Vietnam

After an incredible time in New Zealand, I headed out to Vietnam via Bangkok. I had to stop in Bangkok to obtain a visa to Vietnam. Arriving in Bangkok was a huge culture shock after traveling in three english speaking countries. The city was loud, aggressive and crowded. I arrived late at night after a 15 hour flight. I jumped in a taxi and went to a hotel I had found in Frommer's, settled in and went walking around in the city. Shortly, I realized I was much too tired to deal with the crazed city so I headed back to the hotel to get some sleep so I could rise early and find the Vietnam Embassy. The next day, I found the Embassy, applied for my visa and discovered it would take only one day. The rest of the day, I explored the city.

My explorations of the next two days were not that interesting, mostly I just walked around and fought off the many street vendors trying to sell me anything and everything. Literally, you can buy anything on the street in Bangkok--furniture, DVDs, laundry soap, toothbrushes, anything you can think of.

I became an uncle again while traveling as my sister had her baby. Here is Derek. Isn't he cute. I can't wait to go see both Derek and Ethan (my two nephews I have not seen as they were both born during my traveling).


On Thursday, I got my visa and headed to the airport hotel where Jodene Jensen and Ken Hall had planned to join me on a flight the next day to Saigon. Jodene and Ken arrived around midnight. I joined them for a drink in the hotel bar and celebrated the fact that they were there. The next morning, we got up, worked out at the gym in the hotel and headed over to the airport to buy a ticket to Vietnam.

We left for Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) an hour later. When we arrived in Saigon, we went to our hotel on the Saigon River. The hotel was an old 1920's luxury hotel. The room was spacious oozing with old world charm (don't you just hate that saying).


View from the window of our hotel.

The first day, we spent walking around the city. Since tourism was down considerably because of SARS, we were especially hassled on the street by vendors aged 8 to 65. Actually, there were tons of children trying to sell us postcards and books. The children spoke perfect english and were extremely clever. We had many run-ins with then. Ken ended up buying many things throughout the trip because he thought the kids were so cute and irresistible. Admittedly, Jodene and I both fell to the pressure several times too.

The streets of Saigon, as most cities in Vietnam we soon came to realize, are packed with scooters. I mean packed. You rarely see a car and rarely see anyone observing any traffic laws. When we wanted to cross the street we had to just start walking. The scooters would just whizz around us honking like crazy. Yes, every vehicle whether scooter or car was required to honk at least once every 30 seconds. The honking was enough to drive us mad, especially since there was so much honking that no one ever acknowledged when someone was honking. At first it was difficult to bear, but by the end of our time in Vietnam, we crossed the street without pause ignoring the honking like the native Vietnamese.


A barbershop on the street.

Unfortunately, at the time I write this, I do not have all the pictures from our trip because Ken was taking pictures with his camera too and we were not able to merge the databases before he left. I will update the site when I get them from him.

On Saturday, we took a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels. This is an area about 30 miles from Saigon where a lot of the fighting of the Vietnam Conflict took place (oh, that's right it was not a war!). This particular area was one of the most interesting of the tour of Vietnam. After honking and weaving through scooters in our van for about an hour, we arrived in Cu Chi. Cu Chi is a small village surrounding the area where the tunnels were built. The tunnels were built here in many stages, initially during French War (1940's) and then more extensively leading into the American War (as it is referred to in Vietnam). The tunnels were an intricate system constructed in three levels the Vietnamese soldiers used to live and fight during the war. The tunnels were amazingly complex and extensive.

When we arrived at Cu Chi we were directed to a concrete building where a movie projector was set up to show us a movie. The movie was extremely interesting. Learning about the American-Vietnam conflict from the Vietnamese perspective infuriated and intrigued me simultaneously. Many times throughout the movie Americans were called "crazed devils" committing "unspeakable crimes" against the Vietnam people. But, rest assured, Vietnam had a "complete victory" at almost every battle. I say this with a bit of sarcasm, but in reality, they did "win" the war. Unfortunately, as I learned while traveling throughout the area and knowing what I do from the American perspective, no one "won", everyone lost!


This was our guide through the Cu Chi tunnels. Here, he demonstrated the size of the hidden entrances to the tunnels. He explained that they kept the tunnels extremely small so American GIs could not fit into the tunnels, whereas the smaller Vietnamese could easily maneuver.


Here, you can see that the "bigger Americans" could not in fact fit in the tunnel entrances. I could not even get my big hips and butt into the tunnel. Ken, however, having a smaller bottom, could get his lower body in, but could not manage his shoulders to pass.

Later we were able to go into the tunnels. The tunnels were of course widened by 20% so that we could fit into them. Still, they were still very small.


Me at the entrance to the "big tunnels" We were informed that many "booby traps" were set up all throughout the jungle including many spikes buried in small holes designed to maim a soldier, but not kill him. We saw many of these traps (used by Americans as well--they learned a lot by example). These traps also included delay bombs which when ran over by a tank would explode just under the belly of the tank. Below is one of the American victims to such traps.



Our guide, speaking perfect english, was native to the region and was the same age as me. It occurred to me as we were having a very friendly chat that there was a high likelihood that our fathers could have been fighting each other on the very soil we were walking on just over 30 years prior. The experience walking around through the jungle was haunting, especially knowing that my dad was fighting in that very region.

Later in the tour, we were allowed to fire some of the weapons used during the American-Vietnam Conflict. Each of us chose a different weapon. I shot a machine gun, Jodene an AK-47 and Ken another type of rifle (I can't remember the name). Surprisingly, the gun was light and had very little kick back. I had never shot a gun that was so easy to shoot before or one that sprayed as many bullets so quickly. The experience was at the same time exhilerating as well as horrifying thinking that someone could fire this weapon into a crowd of people with such little effort killing so many so quickly. (I really need a dictionary and an editor! Unfortunately, neither of which fit into the small suitcase I wheel behind myself around the world.)



Upon returning from Cu Chi, we spent some time shopping around the city. In a country supposedly communist, the people sure acted capitalistic. Almost everywhere we went shopping, we had to barter to get a realistic price for anything we wanted. Also glaring in this crazy market was the obvious disregard for intellectual property rights. You could buy any knock off clothing item, DVD, CD or electronic equipment for almost nothing. Since all three of us were former intellectual property lawyers, we found this extremely interesting. (yes, I said former--Ken and Jodene both quit their law jobs too--Freedom!).

We had very good food throughout Vietnam, but we mostly searched for restaurants which were air conditioned because the heat was almost unbearable during the day. We often had to stop for breaks and have an iced coffee. I love the Vietnamese iced coffee!


Here we are enjoying a cocktail on the roof of our hotel after a long day of touring.

On Sunday, we took a tour down to the Mekong Delta which is a region in south west Vietnam where the Mekong river spreads its mouth over acres of land making the land mostly navigable only by boat. The area was very interesting, but the tour we had was a little long. Throughout the delta, floating markets clogged the river and closely packed houses with their many TV antennae pointing to the sky lined the shores.


Rowers along the river.

During the tour, we visited many houses/shops where the locals were making goods to be sold at the markets or shipped overseas. These included rice paper, puffed rice, puffed rice treats (much like Rice Krispy bars), peanuts, a treat like peanut brittle (which I loved) and many others. After visiting the treat making "shop" (more like a hut), we sampled the goods and were able to purchase them. We each bought some, snacking on them throughout our time in Vietnam.


This woman has been making rice paper for 60 years. The rice paper (used to make spring rolls) gets shipped to the US.

Making puffed rice treat.

When we stopped for lunch during the tour, we sat about 10 feet from an 8 foot long python which was taken out of its cage at one point. We also were served a very strange fish (of which Ken has the picture) and then relaxed in hammocks before heading back in our boat to our awaiting van. The tour lasted about 8 hours, which was a long day in the heat and with a guide who spoke little english, but overall it was enjoyable.


The snake.


Me in our boat tour

We also visited a couple museums in Saigon that were very interesting. One was a historical museum detailing the many wars and changes of governments experienced by the area (which are many). The other museum addressed the American-Vietnam Conflict. This museum "housed" in some open air buildings next to a dilapidated building featured many photos taken during the war with very interesting captions. Unfortunately, again Ken has many of the photos taken during the visit. Some of the photos were very disturbing for many reasons. First, the shear horror of the atrocities of war--decapitated bodies, burned victims and injured soldiers from both sides. Second, the captions on the photos were very anti-american (which is not surprising given that they were at war with America). And finally, photos showed the continued after-effects of the war, particularly those children with birth defects caused by the chemicals used during the war.

One part of the museum was dedicated towards peace, which was very moving. Here, many childrens' drawings reflecting peace and war were displayed. The ages of the artists ranged from 5-10 years old.


One of the childrens' drawings

On our last day in Saigon, we had booked a overnight train to Nha Trang. Needing to kill some time before the train departed, we went to the Hotel Sofitel to use their very nice gym and pool for the day. In between working out and laying by the pool in the hot sun, we also walked around the city until we took a taxi to the train station. When we picked up our tickets we had bought through a local travel agent, we discovered that they did not have the car available that we had paid for. Since I had picked up the tickets and Ken had paid for them, I was not aware of the difference in price. We were given tickets in a cabin with 6 "hard sleepers" instead of the 4 "soft sleepers" we had ordered and the agent shorted us almost $15. Note to those traveling-everyone will try to screw you. Nonetheless we boarded the car to our "hard sleeper" which meant we did not have any cushions on the bench we were given to sleep on. Let's just say I did not get much sleep that night.

That morning we were awakened by the attendant on the train and arrived in Nha Trang. We had looked up a few hotels, but did not book anything since we thought we would just try to negotiate a good price when we got there. (This was in part because Tony, a guy working at the airport in Saigon who helped us book the hotel there said we could stay at the Ana Mandara (luxury resort) for a good price. Later when we talked to him to book the hotel he made all these excuses and came up with a price almost triple of what he quoted us.) When we got to the Ana Mandara, we in fact were able to negotiate a price that was pretty good considering it was the nicest resort in Vietnam (it was really posh). We came to jokingly call (in bad taste of course) our negotiation position as getting the SARS special. Yes, because of the media's blowing the epidemic out of proportion, no one was traveling in Vietnam. We rarely saw any western travelers the entire time we were in Vietnam. Since Vietnam relies heavily on tourism for its economy, the lack of tourists was having a noticeable negative effect.

At Nha Trang, there was not much to do besides enjoy the beautiful beach and sun. We did plenty of it, extending our stay another day for a total of three. I was especially excited that I was able to play some very high level volleyball on the beach. One day, Jodene and I went running into the center of town which was about 2 miles away. When we got to the beach, I saw people playing volleyball and they were very good. Unfortunately, no one around spoke any english at all. I sat there and watched for awhile when a guy came up to me who knew english, he said a couple of the players played on the national team. Obviously, this was somewhat of an organized group of players as there was an older guy coaching them. After watching about three games, the best player came over to me and motioned to me to play. I nodded yes and was paired up with one of the youngest, inexperienced players, but I did not care because I was playing. After playing a bit they realized I knew how to play and I got to play with 3 other partners for 3 more games. The next day, I showed up at about the same time and the best player ask me to play with him and I played about 5 games that day. It was great fun. Although I was not able to communicate a word to any of the players I played with, we were able to signal blocks and positioning quite well (their system was just the opposite to the one we use in the states).


Here is a picture of the beach at Nha Trang, unfortunately, Ken has many more and better pictures of it. I will update them later.


Ken and I having an iced coffee in Nha Trang, taking a break from exploring the city.

One day we were walking around in the town and stopped for some lunch at a local restaurant. It was the hottest part of the day, like 100 degrees and 95% humidity and none of the restaurants had air conditioning so we were relieved just to be in the shade. When I ordered my meal (grilled chicken), the waitress brought out this pot with coals burning in it. Then she brought out the raw chicken and a small grill to put over the coals. I guess I was supposed to grill the chicken myself, which was quite amusing to the three of us. As I started to grill the first couple of pieces (without any efficiency or perceived skill) the woman came over to assist me (which meant she finished grilling the meat for me). We had a great laugh over it (Ken has a picture). What made the experience even more comical was the fact that it was soooo hot outside and they placed fire next to our table, increasing the heat!

After three days on the beach we booked a flight from Nha Trang to Da Nang (near the center of the country, by the famed China Beach). From Da Nang we took a taxi to Hoi An, a very charming village on the coast about 30 miles from Da Nang. In Hoi An, we observed what a smaller city was like. Most of the architecture was french colonial and very beautiful. The city was more touristy than Nha Trang, but it was charming nonetheless.


Jodene and Ken in an ancient Japanese Bridge

While exploring the city, we came upon a huge market next to the river. Inside the market, you could buy anything imaginable--live pets, not far from the raw meat, next to pharmacetuical products. We had a great time wandering around the market, getting harassed by every shop owner to purchase whatever good they were selling.


The market

Since Hoi An was a very busy trading village about 100 years ago, there are some very nice old buildings around the city. We explored many of the buildings which had very detailed craftmanship on them. Jodene and I also decided to go down to the beach one afternoon which was about two miles from town. Since Jodene had a death wish, she decided to run (it was like 110 degrees with 95% humidity). Agreeing to accompany her and to rescue her when she fell with heat stroke, I chose the more sane option of hiring a bicycle.

The only bicycles available, however, where those that were considered, but rejected, for the woman in the Wizard of Oz (you know the pre-dream wicked witch of the west). They were the old style "girl's bikes" with a basket on the front and a little bench/ledge thing over the back tire. I am sure I looked ridiculous. I was much too large for the bicycle and I was riding alongside a white woman running in the dead heat of the afternoon. Yes, everyone was staring and pointing at us, but we were having a hoot.

When we reached the beach, a blockade with a sign consisting of a bike in circle with a line through it-signalling no bikes-blocked the road. Next to the blockade was a huge lot filled with bikes and scooters, like 5000 of them. I then proceeded down to the lot where a guy grabbed my bicycle (yes I am using bicycle on purpose-it was not a bike), wrote a number on the seat and handed me a tag with the same number. I was not sure if I was to pay or lock up my bicycle or what (since I had no means to lock the bicycle I guess I had no choice).

We then went down to the beach where we witnessed close 10,000 people (ok I am not a census taker, but there were tons of people) on the beach swimming. By this time, the Sunday afternoon was winding down, so I think everyone was having a little family time at the beach with grills and picnics gallore. The strange thing was that people were swimming in their regular clothes. When I say regular clothes, I mean dress pants with leather belt. Women wore skirts and full blouses (don't you love that word). Kids under 10 were naked. Everyone had a huge smile on their face looking as if they did not have any worries. It was beautiful.

Once we walked along the beach for a while, we headed to retrieve my bicycle. Which was hastily sought our for me and returned upon presentation of my ticket--no fee required. Coming to her senses, Jodene decided not to run back. She instead hopped on the back of my bicycle sitting on the bench/ledge thing (which was not very big). Granted entire Vietnamese families-mom, dad, little Hue and Bihn, all fit quite nicely on a similar sized bike, but the sight of Jodene and I on this bicycle was extremely hilarious as we were much bigger. Everyone (the streets were packed full) was gawking at us like we were freaks in a circus, but I just peddled forward passing several people laughing the entire 2 or 3 miles. (In retrospect, I find the fascination amusing because while being in Vietnam we saw everything being transported by bike and scooter, including full size large live pigs! Surely two large white people are not more unusual than a man and a large white sow...).

At one point this small gang (ok, maybe a group of three or four) of teenage boys with girls on the backs of their scooters caught up with us and rode along side us, roaring the scooter engines. We were laughing so hard, as were they, because Jodene was challenging them to a drag race. (Of course this was all done with the game of charades because they spoke no english.) Unfortunately, we have no photographic evidence of the episode, it was extremely funny.

After a couple days, we jumped on a plane again in Da Nang and headed to Hanoi. We only stayed in Hanoi for the day, checking into the Sofitel for the afternoon so we could use their gym and pool and booked a night train for Sapa.


Picture of three generations of Vietnamese woman mezmerized by the TV taken while waiting in the train stain.

Once again, we found ourselves on an overnight train in Vietnam, heading to Sapa a very small mountain village on the border to China. From the train stain in a town close to Sapa, at 7:00 in the morning, we crammed into a small van with 12 other people and headed up the mountain. The road to Sapa was under construction and was probably not safe to travel. At one point our van teetered on the edge of the mountain while a huge semi-truck filled with rock slowly edged around the van missing it by inches. Once we arrived in the village, we were relieved to be out of the cramped van. The views from the village were amazing and the village itself radiated with charm under a blanket of fog. Even before we could step out of the van, however, we were mobbed by people trying to get us to come to their hotel. We finally decided on one close by at $8 for the three of us. Although the room was large, the shower was a hose over the toilet and the sound of running water (from who knows where) kept me up most of the night--thus $8 a night.

The first day we spent walking around the village, dodging children and old ladies trying to sell us things. They were not afraid to grab you and not let go. At one point an old woman was literally chasing Jodene down the street. It was hilarious. The children spoke perfect english having learned it only from tourists, which amazed me. They were very clever and crafty salespeople.


Scene from the street in Sapa.


View of the village--including two Red H'mong woman walking

During the day, we went and checked out the nicest hotel in the village to see if they had a good gym to use. When we got there, we discovered the equipment to be pretty old. One of the machines brought us some particular enjoyment.


We called it the jiggler. We also discovered similar machines for sale in Hanoi in every store selling sporting equipment.

The next day, we woke early and took a tour hiking throughout the mountains to some of the other villages near by. We knew it had been raining and foggy over the past couple of days so everything was very muddy, but we had no idea how muddy it would be on our hike. We started out walking with our guide down a simple gravel road, taking in the view of the rice paddies.



After about a half hour of hiking, our guide took us "off road." This is where we first began to appreciate how muddy it really was. On the first steep decline each of us had slipped and fallen in the clay mud, which began to cover our entire bodies. Soon we found ourselves balancing on the edges of rice paddies en route to the villages.



Exploring the rice paddy villages was one of the highlights of Vietnam. We were able to witness how the people in the small farming villages lived and worked. The tribes in these villages all have their own languages and are each considered a different ethnicity making Vietnam one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world. Below are some of the photos taken on our journey.





The hospital for one of the villages.


A school room in the same village.

That night we again took the cramped van (although this one was much more comfortable having air conditioning) to board the overnight train to Hanoi. Once again, I got little to no sleep on the train as it was louder and rougher than the previous two, but we arrived in Hanoi safely. When we got to Hanoi, we looked for a taxi outside of the train station that had a meter-to avoid another screw job. We found one, got in and started to drive off. I was sitting in the front seat and observed the meter spinning like crazy. At this point, I had already developed my extreme hatred of taxi drivers having been screwed many times in Australia, Fiji, New Zealand, Bangkok and throughout the rest of Vietnam. So I started screaming (yes screaming) at the taxi driver that the meter was going too fast. He protested and we got in a huge argument. When we arrived at the Hilton Hotel, the driver and I were both screaming at each other. I told him I was going to check with the hotel. So I went in while Jodene and Ken stayed in the car. The driver refused to let them have their baggage out of the trunk until I came back and paid. When he asked why they were staying in the car and I went in, they told him I went to call the police. He then ran into the hotel after me and started yelling at the hotel desk guy. At this point, I had not even gotten to the taxi issue yet, but was trying to negotiate a good price for the hotel (SARS special). Thus, the cabby's shouting thrusted our conversation to the issue of the hotel. The taxi driver and I continued to argue with some translation assistance from the hotel guy, but came to no agreement. We then moved outside where the argument continued (Jodene and Ken also joined in at this point). Finally, when I threatened to call the taxi authority he gave in and we probably still paid too much, but considerably less than what the meter said.

Nonetheless, we checked into our hotel and spent the day exploring the city, laying by the pool and checking e-mail (which cost like $12 and hour). That day, I joined an American guy living in Hanoi for lunch. We met at the gym last time I was in Hanoi. He was working for the Asia Foundation and had some wonderful perspectives living in Vietnam for the past 3 years. Small world example-his boss is from Northfield, Minnesota and went to St. Olaf.

Hanoi is a nice city, but there is not a lot to see. We enjoyed walking around the city going to a couple of museums. We stayed next to the Hanoi opera building seen below.



Overall, I thought Vietnam was a beautiful and wonderful country. I will need to go back to see more of it. home