No wacky title.

Hello friends,
I'm feeling a bit better today than I was yesterday. I woke up this morning feeling really sad, so I went on a tour through the place I'm staying, rather than staying in my room all day and feeling sorry for myself. It was actually a really nice day.

I went with a couple from England, one from Poland and 3 guys from Israel (Nahariya and Haifa). All very nice. The couple from Poland were botanists. The Polish man was so enthusiastic and excited about everything. It was contagious. They told us all about the plants we saw, where they are originally from, if you can eat them, how people use them, etc. For example, the said that passion fruit is so called, because the flower represents the passion of Christ--it looks like his crown of thorns and has the three points where he was nailed to the cross. I did not know that.

The most fascinating thing they told me is that when they wanted to travel under the communist regime, they could only do so as students. They could not exchange Polish currency when they were traveling, so they had to bring contraband with them to sell wherever they were going--vodka, cigarrettes, etc. I thought that was incredible! That's how they got around Egypt and India in the early eighties.

We traveled to the countryside around Da Lat. They grow a lot of vegetables here. Vietnamese tourists come here a lot to get away from the heat. There are pines and things growing and a nice cool breeze.

The area used to have volcanic activity, so the soil is very fertile. We visited a coffee plantation and saw the coffee plant. They take the berry off the plant and dry it in the sun, remove the husk and then dry it again. The dried coffee sells for $2/kilo--very little, I thought.
We also saw a flower farm and cauliflower and cucumbers.

Highlight of the day: we went to a silk making factory. First we went to some people's house where they keep silk worms. They feed the worms and when they form a pupae(chrysallis?), they sell them to the factory. Then, they plunge the chrysallis into boiling water, which kills the worm that's inside and loosens up the silk. They grab a strand of the silk, feed it into a bobbin and it gets spun into thread. It was unbelievable. The raw silk thread looked and felt like hair and was an ivory color. I always knew about the silk worms, but I never really gave where silk comes from a lot of thought.

We also visited a fairly large waterfall. We climbed down so we were right next to it. It was creating a wind tunnel and I got really wet from the spray without really realizing it. It was pretty cool.
Then we saw a giant happy buddha.

Then, we went to a minority ethnic group's village. They are weavers and I got a chance to look at the loom in detail. I took pictures--I don't know what the loom's parts are called, so I can't describe very well how it was hooked up. They have a matrilineal society, where men go to live in their wives' villages, not vice versa. Before women can marry, they must make their own wedding sarong. I thought it was very similar to when I was in the Andes--the people there prize weaving very highly. An excellent weaver had a better chance of finding a good husband. I bought one of the wedding sarongs--my first souvenier. I am a sucker for textiles. They weave with silk and a silk and cotton blend.

We also visited a place where they grow mushrooms.
It was a very nice day, with nice company. I think I just have to trust that I will meet people everywhere I go. I have so far.

There are national parks here, but they're very difficult to get to. When I was in Ecuador, I went to the jungle by myself and it was really easy to do. Not so here. I found a place that offered canyoning, rock climbing, mtn biking, etc. It looked really fun. Trouble is, they need more than just one person (me) to operate the trip, and the season's been slow. So, no fun adventure sports for me for now.

The Polish couple was telling me about Sarawak--the island that has Malaysia and Brunei and I think Indonesia--where you can see orangutans and all kinds of wildlife. They said it was spectacular and easy to arrange trips into the jungle. I wasn't originally planning on going there, but I think I might now. I expected to be able to do more ecotourism/adventure sport, etc, but it's been difficult to arrange. I think there's some trekking in Northern Vietnam.

Tomorrow, I'm taking the bus to the beach town of Nha Trang. It's one of the places here you can go scuba diving, but a typhoon just went by here last week and the water's all churned up. I think I'll wait till Thailand to finish my course. I'm hearing people say that diving in Thailand is more spectacular than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. It seems like that's saying a lot.

I did some yoga the other day and am going to again tonight. I'm having an easy enough time staying focused and making it through the whole practice. I think it's because I have the time.

I think the homesickness/culture shock/heat shock will probably come and go. I've only met one other American since I've been here. Maybe it will help to meet more as I go. I met some people from Argentina briefly, but didn't get a chance to talk to them. I think they were as excited to find someone who spoke Spanish as I was.

I love you all and I miss you and I'm hanging in there. I'll try to figure out how to post my photos soon so you can see what I've been seeing. I'm not usually a big picture taker, but I've been trying to take lots of pictures so I can share them.