Traveling the World

The city of Saigon is massive and full of life at all hours. The buildings are not wide but several floors high and each has it’s own design. The people are friendly and speak English well to accommodate the constant foreign presence. Sometimes they try to scam you, but keep your wits about you and you’ll be fine. Attractions are sparse, and staying here for any reason but to party is not advised. Even in the dead of winter, temperatures can soar to 37C and the women wear tight short shorts coupled with high heels to show off what their mothers gave them.

Once you leave the hustle and bustle of Saigon for the Mekong Delta, you’ll be shocked to see how different it is! Life is much slower and the people are much happier despite having less money. English speakers are far and few between, so meeting them is a real treat. Staying away from package tours is highly recommended, as this part of the country has so much to offer and can only be found when riding bicycles or walking on your own. Don’t be afraid, as no one will hurt you, they merely want to meet people from other places and will gladly chat with you or invite you to drink with them!

Most visitors skip over Dalat, a town in the Central Highlands. Although pants weather in the mornings, shorts are perfect with the afternoon breeze. The best way to get around is by motorbike, because the hilly terrain makes bicycles difficult and plain silly (my mistake). The best part is riding around and seeing what is going on. Coffee here is cheap and tastes amazing.

A stop in Nha Trang for more sun and warmth is a must! There are many opportunities here for surfing, diving, and whatever you are looking for. Be prepared to spend the most money here! A great change is the beautiful, tasty, and CHEAP seafood. Look for women sitting on the sand drilling seafood and ask them about food. You can get a LOT of food for roughly $15, but don’t expect to be full.

After this part of the country, the rest is honestly garbage. Buon Ma Thuot, Kontum, Danang, Hoi An, and Hue are all terrible. The first three have nothing to see, and the latter two are tourist traps filled with art and expensive “minority handicrafts.” Dong Hoi is in between Hue and Vinh and has an amazing karst cave called Phong Nha definitely worth seeing. Ninh Binh is supposedly nice, and Hanoi is crap. Every person I’ve met in Northern Vietnam has agreed that the people are greedy assholes and the vibe is a bad one.

The trip savior is definitely Sapa, a town high up in the mountains and full of fog. For anyone not used to it, the air is fresh, clean, and THIN. It takes a few days to adjust to how thin the air is, and sometimes it feels like you are suffocating. Taking a deep breath and relaxing helps.

The minority people will show you a fantastic time, and doing a trek for 2 days is worth it. Hiring a guide is.worth the money because they will take you along the paths that they walk every day, and many lead to breathtaking pictures.

Something interesting to me is the difference between people in the South and North. Southerners are very happy and love life even though they have suffered tremendously over the last 200 years. They love visitors and don’t try to scam them. Northerners are mostly angry about life and even though they have money and a better quality of life, they hate it. It seems they exist to scam tourists and earn money. They are rude and ruthless, and I can’t stand them. Northerners are the reason I left Vietnam so early. The minorities living in the North are like the Southerners but happier and more friendly, if such a thing was possible. They love to take you through their villages and show you what their life is like, and will gladly tell you all about their culture. It is the minorities that showed me the best time in Vietnam, even though I only spent 3 days with them.

Overall, Vietnam is a very skinny, long country with many things to see and experience. If I knew what I do now, I would still come, but skip some parts. In total I spent $925 over 28 days including flights and a visa. My budget was $1000, so I feel I did well, considering I wasn’t watching my budget and just tried to have a good time, even though if something was overpriced I would haggle to get the real price.

The fog from yesterday had dissipated long ago, providing for a better view of the valleys we marched through. Up, down, across wooden bridges, through villages, around terraces, the world was ours to explore. The scenery was magical and if I were able to draw out the experience anymore, I’d be a better writer. For a lack of words, time, and energy, let’s end this with the facts:

Lily knocked on the door to say goodbye. She quickly walked down the stairs in excited anticipation. Her chariot awaited to escort her back to her homeland, and the place I found myself longing for. Several hours spent laying awake in bed wondering why I was still in this dreadful place went by painfully. The morning computer check was annoyingly interrupted with threats and the demand I vacate the premises.

Upon doing so, I met a friend from another city, and Mexican food was consumed while China and life in general was discussed at length. It was at this junction my heart beat at a frightening speed and my hands began to sweat. Staying in this pigpen was no longer an option. The agency agreed to send me far away earlier than anticipated, and did it with a smile.

En route to clear out from the second hotel of the day, a child chucked a half full can of beer down from the balcony and scored a bullseye on my neck, thoroughly pushing me over the edge. Barely keeping my calm, I said goodbye to my new friend and strode into the hotel. As the bags hit the lobby floor, my passport became irretrievable. The manager asked for $3. After pleading my case, he felt bad for me and dropped the fee. Passport in hand, I waited for the bus.

Sleeper buses are a brilliant idea gone bad when strangers sleep in adjacent positions. Unsure of where to get off the bus, I opted to stay on until Sapa. When no one was waiting for me in Sapa, I called the agent and he told me to go to his hotel. A decent meal and a change of clothes later, and my group trotted down the road to happiness. A refreshing change, our guide was from the Hmong minority group, which has ties to China.

Thick fog rolled in way before the sun had a chance to make its presence known. Days had gone by since I last saw the sun, which fueled my depression and anger, and the fog made it worse. I did not come here to take pictures of fog!

Thin boots knee-high had pants tucked in and surprisingly comfortable. Walking calmed nerves and the mind forgot about everything troubling. Conversing with minority girls wearing beautiful traditional clothing made by their own hand made me wonder what happened to us as we modernized. I was beginning to believe this trek off the beaten path was the best experience traveling I’ve ever had.

Finally off the paved mountain road, we began descending through muddy paths formed by rain and the trudging of small footed women in boots. All were young, between 16 and 23. They could not read or write English, but spoke amazingly well for having listened and conversed with travelers who trek with them. They were very bright, afraid of nothing, and extremely adventurous. Some have even married white men. Anyone out there looking for a wife??

Hour after hour passed as mile after mile was dominated, and the thin boots started to annoy as rocks embedded in the muddy paths jabbed my soles. Not a peep did I make, for I was the youngest and must not hold back the group. Mountains, rivers, hills, villages, goats, hogs, and many things passed by and society became a thing of the past.

I felt peaceful and happy. Before we even reached our first stop after 5 hours of trekking, I decided to extend my trek for another day, and my decision was easily aided by the fact that another person had already paid for the same thing, so it would be us two and the local guide Em. That meant we would see more and enjoy it more.

Lunch came and went, a disappointing eggs, bread, and fruit. Villagers practically begged for us to buy their hand-made items at ridiculous prices, which meant people had paid those prices before. I declined despite wanting something.

The sun thought it would be funny to poke out from the clouds, and I graciously picked up a few shots of it bouncing it’s beautifully radiant light off the side of a mountain. Children sat by a pond and threw rocks, while others sat on a hill observing us. Puppies laid their heads on rocks and slowly half opened eyes as if to not care but still be interested. Rivers were forged, rice terraces were leaped from, and everyone was feeling great in the now fogless mountain air.

Hanoi is a bustling hellhole, a tourist trap if you will. The Old Quarter is meant to be charming, but feels more increasingly like purgatory. The locals can see dollar signs whenever they open their eyes, and the tourists holding those dollars don’t know well enough they are being scammed. The worst experience of my trip so far, and probably nothing compared to some stories others could tell, is that of Halong Bay.

Several days ago, a boat on the bay sank to the bottom, killing all 12 (or 15, depending on which country’s media is reporting the tragedy) foreign tourists who were sleeping beneath the deck. Those on top of the deck survived as they just swam out of harm’s way. In the end, the tourist agencies were fully aware of the government’s immediate new policy to not allow tourists to sleep on the bay while they inspect all the boats to make sure something like this couldn’t happen again. The agencies proceeded to sell tickets to people at full price, which resulted in the following experience.

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The man in black took me by the hand and led me to a van. Speeding through the Old Quarter’s small alleys and past crowds gathered to buy fruit in the morning, we came to another van. In the van were people tired and eyes still with sleep on them. We said our awkward hellos, shook hands, and did the whole introduction thing. We quickly became the best of friends as we fell asleep on each other’s shoulders. An eighth of a day later and we came to the Halong city port. Masses of people huddled in circles as they waited for guides to purchase tickets. Being shepparded is my kind of fun, yet I felt the urge to vomit in disgust.

As we waited for our turn to embark, we were livid to find out we had been sold 3 day packages that could not be experienced due to the Halong Bay disaster of 2011 that happened just two days prior. Instead, we sat on a boat and had lunch and pondered why they bothered tricking us. The sun appropriately and cleverly hid behind the thick rain clouds, furthering the mood of dissatisfaction. Taking pictures was almost pointless, as dozens of boats vyed for the best views of small, jutting islands. Our only stop in the bay was at a cave annoyingly filled with the very people I hate: tourists. They snapped away every chance they got, even though I found it impossible due to there being a body in each spot I would have considered interesting enough to remember. I found the place to be a replica of the cave I had visited just days earlier, plus three hundred people and paved walkways so feeble minded tourists wouldn’t trip and hurt themselves.

Driving like death would come at midnight if we hadn’t been tucked neatly into our hotel beds, the driver keeping in line with every other driver in Vietnam, drove hurriedly over potholes and bumps in the road. Without any notice, the van screeched to a halt, as our jaws dropped in horror to find we were stuck in a traffic jam. Engines off, thousands of other people stuck in the same situation walked along the highway hoping to take a quick pee or engage in conversation to forget the horror bestowed upon us by the miserable agency masters toiling away comfortably in their mansions counting the millions of dong they earned that day.

The vehicles prodded each other, as 4 rows attempted to squish into 2, which continued to make moving impossible. One of the passengers in our van vomited and shat profusely while we waited to move, and our hands simultaneously smacked together in a clapping motion to signify our happiness when the jam cleared and our van was free to journey onward. As we pulled up to the agency, we asked for our receipts to begin the process of begging for a refund, as what we were promised never came to light. All agencies were closed, as we arrived well after the wolf got bored of howling at the moon and turned in for the night.

Sleeping in the next morning proved wonderful, but the thought of having to endure a battle with a faceless man agitated me. The agency who sold me the ticket was very helpful in assisting me, however the “man” was in no mood to bargain. It was only after lunch time had passed that we managed an agreement, and one I still was unsatisfied with. I explained my anger with the agency’s lack of customer service skills, as the tour guide screamed “fuck you” to my face in English, and the van driver put his hands on my chest and shoved me backwards, screaming to go away. I felt unsafe for the first time in Vietnam. Their attitude was uncalled for, as I had done nothing to provoke it.

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Climbing up, up, and up further still. Knees shaking, back aching, we huffed and puffed until we turned blue. The cave’s entrance was magical, and everything looked like painted styrofoam. Upon touch, the brain could confirm reality: the planet is capable of anything. Ceiling so tall, walls so wide, cavern so mysterious. The cave formed long ago, in a time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and homo sapiens were just a massive comet away from being thrust onto the stage.

Lighting provided an effect which played to our senses. It was easy to experience awe, fear, and a multitude of other emotions. Using the camera to capture pictures in different ways heightened the emotions and made the experience that much better. A quick descent down the mountain and past the hawkers, the boats quietly and calmly rocked in the water, patiently waiting the next group of brave souls who wished to enter the dark underworld. A woman slowly rowed her oar as we entered the lower cavern flooded long ago. The trickle of water calmed the nerves while bats reversed the effect in the same moment.

A brief but amazing look at the mountain’s innards and then with the river we re-emerged into the brilliant bliss of the sun’s rays. After a squabble with the boat operator over a tip, a leisurely round of chilled coffee, and a boring car ride, we returned home and began the wait. Hours of nothingness still was not enough the tire the soul and make the eyelids heavy enough for prolonged sleep on a bus.