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.

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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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.

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!

Dalat

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.