Vietnam was a big unknown. It was either going to be incredibly frustrating or incredibly fulfilling. We had visions of corruption and expense, of crime and a fundamental inability to communicate. In the duty-free shop out of Singapore we bought a carton of cigarettes in case we needed to make bribes.
Boy, were we wrong. Vietnam is beautiful. The people are beautiful. This is easily the best place we've visited in South-East Asia. We arrived in Hanoi late at night, picked a hotel at random in the guidebook, and were pleasantly surprised to find that for US$15/night we got a very nicely appointed big room with air conditioning and a nice breakfast. The same price in Singapore got us a tiny, dirty box above a sweaty chinese restaurant.
We walked the streets of Hanoi that night and it was like walking on a movie set. The narrow streets were well-lit, almost festive, and there were people sitting on the sidewalks, drinking beer and eating noodles and just going about their business. It felt safe and colourful. Young boys offered to sell us guidebooks that had been impossible to find in Singapore and Indonesia. Shop owners spoke English, and were friendly.
We walked down to the small lake which sits between the Old Quarter and the French Quarter. We crossed a bright red bridge to a small temple in the middle of the lake, and then circumambulated the shore. Lovers sat on the benches, oblivious to the traffic. Hanoi felt small and important and interesting -- and I couldn't wait to try some French food.
The next day we walked around some more, doing some errands and just soaking up the ambience. We enjoyed fancy ice cream, and ate delicious Bun Bo (noodles with beef and peanuts) at a streetside kitchen. That night we saw the famous water puppets, and Kate enjoyed them, but I thought they were pretty gimmicky. They danced on the water without strings, but there was no story. It was: "Look, we have a puppet that can do this. And a puppet that can do this. And a puppet that can do this..."
Hanoi is far from perfect, of course, and if there's any one thing that is a blight on this city it's the traffic, and more specifically the honking. Traffic here is functionally chaotic, which is nothing new. Lines on the road, when they exist, are weak suggestions. A stop sign would be a laughable decoration. Most of the motor vehicles are scooters, adept at navigating the basket-laden old ladies, cyclos (passenger tricycles), mini trucks, and cringing foreigners.
But the worst part is the honking. People here love to honk. It is an essential driving skill. They do it when they're entering an intersection, or rounding a blind curve, or when they're passing. They do it to urge slower traffic (truck, bicycle, or pedestrian) out of the way. They do it for no apparent reason, just to confirm their existence on the road. If you will wait a moment, I will count the number of honks I hear in the next twenty seconds... let's see... twenty-eight. That's right: on average, more than one per second. Of course, they don't come all nicely spread out -- they come in bunches of tap-tap-HOOOONNK, and sometimes, when some ignoramus comes right up behind me while I'm walking and lays it on, it's all I can do to keep myself from screaming obscenities.
We booked a tour to the famous Perfume Pagoda. We didn't know much about it, but we wanted to get away from the city for a day and it sounded interesting. We started with a cramped two-hour bus ride, and then followed that with a gentle row down the river. The scenery was nice. The boat, a small wooden punt with twelve passengers, propelled by two energetic women, looked mostly seaworthy. After an hour or so, we reached the steps.
The boat dropped us off and we began our trek up to the pagoda. It was about an hour of steady climbing, up steps carved into the rock, and the whole path from start to finish was lined with vendors. They sold sodas and food and temple offerings and cheesy bamboo baseball caps. They rented simple sleeping mats for the exorbitant price of 100,000 dong per night.
We eventually reached the main temple completely soaked in sweat. We descended down the steps into a huge natural cave. Inside, in the darkness at the back of the cave, were statues and praying pilgrims. Clustered around the mouth of the cave were more vendors. Inside it was cool and dark, but any feelings of peace or serenity were obscured by the chattering of the Vietnamese pilgrims.
The hour-long boat ride back to the bus was rather tense, as those of us at the front watched water slowly trickling into the leaky boat.
We booked another tour, on a different tour company, out to the well-recommended destination of Halong Bay. This one lived up to expectations.
We began with a cramped bus ride, of course, but eventually we made it onto the boat for our overnight cruise. The scenery was spectacular: thousands of tiny islands rose straight out of the water, creating an intricate network of passages and bays. Small fishing villages, just a few shacks floating on the water, were sprinkled throughout. It was reminiscent of Milford Sound, but where Milford impressed with size, Halong impressed with detail.
We slept on the boat that night, sweating in dark, cramped rooms. The boat itself was old and several coats of cheap paint could barely hide the rust. But it was functional, and more than large enough for the ten people who were on the tour.
The next morning we continued our cruise, and soon found ourselves on Cat Ba island, where we'd be spending the night. Getting to the hotel involved a harrowing ride on the back of a motorcycle, with my big pack balanced rather precariously on the gas tank. I just closed my eyes, gripped tight, and hoped for the best. Kate, who knows a lot more about riding motorcycles than me, was visibly shaken by this terrifying ordeal.
We checked into our hotel and then returned on the motorcycles back to the harbour (this time, pack-free), and took a ferry around Cat Ba Island, through shallow channels and secluded bays, and then finally climbed into a boat made of woven bamboo to be rowed ashore. Thus began our trek on Cat Ba Island.
We walked along the road from the deserted dock through green jungle. The air was humid, but not uncomfortably hot. Steep cliffs rose all around us. Kate and I drifted behind the main group and talked about all kinds of fascinating things. We eventually descended into a cultivated valley and walked through a small village full of bamboo thatch huts and puppies. From there we walked off through the fields, eventually reaching the hills, and began to climb up. And up. The Vietnamese do not believe in switchbacks. This path was steep. The middle-aged Belgian couple gave up, and the rest of us plowed on. We were covered in sweat and pale red dirt. Eventually, though, we reached the summit, and beheld one of the best views I've ever, ever seen.
Cat Ba Island lay all around us, undulating in great green folds. Beyond it were the islands of Halong bay, sprinkled like crumbs on the water, and disappearing into the mist. After a half an hour we descended, enjoyed some lunch, and then walked back to the bamboo boat. This time, Kate and I had the pleasure of sitting at the end where we could watch all the water flowing in.
Immediately upon returning to Hanoi we scrambled about the city, running errands in preparation for our ten-hour train trip to Sa Pa. The night train was actually fairly comfortable, even though we were in "hard sleeper" class, and especially when compared to a cramped, bumpy bus ride. The train dropped us in Lao Cai, a border town from which we could wave at the gaudy modern architecture of China. From there, we took a mini-bus up into the hills.
The road wound around the mountains, rising above terraced rice fields. After about an hour we found ourselves in the clouds, in the town of Sa Pa.
Sa Pa is a Vietnamese town smack in the middle of "ethnic minority" territory. The women from the surrounding villages walk to Sa Pa to ply their wares on unsuspecting tourists. Their ethnicity is easily identifiable by their dress: The H'mong, who are by far the most numerous, wear layers of indigo cloth (skirts, vests, shirts, bibs...) and head wraps; the Dao wear red towels folded onto their heads, and appear nearly bald. The H'mong women are persistent vendors, following you as you walk, but they always smile and whisper at you in demure, raspy voices. When you eat dinner, they'll stand at the window and watch you, holding up a shirt. A few girls asked my name and where I was from, and I told them, and from then on whenever I walked down the street they would shout out to me: "Hello Ste'e from Ka Na Da!" Or, "Hello Ste'e! You remembeh me?"
Kate and I spent our second morning exploring the countryside. We picked some villages about 9 km down the road, and walked that way. The road ran high up on a cliff, and far below us the river was bordered by intricately terraced rice fields. The mists were persistent, and the river disappeared into the hazy valley a few kilometers away. After a while, we saw some H'mong girls standing on a picturesque rock. We asked to take their picture, and they wanted some money. Instead, we offered some mints. We told them we were walking to Lau Chai, a village a few kilometers away. They started walking with us. Eventually we were joined by some other girls, all around ten years old, and they walked with us. They spoke excellent English -- better than most of the Vietnamese we'd encountered -- and we joked with them and asked them about their life up in the hills. They were friendly and beautiful, with quick smiles and bright eyes. Eventually most of them wandered off, but two girls, La and Tu, stayed with us and acted as our guides.
We followed them along the winding road through Lau Chai village. The village clung to the hillside in the shadow of Fansipan, Vietnam's tallest mountain. La took us to her house, a simple wooden structure, and we met her younger siblings. Her mother was in Sa Pa; her father and eldest brother were policemen. Kate and I decided to entertain the young kids with balloon animals, but, much to our embarrassment, we discovered that we couldn't blow up the balloons.
We walked on, past Lau Chai and to the next village, Ta Van. Along the way Kate and I stopped to enjoy our lunch of bread and cheese, but La and Tu weren't interested in sharing a loaf. Instead, they sat about twenty-five meters up the road and waited for us to eat. Finally, we left the villages behind and reached the main road. We flagged down a jeep for the return trip to Sa Pa, but before we climbed on board we repaid our guides by buying some silver bracelets from them. They and a few other girls rode with us back to Sa Pa, and we ran into La and Tu several times that night and the next day.
Kate and I sat in the bar at the Green Bamboo Hotel in Sapa. We were drinking Tiger Beer and waiting for a free performance from the H'mong youth. La and Tu were there, along with about thirty other westerners and an equivalent number of H'mong girls. It appeared that every single westerner had made a friend. Tu wandered around the room, chatting with her friends, but La sat with us. She has smart eyes and a huge, wide smile. Unlike most of the H'mong women and girls, she does not wear a traditional head wrap and instead her thin black hair is in a long pony tail. Her parents want her to wear the head wrap, but she doesn't like it. She is a rebel. Kate and I like her. She is reserved, but there are flashes of friendliness and affection. She probably makes a new Western friend every week, as the crowds of tourists arrive for the Saturday market, and perhaps the routine is wearing on her. She is a novelty to us; we aren't so much of a novelty to her.
Kate and I buy her a Coke. I get the impression that it is a rare treat -- she lets it sit for a while on the table, unopened. She is letting her anticipation build. Finally she opens it and takes very tiny sips. Occassionally, after a sip, she'll let escape a wide, private smile.
I told Tu that I would buy a hat from her if she could find me a nice one, and she brought back one that was perfect. It is exactly the colours I would have chosen, and fits snuggly around my skull. It is brimless, like a skull cap, and made of the indigo cloth that all the women wear, and accented with turquoise and purple. I bought it for 17,000 dong -- about US$1.50.
One of the girls was not happy with my purchase. She had a dirty face and stained hands, and her eyes spoke of betrayal. "Ste'e!" she said. "You say you buy from me!" This was one of the girls from town who had learned my name. I didn't recall making the promise, and in any event the girl had nothing I was interested in buying. But that didn't help her. Several times that night she returned, a hateful expression on her face. She yelled at me, and she yelled at La. Her english became unintelligible. I could only watch her, sad and a little embarrassed, and do nothing. It is so easy to forget that these streetwise hawkers are just children, and that idle and forgotten promises are like gold to them. You do not know heartbreak until you have been cursed in earnest by a ten-year-old.
But we still had a great time with the H'mong girls in the crowded bar. The best single moment of our entire stay was when one of them, a tiny girl even by H'mong standards, with wide eyes and pig tails, reached up and fingered the sleeve of my t-shirt. "Broken," she said, and I looked down to see what she was talking about. At that, she reached up and tweaked my nose, and the whole table broke out laughing. She counseled me to remember, to not fall for it again. Ten minutes later, I did.
We took the afternoon bus from Sapa to Lao Cai, and then the night train to Hanoi. Kate and I stayed up playing gin on the narrow berth before falling into a restless sleep. At 3 am the conductor woke us all up (and rather rudely, might I add) for our arrival into Hanoi. We caught a cab to our familiar hotel, got a room, and finished our sleeping.
We spent the rest of the day doing errands: buying a plane ticket onward to Danang (about halfway down the coast), getting new underwear, updating websites. The heat and humidity here is nearly suffocating compared to the highlands of Sa Pa, and in our short stay there we'd completely forgotten what it was like to not be constantly sticky with sweat. I can only imagine (with some trepidation) what awaits us as we head further towards the steamy south.
We arrived in Danang in the early evening. We'd flown there because it was near other places we wanted to visit; all the direct flights were booked or didn't exist. I negotiated for a taxi to a hotel, and the driver's brother (with whom I'd done the negotiating) proceeded to launch into a long-winded sales pitch about places to which he could drive us. We told him we didn't know where we wanted to go yet, but he was persistent. Each time, we said "Look, we just don't know where we're going". He responded with a bunch more jabbering in barely discernible English. Finally, we agreed to meet him early the next morning and let him know if we could use him.
Our hotel was rather run-down but not too shabby at first glance. After relaxing in our room for a while, though, I noticed strange little pods attached to the walls. They looked like old pumpkin or watermelon seeds, so we though maybe someone had been enjoying some fruit in the room. The fact that it hadn't been cleaned up yet was a bit disconcerting. After further deliberation, though, I realized that the way the seeds were distributed -- concentrated right in the corners, and all over both the room and bathroom -- was probably not indicative of human production. Some careful poking with a pen led me to believe that they were in fact the egg pods (now empty) of some form of insect. Ugh.
Initially we thought they might be cockroach eggs, but Kate requested I not go hunting in all the nooks and crannies of the room for fear of disturbing some quiet resident population. After some more thinking on the subject, I figured they were probably some kind of moth cocoon, and that they were now all long gone. At least, that was my theory...
We went for a walk around the town, looking for somewhere to eat. In several dark places the sidewalk came alive as we walked by. Big 2-inch cockroaches were having parties. Yuck. We decided that the next morning we'd drive to Hoi An.
Hoi An was pleasantly cool -- a big surprise considering we were 700km south of Hanoi. Hoi An is an old merchant town, and the Japanese and (especially) Chinese traders left their legacy in the former of ornate temples and community houses. Now, Hoi An is full of tourists and souvenir shops. Still, it was a nice place to visit.
The most common shops in Hoi An are tailors. They sell custom- made clothing, in any style, for dirt cheap. We succumbed to the temptation, eventually, and each got made matching outfits for the nightclubs back home. Kate got an oriental-style shirt, skirt, boots, fan, and handbag in matching black-and-silver silk. I got a black silk shirt and black velvet pants, with a tie and a belt from the same fabric as Kate's clothing. Total bill: US$80.
We also visited several of Hoi An's famous landmarks. The Japanese covered bridge wasn't too interesting, but some of the chinese buildings were fantastic. They were all ornately carved and brightly painted.
We ate dinner the first night at the well-recommended Cafe des Arts, where we had a four-course set menu that was great. The owner, Kim, promised us that the next night's menu was different and better! We looked forward to returning. The next night, however, we had a different waitress and when our food came it was the same thing! We were hugely disappointed. Apparently, we were supposed to order the "second night" menu, but nobody had made that clear.
Our last day was a bit of a hectic one. Our clothes were to be completed around noon and we wanted to catch the two o'clock bus to Hue. We ordered lunch in between fittings and it took an entire hour for our food to arrive. This incompetenced completely stressed me out and put me in a foul mood. We finally got our clothes together after quickly snarfing down the food (and feeling the immediate effects of too much MSG) and then got on the bus. It took us to another bus at the other end of town, and then that bus sat there for a while, then went somewhere else in town, and sat there for another twenty minutes, and then finally went back to our hotel, and sat there for a while! This put me in an even worse mood. But once we finally got on the road, the views from the mountain pass between Hoi An and Hue were quite nice.
Hue was a disappointment. It is known as the "Imperial City", and ruined tombs and palaces surround the city. The imperial legacy also includes, apparently, some good cuisine.
Kate and I have come to the conclusion that we're not really fascinated by ruined tombs and palaces. A crumbling black wall is just a crumbling black wall -- it doesn't really matter to me who built it. Even the well-preserved (or well-restored) buildings aren't that interesting to me any more. They're beautiful, sure, but they're beginning to look all the same.
The food here has been, more or less, another disappointment. Random sidewalk kitchens are very hit-and-miss, and the guidebooks tend to focus on "traveller's cafes" where foreigners hang out and eat banana pancakes and spaghetti. We did manage to snag a few good meals, though. Yesterday morning we woke up early and took a cyclo into the old town to a recommended restaurant for some breakfast pho bo: Vietnamese beef noodle soup. It was great: warm, tasty and filling. We had dinner at an upscale restaurant for beef boiled in vinegar and steamed chicken wrapped in mustard greens. My best meal, though, was curry chicken at an Indian restaurant near our hotel.
Yesterday was a bad travelling day for me. I was frustrated and disappointed -- not with Vietnam, necessarily, but with how we were experiencing the country. We seemed to be tired all the time and weren't doing much. The tours were uninformative and the sites weren't interesting. When we walked around on our own, we didn't see much. People didn't seem to care about us as independent thinkers -- they saw us as sheep to be herded from place to place. It appeared that we'd been a bit too ready to "baa" our way along.
Kate and I talked about my frustrations (and they were mostly mine) and we decided we need to become more proactive. We need to find out where the tours go and make them take us to places we think will be interesting instead of the other way around. We need to research our destinations and not try to hit every city "just because it's there". We need to think more about what we like.
I like playing in the ocean. Next stop: overnight train to the beaches of Nha Trang.
The train pulled into Nha Trang in the gloomy light of pre-dawn. Despite springing for a "superberth"-class compartment on the fifteen-hour overnight train from Hue, we hadn't slept as well as we'd hoped. We groggily shouldered our packs and wandered out of the station to go through the now-familiar routine of getting to our hotel.
We picked two cyclos at random from the small crowd that was vying for our business. We each climbed into one with our packs and slowly drifted off into sleeping streets of Nha Trang. The shops were shuttered, and the roads were quiet. The cyclo drivers attempted to sell us some tours and a new hotel, but we (hardened veteran travelers that we are) were having none of that.
Our hotel (which had been carefully selected based on its one-sentence description in the guidebook) was located across the street from the municipal beach, and as we approached the beach we noticed more and more people on the streets. They were dressed in shorts; they were playing badminton; some were even jogging. The Vietnamese were exercising! It really wasn't that much of a surprise, but Kate and I generally don't get up before the sun so this pre-dawn orgy of fitness -- tai-chi, soccer games, swimming in the calm morning sea -- was something we'd not witnessed before. We watched a blood-red sun rise over distant islands then went to sleep. When we woke up a few hours later, the beach was deserted.
We booked a boat tour of the neighbouring islands for the next day. Like most places in Vietnam, there are many tour companies offering exactly the same tour, and choosing the best is pretty much a game of chance. We wanted to avoid the "party boat" in the hopes of catching some real culture, or at least avoiding silly drinking games. We tried posing careful questions to the sales agent: Which has the best food? Which has the smallest crowd? Which has the most snorkelling? The answers to those three questions were the same, and I suspect a similar answer would have been had by asking: Which tour pays you the highest commission?
We were picked up at our hotel and shuttled to the harbour. Our hearts sank as we watched our boat slowly fill up with elderly germans and Vietnamese businessmen. Other boats departed, half-empty, with bright-eyed bikini babes clustered on their foredecks. Oh well: we'd lucked out with our tours in the past, so I guess we were due for a bit of disappointment.
The boat puttered out into the bay and towards the first of the four islands we were visiting. It took about an hour to get there, and along the way I gazed with anticipation into the clear green-blue water. Once we arrived, though, we discovered that someone had dumped a load of trash into the water, and a fine layer of dusty scum had spread out over the snorkelling area. The captain manoeuvered us to the least nasty-looking patch of water and we dove in. This was no Great Barrier Reef, not by a long shot, but it was nice to swim in the water for a while. Kate used her amazing underwater vision to spot a medium-sized octopus lurking under a rock, but that about the extent of the excitement. After a while, the nips and bites of sea lice drove us out of the water and back onto the top deck.
We puttered on to the next island where the boat dropped anchor and we were served lunch. The guides laid out a deceptively large buffet on the top deck. There was plenty of food to be had, but the variety and quality didn't quite live up to the expectations their advertisements had borne. After lunch, we relaxed in the shade for a while before beginning what would turn out to be the highlight of the day: the floating wine bar.
I jumped off the top deck of the boat for a bit of snorkelling while the bar was being launched. The water was cleaner here, and there were no lice giving me little stings, and I enjoyed floating and bobbing in the waves. Eventually, I grabbed a lifering and joined Kate and the others at the bar.
The bar was a metal ring, big enough to contain the bartender, with a bunch of floats attached around it. Customers hooked their feet into the metal ring, floating on their own life rings, and sucked back free mulberry wine. The bartender poured with reckless abandon. I drank a few glasses, and went for a swim, and then drank a few more. I discovered that I lost my snorkel, then spotted it lying on the bottom. I happily retrieved it, showing off my deep-diving ability to no one in particular, and in the process I made the rather dangerous discovery that a little bit of alcohol in my blood makes it easier to hold my breath underwater. I returned to the floating bar, where the patrons were making good progress through the case of wine. They had started singing Beatles songs. Kate and I remained with them (although neither of us joined the singing) until the wine was depleted, and then we were all hauled back aboard.
Kate and I found a comfy spot in the shade of the top deck, and settled down to relax as the boat moved on to the next island. The rest, I'm afraid, is a bit hazy: the mulberry wine hit us pretty hard about then, and we spent the rest of the day lying on the top deck, rocking with the boat, feeling rather vague, and ignoring offers of jet skis and basket boat rides. The rest of the day was a write-off. So much for avoiding the party boat.
After taking care of a few errands -- changing money, buying train tickets, getting a glimpse of the big white Buddha that overlooks Nha Trang -- we settled into some cozy beach chairs in the "tourist" section of Nha Trang beach and wasted the day away. We'd originally been looking forward to getting some "foofy" tropical drinks -- the kind that is served in a whole coconut with tiny umbrellas and accompanying fruit -- but our excess consumption from the previous day left us preferring simple fruit juice and water. We read a bit, and swam a bit, and did nothing. Ah, the harrowing life of the world traveller.
Kate's got a thing for spring rolls so we hired a cyclo to take us out to a well-recommended nem (spring roll, of course) restaurant for dinner. We expected spring rolls of the deep-fried golden-brown crispy-chewy variety, and instead we got a pleasant surprise.
The restaurant was a typical Vietnamese street kitchen: a small, rather haphazard open cooking area up front, and plastic chairs and tables under flourescent lights behind. The kitchen area was crowded with waiters, waitresses, chefs, and assorted hangers-on, and piled high with leafy greens. We didn't seen anything we recognized as spring rolls. We found some comfortable seats at the back. Signboards advertised nem in about half-dozen varieties, none of which we could translate. We asked for a bottle of water, miming that we wanted a "big" one, and were brought big bottles of beer. We eventually got our water, and then the food started arriving.
We hadn't ordered food -- we hadn't even seen the menu (if there was one), and anyway we probably wouldn't have understood it. First they brought out a plate of small banana-leaf wrapped packages. We didn't quite know what they were, so we asked and the hostess (who didn't speak English) unwrapped one for us. Inside was a tasty piece of flat sausage. Another bundle produced a piece of fatty dried meat which was less appetizing.
More food arrived -- this time a plate of what looked long strips of grilled sausage meat mixed with some crispy large rectangular things that I suspect were pieces of fried pork skin. Another plate brought us cucumber slices and things that looked like cucumber slices. A third plate was piled high with an amazing assortment of green leaves. A final plate was stacked with translucent pieces of textured rice paper. Kate and I looked at each other in bewilderment.
Our hostess/waitress wasted no time in rectifying our concern. With skilled chopsticks she took a piece of rice paper and filled it with something from each plate. The result was rolled into a vaguely tubular shape and served. The result was amazing -- rich from the sausage, crispy from the fried pork skin, and layered with an amazing texture of flavours from the variety of leaves and lettuces that had been stuffed inside. I could barely recognize a third of the vegetables. We quickly ran through one plate's worth and ordered a second. Our hostess/waitress continued rolling them up for us (perhaps taking pity on us, perhaps doubting our proficiency with the chopsticks) and we ate them as fast as she could produce. It was delicious, simple, unfamiliar and authentic -- everything I looked for in foreign food. As an added bonus, it was also really, really cheap.
On our first day in Nha Trang we were propositioned by a pair of friendly scooter drivers. They wanted to take us for a tour of the countryside. We told them we'd just arrived, that we weren't ready to make any decisions yet, but that we were interested. I finally managed to get the talkative one to shut up for a while, figured out what his price was, and then told them we look for them later. A few days later we ran into them again and made plans for a tour for our last day in Nha Trang.
We'd been burned by tours before. This time we wanted to know our itinerary and be able to select the things that were interesting to us. When we booked I asked the talkative one to make a list of everything that we could possibly see, so that we could select our highlights. When he showed up the next morning, he had no list. I asked him what we'd be seeing. The waterfall, of course. After that, he'd take us on some backroads. He'd show us the "real Vietnam", he said. Sigh -- once again, we were left to the whims of our guide.
The ride out of Nha Trang was harrowing. Our drivers were young, and Kate's had a more powerful scooter that left me and my driver lingering behind. They swerved in and around the traffic, passing big trucks and being passed in turn, hitting speeds up to 60 km/h on the "highway". There were no helmets, of course.
Eventually we turned off onto a dirt road and made our way through some shrimp farms towards the falls. The shrimp farms were big smelty pools built up on the flat land. The drivers dropped us at the entrance to the waterfalls, we paid our 4000 dong (25 cent) entry fee, and we walked in.
Several people shadowed us as we walked along the hot trail leading to the waterfalls. The first was a vendor with a small cooler. He offered to sell us some water, or beer, or sodas, and we declined. He kept walking with us. When we stopped, he stopped. Eventually I shoo'd him up the trail, but then he waited for us to catch up. Eventually I was direct: "Look, we're not going to buy anything to drink, okay?" He wandered off. Two boys, maybe twelve or thirteen years old, were also walking with us. I suspected they were planning to act as impromptu guides, and then ask for a fee at the end. We asked them: "Are you guys guides?". They said yes, and we told them we didn't want guides. They continued walking with us. Eventually, I picked the direct route again. I called them over, and said, "look guys, I just want you to know that we're not going to give you any money. If you want to walk with us up to the waterfalls, that's cool, but we're not giving you any money." With that, they wandered off.
The climb to the waterfall was tough in the heat. The trail was about a kilometer or so long, but involved scrambling over some boulders that had been baking in sun all day. The route was easy to follow: red arrows had been painted all over the boulders. The waterfall itself was nice, rather simple, with a big deep pool at its base. We put on our bathing suits, and I jumped in from the surrounding rocks. As I hit the water I thought about schistosomiasis -- a parasite hosted by freshwater snails that enters right through your skin -- but by then it was too late. Besides, the drivers had been adamant about saying how the water was perfectly safe for swimming...
We lingered by the falls for about an hour, occasionally jumping in from the surrounding rocks, but mostly just resting in the shade. We returned to our scooters, climbed aboard, and then bounced away on the dirt roads. As always, children called out "hello!" as we drove by, and elderly men and women always returned my smile.
We had lunch at a shrimp farm, where we ate some overpriced shrimp. The restaurant was built out over one of the shrimp ponds, which may seem scenic at first, but the shrimp ponds are just filled with stagnant, shallow water, and the dirt banks that separate the ponds, stretching off to fill the valley, were far from scenic. To top things off, I couldn't even see any shrimp in the pond below us. But they did taste good.
We returned to our drivers and asked what was next. As suspected, we were on our way home. So much for seeing the "real" Vietnam. Despite saying we weren't interested in visiting the Cham Towers, the driver stopped there on the way home and we rather obligingly climbed the steps to admire the orange bricks piled up by a long-dead civilization. From there, it was back to the hotel. Overall, it was a disappointment -- but probably because I had my expectations too high.
When I first started dreaming about this trip, I had dreams of it lasting for years. I had the financial resources to travel indefinitely; there would be no reason to stop until I saw the whole world. Experience has changed that view, though, and I'm happy to announce that after Kate and I return to Vancouver in June, we won't be heading out on the road for a while.
This was a tough decision to make. In part, it involved admitting to myself (and everyone who follows my travels) that travelling isn't the end-all and be-all of my life, and that in some ways I'm not the great global adventurer that I had pictured myself to be. I enjoy travelling, of course, but I enjoy lots of other things too, and some of those things I just can't experience on the road. Our return in June will not be the end of our travels, not by a long shot, but our next trip won't start for a while.
Kate and I are really looking forward to being home again. We miss our family and friends, playing soccer, cooking, having a fast internet connection, and a million other things that, until now, we've more or less taken for granted. That, I suppose, is the best gift that travel gives. It lets you see yourself, and the world you are from, in a whole new light.
We'd expected bad things from Ho Chi Minh City (hereafter referred to as HCMC or the infinitely more palatable Saigon). We were led to believe it would be a den of crass, slick, money-hungry con men. It would be polluted and noisy and utterly lacking in charm. As usual when our expectations are set so low, we were pleasantly surprised.
We'd looked into one-day tours of the Mekong Delta but they looked exceedingly touristy; instead we spent our final day in Vietnam walking around the city of Saigon.
We left our hotel and headed for our first destination. The cyclo and scooter drivers offered us rides as we walked by; for the millionth time it occured to me that if we'd wanted a ride, we wouldn't have started walking to begin with, but again I chose to withhold this tasty piece of information from them. The road widened and we crossed some huge and daunting intersections that were equipped with actual traffic lights that were actually mostly obeyed. Saigon's traffic was the most daunting we'd experienced; fortunately, we'd spent lots of time training for this in northern Vietnam. The trick is to just ignore the scooters, and walk in a steady, fearless pace across the street. Just keep an eye out for cars and trucks -- they won't go around you.
We safely negotiated a final horrendous intersection -- one which would undoubtedly have left a less experienced traveller in tears -- and reached our first destination: Pho 2000. Pho is a delicious noodle soup that is generally eaten around breakfast. Because the Vietnamese get up really early, and because the good pho places tend to sell out before Kate and I even wake up, Kate and I hadn't had a chance to sample much of this wonderful dish. This restaurant was bright and clean and positioned on a busy street corner next to the main market. We both ordered Pho Bo (noodle soup with beef). It was delicious -- wide white noodles floating in a delicately aromatic broth, with thin pieces of raw beef quickly cooking in the hot soup as it is served. We added a squeeze of lime and some freshly torn basil leaves, and slurped up the result. Our food was accompanied by fresh fruit shakes: Kate ordered jackfruit, with a heady, too-sweet flavour; I got dragonfruit, with a thin, apple-like texture, light flavour, and tiny black seeds.
Our next stop was the market. This place was crawling with pickpockets, according to the guidebook, so we took extra security precautions. It turned out the market was bright and open and felt very safe. As soon as I walked in the door I was greeted with a chorus of "Hello, Mister!" and was rather vigourously offered shirts and pants. Further along we encountered rice cookers, cheap ceramic buddhas, cosmetics, dishes, shoes... it was, in essence, a giant 100 year-old department store. We picked up sunscreen and mosquito repellent in one aisle. I succumbed to some tourist kitsch and bought a pair of oversize chopsticks. Later I found some lotus-flower tea. Kate was not immune; she picked up some souvenirs and gifts as well. When we finally stumbled out into the blinding heat of mid-day, our daypack was much heavier.
We left behind the market and cuisine of old Vietnam and headed towards Duong Khoi Street, the former Rue Catinat and center of French Colonial Culture. We peered into pastry shops and upscale restaurants, art boutiques and jewelery stores. The street was wide and shady. Cyclo drivers continued to offer us rides at every turn. A few beggars with twisted limbs asked for money with pleasant smiles. We visited the cavernous post office, which had a painting of a beatific Uncle Ho gazing down upon his workers. We walked back up the street, admiring finely worked chopsticks and lacquerware, and had baguette sandwiches for lunch, followed by tea and fancy cakes.
In mid afternoon we left colonial Vietnam behind us and returned to modern Vietnam. Our hotel was located on the busy tourist street of Pham Ngu Lao, which was crowded with scooters, bicyles, cyclos and trucks. The narrow facades of hotels, restaurants, internet cafes, tour agencies and money changers (and many combinations thereof) were stacked along the sidewalk. Women carried around meter-high stacks of guidebooks for sale. The sidewalks were crowded with parked scooters and cyclos, forcing us to wind our way left and right and on and off the sidewalk as we made our way to the hotel. A massive commercial center was slowly emerging across the street. The hot air had a vigorous intensity; money was to be made here.
On our walk we'd passed through areas representing the three phases of modern Vietnam: the tradition and flavour of the old, the manipulative opulence of the colonial, and the bustling optimism of the new. From what we could see, Kate and I both felt that Vietnam has a bright future.
Kate and I treated ourselves to foot massages after our long day of walking. What we got was undoubtedly the best-valued massage ever. For about US$4, including generous tips, we got an hour and a half of relaxing rubbing from strong hands. Although the treatment concentrated on our feet and legs, the skillful young women also massaged our backs, heads, necks and arms. As usual (when it comes to eastern-style massage) there was a downside: a round of painful foot-poking with a black plastic stylus, intended to release healing energy into my pancreas, frontal lobe, upper colon, and other useful areas. But except for this short -- occasionally ouchful -- interval, the massage was a wonderful treat.