Vietnamese Food Part II

Arriving in Phu Quoc was a bit of a shock. Just when I was getting used to eating cheap, delicious street food, I was suddenly surrounded by signs boasting the “best burger in town”, “PIZZA”, and “Western food”! Phu Quoc caters to tourists who want a beautiful tropical island beach paradise with all the comforts of home… So much for authenticity.

Since then, I’ve managed to find a few decent Vietnamese places. But the prices are three times what I was paying elsewhere; it’s putting a bit of a dent in my research budget, unfortunately. It’s really hit-and-miss with the street food, but I figure I’ve got four months to find all the best ones.

Noodle soup for lunch with three kinds of unidentifiable meat!

Fried noodles

One of my favourite places on Phu Quoc is the market, which is jam-packed with people selling fresh food every day. Whether I’m buying fruit or eggs or herbs, I get overcharged because I am blonde and foreign; but as I learn more Vietnamese it gets easier to bargain and get better prices.

Fish eyeball - yum!

Then there is the night market, which is a bit of a gong show – tons of people staring at odd seafood creatures floating in tanks waiting to be consumed. It’s quite pricey to eat at the night market; but I quite enjoy people-watching there … Vietnamese families chatting away, kids running around high on mango juice, and hoards of tourists, their faces puffy and sweaty from a day in the sun, snapping photos of giant crayfish and rays. There is SO much seafood on Phu Quoc – I’ve tried all sorts of interesting creatures, from jellyfish to snails to squid.

Thanh and I trying octopus for the first time ... chewy.

SWEET SNAIL

My favourite meal by far since I’ve been on Phu Quoc was at a pagoda on the southern part of the island. Thanh spends a few days there every once in a while, meditating and studying Buddhism. He’s familiar with the monks, so he took An and I there for lunch one day. It was delicious (and vegetarian!); we had spicy tomato tofu with ginger, soup, and some boiled vegetables. The best part was the fruit plate for dessert – dragonfruit and mango. It was a scorching hot day, and sweat was pouring down our faces; biting into the soft, sweet, juicy mango was like heaven.

I tried an interesting local drink and am now addicted – it is made by pressing the sweet, green juice out of sugar cane stalks, then served over ice. A glass costs about $0.50.

MMM SUGARCANE 

Vietnamese Food Part I

The number one question I get asked when I’m chatting to my friends about being in Vietnam is: how is the food? 

Well, that’s a tough question to answer. I try new foods every day – some I love, some I could really do without. I’ve decided that the topic will need to be covered in more than just one blog post. I’ll start with the food in the North – in Hanoi, I wasn’t quite brave enough to sample street food, which is served from small stalls to people sitting in tiny blue and red plastic chairs on the sidewalk. Instead, I checked out a few restaurants and had some delicious spring rolls, rice dishes, and a popular meal: bun cha, little meat patties with noodles.

In Hai Phong, I became a bit braver with the help of the Research Institute staff. I had my first Pho for breakfast at a street stall, which cost about $0.50, and was delicious. I ate the equivalent of Saigon Delight’s #6 and it blew my mind (I have not stopped thinking about going back to have another one in August…). I had a massive meal of seafood springrolls, beef, vegetables, and noodles with one of my Vietnamese supervisors (Dr Bat) and his family, followed by jackfruit for dessert. We also had fresh-pressed juices – so tasty and sweet. I was also treated to a meal cooked by the RIMF staff staying in the dorm, which included fried fish, clams, and lots of rice.

I rarely take photos of food because I think it is a bit ridiculous; however, I have made exceptions here in Vietnam so I can show people the interesting things I’m trying. Check em out:

Dinner with Dr Bat's family - avocado smoothies (mine is pineapple), jackfruit on the right!

Snakehead soup.

Hot Pot (Thai style soup) - fish goes in first, then all sorts of veggies.

Poor man's sandwich. Gluey rice cakes on the outside (the leaves are to prevent your hands from getting stuck) and "paté" on the inside  ... ground pork (?) meat that is squished into baloney-esque thick slices - questionable at best. This may have been the most difficult thing for me to finish since I've been in Viet Nam. There's a story that goes along with it about a young prince that gets to become king because he brings this basic sandwich as his offering somewhere. I don't really remember the whole story, clearly...

Delicious, cheap pho for breakfast.

My first UNDERWATER seahorses!

It definitely sounds magical to be doing my Master’s research on a tropical island, scuba diving and looking for seahorses. In reality, I am diving in muddy, sandy, heavily trawled fishing grounds, spending hours straining my eyes to spot something amidst the murkiness, all the while avoiding getting scooped up in a net. For my first three dives, I was accompanied by An (my research assistant) and Thanh, a dive guide who’s got a knack for spotting seahorses. Sure enough, seven minutes in to our first dive, Thanh beckoned me over (for those of you who have never scuba dived, it’s actually kind of a pain to “call” people over underwater. If they don’t look at you for awhile, they can disappear into the murkiness and you have to find some way to make noise - usually by banging your dive knife against your tank - to get their attention.)

Anyway – so Thanh spotted a seahorse. An adorable little hippocampus spinosissimus, wrapped around a rock. And I was floored. There was NO WAY I would have spotted it. It blended in perfectly with its surroundings, covered in a layer of ocean fuzz.

But I got to work, measuring the seahorse and writing down information about its location. Seahorses are surprisingly strong and squirmy – it takes a while for them to relax. They cling desperately to whatever they can hold on to – a finger, a ruler, whatever’s nearby. During this time, my BCD (imagine it as an inflatable vest that holds your tank and also helps maintain your buoyancy) was self-inflating and I kept floating upwards, having to drain the air out, before I would sink back down. Extraordinarily frustrating. I also managed to lose my ruler in the murkiness, but luckily had brought two along just in case that happened. Finally I had all the info I needed, so I gently placed my seahorse friend back in his home and then we were off again, the three musketeers in search of seahorses. I couldn’t help but notice how destroyed the seafloor was; what was once seagrass beds was now merely sand and muck, torn up by trawl fishing. After about an hour and a half underwater. Thanh had spotted one other seahorse. We surfaced, took a bit of a break, then headed back underwater.

This time, I felt like I was more prepared – I had a better idea of what to look for. When we reached a particularly lush patch of seagrass amongst all the trawl paths, I thought to myself “There must be a seahorse here!” Sure enough, I spotted my first seahorse! I noticed its tiny little tail wrapped around the bottom of the seagrass. I was so stoked!

All in all, we found five seahorses underwater on my first day looking. Quite a bit less than we’d been expecting originally, but still, a great day!

MY FIRST SEAHORSES! (No, not underwater ones…)

The logistics behind successful field research take a LOT longer than I’d thought. Somehow, I’d imagined that I would land in Vietnam, have some meetings with some important people, then I’d start diving two days later. Not so much.

Since being on Phu Quoc Island, An and I have had meetings with several high-ups at the Marine Protected Area office (which took a few days to coordinate), plus two different Coast Guard offices to make sure we don’t get arrested when we start diving. Then there’s the madness of organizing dive gear, then transporting that dive gear an hour northeast to the dive sites, then actually having a boat to take us to the dive sites. Sorting that out has been a bit nuts, but I am ALWAYS grateful that I have an amazing, Vietnamese-speaking assistant who helps make everything happen. Without him, I don’t think I’d even have made it from the ferry to the main town on the island.

Today, we rode a motorbike for an hour and a half to the main fishing dock where seahorses are landed. We spoke with several different fishers, who were keen to share information about seahorses (yay!). Then we spoke to different boat owners, and haggled for low prices. We’d managed to get a pretty good deal by about 3:30pm. I wanted to head back to town, but An convinced me to wait.

“I want you to see seahorses,” he said. “Also I want to see seahorses.”

So we hung out in the shade with a few fish buyers, and An started talking with them. They warmed up to us and soon enough were chatting and even singing happily. One of them gave An and I some berries that he had stashed in his motorbike helmet. An told me a broken story about how the berries represented long lost love. He said to be careful, when you eat them you might fall in love with someone.

Cupid berries?

When the first boat came into the harbour thirty minutes later, I had a sinking feeling in my gut. I instantly froze, and I thought, “There are dead seahorses on that boat. Time to buck up and do some research.”

I hadn’t actually come prepared to collect any data, since I thought An and I were mostly there to chat with the fishermen and make a good impression. But our new friends shooed us off to check out what was on the boat. As An distractedly chatted with someone about clams, I saw a woman in yellow polka-dot pants approach the boat, and in a split-second exchange, her gloved hands held tightly to something. My stomach churning, I saw tiny little curled tails poking out from between her fingers.

“An!” I called to him, pointing. “Look!”

He ran up to the woman and asked if we could see the seahorses. She happily obliged, and we lay the four little creatures out on a piece of paper and I took a quick picture, with a pen as a size reference (as I said, I hadn’t brought any materials for actual data collection). Over the next two hours, nine more boats arrived, some carrying seahorses, some without. Whenever we weren’t investigating the catch from the boats, we were back on the dock with our new friends, who had cooked up a feast of fresh seafood and were eager for us to try it.

I ate a several different kinds of clam, snails, conch, and even a small shark – as the foreign guest of honour, I was privy to the dorsal fin. An was jealous. I gulped it down, gave a queasy smile, trying my best to make friends with these men who would make or break the next four months of my research. In the end, I must have done well, because they were very pleased with us. One of them, their “leader” if I can describe him that way, kept telling me (translated by An) that I needed to stay in Vietnam and get married, to form a proper partnership between Canada and Vietnam (he clasped his hands together in a gesture of harmony). I was reminded of the Director of the Research Institute in Hai Phong, who’d said a similar thing – that he’d hire me to work there in a second, and that there were plenty of young male researchers to choose from. The number of times I get asked if I’m married or whether I have a boyfriend is a bit alarming. Normally I brush it off as best I can, trying to explain that I’m in love with my research, that seahorses take up all my time. I don’t think it makes much sense to the Vietnamese…

An (in the blue shirt) with our new friends, enjoying a feast of fresh seafood.

My Love Affair with Japanese Encephalitis

About two weeks before my departure date, I visited a travel doctor. I didn’t think I was leaving it too late – I’d had about 47 different vaccinations before I went to South Africa, and after a brief internet peruse, I thought I was covered for Southeast Asia as well. Unfortunately, I was wrong. As I sat across from my travel doctor’s huge desk in Vancouver, she leafed through some pamphlets, then pulled one out.

“Japanese Encephalitis. You should definitely get this vaccination, since you’ll be in rural areas during the time of year that it’s most prevalent.”

“Ok!” I said, smiling. I don’t mind needles, but I do mind weird infections that make your brain swell up.

“The thing is, you need two injections, 28 days apart. You’ll have to get them both done in Vietnam, because they use a different vaccine there.”

Gulp. Suddenly my confidence in my former shots and procrastination regarding my doctor’s visit came back to bite me.

The doctor left the room to try and locate a hospital in Vietnam that could credibly give me the shot. She found one in Ho Chi Minh City, and gave me all the info. I promised I would get it while I was there.

I asked around Project Seahorse to see who’d had the vaccination before their travels. Julia and Kyle, the Masters students a year ahead of me, who travelled to Malaysia and the Philippines respectively, both had. Sarah, one of my supervisors, had also done it. None of them, unfortunately, remembered to tell me I would need it. Sigh… Looked like Vietnamese vaccination was the way to go.

A week into my trip, I blew through Ho Chi Minh City in one night on my way to Phu Quoc Island. No shots. Suddenly I was faced with getting the shot here on my tiny island. That’s when I found this blog post, from a girl who’d been in a very similar position, and got her vaccination at the Phu Quoc Hospital. Buoyed by confidence in a former ally going through the same thing, I readied myself to get the vaccination. I made it abundantly clear to An (my research assistant) what I needed done. A vaccination. Not treatment. This was prevention. Got it?!

So we went to the hospital earlier this week, but I nervously made an excuse that we didn’t have time to get it done. Then we went again on Wednesday – turns out it was a holiday in honour of some really old dead king. So no doctors were working. I really hope if I ever have an emergency that it’s not on some holiday I know nothing about.

Finally, yesterday, we went to the hospital and made our way to the vaccination department. When An explained what I needed, the nurse gave us a completely confused look, and spoke to An rapidly. He explained to me that she’d essentially said, “But it’s a vaccination for children – why does she need it?” I explained that we don’t have the same virus in Canada, hence why I’d never been vaccinated. Shaking her head, she led us into a small room and pulled out the vaccine – luckily the box was in English and plainly said “Japanese Encephalitis Vaccine.” PHEW!

My beautiful new best friend.

I was sent to another room to pay for the vaccine, a whopping 72,000 VND, which equals $3.74 in Canada. Did I mention that each vaccination costs $200 in Canada? Hello money saver! Thanks Vietnamese health care!

I went back to my little room and the nurse quickly injected me (with a sterilized needle, I made sure she pulled it out of new packaging). Then she crossed the room to deliver the exact same vaccine to a one-year-old baby girl, who had no idea what was coming. Judging by her wails as I walked out of the room, I don’t think she was a huge fan of the vaccination. Me, on the other hand – I was smiling that I was one more step towards protection!

Travelling to Phu Quoc Island

After spending four days at the Research Institute of Marine Fisheries (RIMF) in Hai Phong, it was time to head south towards my research location. I was teamed up with An, one of the RIMF staff, who would accompany me for my first three weeks in Phu Quoc. An speaks great English, and can also scuba dive, making him the perfect research assistant!

We flew from Hai Phong to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) on a rainy Saturday morning. Or at least we were supposed to fly in the morning – the plane was delayed by nearly four hours because of the weather. I wonder what would happen if flights were delayed in Vancouver because of rain …

In Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), we met up with Tse-Lynn, a post doc with Project Seahorse, and her RIMF assistant, Thien. We enjoyed a scrumptious dinner and perused the night market. I was a frizzy-haired, sweaty mess, still acclimatizing to the heat of the south – I was thankful to have air conditioning that night!

War stuff at the war museum. 

 I guess the French built this while they were here. 

The next day, An and I took a six hour bus ride from HCMC to Rach Gia, a province on the coast of Vietnam. We lay on the upper floor, in fairly comfortable, reclined seats. Most people just passed out the whole time – my eyes were glued to my tiny window as I watched the Mekong Delta go by, and tried to ignore the blaring Vietnamese music videos that played the entire time. No, earplugs didn’t help.

Ready for my six hour camp out!

We spent a night in Rach Gia, then early on Monday morning we boarded a ferry to Phu Quoc. It took about two and a half hours to get to the island, and I could feel my excitement increasing as we got closer. When we finally unloaded on the dock, I was surprised by how big the island was – the dock was lined with taxis to take everyone to the main town, Duong Dong. An and I hopped into one, after being greeted by Thanh, a dive guide who would be helping us out for a little while.

The island is beautiful. Ringed by white sand beaches and covered in lush forests, it’s becoming an increasingly well-known tourist destination. Indeed, on an exploratory bike ride of the island, we saw several massive resorts under construction, and many signs with plans for development.

I became a bit disenchanted by Phu Quoc the first time I went to Long Beach; it is swarming with sunburnt tourists sprawled on recliners. I can’t quite relate to them; I’m not a tourist, I’m here for a reason – and yet I can’t communicate with the people I’m here to research. It’s frustrating and isolating, but I think as time goes on, I’ll find my niche in this beautiful location.

As An and I motorbiked back to the hotel we stayed in on our first night, I looked up in awe at the sky. It was the first time since I’d been in Vietnam that I’d seen the moon and the stars.

Anecdotes from Week #1 in Viet Nam

During the past week, I spent two nights in Ha Noi, and then travelled by bus to Hai Phong, to spend some time at the Research Institute for Marine Fisheries (RIMF). RIMF is filled with wonderful scientists working on fisheries, conservation, and marine science in Vietnam. They are very supportive of Project Seahorse and are making my life / research WAY easier!

Anyway. I had so many thoughts and random experiences during my first week, but here are a select few, which will hopefully give some insight into my first week in Vietnam: 

• I was extremely startled when I nearly stepped on a dead rat as I walked down the sidewalk in Ha Noi. Then it happened again. And again. Then again with two frogs. Then I wasn’t startled anymore and just made sure I watched where I was walking.  
• People take pictures of me ALL. THE. TIME. Mostly when I am eating. My Vietnamese hosts have complimented my chopstick skills, so hopefully the pictures people take aren’t because I look ridiculous doing it (although I still manage to splatter pho all over the place. Can’t keep the noodles under control yet).
• I was about to cross the street when I saw a man helping another man in hospital garb cross towards me. The patient started vomiting all over the street. I picked a different place to cross.
• I rode a motorbike for the first time on Tuesday. At night. My friend didn’t realize I’d never done it until I was already driving. Ha!
• People sell food everywhere. EVERYWHERE. All kinds too – pho, noodles, springrolls, fresh fruits, vegetables, you name it. There’s probably a stall two steps away from where you are currently standing. But if you go looking for your favourite fruit lady, chances are you won’t find her again. Devastating. 
• It seems normal for people to cough like they’re about to hack up a lung. It still startles me but hopefully I’ll get used to it soon.



Typical houses in Hanoi.

• Crossing the street is no easy feat here, as I’m sure you’ve all heard. You’re told to maintain a slow walking pace, and everything will go around you. That’s been fairly easy so far, but at places where five streets intersect, it’s a bit tougher. I usually wait until a local is about to go, and huddle close by. The other day, I kid you not, an old man helped me cross the street. He pretty much held my hand. How’s that for role-reversals?

• I paid $4.16 for a hair cut, and it wasn’t a complete massacre. Also, the women in the salon kept coming over to touch my hair. 
• Listening to music on the bus from Hanoi to Haiphong, some lyrics resounded with me: “Cause everywhere I go I’ll take another place with me” – Bon Iver.



Not like street beer, but still delicious.

• On Friday, I went for beers with the RIMF staff, and the director drove me to the “bar” (tiny blue stools on the side of the road, where everyone is served fresh “Bia” from a shack nearby). I slipped into the front seat of the swanky car, next to a man who speaks very little English, and J.Lo’s song “Dance in Love” started BLARING through the speakers. Maybe he has daughters.

• I saw a painting of Buddha with the words “Doubt everything. Find your own light.” written at the bottom. Hence the name of this blog.
• Pagodas (religious buildings) are quickly becoming my favourite places; not just because they are stunning, but because they are quiet. 

I think it says "If you follow these guidelines, you might have a baby that looks like this."

I got a tour of all of the specimens that RIMF has collected over the years. Including a baby whale shark. Cue strained smile!

The Beginning

Scientists process the world through questions, hypotheses, and objectives. We want to solve issues, find truths, and seek answers. For the past eight months, I’ve been bustling away in the Ivory Tower running laboratory sessions for first years, marking hundreds of their quizzes and lab reports, reading endless scientific papers, giving presentations, attending workshops, writing assignments, and perhaps least of all, dwelling on potential thesis topics. Academia hasn’t been quite what I expected; after an undergraduate degree that was as much about extracurriculars as it was about class, it’s been a hard pill to swallow spending up to 14 hours a day in the same building. Some days my skin never feels the sun; I emerge from the Fisheries Centre groggy-eyed and brain dead, unable to form proper thoughts or interact with other humans. Yet the next day I return, to pour my heart and soul into a Masters degree that will eventually unlock all the keys to pursuing my passion (I hope).

What do I do, exactly? On paper, I’m working towards a Master of Science (Zoology) degree. Specifically, I am studying the exploited seahorse populations of southern Vietnam from biological and fisheries science perspectives. The number of times I have said that can’t be counted, the background literature review is unending, and the questioning and requestioning of how I’ll approach the issue has left my head spinning for months. Yet I don’t think I once stopped to really think about what it would actually be like to live in Vietnam.

At this current moment, I can hear the clang of a bell as a man pushes a garbage cart down the street, a cat incessantly mewing, horns honking, some sort of wind chime, the pop of electrical wires, and people shouting. I am in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, the country’s second largest city. I will be in Northern Vietnam for about a week to meet with some of Project Seahorse’s colleagues before I travel south towards my research location.

Having never been to Asia before, I was in awe of Vietnam before I even got off of the plane. When we finally broke through the low-lying clouds, I could see endless green farms, large ponds, and long red dirt roads occupied by zipping motorbikes. My face jammed against the window, I watched tiny villages of tall, red-roofed houses go by – “I’m here!” I thought, smiling. It seemed idyllic, spacious – I imagined myself like Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love bicycling along the road.

I wasn’t prepared for how overwhelming the city would be. In the car from the airport, Vietnam smacked me right in the face. People, motorbikes, trucks all crammed together and moving, constantly moving past concrete buildings built side-by-side. “What have I got myself into…” I thought. But when I arrived at the hotel, the staff was so lovely and helpful that I was full of relief. I felt refreshed, and I went out to explore the city.

I surprised myself; despite the noise and activity, I felt completely calm. The whir just goes on around me, and I manage to find my way through it. I’ve already tried several local dishes, and of course springrolls at every chance I get! The food is delicious, cheap, and plentiful. I’m looking forward to four and a half months of eating Vietnamese food, and all of the new experiences I’ll have. Oh yeah – and why am I here again? To find seahorses… Right. Can’t forget about the science, too!