion on Saturday I was ready to drive there. Got up at 6am and left
my house twenty minutes later to pick up some lovely ‘Banh Mi’ (baguette) for
breakfast. I was riding on very quiet roads at least from a Saigon’s perception
and I was excited to reach the stadium. Lots of Vietnamese people were already
dressed with white T-shirts saying “I do YOGA, do you?” – made me smile! The
event was free of charge and we got free drinks and such a funny white T-shirt.
The event was even live on Vietnamese TV and hosted by Indian Yoga Masters. We
practiced Yoga together for over an hour, in the middle of a stadium on the
grass where we had laid out our Yoga mats.
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| In the middle of the stadium |
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| Delegation of government officials in green on the yellow seats! |
It was a beautiful set up and very
peaceful :) That was a great start to a Sunday morning!
