My flight left Sai Gon at 6:10 AM, so the idea of trying to get some sleep before seemed like not such a good one. Even though I left a wake-up call request at the reception, this is, after all Vietnam, and a wake-up call is still performed by an actual person who has to wake him or herself up first to wake you up. I harbored misgivings as to when or even if said wake-up call would occur. At 4:00 AM to the minute my room phone rang and the friendly voice on the other end informed me this was my requested call.
It was about 4:20 when I made my way downstairs to the dark and quiet lobby. I opened the door to the reception and woke up the sleeping hotel employee to return my key and pay for the Red Bull I had downed minutes before to provide me the impetus to make it to Tan Son Nhat airport on no sleep. There was no indication from the drowsy employee whom I wakened from a dead sleep that he was the one who'd phoned me only 20 minutes before. Next, I woke up the employee sleeping next to the locked gate so I could exit the hotel. I guess these disturbances are all part of working the night shift at a Sai Gon hotel.
In the side street next to the hotel, a foreigner was slumped in a fitful sleep in his plastic chair outside the bar where he had spent a large portion of the previous night. He was dreaming on his own now, but hours earlier I had peered down from the hallway outside my room and seen him actively engaging a Vietnamese woman in an obvious attempt to gain her companionship. For just the evening or for the rest of his life, I don't know. Perhaps neither did he. On the table next to him lay the small bouquet of roses he had purchased to aid him in his amorous pursuit. Perhaps the roses would still be fresh enough the following night and his batteries sufficiently recharged that he might not even need leave the perch he had apparently become quite comfortable with. Perhaps his friend might even return. In Vietnam tomorrow really is another day.
My concerns that I might have trouble finding transport to the airport at the early hour were instantly dispelled when 2 motorbike taxis offered their services not 20 feet from the hotel gate. I would proceed to the airport in true Sai Gon style, on the back of one of these fine hardworking gentlemen's motorbikes. I approached the nearest and we had our brief negotiation over price and he took my large bag and placed it between his legs in front of him and I put on my helmet and we were off. We reached the airport in very good time, there being almost no traffic, but not after a few harrowing moments in which I was reminded of the tenuousness of my position on the motorbike by some sharp bumps and potholes. I paid the driver and in the darkness I could still see some of detail of his smile, the stains on the teeth that still remained, as he said 'See you again.' In the darkness I could see and feel that it was genuine.
So that's it for now. As I write this, I'm back in California. And it's cold! I'll just say that if you're thinking of visiting Vietnam and have any hesitation about it, don't. Don't hesitate, that is.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
cathead
I can't believe this is the last day of my one-month trip to Vietnam. Like all such journeys, at the beginning the time sends almost infinite, but its passage seems to accelerate as it goes by. The weather here has turned perfect and I would prefer to stay. I guess if I really wanted to, I could extend my visa and change my flight, but the holidays are nigh and I have plans. The Vietnamese are beginning to embrace Christmas and the 'Merry Christmas' banners are beginning to pop up on storefronts. I bought water this morning at a market and the staff were all donning red and white santa hats and they wished me a merry Christmas. It occurred to me that it probably means as much to them as it does to most Americans. I sincerely hope that noone here in Sai Gon is harboring any illusions about a white Christmas. However, it does in fact snow in Vietnam in the northwest region near the China border.
The title is not a reference to what I'll be having for lunch today, but I imagine the idea is not so far fetched. Cathead is a term I remember from the American south that refers to the large misshapen biscuit formed from the remaining dough after the regular biscuits, all having the same general size and shape, have been stamped from it. So I'll take some leftover stories and thoughts from my trip here and form them into an amorphous lump. Sometimes the kids fight over the cathead biscuit and sometimes it's thrown out.
While on Cat Ba Island, I saw a Vietnamese woman speaking perfect American English, so I struck up a conversation, thinking she must have learned at a very early age or spent time in the States. I was absolutely right on both accounts, but not my initial assumption. She was not Vietnamese, but an American Navajo Indian from New Mexico! It's rare enough to meet a Navajo in my haunts in the States, but to meet one in Vietnam was a real surprise. She said she is often mistaken for Asian and Vietnamese even by Vietnamese. She was traveling with her American husband.
A common practice in restaurants in Vietnam is to serve beer warm in a bottle along with a glass of ice. I abhor the idea of dilution of perfectly good beer and usually pay a token acknowledgment to the proferred glass by pouring a small amount of beer into it and drinking the rest warm. There are many beers brewed in Vietnam, not to mention the bia hoi that you can buy on many street corners, especially in Ha Noi. My favorite is Saigon beer. Next favorite is LaRue. Others you can find here are Ha Noi, 333 (ba ba ba), BGI, Tiger, DatViet and many others I can't remember or haven't seen. There's no shortage of brew in Vietnam. There is a shortage of good wine. That's one thing they don't make very much of here and I doubt my snooty wine palate, spoiled by California's abundance of excellent wines, would deign to tolerate very much of it. I'll stick with Saigon beer. The green (xanh) label only of course. The red (song) is for export. Suckers.
The most people I saw piled onto a single motorbike was 4 in Quy Nhon. They were all schoolboys, but the bike nevertheless appeared to groan under their collective weight and was making quite slow progress. I've heard stories of 5 or more. I've heard a lot of stories.
Restaurants usually offer a towelette in a plastic wrapper prior to serving the food. I was having a difficult time opening the damn things as there's no obvious tearing point on the wrapper and it's quite sturdy. My dilemma was finally resolved when I became aware of a salvo of pops one night soon after a large table was seated nearby.
I'll really miss the street vendors selling fresh sugar cane juice drinks. They operate a small mobile rolling machine that squeezes the juice out of the cane right before your eyes. It's then served in a glass with ice and is delicious.
Vietnamese practice a shared pedaling technique when they double up on a bicycle. Both riders position their feet on the pedals and share the work. I saw only 2 ordinary road bikes here. Most cycling is the leisure (cruiser we American cyclists would say) type. But bikes are still used by many for basic transportation. I saw 2 foreigners blasting their way through traffic on mountain bikes, one in Sai Gon and the other in Ha Noi. The streets here are no place for the timid, but on the other hand there's a high level of cooperation and accomodation that takes place.
If you pass by a salon here and cast a glance inside you may notice a client reclined back in a chair while a salon employee is bent over their head with a magnifying glass and a light both directed into the client's ear while the employee wields some sort of implement intent on the task at hand. I can only guess this is some sort of ear cleaning procedure. Or perhaps some seat of the pants brain surgery. The Vietnamese are very entreprenurial.
I read in the Vietnam News that the government here is considering regulations regarding bloggers and their content. I guess that would include yours truly, so let me quicken my typing. I don't know how they can stop it without a general clampdown on the internet. But being a government they say they can do anything and everything, including allowing people complete freedom and making sure only the truth (and it's all good) gets written about Vietnam. The irony is that this story is the only one that struck me in a truly negative way while I was here. Alas.
A couple of last pics.
This is in my hotel room here in Sai Gon. It's not a seedy hotel. Maybe this is supposed to be a comfort to foreign guests as there are no Vietnamese women that look anything like this!
Flashback to Hue. Iqbal loses the battle for photo real estate amidst an insurmountable onslaught of amped up enthusiastic schoolkids. The kid in front was irrepressible. I had to work hard to get another shot without him dominating the foreground.
The title is not a reference to what I'll be having for lunch today, but I imagine the idea is not so far fetched. Cathead is a term I remember from the American south that refers to the large misshapen biscuit formed from the remaining dough after the regular biscuits, all having the same general size and shape, have been stamped from it. So I'll take some leftover stories and thoughts from my trip here and form them into an amorphous lump. Sometimes the kids fight over the cathead biscuit and sometimes it's thrown out.
While on Cat Ba Island, I saw a Vietnamese woman speaking perfect American English, so I struck up a conversation, thinking she must have learned at a very early age or spent time in the States. I was absolutely right on both accounts, but not my initial assumption. She was not Vietnamese, but an American Navajo Indian from New Mexico! It's rare enough to meet a Navajo in my haunts in the States, but to meet one in Vietnam was a real surprise. She said she is often mistaken for Asian and Vietnamese even by Vietnamese. She was traveling with her American husband.
A common practice in restaurants in Vietnam is to serve beer warm in a bottle along with a glass of ice. I abhor the idea of dilution of perfectly good beer and usually pay a token acknowledgment to the proferred glass by pouring a small amount of beer into it and drinking the rest warm. There are many beers brewed in Vietnam, not to mention the bia hoi that you can buy on many street corners, especially in Ha Noi. My favorite is Saigon beer. Next favorite is LaRue. Others you can find here are Ha Noi, 333 (ba ba ba), BGI, Tiger, DatViet and many others I can't remember or haven't seen. There's no shortage of brew in Vietnam. There is a shortage of good wine. That's one thing they don't make very much of here and I doubt my snooty wine palate, spoiled by California's abundance of excellent wines, would deign to tolerate very much of it. I'll stick with Saigon beer. The green (xanh) label only of course. The red (song) is for export. Suckers.
The most people I saw piled onto a single motorbike was 4 in Quy Nhon. They were all schoolboys, but the bike nevertheless appeared to groan under their collective weight and was making quite slow progress. I've heard stories of 5 or more. I've heard a lot of stories.
Restaurants usually offer a towelette in a plastic wrapper prior to serving the food. I was having a difficult time opening the damn things as there's no obvious tearing point on the wrapper and it's quite sturdy. My dilemma was finally resolved when I became aware of a salvo of pops one night soon after a large table was seated nearby.
I'll really miss the street vendors selling fresh sugar cane juice drinks. They operate a small mobile rolling machine that squeezes the juice out of the cane right before your eyes. It's then served in a glass with ice and is delicious.
Vietnamese practice a shared pedaling technique when they double up on a bicycle. Both riders position their feet on the pedals and share the work. I saw only 2 ordinary road bikes here. Most cycling is the leisure (cruiser we American cyclists would say) type. But bikes are still used by many for basic transportation. I saw 2 foreigners blasting their way through traffic on mountain bikes, one in Sai Gon and the other in Ha Noi. The streets here are no place for the timid, but on the other hand there's a high level of cooperation and accomodation that takes place.
If you pass by a salon here and cast a glance inside you may notice a client reclined back in a chair while a salon employee is bent over their head with a magnifying glass and a light both directed into the client's ear while the employee wields some sort of implement intent on the task at hand. I can only guess this is some sort of ear cleaning procedure. Or perhaps some seat of the pants brain surgery. The Vietnamese are very entreprenurial.
I read in the Vietnam News that the government here is considering regulations regarding bloggers and their content. I guess that would include yours truly, so let me quicken my typing. I don't know how they can stop it without a general clampdown on the internet. But being a government they say they can do anything and everything, including allowing people complete freedom and making sure only the truth (and it's all good) gets written about Vietnam. The irony is that this story is the only one that struck me in a truly negative way while I was here. Alas.
A couple of last pics.
This is in my hotel room here in Sai Gon. It's not a seedy hotel. Maybe this is supposed to be a comfort to foreign guests as there are no Vietnamese women that look anything like this!
Flashback to Hue. Iqbal loses the battle for photo real estate amidst an insurmountable onslaught of amped up enthusiastic schoolkids. The kid in front was irrepressible. I had to work hard to get another shot without him dominating the foreground.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
sai gon again
I finally left Quy Nhon on the night sleeper train that arrived here around 7 AM yesterday. The train ride was very good, better and easier than I thought it would be. I had my own compartment (4 beds per) for almost the first half of the trip and was then joined by 2 Vietnamese men. I actually got about 6 hours of sleep as the bed was comfortable and the gentle rocking of the train was sleep inducing. Being able to get up and walk around (especially to the food/bar car that hung off the end!) made things very easy. I met an Australian woman in the food car, shattering my illusion that I was the only foreigner on the train. I'm still assuming that she and her husband and myself were the only 3. Please don't tell me there were more!
Being back in Sai Gon is nice as I feel it's more my home than anywhere else in Vietnam. I'm back in the familiar backpacker district where I know my way around and a fair amount of English is spoken. I have less than 2 days left here. Some of the waitresses in the restaurants actually remembered me from 2 weeks ago and that made me really feel like I'd returned to some sort of home. I had breakfast yesterday at one of these restaurants and the girl offered me some sort of black and very bitter 'health drink' after I had finished what I ordered. I still have no idea what it was, maybe some sort of root extract. Supposedly it keeps skin young and healthy and even prevents cancer. I have not been diagnosed with cancer in the 24 hours that have elapsed, so that proves it beyond any doubt. I drank only a small amount, maybe a few tablespoons, but the girl, encouraged by an older woman there, downed a full glass. Then her face contorted and she ran for the trash can and vomited! I feel we have a very special bond now. And there's another case of too much of a good thing.
Yesterday I visited The Palace, officially known as the Reunification Palace. Before that it was called the Independence Palace before the south was 'liberated' by the north. Seems every politician has their own name for the place. That's why most just refer to it as The Palace. It's a fascinating place and I had looked forward to visiting it when I returned here from the north. They've left most if it in the same state it was in on April 30, 1975, the day the Viet Cong stormed through the gates and Sai Gon fell and the war really came to an end. American troops had long since departed, but some American and other officials had to be evacuated. I can just imagine how important having the right connections would have been in a situation like that! There was only so much time and so many helicopter trips that could be done. The most interesting part of The Palace is the basement where there exist actual warrooms with their walls plastered with maps and military data, all left untouched. All the phones are rotary dial and all the machines have analog dials on them. Truly old school.
Here are some photos from Quy Nhon and The Palace.
Reminiscent of the Victorians in San Francisco, I wish I had stayed at this hotel in Quy Nhon, but it's a bit far out from the center of town.
This is a rubber tree on the grounds of The Palace.
Being back in Sai Gon is nice as I feel it's more my home than anywhere else in Vietnam. I'm back in the familiar backpacker district where I know my way around and a fair amount of English is spoken. I have less than 2 days left here. Some of the waitresses in the restaurants actually remembered me from 2 weeks ago and that made me really feel like I'd returned to some sort of home. I had breakfast yesterday at one of these restaurants and the girl offered me some sort of black and very bitter 'health drink' after I had finished what I ordered. I still have no idea what it was, maybe some sort of root extract. Supposedly it keeps skin young and healthy and even prevents cancer. I have not been diagnosed with cancer in the 24 hours that have elapsed, so that proves it beyond any doubt. I drank only a small amount, maybe a few tablespoons, but the girl, encouraged by an older woman there, downed a full glass. Then her face contorted and she ran for the trash can and vomited! I feel we have a very special bond now. And there's another case of too much of a good thing.
Yesterday I visited The Palace, officially known as the Reunification Palace. Before that it was called the Independence Palace before the south was 'liberated' by the north. Seems every politician has their own name for the place. That's why most just refer to it as The Palace. It's a fascinating place and I had looked forward to visiting it when I returned here from the north. They've left most if it in the same state it was in on April 30, 1975, the day the Viet Cong stormed through the gates and Sai Gon fell and the war really came to an end. American troops had long since departed, but some American and other officials had to be evacuated. I can just imagine how important having the right connections would have been in a situation like that! There was only so much time and so many helicopter trips that could be done. The most interesting part of The Palace is the basement where there exist actual warrooms with their walls plastered with maps and military data, all left untouched. All the phones are rotary dial and all the machines have analog dials on them. Truly old school.
Here are some photos from Quy Nhon and The Palace.
Reminiscent of the Victorians in San Francisco, I wish I had stayed at this hotel in Quy Nhon, but it's a bit far out from the center of town.
View from The Palace out towards the front gate where a Viet Cong tank came crashing through on April 30, 1975. The view today is of a radically different Sai Gon and Vietnam.
One of the warrooms in the basement of The Palace. Reminds me of my third grade classroom.
This is a rubber tree on the grounds of The Palace.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
I Miss You, Where Are You, Darling? and Steames Crab full of Fat
On my 4th day here in Quy Nhon and starting to find my way around. It's Sunday morning here and the weather has turned nice, i.e., the rain has subsided. I walked past the Quy Nhon cathedral and walked inside the open gates just to look around. As I approached the church, I was met with the sound of a choir of children singing inside. The church seemed a large wooden music box resonating with the childrens' song. Very peaceful and nice.
Later I made my way out to a park by the water and was stalked. By a group of giggling Vietnamese girls. I could hear them practicing their English phrases as they followed at a distance of 30 or so feet. This happens often in Quy Nhon. The kids all want to practice their (usually very limited) English skills with any foreigner. See pics below. I also met a couple of college students whose English skills are very advanced and spent the better part of yesterday with them. I rented a motorbike and they showed me around to some nice area beaches. The woman at Barbara's hotel who rented me the motorbike did not expect to see me alive again! She told me I had to turn off the bike's engine at every stop and restart it to proceed! I soon figured out she did this only out of concern for my well-being. Or perhaps that of the bike. But I was soon zipping along in the Quy Nhon traffic like a native. A native of the USA that is. No, it's not so bad here especially compared to Sai Gon or Ha Noi.
Last night I was pulled into a group of sidewalk diners and enjoyed a pre-dinner of bia hoi (the local microbrew) and some tasty appetizers of squid and beef. Some of the group also tried very hard to get me to properly pronounce some Vietnamese words. It's tough. I finally strained and contorted my voice enough to parrot some words well enough to get some cries of appoval and the torture ended. I proceeded to a very good seafood restaurant and enjoyed a delicious dinner. One item on the menu was 'Steames crab full of fat'. I normally wouldn't indulge in the easy and endless game of pointing out amusing and puzzling instances of English usage here, but this one caught my attention. It's especially amusing and I really don't know what it is! Perhaps I should return tonight and order it.
The Quy Nhon Cathedral.
More stalkers. One really needs to keep one's guard up around here!
Later I made my way out to a park by the water and was stalked. By a group of giggling Vietnamese girls. I could hear them practicing their English phrases as they followed at a distance of 30 or so feet. This happens often in Quy Nhon. The kids all want to practice their (usually very limited) English skills with any foreigner. See pics below. I also met a couple of college students whose English skills are very advanced and spent the better part of yesterday with them. I rented a motorbike and they showed me around to some nice area beaches. The woman at Barbara's hotel who rented me the motorbike did not expect to see me alive again! She told me I had to turn off the bike's engine at every stop and restart it to proceed! I soon figured out she did this only out of concern for my well-being. Or perhaps that of the bike. But I was soon zipping along in the Quy Nhon traffic like a native. A native of the USA that is. No, it's not so bad here especially compared to Sai Gon or Ha Noi.
Last night I was pulled into a group of sidewalk diners and enjoyed a pre-dinner of bia hoi (the local microbrew) and some tasty appetizers of squid and beef. Some of the group also tried very hard to get me to properly pronounce some Vietnamese words. It's tough. I finally strained and contorted my voice enough to parrot some words well enough to get some cries of appoval and the torture ended. I proceeded to a very good seafood restaurant and enjoyed a delicious dinner. One item on the menu was 'Steames crab full of fat'. I normally wouldn't indulge in the easy and endless game of pointing out amusing and puzzling instances of English usage here, but this one caught my attention. It's especially amusing and I really don't know what it is! Perhaps I should return tonight and order it.
The Quy Nhon Cathedral.
Stalkers! The one on the left's top reads 'I Miss You, Where Are You Darling?'!
More stalkers. One really needs to keep one's guard up around here!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Quy Nhon, second to none
I've gotten a bit comfortable in this quiet little coastside town. Quy Nhon (wee nyon) rocks, but in its own subdued way. I'm finally having to deal with some steady rain now that St. Iqbal, the Bringer of Fair Skies (I've dubbed him thusly, just for the day) is no longer accompanying me. The rain began about 10 AM and hasn't let up. It's now 1:30 in the afternoon here. This is standard weather. If you want to spend any significant time here, get used to it. The common way of coping with rainy weather in Vietnam is to drape oneself in a hooded plastic poncho. They are ubiquitous and in Sai Gon are even a barometer of sorts. The locals seem to be very good at sensing impending rain and the ponchos will appear on noticable numbers of scooter riders well before the first drops fall. Of course a quick glance at the skies will serve almost as well as a predictor. But it's good to have redundancy and confirmation.
Funny story. I had a beer last night at a seaside bar with almost no patrons and was able to chat with the servers a bit as one of them spoke good English and they were otherwise unoccupied. I enquired about the breakfast menu and told them I would return this morning for that. I was surprised when my server at breakfast was one of the same servers as last night. I smiled and said hello, but not a flicker of recognition flashed across her face. Midway through my egg noodles and beef, I saw her again, this time in her regular clothes instead of the server uniform they wear when on duty. This time I got the broad smile of familiarity I had been expecting and felt better about things. Then maybe 5 minutes later she appeared again, again in her server's uniform. Must have gone out for something I thought. Then I was reminded of a snippet of the previous night's conversation. They're twins! The twin I had met first works the night shift and the other the morning. Had the other server not spoken English and informed me that her friend is a twin and had the half I met last night not shown up, I might have puzzled over this for, well, maybe an hour or so. Or the rest of my life, it's hard to say!
This situation of bars and cafes and restaurants being sparsely patronized is common in Vietnam, especially in the smaller towns. I can only imagine it's due to low overhead for such businesses and therefore just a little business is enough to remain a going concern. I think it offers a very interesting contrast with so-called developed economies and the high velocity of money (to coin (pun intended!) an economists' expression) and overhead required for business survival in developed economies. I also imagine that, unfortunately, this environment will diminish or disappear if Vietnam opens itself up more to capitalism.
I'm planning to stay here in Quy Nhon for 3 more days and cancel my plans to go to Nha Trang. I've heard Nha Trang is good for the beach and party scene, but I quite like it here. Also it would be a bit hectic for me to fit it all in. Moving from place to place wears you down after a while and requires a lot of time for travel, finding a hotel, exploring, etc. I did move to a new hotel here, Barbara's Backpackers. It's run by Barbara Dawson, a kiwi expat, and she and her lodge are well-known to backpackers and readers of travel guides. Not only is my new room much nicer for the same price, but Barbara has all the basic information a traveler needs (bus and train schedules, etc) and can arrange taxis and dispenses endless useful information. She even sold me my lovely rain poncho (see photo below)! And having English speakers around is a real luxury that you appreciate when you've been without. From here I'll go straight back to Sai Gon on a sleeper train, my first experience on a Vietnam train.
Fishing boats sit idle along Quy Nhon's beach. They catch a lot of squid here. I imagine some of the squid I've purchased at Trader Joe's in California may have been caught here.
This is a fishing boat! They're about 4-5 feet in diameter and, of course, don't go out too far. A common sight is to see one of these seemingly rolling on its own on its side into or out of the water. But on the other side will be a Vietnamese fisher(wo)man doing the rolling.
This is an ancient Cham tower temple. I don't know too much about the Cham other than they were here a long time ago and their empire is long gone. Some of the ruins in the area date back to the 11th century. My guide book says nothing about the age of these, located on the outskirts of Quy Nhon and known as the Duong Long Cham Towers. There are 2 of them here. This is the nicest.
Funny story. I had a beer last night at a seaside bar with almost no patrons and was able to chat with the servers a bit as one of them spoke good English and they were otherwise unoccupied. I enquired about the breakfast menu and told them I would return this morning for that. I was surprised when my server at breakfast was one of the same servers as last night. I smiled and said hello, but not a flicker of recognition flashed across her face. Midway through my egg noodles and beef, I saw her again, this time in her regular clothes instead of the server uniform they wear when on duty. This time I got the broad smile of familiarity I had been expecting and felt better about things. Then maybe 5 minutes later she appeared again, again in her server's uniform. Must have gone out for something I thought. Then I was reminded of a snippet of the previous night's conversation. They're twins! The twin I had met first works the night shift and the other the morning. Had the other server not spoken English and informed me that her friend is a twin and had the half I met last night not shown up, I might have puzzled over this for, well, maybe an hour or so. Or the rest of my life, it's hard to say!
This situation of bars and cafes and restaurants being sparsely patronized is common in Vietnam, especially in the smaller towns. I can only imagine it's due to low overhead for such businesses and therefore just a little business is enough to remain a going concern. I think it offers a very interesting contrast with so-called developed economies and the high velocity of money (to coin (pun intended!) an economists' expression) and overhead required for business survival in developed economies. I also imagine that, unfortunately, this environment will diminish or disappear if Vietnam opens itself up more to capitalism.
I'm planning to stay here in Quy Nhon for 3 more days and cancel my plans to go to Nha Trang. I've heard Nha Trang is good for the beach and party scene, but I quite like it here. Also it would be a bit hectic for me to fit it all in. Moving from place to place wears you down after a while and requires a lot of time for travel, finding a hotel, exploring, etc. I did move to a new hotel here, Barbara's Backpackers. It's run by Barbara Dawson, a kiwi expat, and she and her lodge are well-known to backpackers and readers of travel guides. Not only is my new room much nicer for the same price, but Barbara has all the basic information a traveler needs (bus and train schedules, etc) and can arrange taxis and dispenses endless useful information. She even sold me my lovely rain poncho (see photo below)! And having English speakers around is a real luxury that you appreciate when you've been without. From here I'll go straight back to Sai Gon on a sleeper train, my first experience on a Vietnam train.
Fishing boats sit idle along Quy Nhon's beach. They catch a lot of squid here. I imagine some of the squid I've purchased at Trader Joe's in California may have been caught here.
This is a fishing boat! They're about 4-5 feet in diameter and, of course, don't go out too far. A common sight is to see one of these seemingly rolling on its own on its side into or out of the water. But on the other side will be a Vietnamese fisher(wo)man doing the rolling.
This is an ancient Cham tower temple. I don't know too much about the Cham other than they were here a long time ago and their empire is long gone. Some of the ruins in the area date back to the 11th century. My guide book says nothing about the age of these, located on the outskirts of Quy Nhon and known as the Duong Long Cham Towers. There are 2 of them here. This is the nicest.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Hey, Hey, Hue (and Hoi An)!
Iqbal and I continued our journey by leaving the tight bustling quarters of Ha Noi for Hue (pronounced like whey). Hue was once the capital of the Nguyen empire in Vietnam. The old Citadel was built around 1800. We thought surely we would finally encounter some rain there, but no. Iqbal skated through Vietnam with barely a drop of it touching his blessed saintly head! We only spent a day there, but covered the high points and took a good tour of some of the outskirts. One highlight of Hue is the cuisine, which still reflects the special preparation and tastes of the Nguyen emperors. If it was good enough for the Nguyen emperors it's good enough for us. And it is quite good. Iqbal had a spicy rich seafood pot that was absolutely mouth-watering, the best dish I've tasted in Vietnam. Even my boiled squid was quite good, after being dipped in the special sauce it was served with. And I'm not talking about Chicken McNuggets special sauce. BTW, there are no McDonalds here. At least I haven't seen one.
After Hue, we took a car over the Hai Vai pass to the charming city of Hoi An. We stopped at the top of the pass to take in the view. Down below, we were informed, was a leper community. This is apparently still a problem here. The leper community is more for treatment and rehabilitation, not simply a quarantine area to ostracize lepers, we were also told.
Hoi An is a well-known town with a lot of character and is very popular with tourists. It's famous for its shoe and clothing makers. I had a pair of custom leather sandals made and Iqbal had a number of items made, including a suit. There are also quite a few high-end restaurants in town and there looks to be a bit more development underway. I hope they don't go too far with it. As it is, the balance is about right, IMO. In Hoi An, as in any touristy area in Vietnam, a foreigner is bombarded with constant cries of 'motorbike!' from the guys offering motorbike taxi service. They often come up from behind and I had gotten in the habit of dismissing them with a little wave of my hand. As I was walking down a Hoi An street, I heard the familiar and tired 'motorbike!' in what sounded like the Vietnamese accent. I did my usual dismissal wave with my hand and looked up to see the motorbike pass by, but the driver was not a Vietnamese, he was a grinning foreigner! He got me good. I yelled out to stop because I now wanted a ride! He kept going. And grinning.
In Hoi An, Iqbal and I parted ways. His 10 days in Vietnam was over and my stay was now 2/3 over. A bit of sadness being on my own again and having only 10 days left. I took a bus to the little coast town of Quy Nhon (wee nyon).
Maybe an old guard house?
Some of the local school kids. We didn't have to twist any arms to get them to pose for a photo!
View down towards the leper community from the Hai Vai pass between Hue and Hoi An.
Even though there are a lot of tourists in Hoi An, the streets there have a way of making them all invisible!
After Hue, we took a car over the Hai Vai pass to the charming city of Hoi An. We stopped at the top of the pass to take in the view. Down below, we were informed, was a leper community. This is apparently still a problem here. The leper community is more for treatment and rehabilitation, not simply a quarantine area to ostracize lepers, we were also told.
Hoi An is a well-known town with a lot of character and is very popular with tourists. It's famous for its shoe and clothing makers. I had a pair of custom leather sandals made and Iqbal had a number of items made, including a suit. There are also quite a few high-end restaurants in town and there looks to be a bit more development underway. I hope they don't go too far with it. As it is, the balance is about right, IMO. In Hoi An, as in any touristy area in Vietnam, a foreigner is bombarded with constant cries of 'motorbike!' from the guys offering motorbike taxi service. They often come up from behind and I had gotten in the habit of dismissing them with a little wave of my hand. As I was walking down a Hoi An street, I heard the familiar and tired 'motorbike!' in what sounded like the Vietnamese accent. I did my usual dismissal wave with my hand and looked up to see the motorbike pass by, but the driver was not a Vietnamese, he was a grinning foreigner! He got me good. I yelled out to stop because I now wanted a ride! He kept going. And grinning.
In Hoi An, Iqbal and I parted ways. His 10 days in Vietnam was over and my stay was now 2/3 over. A bit of sadness being on my own again and having only 10 days left. I took a bus to the little coast town of Quy Nhon (wee nyon).
We were informed by some locals that this is, in fact, a baby dragon.
Maybe an old guard house?
Some of the local school kids. We didn't have to twist any arms to get them to pose for a photo!
View down towards the leper community from the Hai Vai pass between Hue and Hoi An.
Even though there are a lot of tourists in Hoi An, the streets there have a way of making them all invisible!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
So Long Ha Long
Iqbal and I took a packaged tour to Ha Long Bay. Sometimes this is simply the best way to go. In addition to having all the travel, planning, and lodging details taken care of, a packaged tour is a great way to meet people. It may be the best way in Vietnam. During the bus ride from Ha Noi to Ha Long City, we met a few nice people. Once we arrived at Ha Long City and boarded our boat, we met the rest of the group, about a dozen people. We spent the night on the boat out on the bay. The quarters were a bit cramped, but fairly nice. There were some complaints of errant mice scurrying about some of the cabins, but nothing, you know, major. Anyway, we met a very nice married couple from Cairns, Australia, who go by the names of Kyne and Storm. He's Kyne and she's Storm. While Storm is certainly an interesting name, Storm herself struck me as far from it, instead being rather peaceful and calm. We also met 2 women from the Netherlands, Sol and Simone, and a young German lad named Nino. At least he told us that was his name. After the night on the boat (there was rumored to be some drinking that night), we spent a night on Cat Ba Island after doing a hike there and visiting Monkey Island ealier in the day. Monkey Island is very small, but there are accomodations there in the form of small cabins on stilts. The 7 of us decided to extend our Ha Long Bay stay an extra day and spend the third night on Monkey Island. Think Gilligan's Isle for a day. We were joined by another lost expedition, so we had about 15 people on the island that night, doubling or tripling its population. Other than the social aspect of it, there was really no reason to spend much time on Monkey Island as it's too small and a bit boring. But as you're most likely dying to know, yes there are monkeys there! But they're said to be aggressive and a bit disagreeable. In fact, one of the staff informed us that about a month ago, a tourist was bitten by a monkey. He dropped his bag containing his passport, among other things, and the monkey is now the possessor of it. I hope Homeland Security is looking out for this simian imposter. They're not as harmless as you think.
This is really how it looks! This is one of those places whose photos evoke disbelief. You really have to see it to believe it. Don't settle for this photo. This is where the boat anchored for the night. The structures are small floating houses inhabited by fishermen and their families.
Not a lot to do on Monkey Island. Here, Nino takes a break from the hectic pace to reflect on whether there might be a better way. We're all awaiting his answer.
Kyne beams proudly after conquering Monkey Island's highest peak. And he did it without supplemental oxygen!
The sun sets on another ideal day. Bonfire followed soon thereafter.
This is really how it looks! This is one of those places whose photos evoke disbelief. You really have to see it to believe it. Don't settle for this photo. This is where the boat anchored for the night. The structures are small floating houses inhabited by fishermen and their families.
And here's Iqbal looking fresh as a lotus. The rare yellow variety of course.
Here we disembark for a tour of an incredible cave/cavern on Cat Ba Island. Cat Ba Island is a Vietnamese national park. That's Nino in the light green shirt and Sol (pink) and Simone (yellow).
It's not called Monkey Island for nothing! Apparently this species prefers rooftops to treetops. Actually there was a group of them that had gained access to the attic or upper part of the building through an open panel on the roof. They enjoyed tossing down bags of chips and cans of beer to us gawkers on the ground.
Not a lot to do on Monkey Island. Here, Nino takes a break from the hectic pace to reflect on whether there might be a better way. We're all awaiting his answer.
Kyne beams proudly after conquering Monkey Island's highest peak. And he did it without supplemental oxygen!
The sun sets on another ideal day. Bonfire followed soon thereafter.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Ha Noi to Ha Long
I've had a bit of a break in my blogging. Iqbal and I left Ha Noi and spent a few days in and around Ha Long Bay, a popular tourist destination with its karst (limestone) formations that rise abruptly up out of the water like so many stony fingertips.
First a brief bit about our last days in Ha Noi. As a tourist in Ha Noi, especially in Ha Noi I think, you have to be viligant about negotiations. Unless of course you just don't care, like many tourists. We decided to have lunch at a grilled fish restaurant where the food is cooked and prepared at your table. We made the mistake of not seeing the prices up front. We saw the drink prices and they looked resonable so we assumed (oh, this is the dangerous part!) that the prices for the food would be the same. The manager seemed (more danger!) like a nice enough man. After the lunch, which I have to say rated about a 3 on a scale of 10, we were presented with the bill for an amount more than double what it should have cost. Iqbal figured he would resolve the situation by asking to see a menu, but the menu reflected the same high price as the bill. So we were stuck. Screwed. Caveat here is to always be clear about any price for any service in Vietnam before you owe anybody anything. I imagine many merchants pounce like cats on any tourist negligent enough to forget this. Other than this type of exploitation I've seen or heard almost nothing regarding crime in Vietnam. As long as one is clear about the terms of a business transaction, I've found the Vietnamese to be completely honest. Haggling for bottles of water has become a daily diversion for me. Why pay 70 cents when it can be easily had for 45? You don't learn this type of useful skill at Harvard Business School.
The day before leaving for Vietnam, I intended to get a haircut, but the salon was closed and I had to proceed the next day sporting my shaggy mane. I had seen numerous haircutters at work in Vietnam, many operating on the sidewalk with a mirror dangling from a treebranch, and found a small salon in Ha Noi with staff more than willing to accomodate me. See below for before and after pics.
Iqbal came up with the idea of renting motorbikes and striking out for the more open country to the west of Ha Noi for a couple of days. This would have been instead of going to Ha Long Bay. We thought it just might be an interesting and different (I've been described with just these words many times) adventure to embark upon, but alas, some locals strongly advised us against it, at least against the idea of doing it our own. Problem is once you leave the cities, English becomes a language rarely spoken, and if we were to run into any problems we could quickly find ourselves in a bit a of a predicament. That said, I've read other blogs of foreigners who've traveled from Ha Noi to Sapa by motorbike and lived to blog colorfully about the experience, so it is possible but maybe requires more of a sense of adventure than we had. By adventure, I mean slogging though waist-high mud and repairing or negotiating repairs for a broken down Russian Minsk bike, the motorbike of choice for such journeys. The option of paying a modest sum to sit on buses and boats and have our itineraries pre-planned for us suddenly took on a new and intriguing novelty. So that's what we did. And no regrets as Ha Long Bay, as touristy and as on the highly beaten path as it is, is not to be missed and has beauty enough that even sharing it with thousands of others is a worthwhile experience.
This is inside the Temple of Literature in Ha Noi, an ancient university. The names of the doctors who graduated each year and their home towns were inscribed on stone stelae. This one is from 1442. Their 600 year reunion is coming up soon. If it's anything like the 500 year bash, Ha Noi better start preparing now.
First a brief bit about our last days in Ha Noi. As a tourist in Ha Noi, especially in Ha Noi I think, you have to be viligant about negotiations. Unless of course you just don't care, like many tourists. We decided to have lunch at a grilled fish restaurant where the food is cooked and prepared at your table. We made the mistake of not seeing the prices up front. We saw the drink prices and they looked resonable so we assumed (oh, this is the dangerous part!) that the prices for the food would be the same. The manager seemed (more danger!) like a nice enough man. After the lunch, which I have to say rated about a 3 on a scale of 10, we were presented with the bill for an amount more than double what it should have cost. Iqbal figured he would resolve the situation by asking to see a menu, but the menu reflected the same high price as the bill. So we were stuck. Screwed. Caveat here is to always be clear about any price for any service in Vietnam before you owe anybody anything. I imagine many merchants pounce like cats on any tourist negligent enough to forget this. Other than this type of exploitation I've seen or heard almost nothing regarding crime in Vietnam. As long as one is clear about the terms of a business transaction, I've found the Vietnamese to be completely honest. Haggling for bottles of water has become a daily diversion for me. Why pay 70 cents when it can be easily had for 45? You don't learn this type of useful skill at Harvard Business School.
The day before leaving for Vietnam, I intended to get a haircut, but the salon was closed and I had to proceed the next day sporting my shaggy mane. I had seen numerous haircutters at work in Vietnam, many operating on the sidewalk with a mirror dangling from a treebranch, and found a small salon in Ha Noi with staff more than willing to accomodate me. See below for before and after pics.
Iqbal came up with the idea of renting motorbikes and striking out for the more open country to the west of Ha Noi for a couple of days. This would have been instead of going to Ha Long Bay. We thought it just might be an interesting and different (I've been described with just these words many times) adventure to embark upon, but alas, some locals strongly advised us against it, at least against the idea of doing it our own. Problem is once you leave the cities, English becomes a language rarely spoken, and if we were to run into any problems we could quickly find ourselves in a bit a of a predicament. That said, I've read other blogs of foreigners who've traveled from Ha Noi to Sapa by motorbike and lived to blog colorfully about the experience, so it is possible but maybe requires more of a sense of adventure than we had. By adventure, I mean slogging though waist-high mud and repairing or negotiating repairs for a broken down Russian Minsk bike, the motorbike of choice for such journeys. The option of paying a modest sum to sit on buses and boats and have our itineraries pre-planned for us suddenly took on a new and intriguing novelty. So that's what we did. And no regrets as Ha Long Bay, as touristy and as on the highly beaten path as it is, is not to be missed and has beauty enough that even sharing it with thousands of others is a worthwhile experience.
This is inside the Temple of Literature in Ha Noi, an ancient university. The names of the doctors who graduated each year and their home towns were inscribed on stone stelae. This one is from 1442. Their 600 year reunion is coming up soon. If it's anything like the 500 year bash, Ha Noi better start preparing now.
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