Kinyani Returns to Her Elements 10.11.13-10.14.13

This weekend was by far the best in Vietnam. We spent Friday in Ha Long Bay, a world heritage site featuring about 2000 limestone islands. We took a boat around the islands for a few hours and had a delicious seafood lunch. The crab cakes were my favorite, they were baked in the shell. We took a break at a small floating village and kayaked into the surrounding lagoons. Of course we all got out of the kayaks and swam. We also visited a huge cave on one of the islands. This was the first time I'd seen colored lights inside of a cave. The next day, we had a lecture about the Hoa Binh Hydropower Dam and the problems that dams present in general. Vietnam has plans to build more and more dams, threatening the fish population and the extent of the delta. After the lecture, Laura and I took a cab to West Lake with the intention of sneaking into the Sheraton to swim. West Lake is much bigger than the Lake by our house. It is the wealthy part of the city and there are several resorts and modern homes on the water. We found a delicious French cafe. I had a chicken sandwich, a carrot, celery smoothie and pineapple upside cake. The food was so good that we brought some with us for dinner later. Getting into the Sheraton was a breeze. We swam for a little while then hung out poolside. Back at the hotel, we did some homework and then brought our dinner downstairs to warm up. We came down in our bathrobes because we only planned to use the microwave. The staff wasn't having that though. They stopped the dinner they were having, warmed up our food, served us and turned on music. It was great. My pot pie was delicious and I was so comfortable in my bathrobe and my slippers. I felt like my sister. John came downstairs mid-meal, laughed us and then joined us for a while. The next day, we headed out to spend one night out west, closer to the dam we had learned about. On our way, we stopped at an "authentic" village. The village is a popular stop for ecotourists. The people living there charge a fee for foreigners to witness them and their traditional lifestyle.  It was strange. They offered us tea, rice liquor, and the best bananas in the world. We talked to them about how they live their lives for show and if they were affected by the nearby dam at all. Next, we went to the place that we were stay for the night. We arrived in another village expecting to check into a hotel. Instead, we boarded a boat and went to a beautiful island. There were only about 10 other people on the island and two litters of puppies. We put our things in the large room that we were all to sleep in and explored a bit. There were all kinds of trees, huge spiders and a windmill with a brick base. We had a community building session in which we finally discussed the Vietnam War. We finished the afternoon with a boat ride, hike and swim at a small waterfall. I was happy to be swimming for the third day in a row. That evening we had a bonfire and drifted off to bed one by one. I lasted until about 11 o'clock but some stayed up to 4. We saw the dam in the morning. The experts there were convinced that hydropower is an absolute renewable energy. They also mentioned that nuclear power is the future of energy in Vietnam. We learned that the island we were living on was formally a mountain surrounded by a valley. The valley had been full of a thriving community of thousands of people who were all menially compensated to move out due to the dam construction. The electricity produced by the power plant hardly reaches those in the surrounding area because they cannot afford it. As I mentioned before, Vietnam and the surrounding countries plan to continue building dams upstream. Eventually this will lead to the dams downstream drying up. For this reason, the system does not have longevity. There was less opposition to this dam because Ho Chi Minh pushed for it personally. There is a large statue of him on a hill overlooking the plant. When it was built, the engineers put plans for future repairs into a time capsule that is to be opened on the 100th anniversary of the dam. This is also when the dam is expected to expire. The experts at the plant said they are not developing any strategy for addressing climate change or the effect of dams upstream. All of their hope is in the time capsule. This was unsettling to say the least.