Christmas, sort of.

It has been nearly a month, but Christmas Day 2006 was indeed memorable so I will do my best to recount it here.

My friend Mark and I woke relatively early at our $7-a-night guesthouse in the small beach town of Mui Ne. Absent were any signs of Christmas--no tree, no lights, no presents nor stockings. Only palms, the nearby ocean, and a few nice smells coming from the adjacent restaurant which attracted us immediately. Though a far cry from my own family's Xmas morning Three Kings Bread tradition, we ate a hearty meal of beef pho, fried eggs, fresh French baguettes, and lovely coffee. Bellies full, we mounted our motorbikes and rode in to the village to check out the local market. The market was a collection of several dozen stalls, selling everything from meat and seafood to shoes, kitchenwares, toiletries, and the small plastic tables and chairs seen so often on sidewalks. The stalls mostly surrounded a central area covered by a blue and white tarpaulin, where ladies in the iconic conical (iconical perhaps?) hats sat on their haunches shoo-ing the flies off the fish they were trying to sell, eating from bowls, and jabbering spiritedly with each other. Almost no one spoke any English and all the Vietnamese seemed quite focused on commerce, but being the incredibly strange and outgoing characters that Mark and I are, we still managed to coax a few smiles and have a few laughs with several of the vendors.


After walking around for sometime, we decided to meander down one of the side alleys leading from the market area (and back to our parked bikes). We passed a small salon, where two young women and an older lady sat on the patio. We smiled and called out Xin Chao ("Hello"). They smiled back, returning a "hello" and called us over. Much obliged, we sat down on some of the tiny plastic chairs. We had exhausted our Vietnamese, and quickly discovered their English was little better, and yet between a few more smiles and pointing at things in our trusty phrasebook, we managed to begin a conversation. The young women had been snacking on fresh crab from a small pail, and immediately offered us some. In fact they even did the dirty work, removing the shell and passing us large chunks of crab meat. I don't even like crab and I must say it was delectable.When the crab was finished, out came the scallops, and when the scallops were gone, out came the fish stew and rice and before we knew it, we were having quite a wonderful Xmas lunch with three kind women whose names we could not pronounce and who we hadn't known 30 minutes before. The phrasebook was quite handy and provided much entertainment when the conversation died. We managed to teach each other some Vietnamese and English, though I do believe I forgotten nearly all of it. After the meal, the young women insisted we stay for a shampoo, head massage, and a facial. We did not quarrel. An hour and some 65 cents later, we bid our new friends goodbye, though with plans to go out for coffee later in the evening.


Feeling like kings, we shed our shirts, hopped on the motorbikes again and set off for a long afternoon ride, first along a beautiful coast road, and later just inland through terrain that was more like desert/savannah than the tropics/jungle I had expected. The sky was exceptionally blue, and the nearly empty road made for perfect conditions for cruising. After a couple hours, we stopped for a drink in a roadside cafe in a tiny village, well off the tourist beat. As we parked our bikes, a half-dozen shoeless young boys appeared, all flashing huge grins, a few of them brave enough to say "hello". As we sat down to a cold 333 beer, the 6 boys became 10 and crowded around us. They told us their names and we tried out some new words on them; I successfully communicated my age in Vietnamese, which drew some smiles. I also taught a few of them a secret handshake, of which they never tired. The final part of the handshake requires lightly punching eachothers' fists; the boys tried to prove their toughness (both to me and their cronies) by hitting my fist as hard as they could. Mark wowed them with his digital camera, which also provided seemingly endless entertainment. They appeared to me the happiest group of boys I'd ever seen.



Refreshed by a beer, a bottle of water, and about 1000 smiles, we got back on the bikes, allowing a few more final handshakes as we revved our engines and drove away. I too, felt about as happy as I could imagine, enjoying the late afternoon sun, the open road, and the tremendous vitality of Vietnamese culture. As we neared our guesthouse, we had an incredible view of the soon-to-be setting sun throwing a few of its last rays on the local fishing boats in the harbour.



Back at our guesthouse, we rested and got cleaned up. Shortly after dark, we returned to the salon to meet our new friends, whose names I couldnt pronounce in the first place and now cant remember. We'll call them Phuong and Thuy, two female names I do remember, but likely say incorrectly. Anyway, they were just closing up shop, and needed to get cleaned up themselves, so we accompanied Phuong to her family's home. Immediately we were invited inside and introduced to the rest of the family, which, besides the parents, consisted entirely of young women. While our "date" took a shower and changed clothes, Mark and I chatted with the father (a devoted Catholic who spoke a little English) and evaded politely as we could his offerings of engagement to his daughters. That is to say we accepted them with great laughter and smiles, hoping they were joking as we were! The youngest daughter, who was mute and perhaps still in her teens, seemed the keenest of the bunch and appeared ready to go anywhere with either of us. Luckily, Phuong returned quickly and within minutes, we had said goodbye, were back on the motorbikes and on our way to pick up Thuy. We had planned to just go for coffee but we were all quite hungry and decided on dinner instead. Phuong and Thuy directed us to a nice restaurant, with a 2nd floor that was rather like a posh treehouse. The waiter spoke some English and helped translate for bit, before disappearing to the kitchen to relay our order. While waiting for our food, the language barrier became more evident, and our conversation all but dried up. A phrasebook can only take you so far, we discovered. Yet, we still managed to have a few laughs and our feast orders of goat, crocodile, and seafood stew arrived shortly thereafter, to which we turned our attention. The croc was quite nice, though the flesh was quite fatty. The goat was absolutely delicious, though very very tough. The seafood stew, with scallops and shrimp and greens all cooked in a nice broth and ladled over "bun" (rice noodle vermicelli) was outstanding. Mark and I ate and ate and ate, and when we thought it was gone, they brought us more noodles and more seafood, though the latter we declined, for fear of bursting our bellies. It all made for a fabulous and most unique Xmas dinner.

Bill paid, we returned Phoung and Thuy to their respective homes, and then drove back to the more touristy part of town in search of nightlife, which is a story altogther itself.

Street Walker

The first time one goes out for a walk in Saigon, or perhaps on any street in Vietnam, is a test of courage. The sidewalks are always full, not just full of people like New York City movie scenes, but full of bikes, vendors, tables, chairs, etc. One oft has to step into the street to go around something. The traffic is constant; there are few traffic lights and zero pedestrian crossing signals telling when to walk and when to stop.

The first time I approached a crosswalk, I was quite unsure as to how I would make it across. A never ending stream of motorbikes blocked my way. I considered my options: keep making right turns and walk around the same block until I tire or, make a mad dash through the traffic, testing my speed and agility. I was leaning towards the latter, when a Vietnamese man walked past me, stepped into the street without looking right or left, and proceed to cross slowly, though without stopping or hesitating even once. I watched somewhat perplexed as another young woman on the other side crossed quite similarly. There must be something to this I thought, and decided to give it a go. As I stepped down from the sidewalk, I couldnt help but look right and left, though keeping my feet moving. I walked straight and at a normal pace, and watched in awe as bikes glided by on either side. The drivers didn't slow, but neither did they cut me off or infringe upon my walking space. Everyone seemed to have a great sense of spacial awareness and anticipation.



The more I walked, the more comfortable I became. One learns to walk deliberately, and trust that the other moving vehicles in the vicinity are aware of him/her. I found that stopping in the middle of the street, to let a bus or pack of motorbikes go by, was perfectly safe. Hestitation, however, was dangerous. If the other drivers don't know what you are doing, then they can't adjust. Go, or stop, but do nothing in between. I actually thought it was easier to jaywalk than to use the crosswalks, because the traffic was not so bunched, and therefore more easily navigated.

By the end of the trip, I had learned how to walk as if the traffic wasn't there at all.

Photo courtesy of Mark Barr.

Good photos, randomly

"Uncle" Ho


From the coast road at Mui Ne, Dusk


The red dunes at Mui Ne, Sunset


Great Shirt


On the hydrofoil from Vung Tau to Saigon, feeling cool

Kids

These photos need very little in the way of captions. Vietnamese kids were incredibly cute, and most were also wonderfully not shy. The first two are my favorite photos from the trip.

Eats

It wouldn't be hard to say that Vietnamese food is my favorite cuisine. Every bite contains an explosion of flavors. Not only did I not have a single bad meal, I had very few things that weren't special. Its hard to pick my favorite, so I'll just write a long list of dishes and flavors:



Bowls of "pho"/"bun", both kinds of rice noodles served in soups with meat/seafood/veggies/cilantro. From a street stall or a restaurant where locals eat, a large bowl goes for about $0.60.

Lemongrass & chili. I had this sauce on chicken (perhaps 5 times?), beef, and squid. Absolutely fantastic. Fireworks in the mouth.

Beef, and lots of it. Living in Japan, I rarely eat beef, even though it is my favorite flesh, mostly because it is quite expensive. Thus, I was overjoyed to see wonderful and cheap beef dishes on every menu in every restaurant. I ate beef at least once a day while I was in Vietnam. Yum.

Vietnamese sandwiches. Served by street vendors, 8-10" fresh French baguettes are sliced and stuffed with unidentifiable pork meats, sliced cucumbers, onions/peppers, sometimes cheese, cilantro, and sprinkled with hot sauce and/or MSG infused black pepper. At 30 cents a pop, they make for a quick and easy breakfast or lunch, and even better bus stop or late night snacks.

Ginger. Another one of my favorite flavors. Used liberally in a lot of dishes.

Thai/Asian basil. Ditto. Especially good in the bowls of noodles.

Fresh spring rolls. Bigger and better than the fried kind, of which we also ate plenty. The best fresh ones we had were from a streetside vendor, stuffed with leeks, rice noodles, fresh shrimp, pork, thai basil, and cilantro.



Asian greens. Bok choy, kang kong, and others I don't know the name of are good in anything.

Fish Sauce. Smells putrid, especially when you pass through a town with a factory that makes this stuff. But, it tastes quite nice on white rice with a few hot peppers for added zing.

Fruit. You can't beat dirt-cheap tropical fruit, especially lychees (the best I've had), mangoes, guanabana/soursop, pineapple, and dragonfruit.

Finally, rice. I've been spoiled on Japanese rice, which must be the best in the world, but Viet rice was still wonderful and the best thing to soak up the rest of the flavors.

Any culture that bases every meal around rice, noodles, and fresh bread gets 5 stars from me.

Caphé

The first morning in Saigon, I met Qué from Eden Cafe, who had promised to show me around with her sister. About a half-hour into the "tour" we stopped for coffee at Trung Nguyen Cafe and ended up talking most of the morning, rather than looking around. Trung Nguyen , it seems, is a sort-of Vietnamese Starbucks, and the #1 preferred coffee brand of the Vietnamese. According to my Lonely Planet, Trung Nguyen serves "chon", coffee beans fed to weasels and then later collected from their excrement for brewing. True or not, it was the best coffee I drank in Vietnam.

That said, all the coffee I drank in Vietnam was outstanding. The Vietnamese, as do I, like their coffee ridiculously strong. I never saw it brewed in a pot, they usually bring a small metal filter (like a mini-French Press) right to your table, and its always served in glasses rather than cups. I liked to watch the sludge drip from the filter into the small glass, it reminded me of an oil leak from a car engine. The preferred way to drink it is on ice with a healthy dose of condensed milk. Delicious during the hot part of the afternoon, but in the morning I liked to drink it hot and black. Like a quadruple espresso but without any bitterness, and just the slightest bit sweet.

On any sidewalk at any time of day, you can see men, and sometimes women, sitting on small plastic chairs around a small plastic table drinking ice coffees. Sometimes they are just chatting and sometimes they are huddled around a gameboard that I believe is Chinese Chess. It reminded me of Panama a bit, to watch people take an extended coffee break in the afternoon, or even in the morning, to enjoy the day and the company of friends.

A note about language...

Knowing absolutely nothing about Vietnamese before leaving, I was slightly anxious as to how I was going to communicate with folks. Though I still struggle with Japanese, I have learned enough to get where I'm going, get what I need, and make small talk with folks. Going to Vietnam was erasing all that, and starting over with something completely different.

I needn't have worried, plenty of Vietnamese speak English, or at least enough to help tourists with money. "Where you go?" was the question I heard most I think. With the exception of one town in the Mekong, everywhere we went we found at least a few folks who spoke English quite well, and plenty of those who had some capability with the language. So communication was not a problem at all, and became a source of great amusement.

Vietnamese, at first glance, seems reasonable enough. At least it uses the Roman alphabet, right? But, looking in my new phrasebook, I discovered Vietnamese has 6 tones. Each spelling in Vietnamese has only one syllable, but can be pronounced 6 different ways (marked by accents above or below the vowel), each with a different meaning. To steal an example from the phrasebook, the syllable "ma", depending on the tone/mark can mean: ghost, cheek, but, rice seedling, tomb, or horse. So despite attempts to learn some handy phrases like "Where's the bathroom?" and "Can I have the check please?", I found it impossible to pronounce anything correctly. A Vietnamese could repeat something 10 times, and I would say it 10 different ways, all incorrect. It was much easier just to find what I was looking for and point to it, rather than butchering the pronunciation and risk saying something silly like "I would like to rent a tomb for the afternoon".



Yet, over the course of a couple weeks, we (Aaron and I) did manage to learn a few essentials like: Good morning, hello, thank you, No thank you (perhaps the most useful), how much?, too expensive, moustache, beautiful young woman, I am handsome man, and our three favorites, "Oh My God!" "Liar" and "You are a BIG liar / Bullshit!". We threw these out with great frequency, and were rewarded almost everytime with surprised laughter from the Vietnamese. Used with some simple gestures, you'd be surprised how far you can get with just a dozen or so words.

I will have more to say on both English and Vietnamese in further posts, but wanted to give a brief introduction to show how much I don't know. In further posts, I will incorrectly write all Vietnamese words without the accent marks because 1) I don't understand them, and 2) I can't figure out how to type them all on my laptop.

First Impressions

Stepping out of the Saigon airport was a sea of people, about half of whom I imagine were waiting for friends, family, colleagues, and the other half of whom seemed to be waiting for me. Even before I reached the taxi queue, scores of drivers approached me: "Taxi, suh?" "Where you go, suh?" "I take you hotel, suh?", all smiling and all eager for business. I had been forewarned by another traveller, who recommended I take a "xe om", or motorbike taxi ("cheaper, quicker, and more exciting"). So, I somehow evaded the taxi men, and proceeded until the motorbike guys found me, just on the other side of the taxi queue. After haggling down the price, the man took my large pack, placed it between himself and the handlebars, and told me to hop on. I did as instructed and away we went. The sea of people turned into a sea of motorbikes. I don't think I am exaggerating when I say there are 50 for every car, bus, and truck in Saigon. Nearly everything moves on two wheels. Not just people (riding 2,3, and sometimes 4 deep on one bike), but all sort of goods are transported as well, the most amazing of which I saw were ten brand new boxed TVs, all carefully stacked, balanced, and strapped on a single bike.

My driver cruised fluidly through what at first looked to me chaotic traffic. There are very few traffic lights in Saigon. At intersections, there is no right-of-way, everyone just goes. Motorbikes, cars, buses, bicycles, and pedestrians all merge together like some massive, moving puzzle. From above, it must look like a M.C. Escher painting come to life. The rule seems to be, pick your line and stick to it, unless of course, you need to go around something in your path. What about those making a left turn? How could they possibly ever get past the rush of oncoming bikes? Well, they drive to the middle of the intersection, and slowly inch the bike to the left until they find the space to weave through. The more intersections we went through, the more I began to understand the order of the chaos. The key is low-speed, lots of horn beeps, and consistency. Everyone goes just slow enough that the other drivers can anticipate where the space will be. Absolutely amazing, I never once tired of watching the traffic flow in Saigon. More on my pedestrian experience in a later post.



Upon recommendation from another friend, I told the driver to take me to Pham Ngu Lao street (and the small streets and alleyways connected to it), where a host of cheap hotels, cafes, shops, travel agencies, and bars cater to backpackers and tourists. It is known by the Vietnamese as "White People Street". You don't have to ask for anything here, a kind Vietnamese person will soon offer you whatever you are looking for. I sat down at a cafe to get my bearings, have a quick bite, and a cold beer before going in search of a hotel room. Within 30 secs, a woman carrying a stack of books 6 feet high, bound with a strap, offered me a Vietnam Lonely Planet and a Vietnamese phrasebook. After a bit of haggling, I bought both. Transaction complete, another kind, smiley lady approached:

"You need hotel room?"
"Yes"
"Follow me"
"Can I finish my beer first?"
"Take your time, I wait on sidewalk, I wait for you. Then I show you room."

Beer drained, the woman showed me to the Guest House Linh. I removed my shoes at the door as I noticed all others had done, and another young woman showed me, after climbing 5 flights of narrow stairs to a pleasant room on the top floor.

After a shower and a quick nap, I went out again to check out White People Street. Its true there were a lot of tourists and backpackers about, but there were Vietnamese people everywhere. The streets and sidewalks are incredibly full and alive. In fact, you can barely walk on the sidewalks, for they are constantly cluttered by parked motorbikes, tables and chairs in front of the many cafes, and street vendors selling bowls of pho, sandwiches, cigarettes, books, gum, etc. I found a nice restaurant and took a table on the 2nd floor balcony overlooking the street. My meal of ginger and lemongrass beef and rice was so delicious I pretended not to see the rat that scurried across the floor and under the drink refridgerator in the corner of the dining room.

After dinner, I went for another beer at a place called Eden Cafe, taking a seat at one of the tables outside. Each of the 5 servers in the cafe came and greeted me personally, all asking the same verbless questions: "Where you from?", "What your name?", "How old you?". All of them moved about, cheerfully attending all the customers, but when they had a free minute they would come back to my table to chat. Two of the servers were young women, dressed beautifully in Ao Dai, the traditional Vietnamese dress. Over loose, white pants, they wore a long, bright blue gown, slit on the sides to just above the hip, occasionally revealing a tiny triangle of flesh; without a doubt one of the most stunning attires I've ever seen. It is simple and striking, covering nearly all but the face and forearms, but accentuating the Vietnamese slim, sylphlike figures. The dress almost completely hides the legs, and yet parades their lithe movement.




One of the women, whose name tag said Qué, but who pronounced it something like Hway with a rising tone, was especially chatty and promised to show me around Saigon the next morning if I was interested. Much obliged, I paid my bill and said good night to the kind staff before going out to walk around a bit more and then finally return to my hotel, after a long, intense, and absorbing day.

So many great first impressions, but at the top of the list are Vietnamese people. Almost all are bright and lively, kind and affectionate, even playful. Complete strangers are eager to chat and not afraid to place a hand on your shoulder, or lightly brush your leg. Throughout my trip, I found it incredibly easy to establish some rapport with them, no matter the language barrier. Folks of all ages were keen to say hello, or ask where I was from, or where I was going. Granted, many of them wanted to sell me some good or service, but I met very few who didn't seem genuinely interested to know just a little about me.

So, without intent to disparage Japanese folks, whose constant reservation I've come to appreciate and admire, though not quite embrace, my initial immersion into Saigon and its vibrant culture was not so much like a breath of fresh air, but like receiving a new pair of lungs.

Same same, but different...

After nearly three weeks of motorbikes, buses, mispronounced words (fairly certain I didnt get a single one right), beaches, street vendors, cheap, incredible food, the best coffee in the world, kicking around in flipflops everyday, and chatting with genuinely warm, playful people, I am finally back home in Naruko. Currently I am sitting at my desk at school, and everything is apparently back to normal. A few co-teachers asked about my trip, but not in great detail.

"Happy New Year, how was Vietnam?" they asked. "Great", I replied. End of conversation. Back to daily duties.

Ah, Japan, just as I remembered. Perhaps a few were more interested than they led on, but the office is not a place for chatting, it is a place for work.

My last night in Vietnam, my travelling buddy Aaron and I were talking about returning home to "normal": jobs, schedules, apartments, driving our own cars, etc. Seemingly back to same old same old, and yet it won't be the same, we decided. After three weeks in a completely new place, our attitudes, views, ideas, knowledge, has been slightly, or, greatly altered. The feelings about the state of our lives, and how we relate to those in our realm are different. "Places change you", we declared simply.


Just as I will return to America after two years in Japan with a much different outlook than when I left, I returned from Vietnam with new ideas, new goals, new knowledge, and if you will afford me a triteness, new life.

I hope the following blogs and photos will express the abundance of positive energy I experienced during my short journey.