the end of 2012

This Posanu tower used to belong to the kingdom of Champa...which kind of got absorbed into being Vietnam (they said "annexed" but toemaytoe-toemahtoe). The Cham people still exist but scattered over Southeast Asia.

Vietnam likes to act the victim, complaining China's bullying them, but in this case it victimizes another country. Tsk tsk.

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Today was our 2nd tour. We went up Ta Cu mountain to see the giant buddha, then visited a dragon fruit farm, a whale museum, and the Posanu tower.

There are a lot of fishing villages in Vietnam, and the fishermen worship the whale as their protector. Whenever a dead whale washed up on their shore, the Vietnamese give them a proper burial ritual. They save the whale bones for worshiping. The museum we went to supposedly has hundreds of whale bones, but we only saw one giant set.

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My New Year Eve welcome was rather anti-climatic. I stayed up to wait for the New Year party -- I figured since I'm in an area with a lot of foreigners, something might happened. But nothing happened at midnight. However, thirty minutes after got in bed there were sudden cheering and celebration in the street. What happened? Why was there a delayed? I was confused. But it made me feel at home to hear celebration.