Animals act different here than in the US. I guess they would need to act different in order to survive. I wonder how dogs cross the street...
Awake at 800, we headed down to the house and prepared for breakfast. While waiting, I was playing around with their dog, and she absolutely refused to interact with me. Generally when you ring a door bell or enter someone's house, you hear a dog bark loudly as they rush towards you. They then proceed to lick your legs and smell you. Here, you see a silent dog standing alert in front of the house, examining the foreign person. I tried many times to approach the dog, but whenever I did, she simply turned and walked away from me. I got it to the point where we were walking in a circle, and my cousin laughed at me as the dog simply wanted to avoid me. The dog never barked either, and whenever she did, it was much softer than normal.
After some walking and street crossing, which was starting to become normal now (except for Mom), we made it to a place to eat com tam. Food was displayed buffet style in the restaurant. Meats, meatloaf, vegetables, eggs, etc., and we simply had to point at what we wanted. For drinks, in order to prevent any food poisoning, I've been drinking from bottles instead of from glasses or straws. This time, I drank a Vietnamese carbonated drink called Sa Xi. It seems to be very popular here, and tastes like a licorice Coke. Overall, the food was good, and we went back to the house to begin our journey out to Cho Tram to visit more family. For the past few days, the house has been the central spot to meet before leaving to a destination, and also a place to relax after the planned events in the evening. I was told from Dad that the house itself has a property value of three million US dollars, and I can certainly believe that since the property size is fairly large, and it's placed right in the middle of the city. Surrounding the house are many businesses, as well as a five-star hotel and shopping plaza. I haven't seen any other houses in the general area, so overall it's pretty cool.
We piled into a large Mercedes van and drove about an hour to our destination. To get out of the city you have to cross a large body of water, and you can tell you're out when the primary aspect of scenery changes from buildings to grass. The look of the buildings themselves look a little different as well. Still, there are tons of businesses outside of the city, and many people walking around the area. I enjoyed staring at people as they looked at me through the window thinking, "Such American, much wow.." I frequently looked to the front of the van to see the driver's point of view, and I still can't imagine driving on these busy, cramped roads. Since we were in the countryside, there were a lot more farmers as well, as I noticed many of them wearing the usual rice hat and working on the land. Still, despite the less modern look of the countryside compared to Ho Chi Minh City, there were many Internet cafes and phone stores, and people who I saw texting and talking on their phones. There's texting while driving here too, and I think it takes a little more effort here to avoid getting into an accident.
Finally we arrived at our destination. One of my aunts who went with us quickly took refuge inside the house/Cafe, and relaxed on a hammock looking a little woozy. Later we asked her, and she said that she wasn't used to sitting inside a vehicle. Since she generally always uses a bike to travel, she gets carsick when she goes by car/van. The place we arrived at was actually a cafe, and to the side of the cafe was a motel. My aunt and uncle owned both of these businesses, and have to work extremely hard to make a living. They wake up at 4am to open their business, and go to sleep at midnight. Because they need to constantly keep watch over both the motel and cafe to prevent thievery, they can't really move around too much or go on vacation in a place far from the location.
As we prepared for lunch, I followed my cousins down to the side of the cafe, where trees bore a special type of fruit not grown in the US. The fruit was named trung ca (fish egg), and it looked kind of like a blueberry except that it was red. Since I was colorblind, I had a hard time distinguishing the ripe ones from the unripe ones (red from green). To eat the fruit, you simply pop it, and the juice oozes in your mouth. It has tiny, edible seeds inside of it, and tastes similar to maple syrup (not as sweet). I continued picking these fruits with my cousins, and by doing so, it acted as kind of an icebreaker so that we weren't so shy around each other.
At last it was lunch time, and with good timing too. Right as we entered the cafe to eat, it started raining heavily. I took some pictures as two of my cousins sat in chairs and looking at the rain in awe, feeling the nice mist and breeze. We had chao with assorted meats and seafood. Afterwards, we cooked some beef and crab over a stove. The crab was seasoned with some kind of spicy tom yum, and although it wasn't spicy at all, everyone complained that it was. In one instance, I attempted to extract some crab meat from an arm, and right when I cracked it open, I accidentally flung it across the table and into a bowl of nuoc mam. My grandma laughed and said, "Lul, the crab is still alive."
After lunch we took the van down to a nearby river. It was a vast body of water, although it was extremely polluted, and filled with trash. We headed into a boat turned into a restaurant to eat some clams and mussels, and on our way there I saw a monkey chained to a tree. As we approached it, the monkey jumped onto the rail of the walkway we were on, and immediately my cousins backed away. We ran past it to avoid getting possibly attacked.
The river itself wasn't really a marvelous spectacle by any means, but it's always cool seeing something new. While eating, one of my cousins age four vomited all over the floor. I lost my appetite after that. We relaxed there for a little bit and then headed back to the cafe. Then we said our good-byes and headed back home. For the rest of the evening we ate dinner at the house and then proceeded back to the hotel. We ate early this time, as we returned back at the hotel at 1830. I fell asleep all the way up until now, making it a good 12 hours of sleep.. Jeezuz.
I forgot to mentioned the mosquito bites I received. Two of them in fact. Right now they've swelled up about four times than original size, and as I'm typing this, my arm is extremely itchy. Anyway, we're going to be heading back once again to the countryside today, and we'll have to do some walking too. I hope I don't get any more of these bites.. Until next time.
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