What About Vietnam - S5-E6 –Explore the ‘Land of Lychees’ – Bac Giang with a return traveller to Vietnam

Bac Giang, is a picturesque place that often remains under the radar until the Lychee Festival, typically featured in social pages and news around June. This lively event commemorates Bac Giang's distinction as the "Land of Lychees."

In today’s episode Bac Giang and the subject of lychees are front and centre, as I get to share the story of a photographer named Jessie Pearlman, a previous guest on the podcast, who embarked on a return trip to Vietnam, driven by his love for the country and his desire to reconnect with friends and explore new experiences. 

This show delves into the motivations behind his journey; the significance of the lychees to the region and the community, and how best to navigate a visit there. Jesse has a wonderful gift for self-expression and description which will immediately transport you to the experiences he had during his time in the heart of Bac Giang province, Luc Ngan, the township designated as the biggest growing township for lychees.

He provides valuable tips on organizing your trip and strongly recommends it as a destination to visit, just a short 2.5-hour drive from Hanoi, especially for photographers and tropical fruit enthusiasts.

This is an off the beaten track location and experience, so information is as Jesse describes, hard to find. Therefore, we have the following links to the people who helped him create his trip, which we hope will help you too.

Phung Lan, Tour Guide for Luc Ngan Lychee Harvest in Bac Giang Province: https://www.facebook.com/kalydao.phung

Lan's Tour Company: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076182891385

By visiting lesser-known regions like Bac Giang, we can contribute to the local economy and make a positive impact on the community. Let's make a conscious effort to explore off-the-beaten-path destinations and give back to the places we visit.
Please feel free to reach out if you would like a trip plan to include this region, see Request a Trip Plan HERE

Follow Jesse or get in touch via his IG page here - https://www.instagram.com/pearlmanj1/?hl=en

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Transcript

Kerry Newsome:
Xin chào and welcome to the What About Vietnam podcast. I'm very excited today to actually bring back a guest I spoke to back in June 2021. Now that's when we weren't able to go anywhere. But my guest, Jessie Pearlman, was sitting in Hanoi and I was really keen to talk to him at the time because he'd been to a place called Mukhang Chai and he is a wonderful photographer and I had been following him on his Instagram page and I just fell in love with his photos and his stories and he came on the show and he's been a really big hit with you. So I asked him to come back on, and he's sitting in his home in Massachusetts, I think, in the U.S., and we're going to be talking to him, believe it or not, again about his return trip to Vietnam. So, let's welcome Jesse to the program. Great to have you on the show.

Jesse Pearlman:
Pleasure to be here, Kerry

Kerry Newsome:
Well, we're going to be talking about something that I am totally naive to. And so you're going to be educating me as well as everyone listening. And we're going to be talking about the lychee or the lychee festival, which is something that I think was the trigger for you to go back. But maybe for everyone, before we get into that in detail, Maybe give us a quick recap since you came back to the US after our last recording and what you've been doing in between time Like

Jesse Pearlman:
I said pleasure to be coming back to the podcast. I love talking about traveling specifically in Vietnam, so It's always great. I Came home about a month after we last spoke on air and After that, I've just been in school getting a master's degree in order to teach ESL. I think there are a lot of teachers who go to Asia to teach, and I think they kind of end up not really caring about the job itself, which is fine because it's what an opportunity it is to just be able to be born speaking English and be able to teach that. For whatever reason, I really loved the job. And I loved it from the first second I did it. When I landed in Korea, felt totally unprepared. First day I walked in the classroom, just kind of felt good. I felt at ease. And I've always loved working with children. So I'm going to be an ESL instructor here in a town in Massachusetts. One of the large portion of the ESL speakers that come in through this district are Vietnamese. So looking forward to working with them and their families. And they're Southern Vietnamese, so they probably wouldn't be able to understand my terrible Northern Vietnamese, especially because I'm not very good at pronouncing it. But either way, I'm looking forward to it.

Kerry Newsome:
That's exciting. And good on you for taking the job. you know, seriously and wanting to put your best foot forward in that space. And I think in Vietnam, especially, the country is developing and becoming, I guess, a little bit more sophisticated in that area and wanting people of a really good caliber to come into the country if they're going to teach. And I think that's just terrific. Now, I want to get into some detail with you, and I know you've got lots to share. So you decided to go back to Vietnam just very recently. What was the real motivation for you wanting to go back?

Jesse Pearlman:
To see my friends, to see all my Vietnamese friends. When I lived in Korea before I came to Vietnam, All of my friends were pretty much foreigners. So I played in a foreigner baseball league. I was in this hiking group that was foreigners for the most part. And I wouldn't say I integrated very well with the host culture of Korea. But when I moved to Vietnam, the first place I lived was a very small city called Yen Bai city in the province that M u Can Chau , Yen Bai province. And there weren't a lot of foreigners in general, maybe three in the whole place. I just, all my friends were Vietnamese. A lot of them were, some of them were my, a lot of them were my students who were adults, but a lot of them also were just people that kind of just came up and talked to me because they knew English and others were people who didn't speak English. And we kind of communicated via Google translate a lot of the time. And then of course I made my friends in Mukong Chai who were Hmong. But moving to Hanoi, you know, definitely met more foreigners there, but still a lot of there were a lot of really nice people at work who I became friends with. So my point is, is I was planning on coming back to Vietnam the second I came back to America, like I was, as soon as I as soon as the borders opened, and as soon as COVID was okay. And as soon as I had the money and time, it was going to happen. I had the trip planned. for the two years.

Kerry Newsome:
It's really funny you say that because I've spoken to so many people who have said the only way to get over any feeling of, I don't know, despair, loss, grief when you leave the country that, you know, is to plan the next trip. That's the only way to recover from that feeling when you get back. And I know it kills me when I get home to resettle back into Australia as much as I love my country. But yeah, I have to be planning the next trip. Thankfully, what I do allows me to do that. Jesse, let's talk about what month you went to in this trip, in this new trip you did and kind of where you first landed and where you're headed to because I think that's going to be of particular interest to everyone listening.

Jesse Pearlman:
Yeah, absolutely. My trip was mostly in the North because that's where I lived and I also feel quite intrigued by the north. The south is really nice for for beaches. But you know, if obviously you're familiar, I'm sure all listeners here on the program are familiar with the, the geography of Vietnam gets so thin, there's not a lot of action going on, like in terms of mountains, and there are some but it's not like in the north, it just really opens up. So yeah, I flew into Hanoi. and just, you know, recalibrated and stayed in Chuk Bak Lake, Ho Chuk Bak. That's the place where I lived when I was living in Hanoi. It's very beautiful. To the American listeners, it's the place where John McCain's plane was shot down, and he became one of the first prisoners of war in the American-Vietnam War. Anyway, from there, I really came to Vietnam in June, which I think you asked earlier. That was the month that I went. I knew it was going to be hot, but I planned it, one, because I'm a teacher, I had to work around that schedule, but two, because I wanted to go to see the rice planting in Mukong Chai, which we talked about in a previous podcast, and then also the lychee harvest in Baxiang. That's a district or, excuse me, that's a province about two and a half hours north of Hanoi. I want to say it might even be northeast of Hanoi. Um, pretty much just take the highway to get there at first. And then there are some not fun roads on the way to this particular village. Uh, the way I'll pronounce it is I'll just try to pronounce it in a, in a way it was very tough to pronounce this word in Vietnamese, but it's Luke Nunn, L-U-C and then N-G-A-N, Luke Nunn. And it's this little district within the province that has kind of been designated since the late 1980s as the place where lychees are harvested. Lychee, lychee, what have you, those fruits that are incredibly juicy, have a pit in the middle. Some people even call them lychee nuts. And they have that bright red, almost like alligator skin coating on them. And this is the place if you enjoy this fruit and if you enjoy tropical fruit, rare fruit, this is the place to go. And I got the whole, I got really the whole tour of all the experiences you could have and I'm We'll definitely dive into that in a moment, but that was what I really wanted to see, funnily enough. Like that was my, that was one of my big goals of this trip.

Kerry Newsome:
So we're talking June and we're talking a trip by design to basically head straight for Bac Giang.

Jesse Pearlman:
That's a great question. It was just a two or three day trip. Honestly, I did it in about 24 hours and it was very doable. I think if you are a tourist who just kind of wants to have a little bit more time to just take things all in and you don't want to feel like you're constantly packing and moving, a two-day trip would be nice. I'm sure there's some other aspect. I know, for instance, they have a lake around that area. However, the weather is hot. I just think that it's a really nice trip you can do out of Hanoi for about one or two days And just get this experience that really has not been been treated to a lot of tourists, even Vietnamese tourists. I would say a lot of them were surprised that that was a thing that I wanted to do. And I think the reason I wanted to do it was one, because I love lychees, but two, really for the photography and for the photos of these, these men and women bringing in you know, hundreds and kilos of leachies on the back of their motorbikes all at the same time to the morning market to have them shipped off to the countrywide, uh, to places like Japan and Korea, China in huge, massive amounts, the United States in massive amounts. And, uh, I mean, 180,000 tons of lychees are harvested each year in Bac Giang . It's the biggest. output in the country and they're one of the main countries that supply lychees to the world.

Kerry Newsome:
It's phenomenal, isn't it? I've seen the photos or some photos of the motorbikes absolutely chock-a-block all together coming down the street, etc. full to the brim with the lychees, or leeches as we figured out. We don't know which one is the right way to say it. I don't know. We'll just go with it anyway. But like 180,000 tons, that is definitely a lot of lychees. Tell us, Jessie, you said that you took the road, it's two and a half hours out of Hanoi. Did you do that by bike or did you decide to take a tour? What would you suggest for everyone to actually get out to this district is the best way, especially for new tourists?

Jesse Pearlman:
Yeah, I guess for new tourists, if you are not comfortable on a motorbike, I would not take it. There was a lot of highway driving. It rained the whole time. So I had to go very slow and pull over multiple times. And after the major highway, the road was unpaved and therefore there were puddles, it was going up and down. I would definitely suggest, depending on your level of motion sickness, either taking a bus or taking a private car. Private cars, and they call them transfers, are really readily available in Vietnam. I mean, any quick search will bring you to a company that, yes, they have set tours, but you can call them and ask them, I want you to just drive me to this place. You can pay for someone, pay extra for someone that can speak English who drives, or it can just be a person who drives that speaks Vietnamese. They still tend to be very friendly and wonderful people regardless. That's how I would suggest getting there. I think my motorbike experience, and this is someone who loves riding motorbikes, was not that pleasant. I did not enjoy the ride.

Kerry Newsome:
Yeah, and I think it's important to kind of mention this because I have a lot of listeners that are really comfortable on bikes and, you know, have really traversed the country on motorbikes and done very well. But they are experienced riders in their own countries. I get nervous when I hear about or people are talking about, you know, just hiring a motorbike and off they go on a scooter and off they go when, you know, the roads in some areas are okay, but for long distances, the combination of weather and then when the road goes, you know, muddy and potholes and sometimes chock-a-block with traffic. I know that, you know, sometimes going around Ha Giang, that, you know, people have said you've got to queue in traffic to do the loop. So, you know, it's something to consider, but making sure that when you're considering this, you're getting the best advice possible for the locality that you're going into.

Jesse Pearlman:
I completely agree. And I think that the motorbiking thing is no joke in Vietnam. The number one death cause is motorbiking in Vietnam. So yeah, it's a huge situation. I think for people who are not advanced motorbikers, they should not take it with that. And people who are, my argument would just be it wasn't fun. Like I love driving my motorbike up through big passes, big mountain passes, but this was really bumpy and the traffic therefore was quite bad because of the unpaved roads. So I would definitely recommend taking either a bus or a A private car would be even better because it'll make the traffic feel a lot better.

Kerry Newsome:
I must admit, I'm a girl that's kind of built for comfort, not speed, so I definitely go with the private car option.

Jesse Pearlman:
My girlfriend agrees, by the way. When she came to visit me, she came for one of the weeks I was in Vietnam. She came from Massachusetts. She's a doctor, left America, came back, worked the next day. When she came back, she's an absolute trooper. But I was there for about a week with me, and yeah, it was private transfers all the way for both of us. That's what she told me.

Kerry Newsome:
Jessie, let's just talk a little bit about accommodation before we get into what you experienced around the Lychee's.

Jesse Pearlman:
Yeah, so I reached out to a woman who I worked with, I think I mentioned earlier. I had some friends from work, and she was from Bac Giang and she lived close to this Lychee area, and she was almost my in. Because if you look up lychee harvest in Pakistan, there's a lot of articles that are more or less just pumped out by the government. They use this word very liberally, the term propaganda. There's not as negative connotation with that word in Vietnam. So they write these articles just being like, yeah, this place is great. Look at how awesome we're doing with how much lychees we're picking. But there aren't a ton of blogs about people going there. So it was difficult for me to just figure out, do I just go? Like, I have my motorbike. I know where the place kind of is. I can just figure it out myself. I still reached out to someone who then put me in touch with a woman who actually runs a tour service in Luke Nunn for the Leeches and other tropical, other nice fruits that they grow. Once I was able to get in touch with that woman, it was actually quite difficult because of the language barrier. But once again, we are living in an era where we have this technology to be able to speak with each other and then translate our sentences. And Google Translate for Vietnamese is really good. I don't know if you ever had anybody talking about that on the podcast before. communication with locals and stuff. Google Translate is pretty awesome. It works quite well. We were able to communicate that way. Basically, she booked a hotel for me and then met me at the hotel when I arrived. The hotel was in the town where one of the markets takes place. It's probably a 10-kilometer stretch of where the orchards are and also where the markets are. But this is one of the main ones. And it was Luke Nunn Town. So she met me there. And then through Google Translate, just kind of said to me, hey, why don't you go shower and get ready? My husband will pick you up at 6.30. We're going to have dinner at our place. So I had already gotten excited, had Vietnamese dinners before with local families, and they're incredible. But this one was more than I ever could have imagined. It turns out that they live in this, or at least where their restaurant place was, was this grand outdoor place. And, you know, there were the fountains all over the place, large rocks with insignia. It was very, it was designed in a way that reminds me of kind of the Northern Vietnamese design. And there were various gazebos within the nature, flowers growing all over the place. And yeah, they just treated me to this dinner. I mean, obviously it came within the price of the tour, but yeah, we had this dinner that was expansive with some of the best stuff, you know, deep fried pork. You know, slow roasted pork and duck and then some really like some specialties from the region. Of course, all the leeches. At one point through the meal, the dad just took me with him and we walked outside their property across the street. And there were these men. It was raining. It was nighttime. They had full reindeer on and and flashlights on their head. And they were just harvesting leeches. And the guy talked to him and just said, hey, could you give some to my friend? And they just gave me fresh off the tree leeches. And that was a little sneak preview of what was to come.

Kerry Newsome:
We'll make sure that we put any contact with this lady in the show notes for people. So if you want to do this, you can reach out directly. Did she have a Facebook page or something like that? Because most people do.

Jesse Pearlman:
She had a Facebook page. So this is what's tricky about traveling in Vietnam. She had a Facebook page and most Vietnamese people are, are using Facebook and some people, however, especially it's kind of an older fashion thing is they're really, and actually maybe it's not because we do it in America. They're very phone based. They, they want your phone number and they want to text you and they want to call you. So the best way that people reach her and in a lot of these small businesses in Vietnam is they call. And that's out of the question for me. So, uh, I'm not going to be able to hold, I can speak a little Vietnamese, but I can't hold the phone conversation. I mean, just your ability to listen over the phone and the quality, quality, sound quality is important. So it's hard to understand them. And so, uh, then the other version they use is, um, this Vietnamese, Messaging app called Zalo. So if you go to Vietnam and you have a Vietnamese phone number You can download this app and then it's like WhatsApp or something and you can use it however, if you don't register with the Vietnamese number and what I did to get my SIM card was just Paying for a data plan. I now can't use Zalo. So now she's She's on her third method of communication, which is Facebook and that's the only way I can reach her And so it just took her a little bit, a while to figure out messenger, I think. And it was, she's, she's usually on the phone or texting or using Zalo. So once we were able to connect, the communication was great. She was on point 100% of the way. And after I finished that dinner, she told me that her husband was going to pick me up at 5am and we were going to go to the lychee market. Yeah, that's that's where it all began. That was this procession. I'd seen videos of this lychee procession and you get in a lychee traffic jam on the main road of the town just because there's so many cars coming in or motorbikes but also massive trucks that they fill with lychees for transportation.

Kerry Newsome:
Okay, so let's talk about that visit and that experience so that people can kind of get a visual. I'm sure you've got some great photos that I'll also put up on the page for people to see. But yeah, talk us through just what happened. They picked you up at 5 a.m. Where to from there?

Jesse Pearlman:
Yeah, so they picked me up at 5 a.m. and you're basically just on a motorbike. He drove my motorbike. I highly recommend for this portion of the trip, you're going to want this guy or another person to drive you on a motorbike and you're on the back. This is a very safe place to drive. No one's going over 10 kilometers per hour because of the amount of l ychee traffic. It's perfect. You have range of motion. for yourself, taking pictures, for you to turn around while he's driving. It's definitely the way to go. You can do it on foot. You definitely shouldn't do it on car, via car, because you'll just be stuck behind everything. But the motorbike's the way to go for this one. So basically, from what I understand, is there's a river that separates the town and the road from the lychee orchards. And that's where the people are collecting lychees, and they're starting at 2 a.m. on their farms, picking lychees out at dark. And then once, as soon as sunrise hits, they bike across these kind of hanging bridges. I'm sure some of the listeners have seen these bridges up in the mountains that kind of are one lane and feel like they could break at any time, but somehow they don't. I mean, the engineering in Vietnam is just incredible. But they drive across those, and then it's just kind of a race for them to get their stuff to the market. And once they're in line for the market, there's a person who comes along and almost seems to be appraising the lychees. And once they've been appraised, they then give the driver a little paper ticket that they can now give to whoever they're selling their market to, that basically it's been approved or appraised. I'm not sure whether the ticket system is how good your leachies look, and therefore you get a higher price, or whether you've just been cleared to do trade. But either way, something's going on. I go there, and it's just pandemonium. At these markets, it's absolute pandemonium. People are trying to grab all the leeches, they wash them off with the hose, they put them in these huge, almost pools, and wash them off and then drain them out. And then there's also men with gloves carrying dry ice, which is used for packaging, especially going to places like China, or other parts of Vietnam, or honestly, pretty much everywhere, just to make them remain as fresh as possible. And this dry ice, from what I would imagine, is like should not be touching your skin whatsoever. And like they come darn close to having a touch their skin, just casually bringing it from the truck onto the place. So that's, that's a site. And I have pictures of that too, uh, that, that you can include just to get a better, um, idea of it. But anyway, there's all these leachy people driving around left and right. And meanwhile, they're really interested in you, the foreigner being there because it's not a place where people go to. I, as a, as a photographer of people of something I've recently been doing, I'm still a little bit shy and feel a little bit bad of just taking pictures unsolicited of folks. And in a place like Mukong Chai where they're, they're quite shy. I don't really go out and try to take pictures of people unless I'm at a social gathering anymore. And even then I, I tried to do it only when I feel like they are going to give consent and it's. It feels like a safe space. But here, everybody's just smiling, posing, having a great time. It's totally new to them. And they're just, I don't know, they don't care. It doesn't affect their day. To them, that's at least how they see it. And so I had a lot of great interactions. And all the drivers were saying, oh, here, just take my lychees. Take as many as you want. I mean, they know you're not going to take a ton from them. Even if you did, by the way, which is something I haven't mentioned yet, a kilogram of these lychees are like one US dollar. So you're paying an unbelievably tiny amount. I left this entire place. They gave me a gift at the end, part of, I guess, this package. They gave me like five kilograms of lychees. It was way too much. I could not finish them. And this man told me that he eats, the man who ran the tour with his wife, told me that he eats one to two kilograms a day during lychee season. Wow.

Kerry Newsome:
So tell me, how long does it take to grow a lychee and what is required? Is it a tree? Is it in the soil? To be honest, as I said, I started this off by saying I'm clueless. Sure.

Jesse Pearlman:
Yeah, so I remember my mom growing up telling me it was a lychee nut. That is not the case. It grows from a tree. It grows from a tree in an orchard that looks similar to apple orchards. You know, short trees bent over, many short branches kind of bending over in an umbrella shape. Although the leaves run a little bit more wild, so it looks a little bit more healthy, I would say, than an apple tree. I think that the lychees probably it's a year-round process, but  obviously, the heat plays a major role. So once summer rolls in, that's when they're going to start growing. And summer really begins in Vietnam, usually between April and May.

Kerry Newsome:
Do they take a year to grow? So it's like if they harvest every May, June or June, July, is that roundabout? Yes.

Jesse Pearlman:
It's a year. Yeah. It's only annually. It's just like the rice and mucang chai. It's just once a year. And it's from June to early July, pretty much all of the month of June. I came later on in June. And, you know, as I just described to you, it was the most of any one, maybe of one thing, like one unit of food I've ever seen in my entire life. And the whole time at that market, the man kept apologizing to me because of how few of these there were. And how much, how much crazier it was like, uh, in the peak part. And I was like, you know, couldn't believe that he said that, but yeah. So, uh, it's, it grows just at that one time a year and it's a little bit elevated, um, in terms of, uh, elevation, like, uh, it has to do with a little bit chilly winds and, uh, that has a major portion. And I think it's the humidity as well. That helps. these lychees grow. It used to be in a place called Haizhou, which I think might be its own province as well. I might be mistaken about that. But they ended up moving it to Bac Giang and Luc Ngan in particular, I think just because of changing weather conditions. I think they just determined that this was going to be the best growing conditions.

Kerry Newsome:
Is there any kind of medicinal aspect of the lychees? Are they good for you? I mean, people having, you know, one kilo a day seems, you know, exorbitant, but like, is there some kind of value or, you know, how does it play in their culture as far as their meals and, you know, how they treat the lychees?

Jesse Pearlman:
Yeah, it really, to me, seems like it is a giant export business. I think that it is just a massive opportunity for them to make money and for the country to make money, to bring them all around the world, and especially in Asia. That's the number one concern. I think the second part is definitely that it's a specialty and they're very proud of it, and they definitely eat it all the time for dessert. You might always just have some surplus lying around, too. You know, at night, sometimes when men, the men in Vietnam drink, they'll finish their drinking and they'll finish it by having some tea. And then during the tea, they might bring out some lychee, um, in a situation like that. And then I think that, uh, a funny thing about lychees and what people in Vietnam say is that it gives you really bad acne. Now I had never experienced that. And then I asked the people who ran the tour and they laughed and said, no, absolutely not. So that's a myth. It might just be a myth. It might be a myth. But when you asked me the questions about benefits, that was the first thing that came to mind. Right.

Kerry Newsome:
Well, yeah, getting acne probably is not a benefit for a lot of people.

Jesse Pearlman:
Exactly. It's a medical response. Yeah, it is a medical response.

Kerry Newsome:
Sure. OK. Is there anything else you want to tell everyone about this visit, this location, this experience before we kind of wrap things up?

Jesse Pearlman:
I think that one thing I would say is that like, you know, we are all dealing with a lot of small businesses struggling to stay afloat. And if you come to this place in Vietnam, you are supporting a small business. Like these are a group of people that pretty much have other jobs and are just doing this for one or two months a year. just trying to make a little bit more money to support their families. And these people were just absolute sweethearts were so efficient and good at their job. And, uh, I, I just don't really think that a lot of people know about it. And if you're in Hanoi, it's really not a huge extension in there. You know, they're just places that are getting really, really over touristed, which I think is another issue. in particular, like Ha Giang, the Ha Giang loop. The difference between when I left for Vietnam and now that was one of like the updates that people gave me was just, yeah, Ha Giang is almost like, it's untenable at this point. I don't know if they were, you know what I'm saying? So in places like that, I'd encourage people to maybe try to go somewhere different. And you're certainly going to get a response from the local people that is really positive because they're going to be so like interested in you. And hopefully, you know, if you're interested in Vietnam as a culture, that's a good thing to me because  you can make more connections. And if you're a photographer, connections and photography go hand in hand, you can really form trust with these people and show them your kindness and, you know, if you want to give them some money after you take their picture, that's totally reasonable thing to want to do and to do. So, yeah, I just think supporting the small areas of Vietnam while we also have some really heavily touristed places. Ha Long Bay, another example. Here's some options. Here's another option for you. to take a two day, one day even trip out of Hanoi, get yourself picked up from your hotel and drop right back off there and you spend a night in a hotel which is a totally fine hotel, which is where I stayed. No issues.

Kerry Newsome:
Jesse, from a minority group standpoint, are they mostly Hmong in that area?

Jesse Pearlman:
Actually, they're pretty much all Vietnamese. Okay, this area is not an ethnic minority Location it's yeah, this is a pretty Vietnamese area. And I think that it's it's pretty close to Hanoi still to Relative to how far places can take to get in the north and I should also mention I just remember there's  you like lotuses ,There's tons of lotus fields on the way and people selling lotuses on the side of this other road So it's another area, it's a very fertile area, the whole country is really fertile.

Kerry Newsome:
Yeah, and I think you're right in saying that the North has certainly got that diversity, it's got the mountainous areas, it's got the diversity in minority groups and different experiences totally to the South, very, very, very different. So, I've been fascinated to find out about these lychees because I've seen them and I've gone, you know, what's the story there? Because it was just crazy that these bikes were just queued up for miles, it looked like, with these lychees. So, as an export business, I'm really glad that Vietnam can produce these and sell these around the world. They're an unusual fruit. They are kind of a prickly pear, for want of a better word, with that nut in the middle. I mean, how many can you consume in one sitting? Like, I could only do about two or three. That's a great question. I don't know. How many can you do?

Jesse Pearlman:
I'm a little bit more, I can do more than that, maybe like 10 or 15. Oh, wow. But I'll like, I'll go back to it. That's, that's what I'm about is I'll just, you know, I'll eat three or four or five and then maybe come back to it in a little bit. And also I should mention that it's very, at least for me, my experience was that it was very within Vietnamese culture for if you're eating food with, with Vietnamese people, they are going to encourage you to eat more and more and more. That was also some, some of the reasons why I ate more lychees than maybe I would have normally.

Kerry Newsome:
Look, thanks, Jessie. Thanks for being on the program. It's been really informative. I hope people will consider going out to this region. Let's make sure we put as many links as we can in the notes for people so that they can reach out because I'm all for supporting local businesses, community-based businesses, and Just giving people that extra information, I think, goes a long way to do that. So thanks again, Jesse, for being on the show.

Jesse Pearlman:
Yeah, and you know, just as an added thing, if you're not able to get in touch with these people, you're always welcome to reach out to me. My Instagram is PearlmanJ1, Pearlman, like a pearl earring, and then man, and then J, my first name, Jesse, PearlmanJ1. So if you want to send me a message on there, Or you could send me a Facebook message, Jesse Perlman is my name on Facebook. I can help you get there. So, you know, it wasn't easy for me. I want to try to make it easier.

Kerry Newsome:
That's really wonderful. And I'll make sure I put those links also in the notes and on the show page. Thanks again, Jesse. Hope you have a great day.

Jesse Pearlman:
Okay.