More adventures on a motorbike

Sunday was meant to be the day we headed to either Phong Nha caves or Paradise caves. However, that didn't quite work out and instead Meagan spoke to a motorbike owner to takes us around Hue to visit some of the tombs. Hue is rich in cultural heritage and even though we have been here almost a month, we have barely scratched the surface of places to visit. 9 am came and even though the sun was out in full blaze, it felt early. We sat on the back of motorbikes with Mr. Thang and Thieu (I could be totally wrong about the names) and left for Minh Mang tomb, which is about 30 minutes from the city. Along the way Mr. Thieu pointed out government buildings, the best school for boys in the city (also apparently Ho Chi Minh's school), a park-like area and a lady Buddha (which I swear to goodness I heard as lady Huda, the local beer, at first). We stopped en route and Mr. Thang rather dangerously stood in the middle of the road to take pictures for us. I did shriek at that and also a little when Mr. Thieu answered his phone (twice if I may say) and drove single-handed in heavy traffic. I also saw my first moto accident today and even though nobody was terribly hurt, it was frightening - it happened when the bikes were turning.

Dinosaur hatchling aka
awkward adolescent teen chicken 

We reached the Minh Mang tomb and the lady at the ticket counter told us about a cheaper, combined ticket, which worked out great for us since we planned to visit the three places on Sunday. I enjoy how all the structures here have a lot of greenery and water surrounding them. This is also a UNESCO heritage site and had three halls, which were called Blessings Halls. We walked around the water, through the halls, sat on the concrete slabs and promptly jumped up, having been slightly burned. We ended the visit with (overpriced) sugarcane juice, which was compensated by the entertaining reality of two children hanging from a tree next to us and speaking in a language we could understand nothing of. Once outside, Mr. Thang had kindly arranged for pineapples for us, with salt and chili, which now we had no space for. The pineapple was packed into Meagan's bag (which has housed Durian in the past and really may not survive this trip).

Guess who is taller

Putting the field back in the field experience

We started with our field work in Nam Dong, about two hours from Hue city. Needless to say, it has been an exciting and adventurous few days. We left on Monday early in the morning - it takes anywhere between 1 - 2 hours to get there. Some highlights from our trip included: 

1. The motorbike rides to reach different communities - the landscape was mountainous, green and lovely.

2. By standing at the local post office and looking mournful and not understanding the language and pretending to not understand that they did not give prints to people, Megan and I managed to get prints of our updated surveys. The staff person then showed us out and shut the door. Politely but firmly. But it worked!

3. A LOT was lost in translation and a lot of our information is still in Vietnamese. Our poor translators, they were so helpful and their work is still not done.

4. Meagan from the bathroom: "There is a feather here" (in addition to lizard poop and other live and dead creatures). Me: "Be glad it is not attached to something." (okay so this may not be a highlight but it makes me laugh)

5. Our activity charts fell a lot (we need better quality tape next time and a better plan!)

6. Nam Dong seems to get a lot of sudden and intense downpours. Also lightning. It was really cool in the evenings and really nice!

7. Everybody knows I am Indian (by my eyes apparently :)) and at one community there was definitely some good-natured teasing and flirting.

If you have the patience and inclination for more (and pictures!), here's a quick summary of each of our days.

Preparing for our field work next week

Working breakfast during our meeting 
to finalize the survey

Most of this week and today has been spent preparing for our field visits next week. As of now the idea is to meet with officials from three departments that work in the area of forestry and meet with 12 groups in different villages. How much of this will convert into reality will only be known next week. The planning for this trip has been fairly fluid, in terms of dates, people going with us, the groups we are meeting etc etc. We have prepared our questionnaires and surveys and have gone through three rounds of reviews.

Afternoon walks

The afternoon walk around the citadel is different. I head there after a long Saturday at work. It is alive in a different way. There are people but only serious folks. Serious fishermen intently watching the water, waiting for a catch. A few scattered young people, chatting lazily. The sun is glorious, especially after the endless Minnesota winter and cold. Yet the breeze makes my walk bearable. I start retracing my steps and then change my mind about heading home. I go to a big cafe close by where I have seen karaoke performances in the evenings.

The cafe is large and inviting, with no walls and lovely green furniture. Ca phe sua da doesn't lose its charm but the same cafes can. I enjoy trying new cafes, there are so many where we live. I am one of two customers. It is a lazy evening and the waiters are scrubbing tables, hosing the floor, preparing for the lively evening ahead. The boy serving me starts by speaking to me in Vietnamese and then switches to English as I say kong viet (which I want to believe translates into I don't speak Vietnamese but who knows!). The coffee is great and I enjoy the mild breeze. The music starts and I remember how lucky I am to be here in this moment.

Pictures!

These are a smattering of pictures from the last three weeks (one-third of our time here almost over!).

La Carambole in the touristy
district of town

At the restaurant at Bach Ma (clouds floated right into where we were)
Photo courtesy: Dr. Current

Road leading to our office
on a rainy day (almost dried as I walked)

Apropos surveys

Questions and points we have grappled with as we try to design a survey while balancing the need to answer our research questions, keeping to the time allotted to us, and accounting for the fact that everyone has a limited attention span. When we do use this, I know that I am going to have some oh no I should have done that instead moments and learn a lot.

Birthdays!

Yesterday and today were and are birthdays for Meagan and Megan respectively! They both got some written wishes from Minneapolis (thank you to everyone who signed the cards and those who intended to but couldn't :-)). We went out for dinner yesterday (Indian restaurant in Hue for the win!) and did lunch today! Here are some fun pictures from the days!

Cards!

Week 2 (the honeymoon period is over and work is on)

A picture with Dean (extreme left)
and Dung (extreme right)

Things are picking up at work. We started yesterday with a presentation by Dean Current (our adviser) on Community Forestry Management. This was very informative and useful, especially for me because of my limited background in natural resource management. He mentioned that the theory behind this is the idea that there is some value that forests represent, that needs to be valued and conserved. Different forms of enterprises in natural forest management include: timber enterprises, Non Timber Forest Enterprises, PES, REDD+ and eco-tourism. We have come across most of these already and it will be interesting to learn more.

We spent the rest of the day with Dean and Dung Ngo from CORENARM, hashing out our final project plan. We have been going a little bit back and forth on this but now it seems like we have two interlinked projects to work on.

Being a clumsy mountain goat on the slopes of Bach Ma (Bach Ma = wild horse)

At the summit 

On Sunday we visited the Bach Ma national park with some of the CORENARM staff. Our day started at 7 am and we got into a 15-seater mini cab for the 1.5 hour long trip to the park. Ten minutes into the journey the driver told us that we needed to switch the air-conditioning off for the engine to work on the steep ride uphill. Oh well, we slowly roasted on the trip but enjoyed some delicious litchis. We got to the park entrance, bought our tickets, used an icky loo (I have of course used many icky loos in my life but Minneapolis and being at the university had spoiled me), and then drove further ahead. We stopped by a restaurant and used an existing trail to walk to the mountain peak, also called the summit point. Along the way we came across a tunnel used by soldiers in the Vietnam/American war.

Structure at the summit

We reached the top, someone in our group discovered a leech in his shoes, we rang the bell for good luck and vibrations and went towards the house-like structure. It is evidence of our madness and bravery that we all decided to walk on the tin roof of the house, ignoring the chain barriers. It had a pretty solid grip and nobody tripped. We walked back, ate lunch (rice + soya sauce for me which was not that much fun), used an even ickier loo with a praying mantis by the door and drove to another trail that led to waterfalls. This is where it got exciting.

Slippery rocks 

First of all, it was very unclear whether the trail was 2 or 5 kms one way. I am also not sure anyone, including those who had been here before, really knew this trail. Finally, it was fantastic fun but there was no warning that it would involve walking on slippery rocks, hanging and sliding down ropes, crossing little creeks (I slipped at the end of one; I definitely had the distinction of falling the most but saving myself), jumping and essentially being mountain goats. It was quite a hike and it was fairly long and arduous. I must say to everyone's credit we all did it. The ropes were incredibly sturdy and as Megan put it 'confidence inspiring'. At one point when I slipped at a rocky edge, I just held on to it and was absolutely fine.

Victorious Meagan and I at the final waterfall

I don't think I am in great shape and I definitely bruised my ego with all my falls (Crocs are not meant for hardcore hiking obviously). But we did it. We reached the rhododendron waterfall and tried to peek down without plunging to disaster. Another trail led to the bottom of the fall but was '689 steep steps' down. By this time we could also hear thunder, were running out of water, and were in general willing to wrap up. There was definitely confusion about how to exit from the trail and which route to follow. We followed the signs and hoped that they were accurate.

Our adviser was the fastest of us all. 

I enjoyed the hike but I will openly admit that this is not my favorite activity. I can do it but I don't necessarily get the same pleasure out of it as some of the other hikers. That being said, knowing where we are going and the plan definitely makes things more enjoyable for me. Oh well. We finally figured that the exit trail was 1.2 kms and not 12 kms (sigh of relief) and marched in a single file. Our cab was able to come and get us and we were on our way back. It was a long ride and almost everyone except the driver napped I think. I ate all the litchis that were left. I was hot, sweaty, dusty and basically just disgusting.

I had a quick shower and was hungry as hell. The first shop I went to pretty much told me they had nothing to eat (it was strange and I am not sure what was happening). The second one, a street restaurant, was great. They packed me food and cutlery and smiled at me. I went to another coffee shop to get mango juice and twice in one evening they served me papaya juice because they didn't have mangoes. I had it the first time and asked for a lemonade the second time. With that ended our super adventurous, exciting, active, hot and unexpected weekend. Have a look at the pictures to see how lovely and slippery the waterfall trail was. 

Parts of our hike

View from the roof at the summit

          

          Calling this the edge of the earth

Being stranded in a lagoon and seeing a shooting star

View from our boat

This weekend has been nothing but full of adventures. On Saturday we went to the Tam Giang lagoon. We left by car from the hotel, took one boat to a restaurant on bamboo stilts and then took another, bigger boat to go out in the lagoon. We went all the way till a temple that the fishermen pray at for safety. We clearly didn't pray enough or leave offerings because on our way back, perhaps at one-fifth of the way, the motor stopped working. The boatmen made many but ultimately futile attempts to revive it. Before that happened, we did start drifting back and another boat and the buoys and ropes sort of worked together to prevent that. The currents had definitely picked up by the evening.

The view from the temple

We were stuck/stranded there for almost two hours and they were made longer by the fact that we were not sure what was happening. At one point I learned that the boatman was cursing the boat owner for taking so much time to send a new boat :). Dusk slowly turned to darkness and finally the engine roar we heard was the one coming to rescue us. The rescue did not involve a transfer as I had originally imagined but the smaller boat pulling our bigger boat by a rope. Of course this was much slower and the journey back felt much, much longer. The weather was lovely, almost perfect, not hot nor cold. We saw an infinite number of stars and I saw my first shooting star. You can imagine what I wished for.

The boat that took us to the temple and broke down

As we were returning, another boat joined us. At this point it was unclear whether it was to support us or to be carried along. Apparently a fourth boat was sighted as well a little later but eventually this daisy chain of boats caused the rope to fray and had to be dismantled. One of the sad or slightly upsetting things on the journey was a young girl who really had to pee (because we had been in the water for four hours by that point). It was an awkward situation and I cannot imagine that it would have been the same for a boy. There was a little bit of teasing and mocking but as I grow older I worry about this and I don't think we should do it. There should be no shaming of young girls for peeing and menstruating and all other natural things. Oh well, that is a story for another time. Honestly by the time we reached the restaurant on bamboo stilts, I had lost all enthusiasm for dinner. We had cancelled and remade plans for a really busy Sunday, which will be a separate update, and I just wanted to be in bed. Plus it was also a seafood restaurant so the traveling vegetarian in me had little hope. But folks must be fed and up we climbed on the bamboo structure.

Their existence was helpful.

I must say that at no point did we talk about safety in the entire trip at all. Our second boat had life jackets but if we had overturned I feel it would have been pure luck if you got one. I do miss speaking a language in which I can ask several questions, even if it annoys people around me. I would have liked to know the depth of the lagoon, how would we rescue the non-swimmers, if the bamboo restaurant had ever collapsed and other such things. But since I was in no position to do any such thing, I just enjoyed myself. I had also choked very badly before starting while drinking water and thought there was more dignity in any other way I died than choking while drinking water. The others had a multi-course meal, while I used chopsticks for the first time in my life to eat vegetarian noodles specially prepared for me. The noodles were nice and I was able to do them justice.

Before we started

We were fairly late and I think we kept up the family that runs the restaurant. The owner apologized to us and then there were musicians in the (connected) shack next to ours, who sang an apology song. From what I understand that was typical Hue music, which puts words to music, and the closest comparison is the blues. We finished a hearty meal, topped by passing around the fruit Durian, which people have a love or hate relationship with. Mine definitely wasn't love. We then got into another boat, headed back to the shore, then to the car, then to our hotel, and then to bed.

En route

View from our boat

More views

Meagan + little kid replicate Titanic

Waiting to be rescued

Dusk gives way to darkness

Day 4 (also the day where we go sightseeing)

Group photo!

This is, if you haven't already figured out, a relatively light week for us. Our experience can vary between 8 - 10 weeks and we are choosing to spend 10 weeks here and thus I think we are using this week mostly the way we intended to. Rather I should say I think this is a justified and sensible use of our time. I have hit the ground running for different projects in different cities (in India) and I have known and been in favor of the motivation for that. That being said, it has been a really long time since I had the chance to slowly immerse myself into a new project. I think being in a new country, where I don't speak the language at all, where our work has relevance but not the pressing immediacy of say a disaster relief project (which I have worked on), I am grateful for the opportunity to explore the city, meet with different people and treat this like a marathon instead of a sprint.

Day 3 @ Work

The wedding dress shop where we
 reached accidentally in the morning

We are spending this week mostly meeting with people at various non-profits in Hue. We walked over to Dean's hotel in the morning, spent a little time chatting with him about different approaches to forest conservation and community livelihoods, till Mr. Chuong from CORENARM came, and headed to the office for Hue Union for Science and Technology Associations (HUSTA). There was some mix-up with the directions and the taxi driver drove us straight into the courtyard of a fancy wedding dress shop. We made it to our meeting on time and met some very senior people, including the Chairman. They were very gracious and explained about the work they are doing, which has involved supporting CORENARM and agriculture, but also goes beyond it. I am grateful to CORENARM for doing this for us, this is making our experience so much richer. There seems to be a significant development sector/organization presence in Hue and it is nice to learn about it. We were also told about Hue has a large number of universities and doctoral students. Many of the residents of Hue have highlighted how they enjoy the pace and quality of life here more compared to say a bigger and busier city such as Ho Chi Minh.

Nina's Cafe

Dinner today was at Nina's cafe, which I would strongly recommend (here's their website http://ninascafe.jimdo.com). I had fried eggplant and even though it was green and I am used to purple it was really nice. For those of you thinking if we are working at all (friends and family :)), this is our orientation week and is meant to be lighter and get us acclimatized and settled in. We have been making slow but steady progress on pinning down our project.

Tintin poster at Nina's cafe
(followed a brief discussion about the racism in the books!)

Day 2 @ Work

A very bad picture
 of our office space (sorry!)

We started the day earlier today to meet with our adviser and discuss our options. We are still fuzzy on the exact details but it seems like we are move in the broad direction of Community Based Forestry Management (CBFM) and Enterprises (CBFE), with a possible focus on rattan. As someone with no experience with forest and land issues, I have known right from the beginning that I have a lot of learning to do. Before I can delve into the specifics of CBFM in Thua Thien-Hue, which is where we will work, I need to understand how it works in general and then in Vietnam. I realized that I am using a funnel approach to learning and as I learn about the environmental aspects, I am also trying to understand how the political and social structure plays out at the macro, meso and micro levels (an approach I learned from one of my professors in Fall 2013).

Day 1 @ Work

Our day started with running to get some delicious cold filter coffee, miming (this was all Meagan) and successfully getting either butter or condensed milk with bread, meeting at the hotel lobby and heading out to work. We met with our faculty adviser Dean Current, who just got in this morning. We are working with Consultative and Research Center on Natural Resource Management (CORENARM) and Dung Ngo, who is one of the Founders, has been our main contact. He introduced us to other staff in the organization and gave us an introduction of the three main tracks they work on: natural resource management, sustainable forestry, and disaster management and climate change. He was telling how a group of graduate students got together and had the idea and passion to found CORENARM.

Decoding Payment for Ecosystem Services

The project we are going to work involves understanding implementation of a Payment for Ecosystem/Environmental Services (PES) model in the Thua-Thien province and Community Forestry Management. To be honest, PES is not a topic on which I had much, or rather any, knowledge when we started out.

I have spent the last few months trying to understand PES in general and PES in Vietnam. To be fair this is a topic which has a ton of resources out there. There is no dearth of articles and books to read, videos to watch and more. As a team, we also managed to focus on PES for several projects for different classes and this has been helpful because it allowed us to engage with an area where we will be working and make it count for a grade :). We focused on PES in Minnesota for an Agriculture class - the idea is to be able to adopt a compare and contrast model when we return. This also gave us a chance to interview several people including researchers at the U of M, policymakers, sellers, staff from environmentally-focused non-profits and more. We developed an outline for an e-study module for another class and that was an interesting exercise as well. While  I fully expect and am prepared for our project to change once we hit the ground, I think this work will not go waste, if only because my awareness of environmental topics is very limited.

So for anyone who is curious, PES is a model which values the services provided by different ecosystems to human beings. These can include watershed management, biodiversity, aesthetic beauty, carbon sequestration and many more. In this model, buyers/users and sellers of services are identified and a framework is set up to channel money from the buyers to the sellers. While a lot of the definitions I have come across in literature defines these as ‘voluntary transactions’, there are several mandatory models as well - for example in Vietnam it is the government that has enforced the PES model. Another thing I find interesting as a former Economics student is that this is within a market-based framework - the idea that one can value the services provided by the environment.  Valuing carbon sequestration is something that a United Nations program - Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) also focuses on and based on what I have read so far, it seems that at least in Vietnam, the long-term goal is for PES and REDD+ to converge. 

I plan to use this blog to share both what I learn from the literature and get to observe in the field in the hopes that a. it will serve as a record for me to go back to in the future and b. that it may be of interest to some of you out there!