Leaving S.E. Asia
Sun setting of Hailong bay
Over the past two weeks I have had an incredible trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. Both countries offered great hospitality, wonderful landscapes and fantastic food! I was in the region shooting footage for a series of web videos about the international development work of FHI360. We documented four different development projects, including an HIV/AIDS prevention program with entertainment workers in Phnom Penh, Cambodia a malaria prevention project in rural Cambodia, a methadone project in Hai Phong, Vietnam and a maternal and child nutrition project in Nha Trang, Vietnam. The trip gave me the opportunity to visit may different part s of the region and to explore the culture, people and geography from different perspectives.
Cambodia is mainly Khmer culture and the people look very similar to the Malagasy people. The culture is heavily influenced by Buddhism and you see temples in every city. We did not have a chance to see the famous Angkor Wat, however we did visit Phnom Banan a temple from the 11th century and then visit caves at the base of the temple.
Colby in Hailong Bay
In Vietnam communism and the planned economy dominates many features of the country. Don’t get me wrong, there is still plenty of free market economic activity, but the party line dominated many of our approaches to filming and we had to get permissions to film all of the footage we needed to get. We also found it difficult to navigate the service industry, because customer service was not at the top of the priority list. For example. We decided to take a half day to travel to Hailong Bay which is one of the “New 7 Natural Wonders of the World.” It was a very rainy day, but fortunately when we arrived the weather cleared up and the task before us was to try and figure out how to get on a boat to go out into the bay. We were assaulted by a dozen representatives of boat captains who named the exorbitant price of $100 per head to rent a private boat. Most people go on a boat with a large group, but those happen in the morning or early afternoon. We were there at 3 pm and did not have the luxury of waiting until the next day, because we had to get back to Hanoi that night.
Anyway, to make a long story short we ended up booking the boat for $60 a head which was pretty steep, but we had our backs up against the wall and we were anxious to see this 7th wonder! We got on the boat and were floated over to the first island with a cave on it (about 20 minutes on the boat), then we go off ad went inside a very impressive cave with very tacky colored lights illuminating the massive stalagmites. After a quick trip through the caves we got back on the boat and started motoring through a passage in Hailong bay. “This is it” Matt and I we thinking to ourselves, this is why we paid the big bucks to rent a private boat…but no sooner were we forgetting e steep price and enjoying ourselves than we had the captain barking at us to jump off the boat and swim…but we didn’t want to swim, so next thing we know, the boat is turning around and heading back to the main land…”wait a second…we’ve been out like an hour!” well, seem like the captain was eager to get home for his afternoon tea, so he ignored our pleas to watch the sunset over the islands and took us right back to the dock. What a terrible experience! I felt like I had just been levied a village tax after paying $10 for a cold coke.
Fortunately, just as we were getting a very bag taste for Viet Nam and longing for the friendly customer service in Cambodia, we landed in Nha Trang. This southern beach resort town had extremely friendly people, a ton of exciting places to visit and things to do and great food. We also had a day off in Nha Trang and spent the first day cursing all over town on our rented scooters. We went to the beach, to the mud bath and to the finest seafood restaurants in town! The next day we were back to work filming activities from the Alive and Thrive project in Vietnam, and after a quick two days of work we were back on the plane to the US.
Overall the trip went extremely well and I was very happy with the footage and interviews we shot. Now we start post production and hope to have the first videos completed by the end of October.
