A novel, no seriously a novel on Vietnam : )

Hmm, writing about Vietnam is something that I find harder so far than other things. As I mentioned in my frienship village post, I'm currently reading a book titled, The Girl in the Picture which I've been learning more and more about which has made me kind of change the way I think about my experience in Vietnam.

I arrived in Vietnam via an 31 hour overnight/ day bus leaving from Vang Vieng, Laos at 1pm. Arriving in Hanoi around 6pm the next day. It was an interesting bus journey for sure. Thank goodness there were two dutch girls on the journey with me. But i'll save the rest of that story for the Laos blog..

I decided to tag along with the girls from the bus journey to the hostel they had booked. Turned out to be an excellent one where you could meet tons of people but it was huge! I think, 7 or 8 stories, a huge lounge, computer lab, outside hang out, a bar downstairs, luggage storage, etc. The next morning the girls and I went on a walking tour of the Old Quarter where we saw some temples, two different markets and learned a little bit of background info on Vietnam. Similar to most of Asia, people visit the market daily to get their fresh fruit and veggies! This is one of my absolute favorite things, knowing when you go to a soup stand/ cart on the road, the lady went to the market that morning. The markets were very interesting to say the least. You could literally get any kind or piece of meat. I personally didn't see it, but the Italian couple at Frienship Village and the market there saw a dog.. literally just cut open, fur still in tact :(. Eating dog meat in Vietnam is becoming less popular as the country increases their GDP and recovers from a long history of being very poor. So I can understand why they have these things at the market and literally eat every part of an animal. If you had nothing else, would you?

After the tour I headed to the Hanoi Prison or nicknamed the Hilton Prison because the Vietnamese think they treated the American POW's captured and held in this prison as though they were in the Hilton. The prison is very interesting, they show you all the cells, and have tons of things on the wall about the terrible things Americans did to the Vietnamese during the “American War” as Vietnamese say. It obviously seems a bit bias but we definitely didn't do great things. They show that the lives of the American POW's were great, they got to play cards, play volleyball, poker, speak to their families, and have press conferences with international media. If I'm not mistaken, I believe John Mccain has a book about his time in that prison so I'm very curious to read it and see what his side of the story was like.

Many stores in the Old Quarter sell “Propaganda Posters”. I really wish I had done more reading prior to my trip to understand more about the war, but better late then never. To end that day, I headed to a Water Puppetry Show, where there is a pool, and puppets on sticks. Then singers, and musicians are on both sides of the stage speaking and singing. While it was all in Vietnamese I could definitely still understand most of the story line and what was going on. I still am a bit puzzled though as to how it works.. The actors came out later with their pants wet, but there was a curtain on the stage but it was soo far back? Maybe the sticks of the puppets were super long?

The next day I arranged for a 3 day and 2 night tour of Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. I knew that was on the list of MUST do, and there wasn't a whole lot more to do in Hanoi. The first night in Hanoi I had messaged the Frienship Village asking if I could come even though they didn't have much notice.. I had no idea if the organization was still going on or anything.. So I didn't know I would start at FV directly after my Halong trip. Halong trip was something else! The hostel I stayed with offered their own version of a Halong Bay trip.. which was really price and I heard was a huge drinking and black out party fest.. As I had decided in Thailand, that's not really what my trip was about. So I decided to walk around to the many travel agents and book a cheaper tour with more activities besides drinking. This tour would fall on my birthday. Sooo I had read that there were tons of scams with tours in Vietnam and to never go with the cheapest tour. I went for a middle of the pack one, not the cheapest, not the most expensive. The tour lady seemed really friendly. It was about 25 bucks per day including food and transport. They would pick me up the next day. The first thing I hated about this tour was their bathroom stop, along with all the other Halong Bay tour stops, go to this place where special needs/ or people with disabilities are working on all sorts of different art works. They make you walk through the entire “factory” before reaching the restrooms and over priced food and drinks. The break was almost 30 minutes and in my opinion not necessary as the road trip wasn't even that long! It broke my heart that they make these people work in front of everyone and they probably make the tiniest fraction of earnings from their work. Not to mention, I felt as though they were being treated like animals in the zoo for us to walk by.

Number 2 thing gone wrong, we waited at the ship terminal a little more then 2 hours before we could board our boat. After we had all been rushed off the van and into the terminal to sign our names on a sheet as quick as we could only to stand around and wait. Turns out they had sold more tickets to people just wanting to take a ferry. We will hear more about these “ferry guests” later. We finally get on the boat, and the lunch is cold, and not great.. Eggs tofu, rice, some spinach, cold french fries, I don't remember much else. The boat randomly stops in the middle of the harbor while were eating, we know we are already behind schedule as the tour has promised us to do a lot of other things on the first day.. We weren't sure if the captain just felt like chillin and eating lunch or if something did happen to the boat.

Then we head to a cave, basically a tourist trap all lite up with a bunch of lights and the tour guide telling us all sorts of different things to see with the shapes of the cave. I was not impressed at all. Having been in the underground river in the Philippines, an awesome cave in Laos, I had really little interest in this tourist trap cave.

Number 3, which the tour lady forgot to mention is the tour did not include drinks, and drinks on the boat were absolutely insanely priced.. At the cave a friend I made on the trip and I decided to buy some drinks, but then were reamed on the boat and told we couldn't buy things from off the boat and bring them on.

Number 4, our 2 hours of promised kayaking around Halong bay turned into 25 minutes. The tour guide tried to convince us to take a bamboo basket weaved boat tour with some of the ladies from the floating village instead of kayaking insisting that the water was really dirty and you dont' want to go in. The tide is bad and you can see all the liter in the water, etc etc. My friend and I still decided to kayak.. who cares if the water is dirty? We had a blast but literally were paddling super fast so we could see all the different parts that we wanted to see.

Ooo I forgot to mention above that there were about 16 people ishh staying on the boat, and then another 6 or so ferry passengers. The people staying on the boat were such a mix, two older guys from Spain who couldn't speak English, a group of 3 French Girls on Holiday, a french guy by himself, a Japanese couple, an English guy traveling alone (the one I hung out with most), a Belgian couple, and myself. In the beginning the meals were a bit awkward with the differences in languages and people knowing people, etc.

After the kayaking we docked at some port, and the ferry passengers finally were able to reach their destination, Cat Ba Island. The whole time we had no idea what was going on, they weren't included in the meals. But they just wanted to get to Cat Ba but had spent the entire day and journey with us on the boat, not allowed to eat, and not allowed to kayak or go into the cave. They got off and were promised there was a bus to the hotel area of the island, on the opposite side of where the boats go. I didn't get to speak to them that night, but the next night saw them on Cat Ba and heard their terror story. The bus they were promised and included in their ferry ticket price wasn't there, they were told that they were too late.. which was totally the boats fault. Anyways they finally got on some bus, where some people had paid and others hadn't... the bus driver stopped the bus on this unlit portion of the island. Got off the bus, and caught some very scary snake, and in the dark, unlit part of an island, threatened the customers who “hadn't paid” with the snake in their face... I'm not sure exactly how they resolved it or got the driver to go again.. but no one was hurt, but I was shown a video someone had taken on their smart phone and looked absolutely terrifying. They got to their hotel and told the front desk and apparently that driver has been arrested several times for doing the same thing but somehow he still gets to continue his job? EEEK scary, but I'm glad they made it and I got to see them the next night.

Okayy so back to dinner time. They boat captain said they needed to keep our passports in case the police come to check who is on the boat. Myself and I would say about half of the other guests said NO. NO one ever needs to keep our passport, if you want a copy, I can give you a copy otherwise NO. If the police come on the boat.. in the middle of Halong Bay, then wake me up and I will show them my passport. After this some people caved and gave him their passport but me and three others still refused. He refused us dinner, and a room. Luckily... the French woman who I was randomly assigned to share a room with had given hers so she already had the key. Our room was right next to the engine which didn't bug me at all, but the other lady couldn't sleep with the noise so slept outside on the top of the house boat. Eventually later on he agreed that he could keep our Drivers License from our home country. Soo again had some nasty cold food.

After dinner most of us hung out on the top of the boat and enjoyed some drinks and the stars, still in absolute shock of everything that had happened that day. I learned that I was the only person to book a 3 day two night tour.. So the next day they would all head back. I had set an alarm to get up and watch the sunrise and to go swimming, but saw that it was cloudy and caught some more Zzz's. Apparently the water was really cold and sunrise disappointing because of the weather. I got off the boat after breakfast and was promised a boat trip to “Monkey Island” where you can see and feed a bunch of monkeys chillin on an island. Apparently the water and stuff there is insanely beautiful. Well after being shoved around and watiing on buses and a new tour group we finally were on the bus to hike. Apparently Monkey Island was closed according to the tour guides. I unfortunately did not have my guide book to check or wifi to see what others had experienced. I was pretty disappointed but excited to hike to the highest point on Cat Ba. The hike was nice, the tour guide climbed a tree like a monkey, literally swinging from the branches. We then checked into our hotel, where I was promised to share the room with a girl. At check in time there was no one else to share with so I had the room to myself. Later on that evening while eating dinner, the hotel front desk woman demands my key.. I ask why? And she says I am sharing the room with this man. Not that the guy looked creepy or anything but the principal that I paid to share the room with a woman, I was not going to give them my key. We got into a huge argument, the whole lobby was listening, it was a bit chaotic. Luckily I had made friends with some kiddos from England and they had told me previously in the evening that if they did make me share, I could share with them, the rooms were really big. Soo I knew I had that to fall back on, but it's not right to go against the tour agents word. In general the tour people and hotel people had terrible attitudes, their arguments didn't make any sense, and it made for a hostile and unenjoyable environment. I was soo happy to be back in Hanoi and ready for FV.

OKAY enough complaining.. That was definitely the worst three days of my trip. There were definitely highlights and tried to make the most of it, but it was a constant struggle to “have fun”. That's why my birthday sucked this year!

On top of Cat Ba Island

After Halong, I headed to FV the very next morning. After two weeks there then I took an overnight bus for Hoi An. Hoi An was beautiful, but had just two weeks before flooded! The hostel I stayed at in Hoi An was probably one of the craziest.. all sorts of hostel stories there possibly because of the 4$ unlimited red bull vodkas you could buy. There was also a lovely pool and sunshine! It was so nice to be warm again. At FV it was getting a little bit chilly so to chillax my the pool for a day was a dream come true!

After Hoi An I headed to Dalat. In Dalat I visited the crazy house, basically Alice in Wonderland house come true.. It was awesome and made me think back to my Theater On Ice coaching days when we put on Alice in Wonderland. Then I decided to book an “Easy Riders” Tour which had been highly recommended to me by several people I met on the trip. The tour I got to kind of choose where to go, on the back of a motorcycle with the driver as the guide. I had the choice to do a homestay and jumped on it immediately! I had been wanting to do that my whole trip and finally an easy opportunity. Gon was my guides name, he seemed really friendly. Had a baby and wife at home. We visited a Weasel Cat Poo Coffee making plant, a rice winery, a silk making factory, several incredible waterfalls, a mushroom farm, a brick making farm, a flower plantation, a papaya plantation, tea fields, and then stayed with his family. The homestay was a little difficult because I couldn't exactly communicate with his family. But his great Aunt or something made this special meal for me. I posted a picture on facbeook and got several interesting comments. The meal was rice, rice liquor, silk worms, rabbit (like fried chicken, but rabbit), misc rabbit pieces in blood and seasoning, and I thinkkk that was it. I was trying to eat and drink as slow as possible and wished I had some snacks with me.. but alas always tried not to carry much food as there was always street food and snacks available. After dinner I went to read a book while they finished the meal and continued to drink lots of rice liquor. The family didn't have a hot shower, just a bucket of water and a cup, the bathroom was outside. The rest of the house was pretty standard of an Asian family I would say.. A mat to sit and eat on the floor for dinner, beds, and the best feature... haha the karaoke in the living room. I drank a beer while listening to wasted jam out to Vietnamese songs. I was asked to sing a song.. but really dreaded it haha. I finally caved and sang two songs, Dancing Queen and Build Me up Buttercup! They loved it and kept dancing and singing all night long. Finally I had enough and went to bed. The next morning another cousin or something of Gon's made another special breakfast. It was a pig stomach, pig intestine mixed with glass noodles (kinda like sausage), rice soup, rice crackers, and 7 up.. :P After that we headed back on the road. We went and saw more things, all listed above until about 4pm when he dropped me off at the bus station to head to Ho Chi Minh City. The bus was quick and I arrived in HCMC and finally got to meet up with Royce. We got dinner and then I decided on somewhat of a whim that I was just going to bolt to Cambodia and come hang out with him in HCMC for the end of my trip.. I already booked my ticket home to the states out of HCMC and my visa for Vietnam was expiring only in two days... and it was already night time.. he had to work, just made more sense to get to Cambodia. So we ate dinner, then I headed back on the bus!

After returning to Vietnam about two weeks later Royce gave me the tour of HCMC. I stayed with him and his roomate at their really awesome with their dogs. Both have done some teaching in HCMC and his roomate is now in the film/ music industry/ teaching. They both have scooters and scoot all over the place. We visited the Cu Chi Tunnels which was such an eye opening experience. I really had no idea about them or what happened and learned so much on the tour. During the war the North used insanely clever tactics and it's no wonder why Americans had so much trouble. A few things they did, was use old bombs repair them, and make new ammunition, they had all sorts of bamboo traps, and tricked the US Army German Shepard sniffing dogs. The tunnels were insanely small, they had been widened in order for tourists to see them. They were so inconspicuous, you could walk over a rock, pick up the rock and that was the entrance to the tunnel. The tour guide served as a translator for the South vietnamese and the U.S government. That was one time in Vietnam where I wish I had said I was Canadian. Royce and I were the only Americans soo he made us answer or try and figure out a lot of reasons Americans did what they did, etc. 

The TINY Cu Chi Tunnels

 

Nightlife in HCMC or pre war, Saigon (most people in the south still call it Saigon, as they dont' really like to think about Ho Chi Minh's takeover city) nightlife was pretty fun. There are tons of outdoor little fresh draft beer places where you chill on little tables and plastic seats and watch the crowds on the streets! Then we went to a fun little club/bar and met a Korean man, who kept buying drinks for us, and danced, and hung out with some of his friends.

When Royce worked on Monday I did a ton of shopping for my last day, got my toe nails and fingers nails with a design done for two dollars including tipping all three workers who helped me.. and visited the War Museum, and Reunification Palace. The War Museum I heard was very grusome and hard to see... I think because it was the very last thing I did in Vietnam I already had an idea what I was in for. It was very interesting and a sad sad sight for sure.

People of Vietnam were sooo kind and caring and welcoming. I was warned before going that I should say that I was Canadian because they had sour attitudes towards Americans.. But I disagree completely. (except at Cu Chi tunnels). In general it seemed as though people seemed pretty happy even though they were still under communism rule, and living on a very little amount. According to Jennifer, my FV Vietnamese American friend said there are many things that still can't happen in Vietnam, like blogging about the government, that will get shut down, they were only allowed to use facebook in the last year or so, etc, etc. People are happy with the things that they do have. Especially those who are older and have seen much worse days, they seem very happy. There is an interesting turn going on where big Chinese and Korean companies are coming into big cities and making big developments. While I think it's great that they are pouring money into Vietnam and stimulating the economy, I also think that the average Vietnamese person couldn't afford to live in those developments soo it's sad to think about what the future of those buildings holds. Many young Vietnamese people in addition or instead of learning English are learning Korean for business. In both Hanoi and HCMC there are little “Korea's”. I also heard about one of the beach towns that I didn't get to visit (Nha Trang) is getting over ruled now by Russian tourists. People there are learning Russian to cater to the big money, signs are all in Russian, and they pack the bars. Apparently one of the airlines has a direct flight and many of them flock to the warm beach.

I LOVED the food in Vietnam, always felt so healthy! Okay the homestay food was a little crazy but the street food was delicious. My favorite was probably bun cha which I explained in the previous post, but there was soo much variety, and freshness was probably my favorite thing! They use lots of cilantros in their soups, have delicious vinegar based sauces, use tons of bean sprouts, and most delish noodles!

My first meal in Vietnam, Chicken Pho! YUMMY!

Vietnam was definitely the master of cop outs or tricksters.. Such as a bar claiming free drinks but really those free drinks were the size of a shot.. Or free beers, but served in a shot glass. The police would shut down bars and clubs after 12 but usually the owners would either turn off the music and tell everyone to keep silent until the police drove off, or pay them off. Nights out were a constant craze of where to go and what hadn't been shut down and such. A bit frustrating, but life. There were also several occurrences of stealing that I had heard mostly from guys at night time. While it sucks, I always encouraged people to think of the difference that it makes to the people, they could feed their family for over a month with the money you had in your wallet for the week.. Or that was their wage for the month at a normal job. Being robbed is never fun, but 100 dollars for us really isn't the end of the world but could mean a world of difference to them. Also being quoted or charged different prices for “foreigners” was very common and a bit annoying but understood. Bus tickets were usually twice the price listed online or in my guidebook.

Traffic in Vietnam was insane! There are a few cars for every gazillion motorbikes. Families of 4 – 6 were sometimes seen riding. The crazy thing was that most of the time the parents or driver would have on the helmet and kids just chillin on the back wouldn't. This was pretty common for all of SEA, however in Vietnam it was taken to a new level. They would be on their cell phones, have conversations, text, and everything while driving.. It was a bit terrifying. Oo and as a pedistrian there are rarely crosswalks.. Soo you just kind of walk out into the madness of scooters slowly and steadily, the drivers hopefully are paying attention and judge how to avoid you and go around. It is one of the scariest things of my trip but sometimes you just had to go for it.. My preferences was to just walk and not look otherwise you stop, but you do actually have to look. When there were stoplights, most people did obey and didn't run red lights like we did in Korea. Most of the time people get pulled over and just pay the cop off with whatever cash they have.

I cannot believe what kind of suffering the people went through yet they are soo loving and open to foreigners in their country and seemed to have moved on from the past. It is so cool to see that. I think... I remembered most of the stuff I wanted to share about vietnam! This is a novel but there were soo many moments in Vietnam to share! Hope you enjoy reading and I would highly recommend if you have the chance to visit!