where cider meets condensed milk: Vietnam

where cider meets condensed milk

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Vietnam

Just finishing my short trip to Vietnam, and it's been fantastic. I wish I had planned an entire vacation here, but I guess I will have to come back. I took 5 days of holiday in order to leave well before the end of the school term, and I laugh to myself every morning knowing that I'm not at school. From Osaka, I flew to Bangkok (via Beijing) on Friday. The ride to Beijing was half-empty, as many of my flights from Japan seem to be, and in my eternal differently-abled-magnetism that I seem to have, a mentally challenged man came and sat next to me and tried to talk to me and show me the different features on his watch before the flight attendant took him to his assigned seat. I had the row to myself during the flight, until a large Lebanese man came over and hit on me with the line, "Excuse me... didn't I meet you in Germany last April?" Clumsy line, friendly yet clumsy man. He left and came back about 5 times during the flight, offering me snacks, gum, and his business card for his importing business based out of Japan and China. His name was... Bilalabou Draa. (When I read this, I pictured Chris Fyall saying "BiLALABOU Draa! That's fantastic!" while clapping his hands together a few times. Not quite sure why.) I realized that I would have 4 hours to spend in the Beijing airport with no Chinese currency, so I asked Mr. Draa if he could sell me some yuan for yen. He did, and I was on my way. I later did the math and discovered he gave me 1000yen more (about 10 dollars) than he should have. Which means I was essentially paid money by a foreign man for my conversation and company. We have a word for that in Japan, and it rhymes with "mostess."

I transferred flights in the Beijing airport with some old Japanese guys. I asked one why he was going to Bangkok, and he replied "Because of the warm weather and pretty girls." Yes, Nihon's finest. The workers at the airport were very rude and angry, which was a shock to the system after Japan. Arrived in Bangkok at 1am, went to my hotel, and hopped on the airport bus 8 hours later to head to Hanoi. I was terrified of flying to Vietnam by myself, and was laying in my hotel bed longing for Kamogawa. In the morning, after wandering the terminal for a bit, I waited for my plane, which kept getting delayed. I started talking to a gorgeous Dutch boy named Remco, we became friends on the flight over, and have been traveling buddies this entire week. He's doing a solo around-the-world trip after saving for 2 years at his job in Amsterdam, and is 2 months into the journey. He began in Beijing and had been traveling through China, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar with his girlfriend, who had to return to Israel the day I ran into him. After Vietnam, he's going to Malaysia, Indonesia, and then Australia, with plans for Central and South America by summertime. It was lucky to meet him and have our travel plans coincide-- he has been a good friend and I'll miss his company, jokes, and his habit of always beating me at cards.

We hung out in Hanoi for a night and took off early the next day for Halong Bay. It's supposed to be a National Heritage site, and everyone recommends seeing it. Armed with The Gospel According To Lonely Planet, we didn't book a tour, but went independently from Hanoi to the coast. We took a long bus ride with mostly local Vietnamese people, but arrived at the harbor just in time to miss the last boat to Cat Ba Island. We tried the next harbor to no avail, and our only option was to personally charter a boat for about 20 USD. It defeated the going-cheap method we began the day with, but the boat ride was gorgeous. We arriving before sunset at a port that was on the opposite side of the island from the only town. Several motorbike drivers were waiting to rip us off, including a man in green uniform with a "Border Security Patrol" patch. They kept giving us offers that were at least twice the value of the ride itself, and rather than give in, we decided to be stubborn and insist on a fair price. They refused, we refused, it became a bluffing game in which we went into a 30 minute standoff that included the drivers threatening to leave, driving 100 meters down the road, and coming back again, while Remco and I joked around and played a few rounds of cards. Border Security Patrol Man tried to play it tough, but they needed the money, we needed the ride, and it was a good 30 km to town. Finally, we started walking down the road, and it took less than a kilometer before 2 drivers revved up behind us and agreed to our price. The ride itself was terrifying-- up and down hills in the dark, while each of us had a large pack. Arriving in town, we were delivered straight to a hostel that had clean rooms and agreed to a discount. The next day we booked a boat tour of the bay with our guesthouse owner, and went on a small boat full of French tourists and 2 dutch girls. The day was disappointing, as we only were allowed off the boat to see 2 caves, were not allowed to go swimming during the vaguely-warm part of the afternoon, and were taken to a place called "Monkey Beach" that had exactly 4 monkeys on it. False advertising for the tour, and we didn't want to book another tour with the same guy. I felt seasick from the waves, it was rather cold and quite windy on the boat, and I wish I brought more winter clothes from Japan!

That evening, we had fantastic crab at the only decent restaurant in town. As we were eating, our hostel owner strolled by on his perpetual walking patrol of Cat Ba town and waved to the restaurant owner. The restaurant guy waved back, and then said quietly to us, "Mr. Tranh... not friend. He talk talk talk... cut cut cut!" and motioned to putting money in his pocket. He then drew a skull and crossbones on a napkin and indicated to where the hostel owner had been. Suspicious of our mafia boss hostel owner, we headed to another tour office to ask about hiking treks for the the next day. He wouldn't agree to a discount until we told him what hostel we were staying at. Finally, he gave us a discounted trek for a group of 4, only on the condition that we would not tell The Mafia Boss what price we paid, since the discount meant he was "breaking something". We booked these tickets at 9pm. By 7am in the morning, Mr Tranh approached Remco at breakfast, and told us that he would give us an additional discount on what we had paid down the street if we went with him. It was then we knew we were in the Godfather Guesthouse. Mafia Man Tranh stopped being friendly to us at this point. The other tour operator was very nice, and was elated when we came back a second time to book bus tickets back to Hanoi. However, I am still expecting to find a horsehead in my bed...

The trek in the national forest was beautiful. We went with a french couple-- 2 women in their 40s that were both artists and travel junkies. Our local guide was a cute old man that could do monkey, bird, cow, buffalo, and frog calls, and receive responses. We trekked through the forest, climbed up a steep rocky hill to see the entire island, and had lunch in a village before taking a boat back to town. We went out for drinks and foosball later with some British guys and one obnoxious American guy. The American was pretentious and annoying, and started most sentences with something like "When I was staying in yurt in Russia..." or "When I was living with the native hill peoples of Argentina..." and kept saying things in Spanish or Russian just to show that he could speak those languages. Cat Ba Island was nice overall, though the town itself was a bit seedy in places. We headed back to Hanoi by bus and boat this morning. On the bus, we were trapped with 2 loud Australians that wouldn't stop swearing at everything and everyone in this country, and one was already sipping from a whiskey flask by 11am. Classy. Found a hostel in Hanoi at Claire's recommendation, and trekked out to the KOTO restaurant (for fantastic food made my former street children) and the various monuments to Ho Chi Minh. He is called "uncle ho", which still entertains me. On our way back, we got very very lost and walked a good 7 km out of the way, but it was a good chance to see wild Hanoi traffic and lots and lots and lots of people! The traffic is insane, with cars, buses, bikes, and motorbikes sharing the road, but everyone is aware of everyone else and I have yet to see an accident. I'm flying to Bangkok in the morning, and Remco is heading out to see the rest of Vietnam for the next 2 weeks. I have a bunch of pictures, but won't be able to post them until I get to Bangkok.

posted by Raychaa @ 8:55 PM

1 comments:

At 5:11 PM, Chris C said…

An American who starts every sentence with, "When I was in a YURT in RUSSIA..."? Are you sure you aren't changing the details so we don't figure out who your REAL travelling partner/ boyfriend is? Hmm?

Sounds like a very interesting country. Blow Uncle Ho a kiss for me.

And Merry Christmas!