Vacationing in "Nam"

Vacationing through Vietnam certainly begs the question; could my children vacation to Iraq in 30 years time? I am sure my parents never imagined that I would be enjoying the chaotic buzz of Saigon, the white rolling sand dunes of Mue Ni, or the beautiful "Miamiesque" beaches of Nha Trang , all in Vietnam, a country that was the site of warfare and bloodshed just a few centuries ago, but I am. Vietnam is truly amazing, and the farthest thing from what I imagined. Every traveler has their opinion of certain countries or cities, and after receiving them, I discard them immediately. I have yet to find a place I haven't liked, and find that by keeping non-existent expectations I always end up pleased. Vietnam is no exception, but despite what people told me the jungled war-torn "Nam" of my youth was all I could envision, but it has been eye opening seeing the other side of the coin. Vietnam has a lot more infrastructure than Cambodia or Laos. As you drive through the patch worked countryside of fields and rice paddies, you see concrete houses, paved roads, and lamp posts. Vietnam borders the Pacific Ocean (the Vietnamese do not like it being called the South China Sea) which means stunning beach vistas at every turn. I thought some of the other Asian nations had a lot of motorbikes until I came to Vietnam where 60% of the population is said to drive motorbikes (but here at least people actually wear helmets.) While some travellers said the street sellers and people were unfriendly and persistently hostile, as long as I keep my spirits up with them, they have been nothing but pleasant (even knowing that I am American.) The only thing that hasn't been amazing, is the power outages. Due to lack of rain, Vietnam sells its electricity to Cambodia, so every other day entire cities lose power (which means cold dinners, hot sleeping conditions and dark nights) - ugh!

The first thing I did when I got to the Chaotic Ho Chi Min City was find Rego (my former travel buddy), who had been staying in the city for a couple of weeks watching the world cup, eating, drinking and sleeping (lots!) I peeled him out of bed and dragged him to some of the sites. First we headed to the Cu Chi tunnels, a 200km tunnel system outside of the city which housed the Viet Cong while they ran an effective ground operation during the war, where you can crawl through part of the tunnels (which have been widened for the westerners), shoot an AK-47 for 30,000 dong a bullet ($1 = 18,000 dong) and see the horrific jungle traps that were built and used on the American Soldiers.

The videos and commentary were clearly anti-American, and when I went to the War Remnants Museum later that day, I was not proud to be an American. I remember growing up hearing my mother speak of her neighbor and other friends who died in the Vietnam War, and even going to the Washington DC memorial to etch one of the soldier's names onto a piece of paper. What no one told me was that while we lost 50,000 people in the war, Vietnam lost 3 million (2 million of which were innocent civilians) not to mention the hundreds of thousands of people that live with the side effects of the chemicals, like Agent Orange, that we poured into their country. I realize there are two sides to every war, and like the protesters of the past, I do not want my children to look back on our current political situation with the same shame that I have to bear today. War is not the answer, then or now.

While in Ho Chi Min City, I also checked out the neo-Romanesque Notre Dame Cathedral and the Reunification Palace (built in 1966 to serve as the Presidential Palace, this was where the first Communist tanks crashed when the South surrendered to the North).

A day trip to the Mekong Delta, a series of islands that lie where the base of the Mekong River meets the Pacific Ocean, included a boat trip down one of the many rivers (with a funny cone hat on), watched (and tasted) coconut candy being made, played with a snake and drank honey bee tea while watching a traditional song and dance performance. After convincing Rego there will be other places in the country showing the World Cup, we headed north to Mui Ne.

Mui Ne is one long road parallel to the beach with lots of cute little restaurants, guesthouses, resorts and beachy shops.

The white sandy beach had lots of wind, so much that kite surfing schools have popped up all over the town, (there were about 50 surfers to every swimmer.) The only problem with Mui Ne was that there were no people there, and had I not been with Rego finding a friend would have proved difficult. On our second day in Mui Ne we rented motorbikes and cruised out to the "sahara of Vietnam", white and red sand dunes that oddly juxtapose the mountainous and beach landscape.

When we got there people charged us to park our bikes, charged us for plastic mats to sled down the mountain, and 3 little girls carried our sleds, showed us how to do it, offered to take our pictures, and then demanded 20,000 dong each at the end. The sweaty afternoon of sand sledding and bike riding and a hilarious night of attempting to get around in the flooded road after a severe rain storm, was well worth the stop in Mui Ne.

Our next stop was to the beach town of Nha Trang. A gridded city based along a beach as long as Miami's, but definitely not as clean or crowded. Some friends complained of late night robberies (although too drunk to put the scheme together, they all said money was taken out of their wallets), but overall I thought the city was nice enough. During our first day we headed to the beach and while I laid out in my bikini, the locals took swims in their shorts and shirts. That night we camped out at the local sports bar "why not?", and watched the USA world cup game.

There were 3 other Americans who helped support, but the majority of the crowd were bitter English, screaming "Go Guana" while expressing their other anti-American opinions. The following day a bunch of us headed to the Vinpearl waterpark (which included a ride in the longest over water cable car) and that night watched as the English were beat with the karma stick with their embarrassing 4-1 World Cup loss to Germany. Unfortunately Rego decided to stay in Nha Trang for another 2 weeks to watch the ENTIRE world cup (which I obviously didn't want to do), so we had to part ways again. We are hoping to see eachother again in Australia, or at my wedding day (I told him he could be one of the bridesmaids.)

I am currently in Hoi Ann, a quaint town set on the Thu Bon River. The "city" served as an international trading port as far back as the 17th century and is influenced by the Japanese, Chinese, and other European Cultures, which is apparent when walking through the narrow streets, which are lit up by colored Chinese lanterns at night. All around the city are historic Japanese and Chinese architectural sites, but what you actually find the most of are tailors - "hey lady, want a suit? How about a shirt? Nice dress lady?"

There are at least 200 tailor shops all trying to get you to custom make cheap knock-off suit, shoes, wedding dresses, anything! They have popular clothing catalogs and you point to what you want, and the next day they make it at a fraction of the cost (just without the label!)

I also took a motorbike out to the ruins of My Son (about an hour outside of the city), set under the Cat's Tooth Mountain, these remains of the Cham empire were not breathtaking, but the scenery around them was well worth it. On the bike ride home I got a real taste of the Vietnamese "wet season", and the rain everyone's been waiting for. We felt a few drops of rain, so we pulled over and bought ponchos, which reminded me of another Goos family holiday to Bermuda when we were forced to wear these ugly "garbage bags" everywhere because we never had a vacation without rain. As the monsoon poured down on us, children came out to play in the flooded streets and screamed as we passed. Even though raindrops at 40mph is a little painful, this memorable experience was actually kind of fun!


Tomorrow I am headed north up the coast to Hue, then to Hanoi the following day!

To Give or Not to Give, That is the Question

When I budgetted for my world trip I didn't account for my bleeding heart. After a fun-filled night of playing trivia, drinking, and laughing, I head back to my guesthouse in Siem Reap. As I walk back a young girl, shirtless with torn pants and a dirty face jumps into my arms, while another girl grabs onto my hand. For a second I am reminded of a Goos family holiday taken back in 1995 to Italy when my dad, wearing a "fanny-pack", was robbed by a mob of seemingly innocent children, so I search for my wallet - it'still there. They start chanting to me "hungry, food, hungry, food, food, food"; I mean this is the stuff of my nightmares, and I say to them "sure I'll buy you some chocolate or chips", which are words I'm sure they don't understand, so I carry them into the convenience store. The second I walk through the sliding door, in what seems like a well rehearsed scheme, they walk over to the baby formula and hand me a $17 canister, this time chanting "for baby, please, for baby." (I have since learned the scam is to return the formula to the store and get the money, after I've walked away with my do-good-for-others feeling.) Needless to say, I left the convenience store having bought the formula AND plenty of chocolate, chips and candy. Cambodia is a country stricken with poverty, and everywhere you go people want your money. From the constant berage of "hey lady, tuk-tuk? where you go? motorbike?" the second you step off of a bus or leave a restaurant, you could even have just gotten off a tuk-tuk; to land mine mutilated people selling books and postcards out of a basket that hangs around their neck, surrounding you when you sit down to eat a meal; or restaurants yelling you the specials on drinks and food as you walk by. I have since spent money on $10 worth of school supplies for the orphanage I am teaching at and $18 for last-day presents to the children, a $10 donation to an orphanage in Siem Reap, over $14 on books from street sellers, $10 on pencils for the school at the floating village, and the list goes on. I have had many a heated debate with other travellers as to whether or not it benefits people to give them money. I ussually conclude the debate by saying "Well, you think the money we give goes to bad things like drugs and alcohol, and I think the money goes towards good things like food and education. Since we will never know the truth, I will keep thinking it it goes towards good things." As I drive through the country I often consider the impact a small monetary donation from each US citizen would have on the population here in Cambodia - it would be big. I think the answer to the question is, GIVE.


In my last couple of days in Siem Reap I hung out at a rooftop pool (which cost and astronomical $11 for a couple of hours compared to the $6 a night I was splitting for a guesthouse ), met up with my friend Tim from college for dinner, and visited an orphanage where I fell in love with a little boy named Tye.

The following day Jodi and I set out on a morning bus to Battambang, which my lonely planet describes as "home to Cambodia's best-preserved French-period architecture", but I just felt like it was another busy Asian city. With a central market selling fried bugs and spiders, squirming fish in buckets, eggs containing dead baby chickens, hand made scarfs, and knock-off purses, and the typical asian traffic (swarms of motobikes, tuk-tuks, cars and cyclos going in all directions), we decided not to spend too much time there. On our first and only afternoon in Battambang we took a tuk-tuk ride out to the countryside.

One of the main tourist attractions is a bamboo train, which is basically an old railway line that now provides the locals with means of transporting their goods - atop a bamboo mat on transportable wheels, so if anyone is coming in the other direction the cart with the least amount of goods has to get everyone and everything off, break down the bamboo train and let them pass. The best part of this bumpy ride was stopping at a little "village" where they forced us to eat fried banana chips and drink soda while I rose to celebrity status introducing the children to my iPhone.

On the way back we stopped to see homes where they make bamboo cakes (they put coconut milk, rice and black beans into a stick of bamboo and cook it over a fire), rice paper and Cambodian "cheese" (this is not cheddar people, its made from fish!)


The following morning we left Battambang and decided to stop in a place called Pursat, a town off the beaten backpacker path. When we got off the bus we were accosted by people trying to get us into their guesthouse, and after we found a place and started our walk around town, the looks of escaped zoo animals began. Clearly there aren't a lot of white people in Pursat because we were the afternoon entertainment. While most of the children would scream hello to us, the adults mostly gave questioning, unfriendly looks.

Pursat has another bustling market, lots of motobikes, garbage strewn all over the streets (in Cambodia most people cannot afford to have their rubbish picked up so they just throw it on the ground, out the window of their car, etc.) and a couple of old temples.

We took a scenic 45 minute tuk-tuk ride through the countryside, with bamboo homes, water buffalo, rice padies, and screams from children when they caught a glimpse of us. We ended up at another floating village, which was far less touristy than the last one, but still had a floating gas station, mobile phone shop and lots of smiling locals. After an early night, we took a morning bus to Phnom Pehn.




What I didn't know about Cambodia shocks me. Between 1975 and 1979 the Khmer Rouge, at the hands of leader Pol Pot, killed approximately 1,700,000 Cambodian people in acts of mass genoicide (1/3 of the population!!) With radical Marxist ideas Pol Pot murdered any person who was not a simple working peasant (including anyone with an education, governmental position, city job, etc.) One of the books I bought from a crippled street seller is called "First they Killed my Father", and I highly reccomend it to anyone interested in Cambodian history.

WIping tears from my eyes, this book explained how the Khmer Rouge told the people living in Phnom Pehn that the US was going to bomb the city, so the people were evacuated to surrounding villages where they were starved, and eventually murdered in truly violent ways. In the center of Phnom Pehn a former high school was turned into a prison called S-21, which is now a torture museum documenting the horrific acts of the Khmer Rouge .

About 30 minutes outside of town are the killing fields of Choeung Ek, where most of the 17,000 detainees of S-21 were executed. The memorial stupa which stands in the center of this rolling field displays over 8,000 human skulls, bringing to life the reality of this atrocity. Many of the locals I meet and even the orphans I teach have lost parents and other relatives to the Khmer Rouge. Considering the history of this war-torn country, I think Cambodia is doing pretty well.


Phnom Pehn also has a casino (where I won $8, and subsequently a few nights later lost $10), a royal palace, 3 markets (the Russian market, Central market and the Night Market), lots of great restaurants lining the esplanade which runs along the Mekong River, massage parlors ("hey lady, you want massage, good deal for you"), and thousands of tuk-tuks, motorbikes, cyclos, busses and street sellers (hey lady, where you go? you need a ride, good deal for you.)


After seeing some truly strange and ridiculous things here in Phnom Pehn I adopted a new motto, "why not."

For example: Why not wear your pajamas all day long? People all over this country wear two-piece, ridiculously patterned pajamas, all day, everyday. Or, why not wash your hands with a coke? Yes, I saw someone doing this. Or, why not drive on on the wrong side of the road? Whether taking a left hand turn immediately or in 4 miles, someone turning left onto a road instead of crossing traffic to get into the right lane, will pull into the oncoming traffic lane and ride there for as long as they feel like it. This, and not having stop signs or stop lights at intersections makes for a very strange, but organized chaos. Lastly, why not wear long sleeve pants and shirts, gloves and hats in 100 degree weather? The people here are so afraid of getting sun that they wear as much clothing as they can (not to mention all their face creams have whitening in them, which is pretty annoying for someone who likes to have a tan!)



The best part about my stay in Phnom Pehn has been my experience teaching English at an orphanage for the last week. Although I intended to head south to the coast for my last days in Cambodia, I couldn't pass up this opprotunity to work with the local children. I have been teaching two classes of 20 children, ranging in age from 4 to 15, basic English (sounds of letters, dictation, word recognition, etc.) Some of the older kids just want to practice their English, and during the conversation hour ask basic questions ("Do you have a boyfriend" is always a favorite, and one even asked me to sing "My Heart Will Go On" from The Titanic, which I did, horribly.) I truly enjoy teaching. Maybe it's a future career path?



On Sunday the 20th I am off on my own again, to Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam. My former travel buddy Rego is there, and I am hoping I can convince him to travel north with me. I will spend twenty days in Vietnam, before my July 10th flight to Bali, Indonesia.

Pickled

I am in a pickle. I have only been travelling for 5 months but the vagabond lifestyle I have been experiencing has become so addictive, I am not sure I will ever be able to return to living a "normal" life. Countries I used to think were in lands far, far away, are now places I feel comfortable. The idea of travelling alone which used to send me into a panic, now seems like the best way to travel. Staying in one place for an extended amount of time, doing the same thing over and over again now seems boring. Travelling, seeing different places, experiencing unique cultures, meeting new people all the time, are elements of my current life that I don't want to give up. I am so scared to walk through the door of my family home in CT and have my mom to say to me "So, what's your plan? All your stuff is in boxes, and we need to do something with it. Where will you live? What will you do for work?" For someone who has not had a plan in 5 months, and operates on the motto of having the "NO plan, plan", I wonder if I will ever be able to adjust back to the way life used to be... Maybe i will, but I think once a pickle, never again a cucumber. Fortunately I have another 10 months to prepare.

I am currently in Siem Riep, Cambodia, after spending 20 days in Laos. I booked a flight from Hanoi, Vietnam to Bali, Indonesia on July 10th, which means I have a little over a month to see both Cambodia and Vietnam, so even though I would have loved to stay in Laos longer, I have to keep moving.

After my last post I spent another day in Luang Prabang, rented bicycles, toured some temples, spent the afternoon at the waterfalls (again), and a night watching Sherlock Holmes at a guesthouse's outdoor theater. The next day we got a 12 hour bus ride to Laos' capital city Vientiane, another former French settlement perched on the banks of the Mekong. The Bible (my Lonely Planet guidebook) tells me the city becomes more sophisticated every year, and I can see many western additions popping up (coffee shops, restaurants, huge hotel resorts being built on the river).


Although many of my fellow travelers felt Vientienne was just another bustling city, my three days consisted of a visit to the Buddha Park (a green field filled with concrete statues of Buddhas, alligators, temples, and other structures that make for great photo opportunities), a quick stop at the Loas National Museum (where I was horrified to learn that an estimated 260 million "bombies" were dropped in Laos in the late 1960s, 70 million of which failed to explode and continue to plaque the nation's people), a $100 visit to the Australian Embassy to have my burn looked at (my mother is happy, my bank account is not),

a sightseeing trip to the Golden Temple and Vientiane's Arc deTriomphe replica (made from cement donated by the USA - woo hoo, maybe this makes up for all the bombs we dropped), and a couple rounds of bowling at one of the city's two bowling alleys.

You know how it feels when you are sitting anxiously on an airplane waiting to see who your seat-partner is going to be, each person who rounds the corner of different size, shape, and smell invokes horrifying thoughts of how you will spend your upcoming hours. Well now imagine that you have to sleep next to that person for 12 hours. Welcome to the Vientiane to 4,000 Island Sleeper Bus, a double decker bus with 12 beds each housing two people (and if you're alone you're out of luck in picking your partner.) After a brief panic session, a few times of saying "absolutely not", and some desperate pleas to people using movies and cookies as bait, I ended up with a friend I met briefly at my guesthouse (it beat the other options!) But, it still wasn't relaxing rolling around (literally), in a bed with someone you barely know.

4,000 islands is a cluster of islets and sandbars at the end of the Mekong (which really should be named 12 islands, 3,088 grassy patches).

We spent the first two nights at the largest island Dhon Khong, which although 5 times the size of the other islands, there wasn't much going on. With the least amount of Falang (white people), it had an untouched feel, and driving our motorbikes around the flat island, sprouting with raised bamboo homes, water buffalo and decaying temples, felt real. After two nights of going to bed at 8pm, we decided to head to Dhon Det, a more touristy island about 45 minutes down the river via boat.

We spent our days baking in the heat, lounging in hammocks, tubing, bike riding to the other island Dhon Kohn to see a huge waterfall, and our nights watching the sunset, eating at one of the many restaurants, and "partying" in a tiny village which shuts down early.



Since the native waitstaff seem to prefer spending their time watching TV and sleeping, I even spent one night "working" at a local restaurant, bringing people beer, food and menus, while my friends watched with smiles.

The bus ride from Dhon Dhet to Siem Riep was pretty awful. We got picked up at 8am, waited in the boiling sun until 11am for our bus to pick us up, and then after a inopportune trip to the bathroom, I ended up sitting on a plastic chair in the aisle for a 20 minute trip to the border. When we got off I ran through the check-point where corruption allows each person who touches your passport to charge you $1 (yes, they use American dollars here in Cambodia), so I could get an actual seat on the bus. I sat down next to my friend, but when the original seat owner came back a battle ensued, and eventually I had to sit back on the plastic chair for an hour until someone got off the bus. One idiot slept through the checkpoint so we had to wait for him, all of which resulted in a 12pm arrival time in Siem Riep.

Siem Riep has been built up to serve tourists visiting the temples of Angkor, the eight wonder of the world. I hadn't heard anything about the city itself, but was pleasantly surprised. Small streets lined with french-inspired restaurants offer amazing decor and menus (at a fraction of the cost), another huge market selling knock-off's, fresh food and other native souvenirs, and lots of falang. My crew and I got up at 4:30am yesterday to watch sunrise at the Ankor Wat temple, and like any other popular tourist site I was a little disgruntled with my experience. Hundred of people shuttle through the site and line up to get the perfect picture, and then some chick in an all white suit decides to walk onto the temple and become a permanent white blob in your photographed memory. Even though the ruins were amazing, by 10am we were all "templed out", and headed back to our guest house to nap. That afternoon we took a tuk-tuk out to the floating village, 300+ boat houses of Cambodians who fled the Khmer Ruge and 30 years later have stayed on the water. We were inundated by boat-bound beggars, with crying children of all ages chanting "one dollar, one dollar", to which no amount of money we gave was enough. We even bought $5 pencils to give to the floating school, but still left feeling like there has got to be a better way to give to these impoverished people.

My current crew is breaking up within the next couple of days, and my path will take me south. First to Battambang, then Pursat, Phnom Penh, and eventually to the beaches and islands off the southern Cambodian coast before heading into Vietnam around the 20th.