A Change in Plans

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Where should I begin? Perhaps where I'd left off last time...

SO. After we left the internet cafe where I updated my last blog entry, we found a post officed and mailed out our Cambodian postcards (yes, we maild Cambodian postcards in Vietnam, so bite me).

And then we decided to motorbike to a remote beach on the island. It was around 3:00PM at the time. At around 3:30PM, "dude, whi1ch way is north," Amit asked over his shoulder.

I used my sun-sets-west trick, and looked down for the shadow. "Please tell me you know where you're going," I said, remembering back to the Killing Fields trip.

"Dude, I got it, I looked at the map."

Of course he did.

By around 4:00PM, we'd passed by the airport twice, and the sun had been to our left and right and back. In other words, we had no idea.

To be fair, I didn't look at the map myself. I'd assumed that he did since he was the one riding, but we really both contributed to this. But of course, being the adventurous, intelligent, thrill-seeking retards that we were, we pressed on, and just hoped that somehow the beach will miraculously appear in front of us.

We pass by a small small road on our left. "So what do you think? It goes to the direction of the beach." To be honest I don't know what to think. Something tells me that this is not the road that will take me to the beach (maybe it's because it's 3 feet wide, maybe it's because it's lined by crops), but I didn't have a good alternative. "Let's do it," I said.

So the narrow road got narrower and narrower, from 3 feet down to just 1 feet at times, and in addition to crops, there were mean looking dogs lining the "road," some barking at us (those weren't the scary ones) while others just stared at us (those looked fucking scary).

By around 5PM (after almost an hour of struggling on that ditch of a road, we emerged from the crop fields and saw the connection to a bigger dirt road. VICTORIOUS! We turn RIGHT!

Except Amit didn't turn right. Amit decided to ride toward the tree on the side of the road next to a family owned little shop.

"Slow down Amit," I said calmly.

And then the family in the shop started to scream as the tree got bigger and bigger infront of us.

"Slow down dude!" I said right before I jumped off of the bike. I heard barking as two dogs rushed out of the house. In my mind floated images of the bike wrecked on the ground, Amit thrown off the bike and hanging from the branches, and me having to fend off two very vicious dogs.

To his credit, Amit somehow avoided the crash, turning away from the tree just in the nick of time... in fact, the fucker didn't even have to get off of the bike. "Dude, I don't know what happened, but the bike wasn't responding to me." I didn't say anything, and got on the bike.

15 minutes later we arrived at the beach. Just in time to see the sunset. It was a gorgeous stretch of sand, with a few boats rocking lazily by the shore. "So I think that the best thing to do is for me to hire a motorbike driver to take me home, and you can follow us," I said.

"That's a terrible idea! That'd be a horrible way to end the day!"

I didn't see how dying on the side of a dirt road would be a better way to end the day, so I made my argument, "you have no idea which way to go, the sun is about to set, it took us 2 hours to get here and who knows how long it'd take to get back, I guarantee you there will be no street lights, and you almost crashed into a tree in broad daylight. I rest my case."

So, after enjoying the beach for about 20 minutes (actually he lied in a hammock while I walked over to a close by resort and hired a moto driver) we started back toward our hostel.

The drive was ~40 minutes. In the dark. And in my opinion we would've never found the right way on our own (it's a bitch trying to find your way around in the dark without any signs), and it was 30,000D well spent for me.

After we got back to the hostel, I looked in the mirror, and noticed that my hair was dyed orange. As was my face and shirt and pants. So i promptly walked out of my room, past the guests dining at the beach front restaurant (ordered a heineken from Chi the waitress on the way), and jumped into the ocean, splash and all.

I've never swimmed in the ocean at night before. But the water was warm, and the stars were out. I floated on my back and stargazed, while "Shape of my heart" by Sting drifted from the restaurant over the water.

The next day we just chilled, planning our departure from the island the next day. What was my biggest accomplishment that day?

Ever seen that Corona commercial where some guys is floating in the middle of the ocean and a bottle of corona floats to him? There was a floating bamboo raft about 20 yards from shore, great place to sit and be surrounded by the ocean, and I successfully carried over a bottle of beer from shore (backstrokes with 1 hand holding the bottle well above water), my reward was having a Saigon Beer while being "miles away from ordinary." Seeing that I was able to successfully do it, Amit did the same thing, and we had beer on a raft during sunset. And perhaps that's one of the things that lead me to trouble...

The fact that Amit and I shared a room by the beach apparently made us... gay. Yes, I've established a homosexual reputation in Vietnam. And unbeknownst to myself, I make an attractive gay.

I should've known something was amiss when the gay restaurant owner wouldn't let go of my hand after our handshake, or perhaps when he kept inviting me to drink with him after the bar had closed the previous night, or perhaps when he squeezed my arm. I'd just thought that the Vietnamese were very touchy people (afterall, two vietnamese men on two separate occasions have squeezed Amit's chest, leaving him feeling quite violated). But no. My canadian friend Jen informed me that night that the bar owner asked her if we were gay, which she quickly and firmly denied, even making up a girlfriend for me. But it was no use, because he was not convinced. That night as I walked back to my room from dinner with some other travellers, he followed me, telling me that he would miss me, hugging me and actually sniffing me (maybe that's part of the vietnamese gay culture?). I wanted to remain polite as I fearfully retreated back to my room, telling him that it was nice to have met him as I closed the door and locked it, feeling my stomach turning just a little bit.

2 hours later I threw up. No, it's not because I was totally grossed out by being hit on by a gay man (though I'm sure that didn't help the matter). After throwing up again an hour later and 2 episodes of diarrhea, I knew it was gonna get ugly. I got sick.

And this was 2 hours before we had to get on a boat that would take us to the place where we had to take a 4 hour bus ride. So, as I had my diarrhea over the toilet, I thought, "fuck this, I need a new plan."

I woke Amit up told him I was sick and told him the new plan, which was the fly from Phu Quoc island straight to Ho Chi Minh city, where there will be rehydration tablets and hospitals with staff that can speak english in case I need some IVF. Our only problem? All 4 flights for that day were booked up. So we were put on standby.

As we waited and waited in the airport, Amit told me that it was a good idea we're changing plans, because he was feeling sick himself. At first I thought he was having like sympathy sickness (this gay thing was clearly getting to me), but no, the guy went out to get lunch, got the nastiest looking bowl of noodles he'd ever seen, and the genius decided to eat it anyways.

So actually, by the time we got on a flight and arrived in Saigon, I'd felt much better, and he got quite sick. So that, come evening time, he was throwing up and having diarrhea during the same bathroom trip while I walked around the city looking for rehydration tablets for him.

Good thing we took that flight...

So a little about our hostel in Saigon. Family run place with impeccably clean rooms and impossibly friendly people. After spending most of my time last night in the living room with the family (Amit was sleeping, and I needed them to boil some water for my instant noodles, so I ate at their dining table), I fell in love with Mimi.

The mom is Lan, the daughter is Dun, there is an adorable little grandma who speaks french, and Mimi would be the dog. Mimi resembles her owner in many ways, they're both friendly, and always with a smile. Mimi has a right cataract while Lan has strabismus (left eye... I think...) And the coolest thing, Mimi recognizes Lan's footsteps down the alley way, so she perks up when Lan approaches the house from the street before she see her. Dun is also incredibly friendly.

They find my name quite amusing, and take every opportunity to say it. Now that I think about it, what makes them so welcoming is not just the hospitality they extend, but also how relaxed and easy they act around me, I almost feel like I'm part of the family.

So today we took it easy and walked around the city at a leisurely pace. Both of our diarrhea stopped, which makes us think that it was probably food poison, and not viral/bacterial gastroenteritis. The main thing we did was visiting the War Remnant Museum.

First a little history. Very brief. Vietname War, 1959-1975. Officially a war between the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the South Vietnamese Republic of Vietnam. But in reality, Vietnam was the battleground for the superpowers: U.S. and its western allies, and Soviet and China. The north won, and today Vietnam is a communist state.

The museum was a mosaic of different displays. There were tanks as well as fighter jets, artilleries as well as rocket launchers, photos as well as articles of clothing from victims of the war, deformed infants from Agent Orange as well as statistics of the war.

Things that really moved me... were photos of civilians burned by napalm and phosphorus bombs, as well as the deformities caused by Agent Orange.

"Our air force can reach any target in the world. The vietnamese should really feel their nape. We blow them back into the stone ages. Northern vietnam would not last more than a month under our bombardment." This was a quote from a U.S. air commander, posted on the wall amidst photos of victims with their faces and bodies forever disfigured...

So actually... I felt like I was strangely out of place... Because I am a U.S. citizen, and I am also Chinese. Either way you look at it, my people (which ever people I can possibly identify with) fought on their soil and harmed their people. There were many times when I had to stop and take a deep breath...

So now I am heading back to the hostel, and tomorrow we head out for Vinh Long where we will do the homestay, and RICE PADDIES!

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