Moldovan kitchen and Asconi winery

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There are few traditional Moldovan restaurants in Chişinǎu. For local standards they are not cheap either. I treated myself for dinner in Taifas on Strada București 67, Chișinău. I let the waiter advise me how much to order. I have to say the quality was excellent. The bill came to a little over € 30,00.

The white wine I ordered was a Fautor made from the Feteasca Regala grape, which translates to ‘young royal girl’. Not sure why the Mioritic cheese platter was named after the Romanian Mioritic Shepherd Dog. Possibly because the dog herds sheep and the cheese is made of sheep’s milk.

I ordered the ‘crap ca la Chişinǎu’, which translates to ‘carp prepared the way of Chişinǎu’. The carp is hidden under quite a lot of perfectly steamed, and slightly grilled, vegetables.

Asconi winery

I forgot to book a hotel for the final night (never book your hotels without looking at your return ticket), so I decided to spend the last night at the Asconi winery, just 20 minutes south of the airport. The winery is located in Puhoi, a small village. Population: 5,518 according to the 2014 census. The winery was run by very young staff. Service wasn’t great, there was no option to visit the winery itself or to learn where the grapes were grown. I slept in a blue house, overpriced. But it looked nice and the sun was shining, so I didn’t complain.

It was the first of May and the place was busy with Moldovan guests for the day. For lunch I had two glasses of red wine made from the Rară Neagră grape, which literally means ‘rare black one’. I ordered the seasons vegetables with fresh cheese and pork fat with garlic. The fat was thinly sliced. I once slept at a Romanian farm and they gave me a big chunk of white pork fat for breakfast and a glass of warm milk with milk skin.

Pork fat with garlic.

Puhoi has hardly any centre to speak of. The ‘park’ looked run down and the logo on the local shop was washed out. For some reason the two glasses of red wine during lunch almost knocked me out cold, so I was forced to take a nap in my blue house.

For the 1 May festivities I ordered grilled pork skewers for dinner and stayed away from red wine, so it had to be a white wine instead. People around me were well dressed for the occasion.

The last morning of my geopolitical trip I woke up to the smell of wood burning. Many Puhoi houses are heated by wood stoves and the smoke filled the valley. I took a morning walk in search of the vineyards. There were a few but the vines were pruned back and it was very early in the growing season. Around nine in the morning I positioned myself next to the road and waited for a bus. After an hour I had succes and a minibus actually stopped.

After being dropped off by the minibus I walked the sunny Strada Aeroport in Chişinău to the airport. The Soviet built Moldova Tupolev Tu-134 on display near the entrance was a fitting last image of my journey.

Gagauzia

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Between 1990 and 1994 Gagauzia was an independent republic. The capital Comrat isn’t much bigger than 20.000 inhabitants. The city is home to the Gagauz people. The historical origin of the Gagauz people is not clear. They may be descendants of Turkic nomadic tribes, they could be Turkified Bulgarians or they are of Greek origin keeping their Greek Orthodox religion but linguistically assimilated. What is clear is that the Russian Empire allocated land to the Gagauz in a region of Bessarabia, which lies now within Moldavian borders.

Even today, in Gagauzia Russian is predominantly spoken. Schools are Russian language schools. Everything is in Russian. Gagauz is only spoken by a few Gagauz. The ties with Russia are strong. Many people only consume Russian news sources.

Arriving in Comrat feels like arriving in a dusty Western town. It’s worlds apart from the capital Chișinău. As the capital of the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia the town has a lively market and many shops selling agricultural and building machines. It is an excellent place to buy a concrete mixer or a wheelbarrow, if you need one.

Comrat bus station.

Gagauz Republic 1990–1994. Map of the territory claimed by the Gagauz Republic. It did not control all of these lands.

When I arrived in Comrat it was just a few weeks before elections for governor of Gagauzia on 30 April 2023. The pro-Russian candidate for the Șor Party, Evghenia Gutul, won the second round of voting on 14 May. The Șor Party is led by the fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor. He was convicted of stealing $1 billion from the banking system between 2012 and 2014. The Russian President Vladimir Putin promised free gasoline, so it is not surprising a pro-Russian candidate is now governor of Gagauzia.

Below an election billboard of bearded Grigorii Uzun supported by the Socialist Party. He was leading the polls but he lost in the second round with 47.66% of the vote against Gutul who received 52.34%.

Comrat is so small I had trouble finding a restaurant for lunch. There was practically nothing open, apart from a kebab stall on the street and many places just serving coffee and plăcintă-like pastry. In the end I googled a tiny place off the main street. I found some identity papers just in front of the restaurant so I handed them to the girl behind the counter. When I was eating my chicken soup, a man walked in and before I could react, he slapped a 50 lei banknote (€ 2,60) on my table and walked out.

I was puzzled and I asked the girl why the unknown man gave me a 50 lei note. She said it was a reward for handing over his identity card. Apparently she had called the man. I tried to give the 50 lei to the girl with the request to give it to somebody who needs it, but she refused. In the end I used Google Translate to tell her I would donate it myself to somebody on the street.

After lunch I coulnd’t figure out what to do in Comrat. After just a few hours I had walked every street. 93% of Gagauz adhere to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The bright yellow Saint John the Baptist Cathedral in Comrat lies next to a pleasant park. The cathedral was either built in 1820 or 1840. During Soviet times it was closed and ceased to function as a church until it was reopened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The cathedral is probably the only tourist attractions in Comrat, unless you want to purchase a concrete mixer.

Pridnestrovie - Tiraspol

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The day after my first visit to Pridnestrovie, I took a bus back to Tiraspol, the de facto capital of Transnistria. I wanted to spend more time in the country to soak up the atmosphere, this time by myself in a slow pace. To get an idea of the size of the city, as of 2015 Tiraspol had a population of 133,807.

The bus dropped me off at the Green Market in Tiraspol, painted in a strange green hue. It is a modern food shopping center combined with a farmer’s market. All I could buy was a small (recycled) jar of pickled chili peppers, to bring home to Amsterdam. I wish I could have stuffed my luggage full of fresh cheeses.

Don’t just buy tomatoes, buy tomato plants. The economy is not great in Transnistria. Many people grow vegetables at home to make ends meet. But its economy witnessed a seismic shift because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On February 28, 2022 Ukraine closed its border checkpoints on the Transnistrian part of the Moldovan-Ukrainian border.

As of late 2022 Transnistria exported 76 percent of its goods to Moldovan and EU markets. The Russian-Ukrainian conflict has driven Transnistria further away from Russkiy mir. There now is full integration of Transnistrian trade into the legal framework of Moldova. This also means goods produced in Transnistria can be labelled ‘Made in Moldova’.

Inside the market are countless fresh cheeses.

I tried to find similar cheeses in Amsterdam but so far, I didn’t. These fresh cheeses are great.

City marketing: Тирасполь Только лучшее … Tiraspol Only the best…

Diplomatic ties

Below the representative offices of the Republic of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Republic of Artsakh also recognises Pridnestrovie, but has no representative office.

Transnistria parliament building in Tiraspol. The statue depicts Vladimir Lenin.

Shrinking Pridnestrovie

The population of Transnistria has shrunk from 706,300 in 1990 to about 475,665 in 2015 when the last census was held. In 2015 27,7% of the population was above working age, almost one third of the population are pensioners. In 2012 there were 0.75 workers per one pensioner. The pensions are supplemented by Russia. There is plenty of Soviet nostalgia in Tiraspol.

Most cars in Transnistria are modern cars. But this "Moskvich" Москвич / АЗЛК 2138 from 1976 (?) looks very well preserved.

War memorials

In the center of Tiraspol there is a rather large war memorial commemorating several wars. Not easy to overlook is the World War 2 era T-34-85 Soviet tank with the text За Родину! For the Motherland!

За Родину! For the Motherland!

In 1979 the Soviet Union was slowly sucked into a war in Afghanistan to support the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) against the Mujahideen. Roughly 15.000 Soviet soldiers died during the 10 year conflict. Compare that to the casualties in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The latest estimate is roughly 200.000 casualties in one year’s time! And that is just Russian soldiers.

The memorial also commemorates the Transnistria War of 1990 to 1992.

Catherine Park

The survival of Transnistria has depended on subsidies from the Kremlin. According to estimates about 70 percent of the state budget was provided by Russia. But by 2015 aid from Russia was diminishing. Even so, in 2018 a brand new Catherine Park was openend in Tiraspol. Catherine the Great famously annexed the Crimean Khanate in 1783. The Russian Federation annexed Crimea in March 2014.

The symbolism of opening a Catherine the Great Park is obvious. In the 1926 census only 13.7% of the region was ethnically Russian. According to the 1989 census 25.5% of the population of Transnistria was Russian, 28.3% Ukrainian and 39.9% Romanian. In 2015 the percentage of ethnic Russians was 33.8%.

Catherine Park, Tiraspol.

Transnistrian ruble

Below is the 2006 building of the Transnistrian Republican Bank. The central bank issues the Transnistrian ruble (PRB). This currency has no ISO 4217 code and cannot participate in any card processing network. The currency however is fully convertible and via a 1997-Memorandum is recognised internationally as a national central bank.

Between the Sheriff FC football station and Tiraspol’s centre, a Russian Army base is situated, right on the main road. When I walked past the base, workers were repainting the unofficial, only used for marketing purposes, logo of the Russian Army on the walls of the base in fresh paint. I am not sure this was done in preparation for the 9th of May Victory Day.

One of the stranger souvenirs I bought in Tiraspol is a Putin refrigerator magnet with the following quote made by Putin: “Why do we need a world, if Russia is not in it?”.

“Зачем нам такой мир, если там не будет России?”
— Vladimir Putin in the film World Order 2018 by Vladimir Solovyov

Monument to Aviators: MiG-19 fighter. Postcard sent from Tiraspol to The Netherlands.

Sheriff (Шериф) rules the town

The local oligarch is the Moldovan–Russian businessman and former KGB officer Viktor Gushan. His holding company is called Sheriff and, according to Wikipedia, owns a chain of petrol stations, a chain of supermarkets, a TV channel, a publishing house, a construction company, a Mercedes-Benz dealer, an advertising agency, a spirits factory, two bread factories, a mobile phone network, the football club FC Sheriff Tiraspol and Sheriff Stadium, a project which also included a five-star hotel.

I am not a football fan, so I missed the news. But in 2021 FC Sheriff Tiraspol won against Real Madrid in the Champions League, which apparently stunned the football world and had everyone scramble for a map to look up Tiraspol.

Transnistria’s origin is the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Empires tend to fall slow. Its first president Igor Smirnov (1991 - 2011) was in favour of a Russian annexation of Transnistria, but failed to do so during his presidency. After the annexation of Crimea new plans were made to facilitate a future annexation of Transnistria by Russia. This could have triggered an armed conflict with Moldova, like the War in Donbas (2014–2022).

The current president of Transnistria (since 2016) is Vadim Krasnoselsky who has expressed his pro-Russian sentiments on many occasions. He was supported by the Sheriff conglomerate and received 62% of the vote. Because Transnistria is so dependant on Russian money, any leader has to be pro-Russian or risk cuts in pensions and salaries of state-employees. In 2019 Krasnoselsky attended a ceremony when Russian minister of defence Sergei Shoigu visited the Operational Group of Russian Forces in Transnistria.

But with the Russian invasion of Ukraine the future of Transnistria might be geared towards the EU. After Putin’s defeat in Ukraine I would not be surprised if, in time, Transnistria became an autonomous territorial unit in Moldova like Gagauzia.

Photo Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation. Attribution: Mil.ru.

Pridnestrovie - Bender

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This country is better know in the English speaking world under its Romanian name “Transnistria”. Modern history of Pridnestrovie – its Russian name – began in 1989 when the Supreme Soviet of the Moldavian SSR adopted Moldovan as the official language. Under leadership of Mikhail Gorbachev, different national groups within the Soviet Union demanded more autonomy. Ethnic Russians and Ukrainians feared that Moldova would reunite with Romania and on 2 September 1990, the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (PMSSR) was proclaimed as a Soviet republic.

Two months later Moldovan forces entered and in the ensuing fights, the first three locals were killed. By 1992 the Soviet Union has ceased to exist and the Russian 14th Guard Army moved in, which led to the bloodiest battle of the conflict in Bender. Even the ultra-nationalist Ukrainian National Assembly – Ukrainian People's Self-Defence fought alongside Russia against Moldova. The following quote is attributed to the Russian Lieutenant General Lebed of the 14th Army: "I told the hooligans [separatists] in Tiraspol and the fascists in Chișinău – either you stop killing each other, or else I'll shoot the whole lot of you with my tanks"

The Moldovan army was not in a position to defeat the PMR and the 14th Army. On 21 July 1992 a ceasefire agreement was signed, which lasts to this day.

Monument to commemorate the war of 1990-1992, BMP-2 infantry vehicle of the PMR.

Bellow a rare photo of the Battle of Tighina (1992). Many images of the war are video stills. It is estimated that one thousand people were killed in the conflict. Wikipedia: Transnistria War.

Attribution: Mid.gospmr.org

Moldovan BTR-80 destroyed.

Transnistria is only recognised by Abkhazia, Artsakh and South Ossetia. The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs therefor deems the country too dangerous to visit. Not even Russia recognises Transnistria as an independent country, although Russia has an army base in Transnistria and Russian ‘peacekeeping’ forces are operational. In practice Transnistria is perfectly safe to visit.

My first visit was on a booked tour with Татьяна (Tatania) as my English speaking guide, even though her German was even better. Her father was our designated driver. There was another person on the tour, associate Professor Thomas Mohr of University College Dublin. Bender (or Bendery) is located on the western bank of the Dniester River and this is the first town after the border. Bender is also located in the buffer zone between Moldova and Pridnestrovie.

“The color code of the travel advice for the Transnistria region is red. This means that it is too dangerous to travel there. Whatever your situation, don’t go there.”
— The Netherlands, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Bendery Fortress

One of the tourist attractions is Bendery Fortress, also known by its Romanian name Tighina Fortress. The earliest version of the fortress was built during the reign of Prince Stephen the Great on an even more ancient site. In 1538 it was conquered by the Ottomans under command of Turkish sultan Süleyman. After the Russo-Turkish wars, the fortress fell under the Russian Empire, but also lost its strategic importance. Between 2008 and 2012 the fortress was restored, but with little regard for historical accuracy.

Charles XII of Sweden spent time at the fortress after the Battle of Poltava (1709), which he lost. The Swedish defeat at Poltava marked the beginning of Russian military rule in the Hetman state (modern central Ukraine) and the founding of the Russian Empire. Charles XII, together with 1500 of his men, lived among the Ottomans for five years until he overstayed his welcome. He was captured during the Kalabaliken I Bender (Skirmish at Bender) and later released.

Below is a monument for Baron Munchausen and his cannonball. The historic Baron Munchhausen participated in the Imperial Russian army under the command of Burkhard Christoph von Münnich during the Russian-Turkish war of 1736-1739. Münnich tried to capture Bender fortress, but failed to do so. At least Baron Munchausen’s buste made it to Bender.

Russian ‘peacekeeper’ in a small military museum at Bendery Fortress.

The top billboard is an actual photo of Nicholas II of Russia and his family taken in Livadia Palace, Crimea in 1913. The text is difficult to translate because it is written in old literary Russian but can be translated as “Tsar, forgive your children, who lost the [correct] way.”

The lower billboard says: Защитникам Отечества всех времён… Defenders of the Fatherland of all times...

View of Bender fortress from the road.

Russian presence

It is actually the Unified Control Commission, which manages the buffer zone between Moldova and Transnistria and consists of Moldovan, Russian and Transnistrian soldiers, each about 500. Russia has an official mandate to keep 500 peacekeepers in this territory. But, according to International law, Russia also keeps 1500 soldiers illegally in Transnistria divided into “peacekeepers” and the Operative Group of the Russian Troops, OGRT. Between February and April 2023 these troops undertook military manoeuvres without coordination with the Unified Control Commission, heightening tensions in a time of war.

Farmer’s market in Bender.

Home grown produce is sold at the market.

Just like Moldova, Transnistria is landlocked. But fresh water fish is sold at every market.

Inside Столовка СССР in Bender, a Soviet nostalgia canteen.

Bender has about 91.000 inhabitants and feels like a small city. Trolley buses are the main form of transport. There is even a trolley bus line all the way to Tiraspol, well over 15 kilometers. Google Maps shows Tighina as the name for Bender, which is the Romanian name.

We were invited by Tatiana to have lunch at her parents’ house. The house was in Parcani, also known as the ‘Bulgarian village’, which is located between Bender and Tiraspol. The village has a population of whom 95% are ethnic Bulgarians. Another piece of the geopolitical puzzle. These are Bessarabian Bulgarians who settled in this region after moving from Ottoman territory to the Russian Empire because they supported the Russian Army during the Russo-Turkish wars.

We took a trolley bus to Parcani. Her mother had prepared an amazingly fresh lunch in the comfortable house. Her father Dumitru operated the wine dispenser, filled with home made wine. I much prefer the Moldovan home made wine. The alcohol percentage must have been quite low because I lost count after five glasses and I didn't get completely hammered. But the mood became very jolly.

Front door of the family home in the Bulgarian village.

The ubiquitous Plăcintă, apparently a Latin word which means ‘flat cake’, filled with cheese and herbs.

Potato-meat stew.

Moldovan “Zeamă” chicken soup. This version was better that the other versions I had in local restaurants.

Fresh spring onions from the garden.

I was pitted against Thomas of Dublin in a contest to win a jar of homemade marmalade for showcasing our drumming skills on tambourine. I think it is safe to say we were both equally ill-equipped when it came to keeping rhythm. As a consolation we both won a jar of home made marmalade. I barely managed to smuggle the marmalade through customs at Vienna Airport. It took two custom officers to decide that the marmalade was safe to import into the EU.

Dumitru, Tatiana’s father loved to sing and play the accordion, Sergey popped up out of nowhere, he apparently was a seasoned musician. We didn’t find a common language, but his artistic energy surpassed language. Despite the tambourine humiliation, I enjoyed the hours in the “Bulgarian village”. The food and wine was great and it became clear that Moldovan food is best tasted home made.

Chișinău

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A springtime journey across the geopolitical fault lines of Europe. After the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (1940–1991) ceased to exist, the republic fell apart in the Republic of Moldova, Pridnestrovian Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (1990 - present) and the Gagauz Republic (1990-1994).

I landed at Aeroportul Internațional Chișinău on 26 April. I simply choose this destination to make the list of countries I have visited more complete. Besides, I visited Romania in the early 1990s several times and I always wanted to visit the region again. The city bus tickets were still being sold by, sometimes very frail, women pensioners, at 6 lei per ticket (30 eurocents). Chișinău as a city is a pleasant surprise.

Between 1918–1940 Chișinău was the second largest city in the Kingdom of Romania. The city underwent vast renovation during that time. Even so, some of the current architecture still resembles that of a small village. Few cities I have visited have such an eclectic architecture, not to be confused with eclecticism. Within minutes you’ll walk by buildings from the belle époque, tiny crumbling village houses, 1980s Soviet buildings and buildings so new, the paint is still wet.

Strada Cojocarilor 21, Chișinău.

Strada Alexandru Hajdeu, Chișinău.

Strada Maria Cebotari, Chișinău,

The building below was built between 1901 and 1903, so during the time Chișinău was the capital of oblast Bessarabia of the Russian Empire. 1903 was also the year of the Kishinev pogrom.

Strada Armenească 96 A,B, Chișinău

Strada Vasile Alecsandri, across my hotel. Some old photos depict synagogues, possibly destroyed during the pogroms of 1903 and 1905.

‘Russian Plan’ to Regain Control of Moldova

In the months before my journey it became clear that Russia had drawn up plans to destabilise Moldova. In a document that appears to have been written in 2021 by the FSB’s Directorate for Cross-Border Cooperation, a 10-year strategy is documented to bring Moldova back under the influence of Russia and away from the EU. Russia claims the document is a fake.

Even worse, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy revealed that Russia was planning a coup d'etat. The plot involves forcing a change of power in Chișinău “through violent actions disguised as protests of the so-called opposition,” using Russian, Belarusian, Serbian and Montenegrin citizens, according to Moldova’s president Maia Sandu on February 13. Consequently a Montenegrin boxing team and Serbian soccer fans were barred from entering Moldova.

February 09, 2023

Moldova is, after Ukraine, the second poorest country in Europe. The city center has its fair share of high fashion streets. Some residents supplement their income by selling home grown or home made products on the street. The average net salary is € 443 per month.

Intersection Strada Vasile Alecsandri and Stefan cel Mare si Sfant Boulevard, Chișinău

Chişinău bus station Gara Centrala: the central bus station was a ten minute walk from my hotel. Practically all buses in Moldova are mini-buses. Even when I didn’t need to catch a bus I still went to Gara Centrala for breakfast: a black coffee and a plăcintă, filled with cartof (potato) or brânză (cheese). I love hanging around busy bus stations.

A bus to Bendery (Бендеры) in Transnistria, with Transnistrian number plates.

Soviet Chișinău

Many housing projects were built in the Soviet era. Some Chișinău Soviet buildings are beautiful brutalist examples of an era gone by, most buildings are quite standard apartment blocks. The spaces between the buildings are green and generally devoid of car traffic. It is difficult for me to asses the exact age of these buildings. During the 1964-1982 Breznjev years, 5% of the building cost was spent on art, usually mosaics depicting idealised Soviet citizens. But most apartment blocks are examples of post-Stalin Soviet functionalism devoid of any ornaments.

House-Museum of A.S. Pushkin

The Russian poet Alexander Pushkin spent a few months in Chișinău, of three years in Bessarabia, after being exiled by Alexander I of Russia when writing some incendiary poems. The small house where Pushkin stayed is now a museum. At the time Bessarabia was province of the Russian Empire. Being used to his life in Saint Petersburg, Pushkin reportedly hated his time in provincial Chișinău. It was Pushkin who first renamed Sankt-Peterburg to Petrograd in one of his poems.

“Самовластительный Злодей!
Тебя, твой трон я ненавижу,
Твою погибель, смерть детей
С жестокой радостию вижу.

You autocratic psychopath,
You and your throne do I despise!
I watch your doom, your children’s death
With hateful, jubilating eyes. ”
— Alexander Pushkin, Ode to Liberty

Molda Restaurant

Ciorbă din costițe de porc. The first evening I had dinner in restaurant Molda, not far from my hotel. This soup with pork ribs was excellent. As a main course I had lepure în sos de frișcă, stewed rabbit in cream sauce. The pickled peppers in Moldova are better than anywhere else.

Lepure în sos de frișcă,

Cricova

Close to Chişinău are countless old 15th century limestone mines. The limestone was used to built the city. After the mines were retired, the caves provided the perfect conditions for wine storage. In Cricova a grid of caves, more than 120 kilometer in length, 60 to 100 meters deep, houses 1.3 million bottles of wine. According to a 2020 Forbes article the wine cellar kept Vladimir Putin’s wine, who celebrated his 50th birthday in Cricova. I was intrigued. Cricova is a popular day trip from Chişinău. A city bus reaches the village.

Of course in 2023 the photo of Putin was removed from the world map of world leaders who have visited Cricova. I was told that every world leader who visits the cellar receives space to keep 500 bottles of wine. Volodymyr Zelensky has visited the wine cellar. His photo is among dozens of other leaders.

I arrived unannounced so I had to take the tour in the Romanian language. You cannot visit the caves unsupervised. The guide did translate some in English on my behalf. In the caves a number of dining rooms are furnished for important guests and for wine tasting. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin visited the The European Hall. Other dining and tasting halls are the Presidential dining hall, Sea Bottom tasting hall and the Fireplace Room.

The European Hall

A small part of the million plus wine bottles.

I found an image online of Putin’s former wine collection at Cricova.

Cricova winery also produces sparkling wine according to classical French method, by secondary fermentation in bottles. The bottles are horizontal position for at least 3 years. The production facility of sparkling wines is also located in the caves. I took a few photo’s before I was told that I shouldn’t photograph the production. There is also a factory located a few kilometers from the caves and I assume most of the production is done in the factory.

Of course I had to order a glass of red Cricova – nomen est omen – wine made from the rară neagră grape, 150 ml for 36 lei (1,83 euro). This grape is also known as băbească neagră. It is a late-ripening variety that gives red wines a light-bodied, fruity character. This is what I prefer in a red wine and this particular wine was very good.

On the banks of the river the limestone is visible.

Unification of Moldova and Romania

Cricova village

For some people the idea of a unified Moldova and Romania is still alive. The text in black says: “Moldavian, therefor Rumanian.” Somebody crossed out “Rumanian” and sprayed the word “Daci”. This refers to the Dacian Kingdom of 88 BC to 106 AD. It was explained to me that the message was simply that Moldova should stay independent. It is an anti-unionist message in red spray paint.

Destination Mekong

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The Mekong Delta contributes more than half of Vietnam’s rice production. The delta is economically important because of aquaculture fish farming. The Mekong Delta was also the place were the first uprising began against the South Vietnamese regime of Ngô Đình Diệm.

“Fish splash the pond - but where have the dragons gone?”
— Trần Dụ Tông, seventh emperor of the Trần dynasty

On my last day in Vietnam I took a one day trip to the city Mỹ Tho and one of the islands in the Mekong river. I wanted to take a local bus by myself, but that proved difficult, so I was booked on a tourist tour. You loose control over your time, but gain the company of some fellow travellers.

The tour was touristy. Before I knew I had a boa constrictor snake around my neck, only moments before I was holding a brood frame with buzzing honey bees for a photo opp. I felt a bit embarrassed because those are not the photos I normally take. I prefer not to bother animals.

The tour also comprised of several boat rides, which was fun. The tour guide was trying to learn us Vietnamese but with the language being a tonal language I was pretty sure I completely screwed up any tonal inflection. I did learn about the coconut religion, which is a fascinating story.

The islands in the Mekong river are traversed by narrow canals. The canal below is on Cồn Phụng, which translates as Island Fenghuang. Fenghuang is commonly translated as ‘Phoenix’ in English. It is a mythological bird found in Sinospheric mythology.

It is easy to imagine that the warm and wet climate of the delta is favourable for the production of rice and other produce. But when, after the war in the late 1970s, the hungry country needed rice, the Mekong delta was suffering from acidified soil. With the help of Dutch Wageningen University & Research the soil was restored. But the ecosystem is not safe. Climate change leads to flooding and the salinisation of the soil, which has already led to the reduction of rice cultivation. Rice is being replaced by different crops and the cultivation of shrimp.

Long read: Mekong Delta: Vietnam’s rice bowl transitions into a diverse food basket

One of the travellers on the tour was Santanu Kumar Deo (photo below) and his friend (the one holding the snake below). During lunch he choose the vegetarian option, which let me to mistakenly think he was a vegetarian. Turns out he is a devotee of Hanuman, which means you should (or can) eat vegetarian only on Tuesdays and Saturdays. It was a Tuesday. I was curious whether his family were devotees of Hanuman, but it shows the religious fluidity of India when he told me he choose this path by his own choice.

Coconut religion

Graduated as a chemical engineer Nguyễn Thành Nam (1910-1990) became a mystic and founded the Coconut Religion (Đạo Dừa) in 1963. Ông Đạo Dừa (Coconut Monk), as Thành was also known, or His Coconutship, built a floating pagoda in the ‘Coconut Kingdom’ on Cồn Phụng. According to legend he only consumed coconuts for three years. His religion gained up to four thousand followers, but was banned in 1975 by the communist regime for being a ‘cult’. The floating pagoda still exists. I saw a glimpse of it during the boat tour, but being on a tourist tour there was no time to visit the pagoda.

The floating temple of the Coconut Religion, photographed in 1969.

Tourism in Mỹ Tho resolves around four islands in the Mekong river,

War tourism

Another popular one day tour from Ho Chi Minh City, in the direction of Cambodja, is visiting the Củ Chi tunnels. At Củ Chi about 120 kilometers of tunnels used by the Viet Cong have been preserved. The museum is both a war memorial and a strange tourist attraction, which almost feels like an amusement park. I had expected a more solemn atmosphere, considering the deadliness of the tunnels. For fun you can even buy ammunition and fire an AK-47 Kalashnikov. When visiting the tunnels you can hear constant machine gun fire in the background. I had mixed feelings about the place.

Some of the tunnels were dug as early as the 1940s when the Vietnamese were fighting the French colonial authority. In the 1960s the Viet Cong expanded the tunnels as part of their successful guerrilla fighting tactic. In 1968 the tunnels played an important role in the Tet Offensive, which, although a military victory for the Americans, led the United States to the negotiating table.

Cát Bà National Park

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I wanted to finish my journey to Vietnam on the beach. I ended up on an island. Drawn by images of Hạ Long Bay I took out my phone, opened Booking.com and more or less randomly picked a cheap lodge. I had the property arrange transport and this went amazingly smooth. The first half kilometre was done by motorbike in Hanoi, then a two hour minivan ride to the ferry, and on the other side of the water on Quần đảo Cát Bà, a bus was waiting, which dropped me off at another quay. A speedboat was waiting for me and a colourful group of travellers from Canada, Los Angeles and Barcelona. I just found out my lodge could not be reached by road! It was located in Viet Hai Village in Cat Ba National Park, in a cul-de-sac Jurassic Park-like valley.

At times I see the world through movies.

My own tiny house. It had one room, a separate bathroom and a generous veranda. The first night we all went for a nighttime kayak trip to see the bioluminescence of algae. The effect was quite faint but it was an interesting trip anyway. It was also my first time in a kayak. We peddled around, lost one of the two girls from Barcelona, and ended up on somebody's house boat. They didn’t bat an eye when we gathered on what was practically their living room.

It is illegal now to hunt for snakes but there are still many big jars of ‘snake wine’ all over the place. The lodge not only kept snake wine but also alcohol infused with different types of mushrooms and roots.

Apart from jungle treks there is not so much to do within the valley itself. I didn’t care. I love hot humid forests. I am one of the few people who actually enjoys being soaked in sweat. And then there is the sound of the birds and other wild life. Only a few Cat Ba langur are remanning. I was glad I didn’t see one. Toursim is disturbing the habitat of these little rare primates. Scientist are observing changed behaviour at times when there are many people around. In the past these little fellas were almost poached to extinction for local ‘medicine’.

Viet Hai Village nowadays exists mainly because of tourism. A side effect is that the local restaurants don’t serve Vietnamese cuisine but something deemed non offensive to Western tourists: no fish sauce, no meat with bones. One evening I walked past a place which did look like a typical Vietnamese restaurant. The BBQ was smoking. I asked what time dinner was and they told me to come back at 6 pm.

So I did and the place was packed. A chair was waiting for me at a full table. I joined the party and nobody spoke English. With the help of Google Translate we kept the conversation going. The food was amazing and everybody seemed happy I enjoyed all the dipping sauces. Many beers were downed.

When I was ready to pay, the patrons said: “No, no! It’s free. This is not a restaurant, it is a family gathering for a funeral.” Apparently I crashed a party. Probably the annual anniversary of a death. It is custom, depending on the wealth of the family I guess, to hold a family gathering in memorial of the deceased up to three years after the funeral. One of the men on my table showed me a photo of his very luxury Mercedes.

The next day I woke up before sunrise to climb ‘Navy Peak’ (Dao Hai Quan): the highest peak on Cat Ba Island. From Dao Hai Quan you have a pretty good overview of the bay and the cruise ships anchored for the night. My peace was only disturbed when another hiker reached the peak. I felt like talking but I didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable. I descended back to the valley. During my stay I climbed Navy Peak three times.

When I walked back into the village my table companions from the night before were waving. They invited me for breakfast. I was pretty hungry so I accepted. Because of the daylight the food photos turned out much better: pork paired with lemon grass, sticky rice filled with meat and buttery soft octopus.

Being stuck in a valley for a couple of days I decided to sit back and try to relax a bit, between the jungle hikes. I managed to read a large part of my book ‘Việt Nam: A History from Earliest Times to the Present’ by Ben Kiernan (Oxford University Press; 2017). But I spent a fair time rearranging tea pots and tea cups on my table until I found a composition pleasing to the eye.

To reach the main ferry back to the mainland you need to take a boat again. This time I took a slow boat similar to the boat on the photo below. There were far more people than deck chairs, so we took turns sitting down. My envisioned long evening in Hanoi was disturbed by a traffic gridlock as soon as we reached Hanoi. I arrived so late at my hotel I only had time for night time street food, ice cold back coffee and the cacophonous motor bikes as a back drop.

Wild tea trees

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The mountains in Hà Giang province are home to wild tea trees. Some are said to be a thousand years old. Hà Giang is also the name of the provincial capital of the province (56.000 inhabitants), and my destination. I booked into the Maison Teahouse for just two nights. The first night was marked by the birthday of the grandmother and loud karaoke until late.

The next day I went to the Tea House of Baiyue Tribe without much of an exact plan, except wanting to see the wild tea trees. Baiyue refers to various ethnic groups who inhabited the regions of East China, South China and Northern Vietnam during the 1st millennium BC and 1st millennium AD. Baiyue is a term used by the Han Chinese to denote the peoples south of the Yangtze river, also called Bách Việt. The Bách Việt/Baiyue society was made up by different clans. The clan of Lạc Việt are claimed to be the forefathers of Vietnam today.

The name Baiyue Tribe is a tribute to an ancient past and does not refer to a contemporary tribe.

Soon one of the founders of the tea house greeted me (we connected on Facebook so I assumed I had his name, but on Facebook his profile is called Trà Tea, which just means tea in two languages). By then it was clear I arrived off-season and the tea house was pretty deserted. After I expressed my interest in tea we sat down to drink pu’er tea. Opposed to Japanese and Chinese tea culture, Vietnamese tea is not ceremonialized. There are no strict rules on the temperature of the water, or whether to put your utensils to the keft or the right of the tea bowl. At the end of a tea session the water and tea can be lukewarm. It doesn’t matter. The main function of tea is to talk. The tea is a vessel for conversation.

And so we talked. I wanted to see the wild tea trees in the mountains and he arranged a car with driver for the afternoon. I was thrilled. When I woke up I had no idea if I my plan would come to fruition.

Even brewed for a long time, this pu’er didn’t get bitter.

Before we drove into the mountains we had lunch in Vị Xuyên. This is really my kind of food. Thịt Kho Trứng, stewed vegetables, fried minced meat with ground rice (similar to northern Thai laab ลาบหมู) and another pork dish with fried shrimp. My guide explained to me that food is eaten according to the ying-yang principle. This is the tenet that food items are classified as "heating" (热; 熱; rè) or "cooling" (凉; 涼; liáng). In practice it means that your food intake is balanced between vegetables and meat.

After lunch we drove into the mountains. The drive took about an hour to a homestay, which is used for hiking trips higher into the mountains, about 20 kilometers from the main road. A hike to one of the summits would take another seven hours, so I didn’t get higher than the homestay Thung lũng chè shan tuyết (Valley of the Shan Tuyết tea). Along the way we got out of the car and walked into some land containing old tea trees and fields were tobacco and cabbage was grown. The soil is so fertile its is possible to rotate four crops per year on a piece of land.

It is believed the ‘wild’ tea trees are actually planted by local people and not truly wild. Most of the trees are not older than 150 years. Some claim there are 1000 year old trees in the mountains but this is unlikely. The tea made of wild old tea trees is called shan tuyết (snow mountain). Strictly speaking shan tuyết should be made from the leaves of old trees.

Field with cabbage.

Homestay Thung lũng chè shan tuyết. Address: Thôn, Lùng Tao, Vị Xuyên, Hà Giang, Vietnam.

There were no guests staying at the homestay and the doors were locked. A man came down of his motorcycle to unlock the doors and start a fire for boiling water. We made tea from large dried tea leaves. I don’t think the tea was processed any further other than drying. The leaves are so tough you first have to soak them in boiling water before you can start brewing.

Tea is not the only drink in the mountains. There are many versions of homemade alcoholic drinks. We drank a naturally fermented black sticky rice drink and the container above contains rượu nhãn, which means alcoholic longan. I think rice wine is added to the longan instead of a purely fermented alcohol like the black sticky rice drink, which had many dried mountain herbs added. In the end we drank as much alcohol as tea.

Hà Nội

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The city was the capital of Đại Việt. In 1802 the last imperial Vietnamese dynasty, Nguyễn dynasty, moved the capital to Huế and in 1831 the city was named 河內, Hà Nội, meaning ‘inside the rivers’. It was in 1976 when Hà Nội became the capitol of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

I arrived midday on a domestic fight from Ho Chi Minh. My first impressions were that the amount and noise of motorcycles was even greater than in Ho Chi Minh. Or maybe it was just because the houses in the narrow streets of the old quarter echoed the sound back to the streets. There was no escaping the noise.

After checking into my hotel I wasn’t too sure whether to explore the city by foot or by a Grab bike or car. I choose to walk. I walked until I got tired. I had an address for a restaurant which served Chả cá Lã Vọng, a famous dish made of grilled freshwater snakehead fish with fresh turmeric, galangal, ginger and dille. When I got there the restaurant was closed. I kept on wandering and settled for a narrow side street and a tiny food stall, where a lady sold boiled pigeons in a dark and sweet soy based broth. The bird was stuffed with leaf vegetables. But even in the narrow side street the motorcycles were zooming past me.

The next day was a Sunday. Early in the morning the sidewalks were already filled with breakfast street food shops. I opted for a bowl of sticky rice topped with chicken, Chinese lạp xưởng and French patê. This shows the cultural influences of China and the French in Hanoi.

I soon realised that on Sundays the roads around Hồ Hoàn Kiếm (Hoàn Kiếm lake) were blocked from car traffic. This meant droves of local people and Vietnamese tourists were strolling around the lake. Every few hundred meters I was stopped by a child or student asking me to practice English. Sometimes the parents pushed their child forward. I happily obliged and had fun talking to many different children and a bunch of young students. My walk around the lake lasted more than an hour.

I got so caught up in the leisurely Sunday atmosphere that I almost forgot to make a plan for the next week. But the city was still hot and very noisy. The only quiet place I could imagine, apart from my hotel room, was a tea house. I choose a random tea house on Google Maps. I was not disappointed. Hien Minh Tea was established in 2016. The tea house has a peaceful courtyard. I ordered the Huyền Lão Trà 1992, a black puerh.

To decide what my next move would be I talked to the girl serving me the tea and she told me the owner travelled to the Ha Giang mountains often to harvest and process tea. I decided on the spot that the next day I would travel to Ha Giang. I booked a bus ticket on my phone and decided I would find a hotel only after arriving in Ha Giang.

For a few days I remembered her name, didn’t write it down, and now I only remember she is a graphic art student. Working in the tea house was her student job.

The last few hours of day light I spent on Jade islet and in the Temple of the Jade Mountain (Đền Ngọc Sơn). In the temple are two preserved Hoàn Kiếm turtles on display. According to legend Lê Lợi, the founder of the Lê Dynasty, had a sword named Heaven's Will given to him by the Golden Turtle God, Kim Quy. After the Chinese accepted Vietnamese independence, the Golden Turtle God surfaced on the lake and Lê Lợi gave back the sword. Lê Lợi then renamed the lake Hoàn Kiếm, meaning “The Lake of the Returned Sword.”

Preserved turtle in the Temple of the Jade Mountain. The turtle is likely the rare Yangtze giant softshell turtle.

Goodbye Hanoi

After visiting Ha Giang and Cát Bà Island I spent a third time and final evening in Hanoi. Due to a lengthy evening rush hour traffic jam, when arriving from Cát Bà, I had only a few hours before nighttime. The third visit I had grown accustomed to the noise and I was happy to be back in Hanoi and feel the energy of the city. No time for fancy restaurants, I found a place with cold beer and a cheap platter of fried tofu, rice noodles, assorted meats and herbs.

I felt a bit hungry afterwards so I had some grilled shells with fried onion, mỡ hành (oil scallions) and fish sauce. I finished the night with a cold ice coffee sitting on a tiny chair, on the sidewalk, soaking up the noise of city and wishing I could have more time in Hanoi.

The people in Vietnam are early risers. No matter how early you wake up, you can always find breakfast on the street. Before I took a Grab car to the airport to make my way back to HCMC I had my last beef noodle soup in Hanoi.

Ho Chi Minh City

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I had planned to travel to Vietnam in the springtime of 2020. But before I was able to buy an airplane ticket, the world shut down. Flights to Vietnam were all but impossible. Only in March 2022 Vietnam ended Covid quarantine for international travellers. In the autumn of that year I was finally flying to Vietnam, partly for work, to visit Đại Tín, the factory where our products are made, and partly for my first and only holiday of 2022. The Air France Boeing 777 landed in the morning at Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport (SGN). When I arrived in Hồ Chí Minh City, the owner of Đại Tín, Mr. Ho Trung Tin, picked me up at the airport.

The metropolitan area of Hồ Chí Minh City contains more than 21 million people, the city itself about 9 million. I don’t think this city ever sleeps. I checked into Kim Hương Hotel, which is the favourite hotel of my employer since many years, right opposite the famous Bến Thành Market. In the end, I didn’t spend much time in the market: too many tourists.

I negotiated a short rest in the hotel to avoid the worst jet lag, and in the afternoon Tin picked me up with his motorcycle to visit some land marks. First stop was Ngọc Hoàng Điện, Jade Emperor Pagoda, a Taoist pagoda, founded by a Chinese merchant. The inner sanctuary had both Buddhist as Taoist elements.

On the way to the factory we stopped to eat one of the best Phở of HCMC in restaurant Phở Hiền 1985, address 68/9A Đ. Trần Quang Khải, Phường Tân Định, Quận 1, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam.

Tin considered the collagen the most beneficial part of the animal.

After the Phở we visited the tomb of Lê Văn Duyệt (1763–1831), who helped Nguyễn Ánh unify Vietnam in 1802. The tomb was built in the 19th century and is also a place of worship for other high ranking officials of the Nguyễn dynasty.

Just like in Korean folklore - the Korean mountain god san-shin is represented as a tiger - in Vietnam the tiger is worshipped as an animal of strength. While the tomb of Lê Văn Duyệt is located outside then main building, inside there are many altars depicting the most fantastic creatures, and this tiger.

Ice cold sugarcane juice in Phú Nhuận district.

When we finally arrived at Đại Tín it felt like I completed a long quest. For many years my only contact with Tin and the people working at Dai Tin was solely by e-mail. Now, I was about to set foot in the inner sanctuary of Đại Tín. The factory is located between the International airport and district 1 in Phú Nhuận district. It is a convenient location and I liked the district. It is far from the high rise buildings in district 1 and has a relaxed atmosphere.

I don’t think Tin’s orange Von Dutch T-shirt was a coincidence.

Phú Nhuận district.

The first night I was invited to a restaurant with the owners of Dai Tin. This is a separate post in the Recipes category: One night in Saigon.

If you don’t have a car, motorbike or a scooter, the best way to get around Hồ Chí Minh is to grab a Grab taxi. You can choose between a car and a motor cycle. The Grab app is the Vietnamese version of Uber and it works like a charm. Waiting times can be as low as a couple of minutes. The app will show you the brand of the car, color and license plate.

10 November 2022

“No Plazas in the East, No Streets in the West”
— Kisho Kurokawa, Each One a Hero

The next day I browsed around the city by myself to get my bearings. What city is former Sài Gòn? It is very much a business city. It also feels like a young city, although by 1950 the number of inhabitants already exceeded one million. In 1975 Saigon was renamed Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh. Nobody walks in Hồ Chí Minh, motor bikes are the most convenient, and abundant, means of transportation. To learn the city, I walked and I walked.

The Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa wrote in his 1997 book Each One a Hero -The Philosophy of Symbiosis: “I became fascinated with the comparison of space in Asian and Western cities and I proposed the hypothesis that Oriental cities have no squares or plazas while Western cities possess no streets, in the sense that I will explain below. In other words, I argued that although Asian cities may have no public squares, their streets carry out the function of these open spaces. On the other hand, Western cities have squares or plazas while their streets are little more than thoroughfares.”

Life is lived on the streets, unlike in European cities. To escape the heat in the day time you will find a coffee shop in almost every street. Cà Phê Đen Đá, black coffee, iced, became an instant favourite of mine.

“The homes and shops of these street-oriented communities featured lattice-work facades, bench-like porches (agedana), low fences and other structural techniques which exploit the openness of wooden architecture and create continuity with the street outside. Street space became an ambivalent space -- a medium in which individual living space and the metropolis converge.” - Kisho Kurokawa.

With Tin as my guide I was fortunate enough to taste amazing food. The place below is so popular, the waiting time can be hours after ordering. Tin got ahead of the line by arguing he had a foreign guest. What you get is a plastic container with a very fine rice pudding, topped with fried onion and a plastic bag with fish sauce. This tiny places sources the best ingredients, and became extremely popular.

When it comes to food, Hồ Chí Minh, and Vietnam in general, is a paradise. Due to the warm climate restaurants have an open facade, which makes eating out, almost by definition, informal. You don’t separate yourself from the busy streets. Tin took me to a favourite restaurant of his, a goat meat restaurant: “Goat meat is both delicious food and a traditional medicine.” I am now quoting the big sign, which was placed above the checkout explaining the benefits of goat meat. “Meat, bones, organs. Everything can make a medication”.

In Vietnam food is not merely food, but can be seen as a daily medicine for the body. It is governed by the principle of Wuxing, a taoist principle. In practice this is translated into foods, which are considered warming or cooling. When eating, you balance both elements. Goat meat is considered warming, fresh leaves are considered cooling. Therefore a plate of goat meat will be served with a generous quantity of fresh herbs to balance the warming effect of the meat.

The first dish was steamed goat meat, including the fatty skin parts, with lemon grass, assorted fresh leaves and okra. Everything is served raw and the steaming process is done right on the table. While waiting for the meat to be tender, you drink beer with big chunks of ice in the glass.

Key to Vietnamese cuisine are the dipping sauces. In restaurants you often have to assembly your own dipping sauce according to individual taste. Since I was a novice, I let Tin mix the dipping sauces. The sauce below is made from fermented bean curd mixed with a restaurant made sauce in the same color. Fermented bean curd, chao in Vietnamese, has a very powerful smell and taste. It is a great dipping sauce for goat meat.

“Goat bone: Sweet, warm, has the function of nourishing the kidney, strengthening the tendons and bones, curing rheumatism, emaciation due to labor, dizziness, blurred vision, chronic back pain.”
— As advertised in restaurant

Stuffed goat intestines. Fresh herbs to balance the warming effect of the meat.

Quán ăn gia đình Bạn Tôi 5 (the name of the restaurant on Google Maps), address 70 Đ. Trần Quốc Toản, Phường 8, Quận 3, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Vietnam.

11 November 2022

On the third day I visited the tunnels of Củ Chi. When I got back in Hồ Chí Minh I walked by Saigon's presidential palace, where in 1975, famously, Tank 390 crashed through the gates. The Chinese-made T59 is now a monument. A few years ago our company produced exactly this tank as a 1/87 scale model. It was a one-off production because demand wasn’t too high.

I figured dinner would be quite late and since I skipped lunch, I needed to eat something in the late afternoon. In the same street as my hotel, there were many street vendors. I will never cease to be amazed how these old, and not so old, ladies can offer the most amazing noodles soups right on the pavement. Why is the food in The Netherlands so poor compared to about any place in Asia?

By the look of the tomato this looks like a bún riêu with a nice slice of huyết (congealed pig's blood). Note the dipping sauce with small shellfish and fresh chili pepper.

“Trời đánh tránh bữa ăn – even the Heavenly Lord knows better not to strike at mealtime”
— Vietnamese saying

That evening Tin invited me to a sea food, and snail, restaurant. We ordered four different dishes. First a soup with tiny sea snails, braised in coconut milk, was served. Those snails were something else. You have to suck the snail out of its shell. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t do it.

Then came a plate of fried fish, rice and cucumber. These fish are air dried for one day, not too long, otherwise they will become too dry. Then they are fried. Oh my, they taste excellent. Ice cold beer is the perfect drink to pair with those fish.

Tin ordered a plate with barbecued scallops, sprinkled with spring onion oil (mỡ hành) and crushed peanuts. Before slurping the scallops you add a dash of good quality fish sauce. This is one of the most tasty side dishes I ever had.

The dish below are eggs combined with clusters of developing egg yolks in the hen ovary. You are basically eating the ovary and tiny egg yolks. The white of an egg is only developed in the next stage, in the magnum of the hen. The ovary doesn’t taste like chicken meat, it is much more meat-like and salty. The vegetable is a wax gourd (bí đao) I believe.

Where do you park your motorcycle? Well, inside the restaurant of course! The restaurant is located at the intersection of Nguyễn Văn Đậu and Hẻm 49 Nguyễn Văn Đậu (alley number 49), Phường 6, Bình Thạnh, Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh.

On 12 November I took a 10 AM flight to Hanoi on a Vietnam Airlines Airbus A350-900. Flight time 2 hours and 10 minutes.

“These days the sun could melt both gold and stone”

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The title is the first line of the poem “Drought” by Trần Tế Xương, a Vietnamese poet and satirist (1870 - 1907). In the poem he uses dry weather as a metaphor for the French colonial conquest of Vietnam.

The last line of the poem literally reads: “Now they do nothing but worry about nước nổi”, which means both water and country [Chapter 8, Việt Nam, a History from Earliest Times to the Present (2017), by Ben Kiernan].

I have a couple of weeks to plan a journey to Vietnam arriving in Ho Chi Minh City. This post is just to have some background information for myself. A rough theme is shaping itself: water. When during the Qin dynasty the Chinese ventured south, they noted the local preoccupation with aquatic life. “People carry out few occupations on land and many on water”, it was written in the text Huai nan zi in 135 BCE.

There are three distinct cities I want to visit, Ho Chi Minh City, Huế and Hanoi. Each city was the administrative capital of a French colonial administration: Cochinchina (Saigon), Annam (Huế) and Tonkin (Hanoi).

Mekong river at the Golden Triangle in Thailand. The river is also the border between Thailand and Laos.

The Mekong flows from the Tibetan Plateau through China, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, south of Ho Chi Minh City. The city Cần Thơ in the Mekong delta is about 3,5 hours by car from HCMC. In Thailand I spent a short time on the Mekong river taking a boat to Laos during a down pour.

The city Huế has Perfume River (Sông Hương). In autumn flowers from upstream orchards fall into the river and give it a pleasant scent. Or so the story goes. This river is only 30 kilometres long.

Through Hanoi flows the important Red River connecting China's Yunnan province with the Gulf of Tonkin. This led the French to establish the French protectorate Tonkin to gain control over the river.

The French protectorate Annam encompassed the territory of the Nguyễn dynasty. The French did not gain control over the territory in one campaign but it was gradually absorbed by France with several treaties.

Saigon was taken by the French during the Cochinchina campaign (1858 - 1862). The campaign ended with the founding of the colony French Cochinchina. In 1887 the French colonies and protectorates were grouped together as French Indochina or: Union indochinoise in French. French Indochina included Cambodia and Laos (from 1899) and even the Leased Territory of Guangzhouwan in China until 1945.

This lasted until 1954. The last years of French rule were marked by the First Indochina War (1946 - 1954) in which the French fought the Việt Minh, a national independence coalition formed by Hồ Chí Minh. This war led to the division of Vietnam between Viet Minh-controlled North Vietnam and State of Vietnam- controlled South Vietnam. The Vietnam War (1955 - 1975) emerged directly from the First Indochina War.

“All of the things I need for happiness. Low plastic stool. Check. Tiny plastic table. Check. Something delicious in a bowl. Check. ”
— Anthony Bourdain, Parts Unknown Vietnam (2014)

Another theme will certainly be Anthony Bourdain’s travels to Vietnam. From A Cook’s Tour: Season 1 (2002) and season 2 (2003) to No Reservations: Season 1 (2005), season 5 (2009), season 6 (2010), Parts Unknown: Season 4, Episode 4 ‘Vietnam’ (2014) and Season 8, Episode 1 ‘Hanoi’ (2016).

It’s hard to believe Bourdain committed suicide in 2018. Sometimes you need more in life than a low plastic stool, a tiny plastic table and something delicious in a bowl.

French Indochine including the three parts which would later form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam: Cochinchina, Annam and Tonkin.

Le bon goût de la famille Acker

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Artitec, the company I am working for, was invited by Gabriel Acker, the publisher of the magazine Le Train, to Wissembourg in France, just 2 kilometres from the German-French border, for the Le Rail d’Or 2022 award ceremony.

The award ceremony was held in the winery Cleebourg. Before the ceremony we drank crémant. Our company won two first prices in two categories. In the evening there was diner in restaurant Moulin de la Walk.

I left home early enough to have time for hiking on Friday in the Südpfalz around Annweiler am Trifels. The Reichsburg Trifels towers high above the town. From the early 14th century the castle was in decline. The current form is the result of a restaurantion project which began in 1841 when Annweiler was part of Königreich Bayern (1806–1918).

France was suffering under a dangerous heatwave that weekend. The worst temperatures were in the south of France but even in Wissembourg the thermometer hit 35 degrees Celsius (95 °F).

The city of Wissembourg originated around the Weissenburg Abbey, which became an important abbey by acquiring fertile agricultural land and investing the proceeds in saltworks. But when the direct management of the fields by the monastery transitioned into a (then modern) feudal system, the estates gradually vanished and the abbey lost power. The current St. Peter and St. Paul's Church was largely built in the late 13th century.

On Friday we ate Flammenkuchen under the tower of the church in restaurant L' Abbaye and I tasted the best frog legs ever. I plan to cook the recipe at home. Especially the garlic has to be perfectly cooked. I am quite sure they fried the garlic separately just like you would do when making Thai garlic fish.

Cuisses de grenouille au beurre aillé et persillé

Salez et poivrez les cuisses de grenouille puis roulez-les dans la farine. Faites-les revenir dans l'huile chaude pendant 5 minutes. Faites fondre le beurre, retirez du feu et ajoutez l'ail et le persil haché. Laissez infuser à couvert quelques minutes. Versez les cuisses de grenouille dans le beurre persillé, couvrez et laissez reposer 2 minutes. Servez sur des assiettes préchauffées.

The Swiss owner of Fulgurex, Dani Ingold, brought one of his classic MG cars. This looks very much like a 1933 MG J-type. Stunning car and stories to match. One time during the Historic Grand Prix of Monaco Dani collided with a Bugatti in the tunnel. Instead of waiting for the towing truck, both drivers calmly walked into the Monte Carlo Casino and ordered a beer.

After the award ceremony we headed to the wine cellar for a wine tasting. I bought a few bottles and probably ‘‘cooked’’ my wine the next day when I left the wine in my car while hiking.

Filling the glasses with Crémant d’ Alsace in the winery Cleeburg.

Hôtel Restaurant Moulin de la Walk

I have to hand it to the French. In France gastronomy is more than just diner. In 2010 Le repas gastronomique des Français was inscribed in UNESCO's cultural heritage. Eric and Isabelle Schmidt are third generation patrons of Moulin de la Walk. The first course consisted of a perfect pairing of a 2017 Gewürtztraminer with foie gras (oie et canard). I had my glass filled twice. The sour notes were provided by a compotée rhubarbe. Just perfect!

The second course was equally perfect. The wine was provided by Domaine Louis Cheze, if I’m correct the Sixtus 2020 Côtes du Rhône blanc is made of viognier grapes.

I couldn’t finish the glass of red wine which accompanied the pork. Since the late afternoon I drank eight glasses of wine, which was way more than I am used to.

Duo de foie gras maison (oie et canard aux fruits sec). Gel fraise, compotée rhubarbe.
Vin: Gewürtztraminer Verdangen tardives 2017.

Filet de dorade rôti. Pointes d’asperges, sauce beurre blanc.
Vin: Sixtus 2020 Côtes du Rhône blanc.

Véritable pluma de porc ibérique. Poêlée de légumes d’été. Pommes de terre rissolées.
Vin: Saint Joseph Cuvée Ro-Rée. Domaine Louis CHEZE.

Below: Délice fraises-citron, biscuit pistache.

Eric and Isabelle Schmidt

Deutsches Weintor

In the time of Nationalsozialismus the Pfalz as a wine growing area was in trouble. An abundant harvest in 1934 in combination with a Berufsverbot for Jewish wine merchants, caused a price crash. To draw visitors to the Pfalz the rulers created the Deutsche Weinstraße under the openings title “Kampf und Volk – Wein und Wahrheit“. In 1936 the stone gate was built in just two months. The swastika under the eagle is still visible. The gate can be seen from France. The border is just 750 meters from the gate.

After leaving my hotel at 10 am I planned to hike part of the Deutsche Weinstraße starting at the gate. The hike was pleasant while in the forest. To get back to my car in time I took a short cut on the way back through the vineyards. With 35 degrees Celsius and no shade I barely escaped a heat stroke. I had to sit down with a large bottle of cold mineral water for 45 minutes before I was well enough to drive.

No shade and 35 degrees. In the distance the Deutsche Weintor.

Plan B

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With over two years of little travel I need to write down all my travel ideas I have in the back of my mind. If not, ideas will remain ideas. I will expand this post in the next couple of months.

Fisherman’s Trail (Trilho dos Pescadores)

This 226,5 km long coastal trail takes you along the coast of Portugal. The trail is dived in 13 day hikes. Best time: September - June. In the summer months it can be hot.

The Fisherman’s Trail is the blue line.

Jamaica

Visiting Jamaica has been a long time wish. The distance from Amsterdam is 7.813 km, which is a flight time of well over 10 hours. Most Jamaican towns and places I know from listening to Jamaican music: Spanish Town, Manchester, Westmoreland, Hanover, Saint Catherine, Saint Mary and the list goes on.

I want to hike the Blue Mountains and feast on Ital-food, have breakfast with ackee and saltfish, eat jerk chicken smoked on pimento wood and try curry goat.

I wonder if you can vist King Jammy Studio in Waterhouse. Probably not. Best time to visit Jamaica is during our winter. There can be rain and hurricanes in October.

Prince Jammy in 1984.

Caucasus

I have a choice between Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Russia. The latter is off the table due to the war. I have a preference for Azerbaijan.

Political map of the Caucasus.

Everest Base Camp Trek

It is time to walk another mountain range which is not the European Alps. The Everest Base Camp Trek is 58 kilometers so to get back to the starting point it is about 120 kilometers. Rough guess: 6 days of hiking.

Starting point is the village of Lukla and you have to fly in from Kathmandu. There is some serious planning involved and I don’t think I can do this hike while my father is still alive. There is no way to get back to The Netherlands in case of an emergency.

I got inspired by watching the YouTube-channel of Kraig Adams. The photo’s are stills from his video. Elevation gain is an amazing 5.152 meters so altitude sickness is the biggest risk The path looks like it is walkable with no climbing.

Khumjung - about a third of the trek.

Pheriche - two thirds on the way up.

Just before Base Camp at 5.364 meters.

Geopolitical chessboard Ukraine

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Just as the pandemic was almost over in The Netherlands, mainly due to our high vaccination rate & effectiveness, and natural immunity, the Russian president Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin started a geopolitical game of chess which effectively ended the post-Cold War era of relative peace in Europe. It was Thursday morning 24 February 2022. I cursed when I woke up.

The 2022 invasion of Ukraine was just an escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2014 which ended as a frozen conflict in 2015. Russia has waged a cyberwar against Ukraine at least since 2014. Read: Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers (2019) by Andy Greenberg.

Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has deep global geopolitical implications. A successful campaign in Ukraine might have emboldened Xi Jinping to take military action to control Taiwan.

The Financial Times cartoon.

The owners of the company I work for immediately thought of ways to help Ukraine. Donation of money for humanitarian aid was a no-brainer. Within a week we decided to donate the profits of the webshop of the month March to Giro555. We also crowdfunded money for a first transport to the Polish-Ukrainian border. We bought calorie dense food for fighters on the front and as many night vision goggles we could possibly buy. Just three days after the start of the war I agreed to be a back-up driver for the first transport, and maybe more to come, so I cancelled my plans for my springtime holiday.

Social Media

The Vietnam War was the first war broadcast on television while the Gulf War of 1991 was the first war being live broadcast. Who can forget the green blurry images of the night vision cameras as the first artillery hit Bagdad? The 2022 Russian war against Ukraine is the first true social media war. Not only does information spread instantly via Telegram, Twitter or WhatsApp, the Diia App (“Action”) made by the Ministry of Digital Transformation in 2020 helped the Ukrainian army target the enemy. The Diia app was quickly tailored towards the war and allows ordinary Ukrainians to submit location-tagged photos and videos of Russian military sightings.

“Der Krieg ist das Gebiet der Ungewißheit; drei Vierteile derjenigen Dinge, worauf das Handeln im Kriege gebaut wird, liegen im Nebel einer mehr oder weniger großen Ungewißheit. ”
— Carl von Clausewitz: Vom Kriege

SpaceX Starlink War

But the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022 might be best remembered as the first SpaceX Starlink War. Just before the war started Russia knocked out tens of thousands of KA-SAT SATCOM terminals by a suspected cyber attack. Within days of the war Elon Musk activated the Starlink service and sent a number of receiver kits to Ukraine.

To generate more crowdfunding money we requested photo’s and video’s from Ukrainians receiving our equipment. And so they did. Below is an Ukrainian soldier with one of our night vision goggles.

Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes

The Russian army was not so mighty as seemed on paper. Tanks are just heavy chunks of metal without personal and strategy. This was not a first for Russia. In the first big war of the 20th century, the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian army also proved much less effective than thought. This war started with the Russian demand for the establishment of a neutral buffer zone between Russia and Japan in Korea north of the 39th parallel. The Imperial Japanese navy subsequently attacked. Nicholas II of Russia refused to submit to a humiliating peace with Japan, which was victorious in most battles. US President Theodore Roosevelt had to mediate a treaty between Russian and Japan, which resulted in the 1905 Russian Revolution, which set the stage for the 1917 Russian Revolutions.

Vladimir Putin seems to have made the mistake only an authoritarian leader can make, or American neocons just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He didn’t understand the enemy. It has become clear that he thought of the ‘special operation’ as a non-military operation. The imagined ‘regime’ in Kyiv would quickly fall and the Ukrainians would greet the Russian soldiers as liberators. This explains the poor military planning. Putin ignored the long quest for national identity among Ukrainians. He seems to have completely misinterpreted the Orange Revolution of 2004 - 2005 and the Maidan Revolution in 2014. The Ukrainians clearly rejected closer ties with Russia and were looking West towards the EU as a future path for the nation. Ukrainian values aligned with Europe and not with Russia.

Lies

An authotoritan leader has to lie to his people to stay in power. This greatly reduces battlefield effectiveness. Who wants to die for a lie? The propaganda was that the United States were going out nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Many Russian soldiers left their tanks and BTR’s (armoured personnel carrier) when they realised they have not been told the truth.

Read: The Dictator's Army: Battlefield Effectiveness in Authoritarian Regimes by Caitlin Talmadge, Cornell University Press (2015).

Russian prisoner of war being interviewed by an Ukrainian journalist.

Below a video made by an Ukrainian fighting group thanking us, and my employer by name, for the equipment we sent.

Putin governs Russia like a crime syndicate and money which should have been spent on the military was stolen and transferred out of Russia. This left the army with antiquated tanks, dangerous infantry fighting vehicles and a Black Sea flagship which was not modernised as planned in 2016. The Russian cruiser Moskva was sunk on 14 April. Even Hitler was smart enough to rename the German cruiser Deutschland to Lützow just before the war so when sunk, it wouldn’t function as a symbol.

Russia and Ukraine are both part of the Western Steppe. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was established in 1569 and the eastern border of the Commonwealth of Poland still marked the political landscape of Ukraine in 2010. In 2022 new lines are drawn.

Hermannsweg

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I spent my last days of my 2021 holiday allowance not far from the Teutoburger Wald in Germany. On top of the ridge of this middle mountain range lies the 156 kilometre long walking path Hermannsweg. It would take a full three days to walk the whole length. I only walked a small part. In the past I have walked many other parts of the path. The geology of this mountain range is very interesting.

It was formed around 70 million years ago when the African tectonic plate pushed against the Eurasian tectonic plate. At least it was assumed by geologists for a long time that the Alps were also formed by a proces of the southern tectonic plate bulldozing against the northern plate. But geophysicist Edi Kissling and sediment specialist Fritz Schlunegger have proposed a different theory. It is called the lift theory. If true the forces creating the Teutoburger Wald were more complicated than a simple push of a tectonic plate.

Islands in the sea

Germany in the late Cretaceous geological period called Maastrichtian, around 70 million years ago. The Cretaceous was a period with a relatively warm climate and The Netherlands and most of Germany was submerged under a warm ocean.

Osning-Sandstein

The first landmark you will pass, if you walk from west to east, are the Dörenther Klippen near Ibbenbüren. The jagged rocks are made of sandstone, 120 million year old (Early Cretaceous) sediment from the shallow sea around the Rheinische Masse (modern Sauerland, Eifel and Belgium Ardennes). The sandstone is called Osning-Sandstein. It was this sandstone which was pushed upwards 70 million years ago and formed the current landscape.

The fruit museum in Brochterbeck consists of a large piece of land with over a hundred different types of fruit trees with historic apple, pear, cherry and prune cultivars.

Looking for the Self

No matter how satisfied I should have been, being able to drive a very comfortable car to a beautiful spot in nature, it is hard to enjoy these moments alone. Every step I take in nature I still have to think about my last girlfriend, even though it has been many, many years since we walked together. I have to force myself to snap out of my gloomy thoughts. The last few years - even pre-pandemic - have been exceptionally lonely. But I kept myself busy so I wouldn’t notice. I took a 26-minute mindfulness meditation, led by Sam Harris on YouTube. Previously I have used his meditation Wake Up-app but I don’t like the subscription model. This is basically Vipassanā meditation. There is a path from Vipassanā to Chan Buddhism, which shares the notion of ‘sudden insight’. Sam Harris’ meditation deals with the problem of consciousness. What is consciousness? Is there a Self? Below a small excerpt from the 26-minute meditation. If felt much better afterwards.

[ eyes closed] 

“Everything that you notice is arising in the same space of consciousness. 

The sensations of your body, the sounds, feelings of fatigue or restlessness, whatever you sense or perceive is arising in consciousness in this moment.

Simply rest as that condition in which sounds and sensations and emotions arise and change and pass away. 

Take a moment to feel the sensations of your face and head. Perhaps it feels like your awareness is behind your face or in your head. But the feelings of your face and your head are in awareness in this moment. They are appearing in the same condition.

They are appearing in the same place where you are thinking. Your thoughts are not in your head, your awareness or conscious is not in your head. As a matter of experience everything is appearing moment by moment in consciousness. 

And this includes the feeling of having a head, of being behind your face, looking out at a world that is other than what you are.

In fact what you are calling the world is appearing in the same space.

Take a moment to open your eyes. And notice the apparent change in your experience. Now there is a sphere of light and color that you see. But what has changed?

What you see is appearing in the same space where thoughts and emotions and sensations and sounds are arising in each moment.”

“Your head must be very heavy, if you are carrying a rock like that in your mind.”

Vaccine tourism

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With a new SARS‑CoV‑2 mutation on the rise the latest insights are that two vaccines do not give the protection you need against the new omicron mutation. Unfortunately the Dutch government has been criminally late preparing for a third ‘booster’ vaccine campaign. In early December I was likely to be vaccinated somewhere in February 2022, 8 months after my second dose. By that time it is likely omicron has completely overtaken delta. By that time I would have worked at the Spielwarenmesse (International Toy Fair) in Nürnberg meeting hundreds of people from all over the world. I consider the risk of being infected with omicron over this winter close to 100%. That’s an unacceptable risk. Not only for me but also for my father and all other residents in his care home where he is rehabilitating from his pneumonia. I do visit him every weekend.

Even within the European Union vaccination programs have been national. On December 5 I read on Twitter that there is a vaccination center in Aachen, Germany, with a different view point. RapidCare is a private vaccination center and being close to The Netherlands and Belgium they decided nationality does not matter. And why should it? We are all part of the EU, the QR-code is valid in all of the EU countries, no matter which nationality you are. RapidCare was only opened on 4 December 2021, so I read the news pretty fast thanks to Twitter. The vaccination was completely free as in gratis.

I quickly booked an appointment for December 16, the first day of my week off. I consider this week as a personal circuit breaker. When I return to work my booster vaccine is effective and by then we know a little more about omicron, I hope.

The vaccination center in downtown Aachen.

There was a thirty minute lag between the vaccination and being able to retrieve my QR-code at a German pharmacy so I took time to have an early lunch with Reibekuchen (also named Kartoffelpuffer) at the Aachen Christmas market. In Bavaria these are named Reiberdatschi and they are basically very finely grated potatoes, fried and served with apple sauce. They are a Christmas market favourite.

I cannot load my data in the Dutch CoronaCheck app so I am using the German Corona-Warn app. The QR-code is valid in the EU so this is no problem. One would hope there would be a tighter collaboration between the EU countries.

Korea Town in Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is half way Aachen and Winterswijk so I took a small detour to downtown Düsseldorf for some shopping in one of the many Korean and Japanese grocery stores. There is also a large collection of Korean restaurants but it was Monday midday so I didn’t eat anywhere. Besides: I don’t enjoy eating solitary in restaurants and I have been eating alone too often now in the previous years. Koreans in Germany remain the second-largest group in Western Europe after the United Kingdom.

Hanaro market is one of the biggest Korean grocery stores. They have a pretty good selection. Unfortunately the table ware section was limited to the basics. I was happy to find myeongnanjeot 명란젓, fermented pollock roe. This is made by marinating the roe with salt, mirim, garlic, ginger and gochugaru 고추가루 for al least a couple of weeks.

Traditional Onggi (Korean: 옹기) for fermenting food.

Everything has its ending

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Not only the leaves are falling in November. The Chief Officer has left his post for the foreseeable future, which leaves me to rake the leaves. I have no idea how this story will end. There are no navigational stars to guide us. I should learn to find Polaris. My father is an expert in celestial navigation. He could sail the world’s oceans just by using a sextant and his maps.

Local wine from Hesselink: a Souvignier Gris. Gerhard Ensing has made the vineyard his life’s work.

Altweibersommer

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Maybe a better term would be ‘Indian summer’, since Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) and rose mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos) are both native to New Engeland.

Time of day: 09:45 am.

The wisteria in the back garden.

The Dutch are famous for wooden shoes. So I got myself a pair of brand new clogs. These low type of clogs are typical for the Achterhoek and called “Achterhoekse Leertjes Klomp” because of the leather strap. Until 1927 these clogs were made completely by hand, that year a machine was bought to speed up the production.

They are made of poplar wood and handmade by fourth generation craftsman Herman ten Hagen. He adjusted the leather straps to fit my feet. They are incredibly comfortable and well made. I am considering buying a second spare pair because there might not be a fifth generation clog maker. In Japan this man would be an official national treasure.

The craft of making wooden clogs with the help of a machine is official Dutch intangible heritage. https://www.immaterieelerfgoed.nl/nl/machinaalklompenmaken

Herman ten Hagen.