I've made it back home! I wish I could tell you I had nothing to do but to sit around and be lazy, but I have lots of wedding prep for a friend to take care of, and no time to sit around to do nothing! But I think it's better this way, because if I had nothing to do I would wish I was back in Asia more than I do already. I think I was ready to come home, but there's always a part of me that will always want to be somewhere abroad. I loved waking up with something new to do everyday, some new food to try in every city, or new people to meet in every hostel. I ate more Pho and Pad Thai than I thought was humanely possible, and even more ice cream! haha.
The people in every country I visited were absolutely wonderful! So nice, so considerate, and so welcoming! (Well minus a few people in Vietnam..i.e. Mafia cabbie). It's amazing to see how resilient the human spirit can really be, especially after learning so much about the history in all the countries I visited.
I most certainly did not get enough of S.E. Asia and CANNOT wait to go back!! I've already got another trip out there planned, but since school will be limiting all of my vacation time now, I think I will have to stick to shorter trips close by until I get more time. So, my next set of trips will be taking place in Latin America. In the meantime, I'll read up on all the things that peaked my curiosity in Asia, and then I can start getting back into my Spanish. haha.
Thanks to everyone who kept up with reading this blog! It was great to keep you all updated on all of my adventures! I hope you found them to be as entertaining as I did! I'm happy to be home for a bit to spend some time with my family before I head back to NYC for school. It's almost as exotic a locale as Asia was, so if anyone will be visiting, please let me know! I've made a wonderful new group of friends from all over, but mostly Canada and England, and would love to have even more visitors! In the meantime, the fishbowl blog will be retired again I guess. I hope it's not too long before I get to revive it though!! :)
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Saigon to Some, Ho Chi Minh City to Others
Saigon is a city full of scooters and insane traffic patterns! It's easily the largest and most populated city of Vietnam, and it's capital, so it was no surprise when we arrived to the city we hit about an hour's worth of traffic because of heavy rain that had the streets flooded with water that came up to your knees. The downpour that we arrived in made us decide to hop into the first taxi we could find, which was maybe not the best idea but it seemed right at the time. haha. We knew we were going to try to stay at a hostel that was only about a 5 minute walk from the bus stop, so when our cabbie told us it would take about 10 min we got suspicious. He ended up driving us in a huge circle and his meter was rigged to jump up at an exponential rate! It was insane! After 10 minutes of driving our fare was $200,000 VND which was outrageous! We found our hostel and the lady there basically told me it should have been around $50,000VND so I knew we had been scammed for sure. We refused to pay him the actual fare that he was trying to charge us and while we were in the street getting our bags he just kept yelling at us and swearing at us. A Vietnamese man walked by and I asked him if he understood English, which thankfully he did, and I explained what had happened to us. I told him to tell the guy we knew he had tried to trick us and we wouldn't pay. The local guy told us we should have only been charged at most $20,000 VND, but that he couldn't really do anything because we had gotten into a "mafia" cab. Umm mafia? Really? That didn't sound very good to us, and the word mafia fit this guy's description once he started trying to close the trunk of the minivan on my head while I was getting our bags out, and when he did one of those "I'm watching you" finger movements to me before getting into his cab and driving off (we only paid him $50,000). Yikes. We had a hit put out on us from the mafia after only being in Saigon for 10 minutes. Great way to kick off our stay I think?
We spent our first day in the city visiting historic museums, one of which was the War Remnants Museum, formerly known as the Museum of American War Crimes. I think you can tell what this museum was like. It was very one-sided account of how the Vietnam War played out, but it didn't change the fact that everything they were displaying that Americans had done during the war was true. It was the most depressing museum I'd ever been to, and after taking a few pictures on the first floor which was pretty neutral, I couldn't even bring myself to take my camera out because the pictures on display were so graphic and horrific. Words like napalm and agent orange are burned into my mind--I can't believe we used things like that against people, so many of which were just innocent civilians. The aftereffects of those chemicals are still very much apparent when walking through the streets of Saigon. It was terrible. There's so much about the history of this war that I need to learn. I feel like it was never introduced to us in any other way except that it was a time when the draft was reinstated. But the actual politics behind it are still so unclear to me. New goal: Learn about the Vietnam War, and our military presence in the Korean War as well as in Cambodia and Laos. The United States really screwed up out here it seems, and it's really no wonder why so many other countries have problems with Americans. It seems as if throughout my travels the history of all the countries I've visited has been marred by some sort of American presence. It's a shame. 
The next day we drove out to a town called Cu Chi to see the underground tunnels the Viet Cong built during the war. There was a very one-sided movie that was played at the beginning of the tour where the US forces were labeled the "American devils," but after that it was pretty much just a tour of all the ways the Viet Cong went about killing the US Forces out in the jungles of Vietnam. The traps they laid out were so gruesome and grisly. Ew. Bamboo spears that would stab them if they stepped onto the wrong place in the ground--not an easy way to go. The tunnels were insane! So tiny--I can see why the Vietnamese are so small. They moved so quickly through those tunnels, and they had about 200km of underground tunnels in just this one town alone! The tunnels led to meeting rooms, a kitchen, there was even an underground clinic and areas to make shoes, weapons and clothing. Very extensive. And the coolest part of the day was that I got to shoot an AK-47!! I paid $3 to shoot two bullets at a pile of dirt. haha. I could have shot a machine gun or bigger guns, but I was okay with just the AK-47. The first gun I shoot in my life and it's one used all around the world in war. Craziness. I was not very graceful either. haha. I jumped 10 ft after I shot my first shot because I had no idea what to expect. haha. It was pretty obvious that I had no experience with guns whatsoever. 
I spent my last day just relaxing and walking around the city doing some last minute shopping and such. Attempted to get a mani/pedi, but no one actually seems to know how to do one of those in Vietnam. One of the girls working on me actually ended up cutting me, and I noticed her putting little bits of tissue on my toe. I was like, "Umm, am I bleeding?" Her response: "A little yes. I'm sorry." Umm...ok? Definitely not the best job in the world, but for $5 I shouldn't complain I guess.
I can't believe my trip is over!! The past six weeks have flown by so quickly!! It seems like yesterday I was first arriving into Bangkok, and now I have 30 hours of travel time to look forward to. Ugh. I need more time! My next trip out here will have to be South Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. Too many things left to do, and so many that I want to do twice! Fingers crossed it won't be 5 years until I can travel again. :)
Hopefully I get some safe and on-time flights. :)
Hopefully I get some safe and on-time flights. :)
Nha Trang: Beach Parties & Beach Brawls
Ohhh Nha Trang...what an interesting adventure you turned out to be.
As always, my story starts with my bus journey. They never fail to disappoint out here, do they? Once again, our bus was late. This time, we arrived to our pick up point at 5:15pm but our bus didn't arrive until almost 7pm. In between bus rides we had heard about how horrendous this journey was meant to be since it was supposed to be so long (about 13 hrs) and since there was likely to be a very stinky bathroom because of this. And since we were Western that meant that the seats in the back of the bus near the bathrooms were for us. Neil, Eden and I came up with a great plan to ensure safety away from the back of the bus. So while Neil was in charge of getting our bags onto the bottom of the bus, Eden and I were to get on the bus first and just grab the best seats possible to us. We got on, and luckily there was no toilet--so no stink--and we got some prime seats right by the tv screen. We thought we were starting out this trip with the right foot forward. Wrong as always...haha. We heard the worst news first: there were cardboard boxes full of dead fish in the cargo area of the bus and they were leaking stinky fish juices. Ew. Best part: The Western people's luggage was to be loaded in that section, not the Vietnamese luggage. Awesome. While we were digesting that information and thinking of all the horrible ways our bags and clothes would smell after stewing in the 90+ degree heat with the dead fish (which were NOT on ice), the driver came and closed the tv screen, so we realized long trip, no bus, and stinky fish were in store for us. Sweet. I didn't really think things could get worse, but obviously they could. We actually drove out of our way and headed north for a good 30 or 40 minutes in order to unload the fish at some bus station. Our bags were taken off the bus with the fish and then reloaded back onto whatever fish juice was left that wasn't wiped away by the makeshift mop that they used to clean some of it up. We also proceeded to pick up plenty of Vietnamese people who payed way less than we did to get on the bus, and were given priority for all of the seats in the front of the bus and on the bottom bunks. Some guys from the back tried to move to the bottom bunks and they got yelled at by the Vietnamese workers until they moved back to their crappy seats. Apparently they threaten to remove your luggage if you don't move. They don't mess around when it comes to saving the best seats for their own.
So after a long stop, we finally started heading down the coast. The next problem was that try as I might to fall asleep, the bus driver was completely over aggressive with his horn, and he pretty much had it pressed down for the next 3 hours. It was so hard to fall asleep with all the noise he was making--it was like he was trying to make a song or something. On top of that, we pretty much stopped every hour to pick up more passengers even though the bus was full. The bus can legally seat 40 people. By the time we stopped picking up passengers we had 53 in the bus, including the driver! The extra 12 people slept in the aisles between the seats. So now I'm in an overcrowded bus, my bag is likely soaked in fish juice, and to top it all off, only the Vietnamese passengers are given a blanket and free bottle of water. Now things just seem ridiculous. How can that possibly seem ok? Ugh. So annoying. I managed to get a blanket from the guy which was nice, but ended up being wholly unnecessary because at about 2am the air conditioning cut out. Actually, a funny smell started to come from the vents and the bus driver thought he would just turn the AC off while we were all sleeping and we wouldn't even notice. We noticed. It was as if someone had a massive blow horn in the bus--all of the Westerners woke up like clockwork as soon as the AC had been off long enough because the temperature of the bus sky rocketed. We drove for an hour with people from the back of the bus yelling up to the front for the driver to put the AC back on. The Vietnamese people weren't too happy with us, but no one cared since we were all sweating like pigs. The only thing they could do was open the emergency exit latch on the roof of the bus to let some air in. After about an hour of no AC and random pullovers to find a mechanic, the bus started to make some ridiculous alert sound, which was probably telling the driver that we needed to fix something asap. It went on for a good 30 minutes before the driver finally pulled off the road in the middle of nowhere. It was 3am.
There were 2 other buses that had broken down that were there as well, so we were third in line to be fixed. The driver and his helpers turned the bus off and just left us all in there without any explanation. Pretty soon we were all sweating buckets. Finally, my friends and I couldn't stand it anymore so we climbed through the emergency exit on the roof of the bus to go sit outside on top of the bus. It was probably one of the most amazing feelings in the world to put my head out into the air from the bus. It was at least 10 degrees cooler outside than it was in the bus. We sat out there until 5:30am, by which time almost 10 people from the bus were sitting with us enjoying the cool air. We figured it would be a good idea to try to sleep while the bus wasn't moving considering our driver's obsession with the horn, but it was still way too hot in the bus--my back was covered in sweat within 5 minutes of laying down in my seat. Plus, people were going in and out of the bus to start walking around the town since the sun had come up, so every time someone passed my seat, they managed to touch me somehow because they were trying to avoid stepping on the person sleeping the aisle next to my seat. Every time I would start to doze off, someone would brush against me and I'd wake right up because I had no idea who was touching me. I might have slept 20 minutes before I gave up and just waited outside with everyone at a nearby cafe. We didn't get the bus fixed until 8:30am..what a nightmare. We were supposed to reach Nha Trang by 6:30am, but ended up getting in around 12:30 or 1pm. But we did reach there eventually!! And, our bags didn't smell like fish so we were a lot happier. haha.
Nha Trang is a really sweet beach spot in Vietnam. There were plenty of tourists there to vacation, both Vietnamese and foreign. We spent our days lounging on some chairs by a pool and the beach, and went out at night to the bars, all of which had a "Happy Hour" which lasted from 4pm-midnight. Our first night out was the most interesting to say the least. My Canadian friends are a bit rowdier than I am, and after several drinks decided it would be fun to go swimming in the ocean. I opted out and just continued to talk to some English people we had just befriended on the beach. At some point one of the girl's camera and money were stolen from her bag even though someone was supposed to be watching it. This is where the trouble started. They thought maybe this group of about 10 Vietnamese men knew where her camera and money were--and by that I mean they were blatantly accusing these locals of stealing the camera. I kept my distance from the altercation, but at some point one of the Vietnamese guys pushed one of the girls getting involved in the fight. So now her boyfriend was getting all worked up, and it was looking uglier and uglier as I stood by and watched. And then one of the Vietnamese guys got a plank of wood and another got an oar. So now my Canadian friends were surrounded by this group of armed Vietnamese, and instead of walking away, they got even angrier that they were being threatened. Ay yi yi. One of the Vietnamese dudes got fed up enough with the yelling and pulled out a knife. Now it was serious, and I wasn't too thrilled to be watching this because once again, my friends were just more outraged than scared, and they continued to yell at the Vietnamese and accuse them of stealing the camera. Ugh. The English guys I was talking to suggested someone should go over there and pull the Canadians away since the weapons were coming out, and obviously I was the person who had to go. So I had to walk over there and step between the knife and my yelling friends and pull them away. Not cool. We managed to walk away from the situation unscathed, but yikes. I was definitely not excited about getting involved in that fight. I'm just glad no one got hurt. :)
The next day and night were much more relaxed to say the least. We wanted to rest up for our final bus ride down to Saigon which would be happening the next morning. Hopefully it goes better than the one down to Nha Trang!
And last, but not least: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NINA!! Sorry I didn't get to call--that bus breakdown really screwed my plans! haha. Hope it was amazing!!
As always, my story starts with my bus journey. They never fail to disappoint out here, do they? Once again, our bus was late. This time, we arrived to our pick up point at 5:15pm but our bus didn't arrive until almost 7pm. In between bus rides we had heard about how horrendous this journey was meant to be since it was supposed to be so long (about 13 hrs) and since there was likely to be a very stinky bathroom because of this. And since we were Western that meant that the seats in the back of the bus near the bathrooms were for us. Neil, Eden and I came up with a great plan to ensure safety away from the back of the bus. So while Neil was in charge of getting our bags onto the bottom of the bus, Eden and I were to get on the bus first and just grab the best seats possible to us. We got on, and luckily there was no toilet--so no stink--and we got some prime seats right by the tv screen. We thought we were starting out this trip with the right foot forward. Wrong as always...haha. We heard the worst news first: there were cardboard boxes full of dead fish in the cargo area of the bus and they were leaking stinky fish juices. Ew. Best part: The Western people's luggage was to be loaded in that section, not the Vietnamese luggage. Awesome. While we were digesting that information and thinking of all the horrible ways our bags and clothes would smell after stewing in the 90+ degree heat with the dead fish (which were NOT on ice), the driver came and closed the tv screen, so we realized long trip, no bus, and stinky fish were in store for us. Sweet. I didn't really think things could get worse, but obviously they could. We actually drove out of our way and headed north for a good 30 or 40 minutes in order to unload the fish at some bus station. Our bags were taken off the bus with the fish and then reloaded back onto whatever fish juice was left that wasn't wiped away by the makeshift mop that they used to clean some of it up. We also proceeded to pick up plenty of Vietnamese people who payed way less than we did to get on the bus, and were given priority for all of the seats in the front of the bus and on the bottom bunks. Some guys from the back tried to move to the bottom bunks and they got yelled at by the Vietnamese workers until they moved back to their crappy seats. Apparently they threaten to remove your luggage if you don't move. They don't mess around when it comes to saving the best seats for their own.
So after a long stop, we finally started heading down the coast. The next problem was that try as I might to fall asleep, the bus driver was completely over aggressive with his horn, and he pretty much had it pressed down for the next 3 hours. It was so hard to fall asleep with all the noise he was making--it was like he was trying to make a song or something. On top of that, we pretty much stopped every hour to pick up more passengers even though the bus was full. The bus can legally seat 40 people. By the time we stopped picking up passengers we had 53 in the bus, including the driver! The extra 12 people slept in the aisles between the seats. So now I'm in an overcrowded bus, my bag is likely soaked in fish juice, and to top it all off, only the Vietnamese passengers are given a blanket and free bottle of water. Now things just seem ridiculous. How can that possibly seem ok? Ugh. So annoying. I managed to get a blanket from the guy which was nice, but ended up being wholly unnecessary because at about 2am the air conditioning cut out. Actually, a funny smell started to come from the vents and the bus driver thought he would just turn the AC off while we were all sleeping and we wouldn't even notice. We noticed. It was as if someone had a massive blow horn in the bus--all of the Westerners woke up like clockwork as soon as the AC had been off long enough because the temperature of the bus sky rocketed. We drove for an hour with people from the back of the bus yelling up to the front for the driver to put the AC back on. The Vietnamese people weren't too happy with us, but no one cared since we were all sweating like pigs. The only thing they could do was open the emergency exit latch on the roof of the bus to let some air in. After about an hour of no AC and random pullovers to find a mechanic, the bus started to make some ridiculous alert sound, which was probably telling the driver that we needed to fix something asap. It went on for a good 30 minutes before the driver finally pulled off the road in the middle of nowhere. It was 3am.
There were 2 other buses that had broken down that were there as well, so we were third in line to be fixed. The driver and his helpers turned the bus off and just left us all in there without any explanation. Pretty soon we were all sweating buckets. Finally, my friends and I couldn't stand it anymore so we climbed through the emergency exit on the roof of the bus to go sit outside on top of the bus. It was probably one of the most amazing feelings in the world to put my head out into the air from the bus. It was at least 10 degrees cooler outside than it was in the bus. We sat out there until 5:30am, by which time almost 10 people from the bus were sitting with us enjoying the cool air. We figured it would be a good idea to try to sleep while the bus wasn't moving considering our driver's obsession with the horn, but it was still way too hot in the bus--my back was covered in sweat within 5 minutes of laying down in my seat. Plus, people were going in and out of the bus to start walking around the town since the sun had come up, so every time someone passed my seat, they managed to touch me somehow because they were trying to avoid stepping on the person sleeping the aisle next to my seat. Every time I would start to doze off, someone would brush against me and I'd wake right up because I had no idea who was touching me. I might have slept 20 minutes before I gave up and just waited outside with everyone at a nearby cafe. We didn't get the bus fixed until 8:30am..what a nightmare. We were supposed to reach Nha Trang by 6:30am, but ended up getting in around 12:30 or 1pm. But we did reach there eventually!! And, our bags didn't smell like fish so we were a lot happier. haha.
Nha Trang is a really sweet beach spot in Vietnam. There were plenty of tourists there to vacation, both Vietnamese and foreign. We spent our days lounging on some chairs by a pool and the beach, and went out at night to the bars, all of which had a "Happy Hour" which lasted from 4pm-midnight. Our first night out was the most interesting to say the least. My Canadian friends are a bit rowdier than I am, and after several drinks decided it would be fun to go swimming in the ocean. I opted out and just continued to talk to some English people we had just befriended on the beach. At some point one of the girl's camera and money were stolen from her bag even though someone was supposed to be watching it. This is where the trouble started. They thought maybe this group of about 10 Vietnamese men knew where her camera and money were--and by that I mean they were blatantly accusing these locals of stealing the camera. I kept my distance from the altercation, but at some point one of the Vietnamese guys pushed one of the girls getting involved in the fight. So now her boyfriend was getting all worked up, and it was looking uglier and uglier as I stood by and watched. And then one of the Vietnamese guys got a plank of wood and another got an oar. So now my Canadian friends were surrounded by this group of armed Vietnamese, and instead of walking away, they got even angrier that they were being threatened. Ay yi yi. One of the Vietnamese dudes got fed up enough with the yelling and pulled out a knife. Now it was serious, and I wasn't too thrilled to be watching this because once again, my friends were just more outraged than scared, and they continued to yell at the Vietnamese and accuse them of stealing the camera. Ugh. The English guys I was talking to suggested someone should go over there and pull the Canadians away since the weapons were coming out, and obviously I was the person who had to go. So I had to walk over there and step between the knife and my yelling friends and pull them away. Not cool. We managed to walk away from the situation unscathed, but yikes. I was definitely not excited about getting involved in that fight. I'm just glad no one got hurt. :)
The next day and night were much more relaxed to say the least. We wanted to rest up for our final bus ride down to Saigon which would be happening the next morning. Hopefully it goes better than the one down to Nha Trang!And last, but not least: HAPPY BIRTHDAY NINA!! Sorry I didn't get to call--that bus breakdown really screwed my plans! haha. Hope it was amazing!!
Hoi An: Where All of Your Fashion Dreams Come True!!
Holy cow Hoi An! A tailor's curse and best fortunes in one place all wrapped around the obsession Westerners have with tailor-made clothing. Did I mention we could get ANYTHING tailored to us? ANYTHING. Coats of any kind, pants, jeans, shoes, dresses, 3-piece suits, shirts, shorts....ANYTHING. It was madness!! But, before I get into all of the craziness that is Hoi An tailoring, my bus ride down must be told considering it almost never happened.
We started our morning in Hue ready to leave since there had been so little to see. So Neil, Eden and I were all ready to go when the bus didn't arrive on time at 8:30am. No worries--nothing in Asia ever runs on time.. The bus finally did arrive at about 9:15am, and when 11 of us crossed the street to get on, for some reason the driver only let on 3 girls who all had different bus tickets than the rest of us. We stood around trying to figure out what was going on, while the hostel workers tried to figure out how to get us on the bus by talking to the driver, but he wouldn't let the rest of us on. The best part about this was that the bus was only half full anyway. The group of us could have easily fit on the bus with seats to spare. Whatever. The moment the Vietnamese hostel worker stepped inside to figure something out, the bus driver drove off leaving 8 of us standing on the side of the road with all of our stuff wondering if we were going to leave Hue at all. After sending a scooter to track down the bus, it came back but this time it was completely full. Only 5 seats were open now and since there were 8 of us we decided to do an 'all or none' stance on who got on the bus. I wasn't actually a fan of that plan since we were already spots #3-5 on line for the bus, so technically the seats should have been ours anyway. And, I didn't know any of the girls behind me in line, and I didn't owe them anything. It sounds mean, I know. But when the driver kept insisting only 5 get on and the rest of us wait until 1:30pm for the next bus, my friends and I remained adamant about everyone getting on while the 3 girls on line behind us totally started to throw their bags on the bus to get on. Umm, really? Here we are trying to help each other out, and you girls want to snake our seats on the bus?? NO BUENO. In the end, all 8 of us got onto the bus, but Neil, Eden and I were forced to share 2 seats between the 3 of us in the back of the bus for the first 5 1/2 hours of the trip. By the time we moved up to normal seats, we only had about 30 minutes in them when we reached Hoi An. Lesson learned though: DO NOT try to be nice to fellow backpackers. They are cut throat and will definitely steal your seat if given the opportunity.
Right, so after settling in, we set off to explore Hoi An. We went to our first tailor shop, recommended by our hotel, and we looked back. haha. The moment we arrived we were greeted with water bottles and massive books containing clips and pictures and magazine cut outs of clothes from EVERYWHERE. It was like walking into a dream. All we had to do was point and say that one and it was like magic! haha. No, I mean it wasn't really THAT simple--it was actually incredibly overwhelming! To have literally a million choices in front of you, not just in terms of style, but then to select color and materials and trim colors and buttons...holy cow was all I could think!
We spent 3 days in Hoi An between 2 tailor shops which were making our clothes for us. Neil had two 3-piece suits made and some dress shirts for less than $300! I got a winter coat made for myself and some dresses for Nina, and Eden got a coat and a really cute skirt she designed made along with dress pants and a blazer. I wish I could have had more made, but really, it was way too much. The cost was cheap, but we spent our days and nights just wandering through the town in the heat in between going to the 2 stores for our fittings for our clothes. There is a sweat shop somewhere underground in that town. There has to be. I ordered 4 custom dresses to be made and they were all ready for my first fitting within 5 hours of my measurements being taken. Neil ordered a 3 piece suit at almost 10pm at night and it was entirely finished by 9am the next day! And this is the low season! I can't imagine how crazy busy this place must be during high season. And the amount of money these shop owners must make is incredible! Man, I definitely need to go back to this place. I need to take a completely empty suitcase though. haha. If I had had space in my backpack to fit more I definitely would have; but I think the lack of space was good for my wallet. I definitely spent more than was necessary.
Next stop for me is the beach!! FINALLY. I haven't seen a real beach this entire trip! Can't wait!
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