The first evening on Cat Ba Island, we noticed a large brightly lit monument on top of one of the mountains. We speculated that maybe it was Jesus, because there are many Catholics in Vietnam due to having been a French colony. One evening at supper we asked the restaurant owner. He was very fluent in English which he learned from his patrons. He explained that it was Ho Chi Minh the former communist leader of Vietnam.
The people of Cat Ba Island revere Ho Chi Minh because he visited the island and during his time there taught the people how to grow rice, how to fish and how to live. “How long was he here?” Dave asked. “Only a few hours” came the response. Cat Ba Island is an incredibly beautiful island surrounded by karsts. The beaches are found in small secluded pockets on the island. The people who live in the floating villages surrounding the island are as comfortable on the water as on land. Cat Ba Island is known for kayaking and climbing. It is a popular destination during the summer holidays for residents of Hanoi. We were in Cat Ba Island during the slow season. The streets were deserted and there were deals to be had. We paid $25US per night for TWO hotel rooms. We were within a five minute walk of three beaches and from our hotel balcony had an incredible view of the harbour. Travel in SE Asia, especially to more remote spots like Cat Ba, requires a lot of patience. Everything takes longer than you expect and road blocks seem to pop up everywhere. Three days ahead of time, we booked a tour back to Hanoi for the day we wanted to leave. It was to involve taking a bus, tour boat and bus. Come that day, the first bus only had three seats available and we needed five. We were given the excuse that it was because we had a wheelchair. A mini-bus was then hired to take us to catch the boat and of course, they tried to extract an additional fee, which we refused to pay.
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Halong Bay is the most beautiful place I have ever seen. There are little islands and they surround Halong Bay. We took a boat tour to Halong Bay. I had a marvelous time.
On our tour, we climbed up a cave. I went in my backpack. It was really scary at first but the boat left us there and we had to go through the cave to meet the boat. The cave was cool. It had lots of lights. It was way cooler than I expected. That day we also went kayaking. Kayaking wasn’t what I expected it to be since my parents haven’t showed us what you do. I sat in the hole with my Mom. Lacey sat in the front hole. I paddled a little bit. There was a sea cave in the bay which we went through. It was not a bad experience. After the cave and before the kayaking we had lunch on the boat. It wasn’t your regular lunch. The captain and the captain’s helper made soup, spring rolls, egg things, rice and fish. As they always say: “the atmosphere makes the meal”. Eating on a boat in Halong Bay was calming. A place forgotten by time ... Yuanyang, China; where people still wear their traditional costumes and walk their water buffalo on the road. A place where the crops are grown, tended and harvested by hand. Tourists like us are surrounded in the market place; curious villagers gathering to inspect us. Because there are so few tourists, the local people have not get become indifferent to our presence. When Dave tries to buy a few buttons in the market, the vendor insists on giving them to us. Unlike the big cities in China where we were often hassled to buy something, there is no pressure to make a purchase here. This is a working market, where the local people go to buy supplies. There are a few small shops on the periphery, but very few shoppers in them. In the market, stalls offer the brightly coloured fabric used by the local people to make their traditional clothing. You can purchase traditional clothing at the market as well. Women sit and sew blankets in their traditional style while they wait in their stalls to make a sale. On an adjacent street, the food vendors have permanent stalls clustered according to their product. One end of the narrow street is lined with fruit and vegetable vendors. A few meat vendors are clustered in the middle offering everything from live chickens to fresh dog. The other end of the street is lined with stalls where you can build your own soup from the ingredients on offer or sit at a short table and eat grilled bean curd. An enclosed market is where most of the meat is sold. The animals were freshly butchered that morning and pieces of meat are laid out on plywood tables. Chickens are kept in cages until they are purchased. Then right before your eyes the chicken will be butchered, scalded and plucked by a mechanical chicken plucker. Life is Yuanyang changes slowly because there are so few visitors from the outside world and yet internet cafes and cell phones are everywhere. We wondered how long this pocket of tradition will survive the influence of an ever changing world. I have eaten a lot of indescribable things like scorpion and lamb hotpot. Most of my food experiences have been great.
Flaming meat (and vegetables): this is a casual thing that they do. It was cooked on a grill right in front of us on the table. A man cooked it for us. Everybody made a big deal because bacon was most like we have at home. Lamb hotpot is kind of a lamb broth with other things to add. Lamb hotpot tastes like lamb that has been seared to the bone. Lamb hotpot has a certain feel that is kind of warm and squishy. Chicken was different than we have at home. It is browner, there is not as much white meat. Every time we get chicken there are a lot of little bones which can drive me me crazy. The chicken didn’t have a lot of meat because they are a lot smaller than at home. Steamed buns and dumplings are found on the streets. Most sellers make steamed buns and dumplings in a wood steamer. They are steaming hot when you purchase them. They can have vegetables or other things inside. Previously on one of my other blogs, I talked about a backpack that I sit in. The backpack is an old hiking pack that my dad converted into a Kasenya pack. I wore it for the first time ever when we went to see the Great Wall of China a couple of days ago. That backpack helps me go to places where my wheelchair cannot go, like up and down the many stairs of the Great Wall. The Great Wall is really old, and really long. We had to take a high cable car to get to the top of the wall. At first I was nervous, and then I was brave as my Mom packed me around to see the Wall.
When we were at the Wall it was foggy and the fog made everything look cool. The country side around the Great Wall is hilly and covered with flora (forest). It was hot out which wasn’t a bad thing. There is the wall and there are also guard towers for the Wall. The towers are part of the Great Wall and so we could walk along the Great Wall to get to them. I didn’t expect the towers to be part of the wall. Some of the wall is made out of granite blocks. Some other people told us that the Badaling part of the Wall was filled with tourists so, of course, we didn’t go there. Instead we went to another section called Mutianyu. I thought the wall would be colourful with banners but it was not what I would call colourful.. No matter how much a person reads or hears from others, you really have to go to Beijing to fully appreciate its sights, sounds and smells. You can, of course, stay in a five star hotel in Beijing, eat at the hotel restaurant and shop on Wangfujing Street, thereby missing most of the real Beijing. We chose instead to ride the subway, stay at hostels and eat at the food stalls on the street. Beijing held many surprises for us.
Several large traffic arteries divide Beijing into large city blocks. Each block contains a maze of alleyways known as the Hutong. The Hutong are lined on either side by rows of small attached houses. Doorways off the main alleyways lead to small court yards with more small houses off of them. Most are single story dwellings and some are very primitive looking. Most Hutong have restaurants, small stores and businesses mixed in. There are public bathrooms everywhere in the Hutong and we realized that most of the homes within the Hutong do not have bathrooms. Because the Hutong make up most of the central residential area of Beijing, there are not as many skyscrapers as we expected. Most of the very large high rise apartments are located outside of the centre. Interestingly, the people of the Hutong often aspire to live in apartments while it has become trendy for apartment dwellers to move to the Hutong, refurbishing them to modern standards. The smells of Beijing range from the mouth-watering smell created by street vendors to the olfactory assault of public washrooms. Some of the Hutong are hundreds of years old and built before the sewer system. Public bathrooms are on a septic tank system which accounts for the smell. The streets however are very clean and each day you see people with straw brooms sweeping them. Our family seems to be a bit of a curiosity. When we stop to take pictures, Chinese people sometimes ask if they can photograph us or have a photo taken with us. Other Westerners have told us of similar encounters. When we travel, other people often make the most interesting pictures. We didn’t expect to find the shoe on the other foot. This reminded us to always be considerate in our picture taking and ask before taking pictures of individuals. As a wheelchair user, we knew that Kasenya might be stared at but we didn’t expect long drawn out stares from almost every passing person. We have had people walk around her in a circle for a better look, or come and stand directly in front of her and stare. Kasenya seems rather unaffected by this as many people look at her and smile. She says that she is a normal person and its their problem if they stare. The staring seems to be more a matter of curiosity than anything. We were surprised at how accessible Beijing is. Preparation for the Paralympics have no doubt had a huge affect. Kasenya has written in her blog about the surprises in the subway system. We were also happy to discover so many ramped curbs but then we realized that this is not so much for wheelchair accessibility as for accommodating bicycles and the many vending carts that are found on the streets of Beijing. If there is no elevator, someone will usually direct you to a ramp. We were also surprised at how lush Beijing is. In this way, Beijing looks like Havana. Many of the main traffic arteries are tree lined. Many boulevards are filled with elaborate horticultural displays and you routinely see people trimming and caring for the shrubbery. The cost of certain things was also a surprise. We hoped to pick up a second camera in Beijing but discovered that the one we want costs almost double what it would cost in Canada. Besides you can never really be sure you are getting an authentic brand. A Starbucks coffee costs about the same as home. However a very basic hotel room in a new and clean building costed $25 CDN per room per night. The cab ride to the train station took over an hour and cost about $10. Since fuel prices are about the same as home, we wondered how the cab drivers make any money. Traditional cuisine is very inexpensive. We seldom spend more than 100 Yuan on a meal. This is equivalent to about $16 or $17 Canadian dollars. We have had some very interesting meals. We tried the night market, which is a series of stalls that offer such delights as starfish, scorpions and silk worms. (Deep fried scorpions are delicious). There were also several things that we could not identify and a big pot of soup with floating pieces of intestine. In such a populous, yet poor country, they eat all the parts of the animal and you usually see several menu items that include things like tongue, kidney, tendon and tail. At one restaurant we ordered lamb hot pot. We got a huge metal bowl of broth and spinal columns. The meat off the bones tasted great but the presentation was a little off-putting. Our next stop is in Xi’An to see the Terra Cotta Warriors of the Qing Dynasty. September 18: after more than 48 hours without a latte, I am finally able to locate a Starbucks by asking at a tourist information kiosk that is manned by 9 young volunteers crammed into a structure about 2 metres by 2 metres. They eagerly point me to the nearest “Starbarks” which is mercifully only 1/2 a block away in the basement of a shopping centre.
September 19: return to Starbucks only to be told that they do not have any milk products at all. How could an international company like Starbucks not have access to milk? Puzzling and extremely disappointing. Conveniently it is still September 18th in Saskatchewan so the kids Skype Granny to wish her happy birthday. September 20: Starbucks once again offers latte made with soy milk. We learn that Starbucks was one of the first companies to pull their milk products in response to a revelation that some milk and milk products in China contain melamine (the same substance that was found in pet food earlier this year). Melamine enhances the protein content of milk, making it appear to contain more protein than it actually does. In other words, the milk is diluted. Unfortunately melamine can cause kidney stones in young children with repeated exposure. The Canadian media reports that there are now 150 babies in critical condition from melamine exposure in China and 6,000 who are ill. The Chinese government claims that this is a short term problem with a few small diaries being responsible. Some tainted milk products have been marketed in Canada! When we first got to Beijing on September 16th, 2008, we didn’t know what riding the Metro, AKA the subway system, would be like for a wheel chair user such as myself. On our second day in Beijing we decided to give it a try. My mom saw a wheelchair sign at the entrance of the station, but didn’t know how to get down the stairs. So Devin, Lacey, and a very nice random chinese man who jumped off his bike to help, carried me down two long sets of stairs to get to the wheel chair accessible elevator. We were confused. How do they expect wheelchair users to get down two sets of stairs to the elevator? We found out later. Once we got down the stairs, two subway workers met us and helped me get on the train. They asked us what station we were heading to, and they called ahead so that when we got to the next station I was greeted by more subway workers and paralympic volunteers. Then they used a wheel chair lift that was mounted to the handrail to get me to the top of stairs. I had never seen anything like this before. It was then when we realized that there was probably a lift at the first set of stairs, but we just didn’t know. Another time I used the Subway, they used a stair climber, which was fun.
I think these fancy lifts might be new to the Beijing Metro because of the olympics and paralympics. We were surprised at how helpful and prepared they were in helping me get up and down the many sets of stairs to get on and off the subway. I was shocked at how many people instantly surrounded me every time I need to get to or from a subway platform. It was like an entourage of people. At first it was scary having so may people helping me but after a few minutes I got used to it. The Kasenya train is coming, so watch out for other blog entries. With only two weeks left to go before our trip, things were falling nicely into place: the house was rented, we had our visas and our bags were nearly packed. Then the call came from the hospital. It was worse than we initially thought. Would we have to postpone or cancel the entire trip?
Over the summer Dave had been helping his cousin who is a renovations contractor. Dave was finishing some work on the outside of a house when he tumbled off of the garage roof and landed on the driveway. He realized immediately that he had broken his left arm. In a state of shock, he drove himself to Foothills Hospital which was about 3 minutes away; reasoning that this would be faster than waiting for an ambulance. By the time Laverne got there an hour after the call, she figured Dave would be sitting impatiently at the front door of the hospital, arm in cast, waiting for a ride. Instead she was told that he was being prepped for immediate surgery. He had fallen with all his weight onto his forearm and had broken both bones. One bone protruded through the skin. While being prepared for the surgery one of the doctors asked how he had gotten to the hospital, having not come by ambulance. He could not believe that Dave had driven himself to the hospital with “one arm flapping in the wind”. At which point Laverne gagged at the thought. Dave spent three nights in hospital so that he could receive intravenous antibiotics to prevent infection, which is a big concern when the bone has punctured the skin. He will now have to see the surgeon in 2 weeks to make sure he is healing properly and to determine when he will be fit to travel. He will also be fitted with a proper cast at that time, assuming that the swelling is down. Unfortunately the two week check up falls on September 4th which is two days after our original departure date. In any case, Dave can not travel with a cast unless he has a doctors note. So we have decided to cancel all of our tickets and reschedule when Dave is cleared to travel. Hopefully this will only mean a week or two delay. Overall we’ve been to lots of places. Since it is my second blog, I thought that I would talk about some of the experiences I have had planning our trips. On our past trips my mom and dad haven’t asked us to help plan any of our activities before hand. For this trip, they encouraged my brother and I to research the area where we are going. I think that is a good idea because we get to know stuff about where we are going before we even get there. If we know some information about where we are going, we can find everything easier.
In the beginning, I wasn’t ready to miss all that school. That was a big concern for me and my brother. Our parents sort of pushed us until I realized there was nothing that I could do. I was angry and a little frustrated at first. The reason why I was so angry and frustrated was number one, that I would miss all my friends, number two, that everything would be a little different, like not sleeping in my own bed. Traveling in general is great. In general I don’t mind sleeping in somebody else’s bed. I don’t enjoy the hustle and bustle of the everyday moving. Like packing up wet when it is raining and we are camping. I like going to hostels and hotels. I like the people that we meet. I like trying different foods. That is a definite bonus. Our overall plan is to follow the Mekong river. We might not get a chance to travel all around China but Beijing is where we are planning to fly into. We are also planning on staying in Beijing for a couple days or even a week. I have been searching in Vietnam for caves and little holes in the wall. I also came across the cheapest hotel in Vietnam. The cheapest hotel didn’t look nice so I searched via the internet for another hotel. The second hotel that I searched was on a beach and it did look nice. It was a bit more expensive but I thought it looked decent. The second hotel had a pool, the pool didn’t look like it was on the ocean, I may be wrong about that though. My brother suggested to me some more ideas about where to stay, but I didn’t think that my mom and dad would agree with his places because they were all super fancy. Some other things that will be important in our trip: Number one: the backpack. The backpack will be a fun thing to have in my travels. There was an article in the MEC magazine that was about a women and her brother. She has MS and her brother carried her on a three day hike in Costa Rica. We had the idea from that article to make a backpack that I could ride in and somebody could carry me. My dad is making the backpack. The pieces of the backpack came from 2 places. The first part was given to us from MEC and the actual backpack came from a garage sale for zero dollars! Number two: Storing insulin. Storing insulin can be a bit of a challenge, especially when we are traveling. We have never gone that long on a trip, so we have to be careful to keep the insulin cool. We have a medi-fridge, it’s a little tiny fridge that we can store my insulin in. If we didn’t have that fridge we wouldn’t be able to carry insulin and my insulin is critical to my health. The diabetes clinic always says “Carry half of your supplies in one bag, and the other half in another bag” that way if it goes missing you will always have half of what you need. Number three: What I think it will be like. It’s going to be a cultural experience. We’re going to eat lots of different food and that will be interesting enough. We are going to have to guess on my insulin because we don’t know how much carbohydrate is in some foods. That will be interesting to see if we are right. We are going to see and experience some interesting things: the Bird’s Nest and other interesting buildings, unusual wildlife, beautiful scenery, temples, restaurants, hotels, shops, caves, boat travel. I think there will be some English speaking people there and that will make the trip easier. Also, it’s going to be very hot there and we have to be prepared for rain or sun. Number four: Lacey. Lacey has been my caregiver for a number of years. You are probably wondering why I’m writing about her, now here’s the time to tell you why. She is going on the trip with us. Lacey adapts very well to a lot of different situations. One particular situation that I remember well is when she heard a sound. As it was early one morning in Newfoundland and it was very cold, Lacey got into my sleeping bag and cuddled with me. |
Bissky Dziadyk FamilyTravelling the world as a family since 2008. In September 2008 our family embarked on a four month journey through South East Asia. Traveling with a child who uses a wheelchair presented its challenges, but following the Mekong River through China, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam with a wheelchair was truly an adventure.
When we move beyond our fears and embrace our dreams, the Universe has an odd way of not only supporting us but giving us more opportunities than we ever imagined. Embarking on a journey with an open heart we can not help but be changed forever by the experience. Indeed it would be a waste to return untouched in the spiritual realm. September: China (Beijing, Xi’an,Kunming, Yuanyang) October: Northern Vietnam (Hanoi, Halong Bay) and Laos (Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng, Vientiane) November: Southern Vietnam (Hue, Ho Chi Minh City, Mekong Delta) December: Cambodia (Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Battambang, Kampot and Sihanoukville). Archives
April 2020
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