Today I want to draw attention to a couple of different amazing women! Zale Parry is the famous female diver from http://scubadiverlife.com/2015/04/03/famous-female-divers-zale-parry/. The article is absolutely terrific, and I encourage you to go read it!
My second amazing woman is on TED asking (and answering) the question of dolphin language….can we communicate with dolphins? Watch Denise Herzing and learn about her incredible work with Spinner Dolphins in the Bahamas!
Randy and I are on the beach, attending the wedding of the daughter of our close friends. Tonight the events begin…a cruise for a rehearsal dinner, the wedding tomorrow, and a brunch on Sunday.
I will be out of the sun today as I am practically purple with sunburn. I spent the day on the beach yesterday, and since I am usually diving or in a wet suit I didn’t sunscreen as much as I should have. Ouch!
I did find some interesting critters on the beach. And fab food!
Have a great weekend, and don’t forget to watch the film, REVOLUTION, available above this post!
By Guest Blogger Louise Rose, author of www.go-vietnam.com
One thing that many people consider as a favorite part of any trip, regardless of the destination, is trying and sampling the local cuisine of the country they are visiting. Perhaps because of this preference, many people have become “foodies” in recent years. In fact, many people travel to South Vietnam and Saigon in particular to simply have a go at the world famous street-food strewn about its city streets. However, it may take a bit of research and the help of quite a few locals to find your way to the tastiest local dishes that Saigon has to offer. After all, many people certainly don’t want to get roped into spending their meals in those “local” restaurants modified for tourists over on Phạm Ngũ Lão Street if they can help it. Your food experience in Saigon may certainly turn out to be one of new and delicious tastes if you simply start wandering past your hotel. There are also quite a few <a href=”backofthebiketours.com/saigon-city-tours-vietnam/”>Saigon city tour</a> with local guides that will gladly take you try some of Saigon best street-food in exchange for a fee. In any case, here is a list of the top 7 Vietnamese street foods you have to try in Saigon.
Phở is definitely one of the most famous quick eats in Saigon. Phở is quite simply a Vietnamese noodle soup. However, there are so many different varieties that one cannot even begin to count. Lots of visitors have found the beef variety, or “phở bò”, to be the tastiest. However, the “phở gà”, or chicken soup, is equally delicious and perfect as a wonderful and affordable street breakfast. To give the soup extra flavor, add some of the condiments provided on the table like chili or lime juice. Some street restaurants may also give you some chili sauce to dip the meat in, something that is especially delicious with the beef. Phở can be found almost anywhere in Saigon and the restaurants are often labeled by number (i.e. Pho #45). Simply walk down the street in any direction from your hotel, and you are bound to find a shop selling this delicious soup.
Perhaps one of the most renowned street snacks in Vietnam, bánh mì thịt is a delicious Vietnamese take on the sub-sandwich. Bánh mì thịt is a fresh piece of French baguette with sliced pork and/or pork sausage, vegetables and pickles. You can also normally ask the vendor to throw on a little Laughing Cow if you like. Tourists around Vietnam often find themselves eating one of these almost every day. These delectable sandwiches can be found almost anywhere in Saigon and are easily spotted with a glass case filled with baguette.
This is a Vietnamese street food that many hear about so much before travelling to Vietnam. Bánh xèo is simply a rice pancake with turmeric, cooked until it turns golden brown and topped with a variety of meats and vegetables. Walking around the streets of Saigon at night, you are sure to find a food vendor cooking up one of these amazing snacks. Before you leave Saigon, be sure to eat one of these as they are both delicious and when compared to many other common street foods, quite unique.
Although this delicious soup can be a bit tricky to find at first, it is certainly worth the effort. Bún bò Huế is another kind of Vietnamese soup. However, instead of using conventional soup noodles, the soup is made from vermicelli, which is a kind of bean noodle and is a wonderful choice for anyone on a diet. It is normally topped off with a helping of sliced beef or pork and is said to be originally from Huế, in Central Vietnam. For this food, it is recommended to ask around as to where the best shop is as many people say they have to make quite a trek before they find a restaurant that serves this particular dish.
Don’t let the humorous name fool you. If you are looking for something that is healthy, delicious and unique, this just might be the street-food for you. Gỏi đu đủ is a Vietnamese version of papaya salad. Most people who have traveled Southeast Asia have probably heard of the Thai version of this dish. Just like in Thailand, the dish is made from sliced green papaya but topped off with a different but equally delicious sauce and usually some dried meat. The combination of flavors is absolutely amazing and finding someone who sells this dish is as easy as walking to the nearest street corner. A very delicious Vietnamese cuisine and perfect if you want to get away from the traditional rice-based dishes.
In terms of texture, this is perhaps the most unique on the list. Bánh tráng trộn is another kind of Vietnamese salad. However, what sets this one apart is the use of rice paper as the base and kumquat as a primary ingredient. This salad is normally served with dried beef and in is often considered one of the most flavorful dishes one can try in the whole of Vietnam. As this is not the most common of street-food, you might want to do a little research before setting out as this dish is not as easy to find as a bowl of phở.
Although maybe a bit exotic to foreign tastes, this is certainly a dish that any adventurous eater should try before heading out of Saigon. What distinguishes this dish from other Vietnamese salads is the use of lotus root, which some eaters may not be too fond of. However, many visitors who try this food often find it to be entirely unique and flavorful and even the lotus root quite delicious. The lotus root salad is normally mixed with both sliced pork and shrimp, making it a very tasty treat and one that will surely satisfy any seafood lover. Like bánh tráng trộn, ask around and get directions to a restaurant recommended by a local that sells this street-food as you may have a hard time spotting it from the street.
Perhaps the saddest part of a journey in Vietnam for many world travelers is just not having enough time to try all of <a href=”backofthebiketours.com/saigon-street-food-tours-vietnam/”>Saigon street food</a>. This city will captivate any food lover and you will soon find yourself strolling around the nearest night market trying to sample everything that comes into sight. Although you can sample dozens of different street foods during your stay in Saigon, the 7 listed above are certainly the ones that any traveler should give a go before leaving, especially since you will notice that the foods available in each part of Vietnam have a tendency to change as you move around the country and are certainly quite different than anything you might sample in neighboring countries like Laos or Cambodia.
Eels, especially Moray Eels, are among some of the most fascinating creatures in the ocean. They are fish….fish without pectoral or pelvic fins. The anal and dorsal fin are connected and form a ribbon on top of their bodies. They can be quite small, just a few ounces, and they can grow to be 10 ft and 50 pounds! I love photographing them. Their mouths are always opening and closing, and not because they are thinking about biting you, but because they need to breathe. They do not attack humans, unless there is some stupid human who wants to grab at them or, even dumber, try to feed them. If you want to feed something in the ocean, settle for feeding bread to the fish. They are wild animals, after all. I often get 12 inches from them, or less, to take photos, abut I have never had any problem with aggression at all. The Moray is likely to just stare at you….breathing. Notice the flaps at the back of the mouth, those are the gills.
The very coolest thing about Morays (of which there are more than 200 species!)? Their jaw. Jaws, I should say. They have two. You might be scared of the first one, but their prey should be more frightened of the second one, the Pharyngeal jaw which is farther down in their throat. That jaw is the one that delivers the death blow to its prey!
This Fimbriated Moray is surrounded by RedBanded Shrimp and Dancing Durban Shrimps on top! Time for a cleaning in Thailand.
Oh, now I am just dying to get in the water! I have so many more eels to photograph out there in all of our oceans! So far, I have Cozumel, Isla Mujeres, and the Revillagadoes Islands planned for dives this year. I wonder if I can squeeze any more dive trips in? You know I will try!
It occurs to me that perhaps the millennials and younger generations are unaware of the amazing women who blazed a trail for them. I’ve decided to include some historically amazing women in my Amazing Women Wednesday series, and who better to talk about than Jane Goodall?
Like Jacques Cousteau, Jane Goodall was a part of the baby boomer and Gen X generation because we saw her on television. Cousteau’s specials were about the sea, Jane Goodall’s television appearances were always amazing because she actually lived with her study subjects (chimpanzees), and because she was a woman. Born in 1934 in London, no one could have dreamed that she would become the most famous primatologist in the world. Especially when one considers she did not have a college degree when she went to Africa.
As a young woman of 23, she traveled to Africa where she met well known anthropologist Louis Leakey. Leakey and his wife had discovered the oldest human remains known, and those remains were found in Africa. This was a surprise to most people, who thought humans began in Europe, or perhaps Asia. Without DNA or any of our modern scientific methods, Leakey believed that humans were closely related to Chimpanzees, Orangutans, and Gorillas. He chose Jane Goodall as his protege, for many different reasons. Leakey thought that since she did not have an education in animal science, she would be more likely to record what she actually saw rather than what she thought she was looking for. He was also of the opinion that women were more patient than men, and studying these animals would require patience, and a lot of time. She began in 1960, in Gombe National Park, and planned to stay a few years studying chimps. Jane Goodall stayed with these groups of chimps for two decades, and her discoveries are still notable today.
It took tremendous time and patience, but after tracking and following the animals for long periods of time, they began to allow her to get closer and closer to them. She gave them names, and noticed their differing personalities and complex social structures. They even used tools and ate meat. In 1965 she became only the 8th person to achieve a doctorate from Cambridge University in England without an undergraduate degree. Photographers from NatGeo came to photograph her, and soon they were also doing television specials of Jane’s work and research with the different chimp families.
Animal Planet recently celebrated Jane’s 80th birthday *(in 2014) with an article giving 10 Reasons Why Everyone Should Love (Lady) Jane Goodall. You really should click on the link and get a better understanding of the difference this amazing woman has made to science, to our world, and to humankind. Be sure to visit the Jane Goodall Institute online at http://www.janegoodall.org/. Read her book, Reason for Hope, and look at her many other books. She remains a pioneer, and an advocate for hope in a world that seems destined to destroy itself. Jane still has hope we can turn things around.
“If all of us would go through our lives thinking about the little choices we make each day as to what we buy, what we eat, what we wear – and how those choices might impact the environment, might impact child slave labor in other countries, might impact cruelty towards animals, we start making small changes… Billions of small changes around the world can lead to the kind of change we need if we care about future generations.” – Jane Goodall (http://www.animalplanet.com/tv-shows/jane-goodall/photos/jane-goodall-birthday/)
Amazing Women Wednesday is a series about Amazing Women in our world, who are changing our world, or want to change it. Please check out www.blogher.com (SheKnows Media) and PRI for other stories of women and women’s futures.
You may, or may not, know of Cathy Chester, the esteemed author of the blog, An Empowered Spirit. Cathy writes about health, midlife, and living a vibrant, enriching life. At the core of the blog, however, is Cathy’s ongoing struggle with MS (multiple sclerosis). Cathy was named one of the “Top 10 Social HealthMakers in Multiple Sclerosis” by Dr. Mehmet Oz’s platform, ShareCare. She is also the number 3 health blog as calculated by Healthline. Her writings are not confined to MS…she covers every topic you can think of as it applies to women and midlife! Books, classic movies, friendships, travel…you name it, and Cathy writes about it. Her positive attitude towards life despite difficulties makes her an Amazing Woman. (She is also a cat lover, which raises her credit with me quite a bit!)
March is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month. I am a supporter of the MS Foundation, I have a friend with the disease, and she handles it very well. I admire Cathy, who, despite the difficulties, lives vibrantly and shares her journey with others. Cathy takes that extra step and seeks to empower those around her, whether they have MS or depression or chronic pain. Cathy has many interests, and her blog is varied and multifaceted. One of her blogs recently took me by surprise. It was titled “Why I’m Thankful for my Diagnosis”. Talk about putting a positive spin on life! In the blog she states,
“I am thankful for my diagnosis because it taught me self-compassion, survival, to remain curious and to always keep hope in my heart”.
Living in chronic pain is not easy, and I’ve known many who become bitter about their conditions. I cannot blame them at all…living in pain is not pleasant, and it certainly can interfere with the way you planned to live your life. But Cathy looks at the upside of her diagnosis. She enjoys every day of her life, does what she can for herself and others, and has found a way of living a happy and fulfilling life. Like John Lennon, she knows that “life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans”, and one had best make the most of it. She is one of the few who fully realizes that “now” is what we all have, and nothing else is promised.
As a person who also lives with chronic pain, I can tell you that Cathy is an inspiration. I feel sure she is not happy to have MS, that she knows many moments of fear, and I also know pain can be frustrating, but Cathy always shows an optimistic face to the world, giving others the hope that they, too, can live full and happy lives. I asked her how she keeps her spirits up and her writing positive, and she said,
“The secret, that is really not a secret, is that each day is a gift because life can change within seconds. So focusing on what’s good in your life, being mindful of your blessings, and doing your best to always find a silver lining (even in the most difficult of times) is a key to living each day to the fullest. Carpe diem!”
Seize the Day!
Cathy puts herself “out there”, introducing herself to individuals whom she admires. Recently she met David McCullough (the venerated historian) and Alan and Arlene Alda. Her blogs about these encounters are uplifting and interesting. I urge you to pay a visit to An Empowered Spirit. You will leave the site feeling empowered yourself, and ready to do anything!
Amazing Women Wednesday is a series I am doing in conjunction with Across Women’s Lives PRI and SheKnows Media (Blogher.com).
