Sailing Through the Mist and Into the Mistic

Worn down by bad health, long bus rides, inconvenient train schedules, and fourteen weeks worth of walking between connections, Britt and I caved for the first time since Laos. Our departure date hung heavy, and buckling under its weight, we surrendered "traveler" status, signed up for a packaged tour to Halong Bay and concluded our journey as lowly "tourists". Try not to think less of us... The Hoi An-Hue-Hanoi hustle kicked our asses, and so with 36 hours of international travel imminent, we were clawing out for a few last minuets of comfort.

We payed our passage, hopped on the tour, and jumped on a junk that was anything but. In so doing, we painlessly sidestepped the tedious process of bartering down the price of a private boat. Our tour was a stereotypical one. One with generic food and fixed menus; with rigid time schedules, and guides that stumbled over the English language. (The tourist marches they led were hilarious.) But while our tour did not present an irreplicable Halong Bay experience, it did provide a thorough one. (And no, irreplicable is not in the dictionary and yes I am assuming you can infer its meaning. It would probably be in the dictionary if it wasn't so damn hard to say.)

Thousands and thousands of islands billow out of the sea and pepper the bay. Its a maddening limestone labyrinth... At least it is for the navigator. Through the eyes of a passenger on a guided tour, the labyrinth is simplified down and seen as lots and lots of pretty rocks; rocks that speckle the horizon forming jaw dropping views in every direction.

We left port in a heavy fog- sailed through the mist and into the mystic. That's a literal description, and even then if that sounds cheesy, bring it up with Van Morrison. Halong Bay is a dream world. The weather though soon to change, made for a fitting introduction. It created a misty aura that only helped to reinforce the mysteriousness of the place.

For two days we explored the Labyrinth. For two days we got lost in grottoes and tried to loose ourselves; tried to loose sight of the fact that our trip was at its end. Unfortunately our inevitable departure was not easily put out of mind. But the time we spent in the mist was at least a chance to reflect. The details of that reflection I keep for myself, but the conclusion I will share in the form of advice: "TRAVEL... JUST GO! Everybody has got an excuse, but at least you are not in a sling."

I am state side now. Jet lagged and completely traveled out, but I'll be damned if I wouldn't do it again tomorrow. For now I'll leave it at that, but the story doesn't end in Halong Bay, so I will fill in the rest on a better nights sleep.

Into Communist Country

The trip between Hoi An and Hue is only three and a half hours. One of the shortest intercity bus rides of the trip, but when I fell asleep just outside of Hoi An and woke up just outside of Hue I woke up in a whole different country. While I slept we crossed the Vietnamese Dixie line and in that crossing we drove into the agronimous North Vietnam. Vietnam was reunited nearly 40 years ago, but the distinction between North and South is still quite evident. Somewhere between Hoi An and Hue the geography changes, as does the climate (both politically and atmospherically). Even some nuances of the language change. The north is greener, wetter, colder, communister. (Yes, I made up a word for the sake of repetition.)



In Hue, an ominously large communist flag waves from an equally large and ominous concrete flag tower. Walking though the city, the 3m by 5m flag is never far from view, but even if it were, yellow starred flags hang from every other shop. They are an ever-present reminder that this is a communist country. Capitalism is taking hold however, and even in the North Americans are warmly welcomed. In the reconstructed imperial city messages of recrimination are non-existent. The wars are remembered, but no fingers are pointed. In 1968, Hue was lost in the throws of war. It was the first city to fall during the Tet Offensive and in America’s effort to recapture it, the city was carpet bombed and the Citadel was leveled.

Healthy relations between the Vietnamese and the American government have since been restored; a fact headed by the people. The focus today is on the fact that the imperial city has been rebuilt. No one dwells on the point that it was once destroyed by the very people who now take guided tours through its reconstruction.

The citadel showcases the "architectural amalgamation" that is Vietnamese design. Chinese walls enclose Japanese gardens and French colonial mansions; the mansions that once housed the emperors of yesteryear. The feudalistic imperial government is gone, but through the communist govt's recent change in policy, the grandeur that once defined it is now being restored and protected.

Outside of Hue the tombs of the diseased emperors are ornate and numerous. We had time to visit a few, but between the mosaic bas relief, the terracotta soldiers, and the elaborately engraved pagodas, we refused to rush through more. Instead we took our time with two so as not to neglect any detail.



Emperor Khai Dinh was not a popular ruler. He ran the empire for only 9 years, and in a testament to his eccentric nature he began building his tomb just days after coming into power. The construction of that tomb, lasted 3 years beyond his death in 1925. The tomb today is far better respected than he ever was. The design of it, or more probably his contracting that design, was arguably his only lasting achievement. He knew how to worship himself though, and it shows in his tomb. Terracotta warriors guard poetic inscriptions of his "brilliance", and 2 flights of stairs above them Khai Dinh's throne sits within the most elaborately decorated building I have ever seen. Khai Dinh's tomb makes William Randolph Hearst seem to have a taste for understated home décor. Gold furniture stretches across engraved marble floors, bas relief walls lead up to hand painted murals that stretch across the ceiling. Every detail was meticulously attended to by Kai Dinh. The same can not be said of his political attentiveness. During his rule the French began taking political control of Vietnam. His tomb marks the beginning of the end of the imperial line.

The second visit of our day was to the tomb of Minh Mang. Lager and more cohesive than that of Kai Dinh, the Minh Mang tomb's architectural layout is less controversial and is founded exclusively in Chinese design. The lack of French influence at this tomb removes the eeriness present at that of Khai Dinh, but while I felt better about the design of this tomb, I physically felt worse while in it. Humidity hit me over the head with a hammer, and so unless you want detail about my afternoon long water break, I don't have much to say. Weak I know but the end of the trip is looming, and with Hanoi, Sappa, and Halong bay still on the list of places to see the north was calling, and drinking water in the shade of Minh Mang's garden seemed to be the best way to answer that call.

Gluttony

At certain points on this trip comfort food is all I have wanted to eat. Points like yesterday, when an over night bus ride, and 5 hours of bad sleep, pushed me to my complete whits end. Here in Vietnam, cravings are magnified by the fact that comfort food is hard to come by. So at the end of that bus ride, when I found a lone bag of goldfish crackers in some off-beat market, Brittany and I sat on the sidewalk and ate the whole bag in one sitting. Often I fill my bus rides with thoughts of Caesar salads, BBQ Ribs, baked beans, and cornbread. Sometimes all I can think about are bacon burgers with grilled onions, and a thick slice of pepper jack; other times, on a better nights sleep and when I'm feeling a bit less vulnerable, I can't be bothered to consider eating anything but local cuisine... It’s just that street vendors do not cater to the timid eater.

At present, Britt is bed ridden. Taken down, we think, by some street side meal that got the better of her. She is three days deep in the same food-born-hell-ride that has already hit me three times this trip. Still, we return to the same street side plastic chairs for more than half our meals. It's not that we are gluttons for pain; it's simply that when the food is "good", words can't be found to express how "good" it really is. The Curries and soups of South East Asia are better, than we could have hoped, but we also have been happily surprised by quality jumps in some every day staples. Then there are the regional specialties. (The Pha, the spring rolls, Mae Heo, etc)

The food has made the trip. Corn just tastes better here. (Sorry Iowa. It is what it is. Asia's got you beat.) Bananas are almost unrecognizable they are so much better, and similar statements can be made about most of the produce here. The Coffee... Ahhhh. My love for Seattle is betrayed by my Vietnamese coffee preference. There's nothing I can say. The French left behind there namesake press, and the Vietnamese have put it to use. And Bah minh takes it a step further dethroning Paseo's Cuban roast to become my all time favorite sandwich. Cuban Roasts are amazing; they just don't cost $0.50. Vietnamese Pastries, Thai BBQ, street side lobster, the list of "epic eats on the cheap" is endless... You just need to be daring.

So you see, it's not that we are gluttons for pain, it's simply that we are gluttons in general. It's no more admirable, but it should be a bit more understandable. When a $0.75 black-forest chocolate-tart is the only accessible comfort food, gluttony comes easily.


Food is what brought us to Hoi An. Located in central Vietnam, Hoi An is one of the oldest cities/towns in the country. It is a quaint French colonial town, a UNESCO world heritage site, and a foody’s dream. In the day the tailors and cobblers can be a bit overwhelming, but at night the town glimmers in a different light. The streets were empty and the restaurants were full. The “hard sells” were gone and so were my cravings for cheeseburgers. For 4 food filled days Vietnamese cuisine and French style cafes captivated my every thought. Well that and suits but you had to see that coming…

After 3 days of scouring the town to no avail, Britt and I walked into the stand alone best tailor we had yet seen. It was 7 o’clock at night and no more than 12 hours before our scheduled departure, but I had to make it work. Britt was on board as usual, so after I jumped through some hoops to have our travel arrangements changed. We then jumped back on our bike and rode to the tailor’s, and at 9 o’clock at night I shed my gun totting squirrel shirt to be draped in wool/cashmere pin stripes.

They tried to sell me on an almost pure silk/cashmere blend, but when I felt the material and pictured the coat it would become, all I could picture was a fat, middle aged man, eyeing himself in the mirror and asking “doesn’t this ego make my ass look smaller.” (If the visual evades you picture Rodeny Dangerfeild, without the comic releif.) Anyways, I exnayed that and requested something timeless. I asked them to make me look like Don Corleone; and the tailor made it so. Isn't that how a suit is supposed to make you feel? Maybe it has my ego a bit over-inflated, but if I can find one who will have me, an employer will cut that down to size, and if pin stripe armor helps me hold onto some shred of confidence when that happens, then what more could be asked of fancy fabric and simple stitching? Now all I need is a shower, a shave, and a hair cut and I will be half way presentable again.

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Sailing

Outside of meals eaten at Le Petite Bistro, and outside of getting to know Hana, sailing was the stand alone highlight of the time we spent in Na Trang. The city is supposedly "world renowned" within windsurfing and kite boarding communities, and while I highly question the credibility of the sleazy rental guy who fed me that line, I can say this: “The wind in Na Trang absolutely rips.” Winds sweep out of the south, tear up the Vietnamese coast, and render the South China Sea a wind-sports playground, and plenty of people are playing. For two days Brittany and I sat on the shore watching wind surfers and kite boarders get after it, and for a minuet I thought about renting some equipment and joining them, but then I thought back to my trip to Australia, remembered how shitty of a kite boarder I had proven to be, and thought better of it. I did however, continue to eye the hobbie cats down the beach. Three boats sat in the sand unused for almost two days, but after a day of debating how well I could manage the boat in such high winds, Britt, still having never sailed before, put arguably undue faith in me and we agreed to go for it. We dropped half our daily budget on a boat, and pointed it to sea. I cleated the jib, cranked in the main sheet, and took the tiller. Less than a minuet later we were up on one hull, screaming through the South China Sea. All the while Brittany screaming at me that I had “PROMISED” that I would explain all this to her... So explain I did, but I never let up, and Britt being the champion that she is, never complained. She did call me out on overusing ridiculous sailing jargon, but beyond that she took it all in stride; even when I got overzealous and ended up putting us in the drink. We were on a down wind reech when an unfortunately timed swell coupled with an overpowering gust of wind, submerged the right pontoon, lifted the rudders and sent us cartwheeling through the open ocean. I am sure Britt stared daggers into my back while I righted the boat, but I never heard a complaint. As to whether or not she will sail with me again we will see, but she was a good enough sport not to kill me; and she even manned the jib as we pointed our boat back to the still sleazy, and now agitated rental guy.

Language Lessons

The Vietnamese Language is a linguistic maze. Every syllable offers 6 opportunities to mistakenly use the wrong tone and turn a perfectly worded sentence into complete gibberish. In a modest time investment, I have spent about 6 hours reading through our Vietnamese quick phrase book, and in that time I have mastered 3 words. I wouldn't find this overly frustrating were it not for the fact that I have had such committed help from locals; all of whom have patiently repeated corrections to my misspoken phrases until they are blue in the face. The problem is this: The sentence "Toi Chua Laa." means "I am very tired.", but only if read with the appropriate inflections. If you take the wrong tone or use the wrong intonation, you could just as easily say "I not yet strange." or "I to be Pagoda.". The nonsensical possibilities are endless. Bear with me; this isn’t even a real statistic, but it will explain the roots of my struggle:

90% of the Vietnamese language is made up of 3 and 4 letter words. All of which are read in different tones and with different inflections, and when a language is predominantly built up of 3 and four letter words, each word is bound to mean multiple things. "Toi" if I am not mistake has 9 meanings, all with respectively different pronunciations. That's 9 opportunities to mess up everthing you have otherwise said correctly and force the deterioration of our words into indiscernible sounds.
Like I said, it's a linguistic maze, and in my opinion it's an almost impassible one-regardless of how many Vietnamese tutors are willing to help me navigate it.



Maybe its just that the Vietnamese enjoy getting help with English while coaching us though our feeble attempts at their simplest phrases, or maybe it's simply that we keep them laughing, but for whatever reason it is, I've found that we can walk into any shop or restaurant, and all it takes is one mispronunciation, and as a look of confusion transforms into a smile of acknowledgement, I know a language lesson is sure to begin. Through these lessons, Brittany and I have gotten to know our guest house managers, our bus drivers, the local store owners, and most of the wait staff at each meal. We have even made a good friend along the way. We met Hana when we dipped into Le Petite Bistro for a French desert, and while the crème brule was decadent, if the food hadn't kept us coming back, our friendship with Hana would have. Two dinners and a coffee-date/language-lesson later, Brittany and I weren't any closer to conversing with Hana in Vietnamese, but she was definitely a much closer friend. Na Trang, the town where we met her, is a beach front tourist trap. It's a beautiful and likable one, but a tourist trap none the less. Given that, I am baffled that Hana invested time and energy in us, another young tourist couple, but I am deeply grateful that she did. Even with the language tutorial book she copied for us, I learned very little about the Vietnamese language, but I learned a lot about the Vietnamese people. As a traveler, if you can forgive those jaded by tourists, and if you look past those desperate to sell you something, you will see in the Vietnamese people an outgoing disposition, and a deep nurturing capacity that I think is quite rare these days. We saw that in Hana. What she saw in us I still don’t know.

Vietnam

Before coming to Vietnam, I was familiar with the names of all the major cities, I knew that the French had colonized the country, and I knew that the French had been ousted by the north Vietnamese in the 1950's. I knew that a containment policy had dragged the US into a war here in the 1960's, and I knew that just after the last US troops withdrew from Saigon, the south fell under communist control. I knew that napalm carpet bombing campaigns had scorched the Vietnamese countryside, and I knew that in the war nearly 60,000 American soldiers had lost their lives- a meek number in comparison to the casualties suffered by other active forces... But I made the mistake of thinking that knowing these things meant that I knew Vietnam, and that I knew something of the Vietnamese people. I made the mistake of thinking that Vietnam had been, and still was, defined by the war bearing its name. An understanding of the "Vietnam War" however, does not elicit significant knowledge of modern Vietnam. The Vietnamese don't even refer to it as the Vietnam War. It is the "Second War of Indochina" or the "War of America", but it is only referred to by these lesser known names if you can find someone interested in talking about it, and few locals are. As it was bluntly put to us: "Vietnam has moved on!"

Today, Americans are greeted with open arms- literally. We had a guest house owner who offered hugs every time we returned to our room. (She, though particularly touchy has not proven to be an uncommon sort of character to encounter.) Ho Chi Minh, formerly Saigon is bustling today, and the crowded streets speak volumes to the economic growth of modern Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh is a city of the 21st century. Remnants of the French colonization still exist, but the French influence is scarcely visible beyond the local adaptation of classic French recepies. The famous US Embassy roof-top stairway; the one that became the symbol of America's failure in the war; is long gone, and with that, little is left in the city that the American public would recognize. The city however, is still distinctly Vietnamese.

Scooters fill the streets. Business men buzz around the city, ties flapping in the wind over their shoulder; mothers ride with children in their lap, fruit filled wicker baskets stacked on the seat behind them; families all share single scooters, they pile 5 high, with toddlers hanging off every side of the bike. Chaotic is an understatement, its terrifying! Every time I cross the street my life flashes before my eyes- sometimes twice. Drivers use their horn as though it were an invincibility shield. "Why can't I cut off this bus, swerve through oncoming traffic, hop the curb, jet down the sidewalk and then ride through that pedestrian alley? I have a horn don't I?" And with a toot of the horn its settled and they are gone.

Vietnamese life pulses through the city. You can feel it with every changing traffic light. The character is everpresent, it's visible on every sidewalk and down every quaint alley. Vendors push carts of Ba Minh, while families spanning 3 and 4 generations picnic on the steps of their family store... You can eat like a king in Ho Chi Minh, and as long as you aren't afraid of plastic chairs or of sitting on the ground, the perfect meal is never more than 2 blocks and 50 cents away. (Not recommended for the unadventurous.) But even then, a motorcycle taxi pulls the whole city into striking distance, so whether you are after Vietnamese coffee and a French pastry; or Mi Heo, boba, and a lobster dinner, its not only accessible, its affordable.

I still don't know much about Vietnam- but I am going to learn all that I can in the three weeks that I have here.