Goodbye Vietnam

This is my last full day in 'Nam. Tonight I take a night bus to the border, then tomorrow afternoon I take another bus across the border and tomorrow night I'll be sleeping in Laos.

I'm leaving all of one day before my visa runs out. The month went by quickly. There's a lot to see here and I even skipped over several of the big tourist hubs (beach towns of Mui Ne and Nha Trang, ancient ruins at Hue), but then I also lingered for about a week on Phu Quoc.

I booked my flight home today and have just under a month left before I'm back in Oregon. I plan to split the time between Laos and Yunnan (southern China). Since I've seen the Mekong in Vietnam and Cambodia, I think I'll stick to northern Laos as I really don't want to shortchange my time in China. 

What I'm Reading

Just finished

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Loved it. It's a family drama/love story set in Britain just before and during WWII. It's also a movie with Keira Knightley and has won a lot of accolades, so I probably don't need to waste time explaining. I love historical fiction, but this is more than that since the main point is the narration. A post-modern classic, for sure.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

A family drama with surrealist elements, mainly that the daughter/narrator can taste people's feelings in the food that they bake. I don't love surrealism, but this was well written, all the characters were compelling, I appreciated it.

Swamplandia by Karen Russell

This was up for a Pulitzer last year when the selection committee was like, "Nah, none of these will do." It's also surreal/fantastical and is about a family falling apart on a Floridian island where they run an alligator wrestling show. Karen Russell is really funny, she's a great stylist. Again, anything surreal probably wont ever make my list of favorites, but I liked this enough I've put one of her short story collections (St Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves) on my ebook lending list.

As I Lay Dying by Faulkner

Pretty, pretty grim. Faulkner. That guy. He could write a sentence that was a giant paragraph or an entire chapter that was only, "My mother is a fish." (No really, that's in the book.) Who gets away with that? He told people that he wrote this book in six weeks, knew ahead of time it was going to be feggin' awesome, and that he never changed a word. That's not entirely true. He wrote it in about eight weeks, and there were some edits. Also, when he couldn't get into the military in the US during WWI, he ran up to Canada and snuck into the RAF. The war ended before he saw action, but he still went home and bragged about his exploits. As someone who plans to sit down and write a novel this summer, I find it comforting that one of America's most acclaimed writers was, quite often, completely full of shit.

Currently reading

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I picked this up in high school and put it down when it got to the weird sex, which, yeah, is kind of tangential to Ayn Rand's whole point, but still - ew. Actually that's what I said last night, out loud to myself, when I re-arrived at the rape-y sex. After a lot of the books I've been reading, the characters seem clunky and the conflicts lack nuance. On the other hand, I like Dagny's whole build-and-be-great credo. There's a reason this book remains relevant.

I didn't pay for any of these books. I borrowed them all from the Oregon Digital Library Consortium for my Kindle, which is a super awesome reason to have a library card. 

Three down, one to go...

Today I visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, bringing my grand total of embalmed Communist viewings to three (Ho, Mao, Kim Il-sung). Now all I need is Lenin! It's a bit of a shame Kim Jong-il died, mostly because his son is a huge jerk, but also because I feel like that's one more pickle that requires my attention, but I can't very well justify a trip back to North Korea for one dead dude. Actually, it would be hard to justify any trip there at the moment.

I may write more about today later (I also paid a visit to the Hanoi Hilton and saw what is supposedly my man John McCain's flight suit), but I have a night bus headed north to Sapa that leaves in half an hour. Laterz!

Highlands Recap

While waiting to change buses two nights ago, I noticed a portrait of Lenin and Marx hanging over the ticket counter – the first indication I’ve reached the north. Since then I’ve noticed more hammers and sickles and Uncle Ho’s face seems to be more ubiquitous than down south.

In the south when I told people I was American, I mostly got smiles. “Ah, the land of opportunity,” one lady said. In the handful of times I’ve been asked up here, my reply has mostly been met with a neutral nod, as in “I understand what you’ve said,” as opposed to “good for you!” One young guy responded with what sounded like “Nhhaa, Vietcong!” Yesterday I was scootering around and stopped to ask for directions. The gentleman holding my map asked where I was from and when I told him he shook his head and laughed, “Canadian!” For you, guy who is about to tell me where I am going, I’ll be whatever you want me to be.

Currently, I’m in Ninh Binh, which is a nondescript town a few hours south of Hanoi, but the surrounding countryside is all brilliant green rice fields dotted with beautiful limestone formations. I’ll have photos of those to share later, but first I wanted to finish recapping my Easy Rider tour.

So when I said in my last blog my guide used to be a hunter, what I meant was poacher. 

Here he is lighting a cigarette off a flaming plate of rice liquor

He’s been a tour guide for 20+ years, but before that, and before the Vietnamese economy opened up, he used to go into the forest looking for “whatever Chinese people want.” Tiger, monkey, elephant, various plants. I didn’t have the guts to ask him if he actually ever killed an elephant. 

He studied history and English in college but was discouraged from continuing to study because his teachers told him it was pointless: he had family that fought for the south, so there was no way he was going to get a good job. He was angry. And didn’t have any good options. So, in an ostensibly Communist country, he went where the market matched his qualifications.

My guide has a big family, and had relations fighting on both sides. He had an aunt who carried supplies on the Ho Chi Minh trail. And his brother was a helicopter pilot for the south who flew over that trail, and told him how “the jungle looked like it had come alive,” because thousands of people carried foliage as camouflage.

The brown hill in the distance was deforested by Agent Orange.
Surrounding hills are just now being replanted.

An old bridge in an area close to a major battle zone.

He told me about how soldiers from the north would hike through the night in groups of three, taking turns with one sleeping in a hammock while the other two carried him onwards. He told me how they dug long tunnels for their cooking smoke so as not to alert planes overhead where they were camped. 

The brother who was a helicopter pilot for the south had a standing invitation to move to the US, but declined and instead spent 8 years in prison. This brother had American friends he kept in touch with, and they pitied him for having a tough time in Vietnam while they got back to their regular lives. But in recent years, coffee has taken off in the highlands and the brother is doing very well now with a sizable farm. 

Coffee

Lots of coffee farming in the region.

Requisite silk factory stop

Waterfall. And bad hair. I'm too cheap to get a haircut, so
I will just remember myself as having bad hair on this trip.

Big Buddha

Hill tribe boy with puppy

Fishing homes on lake created by giant dam

Fishermen

More hill tribe kids 

This is a tomb. So, when Mnong people die, that pipe sticking out
of the top? My guide tells me it goes to the mouth and family
members continue to feed the newly deceased for several weeks and then also
on special occasions for years to come. I find this, not to put too
fine a point on it, horrific. 

Pretending to drive the ferry

More hill folks 

Brick factory. Would not want to work there.

Then we made it to the coast!

Halong Bay and Hanoi are all that's left on my Vietnam itinerary. Next week, I'm proooobably going to Laos.

Hill Tribe Night

                                 

I'm in Hoi An now, finished my motorcycle trip the day before yesterday and night-bused here.

Before my driver was a tour guide, he was a hunter. And one of his old hunting buddies (who is just a farmer now) is a Mnong guy. The Mnong people reside in the Vietnamese central highlands, though there are some in Cambodia too. Their culture is matriarchal, so when my driver's friend was married his wife had to pay a dowry in livestock to her husband's family and then he went to live in her village.

We spent a couple hours in their longhouse knocking back homemade palm beer. Before deciding this was a good idea, my inner monologue went something like this: You're going to go blind...People have been fermenting alcohol for thousands of years...nah, you'll be fine.

Mother and son collecting palm leaves 

Topping off the fermentation jar with fresh leaves

Adding water to get the party started

new friends

final preparations 

The drinking begins 

At some point a lot of my pictures started to look like this...

Then this lady sang me a song about not having a husband yet

Even the best drinking nights usually don't have very compelling narratives. Suffice it to say, I had a great time. Everyone was warm and friendly, and I had to keep track of myself - if I'd drank as much as I was encouraged to they would've had to carry me out. Eventually I turned to my driver and said with deepest sincerity, "I really can't drink anymore." And we sped off to our hotel.

What's matriarchy like? No one besides my driver spoke English so there was only so much I could glean in a couple hours. All the women in the room seemed to have a sense of self that they didn't have to apologize for or think about too much. I couldn't imagine any of them using a hand to cover their mouth when they laugh. Quite often in Asia femininity is equated with 'cute' and girlishness, so it was refreshing to hang out with a bunch of women who don't feel like they have to act or look like children.

At one point the singer started shout-yelling some sort of animated story (my driver told me it had to do with farming). The man sitting next to her nodded, half-smiled, tittered lightly. And I thought to myself that was a pretty telling gender role reversal of a social interaction I've seen at bars and house parties many, many times.

I know when my trip is all over I will count this among the best of experiences.

Dalat

Greetings from the Central Highlands. What Pin Oo Lwin was to Burma, Dalat is to Vietnam. Except of course it was Frenchies instead of Brits who came here to cool off back in colonial days. And now I am cooling off! Which is good because after a brief stop in the Mekong Delta, I can actually attest to the physical sensation of "melting."

Last night's bus was not quite as terrifying as the one I took down south. The driver didn't seem in such a rush. It did smell like durian though. For the folks back home, durian is a pungent fruit with a delightful custard-like texture that smells like a garbage can full of rotting fruit. I've overcome the smell, I like it. However, bringing one on a bus, especially one people must sleep on, is super not cool, signs like this are common in taxis and other public spaces in Malaysia and Thailand. There was a Chinese family on the bus and the mother started repeatedly, desperately yelling at one of the attendants, "NO DURIAN! NO DURIAN" as we took off, but the guy couldn't find the durian. No one fessed.

I got in at 4am and crashed. I woke up and had a delicious lunch at the central market and walked around taking pictures. At dinner, I got to cross an item off the fantasy-gluttony bucket list (i.e. a whole pint of ice cream, the whole tin of fudge...). I went to barbecue by myself because James recommended a restaurant. I ate a whole plate of beef. I may never need to eat meet again. 

It was one of those cook-your-own places. This one you cooked the food over coals topped with a ceramic tile. Or in my case, a waitress cooked my food for me, presumably because I was alone and looked like I might poison myself. 

Tomorrow I'm starting a three-day motorcycle tour of the highlands with this outfit (another activity that came highly recommended by friends and fellow travelers). Vroom, vroom... (Don't worry, I'm not driving.)

Risen indeed

Sunrise on the Mekong. Happy Easter, family and friends!

Phu Quoc

I left Saigon on a night bus that was terrifying as usual. I always pray before night buses. Others I know take Vicodin. My bed was at the front of the bus so the driver asked me to turn off my Kindle light. Fair enough, I think the light is pretty well contained to the screen, but I'm not driving. Then he answered his iPhone. Ugh. Then he spent a prolonged period of time driving directly over the rumble track. At some point we hit something. Not like a person or a motorbike, but something on the highway big enough that he pulled over to check out the bus. The key to night buses is to be tired enough that such events take on the surreal sheen of a bumpy bad dream. There's never a good night's sleep, but drowsiness dulls the senses.

I must have been in vacation mode because I failed to learn the name of the stop I was supposed to get off at. Since I was going to a ferry, I just figured I'd be going to the terminal stop. Wrong. And my pre-purchased boat ticket was for a terminal 90km away. The ferry company, Superdong, was nice and swapped my ticket. Not only that, I got to sit on the upper deck behind the captain, above the hoi polloi. Sometimes owning up to your own gross incompetence pays off. People give you the primo seats just to keep an eye on you. And so I rode the Superdong III all the way to Phu Quoc, which is really an excellent name for a transit company. Memorable. 

As soon as I got to my $13/night bungalow though I was overwhelmed with loneliness. In Saigon, I spent my nights in the dorm, engulfed in the protective backpacker herd. Here it's mostly couples and families. It's weird to go to the beach alone. The other thing is, James and my best friends/Shanghai roommates were here together 10 months ago and I couldn't help but think how much more fun it would have been to be with them. I quickly decided I would spend one day snorkeling, one day scootering, one day on the beach near my hotel and then peace out. 

I did the snorkeling tour, which was more fun than remarkable. I saw some cool fish, but I would say the more impressive sight was the ridiculous sunburn I got on the lower half of my butt. We don't usually see much sun down there... I was good about sunscreening the rest of my body. I don't know what I was thinking just skipping over the parts above my thighs not covered by my swimsuit. If it were even remotely socially appropriate, I would post a picture of this burn because it's hilarious. You would laugh if you saw it, but you'll just have to trust me.

Yesterday I rented my scooter and drove up north to the much less populated beaches. The trade off is no one fishes the trash out of the water like they do in front of the resorts, so you have to dodge the odd bit of plastic, but there's also hardly anyone else around and still there are beach chairs and bars offering seafood lunch, coconuts and cheap beer. Amazing! 

There's a lot of development underway on the north side of the island, and all of Phu Quoc could very well go the way of Phuket, but for now it's just right: it's possible to buy burgers and crepes but there are no Russian hordes. No offense to Russians, they just tend to travel in hordes. 

So today I scootered north again, plopped on a beach chair, watched the ocean and read all day. I am going to do this for at least two more days.

Somewhat counterintuitively, it's a lot less lonely when there aren't so many people around. When I'm surrounded by groups I feel like I should be in one, and I feel like the people in the groups are looking at me and wondering why I'm not in one. You don't get that on a mostly-deserted beach. And my Kindle is excellent company.

I'm working my way through the 2012 Best American Short Stories and Travel Writing, and I read a couple great pieces in both today. I also started Absalom, Absalom! by Faulkner. I had to read the first chapter twice. And most delightfully, I'm also reading the complete Flannery O'Connor short stories. Sometimes I finish a story and I wish I could turn around and give Flannery a high five. She was so good! Her work is so funny and so devastating and her characters are deeply flawed but she writes about them so compassionately. I just love her. 

Once the sun crossed over the western lip of my umbrella, I packed up and took the scenic route back, which consisted of a bumpy dirt road and one dubious wooden bridge that rattled like it was a couple motorbikes away from crashing into the inlet. Actually, all the routes today were scenic. I've scootered through orchards and past cows walking down the middle of the road, through villages and miles of green forest next to the light blue ocean. This may be my last major beach stop on my big trip, so I'm going to linger.