From War To The Beach - That's Vietnam

A few things before I start on catching you up on the rest of our trip through Vietnam; a few things I’ve noticed about Vietnam…

• Vietnam has a young vibrant energy about it that is helping it pull itself up and on from its long history of what seems to be continuous war for years and years. For the most part the people are friendly and cheerful
• It’s this same energy that sets the determination into the Vietnamese people. They work hard and struggle every day, living with the most basic of amenities that we assume is our God Given right in the Western World
• However, I also find (& perhaps this is a case of which came first the chicken or the egg) that the Vietnamese have the most base desire and knowledge of respect for their environment or hygiene. They are more than happy to literally treat the streets like their personal trash can, to urinate and I’m sure more wherever it suits them, to hack up what sounds like a lung and then gob it out at your feet and seem quite happy to have some toilets that I wouldn’t send a cockroach into! It’s like they just don’t care! And you know what – they probably don’t
• They eat EVERYTHING, every possible animal and every single part of it, from heart to feet or hooves. None is wasted – which I guess is good – at least they utilize the animal to its max. But it’s also horrible to see that they have very little respect for creatures
• They are happy and helpful in one breath and will then try to screw you over. If you are not on top of your cash they will steal it from you right under your nose, by extortionate tourist prices, short changing you and outright lying. This after a while gets extremely irritating.
• Vietnam is crazy busy and I actually want to rip off the hands of every car and scooter driver as the constant beeping of horns eventually is enough to drive you insane!
• You cannot buy moisturizer unless you want to look like Michael Jackson. It’s all whitening lotion as they don’t like to be tanned as it means you are poor as you do laboring jobs!!
• I went through a period of being quite depressed in Vietnam. Just like I needed a week out, to get away from the craziness, to not have to spend 5 minutes explaining that I would like some ice in my drink, to have some normal food, to see my friends and family, to sleep in my own bed, not to feel like I have to do something or go somewhere everyday, to drive my car, to have some time on my own, not to be so dependent on Tymon, to use my brain, to go to work, just to have a slice of my life!

So the DMZ – Demilitarized Zone. Of course today there isn’t really anything left as it was all dismantled and cleared away when the Americans left but to just drive the routes and see the areas where the American base camps were, where the majority of bombing took place, the border safety zones, the areas of the cemetery and the Vinh Moc tunnels – it was very interesting. What struck me most as we began to come into the area that was bombed the most was how it looked exactly like how I expected Vietnam to be. The jungle and its big leaves and well - it was so Vietnam. (Sadly I have to admit that this impression came mostly from the film ‘Forest Gump!!’) When we arrived at a large mountain that was used by the Americans as a main look out point over surrounding land, it’s hard to miss how clear everything is in this area as the trees are tiny. A huge replantation project is ongoing to replace this HUGE area that was completely destroyed by Agent Orange and Napalm. The most impressive place on the tour was of course the tunnels. Around the area of where the tunnels are there are clear craters visible from where bombs landed and the structure of the tunnels themselves are just insane. It is barely believable that hundreds of people lived in these tunnels for around 7 years!! These tunnels are bigger than the ones in Saigon so you don’t have to crawl so much through them and you are taken to 3 levels, the deepest being 21 metres under ground. It gets warm!! There are small holes in the wall which ‘housed’ families of 4 or 5 or however many and the floors were separated into different living quarters. They had a school area and recreation area and hospital area. There are even some surviving babies that were born in the tunnels, one of which is there today helping show you around the tunnels. Sadly he is handicapped due to being born in the difficult circumstances down in the tunnels, but he is a very happy chappy!!

The war maybe over, but death and injury still happen in the DMZ more than you’d think. It’s estimated that as much as 20% of Vietnam remains uncleared with more than 3.5 million mines and up to 800,000 tonnes of unexploded ordance! Between 1975 and 2000 it has caused 39,206 deaths and 66,380 injuries nationwide. Many of these are children and ethnic minorities.

Whilst in Hue we also visited the Royal Tombs of the past Emperors which are quite magnificent. They are like huge parks with beautiful frangipani trees, lakes and shrines and often have the remains of their wives and mothers in the grounds as well. They certainly are burial grounds fit for a King!

Next stop Hoi An (which we all seemed to get confused with and kept calling it Hanoi!) Hoi An is beautiful! A real village type town with charming streets (with no scooters – hurrah!) and shops. The main town area is based around the river and at night time it is beautifully lit up with bright coloured lanterns and fairy lights. It’s just so lovely and has a lovely relaxed homely feeling to it. We experienced an evening being serenaded by local musicians which was actually really good and the lady introducing the songs, bless her heart was so funny trying to speak English! We wandered around the old town which you have to buy a ticket for to enter certain sights such as old houses of well to do people of the town back in the day and see workers hand sewing silk napkins and table clothes, which is incredible. They do it sooooo fast!! And of course no trip to Hoi An would be complete without having some tailor made clothing made! Hoi An is well know for it’s ‘cheap cheap very good price for you sir’ clothing stores. So we went to a place recommended by our hotel owner (it was his sisters shop) and ordered some shirts for Tymon to be made out of the fabric we had brought in Indonesia, some copies of my Aladdin pants to be made and some more pants for Tymon as well as a coat for him! Honestly as you walk around the town it’s just a shopaholics dream. Clothes store after clothes store offering everything from work clothes to wedding dresses! I just wanted to spend spend spend!! But I held it back and actually only ordered the pants! And….one evening dress. The whole process was so exciting and we felt really special. The day we went to get the clothes I was a bit apprehensive – especially about the dress as I’d ordered it from another tailor. The Aladdin pants and Tymon’s shirts came out great. I love the shirts for Tymon. But the dress – was a disaster! :0( First of all, it came back with the wrong design and it was too big, so I had it sent back to be corrected and then when it came back for the ‘final’ time it just wasn’t what I though it was going to be. It was still too big and didn’t sit right, they’d just stitched the front up together instead of making it one piece of material like it should have been and I was just so upset. In the end we sent it back one more time but they still didn’t know what they were doing so I’m left with a dress that still needs working on and that I think is ok. But heh ho – it’s just a dress.

We also did a day trip to My Son which is where the most important remains of the Cham Empire are. (The old Empire of Vietnam, a bit like Angkor was to Cambodia). The surroundings are beautiful, in the jungle, with clear streams running through them and nearby coffee plantations, even though the ruins are pretty run down. (Funny that eh, what with them being ruins! Lols) This was also visited in the pouring rain as as soon as we arrived and stepped out of the car the heavens opened!!

So on a disappointing note, the following day we left Hoi An to travel down to Nha Trang – a lively beach resort, the place to party apparently. The bad weather continued and had been with us really since Hanoi and we were told that the further South we go the better the weather would be so we were hoping that at the end of our train ride down to Nha Trang we would be in the clear and the sun would appear! But helaas, no sun. It continued to rain and I don’t know whether it was because of that or because we really were missing something but I’ve no idea what the hype about Nha Trang is. We both thought it was an absolute poo hole! And a big rip off tourist trap. It was run down and had no vibe – not our sort of place at all, so we basically stayed the night and left the next day. The only good thing about the town was a photographer called Long Thanh. Have a look online at some of his work as it’s pretty special. He takes pictures using film cameras only and they are wonderful and capture Vietnam beautifully. (A bit like Tymon’s doing if you ask me!)

Next stop Dalat which was a must for Willem as of course it’s similar to their surname De Laat. (Although they don’t have Vietnamese ancestors or anything – it’s just a coincidence.) Anyway Willem was keen to go and it was a nice enough town. Again not too much going on. A great market in the centre of town, a great big botanical garden and the best thing on offer is the Crazy House. It’s a hotel which is something like out of an Enid Blyton novel – ‘ The Magic Faraway Tree’ or something. It’s built like old twisted trees and the rooms are cubbies within the tree. Each room has its own animal theme and it’s just really magical. Although a bit cold to stay in as it has no heating! But it was really cool and mazelike.

As we were desperate to get away from the bloody rain and poor Grazyna had had no sun on her vacation so far, we decided to fly to Phu Quoc, an island South West of Vietnam and finally – it was hello Mr. Sun!! We spent a week on the beach, getting a tan, drinking cocktails and having great food till I thought I was going to burst. We hired a scooter and cruised around the island which is actually pretty big. We were on the bike for 6 hours and numb bum at the end of the day was an understatement! Around the island is was great to see the local life going on in the quieter parts of the island, groups just sitting around out of the midday sun, kids playing, women selling the wares. There were hardly any tourists outside of the main strip so it was great. On the way back we passed Phu Quoc prison and went inside to take a look. All I can say is watch the video – it was sick!! I can’t believe it and it was such an odd feeling to be standing on ground where people had suffered soooo much. (Although this was only the start for what was to come in Cambodia!) How humans can do this sort of thing to each other is…incomprehensible! Chiseling out knee caps and teeth, boiling alive and roasting, just crazy!

But apart from that the rest of the week was blissful relaxation.

After the week we flew into HCMC as Grazyna was flying back to Holland. Ho Chi Minh City is insane. I thought Hanoi was bad but here the traffic seems double, the beeping even worse, the touting terrible. You can barely have a conversation without having a tray of cigarettes, a pile of books, or a rack of sunglasses being thrust in your face. It’s constant. But the city itself is nice. We were staying down town in the back packer area which comprises of 2 narrow alley ways full of hostels and restaurants. The atmosphere was very nice and at one end of the alley was the big park. This at sundown was packed full of locals running and playing volleyball, badminton and also foot badminton. I joined the throng and went for a much needed run in the park and was happily surprised to see that they have fixed basic workout machines. They have the cross trainer, the thigh machine, a waist twister, a push up bar – it was really cool and such a great idea I thought. It was sooo busy I couldn’t believe it.

We also did a 2 day trip to Can Tho which is famous for the floating markets. Can Tho is the biggest city in the Mekong Delta and was actually a lot bigger than I thought it would be. The waterfront is spotted with loads of locals trying to sell you a boat trip to the markets or just along the river and the city market seems to be sprawled all over the city – no one area can be called ‘the market’. The day we arrived we made an appointment with a lady with a boat to take us to the furthest floating market and we wanted to be there for sunrise. This meant that we got up at 3am in the morning (this was EARLY!!) and made our way to the river front. It was pitch dark and there was another lady asleep in the boat in which we were to go. We tried to wake her up but she didn’t stir so we waited for 5 mins and then the lady with whom we’d booked arrived. Turns out she was ill, so she loudly shouted at the other lady in the boat who stood up, and started maneuvering the boat around so we could get in. It was only at this point that we noticed she was heavily pregnant! I felt awful. This poor woman looked like she was about to drop and here she was at 4am pushing a boat around by hand!! (It did have an engine once we got going thankfully, so she was able to sit down and steer, but still!) At 6am we began to arrive at the market as the sun started to rise. It was beautiful. All the boats were starting to set up and make their way to their ‘spots’ loaded with fruit and veg and morning Pho (soup). It was brilliant and so amazing that this is how they trade. Every morning they are here trading for the day to make a living. It’s so old school and something that the Western world would never even entertain or consider, its charm is beautiful! We rowed around the market for an hour or so while the sun rose and then made our way back through the canals of the Mekong Delta!

The sun was out and we witnessed life going on along the canals. Although I have to admit that the life isn’t as idyllic as the surroundings. We passed one shack that is a home to see a mother washing her young sons bottom and poo out into the river. Not a 100 metres on I see several women washing their clothes in the river and even one washing her face and hair with the water! Hardly the cleanest water – but then for them they have water and that in itself is a blessing.

We had a crazy dinner that night with pretty much our own personal waitress and ate Babi Guling (suckling pig) although it was a little too fresh for me and the ear and trotter I found on the plate did nothing to encourage my appetite!!

Upon our return to HCMC we booked the bus to Phnom Penh and said our goodbyes to Vietnam.

Overall I’d say a great experience, but not as fantastic as I had heard it would be. But maybe that’s just it – if you go in with high expectations you’re usually disappointed. Not that I was disappointed!! Just…it’s taken me a while to get used to Asia I guess.

So off to Cambodia – adventure number 6!

Hugs to all
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