Listening: Evolution is real. Secrets we have never revealed. Did you leave your mark? Was it real?
What's my problem? More time? Less time? I can't tell anymore.
So, clearly I have a death wish. When I got on my motorbike, I completely forgot that Sapa is a town surrounded by mountains. What that means is that the roads wind around said mountains, and one side of the road looks out over the cliffs of said mountains. Yeah. Clifhanging, white knuckle scootering. And I felt completely sketched out if I went over 40 kph. I tried gunning it on a straightaway, but when I hit 60, I was like, "Whoah... Mucho rapido! Mui mal!"
I took the scooter up to Silver Waterfall, which is a good eighteen kliks away from Sapa. The bike rental guy told me that it was all new roads on the way there. It gave me a sense of security that I would easily be able to navigate the roads and check out this cool site. I was wrong. By new roads, I guess he meant that they were still being built or were in such disarray that they would need new roads soon. Sure, there were stretches of pristine pavement, but there were large stretches of large gravel roads (by large gravel roads, I don't mean that the roads are large, I mean that the gravel is large), dust roads, dirt roads, roads of broken pavement, and some straight up rocks. It was daunting, to be honest.
I was about nine kliks in when I saw a couple that I had met in Sapa walking the road back towards me. I stopped to ask if the waterfall was close, because it had felt like I had rode eighteen kliks. They said that they didn't know. They had been walking since Sapa and had decided to turn around because they couldn't find the waterfall. I told them that I would drive ahead and that if it was close, I would come back to tell them. I never went back, because it was another eight kliks until I found the waterfall area.
The waterfall area itself is pretty small. Since it was dry season, it really wasn't more than a trickle. Sure, it was nice, but I couldn't see Fanxipan like I thought that I would be able to.
After hitting up the waterfall, I was pretty hungry, so I headed back into Sapa to a place called Baguette & Chocolate. This place was mentioned in the Lonely Planet, and I'd say that a good two thirds of the places that I have tried have sucked. This place, though, looked nice and comfortable. It had a number of people sitting and enjoying their meals, so I decided to try it.
I ended up ordering the snack menu which consisted of my choice of sandwich, a side of fries and a Vietnamese coffee. I picked a chicken pesto sandwich. It was all very good, and they probably had the best fries that I have ordered in southeast Asia. I ordered a tiramisu for dessert, but that kind of sucked. I guess when you're spoiled by Cafe Vittoria in the North End, all other tiramisu sucks.
After lunch, I headed to Cat Cat Village and Sin Chai Village. I actually went to Sin Chai first since it was already three in the afternoon, and Sin Chai was further away. I had to have the bike back around five. Sin Chai was definitely an operational village. There were people living there and working the land. It was not touristy at all. There was a single woman who tried to sell me a bag. I followed the road in Sin Chai until I could no longer go. It literally ended at a house's doorstep. The residents looked confused as I tried to turn my scooter around. Luckily, I got some help from a Hmong teenager.
Cat Cat Village was more than I expected. It was definitely touristy, but it was expansive and it was beautiful. The land was terraced, and there were handicraft workshops everywhere. Pigs and ducks roamed freely up and down the steps of the village. There were cool bridges and a waterfall. I only had enough time to see half of the village, unfortunately. It was really nice though.
From there, I returned my scooter. I was afraid that the guy would run off with my passport, but at the end of the day, there he was and my passport was in tact. I got the scooter for an amazing price. Normally, manual motorbikes go for about five dollars a day. Automatics go for about ten. I got an automatic for six dollars for the day, and it was a brand new scooter. As a matter of fact, a bunch of locals that I stopped in front of commented on its newness.
Just as I was about to head up the hill to the travel agency, I see a group of motorbikes coming down the hill. I recognize a face. It's Clover, half of my favorite set of twins! "Clover!" I shout. She turns around on the bike and says, "Heeeeey!" as Adam, the guy driving continued away. I followed them down to the Queen Hotel where I got their update.
We had all left Hanoi on the same day. A group of twelve of them took off on motorbikes to ride from Hanoi to Sapa. The ride was supposed to take two days. I ran into Andrew, one of the drivers, on the day I got back from my trek to Ban Ho. He said that he and another driver lost the rest of the group on day one. He said that the others were having problems with their bikes. He said that they broke down a number of times in the first half of the first day.
It took the rest of the group four days to get to Sapa. They had crashed a number of times, gotten flat tires, ran out of petrol, and a host of other things. It was good to see Clover and Sophie again. Actually, about half of my Halong Bay Tour people were on that trip from Hanoi to Sapa. It was, indeed, craziness.
Not long after I ran into Clover and Sophie, I was back on the night train to Hanoi. On the night train up to Sapa, I was freezing cold. I had worn the wrong clothing and the A/C was blowing on me all night long. So I was prepared this time. I had on my heavier pants, my thermal shirt, my fleece vest and my jacket. A lot of good that preparation did.
This time, the cabin Robert and I were in was a sauna. It sucked big balls. I sweat my entire way back down to Hanoi. I think I could have died in there, or at least I could have lost 90% of my water weight.
Since May hooked me up with a room at Hanoi Backpackers, I was able to sleep a few hours, get a nice shower and just feel cleaner. I got into Hanoi at around five in the morning, was able to check into my bed at eleven, got up and left the hostel around two and had lunch with Robert.
After lunch, I went over to Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton to American pilots shot down in the Vietnam War. It was a pretty intense place. There was much more history to the place other than the fact that there were some American pilots caged there. There were Vietnamese caged there as well. They were imprisoned by the French. It was really interesting how first the Vietnamese were imprisoned and then the Americans.
By the time I had finished with that, it was time for me to pack up and head to Hue. I cut it really close getting to the bus though. I had put my laundry in for express service, and it was being packed up just fifteen minutes before I was supposed to be at the bus.
The bus itself kinda blew. It was a sleeper bus, but it was still very cramped. The bus was two beds high by three beds wide with an aisle going between the rows. My bed was about a foot and a half to two feet wide. Yeah, I was cramped, and my shoulders and elbows spilled into the aisles.
I did my best to make the best of it. I plugged in for a while and read "Eat, Pray, Love." I made friends with some German girls. Other than that, the ride was uneventful.
We got to Hue at around nine in the morning. I ended up following the German girls to their hotel, because I didn't have anywhere booked. I ended up paying fifteen dollars for a room by myself. Luckily, it was clean, had A/C and had TV.
The first thing I did after I cleaned myself up was go find some Bun Bo Hue, as requested by Linh. I asked the person at the front desk where the best place in town to get Bun Bo Hue was, and she marked it down on my map. Originally, she said that it would take twenty minutes to get there. I looked at the map and I didn't believe her. And I was right. It only took about ten minutes. I didn't need to rent a bicycle. I didn't need to catch a cyclo or a motorbike. I didn't need a taxi. I think she was just try to sell me.
When I got there, it was kind of an open storefront. All it said in front was "Bun Bo Hue." I knew that I had arrived. From the first spicy slurp, it was pure bliss. Bun Bo Hue is a beef noodle soup with a spicy, rich broth. Mine came with a huge chunk of a cow, skin, bone and all. The skin had been simmered for so long that it had turned into beefy jello. Sinking my teeth into it was a purely pornographic act. It was depraved and dirty, and I liked it.
After my breakfast/lunch, I headed over to the Citadel, where I ended up bumping into another German girl that I had met in Sapa. Since we were both lone travelers, I invited her to join me. At one of gates to the Forbidden Purple City, I saw the two German girls from the bus, and invited them to join us.
It took a couple of hours for us to walk around the Citadel. To be honest, there wasn't an incredible amount to see. There were a lot of ruins, but there wasn't a lot of information. I could have, however, paid some money to have dressed up like an imperial mandarin.
After the citadel, we all got some food that, well, to be honest sucked big donkey balls. It's not worth saying much more than that. Let's just say that it fell into the two thirds of the places in the Lonely Planet that can kiss my yellow ass.
We all kind of decided that we wanted to go see some tombs and pagodas, so we collectively hired a taxi to take us around. Coincidentally, it was the same taxi driver that brought the two German girls and I to our hotel. He was a good sport though. He took us to Tuc Du tomb and to a Pagoda. While we walked around, we heard that all of the tombs are relatively the same, so we skipped out on a bunch of them.
As we walked around, we looked to see how much more there was to see in the city. It didn't look like much. There were the DMZ (demilitarized zone) tours, but I was told and I read that if you;re not a Vietnam war buff or you weren't there, the tours aren't going to mean much to you. So I opted out. As the four of us walked around, we pretty much decided that there wasn't enough to keep us in Hue another night.
For dinner, I brought them to the Bun Bo Hue place. They loved it. I loved having it again. I think that the owners thought that I was weird for being the only foreigner there the first time, and then coming back with some more foreigners for seconds.
That brings us to this morning, where the four of us hopped the bus to Hoi An. It's beautiful here. I get a really good vibe from this place. I'm currently having one chef's coat being made and a reproduction of one of my favorite shirts being made as well. If they look nice, I'll buy more. The chef's coat will cost thirty five dollars each, less if I buy enough, and the shirt will be ten dollars. I also was looking at prescription glasses. I can get a pair here for about fifty US dollars. I'm thinking about it. I think that if everything goes as planned, I'll pay about $200 for six chef coats and maybe another $20 for two shirts. Should I throw in a pair of glasses? Man I'm really stimulating this economy.
Anyhow, I have to go meet the Germans for dinner. More on the progress of the clothes later.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Day 45: Big Hard Sun, Cold Misty Mountain
Listening: There's a big, a big, hard sun beaten on the big people in the big, hard world.
What's my problem? I'm wearing ALL of my warmest clothes at one time.
It was perhaps the best move I've made since I left Laos. Sapa. Sapa is an old French mountain station in a valley surrounded by huge limestone mountains. All around the town there live a variety of different hill tribes, people in traditional costumes, living almost the same way that they have since the beginning of their civilization's existence.
I left Hanoi at about a quarter past nine in the evening. It was myself and a guy named Robert from Sweden. On the train ride we got to know each other. He's an IT guy, but it looking to perhaps change careers. He recently got laid off, and is taking this time to travel and figure out not only what he wants to do with his life, but a little bit about himself. He's a good man with a good sense of humor. It's shown in his tolerance of other people.
See, Robert is a... larger person. Ain't nothing wrong with that. He's still a human being. Unfortunately, a lot of people in town don't seem to think so. He's constantly being the butt of Vietnamese jokes. The Vietnamese people will just come up and rub his belly and call him Buddha. They'll stand behind him and smile and laugh with their friends. It's really kind of angering. Robert is not a circus freak, but the ingnorant people seem to treat him like one. I truly feel bad for him, not because he's the size of two Vietnamese guys, but because he has to deal with the discrimination and the ignorance.
Anyhow, Robert and I were joined by Helen, an environmentalist from Montreal, for the two day trek to and from Ban Ho, a hill tribe village belonging to the Tay people. We had gotten off the train at around a quarter to five in the morning and were walking by ten. We barely had time to shower, grab breakfast, and take a quick nap before we began walking the rice paddies.
Initially, we got a ride for about seven kilometers to Ta Van, a Dzay village, but before we knew it, we were deep in the mountains. Ban Ho was a good ten or twelve kilometers away, and we were walking it all. The terrain was difficult, but not nearly as difficult as my trek in Chiang Mai. There was never a time when I felt that I would slip off the mountain into oblivion.
The hill tribe people of the region have transformed the mountainous land into hectares upon hectares of rice paddies. They're like giant muddy steps that ascend into the mist that covers the mountain tops for most of the day. From high above, the paddies look like a topographic map, each ring denoting a different elevation. Water buffalo roam freely about the paddies eating any vegetation that they see fit, and dropping large piles of shit everywhere in their wake.
For the first half of our day, we were followed by a number of Hmong women. They were all extremely friendly and talked to us in nearly perfect English as we trekked up and down mountains. The three of us and our guide all had on reasonable sensible shoes, whether they were trail runners or sneakers. These ladies wore plastic sandals and made the walk look easy, while the three of us did our best to find sure footing.
We knew it before we went on the trek that we would get the sell. That's what a lot of these hill tribe people do. They hang around you for a while and then they try to sell you some swag that you don't need. I had befriended the woman with the one month old child. Yeah. That was smart. So, when we came to her village, the whole group got the press from the Hmong women. "You buy from me?" was the question. And the question was asked over and over.
To be honest, my pack was pretty full. I left my big pack at Hanoi Backpackers and brought only what I needed to Sapa. What I needed turned out to have filled my daypack to the brim. I wasn't prepared to buy stuff from the hill tribe people, nor did I think that any of it would make good gifts. Luckily, I got away with only buying a little cloth bracelet for five thousand dong (about 33 cents). Helen ended up buying a silver bracelet. Robert came out of it unscathed though.
By the time lunch had rolled around, I had stripped off my fleece vest and my thermal shirt. I guess, as it turns out, that if you walk up and down rice paddies in the sun you get kind of hot. We were all a big sweaty mess by the time we sat down. There was another group of trekkers there that we shit shot with for a while.
After lunch we made an incredible descent. We went down, down down into the valley to the village of Ban Ho. It was so steep in places that I felt like my feet would go out from under me and I would fall five feet to the next little plateau.
It was five in the evening by the time that we pulled into the homestay. Our family was quite nice. The mother of the family allowed Helen and I to watch her cook dinner. I helped a little too. Everything was done over a fire. The wok rested on a grate over the fire, so I kept the fire at an appropriate temperature by either feeding it more bamboo or smothering some of the burning pieces.
As I expected, the food was all quite simple and very tasty. We had a pork dish, a chicken dish, a tofu dish, and two vegetable dishes. It was all accompanied by... rice wine. I have to be honest, I'm a bigger fan of Lao Lao than I am of rice wine. I know that Lao Lao has more alcohol in it, but it just tastes nicer than rice wine. But, in order to be polite, you HAVE to drink every time you're poured. By the time dinner was over, we had done at least five shots. I had already had a beer with dinner too, so I was sleepy.
However, instead of going to sleep, I went with the group to a special traditional dance show at the local primary school. There was a group of Singapore high school students there, who were the reason the show was being put on. The traditional dances were amazing. There were fan dances, umbrella dances, kind of square dances, and, my personal favorite, the candle dance. The Singapore kids did a couple of quazi hip hop, pantomime dances which were much less impressive and entertaining. But they're high school kids. Maybe they haven't grown rhythm yet.
At the very end, they did the bamboo dance, which is kind of a cross between dancing and jump rope. There are three sets of bamboo poles that go in a rhythm. Two taps far apart, and two taps together. The goal is to not get your feet caught and dance to the rhythm of the taps. Everyone was invited to try and I had a great time doing it. By the end, I was one of the people tapping the bamboo poles.
After dancing, the three of us, as well as a Dutch girl from another homestay, got roped into doing karaoke. I have to say that it was a lot of fun. The Vietnamese guides were really into it. One guy even got an 100% score. I had fun singing Elvis' "Suspicious Minds," the Spin Doctors' "Two Princes," Guns 'n' Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine, and Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." There was some Frank Sinatra in there done by Robert and Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Helen and Cindy (the Dutch girl). We all rolled out of there exhausted and laughing our asses off.
The next day we woke up to a banana pancake breakfast. It was a good start to the day which was followed by a trek to a very small waterfall. The waterfall was immensely crowded. There were trekkers all over the place, as well as local kids playing in the water. I think that on a hotter day in a hotter climate I might have taken a dip, but that day I was really fine with just soaking my feet.
At around half past eleven, we had to leave the waterfall area, because higher up on the mountain, they were building a road and needed to blast some rocks. That was supposed to happen at noon. So, as we're getting back to the homestay, I ask our guide if we'll be able to hear the blast when it happens. He said, "yes." Then, Helen looked up and asked, "So when is it supposed to happ..." And BOOM! We heard the explosion. It was some of the best timing ever.
Back at the homestay, we had lunch and said our goodbyes. Then it was the long trek up the mountain to where a van would pick us up and drive us back to Sapa.
When we got back to Sapa, I found myself a hotel and ended up seeing some folks that I knew from back at Hanoi Backpackers. There were supposed to be twelve of them who rode motorbikes up to Sapa. When I saw them, there were only four. Apparently on the first half of the first day, a couple of the bikes broke down. So, they don't even know if they would make it to Sapa or if they would just turn around and go back to Hanoi. It was unfortunate. My favorite twins were on the back of a couple of those bikes. I hope none of them got injured.
That night, I had an early dinner (and a late dinner for that matter), and walked around town before I met up with Helen and Robert at the Lovers Market.
The Lovers Market happens every Saturday in the square in Sapa. Single people from all of the surrounding hill tribes come around, play music, dance, and try to find a spouse. It used to be a really popular thing for the hill tribe singles, but in recent years, it has become a bit of a tourist thing. Apparently, now there are underground Lovers Markets that tourists aren't privy to.
I was surprised by the average age of the "singles" at this market. There were very young children there. I think that the oldest "single" that I saw there could have been eighteen years old at the oldest. Man, why do they need to be starting so early?
Anyhow, it was there that I was accosted. I feel a tap on my shoulder and the question was asked in tiny little voices, "You buy from me?" I turned around and there they were. Two cute little girls. Just looking at them melted me. They were just. so. cute. I made them work for it though. I talked with them for a little while. I asked them their names. The twelve year old who was much more talkative was named Ban, and the seven year old didn't say much more than "You buy from me?"
I told them that if they wanted me to buy something, they would have to talk to me in English. They would have to tell me their names, how old they were, if they went to school, where their village was and so on and so forth. Ban, who was cuter than cute did her best, and I rewarded her with buying a bracelet from her. Once the other kids around realized that I was buying from her, they all crowded around to try to get me to buy from them as well. Luckily, I made and excuse saying that Ban and I were friends now and that I would only buy from her.
Ban and her friend hung out with Helen, Robert and I for a little while longer. I was able to get a picture with them. They were just so cute that I wanted to put them in my pocket and take them home.
Anyhow, today, I have a free day in Sapa. Helen and Robert are going to see a rather large market about two hundred kilometers away. They paid for it in the package. The motorbike guys are going with some Hmong women to their village to cook lunch. I rented a motorbike and will be riding to Cat Cat Village where many Hmong live, and also up to the Silver Waterfalls about nine kilometers away. I hear that you can see Fanxipan mountain from there.
A funny story about Fanxipan. I was in the kitchen at Hanoi Backpackers talking to another American who had just traveled from China to Sapa and was now in Hanoi. I told him that I would be going to Sapa. So, he asked me if I was going to see Fanxipan. Now, I hadn't done a lot of research. I had no clue what Fanxipan was. I just thought he was saying Fancy Pants. I was like, "what're these fancy pants you're talking about? Is it a certain hill tribe dress?" Then he informed me that it was a mountain with a lot of good trekking and that it's the highest mountain in the area. Fanxipan. Not Fancy Pants.
Tonight, after I drop off my motorbike, I get on the bus with Robert to catch the night train back to Hanoi. I'll get back there around five in the morning, and, luckily, I'll have a bed waiting for me, thanks to Mei. Unfortunately, she won't be in it. I guess we can't have it all.
I'll actually only be in Hanoi for about eighteen hours. I plan on catching a night bus to Hue tomorrow. The three places in Vietnam that I have been in have all been radically different. I wonder what Hue will bring.
What's my problem? I'm wearing ALL of my warmest clothes at one time.
It was perhaps the best move I've made since I left Laos. Sapa. Sapa is an old French mountain station in a valley surrounded by huge limestone mountains. All around the town there live a variety of different hill tribes, people in traditional costumes, living almost the same way that they have since the beginning of their civilization's existence.
I left Hanoi at about a quarter past nine in the evening. It was myself and a guy named Robert from Sweden. On the train ride we got to know each other. He's an IT guy, but it looking to perhaps change careers. He recently got laid off, and is taking this time to travel and figure out not only what he wants to do with his life, but a little bit about himself. He's a good man with a good sense of humor. It's shown in his tolerance of other people.
See, Robert is a... larger person. Ain't nothing wrong with that. He's still a human being. Unfortunately, a lot of people in town don't seem to think so. He's constantly being the butt of Vietnamese jokes. The Vietnamese people will just come up and rub his belly and call him Buddha. They'll stand behind him and smile and laugh with their friends. It's really kind of angering. Robert is not a circus freak, but the ingnorant people seem to treat him like one. I truly feel bad for him, not because he's the size of two Vietnamese guys, but because he has to deal with the discrimination and the ignorance.
Anyhow, Robert and I were joined by Helen, an environmentalist from Montreal, for the two day trek to and from Ban Ho, a hill tribe village belonging to the Tay people. We had gotten off the train at around a quarter to five in the morning and were walking by ten. We barely had time to shower, grab breakfast, and take a quick nap before we began walking the rice paddies.
Initially, we got a ride for about seven kilometers to Ta Van, a Dzay village, but before we knew it, we were deep in the mountains. Ban Ho was a good ten or twelve kilometers away, and we were walking it all. The terrain was difficult, but not nearly as difficult as my trek in Chiang Mai. There was never a time when I felt that I would slip off the mountain into oblivion.
The hill tribe people of the region have transformed the mountainous land into hectares upon hectares of rice paddies. They're like giant muddy steps that ascend into the mist that covers the mountain tops for most of the day. From high above, the paddies look like a topographic map, each ring denoting a different elevation. Water buffalo roam freely about the paddies eating any vegetation that they see fit, and dropping large piles of shit everywhere in their wake.
For the first half of our day, we were followed by a number of Hmong women. They were all extremely friendly and talked to us in nearly perfect English as we trekked up and down mountains. The three of us and our guide all had on reasonable sensible shoes, whether they were trail runners or sneakers. These ladies wore plastic sandals and made the walk look easy, while the three of us did our best to find sure footing.
We knew it before we went on the trek that we would get the sell. That's what a lot of these hill tribe people do. They hang around you for a while and then they try to sell you some swag that you don't need. I had befriended the woman with the one month old child. Yeah. That was smart. So, when we came to her village, the whole group got the press from the Hmong women. "You buy from me?" was the question. And the question was asked over and over.
To be honest, my pack was pretty full. I left my big pack at Hanoi Backpackers and brought only what I needed to Sapa. What I needed turned out to have filled my daypack to the brim. I wasn't prepared to buy stuff from the hill tribe people, nor did I think that any of it would make good gifts. Luckily, I got away with only buying a little cloth bracelet for five thousand dong (about 33 cents). Helen ended up buying a silver bracelet. Robert came out of it unscathed though.
By the time lunch had rolled around, I had stripped off my fleece vest and my thermal shirt. I guess, as it turns out, that if you walk up and down rice paddies in the sun you get kind of hot. We were all a big sweaty mess by the time we sat down. There was another group of trekkers there that we shit shot with for a while.
After lunch we made an incredible descent. We went down, down down into the valley to the village of Ban Ho. It was so steep in places that I felt like my feet would go out from under me and I would fall five feet to the next little plateau.
It was five in the evening by the time that we pulled into the homestay. Our family was quite nice. The mother of the family allowed Helen and I to watch her cook dinner. I helped a little too. Everything was done over a fire. The wok rested on a grate over the fire, so I kept the fire at an appropriate temperature by either feeding it more bamboo or smothering some of the burning pieces.
As I expected, the food was all quite simple and very tasty. We had a pork dish, a chicken dish, a tofu dish, and two vegetable dishes. It was all accompanied by... rice wine. I have to be honest, I'm a bigger fan of Lao Lao than I am of rice wine. I know that Lao Lao has more alcohol in it, but it just tastes nicer than rice wine. But, in order to be polite, you HAVE to drink every time you're poured. By the time dinner was over, we had done at least five shots. I had already had a beer with dinner too, so I was sleepy.
However, instead of going to sleep, I went with the group to a special traditional dance show at the local primary school. There was a group of Singapore high school students there, who were the reason the show was being put on. The traditional dances were amazing. There were fan dances, umbrella dances, kind of square dances, and, my personal favorite, the candle dance. The Singapore kids did a couple of quazi hip hop, pantomime dances which were much less impressive and entertaining. But they're high school kids. Maybe they haven't grown rhythm yet.
At the very end, they did the bamboo dance, which is kind of a cross between dancing and jump rope. There are three sets of bamboo poles that go in a rhythm. Two taps far apart, and two taps together. The goal is to not get your feet caught and dance to the rhythm of the taps. Everyone was invited to try and I had a great time doing it. By the end, I was one of the people tapping the bamboo poles.
After dancing, the three of us, as well as a Dutch girl from another homestay, got roped into doing karaoke. I have to say that it was a lot of fun. The Vietnamese guides were really into it. One guy even got an 100% score. I had fun singing Elvis' "Suspicious Minds," the Spin Doctors' "Two Princes," Guns 'n' Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine, and Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline." There was some Frank Sinatra in there done by Robert and Britney Spears' "Hit Me Baby One More Time" by Helen and Cindy (the Dutch girl). We all rolled out of there exhausted and laughing our asses off.
The next day we woke up to a banana pancake breakfast. It was a good start to the day which was followed by a trek to a very small waterfall. The waterfall was immensely crowded. There were trekkers all over the place, as well as local kids playing in the water. I think that on a hotter day in a hotter climate I might have taken a dip, but that day I was really fine with just soaking my feet.
At around half past eleven, we had to leave the waterfall area, because higher up on the mountain, they were building a road and needed to blast some rocks. That was supposed to happen at noon. So, as we're getting back to the homestay, I ask our guide if we'll be able to hear the blast when it happens. He said, "yes." Then, Helen looked up and asked, "So when is it supposed to happ..." And BOOM! We heard the explosion. It was some of the best timing ever.
Back at the homestay, we had lunch and said our goodbyes. Then it was the long trek up the mountain to where a van would pick us up and drive us back to Sapa.
When we got back to Sapa, I found myself a hotel and ended up seeing some folks that I knew from back at Hanoi Backpackers. There were supposed to be twelve of them who rode motorbikes up to Sapa. When I saw them, there were only four. Apparently on the first half of the first day, a couple of the bikes broke down. So, they don't even know if they would make it to Sapa or if they would just turn around and go back to Hanoi. It was unfortunate. My favorite twins were on the back of a couple of those bikes. I hope none of them got injured.
That night, I had an early dinner (and a late dinner for that matter), and walked around town before I met up with Helen and Robert at the Lovers Market.
The Lovers Market happens every Saturday in the square in Sapa. Single people from all of the surrounding hill tribes come around, play music, dance, and try to find a spouse. It used to be a really popular thing for the hill tribe singles, but in recent years, it has become a bit of a tourist thing. Apparently, now there are underground Lovers Markets that tourists aren't privy to.
I was surprised by the average age of the "singles" at this market. There were very young children there. I think that the oldest "single" that I saw there could have been eighteen years old at the oldest. Man, why do they need to be starting so early?
Anyhow, it was there that I was accosted. I feel a tap on my shoulder and the question was asked in tiny little voices, "You buy from me?" I turned around and there they were. Two cute little girls. Just looking at them melted me. They were just. so. cute. I made them work for it though. I talked with them for a little while. I asked them their names. The twelve year old who was much more talkative was named Ban, and the seven year old didn't say much more than "You buy from me?"
I told them that if they wanted me to buy something, they would have to talk to me in English. They would have to tell me their names, how old they were, if they went to school, where their village was and so on and so forth. Ban, who was cuter than cute did her best, and I rewarded her with buying a bracelet from her. Once the other kids around realized that I was buying from her, they all crowded around to try to get me to buy from them as well. Luckily, I made and excuse saying that Ban and I were friends now and that I would only buy from her.
Ban and her friend hung out with Helen, Robert and I for a little while longer. I was able to get a picture with them. They were just so cute that I wanted to put them in my pocket and take them home.
Anyhow, today, I have a free day in Sapa. Helen and Robert are going to see a rather large market about two hundred kilometers away. They paid for it in the package. The motorbike guys are going with some Hmong women to their village to cook lunch. I rented a motorbike and will be riding to Cat Cat Village where many Hmong live, and also up to the Silver Waterfalls about nine kilometers away. I hear that you can see Fanxipan mountain from there.
A funny story about Fanxipan. I was in the kitchen at Hanoi Backpackers talking to another American who had just traveled from China to Sapa and was now in Hanoi. I told him that I would be going to Sapa. So, he asked me if I was going to see Fanxipan. Now, I hadn't done a lot of research. I had no clue what Fanxipan was. I just thought he was saying Fancy Pants. I was like, "what're these fancy pants you're talking about? Is it a certain hill tribe dress?" Then he informed me that it was a mountain with a lot of good trekking and that it's the highest mountain in the area. Fanxipan. Not Fancy Pants.
Tonight, after I drop off my motorbike, I get on the bus with Robert to catch the night train back to Hanoi. I'll get back there around five in the morning, and, luckily, I'll have a bed waiting for me, thanks to Mei. Unfortunately, she won't be in it. I guess we can't have it all.
I'll actually only be in Hanoi for about eighteen hours. I plan on catching a night bus to Hue tomorrow. The three places in Vietnam that I have been in have all been radically different. I wonder what Hue will bring.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Day 42: The Change-Up
Listening: Rid me of the problem. Do all that you can. Keep me in a daydream. Keep me goin' strong. You don't wanna save me. Sad is my song.
What's my problem? Changing a flight takes forever.
Well, here's the update. I changed two of my flights, so now I fly from Bangkok to Hong Kong on April 8th and I fly from Hong Kong to Los Angeles on April 15th. This means that I'll have five and a half or six days in Los Angeles before heading back to the east coast for Brian's wedding.
I have realized that it's going to be a pretty big shit show when I get back to Boston. I'll be arriving home on the night of the 21st. The next morning, I'll be heading down to NYC for Brian's wedding. The 23rd is the rehearsal dinner. The 25th is the actual wedding. Then I have to come back to Boston, get my shit together, and get back down to the island sometime around May first. I can just tell what kind of mess I'll be. I guess that's the life of a traveler though, huh?
I finally decided to take Mei's and Jessica's (another hot worker at Hanoi Backpackers) suggestion and go Sapa for a few days. I'm going on a three night organized tour and then I extended one night more so I could walk around on my own or rent a motorbike to check out the things that I feel I might have missed. I hope it's nice.
I get back to Hanoi at around five in the morning on Monday morning, and Mei was nice enough to book me for a bed when I get back for free, even though I'll be leaving later on that night to go to Hue. It's amazing how much you fall in love on the trail.
I'm leaving the bulk of my gear here in Hanoi and am only taking my day pack. It's packed to the gills right now. I heard that it could be cold in Sapa, so I'm bringing all of my warmest (which isn't much). It's only four nights. I wonder how bad it could get. Hopefully I'll get a nice day or two in there when the fog lifts, the clouds descend, and I can see the mountains. I'm pretty excited.
I'm a bit worried about the whole night train thing. I hope they're as nice as the night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, but I'm not holding my breath. I think that it'll be more like the sleeper from Frankfurt to Prague. Twenty-five minutes and I'm off. Here's to hopefully meeting nicer locals.
What's my problem? Changing a flight takes forever.
Well, here's the update. I changed two of my flights, so now I fly from Bangkok to Hong Kong on April 8th and I fly from Hong Kong to Los Angeles on April 15th. This means that I'll have five and a half or six days in Los Angeles before heading back to the east coast for Brian's wedding.
I have realized that it's going to be a pretty big shit show when I get back to Boston. I'll be arriving home on the night of the 21st. The next morning, I'll be heading down to NYC for Brian's wedding. The 23rd is the rehearsal dinner. The 25th is the actual wedding. Then I have to come back to Boston, get my shit together, and get back down to the island sometime around May first. I can just tell what kind of mess I'll be. I guess that's the life of a traveler though, huh?
I finally decided to take Mei's and Jessica's (another hot worker at Hanoi Backpackers) suggestion and go Sapa for a few days. I'm going on a three night organized tour and then I extended one night more so I could walk around on my own or rent a motorbike to check out the things that I feel I might have missed. I hope it's nice.
I get back to Hanoi at around five in the morning on Monday morning, and Mei was nice enough to book me for a bed when I get back for free, even though I'll be leaving later on that night to go to Hue. It's amazing how much you fall in love on the trail.
I'm leaving the bulk of my gear here in Hanoi and am only taking my day pack. It's packed to the gills right now. I heard that it could be cold in Sapa, so I'm bringing all of my warmest (which isn't much). It's only four nights. I wonder how bad it could get. Hopefully I'll get a nice day or two in there when the fog lifts, the clouds descend, and I can see the mountains. I'm pretty excited.
I'm a bit worried about the whole night train thing. I hope they're as nice as the night train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, but I'm not holding my breath. I think that it'll be more like the sleeper from Frankfurt to Prague. Twenty-five minutes and I'm off. Here's to hopefully meeting nicer locals.
Day 42: Vietnam May Have Won The War, But It's Losing The Battle
Listening: Come and see. I swear by now I'm playing time against my troubles. I'm coming slow but speeding.
What's my problem? The people of Hanoi.
Well. Hrumph. I want to like Vietnam. So far, Hanoi isn't making it easy for me. The girls who work at the hostel are nice. The hostel itself is very nice. The people at the hostel are nice. The servers at the restaurant that I ate at last night were nice. Everything else that I have found has been crap.
Today, I went to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. First of all, there are not only foreigners, but there are hoards of locals as well. They all feel that they can jump the cue. They push and shove. They stare. They're just generally inconsiderate, rude, nasty people in this city.
The sidewalks are crowded with motorbikes and people selling stuff, so you have to walk in the middle of the street and dodge the oncoming cars and motorbikes. The weather here, for every day that I have been in Hanoi, has been cold and misty, yet also kind of warm and humid too. I know it's a bit contradictory being cold and warm at the same time, but Hanoi has brought the unpleasantries of both.
I don't know who told me this, but I was expecting the more beautiful girls out of the trip to be coming from Vietnam. I expected the French/Asian mix to really show off some beauty in the fairer sex. So far, Thailand and Laos blows Vietnam out of the water. I can count the beautiful locals that I have seen wandering about the city on two hands. Sure, I haven't gone to any clubs, but c'mon. There have to be some hot working women.
So, right now, Vietnam is losing the battle with me. Maybe I expected too much. Maybe I wasn't prepared enough. There is just so much negativity here coming both from the locals as well as from the travelers. I have heard countless stories of pick pocketing, bag slashings, muggings, beatings.... Apparently, these Brits got into a fight with a taxi driver about the fare and they ended up getting jumped by a crew of Viet guys. Two of the guys have severe injuries and one is in the hospital. I dunno if it's Vietnam or if it's Hanoi, but I'm rather uncomfortable here.
I'm ready to move on... today.
As I type I'm across from the Cathay Pacific office in Hanoi Towers. They're closed for an hour for lunch. I had to forward some stuff to them so they could make sure that they didn't charge me too much or too little for my flight changes. Hopefully it'll only cost me the one hundred bones to switch it up. It'll give me an extra week on the mainland, and maybe some peace of mind so that I don't rush through Vietnam. Or, if I do rush through Vietnam, I'll get to spend some days diving in Koh Tao. That would make me happy. It's a nice happy place.
Well, that's all I have to say for now. Tonight will either be a night train to Sapa or a night bus to Hue. Funny. I'll leave in less that ten hours and I have no clue whether I'll be going north or south. But, heads or tails, I want to get the fuck out of here.
What's my problem? The people of Hanoi.
Well. Hrumph. I want to like Vietnam. So far, Hanoi isn't making it easy for me. The girls who work at the hostel are nice. The hostel itself is very nice. The people at the hostel are nice. The servers at the restaurant that I ate at last night were nice. Everything else that I have found has been crap.
Today, I went to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. First of all, there are not only foreigners, but there are hoards of locals as well. They all feel that they can jump the cue. They push and shove. They stare. They're just generally inconsiderate, rude, nasty people in this city.
The sidewalks are crowded with motorbikes and people selling stuff, so you have to walk in the middle of the street and dodge the oncoming cars and motorbikes. The weather here, for every day that I have been in Hanoi, has been cold and misty, yet also kind of warm and humid too. I know it's a bit contradictory being cold and warm at the same time, but Hanoi has brought the unpleasantries of both.
I don't know who told me this, but I was expecting the more beautiful girls out of the trip to be coming from Vietnam. I expected the French/Asian mix to really show off some beauty in the fairer sex. So far, Thailand and Laos blows Vietnam out of the water. I can count the beautiful locals that I have seen wandering about the city on two hands. Sure, I haven't gone to any clubs, but c'mon. There have to be some hot working women.
So, right now, Vietnam is losing the battle with me. Maybe I expected too much. Maybe I wasn't prepared enough. There is just so much negativity here coming both from the locals as well as from the travelers. I have heard countless stories of pick pocketing, bag slashings, muggings, beatings.... Apparently, these Brits got into a fight with a taxi driver about the fare and they ended up getting jumped by a crew of Viet guys. Two of the guys have severe injuries and one is in the hospital. I dunno if it's Vietnam or if it's Hanoi, but I'm rather uncomfortable here.
I'm ready to move on... today.
As I type I'm across from the Cathay Pacific office in Hanoi Towers. They're closed for an hour for lunch. I had to forward some stuff to them so they could make sure that they didn't charge me too much or too little for my flight changes. Hopefully it'll only cost me the one hundred bones to switch it up. It'll give me an extra week on the mainland, and maybe some peace of mind so that I don't rush through Vietnam. Or, if I do rush through Vietnam, I'll get to spend some days diving in Koh Tao. That would make me happy. It's a nice happy place.
Well, that's all I have to say for now. Tonight will either be a night train to Sapa or a night bus to Hue. Funny. I'll leave in less that ten hours and I have no clue whether I'll be going north or south. But, heads or tails, I want to get the fuck out of here.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Day 41: Vietnamese Wedding Crashers & Growing Pains
Listening: We make plans for big times, get bogged down, distracted. We make plans for good times, all neon, all surface.
What's my problem? A little soreness and pain.
Ahh, the culture shock and jolt to my system that is Hanoi. Blah. Hanoi. I'm ready to leave already.
Laos is a great country. For the most part, people are nice. They have fun with the bargaining. And though they want to part you and your money, they have found that being nice is the best way to do it. Hanoi is a different story.
Hanoi, they're money grubbing, mean spirited and kind of evil. Case and point: I was in a market with my friend Erin (more on her later). I pulled my camera out of my right pocket where I had put some change (about 40,000-50,000 dong [please no dong jokes], or about 3 or 4 US Dollars) I didn't notice the bills fall out of my pocket when I pulled out my camera until I noticed a sinister looking Vietnamese woman at my feet picking up the bills and running back to her stall. There was no, "excuse me sir, you dropped your money" when it was clearly mine.
In Cat Ba (more on that later), a motorbike driver hassled me for a good three blocks trying to get me to go for a ride for "boom-boom." People at the docks follow you around trying to sell you refreshments. In Hanoi, people follow you around trying to sell you books. In the night market people brush your ass seeing if they can pick your pocket.
It just seems as if everyone in Vietnam is trying to hustle you. I heard that the people get friendlier the further south you go, which makes sense considering the Vietnam War. It's just so different from Thailand and Laos. They both seem very similar, but if I had to say, I'm going to bet that Vietnam is much more Chinese than Indochinese.
Anyhow, my time in Vietnam thus far.
Well, my first full day in Hanoi, I ended up just walking around, getting lost. I happened upon the Temple of Literature, where the men who passed the eighteen doctoral exams way back in the day had their names engraved on tablets which rested on giant stone turtles. There's beautiful architecture and a giant brass bell and drum. I liked it quite a bit. The problem was that my camera battery died while I was there. So, I didn't get to take the pictures that I wanted to take.
After I finished seeing the temple, I hiked the two kilometers back to the hostel to check into my bed and to pick up my camera battery. It was there that I ran into Erin.
I had talked to her a little bit earlier that morning. She too couldn't get into Hanoi Backpackers the night before. So I asked her if she wanted to see the town with me and she said she had to run some errands and asked me if I wanted to go. I said why not and tagged along. By the time the errands were finished, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was closed for the day, so instead, we went to the Water Puppet Theater show.
Water Puppet Theater is a marionette show with traditional Vietnamese music, which used to be done on the rice patties. It's actually much more entertaining than I had anticipated. The music was pretty good (nothing I would put on my iPod though), and the scenes were entertaining. There was an amusing one where unicorns batted a ball around, and another where there were dragon boat races. I thing my favorite one was the water fairy dance. First you see two fairies spinning about, and then, miraculously (well, not really, because they came from behind the screen), there were two more, then two more, and two more and two more. They would all spin in unison equal distance from each other. It was very cute.
After the water puppet show, Erin and I raced back to the hostel to get changed. We had somewhere to be for dinner that night.
The night before, Erin had met a woman from Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon at the airport. She was fifty three years old, owned a manufacturing company, and had two kids going to college in the States. As they were talking, somehow she invited Erin to go to the wedding which was the reason that she and her... boyfriend (?) were in Hanoi. I was invited as a friend, and off we went.
Apparently Vietnamese weddings are pretty short affairs. The wedding started at six o'clock, and by the time that we got there at seven, people were already leaving. It was very surprising. But, we were invited to sit down and eat regardless. We had some fun conversations with the boyfriend (?) who was trying to teach the other older men exercises so that they could "keep their wives happy." It was quite amusing. Also there was a point where one of the guests was a university French teacher in Hanoi. Since Erin is from Canada, I think they assumed that she spoke more French than she does. See, Erin is from Toronto, not Quebec. There's not as much Francais there. So, she was a good sport and muddled through.
Probably the best part of the evening was when the two of us got called up to take pictures with the bride and groom. Granted, it wasn't just the two of us and the bridal party. There was the woman and her boyfriend (?), some other family members, and a bunch more people that we didn't know. They tried to push Erin and I up front, but I wasn't having it. Erin, though, was just about front and center. The lone caucasian. At least I was a little less conspicuous.
Since the wedding was over long before either of us expected, and the bar in the hostel was dead as a doornail, we headed out to "beer corner." At the time, I had no clue what beer corner was, but when I asked the hot girl that works at the hostel who has a tat on the back of her calf, she said that we should head there.
Now, beer corner is an intersection in Hanoi's Old Quarter. It looks like the intersection of two small streets. Nothing special. But on each of the four corners are little storefronts that serve beer for three thousand dong (about seventeen cents). So a lot of the backpackers sit out front of the stores in plastic chairs drinking beers until the eleven thirty curfew.
At first Erin and I were kind of by ourselves. We couldn't work into any of the bigger groups of people. However, as the night went on, we met more people. There was Vincent from Lyon, France, Samuel from Nord See, France, and Sabine and err... I can't remember her name from Germany. We had a good time. We ate fries and fried corn. A good time was had by all.
The next morning I was on my way to Halong Bay with the Hanoi Backpackers' "Rock Hard, Rock Long" Halong Bay tour. We left around eight in the morning and was on the boat by around noon. After lunch, we all went kayaking. I have to say that we had a pretty cool group of people.
As we were kayaking, we went to this cove where we might have seen monkeys, but no one saw any. Instead, we all played games and screwed around. We were having so much fun that AJ, the group leader said to us, "I know you're having a good time here, and we can stay here as long as you want, but we can go see other things if you want too." We had no clue that there was supposed to be more.
From there, we kayaked to some caves which were not the coolest caves that I have ever seen, but we were with such a great group of people that it was a lot of fun.
Now, I mentioned that I was going to Halong Bay for my birthday, because I wanted to be somewhere beautiful. Mei, one of the other group leaders asked me when exactly it was and whether I was on the two or three day trip. I told her that I was on the three day trip and that I would be on Cat Ba Island for my actual birthday. I was also only one of four out of twenty four people who decided to go with the three day trip. The birthday festivities actually started just after we got onto the boat. I was presented with a bouquet of flowers by AJ (a big Canadian guy who was masquerading as a Scotsman... He kept the accent on all day and then dropped the accent on us at dinner).
At dinner, and I totally wasn't expecting it, they brought out a cake and it was really nice. I mean it was really, really nice. I was so surprised. I really couldn't believe that it was all happening. I thought that I would be in a beautiful place with some fun people. I thought I would have a few drinks and it would be cool. What happened was that it turned into a full fledged birthday party.
One of the ladies working on the boat smeared some of the icing on my face. Mei, who is a rather attractive Indonesian girl from Holland who is a manager at Hanoi Backpackers, licked it off. It was very nice.
Once the cake was finished, that's when the drinking started... and it all started with happy hour, three for two drinks. People were buying me drinks left and right. My two favorite twins, the 19 year olds, Clover and Sophie, bought me a gin and tonic. The barkeep bought me a B-52 shot. I had a couple of beers. That's when things got wild.
I was sung "Happy Birthday" in three languages. Once in English by everyone, once in Norweigian by two delightfully beautiful blondes from Norway, and once in Hindi by some really cool British-Indian fellows. At the stroke of midnight on my birthday, I was picked up, my pockets were emptied, and I was thrown from the top of the boat into the water. That's where a bit of trouble began.
When they threw me off the boat, I landed square on the back of my neck and shoulders. I'm not going to lie. It hurt like a mofugga. I put my best game face on, breast stroked back to the ladder and got back aboard. One guy asked me if that hurt. I told him that it did, and he told me that it looked like it hurt, but he couldn't tell from the way I was swimming.
But it really did hurt. I only stuck around long enough for some of the guys to shove some of their loaded rum and cokes in my face before I decided that I had had enough and went to sleep. Though I don't know exactly what time it was, I'm guessing that it was somewhere around three in the morning. I probably should have gotten to bed earlier, but my favorite twins were kicking around.
The next morning I was crazy sore, and a bit hungover. As most of the people where two day-ers, they dropped me and the other three off at Cat Ba Island for some trekking, and I was supposed to do some rock climbing in the afternoon. I felt so sore that I knew that I wouldn't be able to rock climb. As we were doing the trek, I could feel how bad my back, shoulders and neck felt. I could feel my weakness and dehydration. It wasn't a pretty scene. So, when we got back for lunch, I called it off.
Instead, I rested. I took a two hour nap, had some dinner, got a massage to try to rework my back, and called it an early night on my birthday.
Today, they picked us up at Cat Ba, and most of the day was spent traveling. We caught the next boat back to the mainland, and then the bus back to Hanoi.
Once I got back and checked in, I ran into Erin again. She left today to go to Hue to do an Easy Rider motorbike tour. Also, when I got back to Hanoi, I ran into Kate from the Hague, whose name is actually Julia, but I just had it wrong for the past week. We had dinner with two girls from London at a really cool restaurant. What it is, is a restaurant where they have all of the best street food vendors in Hanoi with specific specialties. They're all situated around the outside of the restaurant facing in. The guests are in the middle with menus, and when you order, the server runs to all of the different vendors to place your order. It's really quite brilliant. I expected it to be really ghetto but good food. Instead, it was much more elegant than I expected. I had some beef noodle rolls which were okay. Nothing like the Hanoi style spring rolls. I also had bun bo hue, which is beef noodle soup in the style of Hue. That was pretty good. For dessert I had dried longans, which were reconstituted in simple syrup and were with a sort of gelatin and with ice. It wasn't all that good.
The rest of the night was spent shit shooting with the girls and some people that I had been on the boat with. It was a good night.
Tomorrow, I'm getting up early (in like 6 hours) to go see uncle Ho in his Mausoleum. I'm also planning on seeing the Hanoi Hilton jail, and getting my flights changed. Tomorrow, I'm also either going to take the night train to Sapa or the night bus to Hoi An/Hue. I'll decide after I rebook my flights. I have a feeling that I'll be going south to Hoi An/Hue, but you never know.
What's my problem? A little soreness and pain.
Ahh, the culture shock and jolt to my system that is Hanoi. Blah. Hanoi. I'm ready to leave already.
Laos is a great country. For the most part, people are nice. They have fun with the bargaining. And though they want to part you and your money, they have found that being nice is the best way to do it. Hanoi is a different story.
Hanoi, they're money grubbing, mean spirited and kind of evil. Case and point: I was in a market with my friend Erin (more on her later). I pulled my camera out of my right pocket where I had put some change (about 40,000-50,000 dong [please no dong jokes], or about 3 or 4 US Dollars) I didn't notice the bills fall out of my pocket when I pulled out my camera until I noticed a sinister looking Vietnamese woman at my feet picking up the bills and running back to her stall. There was no, "excuse me sir, you dropped your money" when it was clearly mine.
In Cat Ba (more on that later), a motorbike driver hassled me for a good three blocks trying to get me to go for a ride for "boom-boom." People at the docks follow you around trying to sell you refreshments. In Hanoi, people follow you around trying to sell you books. In the night market people brush your ass seeing if they can pick your pocket.
It just seems as if everyone in Vietnam is trying to hustle you. I heard that the people get friendlier the further south you go, which makes sense considering the Vietnam War. It's just so different from Thailand and Laos. They both seem very similar, but if I had to say, I'm going to bet that Vietnam is much more Chinese than Indochinese.
Anyhow, my time in Vietnam thus far.
Well, my first full day in Hanoi, I ended up just walking around, getting lost. I happened upon the Temple of Literature, where the men who passed the eighteen doctoral exams way back in the day had their names engraved on tablets which rested on giant stone turtles. There's beautiful architecture and a giant brass bell and drum. I liked it quite a bit. The problem was that my camera battery died while I was there. So, I didn't get to take the pictures that I wanted to take.
After I finished seeing the temple, I hiked the two kilometers back to the hostel to check into my bed and to pick up my camera battery. It was there that I ran into Erin.
I had talked to her a little bit earlier that morning. She too couldn't get into Hanoi Backpackers the night before. So I asked her if she wanted to see the town with me and she said she had to run some errands and asked me if I wanted to go. I said why not and tagged along. By the time the errands were finished, the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum was closed for the day, so instead, we went to the Water Puppet Theater show.
Water Puppet Theater is a marionette show with traditional Vietnamese music, which used to be done on the rice patties. It's actually much more entertaining than I had anticipated. The music was pretty good (nothing I would put on my iPod though), and the scenes were entertaining. There was an amusing one where unicorns batted a ball around, and another where there were dragon boat races. I thing my favorite one was the water fairy dance. First you see two fairies spinning about, and then, miraculously (well, not really, because they came from behind the screen), there were two more, then two more, and two more and two more. They would all spin in unison equal distance from each other. It was very cute.
After the water puppet show, Erin and I raced back to the hostel to get changed. We had somewhere to be for dinner that night.
The night before, Erin had met a woman from Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon at the airport. She was fifty three years old, owned a manufacturing company, and had two kids going to college in the States. As they were talking, somehow she invited Erin to go to the wedding which was the reason that she and her... boyfriend (?) were in Hanoi. I was invited as a friend, and off we went.
Apparently Vietnamese weddings are pretty short affairs. The wedding started at six o'clock, and by the time that we got there at seven, people were already leaving. It was very surprising. But, we were invited to sit down and eat regardless. We had some fun conversations with the boyfriend (?) who was trying to teach the other older men exercises so that they could "keep their wives happy." It was quite amusing. Also there was a point where one of the guests was a university French teacher in Hanoi. Since Erin is from Canada, I think they assumed that she spoke more French than she does. See, Erin is from Toronto, not Quebec. There's not as much Francais there. So, she was a good sport and muddled through.
Probably the best part of the evening was when the two of us got called up to take pictures with the bride and groom. Granted, it wasn't just the two of us and the bridal party. There was the woman and her boyfriend (?), some other family members, and a bunch more people that we didn't know. They tried to push Erin and I up front, but I wasn't having it. Erin, though, was just about front and center. The lone caucasian. At least I was a little less conspicuous.
Since the wedding was over long before either of us expected, and the bar in the hostel was dead as a doornail, we headed out to "beer corner." At the time, I had no clue what beer corner was, but when I asked the hot girl that works at the hostel who has a tat on the back of her calf, she said that we should head there.
Now, beer corner is an intersection in Hanoi's Old Quarter. It looks like the intersection of two small streets. Nothing special. But on each of the four corners are little storefronts that serve beer for three thousand dong (about seventeen cents). So a lot of the backpackers sit out front of the stores in plastic chairs drinking beers until the eleven thirty curfew.
At first Erin and I were kind of by ourselves. We couldn't work into any of the bigger groups of people. However, as the night went on, we met more people. There was Vincent from Lyon, France, Samuel from Nord See, France, and Sabine and err... I can't remember her name from Germany. We had a good time. We ate fries and fried corn. A good time was had by all.
The next morning I was on my way to Halong Bay with the Hanoi Backpackers' "Rock Hard, Rock Long" Halong Bay tour. We left around eight in the morning and was on the boat by around noon. After lunch, we all went kayaking. I have to say that we had a pretty cool group of people.
As we were kayaking, we went to this cove where we might have seen monkeys, but no one saw any. Instead, we all played games and screwed around. We were having so much fun that AJ, the group leader said to us, "I know you're having a good time here, and we can stay here as long as you want, but we can go see other things if you want too." We had no clue that there was supposed to be more.
From there, we kayaked to some caves which were not the coolest caves that I have ever seen, but we were with such a great group of people that it was a lot of fun.
Now, I mentioned that I was going to Halong Bay for my birthday, because I wanted to be somewhere beautiful. Mei, one of the other group leaders asked me when exactly it was and whether I was on the two or three day trip. I told her that I was on the three day trip and that I would be on Cat Ba Island for my actual birthday. I was also only one of four out of twenty four people who decided to go with the three day trip. The birthday festivities actually started just after we got onto the boat. I was presented with a bouquet of flowers by AJ (a big Canadian guy who was masquerading as a Scotsman... He kept the accent on all day and then dropped the accent on us at dinner).
At dinner, and I totally wasn't expecting it, they brought out a cake and it was really nice. I mean it was really, really nice. I was so surprised. I really couldn't believe that it was all happening. I thought that I would be in a beautiful place with some fun people. I thought I would have a few drinks and it would be cool. What happened was that it turned into a full fledged birthday party.
One of the ladies working on the boat smeared some of the icing on my face. Mei, who is a rather attractive Indonesian girl from Holland who is a manager at Hanoi Backpackers, licked it off. It was very nice.
Once the cake was finished, that's when the drinking started... and it all started with happy hour, three for two drinks. People were buying me drinks left and right. My two favorite twins, the 19 year olds, Clover and Sophie, bought me a gin and tonic. The barkeep bought me a B-52 shot. I had a couple of beers. That's when things got wild.
I was sung "Happy Birthday" in three languages. Once in English by everyone, once in Norweigian by two delightfully beautiful blondes from Norway, and once in Hindi by some really cool British-Indian fellows. At the stroke of midnight on my birthday, I was picked up, my pockets were emptied, and I was thrown from the top of the boat into the water. That's where a bit of trouble began.
When they threw me off the boat, I landed square on the back of my neck and shoulders. I'm not going to lie. It hurt like a mofugga. I put my best game face on, breast stroked back to the ladder and got back aboard. One guy asked me if that hurt. I told him that it did, and he told me that it looked like it hurt, but he couldn't tell from the way I was swimming.
But it really did hurt. I only stuck around long enough for some of the guys to shove some of their loaded rum and cokes in my face before I decided that I had had enough and went to sleep. Though I don't know exactly what time it was, I'm guessing that it was somewhere around three in the morning. I probably should have gotten to bed earlier, but my favorite twins were kicking around.
The next morning I was crazy sore, and a bit hungover. As most of the people where two day-ers, they dropped me and the other three off at Cat Ba Island for some trekking, and I was supposed to do some rock climbing in the afternoon. I felt so sore that I knew that I wouldn't be able to rock climb. As we were doing the trek, I could feel how bad my back, shoulders and neck felt. I could feel my weakness and dehydration. It wasn't a pretty scene. So, when we got back for lunch, I called it off.
Instead, I rested. I took a two hour nap, had some dinner, got a massage to try to rework my back, and called it an early night on my birthday.
Today, they picked us up at Cat Ba, and most of the day was spent traveling. We caught the next boat back to the mainland, and then the bus back to Hanoi.
Once I got back and checked in, I ran into Erin again. She left today to go to Hue to do an Easy Rider motorbike tour. Also, when I got back to Hanoi, I ran into Kate from the Hague, whose name is actually Julia, but I just had it wrong for the past week. We had dinner with two girls from London at a really cool restaurant. What it is, is a restaurant where they have all of the best street food vendors in Hanoi with specific specialties. They're all situated around the outside of the restaurant facing in. The guests are in the middle with menus, and when you order, the server runs to all of the different vendors to place your order. It's really quite brilliant. I expected it to be really ghetto but good food. Instead, it was much more elegant than I expected. I had some beef noodle rolls which were okay. Nothing like the Hanoi style spring rolls. I also had bun bo hue, which is beef noodle soup in the style of Hue. That was pretty good. For dessert I had dried longans, which were reconstituted in simple syrup and were with a sort of gelatin and with ice. It wasn't all that good.
The rest of the night was spent shit shooting with the girls and some people that I had been on the boat with. It was a good night.
Tomorrow, I'm getting up early (in like 6 hours) to go see uncle Ho in his Mausoleum. I'm also planning on seeing the Hanoi Hilton jail, and getting my flights changed. Tomorrow, I'm also either going to take the night train to Sapa or the night bus to Hoi An/Hue. I'll decide after I rebook my flights. I have a feeling that I'll be going south to Hoi An/Hue, but you never know.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Day 37: Hustle & Flow
Listening: Yeh-ee, yeh-ee, yeh-ee-yeh... yeh-ee, yeh-ee, yeh-ee-yeh (It's a Thai pop song I keep hearing)
What's my problem? Culture shock!
Well, I made it. I'm in Hanoi. The flight was... well... short. I almost felt like it was as short as the flight from Nantucket to Hyannis. When I got here, though, I was shocked.
Luang Prabang is a pretty small city. I mean, realistically, it has only a few major thoroughfares covering only a few square kilometers. Hanoi, on the other hand, is a very busy, bustling city. There are motorbikes everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. Apparently, there are streets so narrow, no cars can pass, only motor bikes.
When I got to Hanoi Backpackers, it was kind of loud and rowdy. It was a true Aussie backpacker's hostel. It was clear that the beer was flowing and the backpackers are young. Unfortunately, they were booked for the night, so I had to wander around Hanoi, pack on front and back, looking for accomodations.
I looked at a number of places, but they were all for upwards of twenty five US dollars a night. Finally, I went back to the street that Hanoi Backpackers was on and found a place for fifteen a night. I think that tomorrow I'll check out of my hotel and try to find a bed at Hanoi Backpackers again. I'll probably end up booking my HaLong Bay trip with them too.
For now, I think I'll end up going to HaLong on the ninth, being there for the ninth, tenth and eleventh, and then coming back to Hanoi for at least one night before going to Sapa.
So, there's a guy looking over my shoulder at the sketchy little internet cafe. He's looking at my screen and I can tell he can't read a single word I'm typing. I think he just asked me if I was writing a love letter. HA.
Anyhow, after I checked into my hotel, I instantly bought a sim and called Caroline. Caroline is pretty much a friend of CTodd's, but I met her one time before at one of his parties. Even though she was having a night in with the boy, she came out to the Old Town (where I'm staying) and took me to a restaurant with a good view of the street below.
It was there that I had these amazing Hanoi style spring rolls. Instead of being wrapped in rice paper, they were wrapped in uncut pho noodles. They were divine. I asked her if there was an indicative or a distinctive Hanoi dish, and that was it. Oh, yes. I will be having them again.
From there, we went to the night market. I have to say that I was vastly disappointed in the schwag. Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang all had better schwag. The people watching there is okay though. For a while, we tailed a group of pick pockets, after one of them bumped me and figured out I was sporting a chain. It's people like that that make me want to fight. But I am very good at the self restraint.
Anyhow, I'm so used to country life that this whole urban thing is wigging me out a little. It seems a bit different than in Bangkok. Maybe, like Bangok, I just have to get used to it. It's a little tough though, being on the run, being pressed for time.
Finally, in other news, I tried to move back my flights while at the airport here in Hanoi, but the agent there said that it wasn't a ticketing office. She said I should try the ticketing office in town. So, I have the card and I'm going to try to get there the day I get back from HaLong Bay. I think it'll only cost me a hundred US dollars, which is better than paying a hundred and twenty to go to San Fran round trip when I get to California, plus the upcharge of eating in America. Now, I can pay a hundred US dollars, spend more time in southeast Asia, and spend less money while having a good time. So maybe I won't have to hustle through Vietnam. Hopefully I'll just be able to take it easy.
What's my problem? Culture shock!
Well, I made it. I'm in Hanoi. The flight was... well... short. I almost felt like it was as short as the flight from Nantucket to Hyannis. When I got here, though, I was shocked.
Luang Prabang is a pretty small city. I mean, realistically, it has only a few major thoroughfares covering only a few square kilometers. Hanoi, on the other hand, is a very busy, bustling city. There are motorbikes everywhere. I mean EVERYWHERE. Apparently, there are streets so narrow, no cars can pass, only motor bikes.
When I got to Hanoi Backpackers, it was kind of loud and rowdy. It was a true Aussie backpacker's hostel. It was clear that the beer was flowing and the backpackers are young. Unfortunately, they were booked for the night, so I had to wander around Hanoi, pack on front and back, looking for accomodations.
I looked at a number of places, but they were all for upwards of twenty five US dollars a night. Finally, I went back to the street that Hanoi Backpackers was on and found a place for fifteen a night. I think that tomorrow I'll check out of my hotel and try to find a bed at Hanoi Backpackers again. I'll probably end up booking my HaLong Bay trip with them too.
For now, I think I'll end up going to HaLong on the ninth, being there for the ninth, tenth and eleventh, and then coming back to Hanoi for at least one night before going to Sapa.
So, there's a guy looking over my shoulder at the sketchy little internet cafe. He's looking at my screen and I can tell he can't read a single word I'm typing. I think he just asked me if I was writing a love letter. HA.
Anyhow, after I checked into my hotel, I instantly bought a sim and called Caroline. Caroline is pretty much a friend of CTodd's, but I met her one time before at one of his parties. Even though she was having a night in with the boy, she came out to the Old Town (where I'm staying) and took me to a restaurant with a good view of the street below.
It was there that I had these amazing Hanoi style spring rolls. Instead of being wrapped in rice paper, they were wrapped in uncut pho noodles. They were divine. I asked her if there was an indicative or a distinctive Hanoi dish, and that was it. Oh, yes. I will be having them again.
From there, we went to the night market. I have to say that I was vastly disappointed in the schwag. Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Luang Prabang all had better schwag. The people watching there is okay though. For a while, we tailed a group of pick pockets, after one of them bumped me and figured out I was sporting a chain. It's people like that that make me want to fight. But I am very good at the self restraint.
Anyhow, I'm so used to country life that this whole urban thing is wigging me out a little. It seems a bit different than in Bangkok. Maybe, like Bangok, I just have to get used to it. It's a little tough though, being on the run, being pressed for time.
Finally, in other news, I tried to move back my flights while at the airport here in Hanoi, but the agent there said that it wasn't a ticketing office. She said I should try the ticketing office in town. So, I have the card and I'm going to try to get there the day I get back from HaLong Bay. I think it'll only cost me a hundred US dollars, which is better than paying a hundred and twenty to go to San Fran round trip when I get to California, plus the upcharge of eating in America. Now, I can pay a hundred US dollars, spend more time in southeast Asia, and spend less money while having a good time. So maybe I won't have to hustle through Vietnam. Hopefully I'll just be able to take it easy.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Day 37: The Things I Carry
Listening: Let down your guard just a little. I keep you safe in these arms of mine.
What's my problem? Wondering how much a tuk-tuk to the airport is gonna cost.
Right now, the things I carry are out of necessity and out of security. In my pockets, I carry my passport, my airline "ticket," my keys, an eyeglass cloth, my chain wallet with half of my bank cards and credit cards, some cash and an ID, and my Canon SD890 IS digital camera.
Today, I'm also carrying my DaKine backpack. In my backpack, I carry airline reservation information, two cell phones, another wallet with the rest of my bank cards (not to mention my Charlie Card), and a DVD of my SCUBA experience.
In another pocket, I carry a spare pair of glasses and clip on sunglasses. Somehow, in with that I keep an emergency tube of hydration tablets, and Caroline in Hanoi's phone number.
In the front pocket of my backpack, I carry several Sharpie markers, a few pens and pencils, my tiny pad, emergency contact information, zip ties, hand sanitizer, sun block, my iPod, my toothbrush, a bottle of Malarone, some Po Chai Yuen pills, a Caba seed from Thailand, and most importantly, toilet paper.
In the main pocket, I keep a bigger notebook, two Lonely Planet books, a copy of the Chefwear catalogue to show the tailors in Hoi An, an emergency sleeve of Oreos (so sue me), a knockoff Volcom cap, some plastic bags (not as many as my grandmother used to have), all of my electronics chargers and adaptors, and the book "Eat, Pray, Love."
It's a chick book, but I'm reading it anyways. Book exchange is a big thing out on the trail. People swap books all of the time. When I came to Asia, I carried with me a copy of "The Art of Happiness" by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. I had read the book before, but thought that I would reread it here in Asia. As the first month passed, I only got a quarter of the way through. As I read, I remembered everything, and thought to myself, "I have already adapted most of this into my life and I still put effort into the teachings." So, at Utopia a couple of days ago, I traded my copy of "The Art of Happiness" with Chloe's copy of "Eat, Pray, Love" and spent this morning at Morning Glory Cafe eating a giant hashbrown, sipping coffee, and reading. For a morning that wasn't supposed to happen, it was damn fine.
There are a lot of intangibles that I carry with me. I carry with me a bit of paranoia, as I have had friends on the trail who have been robbed by peopleon motorbikes, or whose packs have disappeared in the blink of an eye. I carry a strong distrust of travel agents, for obvious reasons, and a strong respect for the monks that I see walking the streets. I carry an open mind and heart for my fellow travelers, and a smile for those I pass on the streets.
I carry my friends with me. I think about them often and wonder what they're doing right now. I carry the hope that maybe, just maybe, they'll be as lucky as I am to be doing what I'm doing, and seeing what I'm seeing. I hope that they won't have to trust the photos that don't give the scene justice. I carry the wonder of whether they think about me as much as I think about them, and the hope that they're as happy as I am.
I carry with me the dreams of my grandfather and my father. And although they aren't necessarily the same as my own dreams, I carry those as well. I wonder what exactly their dreams were or are. I wonder if they have achieved them. I wonder if the dreams I carry for myself are as simple as they seem to be, or as complex as I make them out to be.
And for now, I carry on, hopefully, to Hanoi. I'll be in search of a spicy beef noodle dish that Linh has told me to look out for. Maybe tonight I'll carry around a belly of that.
Next time I travel, I think I'll carry with me a copy of Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried."
What's my problem? Wondering how much a tuk-tuk to the airport is gonna cost.
Right now, the things I carry are out of necessity and out of security. In my pockets, I carry my passport, my airline "ticket," my keys, an eyeglass cloth, my chain wallet with half of my bank cards and credit cards, some cash and an ID, and my Canon SD890 IS digital camera.
Today, I'm also carrying my DaKine backpack. In my backpack, I carry airline reservation information, two cell phones, another wallet with the rest of my bank cards (not to mention my Charlie Card), and a DVD of my SCUBA experience.
In another pocket, I carry a spare pair of glasses and clip on sunglasses. Somehow, in with that I keep an emergency tube of hydration tablets, and Caroline in Hanoi's phone number.
In the front pocket of my backpack, I carry several Sharpie markers, a few pens and pencils, my tiny pad, emergency contact information, zip ties, hand sanitizer, sun block, my iPod, my toothbrush, a bottle of Malarone, some Po Chai Yuen pills, a Caba seed from Thailand, and most importantly, toilet paper.
In the main pocket, I keep a bigger notebook, two Lonely Planet books, a copy of the Chefwear catalogue to show the tailors in Hoi An, an emergency sleeve of Oreos (so sue me), a knockoff Volcom cap, some plastic bags (not as many as my grandmother used to have), all of my electronics chargers and adaptors, and the book "Eat, Pray, Love."
It's a chick book, but I'm reading it anyways. Book exchange is a big thing out on the trail. People swap books all of the time. When I came to Asia, I carried with me a copy of "The Art of Happiness" by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler. I had read the book before, but thought that I would reread it here in Asia. As the first month passed, I only got a quarter of the way through. As I read, I remembered everything, and thought to myself, "I have already adapted most of this into my life and I still put effort into the teachings." So, at Utopia a couple of days ago, I traded my copy of "The Art of Happiness" with Chloe's copy of "Eat, Pray, Love" and spent this morning at Morning Glory Cafe eating a giant hashbrown, sipping coffee, and reading. For a morning that wasn't supposed to happen, it was damn fine.
There are a lot of intangibles that I carry with me. I carry with me a bit of paranoia, as I have had friends on the trail who have been robbed by peopleon motorbikes, or whose packs have disappeared in the blink of an eye. I carry a strong distrust of travel agents, for obvious reasons, and a strong respect for the monks that I see walking the streets. I carry an open mind and heart for my fellow travelers, and a smile for those I pass on the streets.
I carry my friends with me. I think about them often and wonder what they're doing right now. I carry the hope that maybe, just maybe, they'll be as lucky as I am to be doing what I'm doing, and seeing what I'm seeing. I hope that they won't have to trust the photos that don't give the scene justice. I carry the wonder of whether they think about me as much as I think about them, and the hope that they're as happy as I am.
I carry with me the dreams of my grandfather and my father. And although they aren't necessarily the same as my own dreams, I carry those as well. I wonder what exactly their dreams were or are. I wonder if they have achieved them. I wonder if the dreams I carry for myself are as simple as they seem to be, or as complex as I make them out to be.
And for now, I carry on, hopefully, to Hanoi. I'll be in search of a spicy beef noodle dish that Linh has told me to look out for. Maybe tonight I'll carry around a belly of that.
Next time I travel, I think I'll carry with me a copy of Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
