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Published: March 27th 2008
We had a lazy half-day in Bangkok where we did nothing more than eat a big breakfast, lounge in our room reading, pack our bags and head to the airport to fly to Ho Chi Minh City. We arrived at the airport earlier than necessary, but spent some time marveling at the upscale-mall flavor of the shops in the departure lounge. Then we settled in at our gate, which was tucked away in one corner of Terminal C with no screen announcing flights and status. Instead, a paper sign announced that the next flight was leaving for Guangzhou at 3:30. We confirmed with the counter staff that we were actually at the right gate for our 4:05 flight and settled down to wait with a small army of Chinese who were boisterous and animated and smelling strongly of Tiger Balm. Eventually they boarded their plane and a trickle of other passengers began to join us, we assumed for our flight to Ho Chi Minh City.
As 3:45 approached and there was no announcement about boarding, I began to wonder about the delay. Then the counter agents put up another paper sign announcing the next flight from this gate would be to Singapore. This seemed problematic, so I approached and asked where they thought we should actually be for our flight. She looked at my boarding pass, made a phone call, crossed off “Gate C1” on my ticket and wrote in “Gate D1.” We were now 15 minutes from departure time and in the wrong terminal. We grabbed our bags and began a sprint up the escalator, around the corner, up the stairs, though another security check-point (as they announced final boarding for our flight!) and skidded into Gate 1D where they nonchalantly took our tickets and walked us out to the shuttle bus taking everyone to the plane. I never knew that the final boarding call meant you still had so much time - but I won’t count on that always being the case. I’ve rarely had to run for a plane before and have usually been able to keep up with things like gate changes, but how we were supposed to know about this change I will never know.
Our flight took an hour and was uneventful except for the fact that we were served a hot meal complete with wine, and we were entertained by “Mr. Bean” videos. I’m beginning to get the idea that the Vietnamese are big Mr. Bean fans, and many of the passengers were laughing out loud at his antics. A few weeks ago when I was emailing back and forth with the guide we’ll be spending the day with tomorrow, one of the things he mentioned as a perk of using his services was that he could play Mr. Bean DVD’s for us in his car. I’ll let you know if we decide to take him up on it, but I’m guessing we’ll be more interested in the passing scenery than in slapstick British comedy from the early 90’s.
While our flight may have been uneventful, the ride from the airport to the hotel was exactly as hair-raising as I expected it to be from reading about traffic here, and yet I was still completely unprepared for it! The traffic in Ho Chi Minh City is known to be wild and crazy, with millions of motorcycles, no regard for traffic signs, and perpetual honking. It felt a bit like being in a video game; the traffic was so thick and so fast and moving so apparently randomly in all directions and we had so many close calls, yet the fact that no one ever actually got hit or killed seemed to defy all the laws of physics. We saw literally thousands and thousand of motorcycles, carrying men and women and children of all ages. We saw families with small children - one baby who couldn’t have been more than 10 months old sat up front tucked against the handlebars with a surgical mask to protect her from all the exhaust (but no helmet!). Some families had infants in their mother’s arms and toddlers sandwiched between their parents. The adults were all wearing helmets (though they looked less substantial than most of our bicycle helmets) but none of the kids had them. We saw one couple riding with the guy in front driving and the woman behind him holding a pair of legs and an arm from a store mannequin. There were young girls who didn’t look more than twelve years old driving motorcycles, though they were probably older than they looked. There were middle-aged and older ladies, sometimes riding two together.
Our driver had a DVD player in the taxi and oddly enough, he was playing some version of
Funniest Home Videos that featured people crashing motorcycles over embankments and into shrubbery. He seemed to believe very strongly in the power of his horn, pounding out an irregular rhythm of constant beeps with no obvious intent or effect. Mom and I just sat in the back, exchanging glances of amazement and watching the passing scene with slightly nervous laughter.
We made it to the hotel in one piece, and checked in, only to go back out for a little while to get a beer and sit at a street-side café and watch the traffic from the relative safety of the sidewalk. We were approached many times by walking street vendors who seemed to particularly want to sell us pirated copies of Lonely Planet and other guidebooks. We have begun to perfect the response that feel most polite but most clear and doesn’t encourage anyone staying around to keep trying to convince us: we smile, hold up our hand in a sort of “stop” motion, say, “No thank you” and then we look away. Even a split second of continued eye contact seems to give people the impression that we are likely to change our minds if they try hard enough, but breaking the eye contact quickly, though it still feels a bit rude to us, seems to be a clear signal.
Continuing my tradition of being wrong at least on a daily basis, I will confess my inability to do anything related to numbers while I’m in a foreign country and I offer you today’s example: After we left the hotel on our stroll, we found an ATM so I could withdraw some Vietnamese cash. When the time came to enter the amount I wanted, I got momentarily confused about the exchange rate (which is actually about 15,000 dong to the dollar) and ended up making a withdrawal of the princely sum of 200,000 dong, or $13. In my head, the decimal point had migrated, so I was thinking I was taking out ten times that amount. Luckily, our two beers cost less than $2 total, so we have a little change leftover. Tomorrow I’ll try again and get it right!
For having done very little today, we are tired and heading to bed early. Our day starts early tomorrow with a 7:45 am pick-up by our guide and we head off to see the sights of Ho Chi Minh City and the surrounding countryside!
We're hoping you're all well, and we're glad to know some of you are following along with our adventure!
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Judith Janone
non-member comment
Fabulous
Such great writing. I can feel as though I were in that taxi. Vividness.