More Sweet Corals!

Hello everyone. Here are some lps's to enjoy - Eddie.

Killer red Ricordea yumas!

Some nice blastomussas, green yumas, and a red goniopora!

True Indo Scolymia vitiensis. These corals are relatively new to the trade. It is only after that I put the word out to the suppliers that the demand started to rise. They usually come in from the fishermen heavily stressed. These corals really need to be quarantined for a little time to adjust. Under halides, these beauties turn brick red!

Cute little double headed red lobophyllia!

Heliofungias are not that respected in the hobby. A quite shame as specimens like this are truly gorgeous!

A deepwater branching lobophyllia. These are always favorites of my customers. These are insane looking under 20k's!

A stressed echinophyllia. If it is too new and shipped to Jakarta or Bali from Sulawessi, the edges always get damaged. This is another coral that needs to rest for some days before being shipped.

Take a look at these babies! Sky blue center with orange skirts - nice!

$Brown caulastreas are dime a dozen. But the speckled red Makassar zoos are not. When I first sent these to the US, an online vendor got hold of them from my distributor and were selling $50 a head! Very rare and always a few heads on one rock.

Metallic red blastomussa with green mouths!

Intense trachyphyllias and Cynarina donuts - my specialty!

A small Acanthastrea lordhowensis and a nice yuma.

Some nice blastos! I hand pick each piece from hundreds, but still trying to find an ultra colored one is hard.

A basket full of donuts. Note the big one on the right. The bulge you see on the bottom of the specimen is actually a daughter donut budding out! Way cool!

Another special Makassar zoos. These are intense orange!

A pair of cool chalices!

A large colony of blue palys. These are extremely rare and everybody wants them!

Ok so this lobophyllia - acanthastrea looking coral has been a mystery to me. It superficially resembles a scolymia and comes in this green and sometimes orange. If it is orange, it forms a green edge under artificial lighting. After much research, I have come to the conclusion that this coral is an Echinomorpha nishihirai!

Conclusion

Ok guys, that is it for today. For the next post, I will attempt to shoot another video with my camera. My shipment to the US have been delayed and I have some of the corals quarantining under a 150 watt double ended 14k metal halide pendant.

Cheers,
Eddie

Sweet SPS!

Hello everyone. Here are some acros and montis that I found on a recent trip. Keep in mind that I'm taking these pictures inside an old building with natural light - Eddie.

A very bad picture of a nice encrusting montipora. This one has huge white polyps, kind of like a Montipora mollis.

Purple base with orange polyps. This is the Indonesian version of the "Superman monti". The polyps can color up under halides.

Intense purple Acropora desalwii!

Cute little wild tenuis!

Here is one acropora that is not too common. This one appears to be very close to an Acropora vaughani. Fluorescent green with purple tips - beautiful!

A tabling tenuis. This one is yellow with purple blue tips!

A young colony of Acropora natalensis. The branches usually fuse together in this species. Hard to tell but the branches on the left side are starting to. Note the crazy whitish purple new growth on the tips!

Beautiful little colony of encrusting montipora. There are large number of species that are very similar. But this one appears to be a Montipora undata. Nice green body with purple rim!

Another large undata. It looks like a large frag was broken off before on the left side. Gorgeous!

Can't make out the colors but this is another Superman monti. The brown polyps are actually orange!

Another encrusting montipora. This one grows upwards rather than plates. The purple is really dark, contrasts well with the whitish tips! My guess is that this is a Montipora spumosa.

Another beautiful encrusting montipora. This one is a Montipora monasteriata. It has dark green polyps. Some of these polyps can morph into an orange color, making it into rainbow monti!

A very bad picture of one of my favorite acros. This is an Acropora selago. I have yet to see it under halides but I know it is nice. My guess is that this shade of green will look green-blue under 20k's! Relatively rare since I only find one piece on a given trip.

Montipora verrucosa! Perfect small colony. The base is yellow-green with purple polyps. The Montipora capitata looks very similar to this but usually grows in a branch form.

A rare green morph of Acropora turaki! Normal colors on this relatively rare coral is yellow or brown. I think it has a chance to get blue tips under artificial lighting.

A beautiful show sized tabling Acropora jacquelineae! Note the blue tips. This is a truly unique piece with no damage. Usually thin branched acros like this always get damaged when collected. Unfortunately, it did get damaged when it was shipped from East Java to Jakarta. These are the risks when handling brittle deep water acros like this.

Here is one seriotopora species that is not so common. This is the Seriotopora caliendrum - beautiful purple-pink. You can tell the difference between the hystrix species below.

This is the common species of Seriotopora, the hystrix. This one is another one that is hard to ship. Some branches always break during transport to Jakarta.

Crazy show sized tabling Acropora loripes - a fragger's dream. It is dark green with purple tips!

Nice assortment of sps's!

These are my picks. Those undatas are unreal. Look how much color they have under a warehouse light. I'll try to get a picture under halides. Funny thing about montis, I haven't found one capricornis type that I would consider to be "nice". They are all brown or green with slight purple rim.

Conclusion

These are some of the sps's that I found on this trip. Coming up are the lps's. I posted the pictures before but I'm working on the text now. So within the next few days, I'll post them again.

Cheers,
Eddie

Belize Angels!

Hi everybody. Just so you know, I'm back in Bali for a few days to look for corals.

Let's take a break from my "Vietnam Adventures", to talk about a set of Caribbean angelfish from Belize. My friend has these fish in stock right now in the US and I am helping him to spread the word. He has hundreds and already has distributors in Hong Kong and China, but is looking for customers in other countries. These fish are very valuable outside of the United States. I'm even looking for customers here in Indonesia.

These unique set of angels are fully quarantined and ready to ship. Each fish will be handpicked by a professional fish geek! This was part of the deal as I didn't want any disappointed customers that I refer. These are my blog followers and I wanted them to be happy:) If you are interested, send me an e-mail for more info and I would be happy to refer you to him. My e-mail is joylucktp2000@yahoo.com.

A full grown French angelfish, Pomacanthus paru. This angel gets very big and has beautiful yellow gold flakes on its dark body. Great for public aquariums!

Of course the most well known and desired species of angelfish from the Caribbean is the queen angel, Holacanthus ciliaris. There seems to be two morphs in the hobby. One is the more yellow type and the other is more the blue kind. The Belize ones appear to be the more blue ones.

The grey angel, Holacanthus arcuatus. When young it has bright yellow stripes. Later when it get bigger, the stripes go way and the overall color changes. Not the most spectacular of the angelfishes, but still unique shape and endemic to the Caribbean!

A juvenile blue angel, Holacanthus bermudensis. These are extremely pretty and resembles the queen angel. Sometimes a rare hybrid between the two will come in.

The rock beauty, Holacanthus tricolor. A smaller species of angel, but very distinctive. The juvenile of this fish is extremely nice, resembling a lemon peel angel, except for a large black spot on it's body.

A couple of junvenile blue angels and a rock beauty. Note the intense blue color on the finnage of the blue angel.

A close up of the French angel curiously posing for a picture.

A closeup view of the queen angel - just beautiful!

Ok guys, that is it. My friend specializes in these four angels from Belize, brings in weekly shipments. You can also inquire about other fish from that area as well.

Cheers,
Eddie

Life in the Country! Part 3

Hello everyone. So let's continue onto my Vietnam adventures.

We got off the boat and onto this clearing. We had reached my father in law's rice patty. Note the plot of land to the left. This is where my wife grew up. When she was young, the family used to have their house here.

It really is nice. There is a cool breeze sweeping through the patties!

Remember the water grass that is used to feed the cows? This local just harvested some and is carrying it on his bicycle.

One of my favorite things to do, when we get to the rice patties, is to roast sweet potatoes. Here is Anne breaking off small pieces of dried wood from a thin branch for kindling.

Some dried leaves and presto, a little fire!

Some dried rice stalks to help with the fire.

The trick is to keep the fire going so the ashes stay hot to cook the sweet potatoes.

And here we are. A little burnt but smelling good!

Peel off the skin and how sweet it is! Something about cooking outdoors, it always taste better.

Some sugar canes to wash down the starch. Nothing gets better!

So while we were busy roasting and eating sweet potatoes, Anne's father showed up on his motorbike. He comes everyday before the sun goes down to herd his ducklings to a shelter. Then in the morning, he comes and lets them loose again to run around in the rice patties for the day. He uses a stick with a rag to herd the ducks. It is really neat, as you don't see the little ducks but you see the rice moving as they start to panic and move toward the shelter.

This is the makeshift shelter for the little guys.

And here they are. These are still young ones. They will change into white color as they get older. My father in law raises these guys partly to feed his pet snake! It looks like a Burmese python and ate five of them in a row at one time. I'll have pictures on my last post from the Vietnam series.

So the little one fell while walking along the rice patty. Anne's brother road with his father to take the nephew back home.

I didn't get to do much fishing, as it was getting dark and we had to get back. But here is the older nephew trying his luck before we left. I did get to do some fishing and will let you know all about it on my final post from the Vietnam series.

Anne's father had planted these banana trees along the rice patty some time ago. Let's just say that we always had fresh babanas to eat everyday!

As were getting to leave, a local lady in a bicycle rode by, telling us that some of the branches of the banana trees had brocken off. I guess the bananas were too heavy.

So we walked up the trail and picked the little green guys. These little green guys turn into yellow guys fast, in the hot weather. Note Anne's brother had returned riding a bicycle.

And here we are, getting to sail off again to go home.

Looking down into the water, this apple snail caught my eye. These guys are a menace to the rice. These feed on young rice shoots and other vegetation. They literally can be seen all over. I remember seeing flyers in the US distributed by the fish and wildlife warning against the importation of these snails. I guess some had hitchhiked onto freshwater plants and somehow they ended up in California waters. They are highly prolific and lay eggs all the time.

The locals really don't eat these. Rather, they are caught and boiled and fed to the fish. Many locals raise fish in their moats. The meat is taken out of the cooked snails and chopped up before being fed to the fish.

Here is what the eggs look like. The bright pink color makes them very conspicuous.

Here is another picture of the eggs clinging onto a water plant.

The sun was setting by this time and we hurried back home. Sorry for the blurred picture, but I took this photo of the local children as the sun was setting. I couldn't help but think to myself, what kind of a future lies for these unpriveledged youngsters.

So we got back just in time for dinner. Afterwards, we roasted some dried squid as a snack. Dip them in tobasco and it's "all good"!

Here is a close up of the dried squid. The smaller ones are more tender and taste better than the larger ones. Funny thing is that I haven't been able to find these here in Indonesia!

Then a couple of rounds of "Uno" helps with family ties! Interesting story, Uno is not available in Vietnam. For those of you that don't know the game, it is a simple but highly addicting card game. You can play with two or more players. Anyways, back in the early days of coming to Vietnam, I brought this game with me. I forgot about it until one evening, when the power went out. Nothing to do, but I remembered the game. So under candle light, I showed everyone how to play Uno. After that, everyone was hooked. We played for hours on end. Then played some more in the morning, and the evening. It was cool, as it got everyone together as a family to play this silly little game. Me and Anne always bring a deck when we fly anywhere, she likes to play on the plane. She likes to play because I let her win:).

I also introduced the game to my Filipno divers back in the Tonga days! Once they learned how to play, it was whole lot of fun. I really miss those guys. They used to call me "boss" and tell me fish stories. Some of them had worked in Saudi Arabia, Pulau, and Vanuatu. One of their cousins had worked as a diver in Vietnam in Nha Trang (my next story) for a company that exported aquarium fish! Once the topic came up while playing Uno, I let the guys use my cell phone to call the cousin in the Philipines to get more information. I needed to know if there were blue tangs there. At the time, this fish became scarce and our customers were scrambling to get some. From Tonga, we were lucky to get a few pieces here and there.

Well it turned out that the diver worked for only six months. The company owners didn't know what they were doing and shut down and he was sent home. But I did learn that they used to go out days at a time catching blue tangs. From their discription, it looked like they used to catch the fish in the gulf of Thailand. Of course my interest in setting up a Vietnam station skyrocketed. All the guys wanted to go to Vietnam and catch fish for me! I already knew Vietnam had nice clams and soft corals. Add to that, that my wife is Vietnamese and her family members can help run the station.

Talking about working fast, in a matter of months, I hooked up with a Vietnamese exporter who was struggling. The facility was right next to the sea and it had huge potential. The idea was to bring in Filipino divers and fish manager/packers to Vietnam. Our divers would work with local Vietnamese divers to catch fish. I also had planned on working with my friend Robert from Aquatic Specialties to bring in Steve Robinson again to train our divers on decompression and to catch fish nondestructively. I had a bunch of used acrylic tanks that I was going to send to Vietnam to set up a fish system. For the corals, to start, we were just going to buy from suppliers and fishermen. I figured that it was just training the local fishermen what we wanted. Of course, corals and fish do come from all over Vietnam, not just from Nha Trang. Also I would bring my brother in law's family to help run the place. And the best part is that I had a financial backer to do this. All was set and I shook hands with the Vietnam exporter and told him I'll be back in a few months to start the project.

Well, it would have worked out fine but my Tonga operation started falling apart. I had to put the Vietnam project on hold. I contacted my wife (still there waiting for her interview), to contact the exporter and let him know that we have to postpone the project. Don't get me wrong, I would never had pursued the Vietnam thing if I didn't get the green light from my partner and my guys in Tonga. Tonga was my priority and I had the full support of my team, or so I thought. It would take me pages to write what happend next, so I'll save that for another time.

In the end, the Vietnam exporter decided to go on his own. Afterall, it was over a year by the time I returned to Vietnam. My financial backer for the operation was also gone. No one could wait for me, but I don't blame them. I had so much opportunities come up during my days in Tonga. All these doors and possibilities were opening up. Here is a few of them that I could have followed up if I didn't get screwed out of Tonga.

1. Tonga - fish and wild corals. Aquacultured clams and corals.
Special aquaculture project aimed at Petco. Robert and I called it the
Petco Project. Basically a set of aquacultured corals that could handle
the lighting and conditions of Petco stores. It would be easy corals
for beginning reefers. All the corals (12 species) would have a separate
mount that would plug into aquacultured liverock. Anthony Calfo came
out to consult me on this special project. This was one of the reasons
why I returned to Tonga after I got shafted by my first partner.
If I could develop it, Robert could sell it. Robert is one of the few Petco
distributors in the US. It was potentially a multimillion dollar deal.

Also, in Tonga, the possibility of setting up an eco-tourism. We had the
perfect aquaculture facility, we would work with local dive outfits, have
a lesson in catching fish with nets, plant corals back in the reefs, etc.. I
had all sorts of good ideas. I saw the potential right away and I did
invest some money into bringing some people to evaluate the
eco-tourism idea. The prospects looked good. I talked to a few
government people about it and they were really excited. Tourists bring
money to the economy. And here is the best part, I already had clients
that was interested. These were my maintenance customers, really
wealthy people! But, along with all the other good ideas that I
had, it all washed away when I got screwed. But I try not to look back,
rather see the glass half full instead of half empty. Afterall, there is
something I didn't loose and actually gained - experience.

Oh did I mention that I did develop the aquacultured corals for Petco:)

2. Vietnam - you know the story.
3. Vanuatu- someone with a new license asked us to join them. Fish and
aquaculture were the possibilities.
4. Samoa - we had a way in through a special connection. Many people
have tried but failed. Samoa is similar to Fiji, the village chief also
is in charge of the reefs, gets tricky. Did I mention there are flame
angels and lots of blue tangs? Aquaculture? Me and Robert had big
plans.
5. Philippines- through the network of my Filipino divers in Tonga, I was
eyeing Cebu in the future. Cebu is known for their high quality fish and
huge diversity in inverts. My divers have family there that can help with
everything. For about $10,000 US dollars, I can purchase an existing
facility and be in business in no time. My divers network would play a
keyrole.
6. Hawaii - this would be cake since it is the US and I can speak the
language! From here, I can have access to the Christmas and Marshall
Island fish. The idea was to set up a tranship station there. I would
bring in fish from Tonga and Samoa and other places and re-export
along with local fish. Imagine, having all the different types of fish
available on the stocklist. The idea was that if a customer can get all the
different types of fish from one supplier, they would! In the aquarium
fish world, there are three fish that I consider to be most valuable. This
is the flame angel, the yellow tang, and the blue tang. All are in limited
numbers and thus high priced. As a supplier, if you have these three fish
at all times in good quantities, you will rule! You simply leverage these
three to sell all of the other fish.

The best thing of course is that I had customers already globally. In the US, I had my friend Robert to distribute my stuff. Indonesia was not on my list of places to setup, but here I am writing this blog from Jakarta! I do have plans to implement some of my ideas here in Indo.

One of them is eco-tourism. Since islands like Bali is already a tourist trap, it would be easy to network through them. Of course, my idea would be geared towards the reefers. I'm thinking after some days of having fun with coral stuff, go island hopping! Imagine flying to Komodo Island to check out the dragons. Then spend the night and the next day, fly to Kalimantan (Borneo) to spend a day or two working with orangutans and taking a hike through the jungles. Afterwards, fly out to Irian Jaya to dive and check out the reefs! These are just a few of my cool ideas. We can talk more once I make some money:)!

Ok, what happened here. I totally lost track of time and got off the subject. It really is funny. I didn't plan on writing all of this on this post but one thing led to another and here we are. So let's finish up this post.

After some rounds of Uno, everyone goes to sleep. The sleeping time is around eight or eight thirty. I can't sleep this early, so me and the brother stay up and watch a movie. Anne tries to watch too but gets too sleepy and heads for the bed. I can't blame her as she wakes up around 6 am. Here are some of the "boot legged" video cd's that we bought before. I like the old Hong Kong movies when the actors like Jackie Chan and Jet Li were young.
Here are some of the American movies. Each video cd cost between $.40 to $.60, a bit expensive considering you can get a copied dvd for low as $.75 here in Indo.

Conclusion

Ok guys, that is it. So after the movie, I usually end up going to sleep, or try to. If I have my computer (remember the keyboard went out and took forever to get it fixed), then I'll do some work for a while, but my eyes get tired. As a matter of fact, it is 3 am right now and my eyes are drooping!

But before signing off, here is what is coming up next. This is an entrance to an aquarium on an island off of Nha Trang. This beautiful seaside city was made famous recently because Miss Universe pagent was held here not too long ago. Remember our beloved US representative tripping and getting disqualified? Nha Trang has beautiful beaches and has coral reefs. We took a tour around the islands and I have lots to share. Coming up, "Nha Trang - Vietnam"

Cheers,
Eddie

Life in the Country! Part 2

Hello everyone. So let's start our little journey up the stream and see what we find.

So the tide was slack, meaning that the currents were at standstill. When the tide is going out, there is a current to the right - leading out to the main river. When the water is coming back in, the current moves to the left.

My sister in law took the stern(back) of the boat.

And Anne took the bow (front) of the boat. I sat in the middle, getting a freed ride - yah let the girls do the work:)!

The scenery is unbelievable! It is like out of a movie. All kinds of trees and plants grow out into the water. The depth seemed to be only about 3-4 feet. So if the boat ever turned over, at least I can stand and carry the little nephews out.

A cow staring at us with interest!

Here is me and my nephews. The older one is eight and the younger one is almost two years old.

Some people don't have access to running water. Here is one local washing dishes in the canal. These people collect and drink rain water. This is a common practice in many undeveloped countries. I remember drinking rainwater all the time in Tonga when I used to stay way out in the boonies.

Watch your head!

We ran into these fern looking water plants. The were literally growing in our paths.

Then the ferns got taller!

We were really into the shrubbery - lots of fun!

As you can see, our path got narrow. The ferns and water palms were growing all over the place.

These water palms are used to make roof tops of houses and buildings. They are weaved and dried. The locals harvest them regularly and sell them to distributors. Some from this bunch already has been cut down. Note the small brown bundles sticking out? These are the palms and you can eat the seeds.

Here is Giang, Anne's younger sister steering the boat. I tried to paddle and control the boat from the back before, but just kept going in circles!

Someone's fish trap. These things are everywhere, usually if front of the owner's house. Basically there is a small opening that the fish enter. Once in, they cannot find their way out. Because the water ways are all connected, fish from the big river can wander into these small tributaries. Many end up in the rice patties and cannot get out.

And here is the bridge that we crossed earlier.

Someone's small boat conveniently parked underneath the bridge.

Some fallen dead trees blocking our way!

Finally we came out of the brushwork. There is a dirt road that runs parallel to the canal. The road leads to the rice patties. Note the cemetery in the background.

Out here in full sunlight, different type of water plants were growing.

This stretch of water was really narrow.

These large grass looking plants are used to feed cows.

Along the way, we picked up Anne's brother.

Check out this old fish trap. The netting is missing, so it hasn't been used in a long time. The way it works is that a netting is sprawled out at the end of the long poles. Then through a hinge system, the whole contraption is lowered down into the water. The trick is to lay the netting on top of the fish all the way to the bottom, trapping the fish. The fish will get stuck on the netting on it's fins or scales. Then the whole unit is lifted back up with fish dangling. Then it is just a matter of removing the fish. I've seen this type of trap in action and I got to tell you, it is very effective. I once saw a woman with a bucket full of fish that she caught with this type of a trap, though her's was a smaller hand held version. She would simply walk along the bank and drop the netting at random places.

My wife Anne looking very Vietnamese!

A house way out in nowhere. The people that live way out here are very poor. The houses are simple they have no electricity or running water.

Someone's boat sitting in a "garage".

Then we came across a low bridge. Anne hopped on to the makeshift crossing to lift one of the logs so we can pass.

After we passed, she hopped back onto to the boat.

Some of the numerous makeshift shelters for the farm animals. Note the roof is made out of the water palm plants.

This farmer raises ducks. It is not for the meat, but for the eggs. Remember the balut that we talked about on the last post? This is one of Anne's sister's egg suppliers. The husband goes and buys eggs from these people everyday.


It got really shallow as we moved along. The long oar is touching the bottom. It couldn't have been more than two feet deep at this spot.

A local farmer going to spread medicine on his precious rice.

Another house along the canal bank. I really feel sorry for these people, but I guess that is just the way it is. One of my wife's goals in life is to come back to her village and help the poor people. Growing up, her family used to live out here, so she knows how it is. Later, you will see where her house used to be.

Another bridge. Good thing it is tall enough so we can go under:)

Another fish trap. I've seen these similar designs in Tonga, except that it was one hundred times the size. These traps are laid out on the shores. When the tide goes out, the fish get stranded. When the tide comes in, new fish come with it and get trapped again. So it is very effective and the fish are simply picked up on low tide.

Then we finally reach our destination.

Conclusion

Ok guys that is it for today. The boat ride is simply marvelous. For the locals, it is no big thing because they see it everyday. But for a city folk like me, it is truly breathtaking. It really brings me back memories of my childhood days in Korea. I grew up in the country just like this, minus the banana and coconut trees!

Here is what is coming up next. We start a small fire to roast sweet potatoes!

Cheers,
Eddie

Life in the Country!

Hello everyone. I'm now back in Indonesia. I tried one more time to post before I left Vietnam, but the internet cafe was busy hosting a computer test for students for the local school. I have much to share about life in Vietnam. So for the next few posts, it will be dedicated to my "Vietnam Adventures". The following is an account of one day in the country.

So a typical day in the country side of Vietnam starts out at around 5 am. Surprisingly even my wife gets up this early. Typically around 6 am, she goes to the local market to buy food for the day. Since fresh foods are available everyday and most locals don't have refrigerators (although we have one), they simply buy just enough for the day.

I get up around 8 am and by then, Anne (my wife) is back from the market with some things to eat for breakfast. I normally don't eat breakfast, so I just eat a little and wait for lunch for my first meal. Then we are off to town to check e-mail. It is a 45 minute motor bike ride into town. The road is small but the scenery is really picturesque.

Water is everywhere around this part of Vietnam. This small tributary eventually leads out to the mighty Mekong River.

A hand made bridge to cross over to the houses on the otherside. There are small "real bridges" but are far in between. So the locals makeshift this type of crossing where it is convenient.

Some water buffaloes along the road.

We cross over numerous bridges to get to the town. The water is really muddy and fluctuates with the tide. This is one of the bigger tributaries that leads to the Mekong.

The scenery is beautiful. Note the water buffaloes near the stack of dried rice stalks.

Once we got to town. I spent an hour or two on the computer at the internet place. Afterwards, we headed to a place to get my wife's shoe repaired. She had just bought the pair and the heal on one of the shoe had fallen off.

Here is my wife (Anne) while waiting for the shoe to be repaired.

Also while waiting, I noticed this cool looking electric bicycle! This thing is made in China and runs on a charge of battery. After the battery goes low, you can pedal and ride like a normal bicycle. Kind of cute looking and is very popular in Vietnam. I don't see too many of these though here in Indo.

A close up view of the "Robo" bicycle. Notice the springs. It must have a good ride!

Here is a picture of a motorbike made by the same company. It definitely has style!

After the shoe got repaired, we headed to my favorite pho noodle soup place. This place is it for pho! I've eaten at dozen's of places all over Vietnam for the traditional beef soup, but this place is the best by far. I live in the Bay Area where there are lots of Vietnamese pho places and can't compare. The trick would be to learn the secret recipe for the soup base and open up a place in the US. For sure, you would have lines out the door!

So here you have it. This is the normal size bowl for pho in Vietnam. For some reason when the idea of this soup went to the US, it became three times the size. So next time you order "number one" from the menu, think about this post:). But seriously, pho is a very competitive business. It is like having your own secret recipe. It is kind of like KFC's secret original formula or like Coca-cola. Oh man, makes me hungry looking at the picture! And oh yah, this bowl cost only $.65. Actually the price went up since the last time I was there. Two years ago, it was only $.45.

While we were waiting for our beef noodle soup, a grandmother came by our table selling these lottery tickets. I'm not sure when the lottery was implemented, but it was a great idea. Not that gambling is good or anything, but these tickets are sold by individuals. So it gives the umemployed, the elderly, the very young, the handicapped, people something to do to make a living. These people get commission for selling each ticket. They probably don't get much but hey still it is something to do to put food on the table. My wife always buy one or two if it is a grandmother or a handicap person that comes by to sell. Everywhere you go, these things are sold.

Each ticket cost a little less than $.30 and you can win around $8000 if you hit all the numbers! Nothing like the US lotteries, but hey that is still a lot of money in Vietnam. You have the option of buying multiple tickets with the same number. So if you buy two winning tickets, then you can win $16,000. The numbers are drawn daily and I guess people do win. My wife's younger brother won $800 from a ticket! That is a huge amount of money, considering that is what a family makes from one harvest of rice - if they are lucky- and there are only three harvests a year. And remember, growing rice is back breaking!

After slurping down the little bowl of pho, it was time to head back home. I stay with my inlaws in a middle income house. Down the road a little, my wife's older sister and her husband has a little business selling duck eggs called "balut". The Filipinos also have this in their cuisine. Basically what it is, is a fertilized duck egg that is boiled and eaten. The eggs are incubated anywhere from 10-15 days, depending on what people want. The eggs are not cheap and considered a delicacy. This family business has really taken off. I remember the last time I was there two years ago. Because of the bird flu scare, people were kind of avoiding the duck eggs. But now everyone even keeps chickens without being afraid.

Anne's sister's husband is an expert in this business. He has taught my wife's youger brother how to take care of the eggs. So these days, mostly he goes around buying eggs from farmers while the younger brother does the caring of the embryos. I'll have more information on this topic in a later post.

While we were at the "egg place", this kid came by on a bicycle selling Vietnamese sandwiches.

Soft French bread and barbecued pork!

He would roast the bread on this little plate and put the goodies inside.

And here it is. I like the soft bread instead of the hard crunch versions that is only available in the US in making these sandwiches. Want to know the price? The dollar fluctuates between 16,000 to 17,000 dong. This little snack only cost 2000 dong! You do the math while I eat three of them!

After stuffing myself with the sandwiches, I told my wife that I wanted to go fishing. We went back to her house and grabbed this little macheti to cut down bamboo trees for the fishing poles.

We walked along this little dirt path that leads us to my wife's uncle house down a little ways. He has bamboo trees and we could take some. There are lots of bamboo everywhere but they belong to someone and there seems to be a code of honor going around in the village. For example later you will see all the banana trees along my father in laws rice land, but no one touches the bananas.

One thing about Vietnam near the Mekong Delta is that each house is surrounded by a series of moats of water. These ponds are all connected to the main river system through canals and pipes. So the tide fluctuates daily. This tide is what keeps the water clean. The water is muddy because of sediment, not garbage or sewered. So the ponds are used to grow fish, shrimps, plants etc.. But each house does have a pond that is used as a bathroom. They have a certain type of catfish that I call "bathroom fish" that sit and wait for the "chunks" to fall from the sky! Of course they get fed daily and how much food they get depends on how many household members there are. But the water in these "toilets" never smell. They may look a little more green than usual, but a good portion of the water gets changed everyday with the tide! So there is a natural water change going on two times a day.

Here is one with lots of water plants growing. These makeshift toilets can be seen all over in the village. I will share a funny story with you later when I used this toilet for the first time.

Here is one moat with a boat. This channel of water must lead directly out to a bigger canal system.

Here you can see how the water passes from one pond to another. Notice the pipe is made from a hollowed out coconut tree!

We came across this bridge. Later on we will take a boat ride and see this bridge.

My wife Anne with her nephews.

Here is a view of the canal from the bridge. Later on we will be taking a boat ride down this path - very cool!

The path lead us to this clearing. The landscape is just beautiful!

Then we found the bamboos! Here I am chopping down one of them.

The guy in the background is my wife's uncle.

Here is Anne chopping off the branches of the bamboo!

And I am the proud owner of four fresh cut bamboos! I really look Vietnamese!

Here is the rig for fishing. A little bobber and a little hook.

A quick dig into the moist soil (it had rained the night before) for some worms and we are good to go.

That same canal we crossed over, runs right behind my inlaws house. Note the the clothes drying. Anne gets up very early to handwash my stuff!

We borrowed this boat from her uncle up the stream. My inlaws have a boat too, but it developed a hole since the last time I road in it two years ago. We will take the boat to my father in law's rice land and go fishing.

Conclusion

Ok folks, that is it for today. In a few days, I will post again and we will go up the stream and check out all the exciting things.

Here is a preview of what is coming up on the next post. I felt I was in movie filming the Anaconda series - way cool!!

Cheers,
Eddie

Vietnam Clams and Corals!

Hello everyone. So let’s continue on with corals and clams from Vietnam!

The most abundant giant clam species is the Tridacna crocea. “Giant” seems to be the wrong term as this particular clam species does not grow very big. The biggest ones I’ve seen are only about eight inches. The ones pictured here were about four inches.

The best “ultra grade” croceas used to come out of the Solomon Islands. I’m not sure about now with all the restrictions going on. This does not take anything away from the Vietnam counterparts. It’s just that ultra ones are not that common. Most are, what I would consider first grade, such as these pictured here.

As you can see, some of them are very nice. Keep in mind that I'm taking pictures under natural lighting. So just imagine how they would look under halides.

For size and overall color, Vietnam croceas are a staple in the reef hobby. Surprisingly I haven’t seen any at the sea food fish markets. This tells me that most of the clams are coming from far off the coast. I’m thinking that the fishermen are going east towards Philipines for these clams. As a matter of fact, there is a set of islands halfway to PI that my Filipino divers used to tell me about. They used to pool together and rent a big boat that went for days at a time to a set of islands halfway to Vietnam. Here they would stay for days catching purple firefish, then head back.

Here are some of the second grade croceas, as I would call them.

Me and my girl at the facility, Bryan took this picture.

So there is nothing fancy about the “farm” as we would call it in Indonesia. Simple and practical is all that is needed. Although a nice show tank with some halides would be very cool! Sorry guys, just the reefer in me coming out!

All throuhgout the facility, you can see these hand made skimmers.

Don’t laugh as this homemade skimmer is kicking butt!

Vietnam has some of the most striking zoanthids in the world! Unfortunately Van didn’t have any in stock. These are just some of the more common ones. This supplier has orders all the time, so corals come and go. He showed me some pictures of the zoos that I was looking for. Sure enough, he knew exactly what I was talking about. I will post some pictures as soon as I get hold of some.

I’ve seen some killer mushrooms coming out of Vietnam in the past. Metallic reds and blues, yuma rocks covered with nice heads. The mushroom pictured above is nice too. Good size rock with good coverage. The colors are blue-green.

Check out this nice red bullseye mushroom rock!

Giant hairy mushrooms anyone? I really haven’t seen these in Indonesia but in Tonga, they are known as lavendar mushrooms. Each head can get gigantic sizes!

A tank full of green-brown carpet anemones. I was told that not much colors were available on the carpets. Still some of the green ones looked really nice.

Here’s a close up of the carpet anemones. Based on the markings on the base, these look like gigantea species.

Some more giant hairy mushrooms. The one in the center is especially nice!

Sorry for the blurred picture, but you can still make out the nice purple-blue colors!

Another Rhodactis inchoata rock (bullseye). There appears to be many different color morphs of this particular mushroom species.

A Heteractis magnifica (Ritteri) anemone clinging to the side of one of the tanks. Based on this one specimen, I can guess that there are very nice ones in Vietnam waters.

Again sorry for the blurred picture. This one is metallic green. I’ve seen elegances that have purple tips in local public aquariums before. So I think it is safe to say that Vietnam does have nice elegance corals. I wonder how their survivability is, compared to the ones in Indonesia. I rarely see signs of diseased elegances in Indonesia. I think the stress from shipping is the main reason for the low survivability of these beautiful corals.

Sorry for the bad picture, but these are green bubble corals (Plerogyra sinuosa). It is nice to see that there are other colors besides brown. I’ve seen only brown ones at other places in Vietnam.

Just a quick note. There are no cites for hard corals at this time. However, this exporter supplies to local markets, including public aquariums within the country. So that is why he has these hard corals in stock. Just so you know, the coral trade within the hobby in Indonesia is huge, and is growing. Many of the suppliers in East Java supply boxes and boxes of corals to the local fish stores in Jakarta everyweek. The reef hobby has yet to develop here in Vietnam though.

So Vietnam has got some nice trachy’s! Caught me offguard as some of these were just plain gorgeous. This one has rainbow colors!

Another beautiful “rainbow” trachyphyllia!

Even green ones were nice too. This one is metallic in color!

A basket full of surprisingly beautiful trachyphyllias!

Same basket, but on the opposite side. Some of these can rival their counterparts from Indonesia! I was very impressed.

Check out this metallic green hammer!

Green with purple tips! One thing about the Vietnam hammers is that the colonies are circular in shape. Normally I see this growth pattern on the short polyp torch (cristata) corals in Indo. The hammers here are made up short thick branches. The base is almost flat and is just a perfect shape. I can tell you that these would handle the shipping lot better than the Indonesian counterparts, especially the wall ones. Too bad no cites:( !


A cute purple rimmed fungia!

This exporter also does fish. Much of the PI fish species are found here.

Some bannerfish anyone? These and the sailfin tang in the photo are just a few of the many bread and butter fish of the reef hobby.

An adult six bar angelfish with a trio of naso tangs.

Always my favorite, the clown trigger!

An assortment of clownfish. This tank had tomatos, cinnamons, sebaes, and saddlebacks. The common ocellaris (nemo) is also found in Vietnam waters, although the supplier didn’t have any in stock at the time.

One of the highly sought after angelfish. The blue striped angel (Chaetodontplus septertrionalis) is endemic to the South China Sea. Small specimens are very popular in Asia.

This exporter also deals with freshwater fish. These are wild caught plecos!

Conclusion

Ok guys, I hope you enjoyed my postings from Vietnam. The South China Sea has much to offer. As you go further east, you are going to encounter more and more diversity in fish and corals. Keep in mind that the Phillipines is part of the “Coral triangle”, which has the most diversity of corals in the world. And Vietnam is not too far away from PI.

I learned a lot from this trip. I will be working with Van in the future to bring you more and better products.

Before I sign off, let’s take a look at that picture of the skinned rats.

Rats in Vietnam are considered a delicacy. These are field rats, not the dirty city ones that live in the sewers. I hear they taste quite good and taste like chicken! Still, I’m not the brave one to try!

I will be posting one more time tomorrow, before I go back to Indonesia the following day. Basically it will be on “life in the rice fields of Vietnam”. Stay tuned, as I have some very nice picturesque photos and stories to share.

Cheers,
Eddie

Clams from Vietnam!

Hello everyone. So after days of frustration of not having my laptop computer, I’m delighted to have it back and in working order! Evidently it went back to Saigon from the small city several times before the guys figured out the correct replacement part for the keyboard. I’m not sure but just happy to have it back in working order:)

The main reason for me to come to Vietnam this time around was to visit a clam and coral supplier on behalf of my customers in the US and elsewhere. The following pictures are from a visit to a facility in HCM (Hochi Minh City – Saigon). For wholesalers and distributors that are interested in Vietnam products, please send me an e-mail at joylucktp2000@yahoo.com and I will be happy to refer you to the supplier.

Concerning the clams cites, I’m getting mixed signals. There seems to be a “grey” matter on this. I’m not sure as there appears to be something going on behind the scenes that I don’t know about. I’m not too surprised though, just like the cites process in Indonesia, it sounds political. We will have to see how it all plays out.


Here is a picture of me and Bryan, an aspiring coral geek. Like me, Bryan would like to work in the coral export business in the future. He is from the Bay Area and I got a chance to meet up with him in HCM. He has family in Vietnam and is on vacation right now. It is nice to meet people that are interested and appreciative in what I’m trying to do. He seems to be at the same crossroads in life when I was younger. We will be hanging around out a lot when I return to the US. Good to have met you Bryan and follow your dreams, as you only have “one life to live” – and I’m not talking soaps!

Actually back in the days when I worked at Mickey D’s, the crew used to call me “Grand daddy Eddie”. I used to councel all the kids. You’d be surprised what goes on in young lives those days. I’m sure it is worse now though. You name it, I heard it all. From parental abuse, drug problems, boyfriend-girlfriend problems, school problems, and even “coming out of the closet” of being gay! Wow that one caught me offguard as this guy could get any girl he wanted! I really think young people need role models in this world of crazyness. I was not the perfect one, but I tried to help the young people as much as I could. Not that Bryan is young or anything, but just need some advice before venturing into the coral field.

This particular exporter has been in business for 10 years, and here I thought that Vietnam products were fairly new. The facility is in the outskirts of HCM. Just like me in Indo, he has an extensive supply network from fishermen all over Vietnam!

We followed him (his name is Van) to an alley on the outskirts of the big city. And sure enough, to the right, was his facility.

The first thing that caught my eye were these good sized maximas and squamosas.
One thing to note, gigas and derasa clams are not found in Vietnam waters.

Here is a close up shot of a Tridacna squamosa. The picture does not do any justice, as the clam is strikingly beautiful in person. Imagine under some 20k’s!

Some of the squamosas look like derasas, like this one. Back in the Tonga days, it was rare to see a squamosa with any colors other than the gold/brown ones in the wild. But here in Vietnam, much of the squamosas seem to have some color, or at least on the edges of it’s mantels.

Another typical looking Vietnamese squamosa. This one reminds me of my prized clam that I lost to the dreaded “clam disease” back when I had my retail shop. It actually looked like a hybrid between a squamosa and a maxima and I was sure proud of it. Anthony Calfo took a picture of it and you can see it in one of his books. It is in his Invertebrate book, but forgot the page it is on. Just look for the clam picture that he describes as “unusual color morph maxima” – I think.

Let’s talk about the dreaded “clam disease” for a minute. So sometime in the early 2000’s when I still had my retail shop, the reefing community got hit with a killer clam disease. Basically the clam would look good for about a week. Then it would start gaping and few days later, it would be fish meat. Once the infected clam got into the system, it was over. It would soon start to effect healthy clams and eventually wipe out all the tridacnids. It didn’t matter what species, although the derasas and gigas seemed to be more resistant in the beginning. But in the end, even these guys would gape and die. For sure the maximas and croceas were most susceptible and die the quickest. I really felt bad as many of my customers bought one of the infected clams and ended up wiping out their whole collection of prized clams. This type of scenario was going on all over the US. Of course as soon as I realized that there was a problem, I stopped selling them.

At the time, all the clams that were infected were maximas that was coming out of Pohnpei (island in Micronesia). A transhipper in LA was transhipping huge quantities of these highly desired “ultra maximas” to the stores all over the US. Of course, no one knew that these were infected and highly contagious in the beginning. If some died, then it was stress during shipping that was the culprit, or at least that is what we all thought. It wasn’t until we started to loose them in large quantities and infecting old healthy clams, that we realized there was a problem. To my knowledge, Vietnamese clams weren’t really around in large numbers back then and came into the hobby a few years later. I did get a small batch of some nice croceas and put them in a small separate system with a small surge. They did fine but I had a hard time selling them because of the scare earlier in the year.

I was determined to figure out what was causing the disease and even maybe try to find a cure. At the time, I talked to many experts in the industry about the clam problem. One local guy, his name was Wayne Shang, was an expert in clams. He was one of my good customers and I sold him lots of acroporas during that time. His clams were actually spawning in his 750 gallon captive reef! He has a book out and a video to go with it on his big reef tank.

I was surprised to hear from Wayne that this clam disease was not new. It seemed that batches of clams get infected with something from time to time. There was no cure for it except to avoid the clams and let it pass through. Only time was the cure. He even had talked to the super clam expert, Daniel Knopp. This disease had happened before years ago and a LA transhipper was to blame. I heard that the holding facility had to be sanitized to wipe out the disease in the system. I’m not too sure as I just heard these things from people. But one interesting thing Wayne told me was that the problem happens during summer. He suspected that the rise in temperature had something to do with it. My guess is that overcrowding and rise in temperature was causing the problem. I think the problem was occuring overseas on the collection/shipping end, not the transhipper or the receiving end.

My network of experts led me to Bob Boone. Bob is the Vice President of Aquatic Specialties and Pets in Hayward California. Robert is the president and Bob is his right hand man. Bob has been in the industry for a long time and knows a lot of people. He referred me to a lady by the name of Dr. Beverly Dixon. She was a professor at Cal State Hayward in sciences. I had heard of her before, just by name though. Of course she was more than happy to look into the matter. Through Bob, I presented her with samples of the clams. All were Pohnpei maximas. I gave her an old dead one, a freshly infected one (just started to gape), and a healthy one for her research. It turned out that she was going to use the clams for a research study for her students. Hey this was really exciting, finally a super expert was going to find out what was making the clams sick.

About a month later, I got some news back. I was excited to hear that she and her team have found a species of vibrio. Unfortunately this is all the information I got. Bob told me that she couldn’t disclose any information on it, as Dr. Dixon was going to publish the findings in a journal of science somewhere. I only got half the anwer that I was looking for. Ok so there is a vibrio, ok how to kill the vibrio and save the clam? After that I tried quarantining the sick clams and tried all sorts of medications. Nothing worked, although nitro furozone seemed to help a little. The last clam I lost to the finish was my prized “hybrid clam”. After that, I gave up and didn’t follow up at all.

I hear the disease effected large numbers of Vietnam clams in the hobby years later. I only hear as I had gone overseas by the time the Vietname croceas were being exported in huge numbers. I haven’t seen any symtoms of this disease here in Vietnam yet.

A large gold teardrop maxima. Maximas don’t grow as big as some of the other giant clams species. So this eight inch specimen is quite old. One of the biggest specimens that I ever saw was at the fish market in Tonga. Everday wild clams are harvested and sold for food at the market. I frequent there to see if I find anything unusual – especially I’m looking for a Tridacna tevora. Tevoras are species of a giant clam that are found in deeper waters. They are only found in waters off of Tongan Islands and are in near extinction. Daniel Knopp came out and went out with my divers and managed to find one. He took a picture of it and will publish it in his new clam book (if he hasn’t already). Most of these clams surrounding the islands have been eaten and that is why they are very rare. I have talked to Daniel Knopp about the possibility of spawning this rare clam. He thought it was a great idea but finding the broodstock and slowly acclimating it to shallower water was going to be tricky.

I once mentioned the idea of spawning this clam to repopulate the Tonga waters (of course we would sell some too if we were ever successful) to the ministery of fisheries when I was in Tonga. He also thought it was a great idea and assured me that the broodstock could be found in the other two islands. He also would give us special permits to acquire the clams too. This was one of the future projects that I never got to do as I got screwed out of the Tonga deal. We also got permission to bring in crocea clams for spawning if we wanted to. This species is not emdemic to Tonga but eventually I would have liked to have all the species of clams in production. The gigas clams(also not endemic) were brought in years ago from Australia already. However, I never saw a small one in the wild but only huge broodstock specimens that is controlled by the fisheries. This tells me that the broodstocks are not really spawning in the wild themselves. Perhaps they are now.

Let’s talk a moment about the clam regulation in Tonga. There is a law by the fisheries saying that all clams are protected and thus shall be left in the wild. But I see clams at the market everyday and there is no enforcement. Why? Because there is one rule set by the king saying that the the ocean and it’s contents can be used for food. This is one of the reasons why you can legally hunt turtles on certain times of the year. There is also a law that grants Tongans to hunt whales too. Nobody really does but still it is in law books out of tradition. Such traditions were extrememly important to the late king. This and some other reasons are why Tonga is not a cites nation. All this was told to me by a local Tongan that knows the fisheries regulations and government laws. But since then, the king died so some of these things may have changed. I really don’t know what is going on in Tonga these days. Only aquacultured clams are allowed to be exported. Actually our clams were very nice and were in high demand at the time. Even ORA was interested in getting our aquacultured clams to their South Pacific clam farm. I believe they were going to grow them out for broodstock. I can’t remember but I think we couldn’t find a way to get the clams to their farm, no flights.

Ok, so I lost track of the topic here. I was talking about the huge maxima at the fish market. This particular show sized maxima was incredible. It was black with turquoise teardrops. It was about 15 inches long and was stressing like hell sitting on a table. I quickly bought it for $6 US and took it to our aquaculture facility. If it survived, I would keep it for broodstock. Unfortunately, it never recovered. It had been sitting out of water too long and just didn’t make it. A real shame, as it was just a gorgeous specimen.

Another large squamosa sporting derasa colors.

Another large squamosa. Back in my retail days, many of my customers used to use a “clamgium” to help remove phosphates and nitrates. These clever and way cool filtering devices never have caught on like normal refugiums, but it sure makes things interesting. The main drawback was that you needed another set of halides in your stand. This of course took up valuable space and created more heat, not to mention the calcium levels had to be kept way high. But nonetheless, clam lovers did the extreme. Normally species of gigas, derasas, and squamosas were the choice. There is another species that is excellent for this purpose, but is not very colorful and thus not so popular. The species I’m referring to is the Tridacna hippopus.

Another gold Tridacna maxima. Maximas are by far the most popular giant clam in the hobby. Ultra grade ones are really hard to find these days. The best specimens used to come out of Pohnpei in the Pacific, but that area got shut down years ago. The best maximas probably now come from the Solomon Islands. I’ve seen some nice first grade ones out of Vanuatu a few years back.

Speaking of maxima clams, let me tell you a quick story on the highly sought after black and white maxima. It was early 2000’s when I was working on opening up my retail shop. I wanted to have something special for the grand opening. I wanted the mythical black and white maxima. I say mythical because up to that point, no one had seen one. Clam lovers talked about it but nobody knew it existed, except in books. My mission was to find one and have it on display for my grand opening. I put the word out and sure enough, after months later, my friend Robert at Aquatic Specialties and Pets came through. I paid a grip for it but it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. It was about five inches long and sure enough, it was black with little white stripes! I even had a special little box made out of acrylic for it to display in the center of one my coral flats.

Some word had gone around that I had this coveted clam at my shop. I had people hanging around as I was finishing up the systems. One day I left the shop and left the door open. I had a guy tearing down a wall and he needed to go in and out to get things out of his truck. I had instructed him to tell anyone that comes by to come by half an hour later. I was not gone 20 minutes and I found the clam missing when I got back! Holy crap, there was steam coming out of my ears!

The construction guy told me that a couple of guys came by and was wondering around the store. He had heard voices and came into the store area to find two guys looking around. He asked them to leave and come back later. The guys said that they were friends of mine and wanted to have a quick peak. After that the theives left. Oh man I was devastated! My prized clam had been stolen. I put the word out to find another one but not in time for the opening. It wasn’t until months later, that I finally got another one. But by then everybody and their mother was looking for this clam. Some one had posted a thread on RC about my clam being stolen and after that, the demand skyrocketed.

Some of the other shops started to have this maxima and more and more specimens were popping up. Then the price started to drop as more pieces entered the trade. I don’t know how much they are going for these days but I’m sure that there aren’t that many around. At one time, my heart sank as I pulled out a gorgeous gaping 12 inch black and white from a tranship.

Most of the maximas from Vietnam are first grade and second grade. Then again, the higher grades only came out of Ponhnepei. In Indonesia, I see only a handful of clams from time to time. There are no wild cites for clams, only aquaculture. Add to this the fact that only one company can get this cites (the “grey political matter” I was talking about earlier), the fishermen will not bother.

Here is one of the nicer squamosas. It has blue teardrops on the edges of its mantel! I've heard of a rare blue squamosa in the past, but never seen one in person.

Another second grade gold maxima! I’m sure under some halides, it would look much better.

Here’s a typical smaller specimen of a Vietnamese squamosa.

A couple of more smaller squamosas.


Check out this nice little guy. More beautiful than your normal squamosa!

Nice gold pattern on a maxima!

A basketfull of maximas and squamosas!

Here is one of the better looking maximas. I would consider this one first grade. Coincidently, this morph is the most popular among the maximas in the wild in Tonga. I saw a bunch of them attached to rocks in the Island of Hapaai while surveying. Hapaai is one of the three main islands of Tonga.

And here is Bryan “getting his feet wet” about to take some pictures of mushrooms with his underwater camera!

So this was interesting, a tank full of cleaner shrimps! I didn’t know Vietnam had any in numbers. For some reason, Indonesia doesn’t really have that many. But for some odd reason, Sri Lanka is saturated with them. But I know the stock has been dwindling for the past few years and the price has gone up considerably.

Here is a close up of the cleaner shrimps. Most of them were medium to large in size. There is a global shortage of these bread and butter reef inverts. I feel the only way we can meet the demand and sustain them in the wild is to aquaculture them. This is one of my many long term aquaculture projects in Indonesia. Eventually I would like to tank raise this shrimp, the fire shrimp, and the peppermint shrimp of the Carribean. Even the harlequin shrimp is being successfully tank raised right now in Northern Bali.

One of our business partners in Bali is a shrimp farm expert. He has associates that have already successfully tank raised the cleaner shrimps in Taiwan! When the time is right, we will team up and get the project started.

Conclusion

Ok guys that is it for today. I will try to post again tomorrow. I have some more clams coming your way along with some surprisingly nice hard corals from Vietnam!

And I forgot to bring the picture of the fresh skinned rats on ice, from the last post. I will post it again tomorrow.

Cheers,

Eddie

Good Morning Vietnam!

Hello everyone. So I've been here in Vietnam for a week and I have to say that it's been really great! Not only do I get time to spend with my wife's family, I had the chance to visit one of the big coral and clam exporters. I will have photos and information on a later post. One really breaking news though. As of few days ago, the Vietnam Forestry has stopped all cites for clams. This means that after 6 months (shelf life on the cites), there will be no more clams from Vietnam! So all the exporters here have stocked up on these clam cites for their customers before the closure date. Sounds like Vietnam could use a clam farm soon. Wholesalers and distributors, if you want more details on this closure, please send me a private e-mail. Thanks.

For the most part me and my wife have been staying in Vinh Long, a province three hours south of Hochi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon). This is Vietnam’s heartland of rice patties. Because of the abundance of fresh water from the Mekong and very fertile soil, mix that with excellent weather and you can grow rice three times a year. I know Korea can only do once a year. Besides that, Vinh Long is nationally known for its great fruits! I will talk more about this later on another post.

So I’ve been going to town to check e-mail everyday. It is a 45 minute motorbike ride through a two lane highway. It really is a picturesque ride, but my butt is hurts like hell! It is one thing to ride a motorbike on your own and another to get a ride. Riding on your own does not hurt at all, but for some reason, sitting towards the back of the seat getting ridden, is a killer! My wife’s younger sister rides my wife and her younger brother gives me the ride.

Just my luck, a section on my keyboard on my laptop went out. Of course I forgot to bring my flashdisk and left it in Bali too. I just returned with a flashdisk from HCM and now I can work on this post. It will be a few days until laptop is ready, the keyboard had to be specially ordered. One thing that has changed since two years that I was here, is that most internet cafe's now have high speed! The exporter that I've visited has high speed, faster than Indonesia and only cost 200,000 dong a month! (about $12). Imagine that, such an undeveloped country with such an efficient and cheap internet service. For sure Indonesia has internal problems, as the high speed is not reliable and is very costly (about $80 US a month). Just so you know, Indonesia is 10 times more developed than Vietnam. Keep in mind that I'm uploading this post from a remote village in nowhere. The following pictures are from a trip to the fish market. I love going to these kind of places. You never know what you will end up seeing!

Here is my wife Anne with her sister Giang (pronounced Yang) at a parking lot of a recently opened supermarket in town.

This is Kye, my wife’s younger brother. Check out the t-shirt he is wearing. You can make out the words “Bali”.

On the way into the market, these ladies were selling French bread. These are used to make the “Vietnamese sandwiches” . They open up the bread, and stuff barbecued meats and fermented vegetables and cilantros and other goodies. The bread tastes really good, soft and moist and fluffy. Tons of these are consumed everyday. Thanks to the French, this bread has become a staple in the Vietnamese diet. Along with the iced coffee, the French really left their trademark in Vietnam. Actually, you can see the French influence everywhere – especially if you are in the big city. Cities such as Da Lat and Hanoi are some of the prime areas where the French left their mark both architecturally and in the cuisines.

The market has different sections. First is the vegetable section and if you keep walking, you hit the fish market next to the river’s edge. Walk the opposite way, and you end up at the fruit market. Also, there is a building where you can buy cheap clothes, watches, boot legged DVD’s, shoes, etc..

Hey now, these look familiar! I used keep these in freshwater tanks during my maintenance days. Of course these are tinfoil barbs. They keep these alive by keeping enough water to lay them sideways and the fish breath air. These are really pretty with bright orange fins and tails. I wonder how they taste?

Freshwater prawns are abundant in Vietnam. There are huge farms that spawn and grow these tasty little (or rather large) buggers. I just read in the Bali newspaper that there is a huge shortage of these in Bali. The tourist restaurants can’t get enough of these for the menu. There is plenty here though and the pricing is much cheaper too. A kilo of live shrimps would cost 120,000 – 140,000 Indonesia rupiah. The same live ones here in Vietnam would cost 100,000 – 120,000 dong a kilo. But consider if you exchange one dollar in Indonesia, it would get you around 9000 rupiah. Here in Vietnam, you can get 17,000 dong! A dollar can get you a long way here in Vietnam. If I was old and only had a little money saved up, I would retire in here. At least I would be able to live comfortably.

Here is a picture of some live ones! These are Macrobrachium sp.

A lady selling shrimp and octopus, with a dead chicken in the center! Still, when I see a dead chicken at the market, I always wonder if it was alive before and killed for the sale, or maybe perhaps it had died of bird flu!

Some pickled Mangrove crabs anyone? My wife likes it, but told me it would make me sick!

These are raw fish cakes. Basically the meat is scraped off of the fish and made into these flat Swedish pancake sized pieces. You can fry them or bake them or whatever. Sometimes they are rolled into small golf ball sized pieces and sold as fish balls!

I’ve had the best mudcrabs in Vietnam. The females always cost more than the males. Be aware of the large males with the huge claws. When you cook them, there is usually no meat, just a lot of shell. I remember first seeing these things at Oakland Airport. It was very late, and I was picking up a shipment from South West airlines and there were these boxes labeled “product of Vietnam”. I heard noises coming from them too. Being the curious guy I am, I peaked into the boxes and saw the mudcrabs. I never seen those before and I’m sure some exotic Asian seafood restaurant was the destination. One day I want to go catch my own in the mangroves!

The fish market in Vinh Long is some ways in from the ocean. But still some seafoods are available, like these squids.

So these are highly illegal in the US. These are snakeheads, an apex predator that can wipe out other fish species by eating them! I’ve caught these in the rice patties before. These must be a favorite for the Vietnamese, as they are plentiful and gets large.

Here is one that has been skinned and not looking so happy.

Of course tilapia is a staple and is farmed all over Vietnam. I’ve seen the floating fishfarms in the Mekong River system before. I’ll tried to get some pictures later.

These piranha looking guys are of course, pacus. These can get very large and meaty. There are fishing ponds in Jakarta where they stock these and you pay money to catch them. Hooking them is the problem. They have a plate like hard area on their upper lip that make them very difficult to hook. Most are around half to a kilo, but they do stock some monster 5-6 kilo (10-12 lbs.) brutes! You catch one of these, you can win over $100 US. It is pretty interesting, the whole affair. I will go fishing again and do a write up when I get the chance. I’ve gone there 5 times total and haven’t caught one yet!

The first time I had frogs to eat was here in Vietnam. It kind of tasted like chicken! When I was little living in Korea, I used to go catch these guys for fun. I would try to sneak up on them while they were sitting at the edge of the rice patties. I never thought to eat them. But what do I know. Almost 40 years later, I find out that these are delicacies in many other countries. I have eaten deep fried frog leggs with some black soy sauce many times in Indonesia. My friend Gili loves them! But I do feel sorry for these particular guys. They are all tied up together while one by one, each gets skinned alive and place in front of them. I wonder if they can feel fear?


So here are the fellow brethrens lying in front of the “brothers in arms”!

And here is the perpetrator! Can’t blame her though, she is only trying to make a living. But heck still, using scissors to cut away while the poor guy is still alive is just not cool! I've seen the guys at the Asian fish markets in the US do the same. But still, I guess keeping them as pets before gives me a soft heart for them. I’m having second thoughts about eating frogs again!

And here is the fellow that just got skinned alive! You can see how slimy he still is!

Ok, if you thought fresh skinned frogs were gross, can you guess what these are? I will have the answer for you on my next post!

Conclusion

The fish markets are always intriguing to me. I guess it comes from my love for fishing. I will post again in a few days if I get my laptop back. Until then, thanks for checking out my blog.

Cheers,

Eddie