Here are some of my favorite misspellings I've encountered in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. Really, how hard is it to open Microsoft Word and hit spell check? Apparently a lot harder than I thought...

I am a Hmong woman. A wife, mother, daughter, sister, village member. I am Hmong. The Vietnamese tried to make us part of their culture once. Some people left my village, others were sent to jail for being Christian or Buddhist. Not my family. Our culture runs through our veins like the roots of the trees on the mountainside, and no one can take it from us. We have always been a part of the earth. My ancestors lived on and harvested this land for as long as time, farming chickens, goats and pigs and growing rice on the tiered mountainsides two seasons out of the year. The animals were fattened and saved for special occasions like holidays and family celebrations. Whatever was left from the rice harvest they would take to the village to sell. They didn’t make much, but it was enough for their simple lives. The men worked in the fields hand planting and picking the rice, and the women cared for the children—three sometimes four or five. 

Sometimes I think about the lives of my ancestors and the traditions they passed down to us; how to work the rice fields with water buffalo, the colorful hand woven head scarves we still wear and how to wrap cloth around our bare legs when it’s cold outside. It’s funny to think how much my life resembles theirs hundreds of years ago, yet how many things have changed with the influence of the Vietnamese and tourism.

It's a Tuesday morning. I wake up at five, dress my son, Liaj and walk him to school. I had two other children but they died as babies. It has always been just Liaj and me, but I recently got the joyous news that I an pregnant with my fourth child! Liaj just turned five and just started at the primary school built in my village last year. He is the first generation in my family to get an education. I am happy he can have the education I never got. I can’t read or write but I can speak English! 

After saying our goodbyes I catch a ride on a motorbike to the nearby Vietnamese town of Sapa. It is in the north of the country near the Chinese border and has become very popular with tourists in the past few years. I spend the day selling silver earrings, bracelets, woven scarves and purses made by me and my fellow villagers. 

I get to Sapa and there are tourists everywhere! I greet them saying, “hello, where are you from? What is your name?” and they turn around stunned at my English! Sometimes they answer me and sometimes they simply rush down the street ignoring my questions. 

I talk with the foreigners who do stop and tell them about my culture. Sometimes they even come to my village and I cook them lunch and invite them to stay the night with my family. I get out our nicest bowls, pick fresh greens from our garden and we all gather around the table for a meal sharing each other’s company laughing and drinking rice wine.  

The tourists say they don’t have meals like this at home. Their family eats different food at different times and they rarely see each other. This is hard for me to imagine. My family is the most important thing in my life. We share everything. 

Tonight the tourists have come. They ask me questions about my village and culture, trying to understand our lives. They look surprised to see my small house with dirt floors and a single bed that my husband, son and I share. They spend time playing with the village children and even give them crayons they have carried along as presents. We don’t have paper, but the kids are happy coloring on wood planks and smooth rocks. 

My mother, cousins and neighbors come over and we have a big dinner and sip rice wine all the while telling stories about our cultures. We live such different lives and I’m not sure they will ever understand our choice to live so simply, and I will never understand their busy schedules and separated families, but we have become friends and respect each other. 

Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up and return to Sapa hoping to sell my crafts to tourists. The tourists will give me the money I need to support my family, and I will give them memories to bring home to their countries. Maybe one day they will tell their children about the Hmong villages in Vietnam, and my children will grow up hearing stories from their far off lands and we will learn to listen to the sound of harmony growing stronger with each passing word. 

The chatters and shrieks of ten year olds flow from the windows of my bus as we roll through the Vietnamese countryside. The floor is stacked several boxes high with ceramic tiles and a kitchen sink is blocking the isle, so anyone wishing to pass must shrewdly shuffle around the corners or jump over the beast. I can’t decide if it’s a school bus or a hardware store delivery van. We just stopped to pick up more passengers and a thirty something lady slipped into the seat next to me, placing her hand on my leg. Awkward.

 While I am debating whether to casually move my leg over or wiggle it a little, she looks down, acknowledging the position, raises her hand and replaces it, now grasping my knee. She clearly wants it here...maybe its my new $8 Ferrari brand jeans? Irresistible. Oh, and did I mention someone just started playing the Titanic soundtrack? Thank you Vietnam, my heart will go on. 

How did I become part of this bus circus anyway? It all started with my Halong Bay trip. After an excruciating van ride packed to the brim with tourists locals and luggage, a few run ins with rude tour operators and a hilariously awkward evening on a boat with two Chinese couples, five German guys and a very young Vietnamese girl coupled with an old fat Dutch man (sex tourism anyone?) I found myself wandering around Cat Ba Island in Halong Bay.

Me and a fellow German were shuffled around the island for a day hiking through a national park and wandering around town. When it was time for us to get back on our junk boat for the night the tour guide put us on an unmarked van which dropped us at the harbor where we were instructed to wait for said school bus turned Home Depot delivery truck. 

After driving for an hour through the countryside, dropping the school children at their respective homes and delivering the building materials, the German guy and I were the only people remaining on the bus. Much to my surprise we actually made it to the harbor where we waited another hour with a collection of tour guides and boat captains, the German feeding them rum shots all the while, shooting the breeze and waiting for our boat to arrive.

Once again, much to my surprise, a boat emerged from the foggy bay to pick up the two lone tourists waiting at the harbor. The name of the boat was Halong Bay Party Cruiser, which I must admit, did live up to its name. My new tour guide—this time a more amiable and energetic character—kicked off the evening with a Backstreet Boys karaoke debut along with some sort of tai chi flailing arms dance moves. It was stellar. After that the four dollar bottles of vodka started rolling and we sang the night away. This country never ceases to amaze me. 

Some pictures from my three day boat excursion to Halong Bay, coined one of the seven natural wonders of the world!