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Published: September 1st 2009
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Heffalumps!Vietnam has not let me down. Each town I stopped in along my way from North to South has had its own character, and it was all surprisingly painless to get from one place to another and find cheap accommodation. The land was pretty diverse as well, and there were more than just tropical beaches to choose from. The mountain town of Dalat was really similar to Portland, with a much cooler climate and evergreen forests. Nha Trang was very much like Thailand, complete with surfer culture and seedy scam artists. Each place had a few sights to see, and renting a bicycle or motorbike was a great way to improvise a solo tour of each region. It was almost a disaster when the motorbike key slipped from my trunks pocket into the sea, but against all odds and with some kind of divine intervention I managed to spend a few minutes feeling around with my toes and found the key. It was statistically impossible, but I had done it. Thanks, universe, or whatever saved me. (Plus, I think it helped that I was humming the 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' song. Just sayin'.)
The jungles had all kinds of treasures,
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Dude. I want one. too. There were ruins left over from the kingdoms who built Angkor Wat and other wonders, and the crumbling overgrown temples look like the set of Indiana Jones. These cultures really did worship Shiva, the goddess of destruction, and really did perform gruesome sacrifices and carry around belts of human skulls, just like in the movies. The altars and effigies of death are still around thousands of years later to prove just how badass they thought they were.
I eventually wandered all the way down into Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon to most of us. It's another big city full of honking horns and crowded streets, but it's got a more friendly energy and relaxed charm than the uber-metropolises of China or the shady streets of Bangkok. It really knows how to rain here, and for a couple of hours each evening the streets turn into raging rivers, impassable to motorbikes and small cars (though they still try). There's still lots of great street food from little motherly Vietnamese women, and I've even found a few Western comfort foods when my stomach gets homesick.
Saigon is probably most famous among Americans for being the epicenter of the
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Victor Charlie bamboo trap. war in the 60's and 70's, and visiting the war museums and remaining tunnels really brought the reality of the war home. The people here don't seem to bear any grudge whatsoever against American tourists today, and I've even bravely stopped telling people that I'm from Canada (sometimes). Vietnam has recovered amazingly well from the devastation and poverty after the war, and even has industry set up especially to employ the handicapped and wounded. The remnants of chemical warfare and mass land mining are still around today, and birth deformities and accidental mine deaths are disturbingly common. It was written in the war museum that dioxin, the chemical killer in Agent Orange, is so potent that a teaspoonful of pure stuff could kill an entire city of 8 million people. Pretty scary, considering that it also never biodegrades and is in much of the rural areas' ground water.
Tomorrow I begin a 3 day boat tour of the Mekong Delta, visiting farmers and rice fields and cruising up the river to eventually land in Phnompenh in Cambodia. I've heard mixed reviews from travelers just coming from there, but I'm hoping to be pleasantly surprised again. It seems that wherever
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Climbing through some of the hidey-holes and tunnels of the Vietnamese guerrillas. you go, there's only as much beauty as you're willing to see.
I'm really excited for Cambodia. It's the last item on the Asian scavenger hunt, then I will have visited everywhere on my list and collected some impressive looking visas in my passport. Enjoy the pics from Vietnam, more as I snap them in Cambodia!
-Tim
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linzah
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I said that your last post showcased your increasing ability to take amazing photos, but I've got to say that this entry showcases your descriptive capabilities. The short, one-liner photo descriptions tie into the post so well that just reading a few words about the photo really brings me in to the experience and helps me visualize what your journey must have been like. I'm very much enjoying your blog style Timmah! Keep up the good work :)