Go North, Young Americans
Sapa
The journey north to Vietnam’s hill country began by getting to the train station on time only to learn (slowly, through agonizing amateur mime technique) that we needed something other than the tickets we had in hand to board the train. Somewhere in this town was a hotel lobby with a travel office holding up a hoop and time was running out for us to jump through it. We bought these tickets back in Saigon over a week ago. So much for being prepared.
We highjacked a taxi that I think went in a circle before arriving at the hotel. I ended up crowd surfing through a sea of Germans disappointed in their dinner, yelling, “Sapa? Sapa? Lao Cai? You going to hill country? I need my tickets to hill country!” Leave it to Hanoi to host such a manic relay race. The Teutonic mass was no help.
We arrived in the city of Lao Cai, located at the base of the surrounding mountains, around 4am only to sit and watch the sky lighten as we waited for our driver to search for enough passengers to make the drive worth his while. This is the closest train station to Sapa: the hub of the Hmong villages peppered throughout the hills. The people here survive through a centuries-old complex system of rice terrace farming and a decade-old system of intense, aggressive souvenir hawking. Gaby would later say she felt like she was haggling in the souk in Jerusalem.
My unconscious wife and I were dropped off at a bed and breakfast outside of town after a winding drive through clouds in an overcrowded passenger van. The owner’s father and mother live at the B&B; he wanted to build his parents a beautiful house, needed to pay for it, and his parents wanted something to do. It was a warm, special place. It smelled of eucalyptus. It was six in the morning. We had an hour to sleep before our Hmong guide came to take us away.
When I answered the door and saw Bahng I assumed she was dressed traditionally for our sake. I was wrong. Walking through Sapa we passed Hmong going about their day, wearing what they wear because they made it themselves and because it is better than anything store bought. Hand-made woven baskets strapped to their backs carried grass for their buffalo and babies I also assume they made themselves. Tourists took pictures of them without asking permission like they were the Amish. Bahng showed us places that prove the world is still a big one; places like this are getting hard to find. Being there is exactly what I both anticipated and worried about before leaving the States – a sense of discovery and of having no idea where to hide, respectively. My anxiety was unfounded since the angry monkey was locked in his cage and lunch was included.
Cascading rice terraces carved into the sides of the mountains disappeared behind cloud cover along with everything else. A gray void substituted for the horizon and left unseen landscapes to my imagination. That morning what later turned out to be a pond seemed to be an unending expanse. Considering what laid before us there were no limits to what we were missing. We descended into a valley, listening to Bahng explain what her home was like when she was a child and what it is like now that she has three children of her own, until a village appeared on our left. If the Hmong celebrated Christmas this would be Santa’s Village. Everything was for sale and its quaint look was kept that way for the cameras. Past that we walked by farmers trying to work their buffalo and buffalo trying to escape their work. We passed a waterfall and a French power station from a long time ago. After lunch we went further to villages where the roofs were corrugated steel, children were naked and no one was selling anything save an old toothless lady holding ragged pieces of intricately designed textiles that laughed as she felt up Gaby, agreeing they wouldn’t fit.
Bahng’s cell phone rang. It was Nam Hong, the owner of the bed and breakfast. Would we like to have dinner at the house or are we planning to go out? We’d like to have a home cooked Vietnamese meal. Would we like to eat with his parents or by ourselves? We’d like to eat with mom and dad. They didn’t speak a word of English. And although I was looking forward to it my anxiety had to focus on something, so it settled on the prospect of an awkwardly silent dinner. Again I worried for nothing as Nam Hong decided to take the opportunity to come and eat his mom’s food. Gaby could do better justice to what was served, but I will try since it was delicious. If I understood correctly they were challenging me to finish everything on the table. I’ve since read in a Chinese guidebook that it is rude to clear your plate as it implies the hosts are too poor to serve enough food. That seems overly sensitive to me and I’m not sure if it is also true for the Vietnamese but it doesn’t matter since I lost the bet. There was that much of it. The food and the company made for a wonderful memory. And I like to believe they don’t offer to have dinner with their guests as a rule but that they could sense we were different. Sure, it was on our bill the next day, but still, they could tell we’re really great people. I mean, my mom says I’m special.
There was a salad of vegetables where the largest seemed to be some sort of vaguely translucent white coral or brain matter. I since learned they were mushrooms. Then there were the homemade spring rolls. A little larger than pigs in a blanket, they were crispy hot, filled with something like meatballs and piled on top of each other until they reached the ceiling. Next to the tower of fried cylindricals was the tower of stir fried, athletic chicken wings (and knees) tossed in a sauce of spices and fats harvested from a secret garden filled with mythical creatures. The fried noodles were so good I didn’t have time to chew and just swallowed them whole. I was kicking myself for not packing a second stomach. I would need it for the seven or so potatoes that were served as extra thick steak fries seemingly fried in tempura batter. Dessert was fruit. Maybe I’m just too American but I can’t accept something I’m supposed to jumpstart my day with as a reward for finishing my peas. I’ll get excited for fruit as dessert when I have chocolate pudding for breakfast (sometimes this happens in our house).
We had only one full day in Sapa. The next day we wandered through more markets and found new and more creative ways to decline their offers, all of which failed as miserably as just saying “no thank you”: “Yes, I’ll buy from you but maybe later,” “I have to save money for a cosmetic procedure in Singapore,” “I’m looking for something with polk-a-dots.” There was never anything with polk-a-dots. That night we took a train to Hanoi to catch an early flight back to Thailand. I never realized how lucky we were to share an enclosed space with the Vietnamese until we shared it with a sturdy Russian couple. Only then did I realize the Vietnamese don’t have body odor. I think I just don’t like sharing enclosed spaces with anyone.
Ha Noi
Another overnight train journey landed us in Hanoi at around 4am (no sick children in our compartment this time), so after a shower, a hotel move and a long nap we headed out to Hoan Kiem (“Restored Sword”) Lake. Smack at the center of the city, in the middle of the lake sits a pagoda dedicated to lake’s namesake – the giant golden turtle who rose up from the water and grabbed from a 15th century Emperor the sword he used to save Vietnam from the Chinese. According to the legend, this giant golden turtle snatched the sword and then disappeared into the lake with it, restoring it to its divine owners.
And indeed, I believe this legend is probably true. Partially because I saw a giant golden turtle with my own eyes nearby (more on that later), but more importantly, because Hanoi is a truly magical, magical place. Magical. Saigon introduced us to the clash between past and future that feels so tangible throughout Vietnam, but at the end of the day it is a definitely a city focused on the future. Hanoi has a much stronger foot in the past. The old quarter – the heart of the city – is crammed with short, narrow streets still named for the original guilds that occupied them centuries ago. And in many cases, the merchandise of those guilds is still specifically sold on those streets today: water puppet street, silk street, tombstone street – you get the drift. Of course, these streets are crammed full of tourist shops as well – t-shirts and lighters abound. But then there are tons of young, individual designers with small shop fronts that sit next to high-end fancy stores. There are beautiful French-style cafes two doors down from street hawkers sizzling up the best smelling noodles. There are hordes of young Vietnamese sitting on low plastic stools on the sidewalk, drinking tea or beer and snacking on sunflower seeds. The old quarter is teeming with character and the kind of vibrant energy that comes from all these juxtapositions crammed together against a backdrop that, if you squint your eyes at just the right place or time, can fool you into thinking you’ve gone back in time. Did I mention how magical it was?
After a walk around and an Iced White Coffee (oh, how I miss the coffee in Vietnam), I was still a bit wasted from our 12-hour train ride, pre-dawn arrival and that morning’s hotel search. So while Daniel explored some more, I chose to indulge in a massage. And it was the single best massage I have ever had – a FOUR HANDED massage! These two ladies twisted, kneaded and pounded my body in choreographed a-synchronicity for over an hour. Then, on the advice of a friend of Daniel’s from high school who loves Hanoi, we made our way through the narrow streets of the old quarter to what Kevin Brown deems “the best Italian restaurant in the world, not just Vietnam.” To that I say, pretty damn close, Kevin Brown. Run by an Italian expat couple, our wood-oven sausage pizza, homemade pasta with cream and speck and carafe of house red was a serious, delicious indulgence and rivaled some of the best Italian food I’ve had in NYC. And it was also a pretty nice break from salty beefy noodles!
The next morning, after finding the Hanoi outpost of our favorite bagel place from Luang Prabang (conveniently located around the corner from our hotel), we made our way to the “Hanoi Hilton” – the prison originally used by the French to jail Vietnamese revolutionaries during the colonial period. It was subsequently used to house American POW’s during the war (John McCain was imprisoned there). There isn’t much left of the original prison, as most of the building was razed to make room for skyscrapers, but what’s left is still chilling and enraging all at once. Most of the exhibits, as well as the left-behind guillotine, speak to the treatment the Vietnamese endured at the hands of the French. But then we got to the exhibit and videos about how the GI prisoners were treated, which was just blatant propaganda. According to these videos and exhibits, the GIs were treated like hotel guests. Also, they learned so much about Vietnamese culture that they began to side with their captors. Oh yes, and Christmas was just a joy! BLECH. For the first time since arriving in Vietnam, my guilt over the war and my sympathy for the suffering of the Vietnamese people as a whole was totally sapped and I was just grossed out and wanted to leave. So much of the propaganda up until that point felt either completely outdated or sort of like, “ok, we deserved that.” But here it just felt alienating and offensive.
The best cure for such grossed-out-ness is, naturally, a trip to an old-timey ice cream parlor, so you can guess where we went next. It was lovely to sit across from the lake and watch families and young couples idle the afternoon away. Afterwards, we took a walking tour through the old quarter, starting at the other structure that rises out of Hoan Kiem Lake – a temple where the aforementioned giant golden tortoise is housed. Ok, so it’s not the actual turtle. But it is a humongous tortoise that walked out of the lake and died one day and was posthumously dipped in gold. The dude is about 4’ long, no joke. According to Lonely Planet, there is some doubt as to whether the turtle actually lived in the lake or if the Vietnamese government planted him there in order to perpetuate the myth that enormous turtles live in the lake (because if they do, then obviously the sword legend must be true). Personally I say its all true, since like I said, Hanoi is magical.
After the temple we wandered the streets of the old quarter for a few hours. And I literally mean the streets, since Hanoi is the clear winner in SE Asia’s “sidewalks as a fluid concept” competition. Each street is crammed exclusively with one kind of product: bathtowel street! Kids clothes street! Fake money to burn in Buddhist rituals street! Toy street was especially full of mayhem. We wound our way through, getting moto exhaust spewed all over our feet, until we could take no more.
Dinner, a recommendation by the NY Times, was sadly a disappointment, although it took us to a cool part of town we would not have been to otherwise. For anyone who thinks “Deep Fried Duck” sounds like the biggest no-brainer delicious indulgence ever, think again. I was as shocked as you must be now. It was dry and gross, and since that’s almost impossible to do with duck, I fault the restaurant 100%. And the buffalo with morning glory was leathery, saucy and tasted like salt and nothing else. Our appetizer, though – a salad of lentils, roasted tomato and chicken – was pretty delicious. But overall, skip La Cooperative. Fail for the NY Times on that one.
The next 2 days included lots of iced white coffee breaks, a stroll through the tony (relative term) part of town to see the opera house, a visit to the millennium-old Temple of Literature and of course, a trip to see Uncle Ho’s preserved body. The Temple of Literature is dedicated to Confucius and is the site of Vietnam’s first university. In general, it is a shrine to the thinkers of Vietnam’s history and showcases some of the must beautiful classical architecture we saw in the entire country.
Our last night we ate at Madame Hien, a restaurant we stumbled upon across the street from our hotel, and one of those exciting travel finds. Set in a beautiful old colonial building and garden, the menu is an homage to the French chef’s Vietnamese grandmother-in-law. The menu is both fusion and slightly elevated traditional Vietnamese cuisine, and the meal was up there in the top 10 of the trip (at least half of the top 10 meals were in Vietnam). We started with little pork purse dumplings topped with crabmeat and accompanied by insane sauces, of course, this being Vietnam. For dinner we shared duck sautéed with pineapple and water spinach as well as a DIY noodle dish with grilled pork, fresh herbs and the vinegar/chili/fish sauce we got so often throughout the country. It sounds weird, but to me it tastes like Vietnam and every time I have it for the rest of my life I’ll be reminded of how much I love it there. For me, so far, Vietnam wins. It’s a close call, but of all the places we’ve been it’s the one I already cant wait to go back to.
The next day, before catching the evening train to Sapa, we hightailed it to Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum in time to make the 10am line-cutoff. The whole experience felt a bit like being in a collective trance. Vietnam is not a country of queue respecters, so you can imagine how strange it was to see at least 1,000 Vietnamese quietly get and stay in a double-file line for a few thousand meters without ever raising their voice above a murmur. It moved very quickly, past a museum straight out of Moscow circa 1985, and after about 45 minutes we reached the entrance to the mausoleum. Upon seeing the guards in white uniforms, everyone around us fell stone silent and their faces went deadpan, except for the poor teenager in front of us. He had to be (nonverbally) reminded by a guard to take off his hat, and the look of deep shame and remorse that came over his face and the manner in which he hung his head pretty much told us everything we needed to know about how reverently the Vietnamese, old and young, still regard Ho Chi Minh today. The guards whisked us all past Uncle Ho’s small, chilled, glass encased and surprisingly un-wax-like body, grabbing the elbow of anyone lingering too long and physically moving them forward, Daniel included.
Hue & The DMZ
Gateway to the Hue Forbidden City
We were lucky to sit on the correct side of the northbound train rolling to Hue and have Vietnam’s pristine coast distract us from sticky surface area, wisps of air con that couldn’t reach the beads of sweat on my ever expanding forehead, and strange toes coming from behind to nestle my elbow.
Hue has some interesting pagodas, a Forbidden City destroyed by French bombs (making it a guilt free site), and is a short drive to the DMZ: the Mason Dixon Line of Vietnam’s civil war. About the De-Militarized-Zone (an ironic name): a 5km swath of land, it was the site of constant battle during the war and where – having been deceived by Uncle Ho’s army – we sent enough resources to weaken us for the elsewhere-located Tet Offensive. Hamburger Hill is close by (still not a friendly place for US tourists), as are various firebases, an entire village of underground tunnels to the north, and to the south, bunkers which gave shelter to soldiers waiting out their six month tour. Between the mortar fire from the Laos mountain range that hid the Ho Chi Minh trail and the warships lying off the coast in the South China Sea sat a town whose largely untouristed spots today remind me of Cleveland minus the charm.
Online, Gaby found Camilla: a hotel offering an ultra clean room, a balcony with a view, a complimentary desktop computer not bolted down and in-room dining all for thirty dollars a night. Perhaps this trip has lowered my pizza standards but the hotel hadn’t topped theirs with shrimp so it was greatly enjoyed.
The first morning we flagged down two motor scooters and hired them for the day to take us around. We spent a few hours at what’s left of the Forbidden City – once the capitol of Vietnam with Emperors living behind its walls. Eighty percent of the buildings were leveled as fighting broke out when the French officially overstayed their welcome. I’d rather be the first to arrive at a party rather than the last to leave. The food is untouched and you’re not obligated to help clean. So the French brought us as their date (did they even ask if they could bring someone?) ditching us when we passed out locked in the bathroom. Typical.
Between the Forbidden City and a pagoda known for a rabble-rousing flammable monk came a breakdown in communication: between Gaby, myself, drivers without English, waitresses without menus and a grifter selling toothpicks for the Red Cross.
Having survived that, we headed to Emperor Tu Doc’s tomb: a sprawling, landscaped, green space dotted with several royal temples he had built as a final resting place. Being a morose depressive he spent the bulk of his time here while living but ended up somewhere else for all eternity. The world’s first Emo Emperor, his monument to “woe is me” angst practically bankrupted the kingdom and is known as a place where “joy weeps and sorrow smiles.” The man had 104 wives and zero children.
Our shepherds offered to take us to one more site that wasn’t on the map. I didn’t understand where but said yes anyway (I can’t say no; sometimes it works out, other times I’d rather not talk about it). Soon we were offroading to the top of a hill on our mopeds. I so wanted to move my hands from white knuckling the bar behind the seat to clutch the strange Vietnamese man’s hips but thought it too forward. We parked at what seemed to be the town’s adolescent get-high and make-out spot. It had a great view all the way to Laos, which is why there were bunkers from the war built into the site. Like most reminders of the war they are just barely still there. Only a few were still sticking out but during the war it was an entire complex. The guide for our DMZ tour the next day would explain that’s where they would “smoke cocaine, smoke opium, drink whiskey, yes? All time say ‘Fuck them, motherfucker, fuck, shit’ when they fire on us, yes? Stay inside for days, wait for it to be over, yes?”
The guide was at the front desk in our lobby when we came out of the elevator eight in the morning. He wore a baseball cap and sunglasses. In his sixties, something about his height and movement reminded me of my century-old grandfather. He believes he is still being watched which is why I am keeping his name out of this. Yes, I assume the Vietnamese government is reading our blog. With him and a driver we went to pick up the other couple that blindly signed up with two strangers for the chance to have a veteran show us sites from the war. Most tours involve a busload of visitors being taken around by a guide younger than me who can recite all the stories. Until our own guide started tearing up in the middle of the tour I wasn’t entirely convinced of all he was telling us; so many times you hear of liars who convince even themselves they were there – wherever there is. It’s easy for me to believe everything I hear, but if he wasn’t being real it was a good enough act where I didn’t mind letting myself buy it. Willfull gullibility made the extra cost worth it.
He showed us what’s left of the white sand we’d pay women from the village to collect for our sandbags. He talked about the hill of them that made up Camp Carroll – named after the captain who taught our then 16 year old guide how to play chess before killed being killed during his daily ritual of alfresco coffee brewing. The sand he showed us was on the side of a portion of the road called “Highway of Horror” for when the North massacred Buddhists accused of being sympathetic to Americans. That wasn’t in the War Remnants Museum. Our guide joined the South Vietnamese army when he was 16 and when he wasn’t guiding US special forces through landmines he led groups of guerilla Hmong soldiers. After the war he spent more years than he ever spent fighting in a prison camp, along with everyone else that fought the communists.
Then off to a bullet ridden church and North Vietnamese memorial cemetery before trekking for an hour through the edges of a rubber tree plantation where the Con Thien Firebase was. Only one bunker remains and he pointed out where they moved the toilet when the North took it over. Apparently when he shows US veterans the site they don’t recognize it. There is nothing left so he helped us visualize the road clogged with trucks, checkpoints, and fields of tents where soldiers rested between assignments, none of whom wanted to stay long as there was no alcohol or prostitutes. He remembered the names of those who treated him well. Before being imprisoned and stripped of all possessions, he became wealthy from the proceeds of goods he sold (radios, washing machines) that servicemen had left behind when returning home.
On the Northern side of the DMZ we toured underground tunnels that the entirety of Vinh Moc village hand-dug and relocated to in order to hide from constant US bombing. It was a major point of entry for Chinese and Russian weapons that supplied the North’s war effort. Complete with low lighting and disembodied mannequins I couldn’t wait to reach daylight. That didn’t happen before close to a hundred school children, filled with nervous laughter, came marching through and blocked our way. Apparently, there’s nothing scarier than a white man who needs a shave yelling “Boo!” after passing a headless plastic torso.
Once a culinary capitol due to Emperor appetites, there is no longer any food of note (other than the aforementioned pizza) to write about. We came here for the war and we still do.
Eating Vietnam (or, Hoi An)
Hoi An
The train from HCMC to Hoi An (well, to Danang, from where we took a gypsy cab with a puking 4 year old) wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst. The sleeper cars in Vietnam are private 4 bed berths, so at best we could expect to share a cabin with 2 other people. In this case, we were with 2 others and a 3 year old who had a really bad cold and cried often (and with gusto). And the berths are fixed (unlike Thai trains, on which the berths collapse during the day into corresponding assigned seats) which means that during daylight hours, the people from them sit on your bed with you like its no big deal.
The bathrooms were kind of vile, but whatever, out cabin itself was kind of tidy (especially for Vietnam) and we had some beers when we got on, so we made the most of it. Of course, there was no way, between the 2 sick kids I shared confined spaces with in less than 24 hours, that I was going to escape without getting sick. Luckily it took a few days to incubate (and Daniel was unscathed), because I got to enjoy magical Hoi An in good health.
Hoi An is in central Vietnam, about 30 km south of China Beach, and it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Sight. From the 15th until the 19th century when the river silted up, it was one of the most important trading ports of the Orient – given its prime location between India and China – which meant that it was constantly teeming with traders from all over the world. Eventually, after first using it seasonally as a home base to get away from monsoon winds, waves of Chinese (and to a lesser extent and only until the mid 1600s) Japanese merchants made Hoi An their home. These rich traders built beautiful buildings – opulently decorated houses, traditional Chinese assembly halls and even a traditional Japanese bridge – that shaped the landscape of Hoi An into this romantic, charming town full of windy narrow streets packed with these gorgeous buildings.
The 2 other things that flourished as trademarks of Hoi An as a result of its trading-hub status were clothes and food. The silk that passed through (and eventually began to be made around) Hoi An is the finest in Vietnam, which led to the two things you see the most abundance of in town today: silk lanterns (for sale and hanging everywhere) and tailors ready to custom make any design you submit to them within 48 hours, for reasonable prices. I indulged in both. And Daniel and I both indulged hard-core in the local gastronomy (shocking). The food in Hoi An is, for lack of a better term, OFF THE HOOK. By far the best local food in all of Vietnam. Perhaps the best food we’ve had in all of Asia so far (and I write this after having spent 5 days in Penang).
After our 20 hours of traveling with sick children and moving from a moldy 2 star hotel room down the block to a beautiful converted “Ancient House” (the name of the hotel, which was built around and in the style of an old merchant house), we headed into town to see the tailor my friend Erin had recommended and to start eating. The tailor shop, Yaly, was a magical bustling place where in under 2 hours I picked and added my own twists on designs for 2 dresses (one design from a model dress they had, another from a magazine). I picked fabrics, trim and got fitted amongst about 15 other tourists, some of whom were getting custom suits and ball gowns!
We then headed to Mermaid, a restaurant we’d read about that specializes in the local delicacies, and dug into our plates of Hoi An specialties:
White Rose – rice flour dumplings filled with ground shrimp and vegetables, that are incredibly delicate and incredibly delicious, and of course, as with everything else in Vietnam, made all the more delicious by the fried garlic topping and the sauce it comes with (in this case, a somewhat sweet vinegar with chili peppers marinated in it).
Hoi An Pancake – the Vietnamese love child of an egg-less frittata and a soft taco! Veggies, slices of roast pork and peanuts are cooked into a savory crispy pancake, which is then filled with even more veggies and roast pork and peanuts and served with rice paper (to wrap the hand torn, bite sized pieces so as to absorb the grease) and spicy and sweet sauces. If it wasn’t for the crunchiness of the bean sprouts I think this might have melted in our mouths.
White Rose Dumplings and Hoi An Pancake
Cao Lao – the dish Hoi An is most famous for. It’s a simple bowl of thick rice noodles (Cao Lao) served with rice flour croutons, slices of roast pork, a little bit of broth and in classic Vietnamese style, chock full of fresh herbs. Daniel didn’t get that much of this one, I have to admit…
Cao Lao
We finished off the meal with a roasted pineapple crepe and walked around town a bit before collapsing in a room blissfully devoid of sick children. The next day we did a 6 hour walking tour of old town Hoi An, visiting the assembly halls, merchant houses, market and handicraft workshop (where was saw a nice performance of traditional music), doing some shopping along the way. We stopped a few times to beat the heat with fresh mango shakes and after a rest at the hotel and dip in the pool, went back to Yaly to have fittings for both of my dresses (almost finished in under 24 hours).
We then headed to Morning Glory, a restaurant owned by the same chef as Mermaid. We got the only table outside, which was lovely because at night the streets of Hoi An are dotted with silk lanterns and art galleries that stay open late, and all cars and motobikes are banned, so you feel like you’ve gone back in time. We sat out there and dug into more White Rose and a few other different Hoi An specialties: Crab Dumplings in Fried Wonton, Bun Thit Nuong (Like Cao Lao but even better because the pork is sort of caramelized and there are even more fresh herbs), and garlic stir fried morning glory (which was the food equivalent of crack, hands down). It was so delicious that as we ate we decided we’d have to return the next night!
By the next morning my cold had arrived in full force, so we decided to relax and take advantage of the private beach our hotel had just a free 15-minute shuttle ride away. We roasted in the sun and enjoyed the crystal clear water of the South China Sea for a few hours, then swam in and napped by our hotel pool for a few hours more before heading into town to pick up my dresses (awesome!) and make pigs of ourselves once again at Morning Glory. This time we indulged in skewered pork that we hand wrapped with rice paper and fresh greens, sliced roast duck with banana blossom salad and soy cherries, and more Hoi An Pancake and Morning Glory.
Afterwards we noticed throngs of locals and tourists headed towards the riverfront, so we decided to go with the flow and see what the hubbub was about. Among the traditional houses, silk lanterns, street hawkers and hoardes of people was a parade of lit up floats, about 50 rowboats scattered on the river (some with traditional singing groups performing), and hundreds of flaming candles in paper bags floating on the water, sent out by people on the rowboats and riverbank – all in honor of the full moon. It was a lovely sight and a lovely end to a perfect visit to Hoi An.
Ho Chi Minh City
We Had the Light In Our FAVOR
After the letdown that was Can Tho and a growing suspicion regarding Lonely Planet’s fallibility, we didn’t know what to expect from Saigon or as it is now known: Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). Wanting to arrive in relative style, we reserved the bus tickets at the hotel as I drew a picture of a big bus and repeated “tourist bus” over and over. Gaby sat at the lobby computer to google translate “no minivan, no clown car, no raining inside bus, reserved seating in front, no masked old lady on lap,” or something to that effect, probably a bit more benign. I wasn’t as afraid of old ladies on my lap as I was of a cell phone addicted, loud, spitting, scab infested, drunk teenager who had no qualms about putting his filthy bare feet up in the face of a mother who was trying to nurse while sleeping (we didn’t have the best introduction to Vietnam). But when we arrived at the bus station our nerves were calmed at the sight of a large, clean, and sealed carriage. It was glorious. They handed out bottled water. After emptying mine I refilled it with tears of joy.
The bus dropped us off at a station way outside of town. So far it didn’t look any different than the rest of what we passed: a congested road filled with near misses, lined by thin four story buildings built with cheap mass produced renaissance style parts, ground level stores (most selling cell phones) and laundry hanging off upper level balconies. I wasn’t positive it was even Saigon, not yet knowing how to tell where I was by the address listed on every awning. We got into a taxi whose meter seemed not to have been programmed properly.
We sped towards the center of what seemed a proper city on an expressway; I forgot how long it had been since I had been on one of these. When I saw the meter wildly skipping I was overcome with a sense of powerlessness. Nothing worse than not knowing how to tell the driver you’re not some out of town schmuck because you are exactly that. There were high rises in the distance, stoplights and advertisements for luxury living that didn’t seem preposterously out of place. Gaby never spends less than three hours doing hotel research and it usually pays off. In this case, ours was right where we would want it to be: in the center of town, far enough from the backpacker district to make us feel like we were in Asia, but close enough that we weren’t the only tourists.
It was dark when we left for Quan An Ngon, a restaurant we found through Lonely Planet and the New York Times that brings different street vendor staples from up and down Vietnam into a softly lit, air conditioned, sanitary restaurant with an English menu: the best of both worlds. It is next to the Reunification Palace (named for when North Vietnamese tanks parked on its lawn to accept the resignation of the South’s leadership and ruin the gardener’s week). I was able to lead Gaby left and right through these night time motorbike filled streets with such confidence and an almost prescient ability that I have decided to become a GPS system when I get home. I’m going to market myself as the compass with personality.
The next day I led Gaby through the entirety of walkable Saigon (as District 1 of HCMC is still known): first to an authorized Nikon dealer (which is harder to find in Asia than I thought) for a new battery charger that I promised I would not make wet with Mekong; then to the impossible to find (even for myself) tourist information center for some free maps and to learn that the places that look so nice in their posters are over $700 a night; then to Notre Dame (there’s apparently two, this one being impressive because it’s a cathedral in the Far East), then to the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City – a sort of a bizarro outdated Disney attraction masquerading as a war museum where America isn’t so great and the propaganda doesn’t bother pretending its anything else (and the only history of HCMC pertains to the war); then to a café in the fancy neighborhood for Vietnamese iced coffees (and we waited for most of the ice to melt); and finally to the closest high rise rooftop bar where we looked out over a good portion of Saigon and across to the rooftop of the Rex Hotel, where the US Army did their nightly briefings during the war, referred to by the press as “the 5 o’clock follies.” We finished up our day with steaming bowls of hot Pho, a beef noodle soup that is basically the national dish of Vietnam. Gaby fell in love; I have a hard time falling in love with soup. But this was pretty good.
Most people wouldn’t be able to accomplish all this walking as you take your life in your hands just trying to cross the street. The incessant flow of motorbikes is awesome to behold; we’re talking expert level Frogger here. But we won the game by cheating: the trick is to step into traffic staying in the shadow of an elderly local who knows what they’re doing. And you always get a smile when you thank them for their courage.
The second day we toured the Reunification Palace. It took the place of the French Governor’s mansion that served as the President’s residence until it was bombed by the South’s own air force in a failed coup attempt. Learning his lesson he had one rebuilt with a bomb shelter. But he and his family were killed before they could move in (besides it only has two bedrooms) so since then it has only been used for official receptions and other state business such as reunifications. Gorgeous and stately, this is the best of 60’s modernist design and it still has all the original furnishings. Think of the White House had it been a Mad Men set piece.
But we had to rush at the end to make it to our next destination: a water puppet performance. I’m not just being a good husband when I say I enjoy puppet theater, because I love object and movement based performance of the absurd as much as the next guy. But I am being a good husband when I say I enjoy puppet theater performed in a foreign language. Gaby took eighty-four photos.
That night we went to a very special French Vietnamese restaurant called Temple (thank you NY Times). It was the sort of meal that makes you wish you were wealthy until you get the bill for $40 (including a bottle of wine and dessert), then it just makes you wish you lived abroad. In an elegant setting evocative of the best of romantic Indochina I was able to pull and eat every tiny morsel of meat off my spare ribs and construct a skeletal representation of my meal. Gaby preferred to take photos. She also preferred her duck in orange sauce. (GABY’S NOTE: we also had 4 different kinds of hand rolled spring rolls to start that were insane. This was by far among the best meals of our trip).
It rained our third day so we only had braved the weather for pho and the market. Markets in Asia are consistently horrific for me. Gaby feels differently. They smell, shall we say, exotic. They take the term “hard sell” to new heights. And it’s all junk for Caucasian tourists or clothes for Asian bodies or food for Asian bodies and adventurous Caucasian tourists. I heard Gaby say to one vendor, “I don’t like being touched,” which got a laugh in response. Every place we go, one of the attractions is the market, or if it’s a real hopping town, they have a “night market.” The only difference between all markets in Asia is the beer t-shirt brands depending on the country your visiting: Chang, BeerLao, Angkor, and today Saigon Beer shirts. But no matter, tonight we had plans with a local: an old friend of Gaby’s from her BB King days. We count ourselves lucky to be able see or taste a side of the city that most visitors don’t.
Lisa grew up in Queens. Now she lives in Vietnam teaching English. This seems very brave to me. Anyway, if you’re an expatriate in HCMC you’ll most likely live outside of Saigon in a new neighborhood built on a swamp with Korean money for the purpose of building on a swamp with Korean money. But it seems if they build it, they come. We sat outside a Thai restaurant, drinking lots of beer, on a wide new street lined with smart new buildings. Looking around, we could have been anywhere, and from our company you would have thought we were everywhere: England, Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, and Queens. All the expatriates seemed to live around the corner and they all knew Lisa. It’s a TV show waiting to happen. This might not be a home stay in a small fishing village, but it’s still a part of the real Vietnam and we felt privileged to see it and to catch up with Lisa.
Our last day in Saigon involved dodging more rain (and by now, deftly dodging traffic on our own) on the way to the War Remnants Museum: the city’s number one tourist attraction and its nation’s official recollection of the war. It is as lopsided an account as you can imagine. It begins with the French atrocities committed against the Vietnamese, continues with the American ones, details every worldwide protest against American policy, and ends with powerful photo exhibits portraying the high costs of war paid by all involved. There was a particularly powerful exhibit, Requiem, showcasing both the work and portraits of all the photographers from every country, Vietnam included, that died in action. Despite the bad taste the propagandist overtone left in my mouth by Vietnamese museums, I am stuck haunted by these images. The more you stare at them, the clearer it becomes that everyone lost – us, the North, the South, everyone. And as I stood there looking at what our country’s policies did to everyone involved, including our own, I became angry with old men, past and present, who don’t have to fight their own battles or live through the reality of what is destroyed in service of their egos.
The Mekong Delta
Pineapple, Anyone?
As we sped through Can Tho on our Xe Oms, all I could really tell was that it appeared to be a pretty big city with a fair amount of neon lighting. But after the grueling trip into Vietnam, my mind was more focused on a hot shower and comfortable-ish bed. On arrival at our hotel we were greeted by their guy who arranges floating market tours, who insisted if we wanted to book one with him for the next morning we had to do it within 15 minutes. Whatever. It’s one of the main reasons to go to Can Tho, and being so beaten down already, we relented and booked the tour, hoping it would get us to our room that much quicker.
Entering our room, I noticed a rather large can of Vietnamese Raid, but I shrugged it off, hoping it was a precaution rather than a prediction, and headed for the shower. Of course, if you’ve been reading this blog, you know that it had to turn out to be a prediction. Clad only in a towel, I only made it halfway to the bathroom before a three inch (this is not an exaggeration) cockroach VAULTED from the floor onto one of our pillows. Daniel acted fast with the Raid, and needless to say, we changed rooms. A very unsettling night of sleep ensued – I insisted we sleep with the lights on (which was stupid since the first roach obviously was not deterred in the least by the light) and with a sheet over my head and woke up every 30 minutes looking for more roaches.
The day we spent in Can Tho was interesting. It’s the heart and soul of the Mekong Delta, and the Delta itself is the “rice bowl” of Vietnam, producing the majority of the rice, fruit and all other produce for the entire nation. So even though it’s a city, a sort of rural, third-world-feeling agribusiness is the overriding sensation of the place. We got up around 6am (not hard to do given the roach situation) and headed for our floating market tour with An, a lovely woman in her late 20’s who, like a lot of other Vietnamese women I would meet, wanted to know first and foremost if we were married, and second if we had kids. This was one of the more curious phenomena that I encountered in Vietnam, and it spanned from here in the deep south with An all the way up to our Hmong trekking guide in Sapa (the north). I think it speaks to a cultural obsession with children that we noticed during our 3 weeks in Vietnam. This obsession manifests itself in schools that look like mega playgrounds with costumed Disney-like characters performing for the children, a general laissez-faire attitude regarding discipline (children seemed to run their parents, not the other way around) and just the sheer number of young children everywhere we looked.
I am no cultural anthropologist, so I could be totally off, but in the end, I attributed this to the curious position that Vietnam occupies, stuck between past and future. On the one hand, Vietnam felt very much like a country rising from the ashes of war (our “conflict” was their “war of liberation”), a war that for us has faded from recent memory, but in Vietnam still seems very present in the national psyche. And on the other hand, they have this booming economy and in most of the country, in contrast to the subsistence living we’d encountered in Laos and Cambodia, people seemed very focused on achieving standards of modern luxury living. So I suppose their obsession with their children speaks to a desire for both national and personal prominence, spurred by a rather incongruous set of motivators.
But I digress. Anyway! Our market tour was rad – the floating market is a wholesale operation where farmers and their middlemen pile boats high, mainly with one type of produce – pineapples, onions, potatoes – and then restaurateurs, market stall salespeople, etc row their own boats through and buy what they need for the day. The most amazing thing about it is that these moored boats appear to exist in total mayhem, but as you row through you see that it actually follows the pattern of a supermarket! All the onion boats are in one place, so you can row through and pick the best onions. Same goes for tomatoes, whatever, you name it. Scattered throughout the wholesalers are women whose longtails contain fresh hot Pho or iced cold Fanta, and even one rather large restaurant barge.
After the market, An steered us through some of the back canals of Can Tho, where we got a peek into daily life, which turned out to be much more like Cambodia and unlike anything else we would encounter the rest of our time in Vietnam, which I suppose makes sense since this part of Vietnam was part of Cambodia for a solid chunk of time (and apparently some Cambodians insist still is). The highlight of this was the mango grove we went through, where An pulled over, and with her pocket machete picked and peeled some mangos right off the tree, that were ripe and hot from the blazing sun and were among the 10 most delicious things I have ever eaten.
After our market tour we whiled away the rest of the day walking around town, sitting on the banks of the river drinking Vietnamese Iced Coffee and Tea (another highlight of Vietnam and a new personal obsession), and getting introduced to the culinary extravaganza that Vietnam was to be. After a delicious dinner of some very ordinary Vietnamese dishes, accompanied by an amazing beverage of fresh lime juice with salted plums and club soda, we headed back to our hotel to watch The Wire, where we were greeted by yet another roach outside our door, who I think was about to knock and ask if we wanted turn down service. I couldn’t wait to get to Ho Chi Minh City the next day!
Crabs & Clown Cars
First Clown Car (Before the Rain)
After the cavalcade of temples in Siem Reap and our busy return visit to Phnom Penh, we headed to the beach of Cambodia for some R&R. There are 3 choices for seaside relaxation in Cambodia, all within 40 or so km of one another: Sihanoukville, Kampot & Kep. Kampot is a bit inland from the Gulf of Thailand, sitting on a river instead of the gulf, and its main draw is pepper plantations, so we ruled that out. Sihanoukville has a reputation for being a seedy backpacker haven, so that left us with Kep, which pretty much sounded perfect on its own anyhow.
Kep is sort of a town that time forgot, in the most romantic way possible. Once the seaside darling of Cambodia’s elite, both the French until independence and then the Khmer, the remnants of its pre-1970 incarnation abound in the form of crumbling, grand old villas and abandoned overgrown lots surrounding them. The “beach” itself is narrow, short and covered with yellow sand and some garbage, so not much to see there, but there are a handful of resorts and we had one recommended to us by Andrea that was AH-MAZING and almost affordable. We enjoyed two and a half days of poolside R&R and insane eats. Kep is famous for the fresh crab that fishermen trap and drag into shore everyday by the thousands. And being very close to Kampot, fresh peppercorns abound, so the most popular (deservedly so) thing to eat in Kep is Crab with Kampot Green Peppercorn.
The first night we walked down to the crab market from our bungalow at the Veranda Nature Resort and found one of the crab shacks sitting over the Gulf, where a woman waded out into the water and grabbed the (still living) ingredients for our dinner from a cage tethered to a rock. 10 minutes and two beers later, out came these plates with blue crabs, some sautéed onions, sprigs of fresh peppercorn and a light garlic sauce that was to die for. The crabs weren’t so meaty, but the shells were so soft we didn’t even need to use our crackers to pick out what meat there was. The next night, having spied the good looking plates of some people eating at the Veranda restaurant and being fully exhausted from sunning ourselves and swimming all day, we decided to do what I usually hate to do – eat at the hotel. Turns out, the hotel is known to have one of the best restaurants in Kep, and we soon found out for ourselves that they make some of the best margaritas on earth. We ordered the crab with green peppercorn again, and this time it was a huge, meaty stone crab with even fresher peppercorn, softer onions and an even lighter and more delicious garlic sauce. I ruined the only dress I brought on the trip slobbering over this crab, and I don’t regret it one bit. It was that good. We ate the exact same meal, plus a fresh red snapper fried with chili sauce the next night. So delicious Daniel had a cat eating bits of our meal directly off his fork!
Kep is about an hour’s drive from the Vietnam border, from where you have direct access to the Mekong Delta, so after our mini-break we decided to brave a relatively new Cambodia-Vietnam border crossing, Ha Tien. It was that or detour 3+ hours back to Phnom Penh and from there head directly to Ho Chi Minh City, and since we wanted to spend a day in the south first, we took a stab at the Ha Tien crossing. Probably not the best choice.
First we waited an hour at the crab market for our ride to the border, having been told by the hotel that a minibus would escort us for that first part of the journey, and at Ha Tien we would switch to an A/C bus that would take us to Can Tho, the heart of the Mekong Delta. The hour’s wait was pretty cool, because we got to watch the locals go about their business at the crab market, but the hour-long ride on dirt roads in the 1983 Toyota Camry (not a minibus) that picked us up was the opposite of cool. The car’s A/C expired long ago, though I’m not sure our driver knew, and the only way to get air in the car was to allow in all the dirt kicked up by the cars in front of us.
Once we were firmly caked in red dirt, he stopped the car and pointed us in the direction of two guys on motobikes. Nobody spoke English, so a series of gestures ensued that left Daniel and I with the impression that we were supposed to get on them, especially since the Camry driver had alreday transferred our bags to the motos. I was in a state, since on the one hand I couldn’t figure out if we were getting scammed, which was upsetting, and on the other hand, if we weren’t getting scammed, then I was furious at the hotel for basically lying to us about the transport we booked. And, to boot, these guys had our bags. Not having any other options, we followed their gestures as they guided us through clearing Cambodian exit-immigration on foot, then as they patted to the seats behind them. We got on – a driver in front of each of us, and our backpack in front of the driver. We enjoyed a 2 minute ride through no-mans-land to the entry point of Vietnam, where again we had to abandon our bags to the care of the drivers while we went through immigration. Luckily, these guys and our bags were waiting for us on the other end. We soon came to learn that this is a very standard (and cheap) way to get around in Vietnam – Xe Oms, the Vietnamese name for these single passenger motobike “cabs,” which as long as your driver gives you a helmet, are one of the most fun ways to get around outside of major cities (the prospect of a Xe Om is just terrifying in HCMC or Hanoi because of the nutso traffic, although they do offer them).
Zooming through the countryside on the back of a moto was my first taste of Vietnam, and it was exhilarating. I loved every minute of it, although I wasn’t so sure where I was supposed to put my hands (apparently, not on the driver’s shoulder, but I learned this a little late). By the time we arrived at the Ha Tien bus station, I was in love with Vietnam. Sadly, my euphoria was short lived. First, our bags were thrown atop a minibus that again, was from about 1983, had no A/C and was filthy. Not ideal, but ok, I could take it, especially since there were 15 seats and only 7 other tourists, plus the driver and some other guy who seemed to work with the driver, though we had no idea doing what. Turns out, what he did was to lean out of the bus as we drove along, barking at randoms on the street and getting them on the bus in return for cash that went directly into his pocket, which I’m sure he later split with the driver.
Within half an hour, there were 27 people in the minibus (not including the driver or barker). I shit you not. As more people shoved in, Daniel and I each took a window so we would not sweat to death, which meant that there were several locals between us. There was a Vietnamese woman pretty much sitting on my lap and sleeping on my shoulder simultaneously. Then, of course, came a torrential downpour. The barker jumped out of one of the windows of the (moving) bus and threw a tarp over all of our bags, but apparently neither the tarp nor our bags were enough to keep the rain out of the minibus, because after a few minutes of the storm, it was raining INSIDE the bus. Dripping down on us sad, dirty, sardines. Did I mention this was a 3 hour drive? And that was just to the NEXT minibus, which was another 3 hour drive.
Before the second drive even started, there was a screaming argument between some Italian backpackers and a random Vietnamese lady who may or may not have worked for the bus company. And while (thankfully) this bus was much newer and had A/C, there were Vietnamese teenagers smoking inside of it (and hocking lugies into plastic bags). In an effort to open the window (to alleviate the smoke), I got yelled at by another maybe-worked-for-the-bus-company lady for letting out the A/C, and then in trying to close the window wound up bleeding profusely from my right index finger for the next hour. The funniest part of which was that as soon as the minibus started moving, the barker assigned to it opened a window wide open so as to try and get more people on the bus, of course. The final total of this bus was 25 people, again not including the driver or barker. NIGHTMARE. By the time we got to Can Tho, we were too tired and aggravated to haggle with the Xe Om drivers who appeared to be the only option to get to our hotel. So this time, without any trepidation, we hopped on the back of random motobikes and sped into the night.
watchourstep 