Maybe not Christmas in 'nam

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We are in the southern most part of Vietnam now in a city called Vung Tau. I will go back and start with the past few days. We had a mostly uneventful night. Watched a movie on TV and I had that bath I was dreaming of. We were awoken at 6am by jackhammers in the torn-down building next to us. We gave up after a couple more hours and went to find our free breakfast. it had been sitting there since probably 5 am and was stone cold. i had some chow mein style noodles and hard as rock bread. the tea was good though.

we ended up booking an overnight bus to Da Nang at 6pm so we had the whole day to kill. We walked around doing some window shopping since it is a bit expensive in the city to buy things. they have these amazing dress shops everywhere with big, poufy, colorful, gaudy princess dresses and i want one so bad but i don't think it would survive the rest of the trip. i took some photos instead. i bought some abalone earrings for $2 though. we had lunch at a little restaurant where spaghetti was the only thing i felt safe ordering which is weird since i don't even like it at home. the city has a shopping district which is a bit strange. it is divided up in sections. there will be 10 stores with sunglasses all grouped together, then 10 more with shoes, 10 with bags, 10 with electronics, booze, etc. we were strolling through the food stands and we saw the most horrific thing any of us had ever seen. we are still having nightmares and nobody would eat meat for a day afterwards and the girls are still off it. in this glass case where they keep the meat from getting flies all over it, i saw this severed dog head with teeth bared and it had been roasted brown and the rest of it was on either side. a man was cutting up a chunk of it for another man to purchase. i did a double-take and someone else said, yeah, that's a dog. i was in absolute shock. Corey actually started retching and puked right on the road in front of it. craig, of course, went over and barked at the man who barked back at him and wanted to take a photo which i wouldn't allow. that image will haunt me forever. we were wondering why there weren't very many dogs in the city. we spent the rest of the day thinking about it and telling the few dogs we saw to run away. i was in a daze after and corey pushed me out of the way of a bus that just about hit me.

we decided to go back to the hotel at that point and wait it out on the internet. we passed a shop with cone-shaped pizza so corey had to try it. a novel idea but it was cold in the middle. kinda of strange. finally a smaller bus picked us up to take us to the big bus. there were a bunch of people in it already and we realized that there weren't enough seats for all of us. the guy tried to cram a third person into the front seat with me and craig even though it was a one person seat to begin with. corey and taysha ended up having to crouch on the floor beside the door. we got to the big bus and realized that it was a sleeper bus with bunk beds which cost $10 more than we paid and we didn't want anyway as they are very short and uncomfortable. we wanted the reclining seats instead. we didn't really have a choice but to get on so after much confusion we boarded the bus and then we had a big issue when the man wouldn't let us take the beds we wanted. i ended up on the top bunk which wasn't good for my motion sickness but luckily there was one on the bottom left when someone moved right before we left and i claimed it. it had a curtain seperating it from the bathroom so i'm sure that's why they vacated it. it was so uncomfortable and we had dirty pillows and blankets to use. the bus driver chain-smoked the entire 14 hour trip and then it got worse. we stopped a few times and more people got on the bus even though it was totally full. they made people sleep in the aisles on the floor so i had a guy right beside me and he had really stinky feet which he jammed into my little foot compartment. vietnamese people are very pushy and are not considerate in any way. everytime someone went to the bathroom they would jam their elbows into my side thru the curtain and they would step on me since they were trying not to step on the guy on the floor beside me. i'm pretty sure the bus driver was just letting his friends on the bus for free.

this other guy got on the bus at one point and he started bossing everyone around and he tried to move corey and amandas bags so he could sleep in the space on the floor where they were and they almost got in a fight with him over it. he made other people move as well and then he slapped coreys feet when he put his shoes on before he got off the bus. we were all shocked at this horrible bus ride and could not wait for it to be over. it just got worse and worse as the hours passed (slowly). then the bus stopped in the morning for breakfast but we were too tired and mad to get off and the people actually came on the bus and asked us why we weren't getting off to eat in their restaurant. then two old ladies behind us started snapping their gum 6 times in a row every minute and we were all getting really annoyed by it so i shot her a dirty look and shook my head at her. finally she stopped. we were supposed to arrive at Da Nang at 8am. at this point it's 10 am which was no surprise since every bus is always late in SE Asia but when we got to this little town called Hue i think, they made us get off and told us we had to wait until 1pm for the bus to Da Nang. we were livid. they wanted us to take a tour in their city. it was all a big scam to make us pay more money. we did not want to wait. we were dirty, tired and pissed off to say the least. we ended up chartering a van to take us to Da Nang for an extra $10 american each. the lady at the tour office then tried to get us to give her our bus tickets for the bus to Da Nang at 1pm. she said she was going there but we assumed it was so she could sell them to other people. we asked her for a discount on our van and she said no so we said no.

we get picked up and drive for a few hours. we went through a mountain in a tunnel that was really long. we stayed on a beach in a hotel that was a bit expensive ($22 american a night) but it was awful. the hotel was like a ghost town. it was all run down and deserted. we dumped our stuff in our room, checked out the nasty beach and then walked to town to find food. we couldn't find any restaurants but finally managed to find some edible food and we used the internet to figure out how to get out of there since it really wasn't what we wanted either. we ended up booking another flight to Ho Chi Minh city formerly known as Saigon at 12:05 the next day. we realized that this is where the beaches are and we were all mad that we hadn't just flown straight there in the first place. we didn't plan anything very well as you can see. we also found out that Vietnam isn't really nice until june/july which explains the lack of tourists. we got back to our room after a funny taxi ride with this really happy driver who thought we were the greatest thing ever. he agreed to come back the next day to take us to the airport as well which was good. we got back to our room and it was swarming with ants. everywhere. we kept finding more and more of them so we packed up our stuff and got a new room. we had another early night watching TV and had a decent free breakfast at the hotel in the morning. when we checked out i was sitting outside the room while craig paid at the front desk and about 6 hotel employees went in our room to make sure we didn't take anything from the mini-fridge (which had one bottle of water in it) or steal/damage anything in the room that they could charge us for. they even went in our friends room while they were at breakfast to see if they were still in there even though they told them they hadn't left yet. they are so pushy and rude here.

we got picked up by a different driver who was sent by the other guy and then we waited for our plane and had an hour long flight. it was very hot and humid when we got to the city. we had no idea where to go when we got there since the beaches are 3 or 4 hours away from the city. we tried to hire a taxi and we negotiated a price (still very expensive) and then we go to the car and it's a tiny SUV with 6 seats and almost no trunk. there was no possible way we were all fitting in there but the guy insisted we try. we put 2 bags in the trunk and that is all fitted. we had 4 more backpacks and 2 duffel bags plus 6 people after that to fit so we told him no way and left. he was super pissed at us and kept insisting we try it. they wanted a lot more money for the bigger van that fit 14 people but there wasn't any other options. we went inside to the info desk and the lady got us a big van for about $30 more and we were so sick of everything that we agreed and took the 3 hour journey. we asked the lady who spoke english to tell the driver that we were starving and to stop for food on the way. he never did though and soon we were not near any food places. we were all starving and cranky and hating vietnam by this point. finally we get there and ask to be dropped at the beach. we found a hotel across the street from the beach which was decent for 150,000 dong a night and the two sisters travelling with us stayed next door for 200,000 a night because it was a bit bigger and nicer they thought. ours had an elevator though which sold us as the buildings here are very tall and skinny and they always put you on the top floor for some reason.

we set out to find some food and ended up walking miles and miles and all we could find was 'cafes' which it turns out are just bars with only alcohol. everything else either had no menu or no prices on the menu or no english. we were so frustrated and had no idea what to do. we found another tourist and he said all of the restaurants are shit and he hadn't had a decent meal in days. we finally found a restaurant with a menu and english. i had a pretty decent plate of penne with 4 cheeses on it and some garlic bread while craig ordered spring rolls and a plate of shrimps for 2. after we ate we were a bit less grumpy but still hating vietnam. we went to bed and read/watched TV for awhile.
the next morning we talked to our friends who told us that they were woken in the middle of the night by people banging on their doors and partying next door to them for hours. they had a rough night for sure. i'm not sure why were didn't hear it but we were a floor up so i guess the walls are thick. we got ready and went to the fancy hotel near ours with a restaurant in it for breakfast. we had omelettes and toast and extremely strong coffee that came in it's own little percolater thing that sat on top of a glass cup that was in a bowl of hot water. we had no idea how to drink it as there was about an inch of coffee in the cup. we ended up pouring the water from the bowl in the cup but it was still way too strong. afterwards we went back to our hotel, got some beer and then went to go to the beach. we were just leaving when the lady at our hotel calls me over to the phone. i was very confused as to who could be on the phone. it was another vietnamese lady who spoke a bit of english and she was trying to tell me that we had to pay 200,000 dong a night since it was the weekend. i told her no way we were paying more. they never told us that and our friends had a horrible night after they let people in that were partying all night. she insisted and so i told her we were checking out then. i said we were going to stay 5 nights and the hotel is empty so if they wanted to lose out on all that money so they can have an extra 50,000 dong for one night then we were leaving. we stormed upstairs and packed our stuff. we just finished and the lady came in our room and dialed the other lady again and made craig talk to her. she tried again to get us to pay more and then she said ok, we could stay for 150,000 but we were way too mad and already packed up so we just left. we tried the place next door but they wouldn't accept passport photocopies so we left there too and ended up staying in the same hotel as the sisters for 200,000 a night as well but we didn't care at that point. we just didn't want to stay there anymore after they treated us like that.

finally we got to the beach and were instantly bombarded by vendors trying to sell us ice cream, strange food, fruit, maps, language books, jewellery... anyting you can think of. they would park themselves at your feet and not leave, insisting that you buy something. finally i bought a ring made out of a shell which is quite nice since i am allergic to most of the rings here and hadn't found one yet that i could wear. she gave us 2 of them for $1 so me and amanda got matching ones and she was happy. kids would come by and take our empty beer cans and either get the deposit for them or use them to fill with the millions of tiny crabs that are everywhere on the beach. there are millions of these cone shaped shells everywhere and we collected many of them. a little boy that was breakdancing for us started helping us and saying 'ok' as he handed us handfuls of them. it was cute. we went in the water briefly. it was very sandy and brown but warm. a vietnamese man came and sat with us drinking beer and he bought amanda an ice cream cone. the ladies would stop and stare at my white skin in astonishment. we didn't get much time there and then we walked down the beach to find dinner. we found a mall randomly on the beach and we ate food similar to mcdonalds at the food court. craig got sushi that wasn't sushi. it actually had hot dog chunks in it! then we sat in these massage chairs that were amazing for awhile. now we are trying to find out how to get out of here because we don't really want to be here for 5 more days. we are thinking of spending christmas in cambodia now and then going back to thailand. who knows where we will be? i wish there was skype on this computer so i could call home right now. i will be back soon with more tales of our wild adventure. hopefully i won't be in vietnam anymore!!

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