Listening: And we learned fast to travel light. Our arms were heavy, but our bellies were tight.
What's my problem? I need a massage, but I'm holding out for Thailand.
Well, I've left Vietnam. I spent two days in Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, one day in the Mekong Delta, and I spent the greater part of today in transit to Phnom Penh.
I got to Saigon early in the morning. It was probably half six, and things were already bustling. I didn't have a room, but I knew where a good place was supposed to be. Across from the Yellow House, a hostel that a lot of backpackers go to, is a hotel called Tan 58. John from Nha Trang/Switzerland had recommended the place. When I got there, the metal gates in front of the door were closed and the lobby behind it was dark. It wasn't strange though. Everywhere was still locked up tight. It was early.
In front of Tan 58 was a little coffee stand. So I sat there with my bags, talked with an Aussie fellow, and had a bit of white coffee (coffee with condensed milk for all y'all not in the know). In about a half hour, the gates opened and I asked about vacancies. No such luck. They were fully booked for the night and this meant that I had to do some serious legwork.
Luckily I was in backpacker central for Saigon. There were about a million independent hotels (no exaggeration) on that street.I saw about four different rooms, all with prices ranging from $8 to $25, but I settled on staying at Hung Loi Hotel for $10 each night.
The room itself was adequate. It was small, but had aircon and cable TV. It did not, however have hot water. When I brought it up to the owner, he said, "Why you need hot water. It 37 degrees today! It hot every day. Aircon important. Hot water no important." He had a point, and I never did miss the hot water.
Since I was there so early, I first headed off to the market to find myself some breakfast. I ended up getting a bowl of glass noodles for twenty thousand dong, or a buck twenty five. It was actually recommended to me by a couple of Australian Vietnamese girls who were already sitting and eating. To be honest, they were okay. They weren't the best noodles that I have had and they were hella hard to eat. They kept slipping out of my chopsticks and spoon.
After that, it was off to the internet to do a little bit of research. I needed to know how I was going to go from Saigon to Phnom Penh. Do I do it by myself, or do I do it with a tour? Do I choose an expensive tour that seems to have a lot of really cool things or do I do a cheap tour? Do I do one night or two nights? I actually spent a lot of time gathering information. I went around to different tour places seeing what they had to offer. By the time I had finished collecting information, it was noontime and I was drenched in sweat.
So, I kicked it back to my room for an hour. I knew that the sights would be closed for the next hour or hour and a half, so I chilled out and enjoyed a shower and the aircon.
In the afternoon, I hit the sights. I first started at the Reunification Palace. It was the place where the tanks crashed through the gates and Saigon fell. Everything was kept as it was when Saigon fell, with the exception of some plaques being put up detailing what each room was for. Overall, it was a little less than impressive. I thought that it would be like the White House or something, but it really wasn't that big. It was four floors and all, but just not impressive. There were hoardes of school groups there making a racket and just generally being unruly, but who am I to talk. I was that way when I was a kid.
After the Reunification Palace, I headed over to the War Remnants Museum. That place was intense. After walking through the gates and seeing all sorts of old war vehicles and weapons, I went into a room that was dedicated to all of the photojournalists who died in the war. There were a lot of prints of their last photos and stories about how they died. It was very sobering.
From there, I went into the "tiger cages." The tiger cages were prison cells where they used to keep war criminals. They were tiny little cells where anywhere from five to fifteen prisoners would be kept. They talked about how the Americans tortured the prisoners and even had paintings depicting the torture methods. That's when it got grim. There were pictures of the victims of Agent Orange, and crayon drawings that Vietnamese kids made asking for peace. It was a rough place to be an American.
From there, I walked around town some more and ended up back at my room around six so that I could have another shower before dinner. When I got to my hotel, I ran into Paolo and Craig, two Indian fellows from London who were on my Halong Bay trip. I had run into them in Nha Trang as well. They said that they were going to eat at the Rainbow Cafe down the street, but when Lydia, a girl I met in Hue and ended up hanging out with in Hoi An, turned up and we went to meet them, they weren't there.
Instead, we went to meet some of Lydia's friends that she had met in Phu Quok. It was a good thing we did too. One of her friends had lived in Saigon for the past six months or so and knew the terrain quite well. We met her at this great barbecue restaurant. By barbecue, I mean like Korean barbecue, not southern barbecue. The menu had a lot of great stuff on it. We just sort of ordered everything and shared. It was a lot of fun and the food was good to boot.
By the time dinner was over, Lydia and I had to rush back to our part of town to book a Cu Chi Tunnels tour. Somehow over dinner, she convinced me to do the full day tour which included the Cao Dai temple in Tay Ninh.
Cao Dai is a sect ov Vietnamese who believe that we all worship the same god and proceeds to combine a number of religions and philosophies such as Daoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity and Islam. It's pretty hokey. I did, however have the privelage of seeing a ceremony of theirs. It was cool seeing all of the monks and nums bowing and singing. I dunno if it was worth the three hour bus ride, but it was something to see.
The Cu Chi Tunnels were quite an experience as well. Talk about communist propaganda. They talk about a girl who has to pick up a gun to avenge her family who was killed by the "crazy devil" Americans. I got to see a bunch of the different types of traps that they used to hurt and kill American soldiers. I went into the tunnels for about sixty or so meters. They were hot as hell. I can only imagine how they were in the hottest part of the season. I was sweating balls.
That night, I went to Pho 2000 for dinner, a place that President Clinton went to on his visit to Saigon. I have to say that it was some damn good pho.
Oh, I totally forgot. The day before, I went for pho for lunch and ended up meeting an older couple from Malaysia at the pho stall. We talked for a while and he said that his neice, who lives in Saigon, would be going to do some work at Mass General Hospital. He wanted me to get together with her to tell her about the city. I told him that I would try to meet him the next day, but that I wasn't sure what would be going on with my tour and with my friends. Unfortunately, since I went on the full day Cu Chi Tunnels tour, I didn't get to meet his neice.
Yesterday, I checked out of Saigon and hopped on my Mekong Delta tour. Everyone that I have talked to has said that it can be done in a day, so I opted for the Sinh Cafe two day/one night tour to the delta, exiting in Phnom Penh. It was quite a whirlwind. First, it was three and a half hours in a minibus. Then, it was onto a boat, where we saw people making coconut candy, rice paper, and puffed rice. Then, back on the boat to the place for lunch. After lunch it was a four song traditional music performance followed by taking the boat to a ferry. Once on the ferry, we rode to the other side of Can Tho, and hopped back into the minibus. The minibus took us to another bus that we transferred to and rode to Chao Doc.
(If this sounds rushed it's because it was)
We overnighted in Chao Doc, and I shared a room with another American. Her name was Michelle, and she was a Vietnamese American. She spoke the language and everything. We got along well enough and all, and we're even sharing a room tonight in Phnom Penh. It was included in our tour.
This morning, we were woken up at half past six, had breakfast and got on some rowboats and headed up the Mekong. We saw a fish farm and a Cham village, and then took a boat up river to the border crossing.
The border crossing was pretty crazy. We were waiting forever in this god awful heat. The restaurant that they brought us to was wikkid overpriced and though I ate a bowl of pho there, I ended up getting a second lunch at another stall for a quarter of the price. Bastards.
Literally the rest of the day has been spent on that loud ass uncomfortable boat. It was only like the slow boat to Luang Prabang in that it was on the Mekong and it was slow. Other than that it was totally different because it sucked. I don't know if I would have liked to have taken the bus more, but I know that the ride was rather unpleasant.
From the boat, the crowded us into another minibus and brought us to Phnom Penh. I actually only had half a seat to myself. The other half of my ass was over a wheel well. It was like being in the back of a very uncomfortable place. It was an hour and a half before we reached Phnom Penh. And, actually, I'm on the outskirts. I'm going to have to find another hotel to stay in tomorrow night. Hopefully it won't take up too much of my time tomorrow morning. I plan on going to see the Killing Fields and some of the other sights around town. I don't know how long I'm going to stay in Phnom Penh, but so far it hasn't made a great impression. We'll see what happens tomorrow.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Day 55: Farewell Dinner
Listening: Please forgive me, girl, if I say the future is not bright. But please take my hand and we'll have one last dance in the place where we first met eyes.
What's my problem? I only found the fish lady today!
1 Night's accommodation at Backpackers House Hostel: $6
1 BGI Beer at the Red Apple Bar: 15,000 dong ($0.80)
1 Deck chair at the Lousiane: 25,000 dong ($1.50)
4 lobsters, 4 tiger prawns, 3 crabs, 8 scallops, 2 conch grilled: 200,000 dong ($11.25)
1 last meal with your best travel buddy in Asia on the beach with the salt filled air and the aroma of shellfish as the sun goes down while Vietnamese women shout in the background: Priceless.
What's my problem? I only found the fish lady today!
1 Night's accommodation at Backpackers House Hostel: $6
1 BGI Beer at the Red Apple Bar: 15,000 dong ($0.80)
1 Deck chair at the Lousiane: 25,000 dong ($1.50)
4 lobsters, 4 tiger prawns, 3 crabs, 8 scallops, 2 conch grilled: 200,000 dong ($11.25)
1 last meal with your best travel buddy in Asia on the beach with the salt filled air and the aroma of shellfish as the sun goes down while Vietnamese women shout in the background: Priceless.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Day 55: Surprise, Surprise.
Listening: I did my best to notice when the call came down the line. Up to the platform of surrender, I was brought but I was kind. And sometimes I get nervous when I see an open door.
What's my problem? Only fifteen days left on the mainland.
They say that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. There was no preparation on my part. It was just the normal flow of traffic. There was no opportunity. I had to come here either way. My hands were tied. But, lucky, I was.
I took the night bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang with Julia three nights ago. We were both ready to leave Hoi An. We had both been there for four or five days. We had seen the sights, had our clothes made, and have had the local food. We had strolled aimlessly down the quaint Chinese/French streets and heard the touts of tailors and vendors saying, "You buy something from me?" It was time to move on.
Our night bus was a little bit late. It was supposed to pick us up at a quarter to six, but ended up picking us up at twenty past. To be honest, I was getting worried. The bus pulled up to the hotel, though and we hopped on. We chose two sleepers in the back row, thinking that if the bus wasn't filled to capacity, we would have more room. The back row consists of five sleepers across, whereas there are two sleepers on each side of the aisle all of the rest of the way up to the front. With the five across, if there is one person missing, you can just sort of spread out a little more.
That wasn't my our luck that night. Instead, there were three Norwegians, two girls and a guy, who talked extremely loudly the entire night long. Do you know what loud Norwegians sound like? They sound like a fjord is pouring water into your brain. It sounds like a viking is having a vasectomy. It's nothing nice. Or maybe that's just what it seemed like for at least seven hours of the twelve hour bus ride. This all could have been compounded by the fact that I hadn't found dinner before I hopped on the bus and the bus didn't stop anywhere that had any sort of food until around ten at night. It was bull, wait for it... shit.
After the bus ride that wasn't quite from hell, but was from at least one of the seven circles, Julia and I arrived in Nha Trang. Apparently, we got there on the right day, because the day or two before, there was a big rugby tourney that Ireland won. So, there was a big party in the room at Backpacker House that Julia and I were put in. Apparently there was a naked girl who showed up and proceeded to sit on one of the ladders of the bunk beds and urinate all over the floor. Lucky for us, it was all clean, couldn't even tell it had happened, by the time we checked in. To be honest, everything in the dorm looked great. It was near immaculate.
After dropping our bags and getting into our swimmers, Julia and I headed over to the Louisiane Brew House/Relax Club. Louisiane is kind of like a bar/restaurant on the beach that has a pool, deck chairs, a stretch of beach, cabanas, and so on and so forth. It costs 25,000 dong ($1.50) for a chair for the entire day, which is a small price to pay for the luxury that you feel.
We sat at the Louisiane all day long. All. Day. Long. It was brilliant too. I read, wrote a postcard, listened to some music. It was totally relaxing after running around in the heat of Hoi An. The sea breeze was refreshing, as was the pool water. I made some friends at the pool, took a nap. How much more could you ask for?
Prior to coming to Nha Trang, I had heard awful things about it. I heard that it could be any beach town and that it was crazy touristy. I heard that it was a lot of party and that it could be skipped. Truth be told, all of that is accurate. The thing was, it was what I needed right now. I needed some beach days. I needed some relax time. I needed to catch my breath after the Sapa->Hanoi->Hue->Hoi An stretch.
After a day at the luxury club, Julia and I met John. He's a guy who just finished University in Switzerland, and has been traveling around for about four months. He joined us for dinner and then some drinks at the Red Apple Bar next door to the Backpacker House.
It was ladies night that night, so Julia got a bunch of discounted drinks. I was just drinking beer all night. I saw a bunch of people that I knew from different places. There were the Norwegian girls who sang me happy birthday at Halong Bay, along with a couple of British blokes from that trip as well. I saw Annti from Finland, who I had met in Hoi An, as well. It was a good time. I spent a lot of time bouncing from table to table, meeting new people and hanging out with the "old" friends.
The next day Julia and I split. She went on one boat cruise and John and I went on another. After comparing notes, they were exactly the same (including in price). We all had a pretty good time, but, for me, it could have been a lot better. The food was pretty good and plentiful. I think what got me was all of the hidden charges. You had to pay to swim in the Marine Protected area. You had to pay to lay on a beach in a cabana. You had to pay to get into the aquarium. You had to pay for your beers. I miss the days of all inclusive or, at least, just pay for your own booze. I think that the fact that I was shelling out and additional 120,000 dong ($6.50) for all of these activities made me not want to drink as much on the boat. I had heard that it was a booze cruise, but not a single person was even tipsy on the boat.
There was a Vietnamese family on the boat, as well. There were two adorable little girls. I kept trying to make the younger one smile, but she was having none of it. She just sat there staring at me, looking at me like I'm crazy. I even tried to reason with her, telling her that she was a kid and that she was supposed to smile and laugh. Clearly she didn't believe me. I ended up running into the family on the way to dinner in front of a shop. I kind of got a smile out of her then, but I don't think it really counted. That kid could have been classified as a tough crowd. I don't think that even Mike Wazowski could have made that kid smile.
That evening, Julia, John and I walked around town for quite some time. We found ourselves outside of the tourist area and happened upon a restaurant that was PACKED. I mean this place was hopping. It was all locals. So, what do we do? We decide to have dinner there. Not a single thing on the menu was in English. One of the servers, who I think was the owner, spoke very little English. I tried to order grilled lobster, but ended up with grilled squid. Not what I ordered, but really fucking tasty. This stuff was fresh and perfectly grilled. John got some beef noodles, and Julia got some sort of clam and rice soup. To be honest, for two nights in a row, I have won the dinner competition. I ordered the best dishes. The night before, it was beef in boiling vinegar.
After dinner, we kind of got lost. We ended up running into a couple of guys who work at the Backpacker House. They were eating dinner at another restaurant and looked at us like they were wondering, "What the fuck are you doing in this part of town?" Luckily, they pointed us in the right direction, and we made it back okay.
The rest of the night was filled with drinking and dancing. Julia, John, two of his friends and I were all out until three in the morning. It was one of John's friends' birthday, so we whooped it up a bit. I ran into Mikey from Canada/Chiang Mai. He hung out for a while. We all just had a blast. So much so that I'm the first one out of bed this morning.
On the way back to the hotel, I was walking with John and Julia, and what happens? John and I are accosted by prostitutes. Luckily, I just get a back massage, but John gets the full on cock grab, and breaks his flip-flop as he tried to get away. Julia grabbed my camera and tried to take a picture of the action, but the hookers were having none of that. I was afraid at one point that my camera would get smashed. Luckily that didn't happen.
So that brings us back to today. Julia and I are going back to the Louisiane Club to chillax for the day. I'm going to be hopping on a night bus to Ho Chi Minh City tonight at eight o'clock. I think Julia may be getting a job at the Backpacker House for a little while. I don't blame her. If I could do that I would. Maybe next time. Maybe next year. We'll see.
But, much to my surprise Nha Trang has been awesome. I've had a lot of fun and I've relaxed quite a bit. Now I'm off to the heat and the bustle of Ho Chi Minh. Hopefully, I'll meet some more great people there. It'll break my heart to leave Julia. She's been a fantastic travel companion. Hopefully I'll see her on the trail somewhere else, or maybe she'll even visit me in the States. Until then, fuck Facebook. I'll just e-mail her.
What's my problem? Only fifteen days left on the mainland.
They say that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. There was no preparation on my part. It was just the normal flow of traffic. There was no opportunity. I had to come here either way. My hands were tied. But, lucky, I was.
I took the night bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang with Julia three nights ago. We were both ready to leave Hoi An. We had both been there for four or five days. We had seen the sights, had our clothes made, and have had the local food. We had strolled aimlessly down the quaint Chinese/French streets and heard the touts of tailors and vendors saying, "You buy something from me?" It was time to move on.
Our night bus was a little bit late. It was supposed to pick us up at a quarter to six, but ended up picking us up at twenty past. To be honest, I was getting worried. The bus pulled up to the hotel, though and we hopped on. We chose two sleepers in the back row, thinking that if the bus wasn't filled to capacity, we would have more room. The back row consists of five sleepers across, whereas there are two sleepers on each side of the aisle all of the rest of the way up to the front. With the five across, if there is one person missing, you can just sort of spread out a little more.
That wasn't my our luck that night. Instead, there were three Norwegians, two girls and a guy, who talked extremely loudly the entire night long. Do you know what loud Norwegians sound like? They sound like a fjord is pouring water into your brain. It sounds like a viking is having a vasectomy. It's nothing nice. Or maybe that's just what it seemed like for at least seven hours of the twelve hour bus ride. This all could have been compounded by the fact that I hadn't found dinner before I hopped on the bus and the bus didn't stop anywhere that had any sort of food until around ten at night. It was bull, wait for it... shit.
After the bus ride that wasn't quite from hell, but was from at least one of the seven circles, Julia and I arrived in Nha Trang. Apparently, we got there on the right day, because the day or two before, there was a big rugby tourney that Ireland won. So, there was a big party in the room at Backpacker House that Julia and I were put in. Apparently there was a naked girl who showed up and proceeded to sit on one of the ladders of the bunk beds and urinate all over the floor. Lucky for us, it was all clean, couldn't even tell it had happened, by the time we checked in. To be honest, everything in the dorm looked great. It was near immaculate.
After dropping our bags and getting into our swimmers, Julia and I headed over to the Louisiane Brew House/Relax Club. Louisiane is kind of like a bar/restaurant on the beach that has a pool, deck chairs, a stretch of beach, cabanas, and so on and so forth. It costs 25,000 dong ($1.50) for a chair for the entire day, which is a small price to pay for the luxury that you feel.
We sat at the Louisiane all day long. All. Day. Long. It was brilliant too. I read, wrote a postcard, listened to some music. It was totally relaxing after running around in the heat of Hoi An. The sea breeze was refreshing, as was the pool water. I made some friends at the pool, took a nap. How much more could you ask for?
Prior to coming to Nha Trang, I had heard awful things about it. I heard that it could be any beach town and that it was crazy touristy. I heard that it was a lot of party and that it could be skipped. Truth be told, all of that is accurate. The thing was, it was what I needed right now. I needed some beach days. I needed some relax time. I needed to catch my breath after the Sapa->Hanoi->Hue->Hoi An stretch.
After a day at the luxury club, Julia and I met John. He's a guy who just finished University in Switzerland, and has been traveling around for about four months. He joined us for dinner and then some drinks at the Red Apple Bar next door to the Backpacker House.
It was ladies night that night, so Julia got a bunch of discounted drinks. I was just drinking beer all night. I saw a bunch of people that I knew from different places. There were the Norwegian girls who sang me happy birthday at Halong Bay, along with a couple of British blokes from that trip as well. I saw Annti from Finland, who I had met in Hoi An, as well. It was a good time. I spent a lot of time bouncing from table to table, meeting new people and hanging out with the "old" friends.
The next day Julia and I split. She went on one boat cruise and John and I went on another. After comparing notes, they were exactly the same (including in price). We all had a pretty good time, but, for me, it could have been a lot better. The food was pretty good and plentiful. I think what got me was all of the hidden charges. You had to pay to swim in the Marine Protected area. You had to pay to lay on a beach in a cabana. You had to pay to get into the aquarium. You had to pay for your beers. I miss the days of all inclusive or, at least, just pay for your own booze. I think that the fact that I was shelling out and additional 120,000 dong ($6.50) for all of these activities made me not want to drink as much on the boat. I had heard that it was a booze cruise, but not a single person was even tipsy on the boat.
There was a Vietnamese family on the boat, as well. There were two adorable little girls. I kept trying to make the younger one smile, but she was having none of it. She just sat there staring at me, looking at me like I'm crazy. I even tried to reason with her, telling her that she was a kid and that she was supposed to smile and laugh. Clearly she didn't believe me. I ended up running into the family on the way to dinner in front of a shop. I kind of got a smile out of her then, but I don't think it really counted. That kid could have been classified as a tough crowd. I don't think that even Mike Wazowski could have made that kid smile.
That evening, Julia, John and I walked around town for quite some time. We found ourselves outside of the tourist area and happened upon a restaurant that was PACKED. I mean this place was hopping. It was all locals. So, what do we do? We decide to have dinner there. Not a single thing on the menu was in English. One of the servers, who I think was the owner, spoke very little English. I tried to order grilled lobster, but ended up with grilled squid. Not what I ordered, but really fucking tasty. This stuff was fresh and perfectly grilled. John got some beef noodles, and Julia got some sort of clam and rice soup. To be honest, for two nights in a row, I have won the dinner competition. I ordered the best dishes. The night before, it was beef in boiling vinegar.
After dinner, we kind of got lost. We ended up running into a couple of guys who work at the Backpacker House. They were eating dinner at another restaurant and looked at us like they were wondering, "What the fuck are you doing in this part of town?" Luckily, they pointed us in the right direction, and we made it back okay.
The rest of the night was filled with drinking and dancing. Julia, John, two of his friends and I were all out until three in the morning. It was one of John's friends' birthday, so we whooped it up a bit. I ran into Mikey from Canada/Chiang Mai. He hung out for a while. We all just had a blast. So much so that I'm the first one out of bed this morning.
On the way back to the hotel, I was walking with John and Julia, and what happens? John and I are accosted by prostitutes. Luckily, I just get a back massage, but John gets the full on cock grab, and breaks his flip-flop as he tried to get away. Julia grabbed my camera and tried to take a picture of the action, but the hookers were having none of that. I was afraid at one point that my camera would get smashed. Luckily that didn't happen.
So that brings us back to today. Julia and I are going back to the Louisiane Club to chillax for the day. I'm going to be hopping on a night bus to Ho Chi Minh City tonight at eight o'clock. I think Julia may be getting a job at the Backpacker House for a little while. I don't blame her. If I could do that I would. Maybe next time. Maybe next year. We'll see.
But, much to my surprise Nha Trang has been awesome. I've had a lot of fun and I've relaxed quite a bit. Now I'm off to the heat and the bustle of Ho Chi Minh. Hopefully, I'll meet some more great people there. It'll break my heart to leave Julia. She's been a fantastic travel companion. Hopefully I'll see her on the trail somewhere else, or maybe she'll even visit me in the States. Until then, fuck Facebook. I'll just e-mail her.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Day 52: I Don't Need No Stinkin' Sun Creme
Listening: Yes, I'm jumping like a jumping jack. Dancing, screaming, itching, squealing, fevered, feeling hot hot hot!!!
What's my problem? My lips don't feel like my own.
The way I usually work with the sunshine is that I burn my first time out in it, and from there on out, I tan until the end of the season. So, as I hopped onto the back of Leo's bike and he asked me, "Do you have sun creme?" I nonchalantly answered, "Nah. I don't need it." Ha. Right.
Off we went, straight out of Hoi An. At first, I thought we'd never get out of populated areas. There was small town after small town. I'm not talking about multiple street towns. I'm talking about stretches of shops and buildings alongside the road we were riding on. But, before long, they all disappeared. There we were in the mountains riding along.
About an hour and a half in, we stopped for coffee at a little roadside cafe. I think it was the only place for at least a few kilometers around. I had some killer coffee and watched four Vietnamese guys play cards. I tried to figure out the rules, but once I thought I had it, I saw something else that just kind of blew out the structure of the game in my head. From there, we headed deeper into the mountains.
Since we left at around half past seven in the morning, I hadn't had breakfast, or ingested anything besides that miniscule, but very tasty and strong cup of coffee. So when we pulled up to the pineapple farm at around ten in the morning, I was famished. I don't know if it was that I was hungry, or if it was because the pineapple had been harvested minutes earlier, or if it was the fact that it was grown by an ethnic minority, but it was probably the best pineapple that I have ever tasted in my life. It was soft and juicy. It was sweet, and just exploded with flavor in my mouth. I ate the entire pineapple myself.
From there, we hit the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a network of roads used by the Viet Cong to transport supplies, weapons, and personnel down into southern Vietnam during the war. The landscape itself was beautiful. I could see how fighting on that land would be extremely difficult. It wasn't that it was all jungle. It was jungle and mountains and brush.
One of the more sobering sights that I saw were large black expanses on some of the mountains around the Ho Chi Min Trail. Napalm. The effects are still apparent today, thirty years later. The land is still completely scorched. The earth itself is black as coal and there are hectares and hectares of flattened black land. Apparently, nothing can grow there anymore.
If there's any wonder why the Vietnamese hate the Americans, there's your reason. And it's so funny thinking about how many Americans hate the Vietnamese because of the war. We were on their land. We were napalming their mountains and fields. They killed some of our people. We killed some of their people. That's a score of three to one. I feel bad that my country did this. I feel bad when I see the amputees still on the streets here in Vietnam. I know that my people did this to them, and I'm pretty powerless to do anything about it.
We had a long ride from there. We followed the Ho Chi Minh Trail up through Snake Road, which winds precariously through the mountains, back and forth, uphill and downhill.
On that stretch of road, there's nowhere to really stop for lunch. We stopped at a few minority villages so that I could see the longhouses or see how they live, but there was no chance for food until we hit Danang at around three in the afternoon. We ended up having lunch at China Beach.
China Beach was where one of the firs US army bases were in Vietnam during the war. Unfortunately, and fortunately, there is no longer any evidence of the occupation. China Beach is now a pretty pristine stretch of beach with resorts popping up all along it.
For lunch I had the frog with chili and lemongrass. I have to say it was pretty yummy. However, by the time I sat down to eat, I noticed a red line on my skin around the bottom of my shorts. Yeah. I'm a moron.
To be honest, my sunburn isn't that bad. It's no worse than the one that I got in Koh Tao. I'm sure that my nose and legs will start peeling in a couple of days and it'll be all good.
From there, we went to Marble Mountains where it's just one giant tourist trap. And I got trapped. See, Leo's family is from Danang. Coincidentally, they live at the base of Marble Mountain where there are numerous shops selling marble sculptures and so on and so forth. Are you seeing where this was going? Yep. I got the sell. And I got the sell hard. Not by Leo, but by his family. Yeesh. So, I ended up buying a small marble buddha. It's supposed to bring me luck on my trip. We'll see how that goes.
After I got back to Hoi An, I checked into the room that Isa had gotten earlier in the day and showered off the dust of the day. Since Isa wasn't around, Lydia had left town, and I didn't know where Julia was at the time, I set out looking for dinner.
Of course, I was in the mood for some local specialties, because I knew that I wouldn't be in Hoi An forever. So, I went to Miss Thahn's. Miss Thahn's is a little food stall among about ten other food stalls. Each food stall has their own row of tables. They all try to hawk their menus and get people to sit in their row of tables. The action takes place when someone beckons someone over to sit in their area and then they end up sitting in another. Sometimes it gets heated, and sometimes, there's a downright yelling match. It can get kind of amusing. I saw a couple the day before when I had lunch there.
For dinner, I had two orders of "white rose" and an order of cau lau bo. White rose is a sort of open dumpling. The meat in it is pork and shrimp and the wrapper is translucent white, kind of like the wrapper of har gau (if you're familiar with dim sum. Cau lau is a local specialty. It's a thick noodle with a little bit of broth and some veg. These noodles are specific to Hoi An, as that the water used to make the noodles must be from a specific well. These noodles are about a quarter of a centimeter by a quarter of a centimeter thick and aren't soft or white like pho. They're a little bit brown and they're much more firm. I have to say that I really enjoy it. I have had at least one bowl of it per day that I have been in Hoi An.
As I walked around town, I bumped into Isa. We walked around for a bit, ended up going back to the room to chill, and then headed out for some snacks for her and a drink for me. While we had been walking around before, we noticed some people eating some eggs on the street. They were eggs right? Yeah. They were eggs... half developed eggs.
On our trip out, Isa got the idea that we should try them. I thought about it for a second. I thought about the massive amount of food that I ate for dinner, and... I went for it. So there we were, Isa and I, sitting on plastic stools on a dark street in Hoi An. The silk Chinese lamps glowed red down the street and we had balut (the filipino name for the half developed chicken egg) by candle light.
We had an audience as well. There were a couple of old Vietnamese ladies who watched us eat. First, we had to crack the shell at the top and drink the broth from the inside. Oh yes. These eggs were warm/hot, so they were cooked in some way/shape/form. The broth on the inside tasted like chicken broth. It was actually quite delicious. The "meat" inside was truly like a cross between a soft boiled egg and chicken. It tasted like a really great piece of chicken, but had a texture softer than a hard boiled egg.
There were bits of "anatomy" in the egg, such as a head and some feather like things. They didn't make much of a difference in texture or taste. It took a little while for me to look at it and get the nerve to put it in my mouth, but I did it and I didn't gag. It took us a solid ten minutes to down the eggs. Isa said she thought it was okay, but didn't know if she would eat another. I thought it was okay as well, and if I were in a place that had it, I might get one every so often. I really do think that it's worth trying, for everyone.
After that, we ran into Julia and one of her friends. They were headed to a bar that was kind of noisy, so Isa and I opted to go to a more quiet bar. It's amazing how much you can learn about someone over a drink if you're listening. I learned quite a lot about Isa that night, about her dreams and aspirations, about her insecurities, and about her past.
By the time we finished our drinks, it was half past eleven, and I was knackered. So, we retreated back to the room and I fell asleep almost immediately.
The next day, Isa headed off to Hue so that she could catch another bus to Laos, and I headed to Julia's hotel so that I would only be spending five dollars a night instead of fourteen by myself.
Julia and I ended up going to My Son, a Cham ruin just outside of Hoi An. Sure, it's a UNESCO World Heritage site, but then again, so are the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. They were much more Cahokia Mounds than they were Mesa Verde. There were some ruins of some temples and it just wasn't as impressive as the photos made it out to be. Leo had told me that if I planned on going to Ankor Wat, I should skip My Son. He was right and I haven't even been to Ankor Wat.
The weather was blisteringly hot, and steamingly muggy. It was so hot and muggy, forget about frying an egg on a car. You could steam a lobster in a shoebox, and melt the drawn butter right on top. Also, there were just so many tourists. I know that it'll be like that in Ankor Wat, but, shit.
By the time we got back to town, it was one in the afternoon, so I went to get another fitting for my chef's coats. They had it wrong again. *sigh* The first time, they made it double breasted, but they didn't have it for both sides, so you couldn't switch panels. This time, it wasn't even double breasted. So, now I have to go back today and get them fitted again. Hopefully, they'll be ready by five in the evening, so I can catch my six o'clock bus to Nha Trang. We'll see.
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the dinner on the night before I went on the Easy Rider tour. Leo, my driver, took Lydia, Isa, Julia and me to a local restaurant outside of Hoi An proper. We were away from the tourists, and away from the people trying to sell you this, that and the other thing. Dinner was simple and delicious. Of course, there were home made spring rolls, but the main course were kind of like spring rolls as well. There was rice paper, some greens, some pickled cabbage, sliced cucumbers and baby bananas, some meat on a stick and some shrimp omelette. You roll it all together in the rice paper, dip in a sweet chili sauce and enjoy. Oh man, I must have had at least twelve of them. They were definitely delicious and definitely something that I want to have again.
Anyhow, that's all for now. I'm sorry about not uploading any pictures lately. The connections have either been way too slow or the machines have blocked USB drives. It kinda makes me sad, but not too sad to keep on truckin'.
What's my problem? My lips don't feel like my own.
The way I usually work with the sunshine is that I burn my first time out in it, and from there on out, I tan until the end of the season. So, as I hopped onto the back of Leo's bike and he asked me, "Do you have sun creme?" I nonchalantly answered, "Nah. I don't need it." Ha. Right.
Off we went, straight out of Hoi An. At first, I thought we'd never get out of populated areas. There was small town after small town. I'm not talking about multiple street towns. I'm talking about stretches of shops and buildings alongside the road we were riding on. But, before long, they all disappeared. There we were in the mountains riding along.
About an hour and a half in, we stopped for coffee at a little roadside cafe. I think it was the only place for at least a few kilometers around. I had some killer coffee and watched four Vietnamese guys play cards. I tried to figure out the rules, but once I thought I had it, I saw something else that just kind of blew out the structure of the game in my head. From there, we headed deeper into the mountains.
Since we left at around half past seven in the morning, I hadn't had breakfast, or ingested anything besides that miniscule, but very tasty and strong cup of coffee. So when we pulled up to the pineapple farm at around ten in the morning, I was famished. I don't know if it was that I was hungry, or if it was because the pineapple had been harvested minutes earlier, or if it was the fact that it was grown by an ethnic minority, but it was probably the best pineapple that I have ever tasted in my life. It was soft and juicy. It was sweet, and just exploded with flavor in my mouth. I ate the entire pineapple myself.
From there, we hit the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Ho Chi Minh Trail was a network of roads used by the Viet Cong to transport supplies, weapons, and personnel down into southern Vietnam during the war. The landscape itself was beautiful. I could see how fighting on that land would be extremely difficult. It wasn't that it was all jungle. It was jungle and mountains and brush.
One of the more sobering sights that I saw were large black expanses on some of the mountains around the Ho Chi Min Trail. Napalm. The effects are still apparent today, thirty years later. The land is still completely scorched. The earth itself is black as coal and there are hectares and hectares of flattened black land. Apparently, nothing can grow there anymore.
If there's any wonder why the Vietnamese hate the Americans, there's your reason. And it's so funny thinking about how many Americans hate the Vietnamese because of the war. We were on their land. We were napalming their mountains and fields. They killed some of our people. We killed some of their people. That's a score of three to one. I feel bad that my country did this. I feel bad when I see the amputees still on the streets here in Vietnam. I know that my people did this to them, and I'm pretty powerless to do anything about it.
We had a long ride from there. We followed the Ho Chi Minh Trail up through Snake Road, which winds precariously through the mountains, back and forth, uphill and downhill.
On that stretch of road, there's nowhere to really stop for lunch. We stopped at a few minority villages so that I could see the longhouses or see how they live, but there was no chance for food until we hit Danang at around three in the afternoon. We ended up having lunch at China Beach.
China Beach was where one of the firs US army bases were in Vietnam during the war. Unfortunately, and fortunately, there is no longer any evidence of the occupation. China Beach is now a pretty pristine stretch of beach with resorts popping up all along it.
For lunch I had the frog with chili and lemongrass. I have to say it was pretty yummy. However, by the time I sat down to eat, I noticed a red line on my skin around the bottom of my shorts. Yeah. I'm a moron.
To be honest, my sunburn isn't that bad. It's no worse than the one that I got in Koh Tao. I'm sure that my nose and legs will start peeling in a couple of days and it'll be all good.
From there, we went to Marble Mountains where it's just one giant tourist trap. And I got trapped. See, Leo's family is from Danang. Coincidentally, they live at the base of Marble Mountain where there are numerous shops selling marble sculptures and so on and so forth. Are you seeing where this was going? Yep. I got the sell. And I got the sell hard. Not by Leo, but by his family. Yeesh. So, I ended up buying a small marble buddha. It's supposed to bring me luck on my trip. We'll see how that goes.
After I got back to Hoi An, I checked into the room that Isa had gotten earlier in the day and showered off the dust of the day. Since Isa wasn't around, Lydia had left town, and I didn't know where Julia was at the time, I set out looking for dinner.
Of course, I was in the mood for some local specialties, because I knew that I wouldn't be in Hoi An forever. So, I went to Miss Thahn's. Miss Thahn's is a little food stall among about ten other food stalls. Each food stall has their own row of tables. They all try to hawk their menus and get people to sit in their row of tables. The action takes place when someone beckons someone over to sit in their area and then they end up sitting in another. Sometimes it gets heated, and sometimes, there's a downright yelling match. It can get kind of amusing. I saw a couple the day before when I had lunch there.
For dinner, I had two orders of "white rose" and an order of cau lau bo. White rose is a sort of open dumpling. The meat in it is pork and shrimp and the wrapper is translucent white, kind of like the wrapper of har gau (if you're familiar with dim sum. Cau lau is a local specialty. It's a thick noodle with a little bit of broth and some veg. These noodles are specific to Hoi An, as that the water used to make the noodles must be from a specific well. These noodles are about a quarter of a centimeter by a quarter of a centimeter thick and aren't soft or white like pho. They're a little bit brown and they're much more firm. I have to say that I really enjoy it. I have had at least one bowl of it per day that I have been in Hoi An.
As I walked around town, I bumped into Isa. We walked around for a bit, ended up going back to the room to chill, and then headed out for some snacks for her and a drink for me. While we had been walking around before, we noticed some people eating some eggs on the street. They were eggs right? Yeah. They were eggs... half developed eggs.
On our trip out, Isa got the idea that we should try them. I thought about it for a second. I thought about the massive amount of food that I ate for dinner, and... I went for it. So there we were, Isa and I, sitting on plastic stools on a dark street in Hoi An. The silk Chinese lamps glowed red down the street and we had balut (the filipino name for the half developed chicken egg) by candle light.
We had an audience as well. There were a couple of old Vietnamese ladies who watched us eat. First, we had to crack the shell at the top and drink the broth from the inside. Oh yes. These eggs were warm/hot, so they were cooked in some way/shape/form. The broth on the inside tasted like chicken broth. It was actually quite delicious. The "meat" inside was truly like a cross between a soft boiled egg and chicken. It tasted like a really great piece of chicken, but had a texture softer than a hard boiled egg.
There were bits of "anatomy" in the egg, such as a head and some feather like things. They didn't make much of a difference in texture or taste. It took a little while for me to look at it and get the nerve to put it in my mouth, but I did it and I didn't gag. It took us a solid ten minutes to down the eggs. Isa said she thought it was okay, but didn't know if she would eat another. I thought it was okay as well, and if I were in a place that had it, I might get one every so often. I really do think that it's worth trying, for everyone.
After that, we ran into Julia and one of her friends. They were headed to a bar that was kind of noisy, so Isa and I opted to go to a more quiet bar. It's amazing how much you can learn about someone over a drink if you're listening. I learned quite a lot about Isa that night, about her dreams and aspirations, about her insecurities, and about her past.
By the time we finished our drinks, it was half past eleven, and I was knackered. So, we retreated back to the room and I fell asleep almost immediately.
The next day, Isa headed off to Hue so that she could catch another bus to Laos, and I headed to Julia's hotel so that I would only be spending five dollars a night instead of fourteen by myself.
Julia and I ended up going to My Son, a Cham ruin just outside of Hoi An. Sure, it's a UNESCO World Heritage site, but then again, so are the Cahokia Mounds in Illinois. They were much more Cahokia Mounds than they were Mesa Verde. There were some ruins of some temples and it just wasn't as impressive as the photos made it out to be. Leo had told me that if I planned on going to Ankor Wat, I should skip My Son. He was right and I haven't even been to Ankor Wat.
The weather was blisteringly hot, and steamingly muggy. It was so hot and muggy, forget about frying an egg on a car. You could steam a lobster in a shoebox, and melt the drawn butter right on top. Also, there were just so many tourists. I know that it'll be like that in Ankor Wat, but, shit.
By the time we got back to town, it was one in the afternoon, so I went to get another fitting for my chef's coats. They had it wrong again. *sigh* The first time, they made it double breasted, but they didn't have it for both sides, so you couldn't switch panels. This time, it wasn't even double breasted. So, now I have to go back today and get them fitted again. Hopefully, they'll be ready by five in the evening, so I can catch my six o'clock bus to Nha Trang. We'll see.
Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you about the dinner on the night before I went on the Easy Rider tour. Leo, my driver, took Lydia, Isa, Julia and me to a local restaurant outside of Hoi An proper. We were away from the tourists, and away from the people trying to sell you this, that and the other thing. Dinner was simple and delicious. Of course, there were home made spring rolls, but the main course were kind of like spring rolls as well. There was rice paper, some greens, some pickled cabbage, sliced cucumbers and baby bananas, some meat on a stick and some shrimp omelette. You roll it all together in the rice paper, dip in a sweet chili sauce and enjoy. Oh man, I must have had at least twelve of them. They were definitely delicious and definitely something that I want to have again.
Anyhow, that's all for now. I'm sorry about not uploading any pictures lately. The connections have either been way too slow or the machines have blocked USB drives. It kinda makes me sad, but not too sad to keep on truckin'.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Day 49: I Should Just Hand Over My Wallet
Listening: Well here we go again. You've found yourself a friend that knows you well. But no matter what you do, it always feels as though you tripped and fell. So steady as she goes.
What's my problem? Clashing personalities.
A brief update. So I am getting five chef's coats made. One long sleeved, two three quarter length sleeved and two short sleeved. I'm also getting two reproductions of one of my favorite shirts. The shirt I'm reproducing I got at the Garment District for pennies. Unfortunately, it's falling apart and I'd hate to lose the shirt with that cut. So, altogether, I'm dropping two hundred US dollars.
Tomorrow morning, I go on an Easy Rider tour. It's me and a motorcycle driver going out to the Ho Chi Minh trail, then to a ethnic minority pineapple farm, and finally to Danang where China Beach is. After that we're going to go rock some local food. I spent about two hours last night talking to this guy about the Easy Riders. He was one of the originals who started in Dalat and then opened up the one here in Hoi An. He showed me the website and everything. There he was. So, I'm paying a hundred US dollars to take the two day tour in one day, plus go rock the local food with the dude. He had breakfast with Lydia (a girl I'm sharing a room with) and I this morning too.
Well, I've been hanging out with German girls. There are two that are a pair and one that's a little awkward. The pair are leaving Hoi An tonight, and Lydia is leaving tomorrow night. Luckily, I met a girl from Shanghai at breakfast this morning who might share my room with me. Grandma would be proud. She speaks four languages and is Chinese.
Oh well, I have to meet the German pair for lunch tonight. I have dinner with Lydia and the Shanghai girl, Isa, tonight. Hopefully Julia will show up as well. She just got into town too. Man... me and my women.
What's my problem? Clashing personalities.
A brief update. So I am getting five chef's coats made. One long sleeved, two three quarter length sleeved and two short sleeved. I'm also getting two reproductions of one of my favorite shirts. The shirt I'm reproducing I got at the Garment District for pennies. Unfortunately, it's falling apart and I'd hate to lose the shirt with that cut. So, altogether, I'm dropping two hundred US dollars.
Tomorrow morning, I go on an Easy Rider tour. It's me and a motorcycle driver going out to the Ho Chi Minh trail, then to a ethnic minority pineapple farm, and finally to Danang where China Beach is. After that we're going to go rock some local food. I spent about two hours last night talking to this guy about the Easy Riders. He was one of the originals who started in Dalat and then opened up the one here in Hoi An. He showed me the website and everything. There he was. So, I'm paying a hundred US dollars to take the two day tour in one day, plus go rock the local food with the dude. He had breakfast with Lydia (a girl I'm sharing a room with) and I this morning too.
Well, I've been hanging out with German girls. There are two that are a pair and one that's a little awkward. The pair are leaving Hoi An tonight, and Lydia is leaving tomorrow night. Luckily, I met a girl from Shanghai at breakfast this morning who might share my room with me. Grandma would be proud. She speaks four languages and is Chinese.
Oh well, I have to meet the German pair for lunch tonight. I have dinner with Lydia and the Shanghai girl, Isa, tonight. Hopefully Julia will show up as well. She just got into town too. Man... me and my women.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Day 48: Hue More Than Enough Time
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.
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.
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.
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