A Taste of Vietnam

From Phom Phen in Cambodia, I took a combination of bus and boat to the border town of Chao Doc in Vietnam. It took over 20 hours of travel to get to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City), the first of my many long bus trips in Vietnam. While in transit, I had an interesting experience that hopefully I will remember for some time:

There was this one man on our bus who certainly stood out from the rest. He was quiet, traveling with a german friend, dressed in mostly black, long hair, tattoo's all over, an array of skull rings and sharply pointed necklace ornaments, chain smoking whenever the bus stopped, and a pair of eyes that you simply wanted to avoid. He looked the type that you might find to be a serial killer or a deranged heavy metal fan that has drawings of dead (or dying) people on their walls. He and his german friend kept to themselves and didn't really interact with the other passengers. After the bus stopped in Chao Doc (border of the vietnam side) we had two hours till our bus left to Saigon so I found a bicycle taxi and asked for a place for dinner. After chatting a while with the driver, I arrived at a restaurant where it happened all bicycle taxi's brought tourists (that means the taxi drivers receive a commission from the meals). When I walk in, I see the two german fellows as well as a fairly average english bloke sitting next to them. As I walk in, we recognize each other and both nod and say hello. Before I sit down at an empty table, the three of them ask if I want to join them. I take the last available seat next the supposed mass murderer figuring dinner conversation will be about new places to pierce one's body or etc. But I was soon shocked to find a man with the most pleasant of personalities, laughing about cultural differences in SE Asia and always ready to add a humorous annotation to all conversation topics. He completely contradicted my first impressions. It is amazing how many learning experiences traveling exposes one to; you learn that people you assume to be one way, due to certain characteristics, end up rejecting your assumptions by their other character qualities. You learn to suspend your judgements of people and come to realize that what you think might be contradictions in personalities, lifestyles, or appearances, are really just unique lifestyle choices that make people beautiful in their own manner.

Vietnam was overall pretty rushed. I spent only one day in Saigon: I visited and crawled through the underground Chu Chi tunnels (spelling?) that the Vietcong used during the war, went to the War Remnants museum, explored the city sites, and saw an amazing jazz band play in a posh downtown club.

From Saigon, I went north to the small beach side fishing town of Mui Nei and explored some of the beautiful beachs and amazing sand dunes on a rented scooter. I then went on to the mountains of Da Lat where I spent a day (with the company of a dutch girl I met) seeing the markets, a very odd hotel being built similar to the Madonna Inn in San Louis Obispo, some small minority villages, coffee plantations, and waterfalls. The next day I had a great experience abseiling, which is similar to rappelling but down waterfalls instead of just rock faces. It was a beautiful sunny day as we climbed through the jungle and waded through river streams getting from one waterfall to the next.

From Da Lat, I traveled on by myself (my dutch friend wanted to see more of Da Lat) to the old capital city of Hue where I randomly met the other people I went abseiling with in Da Lat. We wandered around the town, visiting old imperial palaces, and other historical sites. We had a great dinner at this restaurant who's owner was deaf and mute but still able to always make us laugh and had such an enjoyable personality - all, of course, communicated through body language. The next day the four of us hired motorcycle taxis to take us around the outskirts of the city to some beautiful countryside villages which were surrounded by rice fields; we also went to some ancient tombs of past emperors and old palaces.

I took an overnight bus to Hanoi and upon arriving at 6 am, arranged for an immediate trip out to Ha Long bay. It is a world famous site where there are almost three thousand little limestone vegetation covered islands that spring up all over a region right off the coast of north vietnam - it was a peaceful and quite beautiful place to spend two days. I met a fun group of english blokes and canandians on our boat; we all spent the night on board playing cards and drinking to celebrate one of the canadian's 22nd birthday. It was amazing to see, hidden within many bays, small floating fishing villiages composed of multiple houses where families would live, send their kids to school, and prepare fish to sell.

Upon returning Hanoi, I wandered around the town and hired an english speaking motorcycle taxi driver to show me the sites of the city, which ended up being the craziest ride I have ever been on - one of the first times I was actually afraid for my safety on the ride. He knew I was taking a bus in a few hours to Laos and so he decided to make sure we could fit in all the sites that he enthusiastically encouraged me to see (especially the old prison where John McCain was a prisoner of war). So we raced through the streets, weaving in and out of traffic; down side allies almost running into people and all the while he was making jokes and telling me about the city.

I had to rush Vietnam as I am getting low on time in SE Asia and still have Laos and the north of Thailand to see. I am currently in the capital of Laos, Vientiane. I am quite content at this time in my life and am traveling with a group of people from Sweeden and some people from Turkey I met on the 20 hour bus ride from Vietnam here. No time to share my reflections but many new topics keep me busy ranging from mysticism to pluralism to relativism of values etc etc. - I do miss the wise input from friends. I wish you all peace and joy in that which you pursue.

Thank you for your interest!
Karl