Friday, October 14th 2011 - Final Post from Vietnam

I woke up feeling melancholy, knowing today would be my last backpacking through Vietnam. I’ve gotten accustomed to the vibrations of life on the road: rolling my clothes into tight bundles and wedging them into my backpack, taking my daily malaria prophylactic, checking out of one hotel and simultaneously booking a hotel for the next city, knowing how to get to the train station, knowing the general fare to places so cab drivers don’t rip you off…and on and on. All these things help get you into a hum and a rhythm that you don’t have when you’re stationary. I’ve only been gone for two weeks, but Stephen and I have said, ad nauseum, that this trip feels like its been at least a month long. I’m sure the fact that we’ve travelled to eight different cities and covered over 1,200 miles has contributed the sense of prolonged time.

Although I’ll miss the thrills and excitement of a peripatetic lifestyle I’m also looking to coming home. There was a point in my life when I considered if life on the move was the way I should live the rest of my life, and this trip, more than any other I’ve ever taken, drove home the point that while I love adventure and thrill-seeking…New York City is my home.

But I digress – today we headed to the Cu Chi tunnels.

‘The tunnels were used by Viet Cong guerrillas as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous guerrilla fighters. The tunnel systems were of great importance to the Viet Cong in their resistance to American forces, through which they secured American withdrawal from Vietnam and ultimate military success.’

Americans, frustrated by their inability to defeat the Viet Cong in these tunnels resorted to massive campaigns of B52 carpet bombing, napalm bombs and agent orange. As war historians describe it, the result was that, ‘The Cu Chi area and nearby area became the most heavily bombed, gassed, and defoliated area in the history of combat.’

We departed from Saigon at 8:00 in the morning. Since it’s a two and a half hour drive from Saigon, we stopped after driving for an hour and half for a ‘smoke and bathroom break.’ While we were waiting Stephen and I ordered two iced coffees…and now I need to go on a little diatribe about the difficult with ordering coffee in Vietnam!

The coffee itself is absolutely delicious, but how they prepare it is not always ideal. In decent restaurants you can get the coffee served with plain, unsweetened milk. The street vendors, and lower quality places, only have sweetened condensed milk.

I’m not sure if this story is true…but…one of the German tourists I had breakfast with the morning before explained why the Vietnamese use sweetened, condensed milk with their coffee (as opposed to, say, regular milk and sugar like most countries). As the story goes…to support a fellow communist country Russia purchased all the excess sugar being produced by Cuba (US trade embargo severely crimped their distribution). Although this act of largess breathed life into the Cuban economy and fortified the link between the brethren countries, it left Russia with massive quantities of sugar that far outstripped the demand. To deal with this Russia put the sugar into condensed milk and then force-exported it to weaker communist satellite countries. The Vietnamese, needing something to do with all this sweetened condensed milk, experimented with putting it in their coffee and the idea stuck. Again, I have no idea if this is an actual story, but thought it was interesting and thought I’d pass it along. For people not accustomed to their coffee being so sweet it’s a little bit much. Eight out of ten times I ordered coffee I got stuck with the super sweet stuff and it kind of ruins the drink.

Anyways, back to Cu Chi Tunnels. We kept driving through the thick vegetation and lines of Grouper trees surrounding the Cu Chi tunnels…hard to believe almost all the plant life was destroyed during the allied bombing / chemical warfare campaigns in the 1960’s.

We pulled into a parking lot chocked full of cars (I’d heard the Cu Chi Tunnels were like a tourist conveyor belt, and regrettably, they were). Because of the proximity to Saigon, the significance of the tunnels during the war, and the ingenuity and engineering they required (all with a paucity of modern technology) the tunnels are one of the more alluring tourist destinations in all of Vietnam.

When we stepped of the bus I turned to Stephen. ‘Do you hear that?’

‘What?’

‘That pop pop pop.’ I said. ‘Listen.’

In the background we could hear people firing M16, M60 machine guns and AK 47s. Their staccato pops and explosions in the background gave the area a menacing and foreboding feeling.

Our guide walked us around the compound first showing us one of holes that led to the labyrinth of tunnels below. It was so small that Stephen could barely fit…I didn’t stand a chance, nor would I want to really, just looking at the thing made me claustrophobic.

At one junction they had made the tunnels a little bigger so the tourists (read: fat Americans) could get the experience of traipsing through the passages. Stephen and I went below and crawled in a space a meter high, a half-meter wide and six meters underground. As we were crawling around I fought the visceral urge to freak out. You’re cramped, there are people in front of and behind you…far below the surface.

The reason I mention this fear is that I absolutely CANT imagine the VC doing this during war when they were surrounded by poisonous centipedes, scorpions, vermin, GIs are throwing grenades in the hatches, B52’s are dropping massive bombs on top of you…Dying in one of these tunnels after it collapsed from a grenade or a B 52 bomb would be a horrible death…buried alive...

Even worse than being a Viet Cong in those tunnels was being a GI ‘Tunnel Rat’ charged with going into the tunnels and rooting out the VC. Eventually the program was cancelled because GI casualties were too high.

As we walked through the forest the guide showed us lots of interesting things – the ventilation for the tunnels are built into massive termite hills that pop up every twenty five meters or so, rendering it nearly impossible to distinguish between termite hills and ventilation areas. We saw the weapons factory where the VC disassembled American bombs and then reconstituted them into anti-tank mortars, hand grenades and mines. They were very resourceful people. We saw the pangee traps that the VC used to maim and kill GIs. Afterwards Stephen and I were able to fire an M16 and AK47. These guns are some of the most lethal killing instruments ever devised, each of them used as weapons to slaughter millions of people. For that reason I wanted to know what it felt like to pull the trigger. It was fascinating, and eerie holding the weapons that I was accustomed to seeing children soldiers in Sierra Leone or Al Qaeda operatives using.

After we’d finished shooting we walked past a guy firing an M60 machine gun. I’ve never been around a piece of artillery that big, but when it went off its power seemed to suck air out of the forest as if there was not enough oxygen for both you and the machine. I couldn’t imagine being shot at, or shooting other human beings with that thing.

After shooting and crawling through tunnels we ate tapioca root dipped in sugar, salt and peanuts and drank tea, the meal that sustained the VC during their ten year war against the US.

During lunch I had a conversation with our guide. He told me his father was a major in the south Vietnamese army. After the war his father had to go to ‘re-education’ school. His father was sentenced to ten years in this ‘re-education.’ The first time our guide saw his father was when he was eleven. He returned back from the re-education with only one finger on his right hand.

After we finished eating I asked him if a lot of the southerners disliked Ho Chi Minh (who is more venerated in this country than I’ve ever seen a leader venerated in any country I’ve visited). He said a lot of Southerners still dislike him and what he stands for and that the country would be better if it were technically capitalistic as opposed to socialistic. That’s why most people in the south call Ho Chi Minh Saigon, whereas most people from the north call it Ho Chi Minh.

The aphorism, ‘history is written by the victors’ is applicable here – if Ho Chi Minh had lost the war I’m sure the US would have killed him (a la Saddam Hussein) and his legacy would have been that of a communist dictator willing to sacrifice the lives of millions of northern Vietnamese to uphold his communist ideology.

We drove back to Saigon, went to Ben Thanh market, looked at antiques, got iced coffee, went to a museum that was closed…and finally to the Pho Binh noodle shop which was a good twenty five minute walk out of the city, but served as the Viet Cong secret headquarters in Saigon. It was in that noodle shop that the Viet Cong planned the 1968 Tet offensive that dramatically altered the perception of the war throughout the world. All the chairs and tables are the same as when it was the VC headquarters.

The waiter brought over two books – one was filled with information on the noodle shop and its famous proprietor and the other was filled with messages from people from around the world.

Most people thanked him for what he did, but being an American I felt I couldn’t write something ‘thanking him’ for killing American GIs. My perspective is that the GIs in Vietnam were mostly good ol’ American kids who were caught up in the worldwide struggle between communism and capitalism. Although there were some bad eggs (My Lai disaster), most were not vicious killers bent on destroying a nation.

So, although I guess I can understand why so many people thanked the proprietor for helping to end the war earlier, as an American I could not write anything.

The Pho Binh soup shop was officially our last stop in Vietnam. We walked back to our hotel, through the throngs of motorbikes spewing exhaust in the air. Our concierge let use the cold shower in the back of the hotel (which was a god send, we got filthy crawling around in tunnels), we hung out for an hour and then it was off to the airport.

As the plane took off I looked out the window as the lights of Saigon slowly faded beneath me. I was hit with the same pang of sadness I get when I leave any country where I have learned and grown as a person. For me, by meeting people that are completely different than myself, with different value propositions, perspectives and lifestyles, I am reminded of how myopic my little world is. Getting outside that world helps shape and define me as a person as much as any other thing I do in my life.

The trip was also a great bonding experience for Stephen and I. A trip we will never forget that we did, but more importantly we did together. There is a saying in Africa, 'If you want to travel fast, travel alone. If you want to travel far, travel with a partner.' And travel far we did. Stephen had knack for both humorizing and intellectualizing many parts of the trip and I'm thankful for that.

As the plane banked left above the whispery covering of clouds, for some reason, I was brought back the night I celebrated my birthday in Danang. A conversation I’d forgotten about popped into my head. After the bar patrons sang me happy birthday a small man with a shaved head walked over to me. He explained that he was the new chef at the restaurant. Originally from Italy, he’d been working at a restaurant in Saigon when he was discovered and brought to Danang.

‘How old are you mate?’ He asked.

‘Thirty.’

‘Ah, thirty. You’re still a pup.’ He smiled. ‘When I was eighteen I had the world figured out. When I was twenty five I realized I didn’t know everything. When I turned thirty I realized I knew very little. When I turned forty I realized I knew nothing.’ He flashed a crooked smile, ‘At fifty four I’m just finally starting to understand this life.’

I nodded at him. I’ve grown so much in the last decade, and more specifically the last three years, and I’ve realized life never was and never will be static, it will always be dynamic. Changing. Challenging.

‘Alla goccia!’ He said to me, ‘To the last drop!’

We drank our respective beers. His Vietnamese girlfriend walked over and said she had to leave.

‘I’ve got to go mate, but I want to give you your first piece of advice as a thirty-year-old.’ He looked me in the eyes, his demeanor became serious. ‘If you are not waking up each morning and devouring life, you are not living.’

With that he grabbed his girlfriend's hand and walked out the door.

So my parting suggestion, to all of you who have followed along on another great journey in my life, is this – eat voraciously and savor each bite.

With love and thanks,

Joe

Pictures - Friday, October 14th 2011

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Thursday, October 13th 2011

Sooo today was by far the slowest day we’ve had in Vietnam. It might not make for the best blog entry of all time but we definitely needed a break.
We were supposed to leave for the Cu Chi tunnels this morning, but after a late night and two weeks of continuous travel I called the front desk at 7:30 in the morning and asked if we could postpone our trip a day.
We fell back asleep and were awoken around noon by driving rain that was being swept past our window by monsoon-like winds. We were on one of the top floors and it felt like the wall behind our beds was a centimeter thick – seems we heard every drop of rain that hit our building.
At 1:00 we wandered down looking for street food for breakfast – got a baguette, pho and some coffee. Wandered back up to the room.
We finally dragged ourselves out of the room at 2:00 and walked to the Reunification Palace. The reunification palace was originally designed for the French colonialists in the 1800’s. In 1954 when the French were driven from Vietnam the property was seized by the Vietnamese and renamed ‘Independence Hall’ in honor of their revolt against colonial rule. The building was almost completely destroyed when a rogue South Vietnamese pilot tried to kill the South Vietnamese president in the late 1950’s. It was rebuilt and served as the command center and presidential living space during the Vietnam War.
The building is a huge attraction because in the memory of many people it’s the spot where the Vietnam War ended, in dramatic fashion, when on April 30th, 1975 two North Vietnamese tanks burst through the outer fence. When the Viet Cong reached the South Vietnamese president the president said (and I paraphrase), ‘I am ready to hand over power.’ To which the VC tank officer replied, ‘You cannot hand over what you do not possess.’
Zinger!
The building was left basically as it was on April 30th 1975. Ho Chi Minh wanted it to become a permanent memorial to the naiveté of the southern Vietnamese forces. All the maps, the radio and communication equipment, the desks and the meetings rooms scattered with data were still there as they were forty years ago.
The building itself was interesting, but for me it was more fascinating to imagine the frenzied, late-night conversations that took place in the war rooms – South Vietnamese commanders frantically trying to stem the impetuous march of the VC towards Saigon, fleeing from the building as the guerillas were only blocks away.
If only these walls could talk…
After spending close to two hours in the building we went to a café for some well-deserved iced coffee. Then we walked to the US consulate (which is located next to the French consulate. Hmm…put the two countries that committed the worst atrocities in the last century right next to each other…kind of like making the unpopular kids sit together in the lunch room).
Afterwards we walked to the Caravelle Hotel which is pseudo-famous in Saigon because its where all the foreign news correspondents stayed during the Vietnam war. Again, it was interesting to think what the scene in the hotel must have been like during the war, especially during the last few days when many foreign correspondents and journalists had to be rushed out of the country via helicopter.
Sitting on the roof of the Caravelle we gazed into the nighttime horizon of Saigon. Saigon is so well developed that we could have just as easily been sitting at a rooftop bar in Manhattan; before us stretched high-end retail stores, modern skyscrapers, cranes arching into the sky, the endless fusillade of lights folding softly in the darkness of the distance, cars honking busily below. The bar itself was trendy and we were drinking American spirits listening to American music.
I don’t remember who said it, but if the war was fought so Vietnam could retain its communist / socialist bend…it looks like they failed. Saigon is as decidedly capitalist as any other I’ve traveled to. Granted I don’t know the inner workings of government / economy, but it has the same feeling as the capitalistic cities I’m accustomed to (Bucharest and Constanta in Romania, and Nessabaum in Bulgaria, for example, don’t have capitalistic feels to them).
Even though we had a relatively slow day we were still pretty exhausted. We walked back towards our hotel, got street noodles, got a drink at a bar with a great jam band and passed out.

Pictures - Thursday, October 13th 2011

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Wednesday, October 12th 2011

I woke up at 5:15 and showered in a shower stall that was so close to the toilet I could have sat on the toilet while I showered (I chose not to J).

When I walked outside the sun hadn’t yet risen and the humidity and temperature hadn’t yet encroached on the coolness of the nascent morning. None of the other people from my group were awake yet so I enjoyed the breakfast by myself – watching the red sun rise in the sky, observing the street vendors and merchants opening their places of business, listening to the zip of motorbikes as they whizzed past and the chatter of the Vietnamese people as they smoked cigarettes and drank strong coffee.

It was a wonderful start the day. I was totally happy and content with the simple things in life – a beautiful day, a new environment and a cup of good coffee. It reminded me of a morning in Kiniji, Rwanda when Maggie (my travel partner) hadn’t woken up yet and I watched the sun rise over the thousand hills of Rwanda drinking coffee, eating a banana and writing. There are some moments that are scribbled on the fabric of life with indelible ink, and my solitary morning in the Mekong Delta was another one of those moments.

Eventually other people on my group came out and I had breakfast with the four German’s I’d had a beer with the night before.

After breakfast we walked to the river for an early morning cruise on the Mekong Delta. While we jetted out into the river I joked with Stephen that Mekong Delta was the, ‘Venice of Vietnam’ but truth be told it does remind me of Venice in the sense that everything revolves around the water. The brown water that licked against the side of the boat is the life source, the sustenance that keeps the population thriving. To that end the delta feels less like a body of water and more like an artery pumping the area full of livelihood.

As we headed towards the market a man in a junk came up to our boat and latched to us like a pirate ship.

‘Hello! Hot coffee! Ice coffee! Hello! Hot coffee! Ice coffee!’

‘I just wish this guy was clearer with the goods he’s selling.’ I joked to Stephen.

I bought an iced coffee off the guy, and I’m glad I did, haven’t really come across a cup of coffee I didn’t like. Doesn’t seem to matter whose selling it.

When we got to the floating market, a clustering of boats moored to bamboo shoots sticking out of the water, the guide explained that the different merchants advertised their goods by tying them to a bamboo pole and hanging them high over their boats. So if you wanted, for example, pineapple you could look for the vendor that hoisted a pineapple above their ship and you’re all set.

We cruised up and down the water looking at the commerce and life as it takes place on the delta. We got off our ship and onto one of the boats at one point. We realized the people not only work on these boats, but they also live on them. Looked like a decent sized family lived on the boat we boarded.

Afterwards we veered off the main throng of the Mekong Delta and into one of the subsidiary tracts of water. We went to a place where women were making rice paper and noodles. As I sat there watching the women making the rice paper, a very delicate and precise work, I thought of how beautiful it is to watch someone do honest, good work. Sometimes it doesn’t feel so simple in America where so much of our work is abstract and intangible and the results of our toils are weeks, sometimes months away. At this facility their daily work is rewarded in the perfection of the delicate rice paper and the texture of their noodles.

Funny enough – as I was walking around the facility I came upon a woman making soup…and she was making Ramen noodles out of a package! She was surrounded by the noodles that were supplied through half the restaurants in the delta and she was eating processed noodles.

I brought Stephen over and showed him.

‘Looks like they don’t get high on their own supply.’ He said.

Haha!

Rest of the day was pretty standard…more cruising on the delta…crossed ‘monkey bridge’ (a bamboo bridge over a pond brimming with catfish)…more cruising the delta.

Aferwards the guide took us back to the same restaurant that Stephen and I saw advertising rat the night before.

‘I’d prefer to go somewhere that doesn’t serve rat.’ I said.

Stephen looked around, ‘I’m pretty sure all these places serve rat.’

I agreed and we went back to the same restaurant we ate at the prior night.

After lunch we had a four hour bus ride back to Saigon. It was extremely unpleasant…AC barely worked, bumpy roads, we were covered in a veneer of sweat the entire way.

When we got back we went out to a local restaurant and got their ‘hot pot’ specialty. It was horrible…boiled chicken, bland mushrooms, tasteless noodles. Yet another restaurant serving substandard food - the street carts are where its at!

After the lackluster hot pot we wandered to our favorite bar, Allez Boo, and smoked a hookah (sorry Mom) and had a few beers. Then we wandered to another bar down the street playing live music.

When Stephen went to the bathroom a guy came up to me. He was smallish, about 5’9’’, white, hirsute face.

‘Where are you from?’ He asked.

‘America. And you?’

‘Don’t worry where I’m from.’

‘I wasn’t worried, just making conversation.’ I said, ‘You came up to me dude.’

‘What do you do?’ He asked.

‘If you cant tell me where you’re from.’ I said, ‘Don’t bother asking me any other questions.’

‘What do you do?’ He repeated.

‘Like I said, not interested in having a conversation buddy.’

Five minutes later he walked over to me and tried to hand me a drink.

‘Dude, if you come up to me and ask me where I’m from and what I do and you can’t answer a single question. What makes you think I’ll take a drink from you?’

He tried to hand me the beer again.

‘Get lost.’

Despite the weirdo the bar was a lot of fun. When we walked outside the street had changed pretty dramatically – felt a lot seedier. No amount of seediness could deter Stephen and I from getting our beloved street noodles. We ate at a place on the corner and wandered back to our hotel.

Pictures - Wednesday October 12th

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Tuesday, October 11th 2011

Today we headed to the Mekong Delta in south west Vietnam.

We ate an early breakfast at 7:00 AM and were promptly picked up in front of our hotel. As the bus coursed through the thick throng of motorcycle drivers the guide told us there are four million registered motorbikes in the city. After a while you just become accustomed to the hum of the engines and the high-pitched honks. It’s as much a part of the audible fabric of the city as anything else I can think of.

Although we’d just arrived in Saigon it was nice to get out of the city. One can only take the motorbikes and exhaust and commotion for so long. As we left the city we drove through patches of torrential rain and scintillating sun shine in the same ten-minute period. The weather here is quite capricious.

We drove for about an hour when we came upon the Vinh Trang Pagoda which featured two massive Buddha statues, one sitting and one standing (probably 30 and sixty meters tall, respectively). I have to admit, if I never saw another temple or Pagoda I’d be okay with it. Seeing the temples was amazing, but since Stephen and I are neither Buddhism experts, nor Buddhist / Vietnamese art work / architecture connoisseurs…the only thing we can appreciate is the aesthetic beauty of the pagodas but like I said, there’s only so much you can appreciate.

After driving over countless rivulets, tributaries and rivers we arrived in the Mekong Delta.[1] The heat was oppressive – you could feel the power of the sun and density of the humidity weighing down upon you, pressing against your skin. You are sweating profusely from the moment you step out of air conditioning and you don’t stop sweating until you step back in it.

We got into a dilapidated boat and as we pushed off the boat sauntered back and forth with the waves. It started listing to the left and the guide yelled at people on the left to go to the right side of the boat so we wouldn’t tip over. As with all boats we’ve taken here it didn’t appear to be the most sea-worthy of crafts, but I suppose that all part of the fun.

The water in the Mekong Delta is a light-brown opaque’ish hue with various pieces of detritus floating in the water – discarded soda bottles, shoes, plants, coconuts – the stuff of life.

After touring around in the boat we ate at Turtle Island, one of the larger islands in the delta where fisherman live. While eating we had the unfortunate experience of watching children from the village basically torturing baby turtles. Hard to know when to step in and interfere with the kids when their parents are there watching them do it. Stephen and I figured it wasn’t our place, we were the guests, so we just kind of looked away.

After lunch we went deeper into the bamboo stalks of the Delta. The little tributary we followed got narrower and narrower and as we left the hustle and bustle of the main river behind it started to feel like we were in the movie Apocalypse Now, our rower carefully guiding our craft through the narrow pathways between the bamboo shoots. The guide told us we going to see where they make coconut candy, but our guide missed the bamboo stalks driven into the ground and our boat slammed into a concrete bridge. We weren’t going that fast, so there was never a fear we were going to sink or anything, but it was still unnerving.

I turned to Stephen, ‘If this thing sinks I hope you can swim.’

He nodded, ‘I hope you like leeches.’

We saw the whole coconut candy making operation. A girl asked how the villagers got the coconuts (which are about 40 feet in the air) and the woman said some children were trained to climb the trees and get the coconut, in lieu of a traditional education. The coconut candy was not that good. Stephen and I didn’t like it nor did many people on the tour. Apparently its big in China.

Afterwards Stephen and I tried liquor that was fermented using the carcass of a snake and a scorpion. Yeah…I normally would think it would be wise to try such a thing…but a few people before me had it and they didn’t die, so I figured it would be okay. The liquor tasted like what I imagine gasoline might taste like. Not the most pleasant stuff and definitely the weirdest thing I’ve ever drank.

Afterwards we took a hand rowed sampon through even smaller capillaries of the delta. The woman rowing the boat looked to be about 80 years old We were taken to another village where the villagers played traditional music for us. There were three instrument players and a few different singers. One of the men had the same instrument that was used in the water puppet show we saw in Hanoi. The music was nice, but for some reason all I could do was focus on the older man, playing a banjo-like instrument in the middle of the group. He was old and graying with a bird-like, sunken frame and looked like he’d been through hell. He just had a pair of eyes that seemed to look through you, not at you. Our tour guide had told us that the people of the Mekong Delta are very proud of the fact that they were never beat by the French or the Chinese. They are very proud of their fighting skills and they have an adage, ‘they can kill two birds with one bullet.’

Anyways, I found myself wondering if this man had fought in the Vietnam war, and what had been done to him, and when he had done to others, and all this was completely in my head and I don’t know what his story is…but I thought that maybe if my intuition is correct, and he did fights against America, then its sad that his livelihood is playing instruments for a bunch of American tourists.

After the concert we headed back to the bus and headed further into the Mekong Delta. We stopped at one point and I bought what I thought was a steamed pork roll, but when I bit into it I realized it was filled with quail eggs. Not the tastiest thing I’ve ever had, and I didn’t like the consistency. Only had a bite or two before throwing it out.

After driving for two and a half hour we arrived in Ben Tre and were guided to our, heavily advertised ‘one star hotel.’ (why would you advertise a one-star hotel?) It was a pretty seedy place and definitely the worst hotel we’d stayed at in Vietnam.

We dropped our bags off and headed out into the town to get some food…but most of the places were closed so we went to the place next door to our hotel. It’s facade covered in (seemingly) hundreds of newts or salamanders The inside of the restaurant was also pretty gross – they served rat, snake and other assorted creatures. At one point I went to the bathroom and walked past a row of snakes and eels in dirty green tanks of water. The smell was not too nice.

I was, to be quite honest, a smidge unnerved by the fact that they cooked and ate rat at the restaurant. I told Stephen that even if we didn’t order the rat, they would be cooking our dishes in the same pans and with the same utensils as they cooked the rat. Since there was nowhere else to eat we decided to stay, but I couldn’t get over the whole rat thing and didn’t eat much.

We had a few beers, were joined by four Germans (one of them obnoxious) towards the end. All in all a good day and a nice departure from the cities we’d explored on our way through Vietnam.

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[1] The Mekong Delta (“Nine Dragon river delta”) is the region in southwestern Vietnam where the Mekong River approaches and empties into the sea through a network of distributaries.

Pictures - Tuesday, October 11th 2011

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Pictures - Monday, October 10th 2011

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Monday, October 10th 2011

On the first two overnight trains I was accustomed to waking up to fields of rice paddies or soaring mountains. On Monday morning I awoke to the middle of congested, noisy city. As the train passed through the heart of Ho Chi Minh the Doppler effect - when noises rise and fall as the train gets nearer and further away from the source – was in full effect. I could hear escalating car horns, motorbikes, and chatter as the train passed the railroad crossings. It was quite a different feeling.

I woke Stephen up. ‘I think we’re here.’

No sooner had I said it than our door opened. The conductor looked at us, ‘You two for Saigon, right?’

We nodded.

‘This your stop.’

Stephen and I walked off the train, and into the suffocating heat of Ho Chi Minh[1] train station. It was noticeably hotter than any other place we’d traveled to.

I looked at Stephen. ‘We did it dude. We traveled the entire Reunification Express.’

It felt good. The whole idea to travel the length of Vietnam via train was a random idea that occurred to me when I discovered a single train line traversed all of Vietnam. And although I did research to make sure they actually ran, and they were safe, and all that jazz – I also heard stories of the coaches being infested with roaches and rats, Westerners being targeted for theft…the list goes on and on. It felt good to be standing in Saigon knowing we’d made it through all of Vietnam on our own.

After passing through by far the nicest train station we’d seen in Vietnam, Stephen and I found a cab to take us back to our hotel. The entire city was on fire, brilliantly alive with a distinct pulse and feel. It was more like NYC than any other place in Vietnam, and for that there was a tiny sense of comfort for us.

The hotel we booked at told us they actually didn’t have space, but booked as at their sister hotel around the corner. We followed a hotel worker to the other hotel and while we were checking in the concierge told us to be very careful in the streets. Saigon is far and away the most dangerous city in Vietnam. Tourists have to be careful when walking around with dangling cameras, jewelry..etc. Whereas I had no issues walking around Hanoi with my camera I figured I’d have to play Ho Chi Minh by ear.

We dropped our stuff in the room and headed out in the city.

(I should add that Stephen and I are exhausted. We’ve been gone for a week and a half, but with all the traveling we’ve done it honestly feels like we’ve been gone for a month).

Our first stop was Pho 2000, a place made famous when they served Bill Clinton (the first active US president to visit Vietnam after the Vietnam war) Vietnam’s famous pho noodles.

Then we walked through Ben Thranh market which, ‘has everything commonly eaten, worn or used by the Saigonese: vegetables, meats, spices, sweets, tobacco, clothing, hardware and so forth.’ (As we walked in I noticed ominously uniformed, ‘tourist safety police guards.’)

The market was interesting, and as I mentioned of the street market in Hoi An, definitely a place Anthony Bourdain would visit…but after spending two weeks being harassed to buy everything and everyone under the sun we couldn’t deal with the constant barrage as we walked around. We eventually left the market because we were frustrated.

We walked through a massive roundabout, which has a giant statue of Tran Nguyen Hai in the center, and were crossing the street when we saw our third traffic accident. Similar to the accident I saw coming back from Tam Coc, an old man lost control of his bike and slammed into the pavement. Poor fella – it couldn’t have felt good.

We walked around the city (the first day we go into a new city we like to walk around and just get a feel for the place), but as I mentioned before, we were both hot and tired and didn’t sleep too well on the overnight train from the night before. We stopped in at a hip café to have an iced coffee and then continued on to see the Hotel De Ville, Notre Dame Cathedral, Post Office, the outside of the Reunification Palace (where north Vietnamese tanks barged through to officially end the Vietnam war) and finally to the War Remnants Museum, which was once known as the ‘Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes.’ Hmm – glad they changed the title, the original one isn’t too welcoming to Americans.

After paying 10,000 dong we entered the museum and viewed a variety of American fighter planes, tanks, bulldozers, helicopters, Howitzer guns…etcetera. There was an old Vietnamese man walking around selling books. He was missing a leg and both arms, I’m sure from the Vietnam war. I tried to offer him 20,000 dong but he refused. He said he wouldn’t accept donations, that he was there to sell books and didn’t want money for nothing. I insisted but there was no budging this guy.

The next two hours I spent looking at pictures and reading anecdotes from North Vietnamese soldiers, family and children. Suffice to say…I saw stuff so disgusting and vile that I didn’t think it was appropriate to photograph, or really, to discuss in general. I think its something each person should experience for themselves if they feel so compelled. That being said, I made the following observations:

· I am amazed at otherwise normal and humane humans beings ability and willingness to inflict pain, suffering and torture on each other

· America did horrible things beyond what I thought our country was capable of

· Agent orange was a horrible genotoxic contagion that’s still wreaking havoc in Vietnam.

In summary, I thought there was a powerful quote from Robert S McNamara, ‘yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why.’ And yet it seems like the US continues to engage in wars around the world. Those that ignore history are condemned to repeat it.

After the museum Stephen and I were wiped. We walked home through the bustling traffic and ended up enjoying a few beers ar Allez Boo, a bar a few blocks away from our hotel. We needed to unwind. Beer helped.

---

[1] Most of the world calls Ho Chi Minh by its official name, but the locals use the old term Saigon. I switch back and forth between the two, so for reading purposes Ho Chi Minh = Saigon

Reunification Express - complete!

In eight days Stephen and I traveled 1,073 miles on the Reunification Express.

Hanoi - Hue - Danang - Hoi An - Nha Trang - Ho Chi Minh

Now off to explore the Mekong Delta...

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Today we decided to take a tour out to the islands we could see in the distance of the Nha Trang Bay. On our way out the first island I struck up a conversation with the guide.

‘Is the water always this brown?’

‘No’ he shook his head, ‘Normally it’s perfectly clear and blue. There is a lot of underwater construction lately that’s stirring up sediments on the bottom. Also there are very heavy rains lately.’

‘Will the water be clear where we’re snorkeling?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, its forty minutes off the coast. Very clear.’

He asked me where I’d traveled to in Vietnam. I told him all the villages we’d visiting along the coast and that we were headed to Ho Chi Minh that night.

‘Oh, I don’t think you can take train to Ho Chi Minh.’

My heart sunk. I asked him to explain why he thought that. He told me that apparently there was a fairly serious train accident between Danang and Nha Trang and no SE (North-South trains running on the Reunification Express) could pass until they’d cleaned up the wreckage.

Whoah – that had to have happened the day after Stephen and I had made the trip from Danang to Nha Trang. Unlike America, where there are usually two set of train tracks going between destination, in Vietnam there is only one set with occasional offshoot sections that allow trains to pass each other. So I could only imagine that a derailment would mess up the entire train system.

‘But we’re not taking the SE train to Ho Chi Minh.’ I said, ‘We’re taking the STN1 train that only runs between Nha Trang and Ho Cho Minh, so we should be okay, right?’

‘Oh yes, STN1 train will be fine. As long as you aren’t on SE train.’

Talk about dumb luck…Stephen and I had been frustrated when we couldn’t buy the SE trains the day before. If those trains hadn’t been sold out we’d have purchased the ticket and been stuck in Nha Trang. Fortunately our STN1 train was still running and we avoided yet another particularly sticky situation.

Again my travel adage rings true – approach your trip with preparation and a positive mental attitude and somehow, someway, things usually work out.

Anyways, after our conversation I went to the top of the boat and soaked in the scenery. A white butterfly flapping frantically as it sought the shore, the guttural throb of the engine as we pulsed towards the distant islands, the soaring mountains, the small floating fishing villages and the deep blue waters of the bay.

Suddenly – SNAP – the chair I was sitting on broke. That’s my second broken chair and I swear I am too big to visit Vietnam. The three Spanish girls on the top of the boat laughed at me.

‘Guess I need to lose weight?’ I joked.

‘No, I don’t think so.’ One of them laughed, ‘This maybe not the best boat.’

She was right. The boat reminded me of the boat that Chief Martin Brody used in Jaws.

We got our gear and went snorkeling. Fun, pretty standard stuff. There were floating, glass-bottomed boats filled with tourists that didn’t want to scuba dive. Stephen thought it would be funny to swim underneath one of the boats and wave at the people as they floated by. He was doing it when he slammed his back into a huge coral outcrop.

I was swimming about thirty yards away. Stephen paddled over.

‘Did I cut my back?’ He asked as he turned his back to me. His back was pretty badly cut up and oozing blood into the water.

In less than twelve hours Stephen had been hit with a rock and cut with coral.

After snorkeling we drove to another island where we snorkeled again. Then we had lunch, then we went fishing, then went to another island where we could lay on the beach and relax (I got a 60 minute massage on the beach for $10…nice!).

When we got back to Nha Trang we wandered around and got some street food and then headed back to the hotel.

After hanging out in the lobby for a few hours I needed to shower (I was covered in sand, baby oil (massage) and sun block lotion). Only problem is that we’d already checked out of the hotel…so I weaseled my way to the second floor where there was a pool and shower. Nobody was up there since it was cold and rainy. I talked the bartender into giving me a towel and then I took an ice cold shower (the ‘shower’ was actually the hose people used to rinse off sand before going in the pool). Umm, yeah, that was refreshing.

After hanging out in the lobby for hours, with our massive bags spewing things this way and that, and using their internet we left (note: we were happy to exploit the hotel since they almost didn’t let Stephen in the night before when hoodlums were throwing rocks at him).

By the time we caught a cab there were driving monsoon winds and buffeting sheets of rain outside. We had the cab drop us off at an internet café down the block from the train station (we try to spend as little time as possible in those horrible trains stations).

When we had to walk to the train station the rain and winds had picked up even more. The street had four inches of water in it and Stephen and I had to take off our shoes and walk barefoot through the streets to the train station.

‘Can you believe this rain?’ I yelled at Stephen.

‘Well, we are in south east Asia during monsoon season.’

Wise ass J

We must have been a sight arriving at the station – two massive backpacks strapped to our front and back side, covered in a poncho, walking barefoot.

The first train I tried to board was apparently headed in the wrong direction and the conductor yelled at me like I’d just drowned a bag of baby kittens. He yelled me off the train. We finally got the correct train to Ho Chi Minh. It was the oldest train yet – I am guessing it was forty to fifty years old and pretty nasty.

We shared our berth with two Vietnamese guys, pleasant enough, one of them was from Vietnam but lived in Orlando Florida and was home on vacation.

I was asleep in a half our…overall a very pleasant night.

Next stop Ho Chi Minh!

Pictures - Sunday, October 10th 2011

https://picasaweb.google.com/Joseph.Quaderer/20111009

Saturday, October 8th 2011

The train ride from Danang to Nha Trang wasn’t as nice as our train from Hanoi to Hue. This was partially due to the fact that the train was older and dirtier, but also because a man in our berth kept waking up, unlocking the door and disappearing for a half hour (leaving the door open the whole time).

We haven’t come across any theft issues yet, but I have been warned it happens on these overnight trains…so I kept waking up, finding the door open and then shutting it while the man was gone. This also required that I open the door when he returned because it automatically locked him out. This charade continued most of the night and contributed to a pretty restless sleep for me.

When I finally awoke for good I was amazed at the scenery outside my window. We’d traveled approximately 800 miles from Hanoi to Nha Tran and the landscape had changed dramatically. Thick deciduous trees gave away to sparser plains, and, on the eastern side of the train, breath-taking views of the South China Sea.

One of the many reasons I love traveling via train is that it cuts through the landscape and gives you a look at the countryside without the commercialized elements (i.e. there are no billboards, gas stations, snack shops along side the railroad as there are on the side of highways, its just the railroad and the country).

Anyways, the train crept along the perimeter of the sea. Sometimes the tracks were built upon giant boulders lining the sea and the train was no more than thirty yards away from the water. As the train approached Nha Tran there were intervals of pitch blackness (as the train passed through the tunnels that had been bored through the limestone) and resplendent brightness as we were once again introduced to the sun and water of the seemingly tropical environment.

Our train was supposed to arrive at 7:42 but given the two-hour delay the night before we weren’t sure when it was arriving. It was a bit of a guessing came and Stephen and I had our bags packed and ready to jump out of the train when we got to Nha Tran.

The loud speaker started blaring. Stephen tapped my bunk.

‘The lady is telling me this is Nha Trang.’

We shared a cab with a Californian and an Argentian to our hotel. The hotel itself is located right next to the beach, but it’s much different than the hotels we’ve been staying in. We’re used to mom & pop operations but this hotel (read: resort hotel) has a palpable American feel to it. Stephen and I both noticed that things have gotten more westernized the further south we travel.

We ate lunch and then walked down to the beach. The turquoise waters we’d heard about were nowhere to be found…instead we saw brown water. There were only five people along the entire stretch of the beach. (I later read that the water turns brown during heavy rains when runoff from the rivers floods the sea with silt).

Afterwards we got iced coffee at a café and then walked to the train station to purchase tickets for the final leg of the journey from Nha Trang to Ho Chi Minh.

So…there are three SE trains that go from Nha Trang to HCMC. SE1, SE3 and SE5. They left around the same time (~10:00 at night) but SE1 got into HCMC at 4:10 (not ideal), SE3 got into HCMC at 5:00 and SE5 got into HCMC at 4:40. We didn’t want to be in HCMC at 4:00 in the morning…probably not the safest thing in the world. For that reason the SE3 train made the most sense.

The lady at the desk told us there were no more soft sleeper seats left in any of the trains. We would either have to stay in a hard sleeper (6 people per room, sleeping on basically slabs of wood) or ride with the general population in regular seats. Eek…neither was a good option. We told her we needed to rethink our strategy…we considered everything from flying to HCMC, to paying a driver to bring us there, to taking a bus.

When we went back to the window the woman told us there was one other option, a local train, SNT1 that was three hours slower but had soft sleepers. It left at 10:00 at night and arrived the next day at 8:00 AM. Perfect!

We booked the trip…thank god for that.

The rest of the day we took it easy…we’ve both been traveling for such a long time and it’s catching up with us.

Nha Tran is known as a party or resort town so we decided to drag ourselves out at night. As we walked to the bar section we were propositioned by, quite literally, ever single motorcycle driver. ‘Boom boom?’ ‘Marijuana?’ ‘I got best girl for you. Boom boom long time.’ It was ridiculous and annoying. I started getting pretty cagey with them towards the end.

My friend told me Nha Trang attracts a lot of ‘trash with cash’ from Europe and her assessment definitely rang true was we walked through the streets at night.

‘Nha Trang is the Las Vegas of Vietnam.’ I said to Stephen as we walked into one of the bars.

At the bar we walked into, the bartender, who told us her name was ‘Ugly,’ challenged me to a game of connect four. She said if I won she would buy us shots, but if I lost I would have to pay for the shots myself. I took her up on her offer and, much to her surprise, beat her[1]! She gave us two shots and the night took off from there.

We spent a few hours at the bar, we met some South Africans, a guy from England, a few Ozzies… The bar closed at 12:00 and the whole crew of us decided to fo the Surfing Club together (the ‘Surfing Club’ is the pre-eminent night club in Nha Trang). As we walked through the streets Ugly, who had become quite good friends with the chap from England (more on that later), made us promise that we wouldn’t leave the surfing club without letting her know. Nha Trang, and this club specifically, are VERY notorious for chloroformed drinks and mugged tourists (as Stephen would regrettably find out later, he’s okay, read on).

When we were walking in Stephen turned to me. ‘I don’t think Ugly is a very good person.’

‘Did you just realize that?’ I chuckled. ‘I didn’t trust from the first moment I saw her.’

‘I know, but I think she wants us to tell her when we leave so she can set us up.’

‘That’s why we wont tell her when we leave.’

The club was nice. The Australians, the English guy and the South Africans and Stephen and I hung out outside. Regrettably Ugly was there too and by this time had an entire harem of girls she wanted to introduce us to.

‘Here you like this one.’ She said looking at me. ‘Her name Cherry.’

‘Ugly’ I smiled at her and leaned in. ‘You’re a pimp, aren’t you.’

‘Yes, what you think I am?’

‘Just making sure.’ I turned to Cherry. ‘You are pretty, but I’m sorry I’m not interested.’

I sat at the table with the rest of the crew and Cherry sat next to me. She looked as though she was offended. For a moment I was panic stricken, thinking maybe I’d read the situation incorrectly and insinuated a regular girl was a prostitute.

I turned to her. ‘You are…umm.’

‘What?’

Hmm…how to phrase this. ‘What do you do for a living?’

She cocked her head. ‘What you think?’

‘Gotcha.’ I said. ‘How long have you done it for.’

‘Five years.’ She shrugged, ‘But its okay, it gives me money to do what I want to do.’

Poor girl.

I excused myself from the table and walked through the dance floor. I was harassed by a dozen girls, all prostitutes, when I decided it was time to leave.

‘Why do you want to leave?’ Stephen asked.

‘Because I haven’t seen a girl that’s not a prostitute for two hours.’

He nodded. He decided to stay because he’d become pretty decent friends with the South Africans.

I took a cab home and passed out. Stephen came home later, and decided to go for a walk with his South African friends when the whole of them were harassed by three guys. Apparently Stephen was walking by the beach and the thugs were back a few hundred yards by the street. Stephen ignored them until a fist sized rock thudded in the sand next to him.

He walked in the direction of our hotel (the thugs were between Stephen and our hotel) and they demanded money. Stephen ignored them and when he walked past they threw another fist sized rock into his back.

He turned around and gave them 50,000 dong ($2.5) but they wouldn’t stop following him.

Finally he got to the hotel and the concierge didn’t want to let him in because he thought Stephen was just trying to evade the thugs, and not because Stephen had a room there.

Eventually they let him in. Stephen is okay…must have been a glancing blow. Quite an exciting end to the night.

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[1] N.B. My record against her for the night was 6-0. J

Pictures - Saturday, October 8th 2011

https://picasaweb.google.com/Joseph.Quaderer/20111009

Picture s- Friday, October 7th 2011

https://picasaweb.google.com/Joseph.Quaderer/20111008

Friday, October 7th 2011

After our birthday celebration the prior night…we got to a, umm, late start on Friday morning. It was a beautiful day when we finally left our hotel room and even the somewhat commercial / drab Danang looked bright and pleasant. Since we’d already spent a day and night in Danag we decided to head to Hoi An.
Hoi An used to be a booming village, filled with Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese traders…but silt deposits in the Thu Bon River forced larger commercial ships to start using Danang as the main Vietnamese port henceforth. The result is a sleepy little touristy town with a rich cultural heritage and a very ancient feel to it (there are no cars allowed in the street). It has so much heritage that it was actually branded a UNESCO world heritage status in 1999.
Anyways, we left our hotel and walked to the taxi driver outside. He was asleep in his car (which is pretty standard for cab drivers here). We tried to wake him up – talking gently and rocking him softly – but it didn’t work. We started getting louder and louder. The man didn’t budge. At one point I was actually concerned he was dead, but I saw his chest slowly moving up and down. We opened the door and shut it – that seemed to do the trick. Our sleepy driver sprung to. He agreed to drive us to Danang for 320,000 dong ($17 USD).
The drive from Danang to Hoi An is 25 km of scenic highway – we drove along China beach for most of the trip…at one point we had to stop in the middle of the road because there was a cattle crossing.
Hoi An had a very lazy, sleepy feel about it. The car moratorium contributed to it – but in general it had a very ‘siesta-like’ feel when Stephen and I arrived (~1:30 PM). We ate some street food (chicken and rice – amazing!) went to a café and got the best iced coffee I’ve ever had, and finally started our walking tour of the city.
Our first stop was the Tran Family Chapel, which was entertaining in and of itself, but the really awesome thing is that we were able to buy ancient Chinese coins that had been discovered in Hoi An in the late 1990’s. I got a coin from, get this, 25 A.D. Stephen got one from the same year. It was hard wrapping my mind around the age of the coin…I felt like it was something that should be in a museum (a few of the coins were in museums in Hoi An)…not something I should be able to purchase.
We kept walking along the streets, where music was playing softly (that particular touch was a little Disney-land-ish) as we explored one place after another….Museum of trading ceramics (showed all the Vietnamese trade routes / partners over the centuries)…Hoi An museum of history and culture…Quan Thang House…etcetera.
So one thing Hoi An is well known for is creating custom-tailored clothes (suits, dresses, jackets…you name it and they’ll make it for you). Stephen saw some jackets he liked and they promised we could have the jackets by 7:00 (after leaving Hoi An we needed to somehow get to Danang, pick up our stuff, and be at the train station at 9:30 for our trip to Nha Trang).
Stephen got measured for two jackets and I got measured for a business long coat. It was pretty cool – you could design it however you wanted (i.e. add a pocket there, make it three buttons instead of two, add a zipper…etc) and also select the external and internal fabric.
Afterwards we walked through the street market where the indigenous people shop for food. We were harassed by the people as we walked along - ‘Mr. you buy!’ ‘You buy!’ I have very good price!’ It was like that everywhere we went. The hawkers don’t seem to be into the whole know-your-customer mentality…they simple just want you to buy something…anything. Despite their constant pestering the market was cool and definitely somewhere Anthony Bourdain would have visited had he come to Hoi An.
Next we came upon the Japanese covered bridge just as the sun was beginning to set. The bridge was constructed in 1590 by the Japanese who wanted to link with Chinese traders located across the stream.
We continued our walk around the river as the sun set and again I was overcome with gratefulness to be able to share such a special day with my brother and to be blessed with a wonderful environs and beautiful weather.
We ate dinner at the Mermaid Restaurant, which is one of the oldest restaurants in Hoi An (est. 1991…not all that old?).
Walking back to get our jackets Stephen and I discussed how we were both beginning to feel like nomads. We’d been to four cities in six days and travelled several hundred miles along the way.
We got out jackets from the tailor (looks quite snappy, btw) and we made small talk with them. They found out we needed a cab ride back to Danang and one of the girls said she’d call her brother so we didn’t have to deal with shady taxi drivers.
We were there waiting for her brother to arrive when a bunch of French ladies came to pick up their tailor-made clothes. These exquisitely refined ladies were really malcontents in disguise and they were incredibly rude to the lovely tailor girls. They complained about everything since their rotund bodies didn’t fit into the tailored clothing (apparently its hard to hide the appearance of back-fat-rolls, even with the assistance of an expert tailor).
_

The girl told us her brother was there, we thanked her again and set off to find him. As we walked I told Stephen that what happened to us was an example of, what I call, natural karma. I don’t believe in the traditionalist conception of karma, but I do feel if you do the right thing and treat people nicely good things happen. Because we were nice to the tailors they looked out for us and took care of our transportation issue. I promise if the corpulent French ladies were in the same predicament the girl wouldn’t have offered to have her brother drive them back to Danang.
But I digress…
We eventually got back to our hotel, changed and headed for the train station. We were an hour early so we went across the street to an internet café where they were BLASTING club music and watching mute American movies. Nobody was talking…it was all quite odd.
The train was fifteen minutes late, but then pulled out of the station and sat there for over two hours not doing anything. Stephen and I drank beers and stuck our heads out the window trying to figure out what was going on. Our train was supposed to depart at 9:56 but it was after midnight and it still hadn’t left. Stephen and I decided to cut our losses and we headed to bed.
The train was older, dirtier and altogether less pleasant than our first trip. I didn’t sleep well for a variety of reasons: I got kind of sick, the girl in our cab was sick, the man in our cab kept waking up, leaving the berth and leaving the door open (not good considering all our bags were near the door).
I finally passed out around 1:00 AM. I woke at 2:00 to the sound of the loud speaker blaring something in Vietnamese. I woke up again at 3:00 when the berth next to ours erupted in concussions of laughter and yelling.
Exhausted, dirty and not feeling to hot I finally capitulated to sleep…looking forward to waking up in Nha Tran the next morning…

Thursday, October 6th 2011

On Wednesday night we hired a driver to drive us from Hue to Danang on Thursday morning. After a quick breakfast we met our driver and were off on the two-and-a-half hour journey south to Danang. The woman who booked the trip for us promised we could stop ’anywere we wanted’ on the way there so we thought it was a good deal (trip cost us $55 total).

The first place we asked to stop was Loc Dien, a collection of Hamlets that had its fifteen minutes of fame when Life ran a 10,000-word feature about eight men from the village who’d been ‘marked for death’ by the Viet Cong.

Being able to ‘stop anywhere we wanted’ wasn’t quite so simple…the driver blew right by the site a la our boat operator the day before that ‘let us see the fishing villages.’

I don’t think the driver did it on purpose, its just that we weren’t explicit enough when communicating with him. Saying, ‘oh that looks interesting – we’d like to check that out’ is a different command than ‘stop the car we would like to get out.’ Anyways we blew by it but Stephen and I weren’t terribly interested in the town anyways so it wasn’t a big deal.

Next we tried to see a portion of the Ho Chi Minh trail, down which men and material traveled throughout the Vietnam war, but our driver said the trail was 200 kilometers away (even though our guide book said there was a portion right next to the Mandarin Road we were traveling on). Hmm…okay!

We pulled over on the side of the road at one point where we could see both the inlet and the South China Sea. No sooner had we stopped the car (in the middle of a highway) when I saw a man bounding down towards us carrying a bag of goods.

When the man got closer I realized he was severely deformed. His eyes were clouded over like the eyes of a fish that’s been dead too long. His teeth were rotted, his face sunken. His hands were like gnarled roots. Immediately I assumed he was a leper (there is a leper colony nearby…all lepers in the area are quarantined there). I walked around taking pictures but Stephen engaged him in conversation. Apparently the guy had fought with the American troops during the war…he pointed out a few battle sights and whatnot. Stephen, being every vendors dream customer naturally purchased a few things from the man J

Next the driver took us to a resort, where he seemed to be quite friendly with the locals. It was fine with Stephen and I because we wanted to dip our feet in the South China see anyways. We walked through the depreciated (it must have been the off season or something, there were Christmas lights and garlands hanging in the rafters) and down to the beach.

So get this ‘scam’ – I thought this was really funny. As we’re descending from the resort to the beach a guy walked up and said, ‘hey where are you two from?’

‘America.’

He shook his head. Normally there would be the follow up, ‘whats your name’ or ‘how do you like Vietnam’ or ‘where in America?’ But he said nothing…he let us walk down to the beach.

Odd. Hmm, okay cool.

So we get to the beach and we’re swarmed by five or six different vendors selling standard stuff. But then the man who had asked us where we were from walked into the circle with another woman. Both of them had books displaying different currencies from around the world. He pointed out a particularly cryptic bill with Arabic writing.

‘Do you know where that’s from?’ He asked.

I shook my head.

‘Oh’ he said dejectedly, ‘ I collect bills from other countries and cannot figure out which country its from.’ Then he cheered up, ‘The only country I don’t have is the United States.’

Hmm…so this guy, who knew what country I was from, wanted me to believe he’s a currency collector and the only country he still needs happens to be the country I am from. Oh, and the woman he walked towards me with, oddly enough, found herself in the same quandary…unable to complete her revered collection without a good ol’ greenback.

I smiled at him. ‘Sorry my friend.’

Next we took the Hai Van pass over the mountains separating Hue and Danang. We passed old French imperial forts with the words, ‘gate of the clouds by the sea’ and ‘most grandiose gates in the world.’

I don’t know about the gates, per se, but the trip on the Hai Van pass was breath taking. Our car snaked along a sinewy road that hugged the side of the mountain. Just on the other side of the guard rail the road gave away to cliffs that rolled all the way to the South China Sea hundreds of feet below.

At the midpoint of the Hai Van Pass we stopped to take pictures at an old military base. It was interesting because most US military vestiges were destroyed before America withdrew from Vietnam (the US didn’t want to give the VC any pictures they could use as propaganda to bash America). So it was a rare sight – I imagine they didn’t tear it down because it was fairly well-developed concrete (pill boxes and the such) that would have been difficult to dismantle.

As I was waiting for spiderman aka Stephen to finish crawling over every inch of the old base I saw a truck filled with pigs drive by. I had to be 200 yards away from the truck but the smell was bad enough to make me a vegetarian.

As I walked towards our car I was harassed by a woman that wanted me to buy things from her shop.’

‘Where are you from?’ She asked.

‘America.’

‘Oh yes, I like America very much. Do you like Alabama?’

I shrugged. ‘I suppose I like it enough. Its kind of far away.’

‘What do you mean Obama is kind of far away?’

‘Oh, you said Obama?’ I chuckled, ‘Yes, I like him alright.’

‘He is very young, but he already look much older.’

‘Presidencies are known to do that. Very high stress.’

She nodded. ‘I hope he can make America great again.’

Make America great again, I thought. Funny how a woman proferring goods on the side of the road in Vietnam is aware of the travails America is undergoing. Globalization.

I decided not to purchase tiger blood and the other goods she offered. Stephen bought cookies (I think he’s batting 1,000 purchasing things from every vendor from Hanoi to Danang).

Our hotel was the nicest aesthetically, but the worst in terms of location. Its in a commercial section of Danang (someone that knows Danang might say, ‘what area of Danang isn’t commercial?).

Stephen and I took a taxi to Danang Train station, purchased our train tickets and walked around. There is not a lot (read:nothing) to do in Danang, so we thought we’d just ‘absord’ another city. We got street food (see picture below). It was one of the only times in my life where I literally didn’t have any clue as to what I was eating. When I bit into things it could have been raw fish or rice-gellatin…very exciting. The food was delicious and I will say Danang had far and away the best and most varied street food of any place we visited.

After eating we tried to walk to Xuan Thieu-Nam O Beach – where the first contingent of US combat troops came ashore in 1965. The marine bas sprawled across the whole of the beach (apparently the only vestige is a restaurant that sits on the concrete the soldiers poured as the foundation for an officers lodge during the war).

Unfortunately the entire beach was walled off for renovations so we headed back to our hotel.

Talk about globalism – we ate dinner at an Australian restaurant, ate pizza cooked by an Italian, were served by a Vietnamese woman and we listened to American music (Jay Z).

Stephen and I had a great night celebrating my birthday. Our waitress was really sweet and told us a lot about Vietnamese culture (her father fought in the VC).

I celebrated my birthday at midnight, one of the other waitresses we’d become friendly with walked down the stairs at midnight with a cupcake that had a candle in it. They played happy birthday on the speakers and a bar full of strangers sang me happy birthday in Danang, Vietnam. Very special indeed.

Afterwards Stephen went to the hotel and I walked along China Beach by myself, reflecting on turning the big 3-0.

What else can I say…I’m blessed and forever thankful.

Okay, got to go – getting kicked out of Wifi bar and time to get on my next midnight train – next stop Nha Trang!