From South to North Vietnam: Our Journey

Elsbeth writing…

Back to reality—only this time in Hanoi. The adventure is over and now it’s time to really have a go at this next fresh start. In my last blog my mom was on her way to visit me. Now she has come, seen, and conquered Vietnam and is on her way home as we speak. It was sad to see her go today, but it was really good to have her here and to travel with her all the way up the country. We did a lot despite being sick for part of the journey. Only six months left now before going back home…I’ve been here for nine months. Whoa, almost a year! I can’t believe it.

As usual I’ll start from the beginning. So much to talk about. The last time I wrote I had just finished my last day of work and was preparing to meet my mom in the city the next day. I took the ferry into Saigon the next morning (Wednesday, 29 April). From the wharf I negotiated and took a motorbike taxi through the insane Ho Chi Minh traffic to the airport. I was thinking as we were weaving through traffic that most people upon arriving in Vietnam would be wetting themselves if they took a motorbike, especially with a driver like I had. However, I just looked on with apathy. Meh. Traffic has a puzzle-like way of working itself out here. I’ve learned that you just have to go with the flow. You can’t over think it. My mom learned this too during her stay here.

I got to the new arrivals terminal extra early and as it turns out the plane was delayed as well, so I had to wait several hours. Of course, I had dear Edward to keep me company. I’m nearing the end of book two now. Still have to find book three. I got a good bit of reading done on our journey (finishing another book and getting more thoroughly caught up with the news). We were texting and as I was looking for her she snuck up behind me. A nice surprise. It was good to be reunited. This is the longest I’ve gone without seeing my family.

We took at taxi to Bui Vien, the backpackers district, and ended up staying in the very same hotel that I stayed in the first night I arrived in Vietnam. It brought back a lot of queasy memories—how we didn’t know whether we could survive an entire year in this chaotic country. It also showed me how far Ellyn and I have come. I’ve made a life for myself here.

We stayed for the next several days in Saigon touring around all the sights and old haunts. On Wednesday we mainly settled in and saw the night market outside the Ben Thanh Market. On Thursday we went to the Cholan Chinese Market in the morning, but I forgot that it was April 30th, the national victory day in Vietnam, and everything was closed. So we went to the Ben Thanh Market after walking around the Chinese Quarter a bit. My mom also had her first taste of Pho at one of the clean chain Pho restaurants. On Friday I think we went to the post office, walked around Don Khoi, had ice cream, and went to the Art Museum in the French building my friends and I had visited one scary, stormy afternoon. It was like déjà vu, because that day was also gloomy and rainy, though not with booming thunder and lightening. We walked down a street filled with dusty shops full of Asian antiques and got a little lost trying to find the same French restaurant I had been to before. I was surprised, though, how well I could navigate myself through the city. I’ve gotten pretty good at directions in this confusing jigsaw puzzle of a place. On Saturday morning we went to a park in the morning where locals tote their chirpy song birds in bamboo cages and gather to socialize, drink coffee, and listen to the soothing sounds of nature midst the honking and revving engines meters away. They say it’s healthy for the birds to be together—their voices get practice. We walked around that park and then visited the zoo and botanical gardens as well as the Museum of Vietnamese History. Probably my favorite part of the day was buying plaster figurines—my mom got a fish and I got a little Buddha. It was meant for families with little kids, but we sat at the low plastic tables and chairs and painted the figurines. It was so relaxing to sit and paint. I haven’t done that for years and have been meaning to get back in the habit. We attracted some Vietnamese onlookers though, especially a little girl and her mother who sat with us for awhile. On Sunday we went to church at the Notre Dame Cathedral; however, it was in Vietnamese. Then we got breakfast at the Continental Hotel (one of the famous hotels from the Vietnam War). We got pedicures, checked out of our hotel (we had since moved into a much nicer hotel in the same alley), and met a friend for lunch. After lunch we got ice cream from Fanny’s, the good ice cream place in town located in a cute French building. Then we caught the ferry back to Vung Tau. One of the ladies from work was having a chili party at her house that evening. It was a drizzly evening, but we were having problems finding a taxi, so I drove my motorbike. My mom was pretty good about being on the back, considering she’s ridden on motorcycles before. The stupid thing stopped though while trying to climb the hill to their house and one of the foot rests broke off—arrgh, just one more thing with that bike. Most of my co-workers were there, so my mom got to meet them. It was good to get together with them one last time.

We spent the next two days lazying around Vung Tau. The first day we stayed inside the house literally all day taking several naps. We were so exhausted from our full weekend in the city. We talked to my dad and got some things done. Tuesday we got up early and went for a walk around Lighthouse Mountain, stopping at a little Vietnamese place for coffee. Later we tried to go swimming at the Lan Rung Resort, but the beach was closed due to the encroaching storm, so we went to Pineapple Beach (my favorite beach). The tide was way out and for the first time we were able to walk out to the island near the beach where there is a temple. Unfortunately I didn’t have on good shoes so we didn’t make it far on the sharp, rocky path and ended up just walking along the shore. It was a beautiful evening though with a full moon. The next day we got up ultra early to catch the minibus into the city again and go on a two-day tour of the Mekong Delta. We arrived in HCMC around 6 a.m. and had some breakfast before catching the tour which left at 7:45. We did much of the same stuff that I had done on my one-day tour to the Mekong; however, that night we did a homestay in the backwaters. After dark we and five others took a rickety boat down the river. It felt like a scene from Deliverance.

At our homestay we were shown three straw huts which would be our rooms for the night. They weren’t very private and the lock on the door was hardly worthwhile. The bed sheets were dirty, along with the one towel hanging from a hook. We had a mosquito net to protect us from the many mosquitoes and only a fan to cool us down during the sticky, hot night. Not to mention the unhealthy state the bathroom was in: bugs everywhere, dirty, and an eye-level hole in the back for any creepy peeping tom to look through. This wasn’t in the brochure. And it cost five extra dollars instead of the hotel!? The meal—served outside—was pretty good though—traditional Vietnamese food. We were pretty exhausted and went to bed soon. The next morning we had to wake up earlier than the hotel folk and headed back down the river to the floating markets where we met our group. The market was neat, but not quite as spectacular as I’d hoped. Later that day we went to a few more farms and shops before heading home. We spent the night in HCMC, since we got back too late to take the ferry and I didn’t want to bother with the bus system. We met another friend for dinner at an Indian Restaurant and got to bed early, again exhausted.

We went home the next morning. My other roommate happened to be on the same ferry home. We went to the Lan Rung that afternoon to cool off. Later we met friends at Bia Toi for dinner—one of our usual spots. On Saturday morning we walked up Big Mountain, went to school in the afternoon to do some last-minute things and show mom the school, and later went to our usual Seafood restaurant with some friends for dinner. Unfortunately mom and I were sick so our dinner went to waste. Afterwards, my friends came over and raided the things I was getting rid of. I was frantically packing those two and a half days when we got back from the Mekong, trying to get rid of as much stuff as I felt I could. According to my mom I’ve acquired three times more than what I came with. Not only did I have my hiking pack, I also filled up two suitcases (one mostly with souvenirs that we bought). Choke. I’m going to have to get rid of a lot of things before going home. My goal is to get it down to one suitcase and my hiking pack. We shipped the suitcases on the train up to Hanoi the next day. It cost peanuts for two suitcases. Amazing. Then we waited in the train station most of the day, Sunday, while I tried to sleep off my illness on the steal benches.

We boarded the sleeper train that evening. Luckily we had the two bottom bunks and the other two top bunks were occupied by a nice Vietnamese family. We fell asleep early again and woke up early to see the lime green countryside and stubby mountains passing by in the gray morning haze. It was beautiful. We arrived in Danang, our destination, earlier than expected. From there we took a taxi to Hoi An, 45 minutes away.

We spent the next several days in Hoi An. It was great to see the city dry and sunny. The last time I was there it was cold, rainy, and miserable. We ordered tailor-made clothes right away. We were half happy with them in the end. Mom got a jacket and a turtle-neck. I got a dress, a Vietnamese-style shirt, Capri-shorts, and Barbie-doll pink shoes with an Asian pattern. The dress was the most frustrating. I specifically showed them what I wanted—even drew it out—and they said “yes, yes, we can do that.” But when I got my dress back the next day it was just a pattern dress from one they had on display—not the dress I wanted at all. In fact, it had the opposite features that I wanted. It looked hideous, but of course they said it looked beautiful so that I would just take the dress and go. We argued with them for a long time and they made up all sorts of excuses for why they didn’t do it the way I asked even though they said they could. They even went as far as blaming me, implying that I should want the same pattern as they have on display and not something different. They also said it was too difficult to change the dress now—well, you could have done it the way I asked in the first place and then you wouldn’t be in this mess, now would you?! We think they were just being lazy and, since they weren’t the actual tailors, didn’t know what they were talking about. We were running out of time to get it fixed, because we had to leave early the next day. They said they would have it finished by 8 the next morning, but as usual we had to wait a good 45 minutes before the finished dress (still not quite perfect) showed up. My mom’s going to alter it later. Otherwise, I was generally happy with my purchases.

Anyway, enough venting about that. We bought Old Town tickets and saw a variety of historical sites around town. We didn’t do too much around town, since both of us were sick. We ended up taking a lot of naps.

On to Hue. We went back to Danang on Thursday morning (after retrieving my dress). We were supposed to take the train at 11 a.m., but it was delayed for several hours. It seemed that nobody knew why or when it would show up and every official person we asked had a different story. Finally the train arrived. As we were gathering our things an official-looking woman hurried up and took our cart without asking whether she could take it. She went and loaded our things onto the train. At first we thought “oh, this is a nice complementary service,” but no, she asked for fairly large sum of money afterwards. Um, we didn’t ask for your help in the first place and now you want money from us? Little schemes to cheat us were starting to get on our nerves. It’s not the money itself, it’s the principle. Many people here (not everyone) try to cheat or lie to you in order to get your money in whatever way they can. That really grates on your nerves after awhile. I can understand where they’re coming from being poor, but it puts you off a lot when dealing with people here. Eventually you just have to ignore them completely or be firm with them otherwise they’ll hassle and cheat you out of your wits.

Partially because of this we connected with an Australian couple who had also been waiting for hours and had their luggage unwittingly loaded onto the train. The train ride was gorgeous. The ride between Danang and Hue is supposed to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world and I agree. The mountains to the left were much higher than Vung Tau and covered with a messy jungle of trees and vines. The sea to the right was so blue and clear. This ride was only three hours and soon we arrived in Hue. We took a taxi with the couple and stayed at the same hotel. Again they got stiffed. I had asked for a $12 room and we happened to get the same type of room as the couple; however, they were charged $15. They were pretty angry when they learned this and definitely decided to switch hotels the next day. We went to dinner that night with them as well. They were good company—Aussies always are. We went to a German restaurant that we read about in the guidebook. Apparently the owner was a former TV comedian in Holland and had taken a bike trip around Europe. I talked with her for a bit—she was a pretty lively character and cracked some jokes in her broken English.

The next day (Saturday, 16 May) we took a half-day tour to the ancient Citadel across the Perfume River. We also saw a pagoda along the river and had a boat ride. The next day we took a full day tour down the river, again to the same pagoda, to three tombs, a temple, and a tourist trap in disguise of a conical hat- and incense-making shop. We had lunch on the boat and talked with several other tourists on our trip. It was a nice day. Then on Sunday morning we took the train to Hanoi for the last leg of our journey. It was a good 13-hour train ride and we didn’t get into the city until after dark. The countryside was amazing again and well worth taking the day train. There were those tall, speared Asian mountains you see in postcards. It was awesome.

However, near the end of our ride a very sick girl with her mother and grandmother got on the train and sat right in front of us. We shared one of my face masks and otherwise covered our mouths with mom’s jacket. The train was so crowed that people were sitting in the aisle or standing. We didn’t particularly want to get sick, especially in this Swine Flu scare (not that it’s come to Vietnam yet). Other people were wearing face masks as well.

Well, we arrived in Hanoi and took a taxi to a guidebook-picked hotel. Our room was more posh than usual, since they only had $20 rooms (which can get you something fairly swanky over here). It was nice to relax and have a bit of luxury after all our traveling.

The next morning we booked a tour to Halong Bay with our hotel, ate lunch at a New Zealand café, walked around a bit, and spent most of the afternoon in the Vietnam Airlines head office (only learning afterwards that there are Airlines booking shops all over—even right next to our hotel, which would have only taken five minutes). Oh well, we got a lot of planning done.

On Tuesday morning (19 May) we left early to go on our tour of Halong Bay—where your classic speared mountains in the sea reside. This was probably my favorite part of our trip. We decided to take a three-day “luxury” tour for a discounted price of $75 per person. The first day we boarded our traditional-looking wooden boat. It was brand new and very nice. Our rooms were pretty sweet and it was just relaxing to hang out there. We had a seafood lunch (the first of many strangely similar seafood meals) on the boat. Then we toured a beautiful, huge cave. We kayaked around the rock mountains—my favorite part. Finally we got to swim in the water for awhile—you just jump off the boat and tread. The water was so refreshing. Ha, you couldn’t escape the peddlers even in that peaceful place. They were trying to sell us things in their row boats as we were swimming! When we were being ferried back to our boat after kayaking they were crowding it. I made a comment that it looked like they were trying to pirate our ship—it was true. They were practically climbing onto it trying to see if anyone was there who they could sell something too. That evening after another seafood dinner we tried fishing for cuttlefish (a.k.a. little squid) with no luck. I talked with another Aussie guy while we fished. It turns out he works for the Australian CIA as a bodyguard for the prime minister! That was way interesting. At first I thought he was pulling my leg, but apparently his girlfriend confirmed the story when she was talking to my mom. I love hearing people’s stories. You always run into such fascinating people.

The next day we left half of our group (the two-dayers) and went to Cat Ba Island National Park. Most people went on a trek up the mountain, but we decided not to since it was slippery and dangerous. Instead, we walked around the park for awhile, which was neat. We settled into our hotels, had lunch, and then took a boat to Monkey Island. It’s called Monkey Island for a reason. There was a family of monkeys on the beach under the trees. I didn’t want to get too close to them because I was scared of getting rabies or something. We stayed on the beach instead of exploring. Ironically it was a chilly day—the day you want it to be hot and humid it’s cool, almost too cool for swimming. Of all the hot, sticky days here…. Well, that evening after dinner we had some drinks along the harbor with a German couple. It was a nice evening. The town on Cat Ba Island is quiet and relaxing. Then on our final day we just got back on our boat and went back to the harbor where we started off from. We sunbathed for a bit on the top deck.

When we arrived back in Hanoi on Thursday evening we went out to dinner and didn’t do a whole lot. Friday (22 May) we walked around the Old Quarter in the morning and then went shopping at the main market in town where we bought the majority of our souvenirs. We had dinner with friends at an Aussie Restaurant and then went to the Fanny’s Ice Cream place in Hanoi next to the lake. Saturday we tried to go to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum in the morning, but we got there too late. It was already closed, so we didn’t get to see the embalmed body of Uncle Ho. Instead we went to a museum on the grounds dedicated to him; however, that was closing too and they were pushing us out. Of course, they had no qualms about selling us tickets at the full price at the last minute. Even though they were only a dollar I took my time despite the guards pushing us out. I wanted to get my money’s worth. We tried going around the botanical gardens there, but we didn’t know where we could and couldn’t go because there were guards everywhere. That afternoon we sorted through and packed our bags to move the next day. Later we had dinner at a Vietnamese vegetarian restaurant again with some friends. Afterwards we went to a movie theater/café. We didn’t see a movie, but just had drinks. Apparently you can get membership there and see all these old and foreign films. If I find that I have time I might get a membership there. It sounds pretty cool.

On Sunday we woke up early to go to church at the cathedral down the road. It was in Vietnamese, but the inside is beautiful despite the outside looking tarnished with black mold streaking the walls. Then we went for a walk around the lake and walked across the red Japanese Bridge to the little temple on the island. We continued around the lake and stopped to have some juice. While we were sitting there some Vietnamese University students came up to us and wanted to practice their English so we talked to them for a good hour. After that we walked to the Opera House where we bought tickets for that evening’s concert. There is a Highlands Coffee next to it so we had a little breakfast there. Then we had to get back to our hotel to move our things to the hotel provided by my new job. It’s a really nice hotel. So we settled in and then decided to go to the Hoa Lo Prison (a.k.a. the Hanoi Hilton) where John McCain was imprisoned as a P.O.W. during the Vietnam War. It was really interesting to see the prison. Finally for the crowning event, that evening we went to a musical at the Opera House. It’s a beautiful, grand-looking French building. It’s apparently the first musical written for and by Vietnamese people. It was a contemporary show called “Dream and Reality.” I thought it was pretty good and creative. We went to the concert with some friends, but afterwards my mom and I decided to go home since we had to get up early the next morning.

Sadly, Monday the 25th arrived all too soon. We got up early and took a taxi to the airport (an hour’s ride away). We checked her luggage and walked around a bit. Then we said goodbye and she left. I took the minibus back into town and walked the rest of the way to my hotel. So there ends our story. I congratulate you if you ACTUALLY made it to the end of this extremely long blog. It’s more for my own record anyway… So, very soon I’ll be heading back to work and to the real world. That was the excitement in my life for now. I had a very good time and it was really nice to have my mom here. We made it all the way up Vietnam, from South to North, alive. Now the countdown to when I come home begins. I have to keep myself busy so the time goes by fast, which I’m sure won’t be a problem here.