Hoi An, Vietnam - Day 1

So today I flew into Denang, a city in the middle of Vietnam, and took a 30 minute taxi ride down Hoi An. Hoi An, a UNESCO Heritage site, is a historic port town with the majority of the unique blend of local and foreign influenced buildings and architecture remaining largely intact. Besides the historic areas, there is also a nice beach, and lots of good local foods. I rented a motorbike in Hoi An for half the day and rode around the city sampling the various foods – I ate three dinners there was so much good food to try.

I also visited the beach and noticed something particular. A lot of Asian countries prefer the white porcelain skin as opposed to being tan, as the tan signifies a person who has to work in the fields. So during the sun light hours of the day there were no locals at the beach save those providing service to the tourists. However, as soon as sun started to set around 4pm, the Vietnamese went out to the beach in HORDES. Like the beach went from being empty to being packed in 30 minutes. People would come fully dressed from the office in jeans and a button down shirt and jump into the ocean for a dip and then sit down on the beach to food prepared by local vendors. What are they doing walking fully clothed into the ocean!?!? Aren’t there any bathing suits here?

Hoi An, Vietnam - Day 1

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 5

Today I took a tour of the Cao Dai Temples where they combine Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism into one religion. Services at the temple, held daily at noon, 6 pm, midnight and 6 am, offer another glimpse of this East-meets-West eclecticism. An orchestra of 10 musicians and a choir of 20 youths lead the congregation in prayer. The hymns are much closer to Christian spirituals than traditional Buddhist or Taoist chanting, but the music is unmistakably Vietnamese. The mix, neither wholly Vietnamese nor wholly Western, is both very exotic and incredibly spiritual. During the forty-minute prayer session, a Cao Dai follower explains, the presence of God comes into the chapel and gazes out at the congregation through the Divine Eye.

Worshippers are separated by gender - men on the right and women on the left. In contrast to the vivid colors of the temple, lay followers and women wear pure white. Men with the rank of priest and higher are robed in solid colors depending on their spiritual allegiance within Caodaism: yellow (symbolizing Buddhism and virtue), blue (Taoism and pacifism) or red (Confucianism and authority). Bishops and cardinals also have an eye emblazoned on their headpieces.

I also went to the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Vietnamese fought the Americans during the war using a complicated system of tunnels and traps. I got to climb down into one of the original tunnel entrances and I got stuck - shoulders were too wide to fit through the hole. I also went 60 ft underground through the tunnels. I’ve never felt claustrophobic before…but those tunnels are tiny – in certain parts of the tunnels you had to crawl and are really hot - I was drenched with sweat by the time I was done.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 5

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 4

So today I took a tour of the Mekong Delta, which was quite possibly one of the worst tours ever…I mean most tours have some kind of filler (take the dumb tourists to a candy store, toy store, art store, something where they’ll buy useless junk and the tour will get a commission store)…if that’s what you’re looking for then this tour did not disappoint. We saw how honey was made, how coconut candy was made, rode a cart pulled by a miniature donkey (poor thing), and listened to some Vietnamese band. Needless to say, wasn’t too impressed with the Delta region.

An interesting thing that I noticed today’s tour were the vendors lined up on the side of the street. There would be 15 of them on one side of the street spaced out perhaps 10 ft or so apart selling the EXACT same products whether its bread or fruits. Like perhaps diversification may help? I mean who drives by the same road every day on the way to work and says “hmmm…I’ve seen a 10 bread stands by the side of the street…perhaps I’ll stop by the 12th one?” I suppose the power of persuasion works well here….

When a city has 12 million people and 8 million motorbikes, motorbikes tend to be the only transportation available; and it’s amazing what a little resourcefulness will do when loading them to capacity. I’ve seen couches, bales of trees, loads of lumber…and now flocks of ducks and geese…like 50 of them on a motorbike…

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 4

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 3

So today I took a city tour consisting of: two temples, the presidential palace (extremely 70’s and rather dilapidated for a palace), the Vietnam War museum, market place (amazing foods and spices), Notre Dame Cathedral, and the post office.

The most interesting stop on the tour was the war museum…which wasn’t referred to as the “Vietnam” war museum but the “American” war museum. It’s interesting to see Vietnam’s perspective on the American war. The pictures and videos of the bombing, torturing, and murdering that went on by the American army was horrific and ghastly. You could easily identify the Americans in the museum by their somber demeanor and saucer-wide eyes. I guess the atrocities of war are never fun to discuss but just like so many other countries that have wronged another (Germans and the Nazis, Chinese and Tiananmen Sq, and Japanese and Nanjing) the history is often glossed over in school and in the history books…until you see and talk to the affected parties…and then a whole different story comes out…

On a more positive note…I almost got ripped off…again…by a girl…who couldn’t have been more than 11 years old. I saw a girl selling miniature grilled rice cakes on the side of the road and figured that they would be between 4,000 and 8,000 dong (25-50 cents) or perhaps 16,000 dong (1 dollar) at the most. When I asked her the price, she said 200,000 dong (12 dollars). My jaw dropped when I realized she had marked it up nearly 25x the going rate. I thought perhaps I heard her wrong; maybe I should give her the benefit of the doubt. So I pulled two 100,000 dong bills out of my wallet and confirmed the price with her…she just smiled and nodded…wow…well I guess to a budding entrepreneur its better to sell one rice cake for 200,000 dong to a sucker than 25 rice cakes at 8,000 dong apiece. If she sells two of them, she can probably close down shop and head home for the day. But wow, tourists pricing is taken to a whole new level here.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 3

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 2

So I booked a couple tours for the week after getting into HCM but I overslept in the morning and missed the pick up so I had to look for a replacement event for the day. I found what appeared to be the only cooking class in HCM city and decided to sign up. First of all, the class was $45 dollars for a 4 hour course…which ok maybe in the states is cheap but in south east Asia – you can eat 7 meals for that amount…its astronomically high. Secondly, the interpreter was horrible. Her English was atrocious despite majoring in it in high school and university, and she wouldn’t let us alter the recipes at all. She yelled at me when I put extra hot sauce and fish sauce in my food. Hello, I’m eating this not you. Lastly and definitely the worst, the foods were all prepped for us already and the “cooking” class was more like a 2nd grade “painting by numbers” class. There was no prep work, little “cooking”, and a bland informational session on local fruits which bored me to tears. So while I wouldn’t consider this adding to my perception of HCM as a rip off capital…it definitely didn’t help to bolster my image of the city.

The true rip off of the day happened during my motorbike ride to the cooking class. The owner of the guesthouse had helped me to book the cooking class and offered to help me book a motorbike ride out to the cooking school for 50,000 dong each way and 100,000 dong both ways (which is about $3 and $6 respectively). The guesthouse proprietor said it should take about 45 minutes and was across town...we got there in 15 minutes. During the cooking course a monsoon was going through the area so when it was time to leave, one of my classmates suggested that we share a cab back to the area that we were all staying so that I didn’t have to ride back on a motorcycle in the whipping rain and wind. So I went outside and told the motorcycle driver and paid him 50,000 dong for the ride to the school. At which point he became extremely agitated and demanded the 100,000 dong for the entire ride. I calmly explained to him that I used half of his services and that I would pay him for the one way trip. The cab came and as we started to get into the cab to go home, the motorbike driver exploded into a tirade of about eight English words which he knew while physically threatening me. At which point, I had to stop and laugh at the absurdity of the situation…this guy came up to maybe my chest and I probably could have handled him with my dominant hand tied behind my back. I also realized that we were arguing about $3 dollars but at this point it was more principle than the actual money. I attempted to placate him by offering 10,000 dong for having to drive over to the school to pick me up…but to no avail. Finally I gave him another 10,000 dong and said enough is enough that’s all you’re getting and if you want to fight about the other 30,000 dong,I’ll be happy to wrap you around your bike. He of course backed down with his 20,000 dong; and after getting into the cab, I recounted the story to my other travelers. One girl who had been living in HCM for about 2 months said that even the 50,000 dong for the one way trip was astronomically high…that I should have gotten it for 10,000 dong…

The cab ride back in a legit cab for four people was 33,000 dong…

The “tourist pricing” is not what bothers me. The thing that bothers me is the extremity, audacity, and tactless rudeness that I had experienced thus far in Vietnam. At least in Thailand and Cambodia, you know you’re getting taken for a ride, they know you know, but at least they are friendly and smile about it the whole time.

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 2

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 1

In traveling through any country, one of the things that you have to on the lookout for is an entrepreneuring local looking to make a quick buck off a farang. Having acclimated myself to the sliding price scales of goods and services having traveled through Asia over the years, I pride myself in being able to minimize the fleecing. I’ve realized that what we as westerners perceive as a normal price would be astronomically high to a local in south east Asia and what we perceive as really really low is still high but somewhat palatable for a local. That being said…boy did I get ripped off in HCM…not once but a couple times and multiple other attempts were assuaged

So I get into HCM after about a 5 hour bus ride from Phnom Penh…and WOHHOOOO …welcome to the city of rip offs. After disembarking, a taxi driver comes over and grabs my bag and puts it in his cab. While I was a little surprised with the taxi driver’s audacity, I chalked it up to a cultural difference in customer service; and since I was planning on I was planning on taking a taxi anyway I hopped in. I first noticed that something was fishy when the meter was moving very fast. At one point, the meter was at 100,000 dong and then I looked away and looked back and it was in the 200,000 range. When I asked him about that, his English all of a sudden stopped working. Then I noticed that we made two left hand turns and were going back in the exact same direction that we had come from. We drove for about 15-20 minutes and when we got to the guesthouse the meter was at 320,000 dong which came out to be a little more than $23 USD. No twenty minute cab ride in a third world country should even approach what it cost to take a taxi in Manhattan much less supersede it. At that point there was little that I could do but pay as I really had no idea where I was and if the driver had truly driven around in a circle or not.

Later in the evening I was perusing some shops and restaurants looking for a place to grab some food. A lot of other foreigners were in the area, and I ended up running into a lovely couple from Austria who happened to be on my bus in the morning. We were chatting and they mentioned that they were staying in the area as well. I asked them how much their cab ride was. They looked perplexed, shook their heads, and pointed to the park across the street where we got dropped off. What?! Huh?! I could have walked there!? Saweeeeeeet!

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam - Day 1