Category Archives: Vietnam

Travel in Vietnam

Laos, Personal, Travel, Vietnam

Hanoi Hijinks, Hemmorhoids, and the Onion Bus

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There’s a place in Hanoi you should avoid. The hotel is called Camellia Star hotel. Their address is 37 Yen Thai St. The email address is t&ttravel@hotmail.com. Be sure to email them a nasty letter, and if you happen to be in Hanoi, please give them the finger for me. They seemed nice when I was checking in, as they all do when you are perhaps going to spend money at their business. They were actually pretty nice all the way until I was checking out, then things really went downhill.

I’ve heard a LOT of similar stories while traveling in Vietnam about being lied to, ripped of, misinformed, and just getting serious attitude from the people if you don’t want to buy something, so it may be something to do with the culture, but I don’t want to sound prejudiced. I DID meet many wonderful Vietnamese people. Anyway, on with the story…

In order to stay a month in Laos, you have to get your visa ahead of time at a Laos Embassy. Two days before I wanted to leave Vietnam for Laos, We all rented bicycles from my hotel to do our visa business. We waited around for nearly a half hour, and when they finally arrived, two of them were the usual upright one-speeders, and then there was the shitty little mountain bike. I immediately went for the tallest bike, and Marc went for the other. Nada got on the mountain bike for about 10 seconds and then flat out refused to ride it. I did the chivalrous thing (and I didn’t want to wait around for another half hour) and took the little bike. It was to be a key element in my future horror. After spending too much time getting fruit shakes and coffee, I left Marc and Nada to go to the Laos embassy to get my visa. It was only about 3 kilometers away at most, but it took a few stops to refer to the Hanoi map to be sure I was on the right track. Although my guidebook said otherwise, the Laos embassy closes at 4 pm. I got there at 4:06. 6 minutes too late! As I was riding home through the Hanoi traffic, I started to notice my ass was getting mighty irritated by the skinny, tiny, rock hard seat on this little bike that had my knees nearly hitting the handlebars when I peddled. Hotels, agencies, and guesthouses all over town advertise that they offer visa services, and for a few extra bucks, I thought it would be worth it to use my guesthouse’s services to get my visa just to be sure I got it in time. I made it very clear I needed the one month visa, and that I needed it by the following day. “sure sure, one month, 40 dollars plus 3 dollar commission.” They were certain they could do for me, and I would even “get it cheaper through them” than if I bought it myself since they “knew someone at the embassy”…so they said. The next morning I ask about my visa, and they show it to me, and it says Laos Visa type TR-B63. Nowhere does it show how long the visa is for, so I ask them,” is this a one month visa?” ” yeah yeah, one month, don’t worry. ” Ok, fine. (Cue the ominous music…)
—
That morning, I feel my hemorrhoid swelling up painfully. Fabulous. I take baths all day, visit a pharmacist to get prep H and constipation pills (don’t ask how I explained it), and start popping the codeine I brought from home, but nothing is working. It just keeps getting sorer and sorer. By late morning, it’s a trial to just sit down on one of the tiny chairs that seem to exist everywhere in Vietnam. Getting up from them is even worse. I move in slow motion. If any of you have ever experienced the joys of a swollen hemorrhoid, you know what I’m going through. If you haven’t, let me suggest that you get your thumbnails removed with a pair of rusty pliers rather than the constant discomfort and embar-ass-ment of this. Traveling with a swollen hemorrhoid comes recommended only if you love pain.

So, I’ve been at this Camilla Star hotel for several days. I bought my visa and bus ticket to Laos from them, and I brought them more business by having Nada stay here too. The night before, I sat down with them and had rice wine and food along with their friends, and felt like I was really starting to develop a little friendship with them. So that morning, since my 22 hour bus to Laos didn’t leave until 6:30 that night, I explained to them that my ass was killing me from the bike they rented to me, and could I check out of my room a little later, say, 2 pm instead of the usual 12? Oh no, if I want to stay longer, I have to pay for another night. “But, my ass is killing me, I gave you a lot of business…how about a discount for just a few more hours..” No no. Nothing doing. I stay longer, I pay for another night. End of story. I could have paid the 6 bucks and stayed in my room, but it was the principle of the thing. So, I pack up, check out and hang out at cafes all day, trying to give my poor bum a little rest before embarking on what is sizing up to be a wonderful little voyage into the depths of hell.
—
The bus is supposed to leave at 7 pm. The motor scooter driver picks me up at 6:30 sharp to take me to the bus. I sit very slowly on the back and we take off. Every little bump feels like hot needles. The 5 minute ride to the bus…no wait, to ANOTHER hotel is mercifully short. I sit at the hotel along with about 20 others, waiting for the bus to Laos, but the others aren’t going to Laos. One by one they all are whisked off to other places by taxis and scooters. By 7:20, a new moto driver arrives to take me to the bus. My backpack is stacked in front of the driver, nearly blocking his view and giving him little ability to turn, while I sit ever so carefully on the back with my camera and daypack hanging from me, and praying for a short ride or a quick death…

…25 minutes later, we arrive at a dark parking lot well outside of town. I tried to just leave my body during the ride, so I can’t tell you what I saw or where we were exactly. In the middle of this dark lot is a big shitty bus. I am asked to take all my bags on board, which I thought was unusual, since normally the bags go in the side of the bus. Getting on board I’m nearly knocked back from the stench and am simultaneously greeted by the 4 other fellow riders; A young Scottish guy, two women from San Francisco, and a Japanese woman who is traveling with them. I then see the piles of onions in the back third of the bus, and the backpacks stacked on top of them. It reeks of onions, and the floor is wet with red liquid that looks frighteningly like blood a la “The Shining”. This should be an interesting trip. We all introduce ourselves and I just can’t resist telling them my current health problem in order to receive some sympathy and perhaps break the ice. We start taking bets on how many times the bus will break down. We all settle on three as the magic number. After about a 1 hour delay, the bus rumbles to a start with about 7 people on board, thankfully, and we start out of the parking lot….only to stop and back up again. Trouble with the transmission. Breakdown #1 is underway. Two hours later, we head out again. It’s after 10 pm at this point, and after reading with our headlamps for a short while, everyone tries to settling in for a sleep. We were naively hoping to awake at the boarder at 6 am, as we were told. At around 4 am, the bus stops and the drivers get out to start loading the inside of the bus with…more onions! I mean about 50+ more very large bags of onions…not only filling the back half of the bus, but overflowing into the empty seats and stacked high into the aisles around us and all the way to the driver up front. Getting out of the bus would now require climbing up on the bags, and nearly crawling our way to the front. The good thing is that now we have a place to put our legs – on the onion bags, and the other good thing is that onions keep the mosquitoes away. At several points in the early morning, the bus picked up a few more passengers, and let some people out for peeing, and at one point, the bus stopped on the side of the road for about an hour or so so the drivers could sleep. By 8 am, everyone was up and hungry…but there would be no stops for breakfast, no stops for water…we were obviously quite late for the boarder. The boarder didn’t come until around 11 am. We all climb out and walk about a half mile to the Vietnam customs building in this dusty ghost town of large empty government office buildings. The mountains around the “town” were beautiful towering misty mountains which I only barely noticed because I was sore, hungry, and had a burning ass which demanded most of my attention as I slowly walked to the customs building.
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The customs office was like something out of a movie. The very stern, frowning customs officials came in behind us and then proceeded to dust off the counters so they could get down to business…leaving a cloud of dust in the air. Three officials each took long looks at each of our passports in turn, using a magnifying glass on some of them, and a special scanner on others, and murmured things to each other about each of our passports. After a considerable amount of examining and discussing, we eventually each got our Vietnam visas stamped USED with a tiny red rubber stamp. So, off the four of us go to Laos… but first, we have to hike there. The bus sat back beyond the boarder, so we were told to walk to the Laos customs up the road, actually quit a ways up the road, and over the summit, and back down the hill around the corner, about a 30 minute hike in fact. We were all hungry, thirsty, grumpy, wondering if we would ever see our bus and belongings again, and I was certain that soon blood was going to start seeping down my leg.
—
We turn another corner and finally arrive at the Laos customs “office” which is little more than a roof over a concrete table and 4 chairs. The officials are very friendly compared to the Vietnamese freaks, and we all feel relieved about finally getting out of Vietnam…but there are problems. many problems. The Scottish guy and the two Californians were told by their travel agents back in Hanoi that they could get their Laos visas at the boarder. Well, apparently not at this boarder. The customs officials didn’t know a lot of English, and not surprisingly, there was no phone here either. It seemed there was nothing that could be done for my three new friends but for them to turn around and head back to Vietnam, hopefully get their visa cancellations cancelled (that could take some time), and then somehow get a ride to a different boarder that WOULD give them a visa upon entry. What a nightmare! The Japanese woman and I had gotten our visas in Hanoi so we weren’t about to turn around and head back, so we handed our passports over to get stamped. Surprise surprise, my visa also had problems. The one month visa I was assured I got…turned out to be a 5 day transit visa. A transit visa is the most ridiculous visa imaginable. It allow for only 5 days of travel, assuming that you are only going through the country on your way to some other country. It’s clearly not what I asked for, and after checking my Laos guidebook about it, it costs 15 dollars. Those bastards at my hotel ripped me off and got me a 5 day visa for 15 dollars, pocketing the other 27 dollars I paid them. Well, at least I am going across the boarder, right? I figured I’d just explain my situation at the immigration office in Vientiane and all would be ok…
—
The Japanese girl, Chieko, said a sad goodbye to her two American travel companions and the Scottish guy who all had to go back. After an additional 90 minute mystery delay at the Laos boarder, the onion bus and it’s remaining 2 foreigners, along with 4 other Vietnamese/Laos people, started down the mountain into Laos. There was a little trouble in the bus, because a woman on the bus took Cheiko’s 2 liter bottle of water, opened it, drank about half of it, then put it back where she found it while we were out of the bus at the customs office. Cheiko was so sweet about it it made me immediately like her. She was angry, but she has such a good nature, she couldn’t even show her anger on her face even though she tried. She didn’t know what to do. She handed the bottle back to the woman trying to frown and explain that this was not cool. The woman just shrugged her shoulders and said that her little girl drank it. She didn’t even apologize! She just pretended it wasn’t their fault. She tried the give the half-consumed bottle back to Chieko like that would settle everything. So I gestured that she should keep the bottle she stole, and buy Chieko a new bottle at the next stop. That seemed to be understood.
—
I don’t remember much of the rest of the afternoon. I tried to stay on my back as much as possible, trying to keep my butt from contact on the dirty vinyl seats and ignoring my hunger pangs. I realized that I hadn’t taken a poop in about 3 days, mostly out of fear, but I knew that I would have to soon, and this made me very nervous considering the smallest fart was bringing tears of pain to my eyes. Mercifully, at around 4 pm, our bus blew a tire. I say mercifully because the timing of the blowout was perfect. The bus came to a stop directly across from a Laos restaurant, and about 100 meters from a tire repair shop. So, while the tire got repaired, we got to finally stop and eat something. Getting out of the bus was a struggle. There were so many bags of onions to crawl over, my back was stiff, and my brain was only functioning at about 10%. The restaurant had no menus, and nobody could speak English. Walking into the kitchen and pointing also proved to be useless, as there seemed to by only a bowl of weeds on the floor. Fortunately, Chieko had a Japanese guidebook for Laos that has photos of all kinds of Laos food. She just pointed and they made it. I pointed at the same thing and finally we had fried rice and my first Beer Lao in Laos. That cold beer tasted like nectar from the gods. The woman who stole her water bought two small bottles and gave us each one.

Back on the bus an hour later, we heading through some beautiful limestone karst mountain/jungle scenery, but I couldn’t be bothered to sit up and take a single photo, I was just trying to get though this journey with as little movement and pain as was absolutely necessary. It was a struggle to get on and off the bus, so at a certain point, after that beer has passed through me, I really really really had to pee. So, I cut a hole into one of the empty 1.5 liter water bottles laying on the muddy floor and nearly filled it up, Then, at an opportune moment as I saw a big garbage pile on the side of the road, I chucked the bottle out the window into the garbage.
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After another several rounds of reading, sleeping, waking, gazing out the window, reading, sleeping…we finally arrived in Vientiane at midnight. the total duration of the bus trip from the moment we first started up the engines in Hanoi to stopping in Vientiane was 27 and a half hours. My clothes were filthy and reeked of sweat and onions. Climbing off the bus only half awake in yet again a dark parking lot well outside of town, we were left with the option of either paying 2 dollars each for a single tuk tuk driver who waited there for us, or walk. Since we had no idea where we were, it was very late, and there were no other options, we settled on the tuk tuk driver, after talking him down to 3 dollars for the two of us. I picked out a hotel from the guidebook that sounded promising, but arriving, we found it full except for one room with a large bed for 9 bucks. Chieko said she would look elsewhere if I watched our bags. She’s very clever. She came running back after about 5 minutes and said there was a dorm available up the street. We wearily checked in and after begging, were made some fried rice for dinner for a dollar each. The dorm bed cost $1.50. After showering, we both climbed into bed at around 2 am. Today I got up, found a better, though much more expensive place to stay, where I have been typing this story, and after leaving Shieko a note about where I am staying, headed to the immigrations office to try to straighten out my visa problem. Naturally, it was closed when I got there, so I went to the market across the street to kill some time. Who do I meet but my Japanese friend! We walk around a while and agree to meet for beers later. I head over to immigrations and am given the bad news. I can’t buy a one month visa here. I can only extend my visa 15 days max at an additional cost of 2 dollars a day. If I overstay my visa, it’s a $10/day fee. So, my current rip-off $42 transfer visa ends in 4 more days. I guess I will buy the 15 day extension and try to get though Laos quickly.
It’s sad, I really wanted to spend a whole month here, but fate has forced other things. In order get a one month visa, I would have to go back to Bangkok, get a 1 month visa there, and come all the way back. Why does that sound completely retarded? Because it is. Those fuckers in Hanoi have forced me to cut my trip to Laos short. I’ll be sure to post complaints online at the lonely planet thorn tree, and boots ‘n all, and as many other traveler’s web sites as I can to warn them about this hotel scam. So, now I’ll just stay here for a few days in Vientiane, letting my poor ass recover, prepare for my journey, and get my emails/website/finances in order before traveling on.
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12/3 Many things have happened to me while I’ve been recovering here in Vientiane. I have writing many stories about it, but I will spare you the details for now. But here’s the lowdown:

1.) Got my visa worked out. I now have a MONTH in Laos. It took crossing the boarder into Thailand and coming back (about 3 hours), then a few more visits to the immigrations office for an extension.

2.) Catherine emailed me to tell me that we couldn’t be boyfriend/girlfriend right now. This wasn’t a surprise since we’ve hardly spoken in the last two months. It was inevitable, and we both knew it. Back to being good friends.

3.) Grover has an ear infection or polyp or broken eardrum and is getting an operation today, Friday. Please send good thoughts to the little guy. I miss him very much. I just had a dream about him the day before I found out about him.

4. Now I must go because I’m going to Vang Vein now!!!!

Southeast Asia, Vietnam

Hoi An






Hoi An is awesome. It’s beautiful, it’s full of great restaurants, illuminated by beautiful lanterns, and along every street, tailors who will custom make you any clothes you want. You really can’t escape Hoi An without spending money on clothes. It’s well worth it, and besides, it’s fun! But the real attraction is the town itself. Wandering the streets at night is fantastic…but I get ahead of myself. After the long overnight bus ride from Nha Trang, I ended up at a hotel in a nice little neighborhood. The 16 dollar room was a little steep, but it included a nice view of the swimming pool(!), free breakfast, free internet (didn’t work so well), and best of all: free bikes! I reached Nada with my handy cell phone and convinced her to move to my hotel. We ended up spending every day together cruising around on our bikes, buying clothes, visiting temples, and going to the beaches in the day, and then going out to nice dinners and bars at night. We spent 4 or 5 days there, and it really was one of the highlights of my trip so far. The best experience was the night of the full moon. Nada and I took our bikes down to the water where there were all kinds of things going on. Traditional music, dancing, and most beautiful of all, hundreds of floating candles on the river. We hired a boat from a nice old woman and floated among them, the warm air was filled with music, incense and and the energy of hundreds of happy people, the full moon up above and the candles and lanterns of the old town reflecting in the water…It was magical. I made the mistake of not bringing my camera with me, so don’t even ask about photos. It’s makes me ill thinking about it. I do, however, have some video from my little camera. On our last night in Hoi An, we discovered Cao Lao at an outdoor food stall. It’s a local specialty of veggies, fresh herbs, a little broth, and the delicious rice noodles that are specific to Hoi An cao lau, because they MUST be cooked only in this natural spring water that flows near town. They say that these noodles do not taste right if you cook them with anything but this water, so Cao Lao is specific to Hoi An. It’s SOOO GOOD! Nada and I ate two big bowls of it, and could have eaten a third. After that, we had a beer on a nice old french-era balcony, and I saw down below: Marc from Nha Trang! , He was staying in a very cool old house near the market. Marc and Nada ended up traveling together the next day to Hue in the same bus, where they had fantastic horror stories of vomiting locals and flat tires. Nada, Marc and I stayed in Hue only one night and Nada and I took a boat tour together during the day to some overpriced tombs, but it was fun anyway. I hired a moto driver to a great old palace, where he told me a story I was getting familiar with: his father was in the South Vietnamese army, and died in prison. He and his brothers and sisters were not allowed to attend school. As soon as I tell someone who had family or was in the South Vietnamese army that I am an American, I have heard very similar stories of this type. One day when he was younger he tried to escape Vietnam by taking his boat to Taiwan – which at the time allowed you to be deported to the United States if you were family from anyone from the South Vietnamese Army. He had 10 other family members and neighbors on the boat with him, and just a mile before the river met the sea, where their escape would have been almost guaranteed, they were discovered by the new government. Half of the people on the boat were killed, including one of his brothers. He has learned English on his own because he wants his children to speak it, which goes a long way towards having a better life in Vietnam. Speaking English well can open a lot of doors. Anyway, he’s a farmer and motorbike driver and has 2 kids and barely gets by. I gave him a sizable “tip” to help him buy books for his kids. Otherwise, the town of Hue was sort of dull, but the local food was good. The bus to Hanoi from Hue is a long overnight affair that I’d rather forget, so I am going to skip to Hanoi in my next entry, which is where Marc enters the picture to join our gang.

Southeast Asia, Vietnam

Nha Trang





I took my open tour bus to Nha Trang for a little beach time. After Dalat, it seems like a dumpy little town. I sat down at the beach and found myself pestered by dozens of women wanting me to buy pinapple, postcards, peanuts, candy, chips, cigarettes, bla bla bla. They don’t leave after you say no. So just hanging out alone and reading my book turned out to be a challenge. After a few minutes on the beach I noticed that I was sitting near a big bloated rat that had washed ashore. Ick. In Cambodia, I discovered how nice it is to run barefoot on the beach to get exercise. So I found a nice looking couple and asked them to watch my stuff while I went for a run, being careful to not step on the rat. After the run, I felt better about being there. I sat down again in the sand and soon two Vietnamese women sat near me and struck up a conversation. One of them spoke enough English for us to actually have a decent talk and I was in a good mood and was being funnier than usual, so we were all having a good time. We made plans to meet for dinner and had a good time feasting on fresh seafood at a nearby restaurant. After that night, I went on a one-day snorkle tour and met some fellow tourists with whom I’ve been traveling with ever since. It’s been great traveling with Nada and Marc, and I wouldn’t change anything, but I do realize what I’ve missed by not hanging with locals for these last two weeks. I stopped trying to learn Vietnamese, because it wasn’t necessary anymore. I also stopped learning about the culture from the local’s perspectives and really just started being a tourist with Nada and Marc. They are really fun & adventurous people, and are now good friends, so I really am not complaining. I just need to remember to keep a balance between hanging out with fellow travelers, and connecting with locals – so I can have the best of both worlds. Vietnam was a good balance, because I spent the first two weeks meeting locals, and then, as I grew weary of the difficulties of having this language barrier with everyone I met, I found two great Europeans with whom to go on adventures for the last two weeks. So I should mention the snorkle tour. If you go to Nha Trang, you MUST do the snorkle tour. Yes, there is snorkling, but the tour is really just about partying. Our boat was packed with people, over half of whom were Vietnamese. The westerners all went up to the top to get in the sun, while the Vietnamese all sat downstairs and got rowdy. After the first couple rounds of beers went around, the tour guide and his sidekick set up this rusty drum set and taped-up guitar and rocked the boat. Several Vietnamese guys in underwear and towels danced around in the middle. It was hysterical. After the first snorkle swim, we had lunch and then the best part… We all jumped in the water and a little styrofoam “bar” is set up and free (sickly sweet) dalat mulberry wine is served until everyone gets hammered. The French girl on the boat, who was rather unfriendly before, got so drunk, she had to be watched after for fear that she would drown. At one point, she jumped off the boat, climbed up onto a dock and stole a local woman’s pointy hat. Another guy named Jacob and I had to jump in after her and get her back on the boat before real trouble erupted. Getting her back on board turned out to be a little challenging, because she didn’t want to go. But she took a liking to Jacob, so she finally started allowing us to help her back up onto the boat. I ended up cutting my foot and legs on the side of the boat, which turned out to be pretty sharp on the edge just below the surface of the water. Not such a good design for a tour boat. Back on board, I met Nada (pronouced Nadia) from Slovokia. We were both headed to Hoi An so we exchanged cell phone numbers. That night, the westerners on the boat all met for drinks. There were three people from Canada – one couple from Vancouver, a nice German couple, Jacob from Denmark, Patricia the drunk French woman was now completely sober, and Marc from Holland. Nada left for Hoi An that night so she didn’t join us. Marc seemed pretty cool and Nada had his email address, so we hoped to all re-connect in Hoi An. I got to bed by around 2 am that night after a lot of drinking and a little dancing, and left the next day for the overnight bus to Hoi An.

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mail2web – Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .

Personal, Southeast Asia, Travel, Vietnam

Pickers

Many SE Asians use toothpicks after every single meal. There are always toothpicks on the tables, and someone is always picking away somewhere nearby. However, it’s apparently offensive to show your teeth when you using your toothpick because people hide their mouths with one hand while they pick their teeth with the other. However, nobody seems to mind when someone is picking their nose. Walking through the streets and markets in Vietnam I saw people digging for nose potatoes all the time. In Hanoi the waitress standing across from my table was picking away deeply into her nose and rolling away the bugers to the floor while I ate. While behind her, someone was carefully picking their teeth with one hand over their mouth. So picking your nose in public is ok, but showing your teeth when you use a toothpick is offensive. Get it? Neither do I.

Southeast Asia, Travel, Vietnam

Saigon and More






11-23-05
Hi all. Sorry It’s been so long since I’ve written. I’ve been to Nha Trang, Hoi An, Halong Bay and am now I Hanoi, trying to sit still for a few days and REGROUP before my Vietnam visa expires and I am forced to fly off to Laos. Let’s see, where do I start? So in my last posting from Dalat I whined about finances a lot and promised to write about Saigon. I’ll avoid whining about money this time. Saigon is a big city – over 8 million people call it home, but somehow it feels small. Perhaps this is due to the fact that compared to any city in America, it feels squashed together. I’m not sure how to explain how densely populated this city is. There are motor scooters and people everywhere. Walking across the street required a strong will and a deep faith that every motor scooter driver careening directly at you will, at the last moment, swerve around you. It’s almost best to just close your eyes and slowly…steadily..walk…across the street. Riding on a motorbike is nearly as frightening. This was the first place since I left Bangkok that I was too chicken to rent a scooter. It looks like suicide to me. However, somehow all but a few people do it every day without accident. I was befriended by several local college students who took me out to the local hangouts, cheap dinners, and bowling. It was a great time. Only one of them could speak English in sentences that I could, with effort, comprehend. But the difficulty in having deep conversations was easily compensated with the feeling that I was really experiencing Saigon the way the Saigonese do. At least, the way the college-aged Saigonese do. They had almost no money, but they insisted on paying for everything. On our last night together (I went out with different combinations of them for 3 nights), I was giving a chime as a gift from one of them. It was so sweet. They were really great kids. Well, they certainly looked like kids. Vietnamese people look about 10 years younger than they are. And as you can imagine, I tower over everyone. Cau. That means tall in Vietnamese. I hear that word a lot when I am walking down the street or through markets. I am now conditioned to hear it as if my name was just spoken, so I always turn my head when I hear it…because I know who they are talking about. This always makes them smile, because they suddenly realize they’ve been caught talking about me. Then they say something else in Vietnamese to me, expecting me to understand…and of coarse I don’t. My Vietnamese is limited to about 10 words, unfortunately. Saigon really comes to life at night. There are little plastic chairs and tables that come out and cover the sidewalks, make-shift kitchens consisting of a burner and a big pot of something yummy, along with a big bowl of cooked rice are set up everywhere as soon as it starts getting dark. The tables are sized to be perfect for a very small child. The “chairs” a laughable little boxes of plastic not much larger than a shoebox. Sitting in one for long periods of time is guaranteed to make you sore. However, the food you get from these little street stalls is great. Strange meats wrapped in banana leaf. Cow? Pig? Dog? Pig I think. Dried squid. Pho…delicious noodle soup with fresh sprouts and basil and thin slices of meat. Bia hoi. This means “fresh beer”. It’s brewed locally, every day, and is meant to be consumed that night. Anything not sold is dumped. A big glass is 1000-2000 dong… about 7 cents. It’s cold and very light, lemony, and delicious. Cheaper than bottled water. Vietnamese, the language, has 6 tones, and if you use the wrong tone, even if you pronounce the word perfectly, you will be stared at as if you were speaking gibberish. It’s frustrating. I’ve really given up trying at this point. I have better luck just pointing, gesturing, and often…being completely misunderstood. To hear them speak, you would think that they are all yelling at each other. The all sound like they are pissed off, even if they are just talking about the weather. I think it’s partially because the tones that are required to be understood make them have to emphasize words by saying them harder or louder than other words…so they sound so serious and angry even when they are just chatting. It’s so strange. Anyway, I only got to hang out with a few other local people who spoke limited English, a couple of women from Nha Trang. We met one afternoon on the beach and ended up going out to dinner and walking around the town. They were a lot of fun, but the next day I met a bunch of fellow tourists on a snorkeling tour boat which turned out to be a big party boat. Everyone got smashed on free Dalat wine and danced to the crappy live band on the tiny boat. There were about 10 westerners – I was, as usual, the only American, and about 30 Vietnamese. They made us look like timid pussies. They were jumping around in their undies on the “dance floor”, having a great time while we just stood back and laughed. I met Nada and Marc on the boat. We were all heading to Hoi An so we ended up meeting again there. Nada moved to my hotel and we ended up spending several days together in Hoi An. That’s another story. What happened when I met Marc and Nada was this: I stopped mingling with the Vietnamese and started mingling with people with whom I could speak to easily. So my immersion in the culture sort of shifted to outsider again…but the trade off has been to have two new friends that I’ve shared really great times with as we traveled together. We are all actually sharing a big room tonight. Marc is leaving for India tomorrow, and I will be heading to Laos in a few days. Nada is heading to Bangkok and then to Australia. So we are all parting ways for what may be a very long time – perhaps never meeting again…but I know I should never say never. So, tonight we are going to go out and get drunk in Hanoi. This means I need to stop writing. I still have so many more stories to tell! So next time I need to talk about my adventures in Hoi An and Hue with Nada and then our rendezvous with Marc in Hanoi, and the adventures we shared in Hanoi and Halong Bay! It’s so hard to keep up! Tonight more adventures will pile up on the old ones!

Southeast Asia, Vietnam

Dalat

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Hello family and friends.

I am sitting in a restaurant in central Viet Nam. I’ve been on the road for just over a month now. I’ve had some great times, and I’ve had times like these, when it’s been days since I’ve really talked to someone who doesn’t want me to buy something. Here in Dalat, it seems like every moto driver wants to take you on a tour of central Vietnam on their motorbike. It actually sounds pretty good. You go to waterfalls and lakes and villages and see a silk factory and longhouses and rice paper making, and so on and so forth. The trouble is that they want about 50 bucks per day, and the trips are from 3 to 5 to 20 days long. My budget for asia is “supposed” to be 15 bucks a day, in reality, it’s been over 30. The trip would be cheaper if I was sharing the cost of my room, but not much. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll do it. I’ll see plenty of indigenous people in Laos and Myanmar. Besides, Vietnam is really most interesting when you are meeting the Vietnamese, not visiting toursty waterfalls, and semi-“authentic” minority people’s villages. In case I haven’t mentioned it to everyone, I bought a cell phone in Saigon, and it was surprisingly expensive. But now I have a cell phone in case anyone wants to call or better yet, TEXT message me, because I don’t have voicemail on it. You can text me and tell me when to call you or vice versa…I have an internet phone I can call from when I am online and it’s very cheap for me. However, right now I am having problems with it. My account has been blocked for some reason. I am trying to figure out why. However, I think you can still leave me voicemail at my skype number, which is a Seattle number: 1-425-296-2591.

My Vietnam cell phone number is: 084 (vietnam country code, might only need to dial 84, not sure) + 090-836-3560

I’m also not sure text messaging service is international, but it seems to work from local Vietnamese I’ve met who message me nearly everyday! Just text message me and we will find out!

By the way, Saigon was absolutely great! I met some great local Saigonese, we went out for dinners, bowling, ice cream… really fun. The city has a great energy and made me a little bit crazy…but in a good way. I will definitely go back to Saigon. It’s my favorite city in Asia so far. I will post a blog about my time there later, because I’m STILL processing the experience.