Fun with wigs in Ho Chi Min

Straight from a hotel room the size of a closet with barely enough room to walk sideways, here is part 2 of my bloggings on Vietnam. Highlights included trekking with local tribeswomen in Sapa, pirating our way through the crags of Halong Bay, touring ancient citadels, eating local foods (but not dog), visiting tons of Vietnam War sites and trying hard to get along with the locals.

After this blog, only a few remain. This one is being sent from a hotel room in Hong Kong the size of a closet with barely enough room to walk sideways. In 9.5 hours, Carrie and I board a plane for California. Tough to believe that the eight-plus month exodus has actually come to an end. I will be in Cali for her cousin’s wedding and return to NYC late night on August 24. I’m both excited to be heading home and have no interest in ending the fun. Anyway, can’t wait to see everyone. In the mean time….

Pho soup with noodles, onions, beef, chives and spices

Local soup, known as pho, is the most common dish in Vietnam. Made with chicken or beef broth, it also contains noodles, simple veggies, chilies and some kind of meat. These bowls are slurped down at every corner and restaurant and usually cost less than $1…unless you’re a Western tourist of course.

Another dish readily available was the spring roll. We ordered a plate at pretty much every place we ate and always had a completely different result. The best ones were usually the fresh and hand rolled veggie spring rolls that had rice and vegetables wrapped in a thin rice paper. A couple of times the fried versions were delicious, but they usually were overcooked and the taste of fried overwhelmed the taste of the spring roll.

Entrails, hearts, pig snouts, livers and more for sale on the streets of Ho Chi Min

As is the case with most of our trip, a large percent of meals are eaten on the go from street vendors…and none were as satisfying for me as the sandwiches. Unlike Cambodia and Laos, these were not Western in taste at all. Still on a baguette, they usually contained meat pate, cucumber and tomato slices, chopped greens, laughing cow cheese, a variety of mystery meats that had been sitting out in the sun all day, mayo, chili sauce and soy sauce. The meat may have been pork, beef, rat…who knows, but the sandwiches were my favorite and I searched them out every time I was even the slightest bit hungry. Oh, and for breakfast the same ladies usually made a mean egg sandwich too.

The rest of the time eating was spent with some combo of fried rice, fried noodles, duck, fish, meat, steamed rice with soy sauce or, every once in a while, a Western dish. I never did see any dog or cat on a menu, though I did see a cage on the street with around eight little dogs inside that had to be there for dinner. I also saw frogs and snakes for sale at the market as well as brain, liver, heart, head, ears and all the other parts of animals that one doesn’t usually see at home.

This bike in Ho Chi Min doubles as a fish, turtle and other aquatic animal shop

From the beginning, I had a tough time with most interactions we had with locals in Vietnam. Granted, most of the people we met were some form of shopkeeper and as soon as money was introduced to the equation the nice relationship became mean, rude and angry. However, due to our rushed pace and lack of knowledge of the language, it made interacting with anyone but a shopkeeper difficult. As such, I left the country with a very sour taste in my mouth. A few reasons why….

Haggling is a way of life when traveling in developing nations. However, for some reason in Vietnam it gets down right mean and personal. First, shopkeepers can’t even be bothered to come and talk to you when you are clearly waiting at their shop to possibly buy something. Then, if you try to haggle they quickly get mad at you and yell. “NO! YOU GIVE ME 10,000! GOOD PRICE! YOU BUY NOW!” It’s like they get instantly enraged. My favorite example was trying to buy a bottle of water in Hue. I knew the fair price and asked for it, to which the woman yelled, “noooooo!” She would rather not make any money at all than sell me the product at the fair price.

Veggie market in Da Lat...it's amazing how every stall sells the same exact thing

Another thing that really irks me is how many times I have been shooed away by a Vietnamese shopkeeper. Sometimes it’s because they don’t agree to my price, but other’s its just because they don’t want to sell to me at all. Is it because I’m Western? Because I sure don’t look American with my massive beard…not that you can really tell someone is from America just by looking at them. I can’t count how many times I’ve had a hand shoved in my face to get rid of me. Sometimes I like to shoo them back and say, “you shoo,” before lecturing them on how rude they are. Not that it ever makes a difference.

Physical contact during altercations is also, unfortunately, common. During a monsoon rain storm in Sapa, Carrie stopped at a street stall to buy a poncho. The lady charged far too much, but it was pouring and Carrie was desperate so she paid. The thing came out of the bag broken, but when Carrie tried to exchange it for a new one the woman demanded more money…yelling, of course. Carrie refused and more yelling happened, so finally she just said “here is your poncho, just give me my money back.” The woman refused again, so Carrie just picked up the new poncho and gave her back the old one, trying again to explain how she was not paying for a broken product.

At this point, the woman grabbed Carrie by the arm and squeezed as hard as possible, digging her nails into her arm. I physically had to remove the woman’s hands from Carrie’s arm, at which point the shopkeeper began to wave her arms, stomp her feet and yell at me in Vietnamese. So, I gave it right back to her. I yelled, stamped my feet and mimicked her, which finally got her to stop and actually caused her to have no idea what to do or say for a solid five seconds. In the end, I got Carrie the poncho, but the woman was beyond furious. All over what, 20 cents? It’s just the principal…and why did she have to get so angry.

Kites for sale outside the flag tower in front of the Citadel in Hue

You want another example, you say? Well, while waiting for our Halong Bay tour bus to arrive we ran into an old friend and wanted to get on the same boat. Before even getting on the four hour bus ride to the Bay, both Carrie and I talked to three different staff members and requested that we be on the same boat as our friend. Naturally, when we arrived they acted like this was the first time they ever heard this request and immediately started yelling at Carrie for not letting them know earlier. “I’m too busy. Leave me alone. You tell me at the beginning, not now. No, you go on your boat. He go on his boat.”

The scene got ugly so fast that none of us even saw it coming. One minute everyone was happy, the next minute every staff member was screaming at each other and slapping each other. It was a very unpleasant scene. In the end we got on the same boat as our friend, but the yelling continued for more than 20 minutes, even after Carrie went around and found people to trade boats with us so that the workers didn’t have to do anything at all. Apparently, the anger continued for the next two days and the staff, who were also the boat tour guides, did nothing but yell at the people on their boat. Thank goodness we switched.

The monsoon rains flood a market on the streets of Sapa

Moving on, it also really bugs me how every time I try to speak Vietnamese to a shopkeeper I just get made fun of. Sure, I get it…the language is very tonal and if I don’t raise or lower my pitch the correct way I might be making a mistake, but I know they can understand. Literally, I’ve been pointed at and I can hear as they repeat what I say and laugh directly at me.

Finally, and then I will stop this complaining section, I can’t count how many times I was shoved by a local. Never do I hear excuse me…or even the Vietnamese version. Instead, even if I’m slightly in the way I get shoved. Like when I was leaving a restaurant in Hue and the waitress, who had a huge smile for us the whole night, suddenly shoved me. Used to the insanity that follows us I thought nothing of it, but when I later returned to look for a hat I forgot there she was yelling at me from the start. “Look in your bag. It’s in your bag,” she yelled. Of course, it wasn’t. In the end I never got my hat, but I did get more abuse from the waitress.

Really, I’m sure that the Vietnamese people are very nice. We met plenty of non-backpackers who were paying lots of money for their tours and food and experiences and all of them did not have a single complaint. The people we met in the street that had nothing to do with money were quite friendly and the kids were full of smiles and waves. However, for backpackers, trying to negotiate anything in Vietnam is just a nightmare. At least the country was beautiful!

Carrie and I at the Citadel in Hue

During the bus ride to Hue we met Amelia, a fellow American, who we spent much of the next few days with. We arrived in town early, but most of the afternoon was spent trying to book our open ticket out to Hanoi the next day. Everywhere we went we were told that the bus was full and we had to wait another day, but amazingly after telling one woman that we had a flight out of Hanoi and could not wait, three seats opened up.

Bus tickets in hand, the three of us next wandered over to The Citadel: an ancient city behind walls in various stages of repair. A tuk tuk driver tried to convince us that it was already closed and we should book his services for a day tour the next day, but surprise surprise, we had no problem getting in. The place itself was beautiful and massive and due to the late hour we pretty much had the whole place to ourselves to wander and take it all in.

The Dakrong Bridge that seperates North and South Vietnam

While we would rather have spent the next day exploring more, we felt it was our duty as Americans to do at least one thing related to the Vietnam War: a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). For ten hours we drove around in a minibus, along with lots of other Allied tourists, going to various sites of importance from the war. However, it is much like going to a Civil War battlefield in the USA: not much to see other than a few memorials and an overgrown plot of grass. In fact, we didn’t even stop at half of the sights on the tour; the van just slowed down for long enough to snap a photo and hope it came out.

To namedrop, the tour visited The Rockpile (just a mountain that used to have a base and heliport atop it), the Dakrong Briidge that seperates the North from the South, the Khe Sanh combat base that held one of the bloodiest and most pointless battles of the war and McNamaras Wall. We also crossed the 17th Parallel (the dividing line between North and South Vietnam) many times and drove on the Hop Chi Min trail. However, the highlight was the Vinh Moc tunnels used by the North Vietnamese people to hide from bombings. The tunnels seemed to go on forever, and certain areas had mannequins in them displaying what it would have looked like for Vietnamese to live there.

Me, Carrie and Amelia in the Vihn Moc Tunnels in Vietnam

We had a guide for the Vinh Moc tunnels, but leave it to a group of four Americans and a Dutch guy to ditch the tour and wander alone. For nearly 20 minutes we followed the path of a dark tunnel with only one headlamp and a wind up flashlight to lead the way.

We could see that the walls used to hold lights, but the wiring was all torn out making the whole experience all the more eerie. More than a few times the tunnels got so narrow that we were basically crab walking to not hit our heads and even saw a few places that we would have had to wiggle our way through to pass. We avoided those routes.

I figured that the site would not have any paths for tourists to take that did not lead to an exit, but with more than 30 kilometers of tunnels to get lost in I still got a bit worried. In the end we found an exit and did not have to turn around, but we did miss the rest of the tour. Now, nearly two weeks later, I still have Vinh Moc tunnel dirt on my backpack.

Communist propaganda signs are all over Vietnam

Our time in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, was mostly spent on the move. After a sleepless night in the front seat of our Open Ticket bus with Amelia, we had just enough time to catch the new Harry Potter movie before getting on yet another overnight bus to Sapa. We returned a few days later for long enough to grab a snack and head onto another bus for our Halong Bay tour. Then, on our final night in Vietnam, we reached out to a couchsurfer who, out of the kindness of his heart, got a hotel room for us since his cousin was visiting and taking up the extra bed.

Everything seemed cool at first. After meeting us for a few drinks on the street and getting to know us, he proposed that we go out to the club. Carrie and I went back to change and get ready, but I was beyond exhausted and never made it out. She, on the other hand, had chugged a Red Bull earlier and still met up with our new friend at a bar down the street before heading out.

Long story short, he spent most of the night hitting on her and, after being rejected countless times, found a different lady friend to go off with. Carrie stayed at the bar and made tons of new friends, though she had to continue fending off the couchsurfer when he returned later that night. Guess we should have known better when the guy’s profile said that he only wanted to host ladies…or that when he was asking how long we had been dating and how serious we were that he was just trying to size up his chances.

A member of the Xao tribe in the hills of Sapa takes a moment to weave a present for the tourist she is spending her day getting to know

Members of the Xao tribe sewing on the streets of Sapa

Tourists go to Sapa to see women from indigenous tribes going about their daily lives in the market, on the streets and in the mountains around the town. We figured we would have to search them out…boy were we wrong! From the minute we got off the bus with our new friends Anke and Bianca, we collected a group of Hmong tribeswomen who spent the rest of the day following us around. After we checked into our hotel, they waited outside for us. When we stopped for lunch to get out of the rain they all huddled under an awning across the street and waited.

The Hmong women continued to follow us into the local market and watched us try to haggle for handicrafts and clothes. Even leaving the market in a monsoon rain strong enough to flood the entire streets and turn stairs into waterfalls could not shake these women. When Carrie got into a fight with a shopkeeper over a broken poncho, the women looked on and supported our cause. The whole time they never asked for anything; just walked with us, talked about life and gave us a little sewn bracelet.

This member of the Hmong tribe followed us around all day through monsoon rains to get us to buy something from her

Finally, after the monsoon and poncho fight, the other shoe dropped. “We have to go home now. You buy something now?” We did our best to dodge the issue, promising them that if we didn’t book a tour that we would visit their village the next day, and it seemed to work. That is, until we walked out of our hotel the next morning and some were waiting for us. We wound up getting some silly musical instrument for way too much money, though I did get the woman to pose for a photo as well.

In reality, we had planned to go with them to visit their village and to buy something, but we wound up booking an organized tour instead. A common saying in Southeast Asia is “same same but different,” and that certainly applies here. Our group was small and we had a private tour guide, but we left at the same time as a dozen other tours. Surrounding each group were a handful of Hmong tribeswomen, different from the ones who found us at the bus the day before.

The women took turns talking to us, but shortly into the trip it became quite apparent which ones had claimed each of us. While they never discussed buying anything from them and they did not spend every minute by our sides, the little hand-woven gifts of leaves, stems and flowers or the fact that they held umbrellas over people’s heads to shade them from the sun during breaks gave it all away. My girl was 18 and very quiet, but she would wait with me every time I stopped to take photos to make sure I caught up with the group. Carrie had about three different women who claimed her.

The rice field filled mountains of Sapa

Sure, the interactions were fake and based on the assumption that we were walking ATMs, just waiting to be guilted into buying their overpriced handicrafts. But it didn’t matter and for half a day we wandered trough the mountains above Sapa, taking in the breathtaking views of hill after hill covered by rice fields and rice terraces. Never in all our Southeast Asia travels have I seen anything as awesome as the views from the trek.

When we finally stopped for lunch, it was time for the tribeswomen to pounce. They did a good job of quickly laying down the guilt and telling us that we had to buy right then because there was another tribe, the Xao, waiting to walk with us for the rest of the way. Great, so we had to do this all over again?! At one point, Carrie was surrounded by more than a dozen women all showing her the same bracelet but at different prices. My girl had a wall hanging that I spent the next two hours haggling with to get a remotely fair price before finally buying it.

Carrie surrounded by more than a dozen Hmong women trying to get her to buy their bracelet

Although I absolutely loved the trek and consider it a highlight of our time in Vietnam, I do have mixed feelings about the roles the tribeswomen play. Are they better off selling off their way of life to the highest Western bidder than they were when living the simple life? Is it wrong that they spend all day being photographed, often without their knowledge, just to keep their customers happy? I’m sure that 10 years ago they still thought a photo would steal their soul…now they pose for them without blinking an eye. Either way, I do feel bad for these women who spend their entire day following around Westerners on the off chance they will spend a buck or two. I just hope they are happy.

Carrie is surrounded by a dozen Xao and Hmong ladies trying to get her to buy things:

Local women and the rice field mountains in the hills above Sa Pa

Monsoon rains rip through the Sa Pa market and streets

Views from outside the Hang Da Gu cave in Halong Bay...every single one of these boats was filled with at least 16 tourists

“No way,” was all we heard as a familiar face came running up to us at the bus stop in Hanoi where we were waiting for our tour bus to pick us up and take us to Halong Bay. It was Tony, who we had met five months earlier at Sadhana Forest in India and not seen since. So, after a lengthy argument with the people in charge of assigning passengers to their boats, Carrie managed to get all three of us aboard the Dream Voyage for a two day/one night boat tour through Halong Bay: the most iconic destination in Vietnam.

As the most iconic destination in the country, it is also one of the most visited. Our boat left at the same time as dozens of others: each carrying up to 16 passengers. When we made our first stop at the Hang Da Gu cave to view the amazing stalactites and stalagmites, we joined hundreds of other tourists in being ushered through the place as fast as possible. However, that is where the annoyance of the other boats ended. On the open sea one could not hear the noise coming from the other ships and they just became a part of the landscape.

Kayaks docked in Halong Bay...we took one of these out and kayaked in the bay while monsoon rains fell

Halong Bay’s main feature is a series of giant crags sticking out of the water for as far as the eye can see. Our boat stopped a few times in some of the most beautiful spots where were were surrounded by these crags as well as local floating villages. During one stop in the bay we got into kayaks and paddled around. In the middle of kayaking, monsoon rains began to pour down on our heads in a moment I can only compare to when Tim Robbins escapes from the sewage pipe in The Shawshank Redemption and thrusts his hands into the air. Truly amazing and unforgettable.

That night on the boat, we were treated to a traditional music demonstration by our tour guide before joining hands in a circle with our boat-mates to do a series of traditional dances together. When we spoke to people from our bus who got on the boat we would have been on had we not seen Tony and demanded a change, they said they had no such performance and just had a tour guide who yelled at them all day. Whew.

Women in boats filled with snacks, drinks and other items for sale float from ship to ship in Halong Bay selling their wares (taken by Carrie)

A few other highlights from the Halong Bay boat trip were jumping off of the top of the boat into jellyfish infested waters and local women rowing boats full of cookies, snacks and drinks came to the side of our boat to sell us stuff.

Pirating was also the theme of the night, both when Carrie and Tony swam across the bay and boarded a boat that had music playing to look for a party (there was none) and later that night when a different boat docked right next to us and Tony jumped from our roof to theirs. Of course, the boats quickly started to separate, leaving Tony atop the other boat with no choice other than to toss his wallet and playing cards across the span (the cards exploded upon hitting our boat and all landed in the water), jump into the water and swim back to our boat. Classic.

A panoramic view of Halong Bay:

This girl, a member of the Hmong tribe, followed me throughout our trek in Sapa to get me to buy something.

Everyone on the bus back from Sapa had one of the bracelets the local women give you to mark their territory.

On the Halong Bay tour Carrie and I got inked by a squid about to be cooked.

The women on the Sapa trek complained that we spent too much time buying from the other tribe adnd not theirs.

There was literally a fleet of boats heading back on our second day of the Halong Bay tour. As Carrie said, it was like we were heading to war.

Everyone wears gloves and face masks all the time to shield them from the sun.

On every restaurant table there is a tray with soy sauce, fish sauce and meat sauce.

113 is the Vietnamese number for 911.

The mountains above the town of Sapa

The street numbering system in Da Lat is very confusing in terms of even vs odd placement. For example, building 100 might be across the street from building 307. Sly business owners capitalize on this by placing copycat business names next to the place that a confused tourist might arrive expecting to find their Lonely Planet recommended guesthouse or restaurant. At one time we were looking for Dream Hotel but found, within a block of each other, Dream Guesthouse, The Dream Hotel and Dreamland. None of them were correct.

Some of the jellyfish in Halong Bay, when we were jumping off of the top of the boat, had tentacles at least five feet long.

Every region has its own beer brand named after the main city in the region.

In the last week of travel in Vietnam we slept on buses three nights, on a boat once and got less than five hours of sleep in a hotel room the other three nights.

Is this wrong? It might be, but it's me in a US Vietnam War bunker in the Khe Sanh combat base

At the local dried food market in Da Lat, we were offered the occasional sample of one piece. Meanwhile, at every stall they stopped at, the locals were offered plates of samples, drinks and smiles.

Everyone wears the traditional pointy bamboo hats that seem like an Asian trademark.

On our DMZ tour, the guide made extra sure to always refer to the enemy of the South and the USA as the North Vietnamese Army, and not the Vietcong, as we call them.

Vietnam is filled with Easy Riders, who offer multi-day tours on the back of their motorcycles. While some are the originals, there are countless knockoff Easy Riders. One night in Nah Trang, we were invited to join a group of them for some beers outside our hotel. They played it off like they were just being friendly, but spent the whole time showing us books of photos and recommendations. One guy even claimed to be the very first Easy Rider. Something makes me doubt that.

In Nah Trang, we stayed at a beautiful hotel with AC, fridge, TV, wifi, all modern furniture and bathroom, free computer use and a super friendly staff for $10 because they had just reopened after renovation.

The beach of Nah Trang is most bustling after sunset, where scores of groups of locals take their dinner and sit out on the sand drinking and eating all night.

A rice field in the mountains of Sapa

The Vietnamese people love to shove me out of the way.

My parting gift from Vietnam came in the form of tons of bedbug bites from the free hotel the sketchy couchsurfer bought us. Carrie was saved because she never went to bed.

Why do bus drivers think that people on sleeper buses want to hear loud music blasting out of the speakers at 11pm.

I met a guy from the same fraternity as me (Pi Kappa Alpha) on our DMZ tour.

Most of us Americans on the DMZ tour agreed that we didn’t really want to be on that tour, but we felt like it was an obligation that we had to do.

At a restaurant in Na Trang, I had a deck of playing cards on the table that the waiter asked to borrow for a second. He then proceeded to lend them to the table of girls next to us to use without asking me for permission or telling them that the cards were ours. This made it nice and awkward when we got the bill a few minutes later and I had to go over and get the cards back so we could leave.

• Vietnam Highlights
• Vietnam Foods

Video Links:

• Monsoon rains rip through the Sa Pa market and streets
• Local women and the rice field mountains in the hills above Sa Pa
• Carrie is surrounded by a dozen Xao and Hmong ladies trying to get her to buy things
• Halong Bay Panorama with floating village

Ho Chi Min statue at the Reunification Palace in Ho Chi Min

I think I may be about the millionth blogger to open with that line, but why not! Vietnam. Just hearing the word conjures up all sorts of of feelings, thoughts, mental images and stereotypes for Americans. Even for someone like me who is too young to have experienced the war, I have still spent a lifetime hearing stories and seeing footage.

So, trying to push preconceived notions aside, Carrie and I allotted 18 days (July 13 – August 2) for a whirlwind tour through Vietnam. It wasn’t close to enough and we were only able to do every place we visited lip service, but the experiences were still out of this world. Highlights included trekking with local tribeswomen in Sapa, pirating our way through the crags of Halong Bay, learning to drive a motorbike in the busiest traffic I have ever seen, checking out Communist propaganda all over the country, scuba diving, communal spas, ruins, sledding down sand dunes, getting custom fitted suits and visiting tons of Vietnam War sites.

This is only part one of my Vietnam bloggings. Look for part 2 early next week.