My First Day in Vietnam

First Impressions
Vietnam is a very poor country. In fact, Vietnam is the third poorest country in the world. Most of the Vietnamese people I’ve seen are hard-working and polite. They often live in places we would deem uninhabitable. The road we took to Tam Dao was an unpaved dirt road and was very bumpy! The children I saw along the way were extremely hard working. They were either harvesting crops (rice and corn are staple crops) or walking there pet cows and water buffaloes with make-shift leashes made out of rope. My friend Viet told me that they eventually eat these cows. He told me that the Vietnamese eat everything. He asked me if I would like to try some dog, and I told him I’d think about it. While the cows and buffaloes are tended to very conscientiously, the dogs roam freely (maybe they should be running). I haven’t seen very many cars – mainly mopeds and motor bikes. The Vietnamese are an agricultural people. Every where I looked there was some type of farming being done.



Money
I exchanged my dollars for Vietnamese currency (called "dong") at the airport bank. I’m a millionaire!!!! The exchange rate is 16,040 dong to the dollar. I received 2,400,000 dong. You do the math. How many dollars did I exchange?



Accommodations
The hotel is proving to be very hospitable. My room has a fantastic view of one of the mountain peaks and the valley below. I have my own bathroom with hot water which I share with an extremely large, hairy spider. We get breakfast, lunch, and dinner served to us.
Tam Dao
The village of Tam Dao is located in a beautiful place on the top of a mountain overlooking the valley below - a real "Shangri-La" with a waterfall just below the village. Our lead scientist, Lien, pointed out to us that there has been no planning in the development of this village. If you look at the picture above you may notice that it lacks aesthetic appeal (doesn’t look so pretty). Lien seems to think that people are only interested in making money and therefore put up hotel after hotel without considering how it affects the appearance or health of the landscape.



Forest
At my elevation I can see mainly deciduous trees (trees that lose their leaves in the fall). At the bottom of the mountain are some non-indigenous (not native to the area) pine trees which were planted by the French about 100 years ago. Non-indigenous trees are the least of Tam Dao’s problems. On the north side of the park the locals engage in slash and burn agriculture (burning down trees in order to cultivate the land for crops such as green tea). Therefore, the forest around the borders of the park (regions in pink), which are the regions closest to the largest populations of people, lack forest habitat.

Animals
Apparently, there were tigers living in this area about 30-40 years ago. Hunters killed them for what were believed to be their "medicinal qualities" (many Vietnamese believed that different parts of the tiger’s body cured certain ailments). Much like they do with bears and monkeys today, they would boil the tiger meat for three days and then harvest the internal organs which were believed to have the medicinal uses. There are primates (monkeys) in the forest, but they live no where near the inhabited areas like Tam Dao. They are very scared of people because people shoot them. Sounds reasonable.



The Arthropods I’ve Met
I held a giant moth we found in the hotel, met the enormous, hairy spider that lives under my bathtub, and found the coolest little stick bug (looked just like a little bamboo stick) on the first day. The tropical mountain habitat has an extremely diverse insect population. Apparently, these are among the few organisms which haven’t been scared away by the locals here in Tam Dao. No large mammals survive in this area. In fact, I haven’t seen a wild mammal yet (not even a squirrel).

Night Life
I went out last night to the internet café to update the blog and send some emails. They use dial up, which is extremely slow since there are several users logged on at once. As I walked through the village I could hear the sounds of bad karaoke singing, night clubs with neon lights all to the backdrop of screaming chickens being slaughtered for tomorrow’s lunch.



Weather
It is rather windy and cool in the morning and evening. I haven’t seen a single mosquito so we keep the windows open at night. There was a thunderstorm last night, but we have had exceptional weather since we got here.

A Word or Two About Butterflies
We started our training today. I’m learning a lot about butterflies. One important thing I learned was that butterflies that emerge from their chrysalis on the ground do not have sufficient room to stretch out their wings in order to push the merconium (blood-like substance) into their wings. Consequently, their wings become permanently damaged. Sorry guys. They will live and potentially lay eggs in the habitat but will not be able to fend for themselves in the wild. We live and we learn.