When last I left you, I was headed out for a night in the Chinese town of Nanning after successfully picking up my passport from the Vietnamese consulate. An English friend I had met in Beijing had a bartender friend who had moved to Nanning to escape credit card debt in England. Tatooed and wearing a tight black tank top, Tom would be our guide for the evening. We headed out with his Chinese girlfriend, Chin, and another bartender with long wavy brown hair who told us to call him "vegetable head". Clubs in China are really different than anywhere else I've been to. They don't really have big dancefloors, as far as I could tell. Instead people stand or sit around tall tables and play games similar to "rock, paper, scissors" except they call it "pretty girl, bad guy, and policeman" and they turn it into a sort of dance.
I've never felt more like a celebrity in my life. Every club we went to, people smiled and said hello, calling us over to drink and play these games with them because we were Westerners. I went to the bar to order a drink and immediately the guy next to me poured me some of his. They just love drinking with Westerners. And I happen to just love drinking for free. It was a perfect match... and the main reason why I woke up in the Nanning train station at 10:30am, two hours after my train to the Vietnam border had already left.
I heaved my backpack over my shoulders and fastened my hip belt, smiling at the boys, still staring at me. So no train then. But there was another option to get out of China. I needed to take a city bus to the main bus station on the other side of town. After asking several people on the street how to do this, I eventually found someone who knew enough English to answer "where bus 6?" and headed for the station. 30 minutes later, I found that I couldn't buy the $1.25 bus ticket because I had spent all of my money trying to buy a round of expensive drinks at the club the night before. Nice move, Gar. No one knew where to exchange dollars and there were no ATMs. So I jumped in a cab and told him "bank China" using a phrasebook I had bought on the street a week before. At the bank, the ATM was out of money. They filled it up. Then it was broken. They took me to the main counter. After another 30 minutes of paperwork I had money for the bus. The bus was about 3 hours long. I mixed ramen noodle mix into a package of smashed noodles and ate it dry. My head was pounding. This was going to be a long day.
The bus ran to the border town of Pingxiang. Getting out I was attacked by taxi drivers telling me they'd take me to the border. Not even thinking of the exchange rates, I haggled the price down a bit then got in the back of a carriage led by a motorcycle called a tuk tuk. Then came the rain. 25 minute drive to the border. We stopped at a barracade and my driver told me this was as far as he could take me. I paid him and staggered toward the barracade, passing armed guards and a group of young men talking around the open hood of a Russian Lada. It was a 10 minute walk, then to customs, which was a joke. A little boy hid shyly behind a sign and giggled when I waved at him while filling out my departure card. Then it was through a gate where there was one customs agent and three rows of powered down metal detectors. He stamped my passport and I was in Vietnam.
Another taxi to the border town of Lang Son where I jumped into a minibus, again after a mindless price-haggling ordeal. I was the only passenger for few minutes before the driver took off for the first cruise around town, looking for more passengers. An hour and a half later I was banging my head against the glass of the back corner of the bus, as the 15 passenger limit was well overpassed and I sat with my feet on a package on the ground and my legs up almost all the way to my chest. Then we started out for Hanoi. A short, wiry Vietnamese man fell asleep an hour into the drive to Hanoi and slouched onto my shoulder. Two shrug-offs proved futile, so I closed my eyes and pictured my happy place. My happy place was everywhere except that minibus and in it there were no headaches, ramen came with hot water in a bowl and there was a beautiful supermodel asleep on my shoulder- but I probably could have accepted a decent-smelling st. bernard at that point.
Pulling into Hanoi, I immediately accepted a ride from a motorbike taxi driver, thinking death in a motorcycle accident wouldn't be too bad after the past 4 hour drive into the city. I soon discovered Vietnam's liberal following of what we may consider "road rules"... my driver darted in and out of traffic, signaling with his horn when he intended to plow sidelong into a moving wall of traffic- as if the horn could part the waters of mayhem at its very command. We squeezed across an intersection, overtook a tourist bus, dove across oncoming traffic to beat the rush on a hard left turn and I realized it might be the green lights that were the most dangerous as no one paid much attention to stopping at mere traffic signals.
Into the Old Quarter we rode, passing street vendors and sidewalk restaurants; entire families riding on motorbikes; monstrous tourist buses and bold pedestrians playing frogger across the narrow cross streets. Turning a corner, a ray of light shone down on my hotel from the Heavens, as a lighthouse to a storm-battered ship sailing for its home harbor, and I could have sworn I heard church bells welcoming my arrival.
Hanoi at last!
I'm glad I missed that train.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
The Road to Saigon
The next day I headed out on a 3-day package tour of Ha Long Bay from my hotel for a dirt cheap $45. Included were all meals, 3-hour bus ride to the coast and back, a night sleeping on a boat in the middle of the bay, a tour of a cave on an island in the bay, a hike up a mountain on Cat Ba Island, a 3-hour kayaking tour through a fishing village, and a night in a hotel on the island. Unbelievable. Giant limestone karst peaks like jagged teeth rose out of the bay and tourist boats shared the seas with fishing vessels of all shapes and sizes. I met a French couple and a French-Canadian couple on the boat. The French couple had just finished a two-week stint volunteering at an orphanage outside Hanoi. When asked about traveling, the kids there dreamed of one day visiting Hanoi, barely 50 miles away. Here I am, 8,000 miles from home with a backpack that costs more than they see in their entire lifetimes.
I give my highest recommendation for traveling to Vietnam. The country was phenomenal. I might not recommend taking a bus down the length of the country from Hanoi to Saigon, though. Pressed for time, I had to skip everything in between the two big cities, taking a 34-hour sleeper bus for the nearly 1,100 mile distance...
The trumpet horn sings out at the pavement ahead, announcing our presence and intentions to oncoming trucks and scores of shoulder-hugging motorbikes. Streets lined with storefronts, mini-markets and foodstands pass by; families and neighbors sit at plastic tables above dirt floor patios; straw cone hats bob among rice patties, bamboo shacks as sentries to pink flowered gardens; the road bends with the passing hills, lined with windmill-shaped ferns, palm trees and a background tree-lined mountain ridge; low-hanging white cottonball clouds floating, suspended at the mountain ridge mid-level; silk-masked women carrying baskets by motorbike; a lone child in a yellow t-shirt carrying a plastic bag full of groceries; rivers stretching and vibrant greens swimming; dark green army helmets strolling roadside, arm around a friend, neighbor, brother; snaking up ascending skyward mountain road, twists and leaning bodies bouncing, sun shining, reflecting, scorching; chimes blaring through bus speakers to a video of colorfully robed opera singers; water buffaloes grazing, basking, stone walls crumbling, railway workers sweating, laundry lines hanging, shirtless children wading; a periodic breath-stealing poison stench from the bus lavatory; a pothole smash and the darting swerve of an overtaking minibus; the swing of a hammock and the swirl of a distant rising smoke, higher up over and around twisting, white lines tracing, vast lake revealed: reddish sand outlined, at once disappeared and back returned; road falling down, hugging a water's edge; gazing at mountains looming; boats of rust and rot and bamboo poles emerging; scattered graves standing with rocks and sand under a canopy; colored triangular roofs above a narrow building; a tunnel approaching, yellow light consuming, the long darkness swallowing; out again and the sea welcomes- factories, warehouses, powerlines and rock piles; hillsides carved and brown grass growing; propaganda billboards like traffic signs while giant brown nets hang over water with four corners hoisted by long bamboo poles; rickshaws of long construction lumber and cafes with curbside motorbikes parked as horses to a trough; garages and bookstores, baseball caps and breathing masks, tire piles and fruit stands. The bus pulls into Da Nang town. Fuel, rest, heat. 16 hours and counting.
The trumpet horn sings and the road to Saigon rolls on.
I give my highest recommendation for traveling to Vietnam. The country was phenomenal. I might not recommend taking a bus down the length of the country from Hanoi to Saigon, though. Pressed for time, I had to skip everything in between the two big cities, taking a 34-hour sleeper bus for the nearly 1,100 mile distance...
The trumpet horn sings out at the pavement ahead, announcing our presence and intentions to oncoming trucks and scores of shoulder-hugging motorbikes. Streets lined with storefronts, mini-markets and foodstands pass by; families and neighbors sit at plastic tables above dirt floor patios; straw cone hats bob among rice patties, bamboo shacks as sentries to pink flowered gardens; the road bends with the passing hills, lined with windmill-shaped ferns, palm trees and a background tree-lined mountain ridge; low-hanging white cottonball clouds floating, suspended at the mountain ridge mid-level; silk-masked women carrying baskets by motorbike; a lone child in a yellow t-shirt carrying a plastic bag full of groceries; rivers stretching and vibrant greens swimming; dark green army helmets strolling roadside, arm around a friend, neighbor, brother; snaking up ascending skyward mountain road, twists and leaning bodies bouncing, sun shining, reflecting, scorching; chimes blaring through bus speakers to a video of colorfully robed opera singers; water buffaloes grazing, basking, stone walls crumbling, railway workers sweating, laundry lines hanging, shirtless children wading; a periodic breath-stealing poison stench from the bus lavatory; a pothole smash and the darting swerve of an overtaking minibus; the swing of a hammock and the swirl of a distant rising smoke, higher up over and around twisting, white lines tracing, vast lake revealed: reddish sand outlined, at once disappeared and back returned; road falling down, hugging a water's edge; gazing at mountains looming; boats of rust and rot and bamboo poles emerging; scattered graves standing with rocks and sand under a canopy; colored triangular roofs above a narrow building; a tunnel approaching, yellow light consuming, the long darkness swallowing; out again and the sea welcomes- factories, warehouses, powerlines and rock piles; hillsides carved and brown grass growing; propaganda billboards like traffic signs while giant brown nets hang over water with four corners hoisted by long bamboo poles; rickshaws of long construction lumber and cafes with curbside motorbikes parked as horses to a trough; garages and bookstores, baseball caps and breathing masks, tire piles and fruit stands. The bus pulls into Da Nang town. Fuel, rest, heat. 16 hours and counting.
The trumpet horn sings and the road to Saigon rolls on.
Against the Wind
You can either take a bus from Saigon to Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia, or you can take a boat up the Mekong River from a town called Chau Doc, near the border. I had elected to go with the boat option, paying an additional 10 bucks to upgrade to an express hydrofoil. What cooler way to go to Cambodia, eh? As it turned out, I didn't make that connection either.
After walking around town all day, I was making my way back to my hostel when a guy on a motorbike asked me, "where you from?" I had been getting accustomed to politely avoiding people on the street who approached me because there were so many. But for some reason I turned around and answered "America." His name was Day. He told me he was a private tour guide and showed me a book of recommendations from numerous travelers who he had guided on custom trips around southern Vietnam. The first recommendation read: "So, you've stumbled across Day, tour guide extraordinaire, and you are thinking it is pretty shady to accept a tour offer from a random Vietnamese guy on the street. Believe me- GO WITH DAY! You won't regret it!"
So I cancelled my hydrofoil ticket.
Day agreed to take me on a 2-day tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were used by the Viet Cong to harass American soldiers during the "American War". He said he would take me there and to his hometown of Tay Ninh for dinner with his family. The next morning, as I waited for him to pick me up on his motorbike in a torrential downpour just short of a full blown monsoon, I started having doubts. I only managed 3 hours sleep in an oven-like guest house room the night before, I was already soaked, and the idea of a comfortably dry tour bus ride into Cambodia was beaconing. Easy, dry, bus ride with a tour company and fellow travellers... or a rain-soaked 70 km ride on the back of a motorbike to the tunnels with a local Vietnamese man who's father had been killed in the tunnels by an American bomb dropped from a B52? What sort of trip was this anyway? Comfortable and easy or adventurous and limit-pushing?
I sighed. Then laughed. "Alright Day, I need to buy a raincoat first. Let's go." Jumping on the back of the bike, I felt that comfort zone explode one more time.
The ride was wet, to say the least. I swore I couldn't have felt wetter if I'd been in a swimming pool. Manuevering through the traffic of downtown Saigon, holding the seat in a white-knuckled terror as your hired tour guide passes slower moving traffic by swerving into oncoming traffic lanes is probably the last way you would want to understand what driving in Vietnam is like. I found closing my eyes helped until a bus flew through a puddle, spraying us in mud and water and nearly knocking us into a trishaw driver carrying a chain basket of live pigs. I thought of the bus to Cambodia and of my stubborn quest for adventure.
But the rain slowed and we got to the tunnels. I followed Day and another guide through the narrow passageways, trying to keep up with them and smacking my head several times on the dirt roofs in doing so. I almost felt like I was in Discovery Zone, trying to chase a friend's little brother through the plastic tunnels long after I had already grown too big to manage more than a slow, cursing crawl.
Mixed emotions, disturbing, confusing... They played a video honoring the achievements of the Viet Cong against the "evil American invaders", showing how they set traps with steel spikes and popped out of the pits to fire machine guns into a field of advancing soldiers before disappearing into the earth again. By the end of the video I was thoroughly pissed off. I had to take a few deep breaths. I was really in no position to be angry at anybody. Here I am as an American tourist being led by people who had grown up in the area with families who had been permanently affected by the war. Feel bad for them? Feel guilty? Feel angry? I didn't know.
I can't describe what it is like to stand in front of a war memorial statue of a woman holding her dying son in her lap in the middle of a cemetary where thousands of Vietnamese were killed by my countrymen. Nor the feeling of standing in a museum, staring at war photographs of mangled corpses and deformed limbs from American chemical weapons next to families of Vietnamese tourists. Then there was the video of how American soldiers were tortured, how the tunnels became a hell trap for boys who had been drafted to fight a war they didn't know anything about.
All of those images were mixing around as I sat down on the tiled floor of Day's tiny home with him and his three brothers-in-law, sitting under a mantle where a portrait of Day's father in military uniform stood watch. The whole experience was so surreal. But the most amazing thing about the entire crazy, convoluted scene? How unbelievably genuine my hosts were to me. They held absolutely zero negative feelings against Americans, much less me. We passed shots of a heavy rice wine and ate chicken and rice, with Day acting as a translator. I expressed my gratitude for how welcoming they were to me. Then one of Day's brothers-in-law shook his head and then shook my hand, looking me straight in the eye. He said something in Vietnamese and held my hand firm. Day translated. "Our governments may not agree, may not ever agree, but we are the same. We have the same heart."
I nearly cried.
The rice wine shots kept on coming and we sat and sang to a kareoke machine into the night. I sang "Against the Wind" and "A Hard Day's Night" which were the only songs I knew in the list of songs that started with A. Quang and Trang got into singing some Vietnamese songs and I got Day to sing one too.
The hydrofoil ride will have to wait for the next time I cross into Cambodia.
After walking around town all day, I was making my way back to my hostel when a guy on a motorbike asked me, "where you from?" I had been getting accustomed to politely avoiding people on the street who approached me because there were so many. But for some reason I turned around and answered "America." His name was Day. He told me he was a private tour guide and showed me a book of recommendations from numerous travelers who he had guided on custom trips around southern Vietnam. The first recommendation read: "So, you've stumbled across Day, tour guide extraordinaire, and you are thinking it is pretty shady to accept a tour offer from a random Vietnamese guy on the street. Believe me- GO WITH DAY! You won't regret it!"
So I cancelled my hydrofoil ticket.
Day agreed to take me on a 2-day tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were used by the Viet Cong to harass American soldiers during the "American War". He said he would take me there and to his hometown of Tay Ninh for dinner with his family. The next morning, as I waited for him to pick me up on his motorbike in a torrential downpour just short of a full blown monsoon, I started having doubts. I only managed 3 hours sleep in an oven-like guest house room the night before, I was already soaked, and the idea of a comfortably dry tour bus ride into Cambodia was beaconing. Easy, dry, bus ride with a tour company and fellow travellers... or a rain-soaked 70 km ride on the back of a motorbike to the tunnels with a local Vietnamese man who's father had been killed in the tunnels by an American bomb dropped from a B52? What sort of trip was this anyway? Comfortable and easy or adventurous and limit-pushing?
I sighed. Then laughed. "Alright Day, I need to buy a raincoat first. Let's go." Jumping on the back of the bike, I felt that comfort zone explode one more time.
The ride was wet, to say the least. I swore I couldn't have felt wetter if I'd been in a swimming pool. Manuevering through the traffic of downtown Saigon, holding the seat in a white-knuckled terror as your hired tour guide passes slower moving traffic by swerving into oncoming traffic lanes is probably the last way you would want to understand what driving in Vietnam is like. I found closing my eyes helped until a bus flew through a puddle, spraying us in mud and water and nearly knocking us into a trishaw driver carrying a chain basket of live pigs. I thought of the bus to Cambodia and of my stubborn quest for adventure.
But the rain slowed and we got to the tunnels. I followed Day and another guide through the narrow passageways, trying to keep up with them and smacking my head several times on the dirt roofs in doing so. I almost felt like I was in Discovery Zone, trying to chase a friend's little brother through the plastic tunnels long after I had already grown too big to manage more than a slow, cursing crawl.
Mixed emotions, disturbing, confusing... They played a video honoring the achievements of the Viet Cong against the "evil American invaders", showing how they set traps with steel spikes and popped out of the pits to fire machine guns into a field of advancing soldiers before disappearing into the earth again. By the end of the video I was thoroughly pissed off. I had to take a few deep breaths. I was really in no position to be angry at anybody. Here I am as an American tourist being led by people who had grown up in the area with families who had been permanently affected by the war. Feel bad for them? Feel guilty? Feel angry? I didn't know.
I can't describe what it is like to stand in front of a war memorial statue of a woman holding her dying son in her lap in the middle of a cemetary where thousands of Vietnamese were killed by my countrymen. Nor the feeling of standing in a museum, staring at war photographs of mangled corpses and deformed limbs from American chemical weapons next to families of Vietnamese tourists. Then there was the video of how American soldiers were tortured, how the tunnels became a hell trap for boys who had been drafted to fight a war they didn't know anything about.
All of those images were mixing around as I sat down on the tiled floor of Day's tiny home with him and his three brothers-in-law, sitting under a mantle where a portrait of Day's father in military uniform stood watch. The whole experience was so surreal. But the most amazing thing about the entire crazy, convoluted scene? How unbelievably genuine my hosts were to me. They held absolutely zero negative feelings against Americans, much less me. We passed shots of a heavy rice wine and ate chicken and rice, with Day acting as a translator. I expressed my gratitude for how welcoming they were to me. Then one of Day's brothers-in-law shook his head and then shook my hand, looking me straight in the eye. He said something in Vietnamese and held my hand firm. Day translated. "Our governments may not agree, may not ever agree, but we are the same. We have the same heart."
I nearly cried.
The rice wine shots kept on coming and we sat and sang to a kareoke machine into the night. I sang "Against the Wind" and "A Hard Day's Night" which were the only songs I knew in the list of songs that started with A. Quang and Trang got into singing some Vietnamese songs and I got Day to sing one too.
The hydrofoil ride will have to wait for the next time I cross into Cambodia.
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