don’t call me a backpacker…

So I was really having a hard time finding a title for this post that would do it justice… we’ll see how this “sticks.”

I’ll just cut to the chase and say the ferry ride from Chumphon to Ko Tao was the worst boat ride EVAH! We left the dock on time at 7 AM after a wonderful all-night bus ride, and 15 minutes in, we stopped and anchored. We didn’t know what was going on but I realized after a short time they were waiting (probably in vain) for the water to calm down (bad winds that night.)

I guess it did, cause about 45 minutes later we took off. Smack! Rock left, rock right… Smack! A mom next to me starts helping her kids and husband barf. The boat is going fast but not even full speed. Oh boy, this is going to be fun.

90 minutes later, after what was supposed to be a 60 minute ferry, I’d estimate that at least 60% of the people had their faces buried in the barf bags at some point. I fortunately was not one of them, as I’ve never really had these kinds of problems. I also wisely didn’t eat anything overnight. I just put on my iPod and closed my eyes so I didn’t have to watch everyone else. The staff was at least prepared enough to walk around handing out tissue, smelling oils, and more bags, but after 2+ hours you can probably imagine what it smelled like too.

Not recommended, unless you check the weather first. hehe.

To be closer to the action of the tourist sites of Bangkok, because I had to ship some things, and book my island trip, I bit the bullet and moved a few nights to the infamous Khao San Road. It’s basically a backpacker freak-show, and things aren’t really that cheap there, if they were before. There are some cheapo hotels still, but a lot more upscale now too. I got a good foot massage, but most of it was a drag, and I won’t be going back. Not friendly, not necessarily a good place to meet people, not recommended.

The Grand Palace was all it was billed to be… the one “can’t miss” site in Bangkok.

It was certainly incredible and enjoyable. The kind of place where the eye candy is so overwhelming you can just tune out the rest of the tourists. One of the interior buildings is Wat Phra Kaeo, the holiest site in the country and it houses the Emerald Buddha. Cameras are not allowed in, but it was nice just to sit and take in the incredible stacked gold altars, the many murals on the walls, and the green Buddha himself, decked out in his winter attire. The King attends a ceremony 3 times a year where they change the Buddha’s wardrobe.

I also stupidly forgot to wear pants, and had to look like the many other dorks who had to rent some.

Highly recommended.

On my walk back from the Grand Palace, I still had some time to kill before my bus for the island left. My luck finally turned back for the better I felt. I walked past (I think) the National Museum, and down a street next to it was an amazing looking bunch of food stalls. What luck, I was hungry! Then I noticed on the big lawn in front of the museum they were getting set up for what looked to be an outdoor concert. Nice! Traditional music and dance for 20 bhat on the lawn in gorgeous late afternoon weather with food cooked for me. Real Nice.

The great thing as it turned out, was this wasn’t even a concert for tourists. As you may be able to see from the picture, it was like 90 Thai’s and 10% farangs (foreigners.) Turned out to be a pretty good day.

It’s happening. What I feared. I’ve become angry, jaded, tired, traveler. I don’t smile at people anymore. I glare at the touts. Suddenly $7 meals sound expensive…

I’m kind of back to my old self. Not good. I was warned I would hit a wall after a month or so. I guess this is it.

I still don’t feel back to normal health, and I’m hoping the next 5 days at the beach will cure me.

Bangkok was not really like I expected, I have to say. But I did very little research on this leg of the trip, figuring it would all kind of take care of itself, and it has. What I mean by “not expected” is it is unlike any of the places I have just visited, and more like a western city… huge, FLAT, giant freeways, the biggest billboards you’ve ever seen in your life, (picture big U.S. billboards, then multiply them by 5) traffic jams everywhere, too big to walk anywhere, big smog cloud overhead, … on my first ride from the airport I thought, where’s the exotic gem of Asia? This looks like Houston, Texas with palm trees!

(I stopped here one night between Bali and Vietnam to change airlines…)

Well I’m still torn on whether I like it, a few cab rides have made me see the unique aspects. Maybe I could warm up to it. At least it’s warm… sweaty warm.

I’m still trying to take it easy to feel better, do some normal stuff like watch TV, surf the web, and play games which I haven’t done yet. But changing hotels all the time takes a toll also.

People in Thailand have a reputation for being very nice. I have experienced this several times already. Walking down the long block from The Atlanta Hotel to get to the Skytrain, I got stopped by a beautiful woman (yes she was a woman) in a black Mercedes offering me a ride down the street, because, she said, it’s too hot for me to be walking. People don’t walk here much, kinda like LA. Then today, after I got to The Grand Palace too late, this man stopped to help me with no agenda and nothing to gain by it. He said, “here’s the temples you should go see next”, and circled them for me on the map. Then was like, “have a good day.” Wow.

(and before some of you start laughing at me about the “Grand Palace is closed”… I know this is the oldest scam in the book.  But it actually was closing, I was standing at the gate, it closes at 3:30 pm, ugh.)

So my first tourist experience here was the Jim Thompson house. I did not have high expectations with such a boring name, but it was really cool. It seems every country over here has an ex-pat that made himself “famous” by putting together a collection of things that were already here. He moved more than 6 old traditional Thai houses, built with no nails, and put them together into his own house. Tons of Thai art and artifacts in his collection, including a 7th century standing Buddha. it was better than I thought it would be.
Then today, as my random street guide instructed, I went to the big standing Buddha temple, and then the Golden Mount (or mountain if you prefer) at sunset.

My pictures of ALL of this have sucked thusfar. It’s always been late afternoon, and things are so dense here it’s hard to get good shots. I also went my first couple of days without seeing anything picture worthy, heh.

I’m very much looking forward to the next week though. Going to Ko Tao to get my PADI open water dive certificate. I got it all booked here and saved some money.

Ok so I managed to make my last 24 hours in Hanoi eventful and pull my mood out of the gutter. Also got some quality internet time and let my body rest.

What hadn’t I done yet? Eel soup, Bia Hoi, and Ho Chi Minh’s corpse

I had passed by the food stall several times by foot. And what was behind the glass, like many things in Hanoi, certainly makes you stop and wonder, what the hell are those? Mini Eels! Fried and dried! I was tempted last week, but passed. When I saw that Rough Guide actually reviewed the food stall, then I’m in! Mini eels are certainly no match for my iron stomach.

I went right at dinner time and all tables pretty full. Lady yells “sit,” with two other guys. I’m the only caucasion. Staring and giggling ensues. I say “xin chao” (hello) to my table mates and the usual questions start. Then he points at the glass case with a smile and says, “little snakes.”

Thanks for the tip dude, like I didn’t notice on the way in.

Needless to say, the soup was delicious.

I was thinking I wasn’t sure if I had actually partook of a Bia Hoi experience yet. Bia Hoi are the street-side beer drinking establishments for the locals, and of course tourists now too. So I walked around this new part of the Old Quarter my new hotel was in, and look, there’s those Brits that I talked to on my boat home from Cat Ba Island. So I sat down with them and a young guy from Montana they had met previously, and proceeded to down glasses of the weak stuff. Montana boy was already pretty drunk so we didn’t talk much.

Lastly, but certainly not least…

Wednesday morning, after another half-assed free hotel breakfast, and failing to get iChat video working over the slow Vietnamese internet (geee I wonder why it’s so slow? ’cause the government is scanning packets?) I decide I need to get my ass on a motorbike and over to see Ho Chi Minh’s dead body, as viewing closes at 11 AM.

Wow was I ever glad I did this.

I should note he was embalmed against his wishes. He knew it was coming, cause that’s what they do to the communist leaders, but he wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered. Win some, lose some. At least he gets his fluids changed once a year.

No disrespect, he was clearly an amazing man and a great leader. I think it was just an unfortunate time and place for him to make a convenient choice of communism to get rid of the French and have alliance the Chinese. But it just doesn’t seem to work.  I would say what you currently see in Vietnam, is not your grandfathers communism.

I walked up by myself and was thrown into a group that was just finishing up a slide-show introduction. I was told to stand behind the line and wait. They all come out and we are told to form two lines, and walk two by two. They even have lines on the pavement to follow. You’ve got to be kidding right? I was at the front and she told us to slow down. We aren’t even close to the Mausoleum yet. So we march up to the camera check-in and metal detectors. No cameras or cell phones.

We start marching again. There’s a couple of Brit guys around me who are just cracking up at this, and I say, I don’t think I’ve marched two by two since 2nd grade. Then as we approach the door, it’s time for single file. There’s soldiers around of course, with big guns.

The line then moves slowly and in complete silence through the black marble foyer, and then around the glass coffin, never stopping. Uniformed soldiers stand at attention below at each corner. Uncle Ho’s body aglow with purple light, I’m not sure why they chose purple.

And like that, your 30 seconds with the greatest leader in the countries history is over.

If you go to Hanoi, don’t miss this.

A simple, short tour bus ride to Hoi An, along the way you get to see the infamous wartime locations of Da Nang, China Beach, and the Marble Mountains.
The Air Force base was enormous. I was really shocked to see it still there actually, all overgrown on the inside but still containing huge concrete plane silos. It was easy to see then how the history book described how it was turned into an self supporting American city. So much so that Vietnamese fled the dangerous jungles and hillsides and formed a huge ghetto outside the Air Force base safehaven.

I decided to forego a trip to the DMZ or any other wartime tourist destinations seeing how I was running out of time, they weren’t a priority for me, and my health was not so good.

Hoi An was VN’s main sea merchant port centuries ago, so it has a lot of Chinese and Japanese influences all over. The whole town is a UNESCO designated site, and they have retained the most of the old charm.

The tailors are also what Hoi An is all about. And they are not messing around. Blocks and blocks and blocks of tailor shops. It was insane and way more than I expected. My big plan was to have my favorite jeans copied, and see what else I could buy. There was one jean specialty place, that did stonewashing too, but they wanted $35, which was more than i expected to pay. Normal tailors said they would do jeans for $15, so I bit. Bad mistake. The jeans fit the same but look dorky.

My experience was this: Shopped around a little just finding out prices… hmmm, more than I thought. I then started working with a shop of girls who were very nice at first, but then things got ugly. I won’t go into the details, but I hadn’t given them money yet, I changed my mind on something being made when I knew I was paying too much, and they got kinda rude. At this point, come on, the customer is always right. But not in Vietnam apparently. So I grabbed all my clothes and stormed out.

Went somewhere else and worked out a better deal. I went a little crazy actually. Jeans, corduroy pants, short sleeve button down shirt… and then I saw another shop that made a great looking corduroy jacket, so I had to have one of those too. Total damage: $60.

It’s funny how you keep running into many of the same travelers when traveling a country, hundreds of miles away from where you met them. Chris, the guy from Scotland I hung out with on Hanoi day 1, pulled into Hoi An right after me. We hung out the rest of the day, which included one of the Chinese Assembly Halls, which again Rough Guide steered us to the best one of the bunch. It had amazing wood carvings and a Confuscious based temple, which Chris said he hadn’t seen even in his travel through China.

I also got hit by a motorbike, or rather, I hit him walking across the street. I was talking to a shoe merchant girl while waiting for Chris to join me. A truck had parked and you couldn’t see down the street. Bike comes FLYING toward me and Chris as we cross. What you are supposed to do in Vietnam in this situation is just stop and stand still and let them dodge you. But that’s not how we do it in San Francisco, so bad habits… I try to make it across and he keeps going in front of me.

So guy nearly wrecks from me hitting him, jumps off his bike and starts yelling at me in Vietnamese, from a safe distance because I’m a lot bigger than him. I yell some things in English, everyone watches, a little embarrassing. When I talk to the shoe girl again she said that he was drunk. He was going waaay too fast.

…has my inspiration to blog gone?

I don’t know if it’s being sick, or being sick of Hanoi that’s done it.

Ok so I had written this long, witty post full of wonderful narratives when Internet Exploder (on the hotels WINDOWS pc) decided to barf it up when I hit save. Thanks. I was too upset and not feeling well to re-write it so this is a place holder.

—————– let’s try again ——————-

Here’s a conversation I have had in a many taxis from Bali to Vietnam:

(I mean no offense by this, just reporting what happens…)

taxi driver: “Where you from?”
me: “USA”
(you always get a lump in your throat when you have to tell a Vietnamy this, but I grin and bear it.)
taxi: “Ah USA. America! Number 1! hahaha”
me: “uh, yeah, we try.”
taxi: “I have a brother (or sometimes uncle) in San Jose Californeeaah”
me: “ah yes I live in California”
(then he proceeds to make unidentafiable sounds I’m assuming are in Vietnamese)
taxi: “aaahniiiooooswaaassiiinaaaoooHahaha”
me: “umm, say again?”
taxi: “aaahniiioooo swaaassiiinaagooor Hahaha”
me: “I’m sorry I don’t understand”
taxi: “Aaaniiood Swassiiinaggor”
me: “Ahhh Arnold Schwarzanegger. Hahaha”

Hue, pronounced Hway, is a very lovely town. After the bustle and din of Hanoi, I feel like I could stay here for a month just riding a bicycle around. Sigh.

The 11 hour overnight train ride was not too bad, considering the first class “soft sleeper” (4 to a room) cars were sold out. I had to settle for 2nd class “hard sleeper” (6 to a room). Hey, it’s an adventure right? I’m down with the people.

The people were all nice locals, one guy spoke a little English, asked all the usual questions, and tried to translate that the two late-40’s looking ladies (they looked like sisters) were talking about me in Vietnamese, saying I was handsome and being very “careful.” They’d understand if they knew I had a Macbook in my bag.

I wrapped the strap of my backpack containing said Macbook around my foot, and I put on my ipod on to Modest Mouse, and Godspeed You Black Emperor. Basically I would fall asleep for a while, wake up and the album would be over, start another album, repeat. So I know I got some sleep that night but I really have no idea how much. Got woken up around 4 or 5 AM for our first stop, which of course half the people woke up and got off the train. Went back to sleep.

All fine except these trains are very much a germ cesspool. I was starting to feel sick the day before on the way back from Ha Long, and as the hours ticked by on the train ride, I could feel my throat getting more and more sore.

So my Hue visit was kinda ruined by this cold. Fortunately, I was comforted by the BEST HOTEL BARGAIN on my trip, and probably in all of VN.
First, my Rough Guide to Vietnam (Sept 2006) has been great and right on with a lot of recommendations. I will certainly look at them now before Lonely Planet guides.

Binh Duong III was 1 of the highlighted Rough Guide picks for hotels in Hue. The room was one of the cleanest and nicest I’ve seen so far, and better than many hotel rooms I’ve stayed in California that cost over $100. A Balcony with a view, huge windows, nice bathroom and furniture, and get this – a computer IN YOUR ROOM with internet access. $15.
This was a great room to wind up being sick with a cold in. (until of course it crashed this post)

But I did take advantage of the computer access and updated my Wordpress blog version to 2.0.7 for all you geeks out there. It’s hard to find time to do this while traveling.

I did muster the energy (after buying a used rain jacket for $.60) to make it out for the biggest attraction of Hue, it’s old Imperial citadel. It’s really not that old, but housed the Emperors of Vietnam from around 1800 until WWII I think, when everything changed and the French were booted. It says it was left in disrepair, a lot burned in a fire in 1947, and then the Vietnam-American war pretty much did the rest of it in.

They are very slowly getting some of the buildings put back together, with some museums, but it was a staggering number of how many buildings were destroyed. Worth a visit.

Yum Yum

It got really cold here today. I am not prepared, like most tourists we laugh at when they come underdressed to San Francisco. But now I have 3 shirts on.

I keep feeling like I may getting a cold, but I brought a full supply of Airborne, and it’s keeping me healthy.

It may also be because, as you may have noticed… I haven’t really been sitting still at all since Kuta, Bali. I’ve been going and moving non-stop. And it’s been fun. I’m even starting to feel that maybe 3 months isn’t enough… but that feeling could probably change by March.

The smog here is truly on another level. I think I’m getting asthma it’s so brutal. That’s why you see people in Asia with masks on. Not because of SARS or avian flu. it’s the motorbike smog.

Too many tourists here. yes I realize the irony. I couldn’t even get a ticket to see the damn water puppet show tonight.

Here they call them “tube houses.” It’s funny when there’s one standing all by itself. (but then again I’m easily entertained)

The beer here is fairly weak. There are three brands, and the most popular one, Tiger, is from Malaysia.

I FINALLY found a decent wifi internet connection in Hanoi, after several attempts at places where they say, “No laptop!” Trying to even check my Yahoo mail on cafe PC’s is often horrific.

ATM machines just arrived in Vietnam 2 years ago.

The hotel I slept in last night left its bad smell on me.  Never again will I accept a smelly hotel room.

So my post earlier this afternoon on Ha Long Bay got interrupted. I was starting to get kind of bitter, and ready to leave Hanoi, especially after the woman on the boat gave her biased opinions on how the south is much better in many ways. And like clockwork, I get a text message from a waitress, Linh, that I made friends with the other night, inviting me over for lunch with her friends. I was like wow! that’s so nice! Later she admitted she didn’t think I would accept her invitation. haha.

Linh is also from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon, like the woman in my tour group) and has been in Hanoi for 4 months, living with her brother, while she works out some things. She reiterated the same differences about north and south, and was trying to understand some things about America. We all had a fun time at lunch, and talked for hours until it was time for her to go to work.

Once again it was great to know you can meet and get to know someone genuine while traveling, alone, and you don’t even speak the same language.

Ok, it’s time for my first train trip of this trip.

Ha Long Bay was excellent visually. There are several places in the world that have these kind of formations, but none on this grand a scale. Quite a sight. The journey itself wasn’t quite what I expected, but still enjoyable. Mostly because I chose the 3 day excursion with kayaking, thanks to my Rough Guide’s suggestion, they were right. The only reasonable way to do this trip is by pre-paid tour, if you try to avoid it you’d probably end up paying more, so I join my first TOURIST MADHOUSE!

First off, you think you’re going to escape the traffic jams of Hanoi on this trip, only to start your journey seeing a traffic jam of junk boats! Complete with smash up derby contact and sailors cursing! It was high entertainment.

We cruised around all day taking in the amazing scenery, and visited a pretty huge cave in one of the mountains. The guides say “enjoy a relaxing night sleeping on the boat under the moonlight.” Well, there was no way the moon was getting through that fog, and it would be relaxing only if you love the sound of old generators running all night. Not just your generator, but the generators of the 50 other junk boats parked in the same harbor! Why do they call them junk anyway?

The night on board was actually enjoyable with a wide mix of people, I think we had 11 on board plus the crew. 7 Aussies, 1 German backpacker, myself, and a Portuguese couple who I connected with right away, and then of course told them I was planning on going to Portugal. Coincidentally, we three were the only ones getting off the boat on Cat Ba Island for the 3 day adventure, so I pretty much spent most of this trip with them.

After we disembark we have a short bus ride, and then it’s straight into trekking through Cat Ba National Park with our “local guide”. He said he was 70 years old. I told him if he keeps trekking like this he’s going to live to be 95 like me. The hike continued through a tunnel shaped cave, he said it was used by locals to hide during the American war. It was scary considering we were the only ones in there, especially when the lights flickered

Then in classic local tour style, the guide takes us to his daughters house where we can relax, and buy cold drinks. haha. But really it was nice to walk through a quiet little village.

Later that day, kayaking Ha Long Bay. You get to be up close, and get to park on a beach and look at all the aquatic life making it’s home in the rocks. And wait – oh my god! – what’s that? – IT’S THE SUN!!! Right as we are getting ready to kayak the sun appears for the first time in Vietnam! Another amazing thing besides the rocks themselves were the fisherman who live in them. Our guide says “very hard life.” Indeed.

So my Portuguese friends, Joad and Teresa, were very good to hang out with. They live around Lisbon, work in the film/tv industry, are avid rock climbers and were totally salivating at the idea of getting to rock climb some of these formations. They had brought their gear, but had said there’s basically zero information available about rock climbing in Vietnam, so it was also a bit of an adventure for them to find out on their own. As it turned out it looked to be pretty challenging. Most of the rocks when you get up close have very small jagged edges. Not to mention, it is illegal to land on most of the mountains as they are protected. So they were going to stay an extra day and try to do some climbing, we’ll have to see how that went. They invited me to stay with them when I go to Lisbon so of course that is fantastic.

On the latter half of the trip we wound up with a new group for the way home. We met another couple with a cute 2 year old, who were originally from Vietnam, but moved to Australia. I mention this because they both had pretty strong words regarding the country, and kind of made me think about it more. She was from Saigon originally, and clearly doesn’t care for the “north.” Of course she’s biased, but she said “they are more friendly, and more open in the south.” And also that there is a ton of corruption and things in the north run are run by very old methods of “local council” and they are very resistant to change. So I want to see with my own eyes, but I do agree with that about the north so far.

I have certainly encountered a few friendly people here, but the majority I do not get a warm feeling from and it appears most of them are just after your money. Of course, they see tourists come and go day in and day out.

That said, these people are very hard working. I can see that everywhere. I’ve encountered few beggars, and reports I had read about rampant prostitution, like stories about them soliciting at your hotel room door, appear to be exaggerations. Or maybe that’s Saigon, I dunno. But I see a lot of people working hard for little money, which is more than I can say for the United States as a whole.

The Vietnamese do love to sing to themselves too. It’s cute.

I’m off on a train to the south tonight. Hue and Hoi An next up on the agenda.