Ah! So, by now you have read my blog about the culture shock that was my entry into Vietnam. Now, for some fun tales of the places I have seen and the people I have met!
As you know, Claude and I arrived the evening of April 6th. Initial culture shock, learning how to cross the street, finding a hotel, and realizing that we were going to have to eat separately a lot of the time due to my carnivorous ways and his Vegan Sensibilities. We`ve done surprisingly well in that department, partially due to the fact that I am pretty good at eating on the go, and he eats much less and less frequently than me. Sometimes this looks like me getting a quick meat fix on our way to a vegetarian restaurant where I can then have my second course of some sort of vegetable, or, sometimes we will find a restaurant for me nearby a known vegetarian restaurant for him, and whoever is done eating first will come and join the other. Sometimes, Claude just sits with me while I eat my trillionth meal before lunch time. :) I have most recently acquired some almonds and cashews that I could not find until a week or so into our trip in the sweet touristy town of Dalat, which have helped ease the transition in this not-so-easy-food-finding country.
Anyhow, we spent 3 days in and around Ho Chi Minh City. The first day we rented a motorbike, and after some food in the city, Claude drove us to Go Cong, a town about an hour and a half south of Ho Chi Minh, complete with 10 minute ferry ride about 2/3rds of the way there (riding the motorbike onto the boat). We visited his Vietnamese friends there herein known as 'Mama and PaPA' and what a sweet pair they were! We knew we were going to be traveling with them in a few days time, but it seemed a good road trip to go and say a quick `hello' and share a meal. They are probably in their late 50`s or early 60`s (one of the first questions people ask you here is `how old are you?' and then it`s 'are you married?') and they, like everyone else in Vietnam ride a motorbike. The wearing of the helmets by them and everyone adds a certain element of `badassness' that I very much appreciate. They took Claude and I by motorbike down the street to the nearby market to say hi to one of their kids, and then down the street to a hair salon where their daughter lives with her husband who runs the place. After spending about two hours there, we needed to head back to the city, as we had dinner plans with Claude`s friend Mai Xuan and his wife!
We arrived about 2 hours late (goodbyes in Vietnam so far were extensive and there was always one more person to say hi to!) and after making many wrong turns (the address system here does not have a consecutve/sensical order) to a laughing Mai Xuan and company. We stayed for about 3 hours, passing around a dictionary at times to communicate with the limited English that Mai Xuan spoke, the Vietnamese that Claude speaks, and my English-only ways. It was quite fun translating and making connections through all of these limitations, and we had a fine meal.
The next day, Claude and I decided to explore the city by bicycle. Our destination was a park with a lake in the middle of the city, but this excursion definitely wound up being about the journey and not the goal. Riding a bicycle in Ho Chi Minh traffic was an ADVENTURE, and instead of being scary like I thought it might be, it was FUN! I also am grateful for my experiences as a bicycle messenger in Boston, San Francisco, and my time with the Dublin Ireland messengers, as this made me surprisingly comfortable and natural feeling in this ocean of motorbikes and the occasional car (which, while they are possibly 5-10% of traffic, are still the `big fish' in the ocean that all must yield to). We had tons of fun zooming around the streets and in and out of traffic lanes of bicycles, motorbikes and cars. Our destination served the most by providing a cool drink at a restaurant, and then we wandered the grounds which were not quite so impressive. We did, however, come upon a haunted house which we went into (my first haunted house in over 20 years I`m sure) and I was properly frightened when in pitch black darkness a hand reached out and grabbed my leg twice, and I screamed like the girly girl that I am and have become.
The previous night when we had returned from Mai Xuan`s for dinner, we wound up talking to the people that had rented us our motorbike the day before- Tui and Chieu. They were sitting with an American and a Polish couple who were staying in their hotel. We got to talking with all of them, and it turns out that the American is my Dentist from Childhood`s Nephew!! Wowsa! And, these three were doing a multi-month tour of Vietnam all from the comfort of their motorbikes that they bought for a little over $300 each in Vietnam. We got to talking with them, and it became the plan that I was going to leave with them early the next morning to go to the Annual Kite Festival, which was about 3 hours away, further out into the country.
The next morning we left around 9:30 in a posse of Vietnamese, American, and Polish motorbikers. This included Tui, Chieu, their two boys aged 11 and 14, Tui`s lady friend, Me, Andy-my-dentist`s-Nephew, and Adam and Kaya, the Polish Couple. I believe we were on 4 motorbikes, it might have been 5. It was fun! We rode to the festival over a leisurely 3 hours, first with me on the back of Tui`s (wife/mother) bike, then stopping at an awesome drink stop, where there were 10 or hammocks next to a stand serving coconuts and sugar cane drinks for about 40 cents.
When it was time to go again, Tui pointed to me that I should ride on the back of her 14 year old son`s motorbike. I dutifully did, but I see now that being dutiful often takes me out of my comfort zone and into potentially dangerous situations. On the back of this boy`s motorbike (I believe his name was Tung) I felt quite terrified. He drove in a way that expressed the difficulty of this age- erratic, impulsive, acting to impress- and it scared the crap out of me! He would accelerate unecessarily fast, and if his father`s motorbike passed us, he would make it his mission to speed to pass his father again. If there was a huge truck in front of us, instead of slowing down he would accelerate and weave his way on the wrong side of the truck to pass it through gravelly passage. I was doing everything in my power to breathe and relax but it was not working very well.
We stopped about an hour into this second section of the drive, and I ran over to Andy the American and begged 'Can you let me ride with you? I am terrified!' and so I did, and it was the calming and solid ride I was seeking. This lasted until we finally arrived at the beach, where we found a rather fancy seafood restaurant and let the Vietnamese crew order for the likes of us Caucasians. Super tasty meal, and then we walked down some stairs to the beach where some of us swam in the bathtub temperature water (`cold', according to the Dad Chieu) and then I passed out in the shade in a beach chair.
I was awoken by Chieu, it was time to go to the Kite Festival. We got there a few minutes later, and there were two large kites being flown, and then wrestled to the ground by about 10 or 15 men. It was not quite the festival I had been envisioning, but again this was a `journey is goal' type of experience, and I was happy enough to be along on this adventure. Before leaving the town, we stopped at another restaurant (yay! these are my kind of people!) and I got on the back of Andy`s bike again. We were going to follow Tui, the Mom home. But, what I didn`t realize is that Andy wasn`t watching what direction Tui went, and suddenly we had lost our only knowledgeable guide home.
Andy said not to worry (but I did anyway) that we would figure it out (and eventually we did), but there is something in that ride that completely stressed my entire body out. We didn`t get back until about 4.5 hours later, about 2.5 of those hours in the dark, and at least half the time not knowing if we were going the right way. I was crammed into a very small amount of space on the bag of Andy`s bike between him and a big bag on the back, and we had to take frequent stops to walk and stretch, our butts SO SORE and in pain! We quickly slid into delirium- especially me! Not to mention, in this nighttime highway traffic with cars honking and beeping and weaving and zigzaggin, it was all that my sensitive little system could take. When I finally got back to my hotel and stumbled up the stairs and into the room Claude and I were sharing, I could barely talk, and started crying while brushing my teeth from this bizarre feeling of pain and exhaustion throughout my entire body.
Claude was kind and practiced Thai Massage on me to help me to try and relax. It was very helpful in the moment and helped me to sleep, but nonetheless, I woke up the next day, feeling as weak as I can remember, barely able to walk, and moving at a snail`s pace. We had to pack and move out of our hotel to take a bus down to Go Cong to meet up with Mama and Papa, and I felt like I could barely move.
Somehow, we got to the bus, and Claude did anything and everything that needed doing. On the bus, crammed in with a bunch of locals until there was no pathway anymore, and a sticky heat closing in on us, with tons of people coming onto the bus to try and sell us food, I found whatever position I could no matter how uncomfortable to pass out. Unbelievably, I slept through the hottest bumpiest and loudest bus ride of about 2 hours. When we arrived in Go Cong, Papa came on motorbike and picked me up first and took me back to the house where I promptly became horizontal on their couch and in the care of Mama, while Papa went back for Claude.
The next two days I basically spent sleeping. My whole body was in pain, I didn`t want to eat, my head was pounding and there was this inexplicable pressure behind my eyes- I was a mess. That said, I would sleep for periods of about 3 hours intermittently, and be woken up either by Mama trying to get me to eat something, or by Claude urging me to get up and get out and move around. So, during this two (or was it three?) days in Go Cong, I actually had lunch over at one of Claude`s friends houses (I can`t remember his name now but he was SO sweet and laughed a lot and made fun of me for sleeping so much) and also got my haircut and chemically straightened at the salon of Mama and Papa`s son-in-law. (As soon as I did this, I realized I like the fact that I have naturally wavy hair, but, I thought it so novel to get my hair done in Vietnam for what I figured would be nominally cheap, and turned out to be free as a gift from FAMILY!!) And we visited a Pagoda in town. Any time in between these activities, I spent sleeping.
We had made plans with Mama and Papa to do a 4-day trip in the mountains and at the ocean, but Claude and I didn`t know anything about the detials of the trip. We knew we were going to Nha Trang a beach town, and Dalat a sweet mountain town, but we didn`t know exactly how or when or where we were staying. Turned out they had booked us on an overnight bus that is part of a large tour group, so on our 3rd day in Go Cong, we boarded a bus at 7:30pm with about 25 Vietnamese all going to the same towns and hotels, and didn`t arrive to our destination until 2pm the next day. This bus ride was the loudest I have ever experienced, and my condition had it so that every noise felt like an assault anyway. Vietnamese Pop music was BLASTED until 11:30pm, we had a respite until 4:30am. We stopped about every hour for the bathroom or food, and I was either sleeping or struggling to sleep. I was in hell. At 4:30am the music returned, or else tv shows were shown with the volume at a level that made the content incomprehensible due to its intense loudness.
The next day, there were two destination stops before our final destination of Nha Trang, and at one of the beaches we stopped at, instead of being able to enjoy it, I only wanted to know where I could go to lay down. Claude RENTED A HAMMOCK for me and strung it between two trees, and I fell into it and slept until 2 minutes before our bus was to leave. I think you get the picture- this is what the whole next day looked like as well, but once we spent this next night four in a hotel room with the tv blaring in there as well, I decided that the next day, when we arrived in the mountain town of Dalat, I was going to get my own hotel room, and separate myself from the whole bus tour. And that I did. Got my own room, and stayed in it for the next 24 hours, sleeping and watching 80`s movies on Vietnamese HBO. It was the greatest catharsis I have ever had. I just needed some privacy and stillness and to stop moving. And a Chris Rock movie called `Pootie Tang.' Go see that movie! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment