Dollars to Dong-Bahts

Plant Exploration in Northern Vietnam and Northern Thailand
8/9/2005-9/2/2005

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Saturday 8/20/2005

The finds here included several different aspidistras, a huge tuberous 3-lobed arisaema, Amorphophallus tonkinensis, aucuba sp., along with amazing ferns and begonias. The finds of the area were a giant leaf asarum that Hayes and Wade found on the highest ridge and a beautifully variegated alpinia that I christened A. 'Hanoi Lights'. Did I mention the black-leaf begonia with bright red undersides? Not only did we find different plants on Tam Dao, but we also encountered different leeches. These land leeches have a yellow stripe on their black bodies and make a painful bite before they start sucking your blood. These new leeches really made us appreciate those that anesthetized us first.

We remained in the Tam Dao forest until nearly 2pm when, drenched with perspiration, we tore ourselves away for lunch at one of the nearby cafeterias. Despite wanting to remain in the area, we had to reach Hanoi before dark. Amazingly, we had now experienced our second day in a row with no rain. We arrived at the Thien Thai Hotel by late afternoon to find a real 3-star hotel. We had been promised 3-star hotels throughout the entire trip, only to find a big difference in stars in the country opposed to stars in the city. We said goodbye to Uoc, who was going to spend the next day shopping in Hanoi for his first child, which was on the way, then take the night train back to Sapa. If you are thinking of taking a botanical tour of Vietnam, be sure to give Uoc an email at info@adventuresapa.com or visit his website www.adventuresapa.com.

The hotel restaurant was crowded with Americans...the first ones that we had seen on our entire trip outside of Hanoi. As we ate dinner, we were serenaded by a small ensemble playing Vietnamese string instruments. This was also our first hotel where there was workable Internet in the lobby for a whopping $4 per hour. After a wonderful dinner, it was back to the room to re-pack for the flight to Bangkok the next morning.

Vietnam was an amazing experience with some of the happiest and friendliest people that I've ever encountered in my travels. Over 70% of the population is under 30 years of age and they all welcome Americans to their country with open arms. In addition to hotels, the countrywide construction of memorials to Ho Chi Ming were hard to miss. The most difficult thing in Vietnam is dodging the mopeds while crossing the streets with few stop signals or pedestrian crossings.

The countryside is quite beautiful and we saw no signs of poor land management as we did in China and parts of South Africa. Interestingly, Vietnam is also quite clean compared to many other Southeast Asian countries. While food sanitation still has a long way to go in most of Vietnam, there were very few visible signs of pollution, from litter to the choking smog of China. Even in downtown Hanoi, gardening is important to residents as evidenced by the large number of high rise balcony gardens.

While much of the country is in agricultural production, there are still quite a few natural areas remaining, and hopefully, many of these will be preserved. If you are interested in adventurous travel, I highly recommend a trip to North Vietnam.

Sunday 8/21/2005

In Thailand, we were joined at the airport by our driver, Mr. Somsak, and two of Alan's plant friends, Annop Ongsakul and Chanrit (Park) Sinhabaedya. Annop is a curcuma breeder who has a thriving cut flower business in Phuket in Southern Thailand. Annop was on his way to Northern Thailand for meetings and agreed to ride with us to Chiang Mai as translator and plant expert. Chanrit is an enthusiastic plant collector with incredible plant connections around the world. He has also collected extensively throughout Thailand and has a great knowledge of the country's flora. Alan had used Mr. Somsak's services before and felt that although he spoke no English, he had mastered the idea of his passengers screaming for him to stop and his being able to find a parking spot within a reasonable distance after the first screams. Alan's cheap box-store hiking boots had come apart in Vietnam, so he had planned to botanize the remaining trip in sandals. Mr. Somsak surprised Alan by greeting him with a pair of freshly shined boots that Alan had jettisoned 2 years earlier in Thailand as mud-caked trash in a ballast reduction move.

It didn't take long to realize that we weren't in Vietnam any more. Compared to Vietnam, Thailand reeked of capitalism. Instead of the tiny mom and pop run gas stations in Vietnam, we found new, well-lit Seven-Elevens. We exchanged our money into Thai bahts this time, only getting 41 bahts for each dollar, which was obviously much stronger than the Vietnamese Dong. I saw more cars within 5 minutes of the Bangkok airport than in our entire time in Vietnam...and they were all driving on the wrong side of the road. Billboards also littered the highways reminding me of pre-hurricane Florida. Despite all this, the citywide landscaping was amazing. Trees lined the roadways and median plantings looked great as money was obviously spent to change them out regularly.

The traffic around Bangkok was terrible, but we finally made our way to Chanrit's home for a quick look at his extensive collections. The highlight was his newest acquisition, the ruby-red leafed Musa 'Siam Ruby', which had begun to make its way into Thailand from Indonesia at the price of several thousand US Dollars each. Another plant that caught our eye was a stunning spotted ophiopogon that was discovered in Thailand. After admiring this and a host of other plants, we headed north with Annop in tow to the town of Sara Buri and the Sub Sin Rueng Hotel for the night.