Cobras, Cat Fights, and Cops? Only in Vietnam!

This post is dedicated to Aaron, my traveling partner for the week I spent in southern Vietnam. His fearless attitude, easygoing mentality, and adventurous tastes made the whole week even more enjoyable. Our conversations from movies (both good and bad ones) to politics to religion to Vietnam to the world enhanced everything, helped put things into perspective, and really make traveling worthwhile. Sharing experiences with someone like that is something I would wish everybody to experience at least once.

What an interesting country, that good ol' 'Nam. We could feel the heat soak through our clothes the minute we got off the plane. Landing in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon), we were anxious to explore the city and really get our trip started. After bargaining for a cab (they just hounded us the second we stepped out of the airport, reminded me of South America), we went to the ex-pat/tourist area called Pham Ngu Lao, found a hostel, and decided to walk around the city. We only had about 3 or 4 hours left of daylight, so we were only able to see one museum, the Fine Arts Museum. Collections of various artworks and old ceramics lined the walls. Sort of impressive but not worth the time. Saigon itself is actually pretty cool. You really need to be aware of your surroundings at all times - what with the couple hundred thousand motorbikers driving all around, over, under, and through you. Bikers with babies on the front and back, bikers from the ages of 12 to 80, bikers driving on the sidewalks, going in the wrong direction on one-way roads, navigating on the wrong side of the street on highways - it's just indescribable the tricks and maneuvers these Vietnamese can pull with their motorbikes. This isn't just a scooter mind you either. This is a full-on motorcycle with 5 gears (including neutral), where you accelerate by pulling back the handlebar and brake with a hand-brake like on a normal bicycle. Also, honking your horn is not a sign of an offense or an exclamation of "What the hell are you doing?" (but of course it can be used as this). Most of the time though, probably 80 to 90% of the time, the horn is your best friend. It is your guide to letting you know when someone is coming from behind, from what direction they are coming from, and even more importantly, it lets other drivers know where the hell you are planning on going. When you honk, you better pass them. When you hear a horn nearby, move over to the right, because someone is coming up fast at about 50 mph. The reason I know all this is because I was one of those crazy-ass motorcyclists. After Aaron and I walked around the city for about 3 hours, seeing everything from the Imperial Theater to the People's Committee Building to the Reunification Palace to the Ho Chi Minh War Museum to Notre Dame Cathedral to the Post Office (the biggest post office in Vietnam, a big beautiful building, old French-style architecture), and after having a semi-early night (watching what the cool people do at night in Saigon: get your girlfriend or get with lots of other friends, ride around the round-abouts on a motorbike and post up on the sidewalk of a big park right by the center of town), we got up early and actually rented a motorbike for the day (only $6/day, which meant a measly $3 for each of us for the bike for the whole day) and decided to take a road trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Our only map was a cheap one Aaron bought off the street and the LonelyPlanet one in the guidebook. Other than that, once we got out of the city, we were on our own. I took the bike around the block for a spin, just to get a feel for the old girl, almost got killed, picked up Aaron, and then we ventured out into the wild streets of HCMC. The weather was gorgeous: blue skies, streaks of white clouds streaked above, and the city is pretty for the most part. Lots of trees and parks are scattered around, but it's sort of a brown-green, a dirty green color. The streets are pretty littered and dirty, which I think darkens the green of the trees, but it was still great to be in shorts and a T, riding a motorbike, Aaron clutching onto my shoulders for dear life. We had to pull over and pull out the map a couple times, but eventually we found the main street and (just barely surviving) headed out on the highway, with just a straightaway in front of us. On most major streets, there are two large lanes in the middle for cars, and two shoulders on either side of the street for motorbikes. Luckily, driving around the city and on the highway, around the round-abouts avoiding cars that just drive and expect bikers to move out of the way, was not too difficult because unlike the ridiculous British and Hong Kongers, Vietnam drives on the right side of the road, not the left. About an hour or so of biking out to the real countryside, where fields of farms lined the road, and asking a few locals how to get to the Cu Chi Tunnels, we finally arrived at our ultimate destination - both to my and Aaron's amazement. We bought our ticket to get in, and jumped on the back of random tour groups, making our way around the crazy small holes, tunnels, underground bunkers used for all purposes, from dining to sleeping to medical-help to making weapons to the officers' meeting room. The tunnels stretch over 250 km (around 150 miles), including all the way to HCMC, and there were normally around 16,000 guerrillas crawling around. We got to see the actual traps (trap floors, trap chairs, trap doors) that were used against the US soldiers, as well as crawl through a tunnel 30 meters long. Since there was sort of a group of us, we stopped several times in the tunnel, truly experiencing what it was like. Pitch black, on your knees, completely enclosed, no light anywhere. If you are claustrophobic, this would be great for getting over that fear. Aaron got a little nervous but kept his cool and we both made it out alive. In the midst of our walking, we heard in the distance a loud "BANG BANG", and Aaron and I turned to each other, recognizing the same expression in each of our faces: follow that gunshot! So we ran to this firing, range paid a couple bucks and fired a few rounds off an M60. What a rush to fire a machine gun! Pretty insane. In one tour group we joined, an old guy pulled Aaron and me aside and said to us, "I haven't told the Mrs. yet but I actually did a tour here. It's my first time back." He was an Australian who spent a year fighting during the Vietnam War, and as the tour group walked ahead, he told us of his experiences fighting against the Vietnamese with the US. Pretty amazing. Not only that, but he also told us, claiming to be 110% correct, that it was the Australian army engineers who originally discovered the underground guerrilla tunnels. Once we finished off the first tunnel site, Ben Dinh, we drove around 10 km (past the military cemetery, which we walked through; a gorgeous layout of graves and nature with thousands of names written everywhere, on benches, polls, etc.) to the other set of tunnels, Ben Duoc. Before we walked through these tunnels, we sat down with the rest of our tour group to watch a documentary on the War and the Tunnels. Wow, what an experience that alone was. It was basically the most anti-American movie I have ever watched, blatantly referring to the US as "the enemy", and praising children like little Liu for picking up a rocket launcher and attacking and killing American troops. It was pretty ridiculous. It talked about all the young guerrillas and how brave they were for avenging their parents death and taking arms against the Americans, and how some even were honored with the "Best American Killer" award, or something named similar to that. It was pretty crazy. After spending another 40 minutes walking around, we jumped on our bike and headed back to HCMC, where we proceeded to the bus station and made our way to the Mekong Delta area, to a town called My Tho (pronounced 'Mee To' weirdly enough).

We managed to find a cheap hotel (only $3 per person) after walking through the town. This was pretty strange - we were clearly the only tourists (which was fun to know) because every single pair of eyes were pointed towards us. Literally, I felt like I was in the zoo. Every single person just stared at us as we walked down the street. Pretty amazing to know that we were in the real Vietnam. The next day we hired a guy to take us to some islands and show us some stuff around the Delta. We went to Unicorn Island, ate some real Vietnamese honey tea, took a paddle canoe boat through some canals that led to the River, then went to a coconut candy factory, where we tried the most delicious coconut-chocolate candy, hot, fresh, and sticky, straight from the pan. It was amazing. Then our guide took us to another island called Ben Tre, and took us to this restaurant where we ordered a cobra. The waiter brought the cobra in his hands, holding onto its neck, pinching down, pulled out some scissors, and just cut the damn cobra's head right off in front of us. Then he drained the blood from its body into a glass of wine, swirled it around, and offered to me. How could I refuse?!? It was pretty weird. About 20 minutes later, out came the cobra, cooked in a delicious curry sauce with rice and onions. It was actually pretty tasty. The meat was a little tough and you could actually feel the scales of the snake when you chomped down, but it was super fun - at least until we saw the price. Our damn guide didn't tell us that it was a $35 dish (which isn't that expensive, especially for a cobra, but we are in Vietnam, where it only costs $1 for a bowl of pho, which by the way is so spectacular, I can't even begin to describe how good some dishes were). So of course we paid for it, then just let our guide go because we didn't trust him at all after that. The guide told us we were going to a homestay, which ended up being a room that the restaurant owned. Once we realized this, after the guide left, we told one of the waiters (he was helping us out, telling us he didn't like the guide because he always tricked tourists into paying for real expensive dishes) that we were leaving because we wanted to get to the mainland and just get to another town on the Mekong. Out of nowhere, he started freaking out, nearly crying (no joke!), whining and complaining about how we couldn't leave because he and his boss already told the police that we were coming and how they gave the cops 300 or 500 dollars, or something like that. We were a little worried at this point, having no idea why they would pay the cops or where they had found time to do this during our snake lunch. When he tried to explain to us in his broken English why they paid off the cops, he started saying, "We pay police if you die" or "in case you die." At that point, Aaron and I were saying to ourselves "Let's just get the F out of her", not wanting to have anything to do with the police or dying in Vietnam. So I was urging Aaron just to pick up his bag and start walking, but he was a little nervous, just because he didn't want the cops to come and then something bad happen. So he stayed in our room with our stuff, talking to this waiter guy, while I ran around the restaurant looking for other motorboats like the one we took, seeing if we could jump on it and get a ride back to My Tho or anywhere, just somewhere off Ben Tre. We were both pretty frantic. There was a pier somewhere, but we had no idea - really we were in the middle of the jungle. So finally I found a boat, and walked up to the Asian couple getting on and started saying My Tho, My Tho over and over again, trying to communicate to them. Of course they didn't speak English (just our luck) but I thought I heard them say something in Chinese, so I ran back, told Aaron to go talk to them (he's studied Chinese for +2 years), while I waited with the bags. 15 minutes later, Aaron came running back saying the boat was waiting for us. The waiter, this whole time, was telling us we could go if we paid for the room, then saying we could if we paid for half the room. I knew this was total bullshit with the police at this point. What would paying for our room (which was only $10 total) do with the police? What difference did paying for the room make? I just wanted to get the hell out of here. So we picked up our gear, hustled to the boat, which was perched right ahead of a pile of thick mud. Aaron stepped in but had no trouble getting his feat out since he was wearing sneakers. As for me, I was wearing my sandals, so one of my feet got stuck. So imagine this: a Vietnamese waiter and his boss (with this enormous scar across his chest that you could see from his unbuttoned collar shirt) chasing these two Americans who are running into a boat, one of whom is safely in the boat, while the other has one foot stuck in the mud and has another Asian couple tugging him out of the mud, making sure he's got all his things. In hindsight, it must have been pretty funny to watch. At the time though, we were a little nervous. Eventually, we both made it into the boat, and Aaron used the most outrageous hand gestures (slicing of the neck, I think) to communicate to this other couple (who turned out to be Vietnamese from Hanoi), to tell them how we had never agreed to stay at this hotel and had not spent any time here, so were not obligated to pay anything. Finally, the boss waived us off and we took off, heading towards My Tho. What an extravaganza that was! After a few minutes, we calmed down, talked about how crazy it was, and then the Vietnamese couple pulled out some beers and offered it to us. We flipped to the phrase book section of the LonelyPlanet Vietnam book, and showed them "thanks" and "help" which they laughed at, and then had small conversations by just doing this pointing back and forth. This little communication right here should illustrate just what an enormous barrier the language in Vietnam is. Nobody, I mean NO ONE knows English. And if they do it is barely anything, not enough to communicate. So most of our interactions were with hand gestures, pulling out the guide book and pointing to what we wanted to say, and when it came to bargaining, we would have to pull out our money, how much we were willing to pay, and point it towards us then offer it to them, to show that we would pay this much to the cab driver or whoever. It was pretty intense.

Finally, we got off Ben Tre, back to My Tho, and took a bus to Vinh Long, another very small town on the Mekong. Aaron and I managed to spend the night in a small residential house (a real homestay) that included a four or five-course meal (including elephant ear fish, beef teriyaki, and strong rice wine that we enjoyed very much). It was really quiet and peaceful, very nice to be away from people and just enjoy the nature of the Mekong, which included of course hundreds of mosquitoes and the resulting consequences that you can only imagine. The next day, we got up early and took a boat to this floating market called the Ca Bei Floating Market. Boats and boats with huge quantities of fruit and other produce lined this little area off the Mekong River, and you could just drive up to any boat and buy whatever you wanted. It was pretty neat. The boat ride though was just gorgeous. Seeing the sun rise over the Mekong, with little canoes and boat paddlers making their way across was very incredible, brushes and green trees lining the banks. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese treat the river as their own personal garbage dump (numerous times we saw people sweep up trash from their food cart, or whatever, into a garbage can, and then just dump the entire thing into the river, patting the back of it to make sure every last piece of trash and dirt was in the river and not on the streets). How unfortunate!

We then hopped on a bus from Ca Bei to HCMC, and spent the morning/day there. We went to the War Remnants Museum - definitely one of the most amazing museums in the world. Their gallery of photos of the Vietnam War are really incredible. Photos from international journalists line walls and walls. One unforgettable picture was a soldier with his gun strapped over his shoulder and in his right hand, he carried the torso of a soldier (meaning head and shoulders and half of a chest). There was a whole section on Agent Orange and Napalm and its disastrous effects and how it has impacted not only the people of the '70s but future generations also. I think the museum went a little overboard when next to the photos of all the victims, there was a glass case. Inside this case were two vats filled with a preserver-liquid. Inside the two vats though were unborn disfigured fetuses - one had two heads with distorted facial features, the other's head was abnormally large with a hare lip. The sort of thing that makes you gag at first when you see it, where your jaw just drops to the floor, where not only words but sounds can't even come out of your mouth. There's just nothing to do but stare and wonder not only how could we do such a cruel thing to each other, but how could the museum actually put this in public. Aaron said he couldn't look at it. I barely could.

The museum though was clearly, again, anti-American. The descriptions of weapons were similar to: "A rocket launcher used to destroy peaceful Vietnamese" and plaques with descriptions of events were extremely biased, describing how the US invaded Vietnam and did horrific things to the people of Vietnam, and how they had no choice but to retaliate and fight back. I don't know that much about the causes and origins of the Vietnam War, but it was just interesting to see the other side of the coin. Planes, tanks, helicopters, and enormous bombs also were scattered in the courtyard outside the museum. It was definitely an unforgettable experience and a must-do for anyone who is planning on going to HCMC.

Aaron and I eventually took a night bus to a coastal town called Nha Trang. We got in at 4 am, walked to the beach, and fell asleep waiting for the sun to rise. We missed it though because stupid clouds were all over the place and blocked out the sun. For the day, we decided to get on a tour that took us to four different islands. Once the sun finally came out, which took several hours, we got on the top deck and slept under the sun, missing out on the one part we really wanted to take part in - the open bar. The whole time though there were a few Aussie couples together who were just getting trashed. They had started drinking at 9:30 and we never saw them empty-handed. One of the weirdest things that happened on the entire trip happened on that boat that fateful afternoon. The tour guide person called everyone down from the upper deck and once we were all seated, announced that there was a band that was now going to perform. Placed center stage was a drum set (made by buckets), two singers, and an electric guitarist. Then they called up the people who signed up for the tour and asked what country they were from and then made them come up and sing a song they would play from that country. What's amazing is how many songs this band new from so many different countries: USA, UK, Switzerland, Australia, France, Germany, Sweden, Vietnam, Korea, China. It was insane. The best part was watching these 50-year old Koreans get up there and dance with the band the way old men who are having a great time dance. One can only imagine.
Later that night Aaron and I went to a bar on the beach, where a ton of people were hanging out drinking. They made a big bonfire and all the travelers sat around hanging out talking. I would guess half of them were all from Australia, traveling for around the country for their summer vacation. It was a good time.

We got up early the next day, ready to take a morning bus to the mountain town in the center of the country called Dalat. We got on the bus at 7:45 am, and it was supposed to be a 4-5 hour drive. We didn't get off the bus until 3 pm that afternoon. We were so pissed at how long it took, and how we basically wasted the whole day on the bus. Whatever. We rented a motorbike for about three hours, drove to a few waterfalls, then spent the night walking around the town, conversing with locals at the different markets. It was fun, seeing all the crazy tourist stuff they had out. Aaron bought a cute little kitsch wallet.

We went to bed early to get up early, so we could rent a motorbike and drive to this mountain past a village about 10 km away, that was supposed to have some nice volcanic peaks we could hike up. 10 minutes later, trying to find our way out of town, we ran out of gas. Of course. So we walked the bike up the street, bought some gas from a guy off the street, which managed to be good enough till we found a real gas station. Then we made it to the mountain, and started hiking. It was really great. Completely different from the rest of Vietnam we had experienced. Neither of us really felt like we were still in Vietnam. Lots of pine everywhere, tall skinny trees, a more luscious green than the dirty brown-green we were used to. Bright blue sky above, we basically quizzed each other on movies to make conversation, every now and then just staying silent, enjoying finally getting some exercise in such a gorgeous environment. After we hiked to an easy tourist destination, with a restaurant and tourist shops, we found the path that led to an even higher peak (around 2200 meters high). That was a really fun hike, steep, sweat pouring down us, one of those hikes that wasn't too hard but when you get to the top you're rewarded with just the most postcard-perfect scenery of all villages, mountains, and other landscapes in front of you. After just relaxing up there, not saying a word, not needing to say anything, just staring out into space, zoning out into our own little world, we headed down, and drove back across town to another highway, towards what we read was the biggest waterfalls in the area. They were over a little over 50 km away, so it took about an hour to get there. Only, once we got there, we found out that due to the building of a dam, there was no more water. So we ended up just driving to this huge rock formation, completely dry and lacking any sort of water. No matter - it was still an incredible drive, and a great way to spend our last day, just letting loose on the motorbike, driving super fast, and just being connected to backpacking and traveling in a completely different way than I've ever experienced before.

That night we splurged on dinner, spending around $4 or $5 US per dish. That's right, it was hard for us, but we decided to do it anyways. Then we took a night bus to HCMC, got in around 5ish, and slept for about 2 hours in the bus station, like real hobos. Just sprawled out across 4 seats, completely passed out. Then we went into town and went to the Ho Chi Minh War Museum, which was like the War Remnants Museum but not nearly as graphic and had a lot more interesting stuff on how Vietnam gained their independence from the French from the late '30s to the mid '40s. That included information on how Vietnam became more and more communist as time went on, which I found to be very interesting.

Heading home was sort of sad, but I definitely cannot wait to go back and explore Hanoi, Halong Bay, and the rest of the north. Some other interesting notes about Vietnam is this: the language barrier is worse than anything I've ever experienced. I can't emphasize this enough. It really took a lot of imagination to create some hand signals in order to communicate with locals, simply because they for some reason couldn't understand that we didn't speak Vietnamese so they would just speak to us in Vietnamese while we stared at them like a deer in the headlight. The LP guidebook for Vietnam is really probably the best one I've used so far, just because of how useful and relevant it is to a place like Vietnam, where if you don't know the language or how to pronounce even names of places, you can be really really screwed. Also, I can't talk enough about how ugly the language Vietnamese is. Listening to it is like listening to cats fight, nails on a chalkboard, tires screeching. Any other terrible noise you think of, that's what Vietnamese sounds like. People could be talking about normal everyday stuff and you'd think they were saying, "I just beat my wife yesterday!" or "I'm going to kick the shit out of you". Seriously, it's terrible. And listening to two women scream at each other in Vietnamese is one of the scariest experiences between people you could ever encounter. It really sounds like they are completely different species because the language is just so different and violent, using really nasal sounds that make it so unpleasant to even be in the room when it's being spoken. Man, it was terrible. But that of course won't deter me from going back.

Other than that, biggest thing I've done is participated in my first Open Mic Night. It was the day after we got back from Vietnam, so I really hadn't practiced at all, and did the best I could. I was super super nervous, and really did not play as well as I practiced. I played Tears in Heaven, Blackbird (by the Beatles), and Layla (acoustic version), or at least attempted to, and even though I got cheers from friends, I really did not do that good a job. But I'm glad I did. It was a real rush, to get up there and perform for the first time in front of not only friends but strangers as well. Next time though, I'll be only playing guitar, and someone else will sing for me. Less pain for not only me but the audience as well.

This weekend is the Spring Lantern Festival. Not sure what it is but tomorrow night I'm going to check it out. Pictures from the Vietnam trip will come up ASAP. I'm pretty swamped with work. It's all piling on now, and I want to get it done before spring break. Why? Because I'll be spending 11-12 days in Japan, and the day I get back I have a presentation, the following day I have a Chinese test, and the day after that I have another presentation. So don't expect any other post until after I get back from Japan. That should be quite a trip. I just learned today that another exchange student named Ben (from Chevy Chase, MD) is going also, and so we're now going to travel around together. He's a good guy, and I'm really looking forward to it all. Nearly everybody else is going to Thailand, but I need more than a week for Thailand, and I want to have my own experience there, and not be there when everyone else is. My temporary plan is to finish off finals early and spend 3 weeks in Thailand and Cambodia before the family comes in June to visit and then we go off to China. Can't wait for it all. Life is amazing here. I don't want to leave. What enhances it all is not only the people I'm with but the books I'm reading. Just finished "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins, pretty much the book of reason as far as I'm concerned, and anyone with an open mind or a working brain should really read it. Take it with a grain of salt, as I did, but still, definitely a book that makes you see things from a different perspective. I'm starting "The Satanic Verses" by Salman Rushdie, a book recommended to me by Vivenne about life and philosophy. These books just make me reflect more and more on life, and with people like Aaron and others who can make great conversation as well as have a good time, it just doesn't get much better than this. I don't know when in my life I'll be more satisfied with where I am than right now. Hope others are feeling at least half of what I am right now. Until next time...