The Cone Hat Lives On

Vietnam: cutthroat and beautiful. The land of motorcycle accidents, cone hats, infamous pho, rip offs, and incredible scenery. Traveling from our remote Laos border crossing, we passed through the simple pristine villages, with squat thatched homes surrounded by emerald rice paddies. Mountains loomed and the cloudy skies only emphasized the dramatic landscape. We hurtled (and there is no other word for the bus experience in Vietnam) down mountain roads, toward Hanoi and we could tell immediately that we were no longer in the gentle country of Laos. First of all, Vietnam's population is drastically larger at over 80 million compared to 6 million. And the people are louder and either more aggressive, or more excited to talk to you depending on what kind of person they are. For example, the second we stepped off the bus in Hanoi, we had 7 motorcycle taxi drivers (which I had no interest in using after seeing a gruesome, bloody motorcycle accident on the way into town that I'm sure the driver did not survive) all yelling in our faces "Where you going? Where you going?". It was like India all over again. To try and keep this more brief and to the point, I will just share snippits of each place we visited in Vietnam. We are now in Cambodia, so once again I write too late, but I will try to capture the essence of our experience.

The First Few Days: Hanoi
We stayed with a friend we met in Chiang Mai, Toby, from Singapore originally but teaching English at a Korean School in the capitol city. He lives a ways out of the tourist district, which worked to our advantage: the neighborhood folks weren't as concernec with ripping us off, so we learned the true price structure quickly. Three pinapples (ready to each, and peeled in the most magical way): 60 cents. Weird, sweet, red sticky rice: 20 cents. Rice, vegetables, and tofu stir fried with ginger and tomato, with roasted peanuts sprinkled on top: 60 cents. Rice noodle with fried tofu, fresh mint and fish sause/chili dipping sauce: 60 cents. Gummy candies (we were starting to go through withdrawals, thank god for Vietnam): 50 cents. Crispy, fresh baguette sandwiches with green papaya, cucumber, omelette, and chili sauces: 30 cents. Forget the toppings, just the baguette: 10 cents. And the list goes on. We wandered narrow streets and got lost trying to find every place we sought out. The result was a fabulous snap shot of life in a Vietnamese city. People were friendly, always calling out an enthusiastic "Hello! How are you?" and followed by fits of giggles. Near Toby's place, the "plant street" was my favorite. Lined with amazing plants of all shapes and sizes, particularly heavy in the bonsai department (very popular in Vietnam), the street was a like a little jungle in the city. And as the buyers strapped their purchases to their motorcycles, from little cacti to 3 foot bonsais, they looked like ents moving up and down the city streets. We saw countless craziness, from a roasted dog being served up at the nearby alley market to communist hat "factory" (somebody's home) where they make 200 green, hard communist hats a day. It smelled like glue from a mile away. We wandered a lot, went to the Ethnic Musuem (fabulous, learned all about the minority groups in Vietnam), visited the downtown/tourist center, and got pampered by our friend, who bought us a meal in a fancy restaurant that we never would of gone to (I mean, $3 is just too much when you can spend pennies!).

Overnight bus to Hue (never seen a sleeper bus...we basically had a bed in a bus!)

Hue:
Ancient capital with an ancient Royal City within the citadel walls (now a World Heritage Sight). We got a fancy room (TV, fridge, Air-con) for $6 in a quiet part of the city. The first day, we did our favorite activity of getting lost and seeing where it takes us. We landed in a small market where we saw every fruit you can imagine, and more, from custard apples to jackfruit, and munched on fried coconut and banana fritters. We passed by small temples, drastically different from those in the other countries we've visited, with heavy Chinese influence and that are used for ancester worship. The second day, I got sick. At least we had a decent room to be in all day. The third day we went into the Royal City. Beautiful buildings from centuries ago with particularly impressive gates that led to each section of the Palace grounds. We found our favorite restaurants, feasting on noodles soup with 5 different kinds of tofu and a local speciality of sauteed vegetables wrapped in rice paper with banana and fig greens then dipped in peanut sauce. We walked through the parks lining the river (Hue is perhaps the greenest city we've visited yet) and admired the flowers.

Bus to Hoi An

Hoi An: Tourist Central
We didn't love Hoi An. Although it had charming buildings from the colonial period, as it is one of the few cities that was not damaged at all by bombing during the war, it was overrun with tourists. We stayed long enough to get some hand tailored clothes for me (my first treat and souvenir since arriving in Asia) from a gentle and kind woman who gave us an amazing deal. Tailor shops are the livelihood of Hoi An and they line all the streets. Competition is tough and prices are dirt cheap. You could go there and build and entire wardrobe of your favorite style of clothes for less than you could buy a designer suit. And many people do. I ended up with a beautiful brown wool jacket lined with green silk, an evening dress in Vietnamese style, and a sleeveless shirt of the same genre all made from scratch, to my measurements, then refitted for $45. And it was all done overnight. Truly a shoppers paradise. (I can think of one of my sisters in particular who would go insane there...you know who you are).

Hoi An to Kon Tum: A rip off (this was the first time that we fell prey to a rip off scam in Vietnam, long story short, we got charged over double for our tickets)

Kon Tum:
Kon Tum is a mellow city that doesn't see many tourists. So again, people were more friendly and less inclined to try and take advantage of us. We only spent a couple of days here, but we enjoyed them greatly. We found a fabulous vegetarian restaurant that had at least 15 kinds of fake meat, all with their own texture and flavour. We rented bikes and cycled out to the Bahnar villages, which are famous for their communal meeting houses whose thatch roofs are built 15 meters high. We cycled out of the city and past the river and saw rural life in it's truest sense: people in their cone hats working the rice fields, an ox cart fording the river, dirty but happy children running around, people cooking in their outdoor "kitchens" (aka fires with a pot over them), etc.

Kon Tum to Cambodia...or perhaps not:
Ryder actually took some time to write about this so here it is...
48 Hours

I wanted to write this to describe an exceptional 48 hours of our 5 month trip. Although I have not written a blog before, having left that to my better half, this experience was very powerful and moving.

Originally Naomi and I were planning on going from Kontum to Pleiku in order to cross into Northeastern Cambodia . This plan did not work out because we got into a tough situation. From Kontum, which is in the central highlands of Vietnam, we headed an hour south to the trade town of Pleiku . We arrived at the bus station only to find out that a large public bus to the border was not an option. Thus we were forced to take a shared mini van. The price of the mini van should have been 30,000 dong, as we were told by multiple people including the other people in the van. However the bus driver had a different price in mind for his special guests. He insisted that we pay 100,000 dong each. This was a little to much for us to handle given that we had already gotten ripped off on our bus ride from Hoi An to Kontum. We decided, after much thought and frustration, to change plans and take a over night bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). That gave us a day to kill in Pleiku which ended up being great. Like Kontum, this town was totally off the tourist trail. We enjoyed visiting with the people and eating wonderful food. The highlight of the day occurred when we navigated the city to a large Pagoda (interjection from Naomi here...this was so cool, we could see the pagoda on a hill so we just started walking and ended up going on the most amazing walk through narrow alleyways and a little island in the city that was never developed so still looked like tiny oasis of village life) . It turned out that the pagoda was only an aspect of a large Buddhist monastery. This impressive complex incorporated Korean, Chinese and Japanese architecture in its many buildings and gardens. Visiting this center was one of the highlights of our time in Vietnam . Ending up there, we were reminded that things happen for a reason.


That night we took the bus to HCMC. We decided to get to the border as quick as possible. From the bus station in order to save some money we decided to take a public bus to the border and then catch another to Phenom Phenh. We were tired and dirty, but we decided to push hard and get to Cambodia . About an hour into our two hour trip to the border we got into an accident: the bus actually hit a person on the on the highway, and then was rear ended by another car that couldn't stop in time before hitting us. After the accident everything was pretty frantic. My first thought was to make sure Naomi was alright and then to check to see if I was alright. Fortunately nobody on the bus was hurt, but the man who was hit was badly. After that the only thing we could do was to wait. I don’t know if the man was killed but I do know that we were traveling fast and did not slow down very much before he was hit. After that we were put on another bus. We tried to send out lots of prayers and to use this experience as an opportunity for spiritual growth. Although I have lived in India I have never seen, let alone been in a bus accident.

Having had no incident getting to and across the border we were relieved because we had heard that there is sometimes a problem with corruption. Once in the capital city of Cambodia we rested and tried to make sense of the last 48 hours.

Okay, this is Naomi again. I have to say, that the experience Ryder just described was absolutely crazy. I felt devastated after the accident. Every time we are on a bus now and it puts on its brakes, I can feel the impact of hitting that man. If any of you ever travel to Vietnam, BE ULTRA CAREFUL. There are accidents at every turn, and it isn't just people on bikes and in cars that get hit. We've actually been in Cambodia for over a week now, and this country has its own ups and downs as well. In all, Vietnam was a mixed experience. When people weren't trying to take advantage of us, we loved it. When we got caught in strange situations and were discriminated against for being white, it was hard. I think it was good to understand the bias that so many people face in their everyday lives. I hope that the attached pictures help round out your vision of our experience a little bit. And we will write on Cambodia soon. (So much for making this short, eh?).

---

---