Vietnam Voyages Part 4: The North Finale

After swearing to never take one of those buses again, we got plane tickets for Hanoi, Vietnam’s northern capital for around $60. Our booked taxi took our money and never showed up the day of, so we were lucky to use the hotel’s own taxi to get there on time. I guess we should be happy our plane tickets were valid at least.

Hanoi, from our travel books and the Internet, easily had the longest list of scams to watch out for. It was common to see 2 shops beside each other with the same name, and one would be like “recommended by lonely planet” and the other would say, “We moved! We’re here now!” oh and whenever you wanted to buy anything, the owners would talk to each other first, deciding how much to overcharge you before giving you a price. I didn’t mind the city too much I don’t think, but even I was getting at my limit with having shopkeepers hate me and loving my money. (I suggest skipping this city).

We ended up walking for hours in Nagoya-like heat (easily the hottest conditions I’ve ever suffered through). Thanks to our guides and tips though, we were able to avoid many scams, although there were people with us that fell into some traps. I couldn’t do much but give out a silent “ooooh” and grimace in pain when the airport taxi asked where our hotel was and some Germans behind us told them; we got out and walked to our real hotels, leaving those poor tourists behind. I won’t go on and on about the scams, just make sure you’re prepared, or send me an email or something if you want more info.

That said, not much happened for the rest of the day other than getting settled in. We needed to get an extra towel for showers, and this super cute girl behind the desk helped me out. (helped me get a towel :P) She was something else, but I was taking it easy after all I’d been through recently. Later as I was waiting at the bottom of the stairs for Neal or whatever, she came up to me, looks me in the eyes and has this huge smile while she says, “you are so handsome”.

*cough* I’m out of words for how much I miss Vietnam.

We had a great exchange for a while, annoying Laura and Neal again as they wanted to get going, and here I was flirting with another super cute girl. I don’t know what it was, but she had a way of looking into your eyes that trapped you, making the rest of the world feel oblivious; I don’t know how much time passed. Anyways, I was a bit safer this time though, as she had a boyfriend in Saigon, and you’re probably tired of hearing about how I keep striking out so I’ll cut out the rest of the girl stories from here on.

The next day, Saturday the 16th, we headed out on a tour which was our main reason for visiting Hanoi in the first place; Ha Long Bay. The 5 of us again hopped on a 3-hour bus ride to the ocean and boarded a junk for the next couple of days. Coupled with the dong jokes, the junk jokes were relentless (‘Come ride my junk’, ‘this junk is all wet’, etc) and Neal set up a point system for how many times you could say ‘how long’ while we were in ‘Ha Long’ bay. It’s interesting to note too, that corrupt police stopped our van and hoped to shake us tourists down for bribes; granting us a sticker valid for one day saying how we’ve already bribed the cops, so leave us alone. Our tour group called the head of police or something and told them to screw off so we ended up being ok. I guess they’ve cracked down really hard on bad cops lately.

The junk ride started with a tasty lunch, and a casual float to a monstrous natural cave. If you don’t know Ha Long Bay, it’s been in a couple movies already. Not unlike the marble mountain, there were spear-looking mountains jutting up and out of the ocean. It was phenomenal floating around slowly on the water, surrounded by cliff-islands extending 50-70 meters into the sky. I couldn’t tell how far they went up, but it was awe-inspiring.

Once in the cave, we took a small tour. It was a really neat place, but it was rather unfortunate that some people etched their names, or broke off pieces of rock for souvenirs. At least you could hardly notice these things unless they were pointed out, and some of the etchings went back to the early 1900s, proclaiming young love and other “I was here” statements in several languages. Mostly French though.

After this, we boarded kayaks. This was my first time on one, and it was really cool! I have no pictures though, as I didn’t trust having my camera out near so much open water. Either way, that was one of the coolest experiences, floating so close to cliffs that rose so high. It looks even more impressive when you are a couple centimeters from being in the water yourself. If you went out for a bit on the kayak, you could find additional caves in these cliffs and paddle inside. Neal was my partner, and we went into the first cave we saw. We didn’t stay long though with all the cave drippings I was feeling, not to mention the new sounds: the sound of hundreds of bats.

We dared not go into the water, as we saw jellyfish everywhere. A couple times we saw small jellyfish float right underneath the kayak, and their tendrils were as long as the 3-meter kayak. Since we were on the 2-day tour we went kayaking, but those on the 3-day tour went to the nearby beach. Jellyfish stung 4 of the 5 people that went to the crowded beach. The one girl, Rie, a cute engineer from Tokyo, got stung just walking around in shallow water by a jellyfish she couldn’t see. No thanks I say ^_^

Floating out on the water too was a small town. They had their boathouses close together, floating merchants, dogs and other interesting life accessories. We had crab and other good food for supper, and enjoyed the night on the top of the junk with drinks, enjoying the great weather and full moon. One of the crew came out later and sang us a Vietnamese song, along with sharing stories about Vietnam. We were on board with a lot of interesting people.

It wasn’t too late of a night, as we wanted to watch the sun rise in the morning. It was a bit cloudy but I had good company so I didn’t mind. Later the junk stopped for a bit so we could jump off and take a swim. I jumped from the top because I was heckling a cute girl from Hong Kong named Anna, but it was damn scary. I did it somehow, forcing the issue out of my mind as I extended my foot and stepped off; very much like Indiana Jones. Luckily there were no jellyfish and we had fun swimming in the ocean until the captain got angry at us to get back on, I guess he was behind schedule in his cattle-herding operation.

That night in Hanoi we went to watch the water puppet show; a Vietnamese specialty. It was really, really cool. They played live music and ran little skits with these adorable puppets as they hopped and skipped around the water telling stories. For the first part of the show we were all mesmerized, and later on we were all sleepy as it was really relaxing and almost hypnotic in nature. Easily worth the $2 dollar admission price or whatever it was; I highly recommend it to anyone.

Monday the 18th, our last free day in Vietnam. We wanted to relax and enjoy it for what it was. We finished our shopping and saw some sights; whatever was open on Monday that is. Lots of museums and what not were closed already like Ho Chi Mihn’s mausoleum, where you could see his body unnaturally pickled in a crystal or whatever. (Goes to Russia once a year for “maintenance”). Rules to see him were super strict too: like no smiling, no talking, appropriate clothes, and on and on.

We did get to see an ancient university and other cool sites of local things. Hanoi is much different from Saigon. That night we made a try to find some dancing as it was our last night. Earlier, another random cute local gave me some advice about places to go to. The first place we went to had security like crazy including hand held metal detectors. Once inside, the place wreaked of cash. There were many girls up dancing on an elaborate stage like something out of a James Bond movie. We got a glance at the drink menu, and prices started at $70 for a shot of whiskey. It was interesting seeing a menu so casually that had so many zeroes on it. (1,800,000 Dong for a cup of wine anyone?)

We got out of there as fast as we could, lest there was some hidden entrance fee or something used to normally keep out every-day rift raft like ourselves. We tried for another dance club that ended up being closed, and the 3rd one maybe didn’t exist, at least according to any locals we talked with. We cut our loses, and went to a bar owned by an ex-pat apparently, where we had half liter jugs of drinks as strong as we wanted. “give me a taste and tell me if you want more whiskey” he would say. I talked very briefly with him, I guess he’s been living there for six years now. Neal, Laura and I sat out on the patio enjoying our drinks watching the traffic going by and enjoying warm reflections. It was a fitting goodbye to one of the best trips I had ever been on.

We left Tuesday and I got home around 1 in the morning, although after laundry and unpacking I wasn’t in bed until almost 3, time enough to get up at 7 for ‘work’ the next day, which had me sitting at my desk and starting to type up this series. We could have stayed longer, we should have stayed longer, but office politics and contracts have the last word eh?

One week later now, and I’m still rather unsettled with being back; remembering the finer days of ‘the summer of my youth’ as they’d say in Japan, reminiscing even now as I type this. I am a different person now and I’m noticing new and different things around me all the time. I now start the second year of my contract and have only about 50 weekends left in Japan that is certain; will there be more? If so, where will I be and what will I be doing? So much to do, so little time.

I miss Vietnam.

“Smile, it's free therapy.” -Doug Horton

tnoy

Vietnam Voyages Part 3: The Center

The overnight bus was comfortable for my average-height friend, Neal. For a tall guy like me however, it was a long, excruciating 15 hours. At first I couldn’t fit in the ‘box’ like sleeping area without my skull making love to the iron bar located above my ‘bed’. This long trip saw a lot of bumpy roads as well; at some parts when I’d look out the front window it’d be easy to confuse us driving over something worse than a pasture. Sure these patches were small and few in between, but they still existed.

I saw my neighbor had a bit more clearance in his box, and I slowly kicked out the bottom of mine to afford my body an extra 5 inches of clearance; at my feet’s expense as they were now wedged in a tight place and needed to be on an angle….

I just realized how much and how long I can ramble about how bad the ride was so I’ll cut it off here. We stopped for lunch at some place at midnight. I was the walking dead of misery at this point and got a bowl of noodles. While I was eating Neal watched the biggest cockroach he’s ever seen run across the floor of the place, and then an equally large rat catch it and eat it shortly after. Good thing I was oblivious to this; it was still tasty. Oh and the few rats I did see in Vietnam were about the size of pop-eye’s forearms. (New experiences eh?)

On the bus ride (from hell) we met up with some very seasoned travels with great stories and lots of experience to share with us. When we arrived at our destination on the 13th, Hoi An, we got a really cheap room at a really great place called “Phi Phi” thanks to them. (Discounted from $25 a night to $15 because they were there last year) I had to go to the bathroom, and when I came back Neal and our new friends had already set up a new harem for me. There were 5 or 6 single, young, gorgeous ladies in beautiful traditional Vietnamese silk dresses that gave me googly eyes and nice smiles for the rest of our stay.

We were still ripe from the bus though and couldn’t check in for a few more hours since it was so early, so we went out exploring. Which was a good breather for me, as all the ladies had me beat red a couple times with the questions and flirts; the head girl started calling me ‘honey’. Her name is spelt ‘Dung’ but sounds like ‘Youn’.

Anyways, digressing again, Hoi An is maybe most famous for its ‘ancient’ buildings and great tailor shops. Being able to make great knock offs is something Vietnam takes pride in, as you could buy some amazing custom made clothing for cheap. I ended up getting a suit vest, casual pants and shirt made for $70, and I could have probably got it cheaper had I haggled more but I was so tired from the bus still. Oh and Neal went to work again on starting another harem for me with the pretty ladies working there. It ended up with 3 really cute ones standing around me and asking me to pick one to be my wife. The one I ended up picking had a husband already so I played into their joke of polygamy, suggesting being a second husband as they were saying earlier they would all be my wives. Great senses of humor, I hope they were joking. Kinda. ^_^

Leaving my 3 new wives, we made our way out to the old quarter with the ‘ancient’ buildings. They were really just a little over 100 years old, but because of Vietnam’s not too distant past, they are some of the few intact old buildings that survived. Either way it was pretty I guess; if you’re into architecture and stuff. There was a Japanese bridge here too which was suppose to be famous, or something.

At lunch we went back to our hotel to check in and shower finally, when we ran into another JET (Natalie) and her friend, Leslie. Small world eh? After the short reunion we decided to meet up that night for a night out in the old town. It was illuminated and rather pretty. Our restaurant experience maybe being the best part, as the 2 hostesses were a bit crazy (I think one was drunk). She would try to shake my hand, then go ‘phych!’ and pull her hand back to stroke her hair instead; she got me twice this way before the night was over. Oh and she would tap my shoulder and walk away too.

We had more than a couple humorous exchanges, and the other girl was telling Natalie that she was pregnant, how she was sick, and what her symptoms were before we left. Good times. We did a couple more things before turning in, like going to an all foreigner bar minus the staff, and an ice cream shop. The bar had weird paraphernalia from the war and other interesting decorations. Oh ya and Laura was with us again as we saw her walking randomly down a street earlier in the day and called her over. Now our group was 5 strong.

So now it’s Thursday the 14th. I had a nice chat with more than one of the cute hotel girls while having breakfast and we set out to rent motorcycles! The streets weren’t as crazy as other cities and we figured we needed to give it a try. It was $5 to rent for the day I think, but when it came to getting gas they ripped us off again because we were foreigners. I think I spent $5 for 2 liters, and they tried to get twice that. Anyways, we went to our hotel quickly to get stuff for the beach! Why not eh? It should be a good day out. When I was heading out one of the cute workers came over and invited us over to her place.

Heh, what? Alright! After a bit of confusing talk, Neal and Laura opted to take off for the beach, leaving me to fend for myself with the lovely Sau and Phuong (sounds like ‘foon’) for the rest of the day. At first they needed to change out of their silk dresses so we went to Phuong’s place first. When on the bikes, the girls dressed in a lot of clothing even though it was hot out. We’re talking facemasks, gloves and the works; the only skin you could see were their eyes shaded by the helmet. They later told me that pale is beautiful in Vietnam, so girls do what they can to avoid the sun, mostly while riding their big rigs. A common trait in Asian countries it seems.

We then tried going to Sau’s place, but my skill with the motorbike was obviously lacking. Phuong offered to drive for me and I happily obliged. We got there and I met her parents right away, which I half expected but it was still kind of strange. We had some refreshments, had a good talk, and then headed a further North to climb a Buddhist mountain called “The Marble Mountains.”

We went to the town Da Nang to do this. When we arrived there were marble shops everywhere with amazing sculptures. I didn’t care too much though; I had two pretty escorts ready to do some mountain climbing up the amazing looking mountain. These hills looked like large spears shot up and out of the earth, surrounded by flat plains. It was a very interesting climb, and rather difficult at times as we were literally crawling through small holes I could hardly fit through at steep angles. We made sure to get lots of pictures ^_~ group/couple photos are rather popular it seems. (Sau's on the left, Phuong's on the right)

The middle of the mountain had a huge cave. Inside were more statues and I watched with interest as they showed me how they pray with incense and such. While we were there a large group of monks came to pray, I guess they were on a spiritual journey to many shrines and didn’t stay long.

We took a break from the climbing and had more great conversations. They were 23 and 22 years old, and they had only ever been to Hoi An and Da Nang in all their lives. I showed them pictures from my camera (a thousand at this point) and they went through all of them. It was interesting to see how surprised they looked to see places that were really close in Canada’s standards (8 hour drive to Edmonton anyone?). I encouraged them to travel more; although I remember how tight money was for me at that age; not to mention time with how hard everyone works.

We later went for lunch at a really local, and really small restaurant. The food was great, and I asked the owner to take a picture of us. It was interesting to see her try too, as if she’s never picked up a camera before. Napkins were square cut outs of cheap paper, and once used they were thrown to the floor. Needless to say I had numerous cultural experiences thanks to these lovely ladies. I was a little sad they kept paying for me too, I felt like I was the one indebted for all they were doing for me. I sure got a lot of free things that day no matter what I tried.

That night there was a full moon festival in the old quarter, celebrated a day or two early for a large Japanese-Vietnamese friendship festival or something of the sort. Sau had to go home, but I was still escorted by Phoung and now Dung. It was really nice walking around again with all the people and festivities. Although Dung has lived there all her life, she said this was the first time she was attending the festival, and it was mostly to help me out. People really go the extra mile for you here. (I think she was playing matchmaker for Phuong though as her English was really good).

One of the festival’s events had you put on a mask that blinded you, and you had to listen to the crowd help you stumble blindly towards a drum, and try to hit it. Dung tried her best to help me, but other people were screaming other things to throw me off, including the guy on the mike. I ended up getting really close though, hitting the top rim of the drum and not the center. “Tony, I’m your friend! Go right! Go right!” was drowned out or quickly mimicked and wrecked by the mob ^_^

After that, we rented a boat for a nice little float down the river. We were given lit lanterns. With them, we placed them out on the river and made a wish. It was really nice. When we got off, we were in a rowdy area, but still rather tame for my standards. Dung warned me to watch my wallet because of the all the people, and we plowed through. It was interesting to note how much of a ruckus it was for them, as I guess the only city life they’ve known were these small, and somewhat quiet towns.

We called it a night, and Phuong and I had a rather difficult goodbye. It wouldn’t be right to talk too much about it here, but we had only about 4 days or so left in Vietnam, she was working 12-hour shifts for the next couple days, and tomorrow’s plane tickets were already bought and paid for. It was time to march on. :’(

“A culture is its people. You need to talk to people before you can get a feel for the place.” -Neal Murugan

tnoy

Vietnam Voyages Part 2: The South

So now it was Friday the 8th, and Neal and I headed off on a tour of the Mekong Delta River, about 3 hours by bus out of town. Laura left like I said to see Da Lat and all of us were starting to feel the pinch of our biggest enemy: Time. As it was, Neal and I had to choose between the river tour and a tunnel tour, where you could see how the Viet Cong lived underground and you could shoot AK47s and other weapons for cheap. After talking to others who did the tour, it sounds like we were right to pick the river.

I got a cheesy hat for $1 and we headed out on a little rickety old boat down the brown, brown river. We saw ferries, fishing boats, houses and other neat things the locals used to carve their livings; like netted and wooden fish traps. Our first stop was the “unicorn” island (one of the 4 sacred animals [turtle, dragon and… phoenix maybe were the other 3]) Here, they showed how they made coconut candy which was kind of interesting, but we hung around too long I felt, as they waited for us to shop for a long time. We had lunch, which included some strange and wonderful new fruits. My new favourite is now “dragonfruit”. It’s green and purple on the outside, really sweet and soft on the inside. Great stuff.

Our boat went down smaller river channels and it felt like something straight out of a Rambo movie with tall (reeds?) and coconut trees surrounding this dark brown river. We passed locals and houses along the river and it was really surreal. They took us into a nearby town where we rode really small ponies on these carts for a bit, and the houses were something else to see as well. Old rickety woodsheds mixed in with elaborate marble structures and fruit trees surrounded us. I saw bananas growing/developing from little shoots and I saw an electric box that would give us Engineers nightmares (a birds nest for sure) among other cool things. During a walk, we heard a large thump, so strong the ground almost rumbled. I spent a lot of the remaining trip looking up at the coconuts above me, ready to brain me…

We got on boats that were smaller yet for another little paddle, but I had to wait a bit alone for my ride to show up. While I was waiting some local children showed up with a bucket and makeshift fishing rods. They were strips of bamboo, with string tied to it about 1 meter long. With them, they fished for the lizard/gecko looking things crawling around in the mud. It was so cool seeing them have so much fun with what a lot of people back home would consider to be ‘so little’. They said hello and ran of, laughing and playing to find the next muddy bank to catch more lizards.

When my boat picked me up, a young boy and maybe a grandmother paddled it. In front of me was a nice Japanese man who knew over 6 languages and has traveled many times. You can’t help but meet many interesting people when you’re traveling. We had snacks later and listened to live Vietnamese music sung for us. After we were given the option of wearing a live snake. Since I love new things, I gave it a try. Those things are creepy… with their whole body being muscles and moving around on you… I got my pictures and got rid of it ^_^

After the tour we went back to town to spend our last night in Saigon. After my unsuccessful attempt for dancing (and much to Neal’s amusement again), we opted to try for a club. Neal wanted to see the hostess bar I was at the previous night, but I convinced him he wasn’t missing much; so we went to another place called “metallic” which had live bands doing hard rock cover songs. When we were there it was a mix of Bon Jovi, Metallica, and Britney Spears; sung in a pleasant Vietnamese accent. My definite highlight though, was when I entered the bar and sat down.

On the other side of the bar, staring at me with big beautiful eyes and a huge smile on her face was a lovely lady named Trang. I couldn’t help but stare and smile back. When she finally broke out of her trance she came up real close (it was a loud place) and said in my ear “you are handsome.” If this was still crazy town, I don’t want to be sane anymore.

It was almost a good thing the place was so loud, as I knew zero Vietnamese and her English was very limited. We spent a lot of time just staring and smiling at each other from 2 feet away across the counter. She would dance a bit to the music for me, and her co-workers picked up the pace a bit pouring drinks to cover her being preoccupied with me. It’s not every day you have an angel fall in love with you at first site, right?

Because verbal communication was impossible, (all I made out was “you are handsome” over and over, then maybe some Vietnamese) I got out paper and started writing down some English. (In Japan anyways, written is usually better understood than spoken) It was a little more successful, and I invited her out for our destination tomorrow: Mui Ne Beach, about 4 hours away. We shook hands on meeting, and both eagerly looked forward to tomorrow, us meeting up again for fun on the beach, and me calling her at noon on her cell.

I wanted to stay longer, but she was working, communication was hindered not only by the language barrier but loud background noises and a crappy pen, and I was broke because we couldn’t exchange more Dong this late at night (I did a fair amount of shopping at this point; I have a proper backpack now for travel!) The next day we were on our 4-hour bus ride that ended up being a 6-hour ride because it was a tourist trap like device; stopping at commissioned stops for overpriced garbage regularly. It would be better maybe if they had real food at the stops instead of potato chips and pop. Either way, I was now over an hour late for making my phone call, and Neal was now teasing me about blogging the drama that is my love life, and he wanted to start calling me ‘Butters’, after a South Park character that also fell for a hostess at a restaurant.

We stopped at a restaurant first and got some food. There I asked the nice lady (I can’t believe I forgot her name after how much she helped us) to make my call and, well, speak in Vietnamese. Before I left Saigon that morning I bought a tiny Vietnamese translation guide not unlike what my sister Patty got me for Japanese. Since I shouldn’t drudge too much of my personal life I guess I should end Trang’s story here. The nice lady calling and I met several times over the next couple days trying to work out how I could meet up with Trang again. She couldn’t take time off work (It was the weekend and she works at the bar, and Vietnamese people work too hard) and even if I went back to Saigon she had school during the day and work at night. I only had 11 days left in Vietnam or so. A lot more happened, and a lot more was said… but you don’t need to hear it. I have no real way of contacting her now.

Through the heartbreak in Vietnam though, I learnt more about the wonderful people. The nice lady at the shop genuinely cared how things went and tried really hard to get something to work out between us. I bought her some chocolate and ate at her restaurant to say thank you a couple times. There are amazing people in Vietnam, and they have great senses of humor. Neal wanted to buy a book somewhere later, and the lady said “one million Dong” with a straight face. After the look of shock hit Neal’s face she broke out laughing. They aren’t shy about touching you either in Vietnam, giving you a rub on the shoulder or brushing your arm when you’re talking. One girl slapped my butt when I was being indecisive/difficult on what to buy.

Anyways, back to Mui Ne beach. This place is amazing. 12 kilometers or so of white sand, all unspoiled beach. There were resorts lined all the way down the beach. You could stay in a beautiful cabin, 5 meters from the beach: AC, hot water, everything for $45 a night. (everything in Vietnam is real cheap if you haven’t gathered that yet) And that was the most expensive one we found. I will never look at a capsule hotel in Tokyo the same way again. Sleeping in a cube vs. in your own hut by an amazing beach for the same price. We ended up staying in slightly less impressive place for $6 a night each; but the place still blew my mind.

This was an amazing beach, but it was clearly dripping with romance. Although Neal and I were smiling and thoroughly enjoying every minute; if you looked at us with the right eyes you could probably see little clouds following us around. Although we’re good friends, we both understood that either of us would lose the other in an instance if it meant spending time with a more fitting partner. Both of us are planning our more fitting returns already someday.

After checking in and changing out, it was time to lose my virginity as Neal said. It was time for me to swim in one of Earth’s Oceans. The water was warm, kinda clear, and salty! I never had so much fun swimming in my life before. We never really swam as much as we sat there and felt wave after wave of warm water slam into our bodies. I was literally giggling like a schoolgirl for hours. If I wasn’t giggling, I was trying in vain to spit the salty sensation off my lips. I can’t believe I had so much fun, doing so little. We lazily floated around, letting the current drift us a kilometer or two down the beach; a pattern we repeated several times during our stay.

We were only going to stay a couple days, but vacation shouldn’t be about running your ass off right? I’ve made that mistake too many times in the past and I’ve grown a lot as a traveler; having discovered things like researching your destination or having information guides on hand. We ended up staying for 4 days (I was still trying hard with Trang, so the extra time was nice). During this time we ate amazing food every day (1kg of fresh lobster for $25? How about a fresh French bread sandwich?), swam in beautiful weather, walked through the small town (one road really, going along the beach) and unwound like I’ve never unwound before. There were kite surfing lessons, ski-dos, that other surfing thing with the sail on your board and other great things to watch.

Those days were a blur of bliss; there were hardly any people so it was easy to feel like the beach was all yours. The few people we did see were pretty cool (topless sunbathers anyone?) and some restaurants had interesting mixes of Russian, German, and other stuff I didn’t recognize. Italian food seems pretty big in Vietnam. Either way signs and menus have a lot of charm in Vietnam, as it seems people learnt English orally; spelling mistakes peppered everything.

If you got up early enough you could see beautiful sun rises, and fishermen out on their cup-shaped boats dragging nets. As with all new things though, I was a bit paranoid of the unknown like Jelly Fish and things I might be stepping on. Neal freaked me out one time saying a Jelly was chasing me… One time as I was floating about, something got caught between my big toe and wiggled like crazy! It might have been a clam or something, but I panicked anyways and stood on one foot for the next half hour.

I got a bad sunburn the one day, even after applying 50 spf screen twice, but there are lots of cheap massage places around. Neal and I (my first time again) got manicures and pedicures for $12 total. By the way, how do people spend big money on those? What a waste; the dead skin on my nails were back in 12 hours and I can cut my nails better than that. Later I got a sunburn Aloe Vera massage for the same price. They covered me with goop and then gave a massage later. Maybe it helped? Either way I got lots of color on this trip; the farmer tan lines are becoming more blurred. I got a cool burn on my back too, where you could tell I couldn’t reach.

Alas Tuesday the 12th rolled around and half our trip was over. As much as we talked about quitting our jobs and living at the beach for the rest of the year on 1 month’s salary, there was still a lot of country to trek. Before we left Mui Ne though, we wanted to do a day tour of surrounding sights which included white sand dunes, red sand dunes, a red ‘canyon’ (turned out to be a hole in the ground), fairy springs (miniature grand canyon) and a fishing village.

We had to get up early for the ride and to catch the sunrise over the white sand dunes. The sand things were interesting I guess; you could rent crazy carpets to slide down the hills if you were feeling ambitious enough. At the red dunes, Neal attracted a lot of attention from some kids; and then sent them after me. I really didn’t want to, but the kids were too cute to say no.

Me: “but I’m scared of heights”
Kids: “then I’ll ride with you”
Me: “it’ll be too hard to climb back up”
Kids: “I’ll carry you”

And so on. It was so adorable. After my ride though, it wasn’t very adorable anymore when they stopped smiling and tried to get a ridiculous amount of money out of me. I left a couple thousand dong and walked off; they never did ride down with me :( Again: always agree on a price first.

We went to the fishing village next, which was the most interesting part of the tour I felt. There were so many boats and so many people. A couple of the sheds had 2 TVs, where many people sat around in a makeshift community center outdoors in the shade to watch… whatever was on. The one looked like a martial arts fighting something.

I don’t know why, but fishing communities get it so bad in Asian countries. They are some of the hardest workers and they get treated the worst it seems. It was such an incredible contrast after seeing the fish market in Tokyo. I saw similar production lines set up, but it was like 50 years behind in terms of setup, hygiene and all that. It was really interesting just walking around and seeing all there was; it was a real eye opener.

The last stop of the tour was the Fairy springs, which was rather disappointing. Some kids that were skipping school followed us even though we didn’t want them to, and when they were done they tried to get money out of us again. It was a really long day at that point and we were at our limit for people asking for handouts; we already spent money on the tour and the ‘tour guide’ just hung out by the jeep waiting for us to finish at each place. It was still nice walking through the shallow stream though, that was rather enjoyable even if the rocks weren’t too fascinating to me at that point.

We got back around noon, had food, relaxed and said goodbye to the beautiful beach and then hopped on an over-night bus to Hoi An; an ‘ancient’ city near central Vietnam.

"An enemy takes up more space in our head than a friend in our heart." -Anonymous

tnoy

Vietnam Voyages Part 1: Saigon

The day started early, such is life when migrating from the mountains to an international airport for me. Necessity had me awaken at 3 a.m. so that I may walk a ½ hour to catch my bus that left at 4. Being up this early gives me actual physical pains, but luckily (or not) I was only taking with me my SaskTel tote bag for my 2-week adventure, so I wasn’t carrying much. While I was waiting for the bus I was strangely uncomfortable and some people were giggling when I walked by. I then noticed for the last hour my button shirt was on backwards and I walked through town and even bought breakfast dressed as such. Oh well :)

After watching a couple movies on the plane and taking pictures of clouds and stuff we arrived in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City or HCMC) about 6 hours after departure, including the transfer in Taipei. Along for the trip was my good friend Neal, and my now new friend Laura. She teaches an additional hour south of me. There was to be a 4th with us, but she did her own thing and I didn’t see her at all. No love lost, as we got in alright, and had lots of tips from friends that had made the voyage to Vietnam already. Golden tips like “if you spend more than $6 on the cab, you’re getting ripped off” while the vultures tried to get $30 or $40 from you. My biggest hate for airports lay in those taxi vultures; I still feel the sting of my $120 trip in Korea.

Anyways, the ride was a great way to safely gawk at the wave of culture shock that hit us. There were motorbikes, construction, honking horns and thousands of people everywhere you looked. It was pure unadulterated chaos, but it worked. It worked so well, now I wish we had more of this everywhere as traffic moved so fast. The more we watched and the more we gasped at the crazy close calls we saw, the more comfortable we got. Motorcycles (They called them Cyclos) everywhere you looked, and many other crazy sites on them. We saw mothers crowded with up to 4 of her kids on one bike, men balancing large live pigs, flat screen TVs, sleeping passengers, fragile clay/porcelain, and other crazy things.

We got to the backpacker’s area and the place screamed of tourist trap with high prices and peddlers. Many people were trying to get your attention and trying to get you to buy their stuff. Our first supper took a long time to eat because we had to turn away people trying to sell us pirated books and other useless things. It was more heart wrenching to see the children out there begging, but you knew there was a ‘pimp’ somewhere nearby, putting them up to it and the kid wouldn’t see any of the money you would give him anyways. So ya, we found a wonderful place ($7 a person per night) courtesy of our friend’s recommendation, and we were eating when I saw my first gecko/lizard thing.

It dashed out from behind a painting, easily scaling the wall and up near the light it went. They are only about the size of your finger and they were everywhere I soon found out. After the initial shock, I wish we had more of those as well. I prefer them much more than spiders, as they do the same thing. They mostly hung out near the lights eating any bugs that came near (as a result there weren’t many bugs around in Vietnam), and no crappy spider webs to walk into and get in my mouth… it happens so much in Japan.

I think we had an early night and changed money in the morning. We didn’t know how much to start with, so we exchanged only $200 at first. It worked out to us getting 3.6 million Dongs back and fat wallets. It was awesome being millionaires, and we cracked Dong jokes for the whole trip. (I got a lot of Dong in my pocket; Neal loves millions of Dongs, etc) We went to the reunification palace for our first sightseeing adventure, where the Americans evacuated from the rooftop and where the South’s former president’s headquarters were. The Vietnam War is known as “The American War” in Vietnam, and it was interesting to see the other side of the story, even if it was biased at times. The palace was interesting and all with the décor and history, but we needed a break after from the heat and walking so we went for a movie in the afternoon.

After we went for more sightseeing, which included a large cathedral, a large train station and other sites. We talked to some of the many cyclos that were hassling us and ended up getting a ride around town. It was an amazing ride, and I quickly relaxed on the bike, which was nice, as I didn’t like bear hugging the large driver. We all took pictures while we were riding around and saw some cool sites like twisted military wreckage, pagodas, and a Buddhist funeral home among other things. We went to Vietnam during rainy season, so we were really lucky with the amazing weather we had. Saigon was mostly overcast during our stay, but while on the bikes it down poured for about 5-10 minutes.

Undeterred, we motored on; and in time realized the drivers were taking us for another kind of ride. They stopped taking us to places we wanted to go and they would frequently lose track of each other. We had agreed on paying for an hour, but it had been 90 minutes now. An unfortunate thing we read on wikitravel (amazing site if you still havn’t gone) and our guidebooks were the lengthy warnings about scams and the sort. These guys were killing time to get more money so we ended the ride ‘early’. Then they tried to argue on what price was agreed on.

After a couple of unpleasant minutes of stunted arguing with a language barrier, we gave our side of the bargain (still a great deal for them) and walked. This was our first encounter with bad business and it certainly wasn’t our last. The most important thing I can tell you, is to agree on a total price before going anywhere, unless you’re lucky and get an honest person I guess. They aren’t rare at all, but it’s really annoying to get one that isn’t. ($2 will get you pretty much anywhere in the city by taxi even though they’ll try and charge you $10 or more) Ah the life of haggling.

We walked around more, saw a pushy market where they had trouble hearing ‘no’ and saw other interesting things like shops making and selling paintings and large replica renaissance era ships. Laura caught a bus out of town to do biking and elephant riding in the mountains, so it was just Neal and I for the next little while.

So now it’s Thursday, August 7th. Neal and I went to the war museum in the morning. Inside there were disturbing pictures from the war, actual weapons used, pickled fetuses of agent orange miscarriages, and pictures children made showing their view of the war and their wish for peace. Outside the entrance, children ironically played games around the fighter jets, helicopters and the replica bombs that decorated the front entrance.

To escape the heat and to take the advice of our friends again, we went for body massages. It was $12 (I think) for an hour and it was really cool. This was my first real body massage, as I don’t count that painful awkward experience I had in China when they matted your clothes into your body. Either way I was with a really cute girl and we started talking. I haven’t mentioned much about the girls yet, but they are absolutely amazing in Vietnam. They dress sharp and wear cute clothes, are super friendly and forward, and they ride motorcycles usually with cute helmets. In not very much time at all she started asking me more personal questions like my age and single status. She was massage my arm and looking into my eyes when she started holding my hand and said how we were both single, so we should be boyfriend and girlfriend.

I was so shocked and wanted to say yes, but I knew I was leaving in a couple days and didn’t want a long distance relationship again like I had while in China, so the boyfriend word must have thrown me off. Either way I fumbled pretty bad, and anything I tried after that was dead in the water; the window was closed. Neal was in the stall beside me and was chuckling to himself, listening to me try hard, only to have it strike a language barrier and do nothing.

Feeling good from the massage but a little depressed for striking out, we explored more. We ate at a wonderful lunch place, visited a monstrous flea market and a neat shopping center. For supper we had do-it-yourself Korean style BBQ on the rooftop where a bunch of Budweiser girls were trying to do a promotion. We didn’t want to drink that crap though and bought local beer instead. The food was amazing, and so was the ice cream shop on the floor below us. I believe this was the first of the many large-scale pirated DVDs area we found; I have a show or two to watch now like “The Office”.

Neal was bushed and so was I after another big day of walking, but heck, this was now my 3rd night in a large city and I haven’t seen the nightlife yet! Feeling adventurous, I said goodnight to Neal, grabbed some paper that had the addresses of night hot spots, and set off outside our hotel. What awaited me was a completely different scene.

I hadn’t walked across the street yet when I was hit by the first of many. A super attractive girl scoots up to me on her bike and I swear it was a scene exactly of out Full Metal Jacket. Things have changed since then, as instead of “5 dollars” she said “10 dollars” and instead of “sucky sucky” she said “boon boon”. (There was no “love you long time though”) Confused and suddenly disorientated in this different feeling city, I asked what the heck ‘boon boon’ was. She made the sex motions with her hands and it was pretty clear.

Turning down the polite, and beautiful young lady’s offer, I trudged on. This scene repeated itself 3 or 4 times by different and all equally hot ladies riding motorcycles before I even reached the end of the block. It was so unreal really, I mean there were so many people all around me; this was quite the bustling tourist area. I guess a man out walking alone has one thing on his mind maybe? Luckily my first destination wasn’t too far away and I was sitting at a table indoors with a cold one. I would realize later, that this was something of a ‘snack bar’, or at least my perception of one minus the paying ridiculous prices for someone’s company, oh and the ladies were all really hot again.

My ‘company’ during my beer was a rather interesting one. She (I don’t remember her name) gave me some insights (or tales to woo tips?) into the difficult life of the locals. She, for example, works 12 hours every day, only getting 1 day off last month. Later another girl suggested I buy my company a drink and she had juice so I didn’t mind; as long as they don’t pull a Japanese snack bar scam on me; besides she was really interesting and we had a good talk.

I can only sit and talk for so long though, as I’m an antsy sort of fellow. Let’s get some music pumping through the veins eh? I got directions from her to find a nearby dance club. I guess you go out, turn left twice and go straight. Not even 5 minutes away. Easy right? She didn’t mention that ‘go straight part’ was down a less-lit area than the others.

If the ladies of the night were forward before, they were aggressive now. Hoping to get them to stop throwing their bodies at me, I tried to change the subject by asking where the dance club was (straight ahead if the directions were right, I wasn’t lost). She offered to drive me there and I figured ‘hey sweet, a free ride out of this area’.

A couple minutes on the bike, many turns and stopping at a hotel somewhere later, I was pretty sure something wasn’t right.

I’m not quite sure what she was trying to say, as the vocabulary didn’t go too far past prices and… techniques? What I gathered was she wanted to boon boon and then go dancing with me. Deterred from having anything crazier happen, I took a taxi home and called it a night. That was enough crazy town for one day. I never did get to see that dance club :(

"It is by acts and not by ideas that people live.” -Anatole France

tnoy

Hairdryers that don’t dry

I remember hearing someone’s take on a vacation overseas onetime, specifically the part about it being “too damn hot”. The moment you step outside you have hairdryers all around you. You may think “oh yay a breeze, that will cool me down” and really it’s just hot air blasting into your sweaty face.

Well before that gets out of hand, I went to Nagoya last weekend to see the world cosplay competition! 14 different countries (no Canada) had their own competitions and sent their winning pairs to Nagoya to compete. I left on Friday night in an attempt to maximize my time in this not-too-far-away city. Armed with new knowledge of an amazing travel website, wikitravel.org, I had a plan that quickly fell apart as I got lost several times; but Friday night was still alright. I went to the city’s most popular bar and had high hopes, as there were to be DJs mixing house and trance and fun club music. It was $20 to get in, but you got 4 drink coupons with admission. So basically you can come in as long as you buy 4 drinks ^_^

I might have gone at a bad time, as 2 of the 4 floors were closed and a lot of people left already to catch the last subway home at midnight (I got REALLY lost ok? More than once :P). One floor was playing some bad rap or whatever is popular right now, while the other was rather empty ‘mixing’ slow dance songs, and they seemed to switch up the songs every 30 seconds or so, killing any and all flow they might have had going in the room. It was an extremely disappointing experience, but I’ll take solace in them having some Captain Morgan’s spice rum. I have been in Japan a year now so it’s safe to say it’s been that long since I’ve had it last, it’s a lot sweeter than I remember! Or other drinks are just more bitter/strong. (pictured: the center of the planetarium)

Anyways, I slept in nice and late (around 10 maybe) in my AC room and had an incredible boxed lunch for… brunch? It was a fancy high class restaurant it seemed. After that I went to Nagoya’s science museum to check out what they had to offer; but I mostly wanted to see the planetarium. ^_^ The planetarium had shows every hour and a half, so I browsed the place. It had all kinds of… science stuff, and what not. Some of it I understood, others I just pressed buttons. Either way there was lots to see on the 9 floors or so.

Then planetarium time rolled around. I got in line early and a number of us filed into a dome with a large… projector thing maybe in the middle. The show was all in Japanese but I understood the gist of what was going on… apparently we had a full eclipse over Russia on Friday? Anyways, it was great to sit in that AC room and watch the stars. The immersion was incredible, as when they slowly tilted the perspective from Japan’s view of the sky to Australia’s, I thought the room was tipping over more than once ^_^ They showed some constellations that you can see right now and told stories about them, and overall it was an amazing hour of sitting back and staring at the roof.

After that it was about time to walk over to catch the Cosplay parade that was to be going through a shopping district in Osu near a temple. They already had a different festival going on, so I watched taiko and other Japanese performances while I waited. When the parade finally did start, it went really fast. I was taking pictures almost as fast as my camera could as people came and went so fast. Either way it was pretty cool, there was quite the variety and different nationalities. Since the parade was so fast, I went around to the other side to catch them on the way back as well. A guy beside me had a ferret dressed up in cosplay too, which got him a fair amount of attention. I’ll post the pictures on my photobucket if you want to gander at the variety.

Lots of posing, lots of cameras, and then it was over before you knew it. I bought a Japanese book and a JLPT application form on the way out for some supper. I read about a bar run by a Canadian and thought I would give it a try. Alas more disappointment as the only ‘Canadian’ beer they had on the menu was labatt blue or some crap, and it was blacked out meaning they didn’t serve it anymore (I’m not sure what the owner expected). I had some beer battered fish and chips though, they were a real treat. Later some loud and drunk foreigners busted into the place, grabbing people and just being obnoxious really; it reminded me of all the jerks I don’t miss back home. I asked if they had any Canadian beer and they did! It was called “whistler” and it was made in BC. My advice for everyone: don’t drink that rubbish, it was quite bad.

Feeling tired and defeated, I went back to my apartment to dry off a bit in my AC room (did I mention it was hot? Like you’re walking around a breezy sauna hot?) I wanted to go out to another club I read about, one that had more floors and guaranteed good music, but I’ll save that for another trip to Nagoya. By the time my clothes dried and the beer buzz wore off I was beat.

I slept in again Sunday and then went out for this famous Nagoya food I read about, ‘misokatsu’. Basically it is miso sauce on pork cutlets served with a bunch of goodies. The restaurant famous for this offering wasn’t open until 11 so I took my business to the shop across from them and had misokatsu. It was pretty good! The sauce was quite strong though, I had to mix in a lot of rice to thin it out a bit, but really can you go wrong with breaded pork cutlets? I think not. After eating that up and drinking another 2 liters of water, I went out to where the cosplay show was happening. I mean, it being a worldwide competition and all, surely…something would be happening right?

Wrong. Just people sitting out in the awful, awful heat waiting for the show to start. I mean, it was noon, they were practically sitting out in the sun, and the show didn’t start for another 6-7 hours. Atleast it was in the middle of an uber cool shopping mall. There was a saddle-dome-like roof made of glass, and in the middle they had water, so you could see cool water effects going down on the area. You could walk up to the roof and get a great view of the area too. I wanted to splash myself with the water, but its temperature was somewhere between “hot bath” and “scalding onsen”. I was surprised such a large pool of sitting water could heat up that much, but I guess it was pretty damn hot out…

I perused the shopping arcades, (that’s what they’re called) bought a neat toy or two, then got bored quickly and went out to see more of Nagoya. Another thing on my list-to-do was seeing the Toyota museum. I guess Nagoya was a rather large target in WWII because of its production capabilities, and I can see why after seeing the factory (although the war was hardly mentioned at all in the whole place)

Anyways I guess Toyota started by Mr. Toyoda (not a typing error, not sure why the name changed) and he started in the textile industry, and perhaps still makes them today. They had various working displays of how they make thread, how looming machines worked and progressed throughout the industrial revolution and mass production and so on. It was really neat to see. I guess some current machines use a water jet to shoot a thread through the… whatever it’s called to immensely speed up loom production. I was surprised how fascinated I was, seeing all these machines and what not. I guess it’s nice to see a museum do more than “don’t touch, don’t take pictures” and instead say: “press this button to watch this old machine kick some ass!” The machines kicked ass and took names, I can vouch for that.

After the textile museum, you got to see the automotive museum. After a cool and impressive display of a 5 ton press making a miniature valve piston out of white-hot metal in front of us, I was blown away by the operational 2500 ton press in the next room. They had all kinds of cool displays, like how the first car was made, how their features and engines and whatever else progressed over the years, and so on. There were videos to watch, buttons to press to watch more demonstrations, and souvenirs you could make. Aside from the kids building, where they could assemble toy cars or whatever, there was a press that stamped out a Toyota commemorative badge for you. They had spot welding machines give demonstrations, hydraulic lifts assembling a whole vehicle, cross-sections of a real hybrid engine and how it works… I highly recommend this tour for anyone, as it was so cool.

They had other stuff too like a working steam engine, hover craft for the kids to play on, puzzles and weird stuff, and a video library for additional information. Like the video I watched on how steel was processed from scrap, to ingots, to transmissions, and how “special steel” took that extra step to be extra strong.

Anyways, after this enlightening experience I went back to see if something was actually happening at the worldwide cosplay event finally. The place was now packed in all areas with people waiting for the festivities to start. I went in optimistic at first, but minded a page-long list of rules to keep in mind, less you want to get kicked out of the event. I snapped a couple pictures, not many, of the many people just hanging out dressed up. Before long the event started and it was long… and boring. The announcers talked and talked and it was so damn hot out. I like that I’m tall because I can usually see what’s going on, but then I feel bad when I look behind me and there isn’t a soul within a 2 meter radius of me, probably because they can’t see anything.

When the competitors finally did get to perform, it was usually rather short given all that you had to wait through. The first group from France did a song, the second group from Korea did a fight scene, the third group from Osaka, Japan did crappy love seen, and the last one I watch from Denmark was a boring talk or dance or whatever it was…

I had enough. I had lots of time to catch my bus but it was time to go. I couldn’t help but feel like some kinda outsider at this event, and then I realized I had become “that person”. The creepy, sweaty otaku stalking around to feed his camera, and there were plenty at this event, and many of them made me shiver. Maybe I just wasn’t on my game or something, I don’t know, but I sure felt out of place. If I ever go to another cosplay event, I'll go with a friend or I think I’ll dress up as it isn’t hard. The cosplayers seem to have their own open community; an unspoken bond. They don’t have to know each other, but they are immediately friends. One guy there was spiderman, just think of it like Halloween I guess. We all wear masks right?

Final impressions: quite a let down. I had more fun and saw more at the game show and anime convention. Maybe that was because I was with friends, I don’t know. I just know that for a weekend event, there was maybe 4 hours total of stuff to do over 2 days. And, of course, you have to hold your biggest event late Sunday night so that anyone that has to work the next day can’t possibly attend, present company included.

I went into this weekend with a different attitude; I knew I was doing it alone. Knowing that, and acting on it, was something new to me. It wasn’t like my trip to Korea where even though I was alone, I still relied heavily on others. Either way I’m proud of the outcome despite all the struggles I had; and boy was there struggles.

This will be my last update for a couple weeks, as tomorrow I leave for Vietnam. I might have an update on August 20th but I’m not sure yet. Oh and I bought a new couch for $50, it’s pretty awesome ^_^ It looks like a new off-green leather love seat, I got it second hand. People don’t really buy used stuff in Japan so you can get some amazing deals.

"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot." -Michael Altshuler

tnoy