viet nam

Hi world,

I'd been delaying writing about Vietnam because I hadn't quite made up my mind about it...and then I didn't have internet access for three days, so I couldn't have written if I wanted. But, we're back in Hanoi for the night so....hey there!

We arrived in Saigon on Tuesday (June 29th), which is basically a big city. It turned out to be quite a fun place in some ways. The traffic, for one, is quite entertaining. You know when you're trying to walk by someone in a hallway and you sort of do a little dance trying to figure out who will go right or left? This is the game that pedestrians play with motorcycles in Vietnam-- on the paved road, as well as on the sidewalk. The main roads had insane traffic and the electrical wires were really quite a sight (see photo-- Dad, don't worry, we're leaving Vietnam tomorrow), but the culture of the city was really up all the little alleyways, where women served pho for 50 cents at child-size sets of tables and chairs, and you can see guys practicing their karaoke skills in their open-air living rooms.

We also found some interesting things to do ourselves, like seeing the War Remnants Museum about the here-named "American War" (pretty depressing-- I feel surprised the Vietnamese has let us back into the country at all). Additionally, we had our second encounter with blind masseuses, but the massages weren't quite as impressive as the ones we'd gotten in Cambodia. Although, they did have private, curtained off rooms, and I splurged and spent 50 cents for air conditioning. I wasn't exactly sure whether I was meant to undress, though (we hadn't the last time), so I didn't, though perhaps the curtains should have been my indicator. It was quite fair, then, that when my masseuse came in, tugged at my skirt and pointed at the hooks on the wall. So, I hung my shirt and skirt there, but (not wanting to be too presumptious about local modesty customs) I left my bra and underwear on. The masseuse returned, and reached out to figure out where I was standing. She quickly noticed my bra and yelled, "AAARGH!" and tugged at it so that it snapped at me. It still makes me laugh to think of it-- friendly, huh? She pointed at the hook again and left. For a total of $2.50 I suppose I can't complain too much.

In general, though, Ho Chi Minh was yet another big city, and we found ourselves quickly getting frustrated. Everyone talks about how pretty Vietnam is, but you definitely can't see that in Saigon. We decided to book a daytrip to the Mekong Delta for Thursday, which seemed to make sense for money and time reasons. It did have its fun moments, but on the whole the day was a bit underwhelming and we got rather tired of being taken to souveneir stores with overpriced trinkets. Probably the funnest part was going in a little canoe with just the three of us and two Vietnamese rowers, or perhaps also taking a small wooden cart pulled by a horse-- little moments that felt a little more like they COULD have been authentic (even though I'm sure they were no less touristy than riding a gondala in Venice.) In any case, though, the rest of the day wasn't quite worth writing home about.


So, we booked a flight to Hanoi for the next day, with plans to get out of the city to Cat Ba Island (in Halong Bay) as quickly as possible. After our not-so-spectacular Mekong Delta tour, we were fairly intent on getting there independently. Luckily, due to the hotels being overbooked for the weekend, we were forced to go on a tour boat. This turned out to be an AMAZING "back-up" plan. We booked a mid-priced three day tour of Halong Bay that included one night on the boat and one night at a hotel on Cat Ba. The boat was so fun, I can't even tell you. We basically had two full days with a really great group of about 15 people from Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, Taiwan, Australia, Singapore, and England. The trip included plenty of time to kayak, swim, and see caves in what was basically Never Never Land. There were some other boats around sometimes, but they were all of a classic smallish wooden design that made you forget that they were full of other tourists too. We jumped off the roof of the boat for nighttime swims and though we had rooms, a bunch of us spent part of the night sleeping under the stars (until it got quite windy around 2 a.m.) All in all, it was amazing and so worth visiting.


Cat Ba, by the way, turned out to be kind of lame. We went on a really cool/intense hike there, but the city itself is basically a crowded party central with lots of overpriced alcohol. Sooo glad that we didn't go straight there.

So, today we came back to Hanoi, but we were pretty much done with Vietnam. While the country does seem to be a pretty place, we're not quite as enchanted on the whole as we'd hoped to be. The men are significantly less respectful than the ones we'd found in Thailand and Cambodia (I am not a cat, please stop clicking your tongue at me as if it will make me attracted to you-- and also, please don't grab my butt and then grin at me as if that was perfectly appropriate), and we're quite tired of the fact that Vietnamese consider honking to be defensive driving-- even in more rural areas, it is incessant and inescapable. The scams are more frustrating than anywhere we've been (no matter how clearly you agree on a price for transport, it is common that more is demanded on arrival) and disagreements seem to easily become shouting matches and physical violence-- not that we'd care enough about a dollar to get involved in a fistfight, of course, but all of these things combined make for certainly not the most pleasant of environments. Maybe we just didn't do this country quite right, but it doesn't seem to be working out for us this time around.

So, we're ready to move on, and we've decided to leave tomorrow, and skip Laos for now (though I may go later this summer) in favor of less time on buses and more time in the north of Thailand while Fonze is with us. Yaaay elephants:-)

Until next time, much love,
Sara