Thaler Travels

Finally Sapa!      When my students at Mickelson Middle School and I first spent a day looking at images from Vietnam, I KNEW I had to visit Sapa in the northeast of the country, fairly close to the Chinese border.  The town of Sapa is best known for its beautiful, terraced rice paddies.  Although our tour guide was apologetic that this was not the best time of year to visit because most of the fields are still not planted, we found the entire area to be strikingly beautiful!  (According to our guide the most beautiful time is at harvest in October when the fields are golden.)  We've seen Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh, but Sapa and the walk (hike) through the neighboring villages was by far the best!      So, we took the night train from Hanoi to the town of Lao Cai, which is two kilometers from the Chinese border.  We booked a berth which included two sets of bunk beds and found ourselves traveling with two English teachers, o...

Speaking Vietnamese- or Not   Almost every day someone says to me, "I'm sorry, my English is very bad."  As if they should apologize to me that we are having trouble communicating in Vietnam.  For  Christmas I received a book and tape to learn Vietnamese.  I had great intentions and managed pho (noodle soup), xin chao (hello), and cam on (thank you) before I left the States.  And that's where it stopped, unfortunately.  I found myself thinking Vietnamese was too hard to master- or even attempt.  After all, it was a tonal language, which means that the tone for a sound can mean a different word with a different meaning.  Also, I fell into the American thought that I could get by because everyone speaks English.  In fact, not everyone in the world speaks English! (What a concept, right? It's not all about us!)  So, I had the book, I had the tape, and I had some motivation, but what I didn't have was tenacity or discipline....

Van Phuc silk village            Silk was definitely on my "must buy" list when I came to Vietnam.  The history of silk dates back to the fourth century in China.  According to legend/history, the title of Goddess of Silk was given to Lady Hsi-Ling-Shih, wife of the Yellow Emperor.  She introduced the art of silkworm rearing and the invention of the loom. China protected the secret of this very valuable product for 30 centuries by searching those travelling along the Silk Road for hidden silk worms, eggs, or cocoons on penalty of death! However, now the secret is out and many countries have thriving silk worm farms with Vietnam in the top 10 countries of production and export of silk.     So, let's start at the beginning.  It all starts with the silkworm. Here- watch the process  from silkworm cocoon to fine silk.    This process is called sericulture- which starts with feeding silkworms lots of mulb...