SinCiao!

SinCiao!
Pre-departure Notes
I had been waiting for it to happen, and on the day before I left for Vietnam it did...It began snowing in Niigata. Now, when it starts to snow in Niigata, it is rare that it will stop..and it snows for meters at a time! I shoveled the snow off my car in the morning, headed through the now picturesque town of Arai and went to school for a complete day of classes. I then returned to finish packing and to tie up loose ends at home (meanwhile making time to get Dave to and from an enkai and go to dinner with Neil and Karmen, introducing Neil to the art of okinomiyaki.) Now it was time to leave to meet everyone for our travels to Vietnam...The collection of us who chose to travel together was funny in and of itself. Our eclectic group represented various corners of the globe and consisted of two men and three women...the English bloke; the humorusly cocky, always so clever, marine biologist by trade Neil Campbell:the Kiwi; a singing fool, will make friends with anybody, accountant, thespian and philantrophist Dave Arnold:the Canadian: studier of tourism, you just can't help but laugh at her never ending verbalization of life Jehanne Burnsthe Scottish Sweetie: bearer of unending love advice, the quick witted accountant and shopaholic Heather Jollyand then me- the "yes, I'm American," AmericanAll of us were from different countries, all of us have different backgrounds, and all of us have our own way of doing things... but this only makes a 17 day journey into an unknown land all the more exciting.... can this eclectic group of five people make it together... will there be an all out brawl?... will I be left in the dust by the others (I was slightly the odd man out seeing that Jehanne and Heather are good friends and Dave and Neil close buds)....If you do not know, group dynamics can make or break situations...the only time this group had ever come together was for our series of non productive planning sessions at Kapa, the 100 yen sushi joint, in Joetsu...we at least had one thing ironed out before leaving as a group- we knew where we were going...Vietnam.I threw my pack in the car and headed up to Nakago, to meet Neil at Dave's place and take his car back to his house. My beautiful little Daitsu Nova bottomed out the whole way up route 18 because it had snowed nearly half a meter already that day....agghh!! The delay in our drives from the snow made us a little crunched for time to meet our IM taxi at 1:20 a.m. (who knows how?) IM taxi is this beautiful little service that will pick you up and take you to Narita airport for about ichi man (100$) each way...that is cheap and convient- what's better?I followed Neil's fancy car maneuvering up MyokoSan to MyokoMura, Neil threw his stuff in my car we headed back to Daves. I didn't get too far though. As I took the right turn out of Neil's drive I got stuck. I had managed to drive my car into the water drain on the side of the road. Now these aren't like normal curb sized drains...these are drains that are about three feet deep and 1.5-2 feet wide. Not hard to miss... but it had gotten covered from the snow and now my car (well driver's side wheel) was stuck in it. We had no time to waste. I popped that lil' puppy into reverse and gunned it. Luckily we came right out. No popped tire. No damage. Thank you buddha for that snow... We got to Dave's and within minutes IM taxi appeared... timing ga kanpeki desu! Welcomed by the other girls, we jumped into the van...took a picture...and headed off down the snowy highways of Niigata into Nagano... our brief road trip was highlighted by stopping briefly for piss breaks (in which most of us decided to stay in the warm confines of the van) and a conversation about the use of the double O at the end of words... does "oo" make a word cheap, inferior, or shoddy? We also challenged ourselves to find really good "oo" words, ones that were not preceded by only one letter or describing a city or animal.... with this on our minds we drifted to sleep to be woken at Narita Airport in the morning.If you were at Narita airport on the 23rd of December you may have stumbled upon an odd group of gaijin running about trying to figure out a slight delima. Neil had no money for the trip. He had planned on withdrawing some at an ATM. Now for those of you who are familiar with Japan's ideology on ATM's you may understand why this represents an isssue... for those of you who don't let me explain... Japan's ATMs have hours. The majority of them open at 9 and close at 7. In my opinion this completely defeats the purpose of having an ATM, but here in the land of the rising sun it seems to make sense. Now seeing that we have a flight circa 9:35.... and the ATMs are out past the security checkpoint the task of withdrawing money and boarding the plane was going to be a feat...the girls and I started to head toward the plane...I stood in the long queue to get past the security point and waved goodbye to the boys who were still patiently waiting for the ATM to open...as I cleared customs I glanced at the clock and saw how late it was...even I was crunched for time there was no way the boys would make it!!! I headed across the terminals to the plane that was already boarding....there was no way they were going to catch this flight I thought as I took my seat....meanwhile back in the terminal....Neil and Dave leaped and bounded past security and fled through Customs and Immigration...jumping ahead of people and running with their freshly withdrawn cash waving wildly in the air...breathless and sweaty the boys boarded our China Airlines flight to Vietnam, circa Taipei....yes, Taipei, in Taiwain, in China....a fact that was so sweetly pointed out to me in my ignorance....The City Previously Known as Saigon
We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City changed our money into Dong... it's true, the Vietnamese currency has the unfortunate name of Dong.... and walked out amoungst the chaos that is Vietnam... our taxi drove into the steady stream of motorbikes and we looked out the van with faces that show complete inability to believe the site we were witnessing... there were motorbikes everywhere....motorbikes with not just one or two people but three, four, sometimes even five people set upon the things... the site was completely unreal... between the motorbikes and the horn honking your senses are reeling...within the next few weeks I will witness the following sites upon the back of motorbikes:hundreds of people dressed as Santa driving around Vietnam (that let up after Christmas), a fully decorated Christmas tree- I am talking ornaments, lights, the works-, five people, televisions (30 inch tvs), refrigerators, plates of glass (this was definitely the scariest site), a woman holding a bicycle, bikes with baskets of dead chickens, bikes with hundreds of baskets arranged around the driver being taken to the market, large quantaties of melons...pretty much anything you can think (and obviously some you would have never thought of) basically if they can strap it on the back of a motorbike- it is motorbike transportable...Vietnam traffic is a complete mess. How anyone can drive in that country is completely beyond me. They have a few traffic lights scattered around the major cities, but they appear to be optional...what you do is honk your horn and go. This leads to an unreal amount of noise pollution.. all day..bhwaa, honk, beep... you get the picture. Some of our drivers throughout the trip never seemed to ever let up off the horn. I am notorious for using my horn a lot while driving, but the Vietnamese take this to a whole other level...Our first night in Ho Chi Minh City we walked around getting the grasp of crossing the street, I liken this experience to the classic Atari video game, Frogger. Some streets were like level one, but most were like the advance levels in which you just go and dodge and run... if you stop you are at a high risk of getting squished. Ho Chi Minh City was getting ready for a big Christmas celebration so everyone and their brother were there, the 23rd was the night you hit the town for a cruise on your motorbike (or so it seemed) and we watched the population take their celebratory laps around the main square from the confines of a second story corner windowed restaraunt. We started our trip out right with steak dinners and a YO! the vietnamese toast, of wine. We took a small stroll around the block and had a couple drinks at what would be our base bar in HoChiMinh City, Bar Latin, and then retired back to our rooms at Saigon Hotel.We woke early the next day and hit the market. Thinking back on it now, it was Christmas Eve, and so shopping is what most people do on Christmas Eve anyway. I, however was thinking of how I would normally be at nanny and mum's house dining on a slow cooked roast and singing a horrible rendition of silent night with dad and nanny as we await to go to the evening service with nanny and mum. The market was fun though... you have your various people saying, "you want to buy from me?" and offering you various products such as a small collection of buddhas, silk, scarves, pirated DVDs, tableware, laquerware, candy, coffee, drip coffee makers, live fish, live chickens, discontinued bath products (the best was when the women asked me to buy some Bath and Body works stuff- surprisingly my favorite discontinued scent and I said 3$ and she goes oh no 10$ and I turned it over and said to her- mam that is what I can pay in the states..." she was shocked...offered a lower price and I decided I didn't want to carry it so I didn't buy it, various vegetables, nuts, and melons, bags galore, shoes, basically if you can think of the product it is somewhere in the abyss and crowded paths of the market... the vendors really do work hard to get you to buy, and it can be fun... The only thing I bought this day was a set of some really cool bamboo rice bowls- of which I had to lug around for the remainder of the trip (I had intentions of mailing them but never did get around to it). I must say that buy the end of the trip we were all grand bargainers: compared to Japan, Vietnam is cheap, and all of us came home with an extra bag of things we bought along the way....
After hitting the market we continued our journey around Ho Ch Minh City... we waltzed amoung the various lights and signs they had set up around the parks, we ventured to the Catholic Church in which there were couples getting pictures taken on thier wedding day and there was a wee, little man dressed as Santa dancing around in the square in front of the church. After approaching him with a hello and Merry Christmas, we got a classic shot of Dave holding Santa in his arms.... cute.... We dodged the motorbikes a little more before heading back to get ready for our afternoon at the waterpark. We spent the rest of the day at the waterpark walking up stairs and sliding down slides, racing each other and talking briefly to the other 20 people who decided that was the perfect day for a waterpark.. it is nice to go places and have them all to yourself you know....
Now seeing we were on our holiday for 17 days, we had all decided at one point that we must get "injured in Nam"....(this task was almost inevitable with the skill and ability seeing that 3 out of the 5 people have at being accident prone....me??- not me...never...) and a waterpark is the best place for the first injury to take place.... Heather, Jehanne, and I decided we would have a fun little race down the triple speed slide... and ...As we raced down the slide at highh speeds, catching air.....we find it to our dismay that Heather is not going to stop.... I have not seen something so hysterical in a long time... face forward arms out front, flying off the end of the slide....luckily for Heather there was a little bit of a landing pad where she found herself beached and her chest horribly marred....but Shogunai!...she got injured in Nam....
After leaving the waterpark we hopped the bus back to the city center for the evening...I tell you know you are in a great country when nearly every cab or bus ride is an experience on its own! Ho Chi Minh City is the place to be on Christmas Eve. Everyone was there and they all awaited the arrival of our bus. After literally wedging our way through one of the most intense traffic jams I have ever witnessed (keep in mind no traffic lights) we crept towards the city center. I will try to give this justice...Imagine millions of motorbikes, thousands of bikes , a few buses (like the one we were on) and a few cars dotting the road here and there..mix that up with some pedestrians and squish it all into small streets and that is what traffic is like.. and on Christmas Eve it is even more spectacular... we made it through the streets though with only a few minor accidents and hundreds of faces pressed against the windows of the bus....I will have to say as slow moving as it was there was plenty to look at setting upon the bikes. After getting frustrated with the traffic we saw a Mexican restaraunt and had the bus let us out on the side of the road...now it might not seem that special but to five people making homes in Japan, Mexican food is a specialty...do you know how long it had been since I had a taco? So a few pitchers of Margaritas, plates of tacos and fajitas, and games of pool later we headed into the party downtown.
Dave and I later learned that in Vietnam there are 20million (and one) motorbikes. With a population of a little over 80 million that means that there is a motorbike for every 1 in 4 people! Unreal! Especially considering the fact that there are at many times 3-5 people up on the damn things...
Christmas Eve was a nice evening...We all wandered the streets of the town stopping and watching the orchestra, opera singers, and ballet out in front of the opera hall.. and then we continued along dodging motorbikes, Dave getting requested to have people take thier picture with him- just the stroke of ego that boy needs- and having an infinite amount of confetti thrown at us. It felt a little more like New Years than Christmas. We brought Christmas in over strange cocktails and interesting variations of martinis at a bar on the strip with live jazz music. The ambiance had taken a few twists and turns as I proceeded to accidently throw a whole handful of confetti into Neil's eye- which he comically washed out by pouring a gin and tonic glass up over it- and by a sparring talk about politics and religion...well with that event it felt just like home for me!
In Vietnamese the letters TR make a CH sound
We awoke on Christmas day early to go catch our plane. While Neil made sure he got his money's worth on the VIP lounge as he checked his email- internet access and drinks covered for the entrance fee, but we were leaving in about 30 minutes, Dave was getting his self proclaimed James Bond panties all up in knots at the prospects of our aircraft. We took a lil' prop plane over to the coastal city of Nah Trang. Yes, I spent Christmas day on the beach while meanwhile back at home my sister was delayed by snow trying to make it down to KY for our family celebration. I was sipping beers and pina coladas on the beach while Interstate 64 completely shut down... love it! We threw the 'bee around a bit and I got groped by a young boy of maybe 6 or 7 years old- well it was a perfectly-calculated, misguidance of hands, hug attempt.
We hit up the massage parlor for a good clean massage for the evening. I got the Vietnamese massage. Supposidely they walk on your back, but I was a little chatty with the young girl of 18 who was my massuese and I never noticed. There is a bar above the table in which the massuese hangs from and dances on you. My massues and I were busy comparing body parts and trying to talk with the few words we knew of each others language. After my massage I chatted up the girl out front for a few minutes as I waited for Dave- whom I assumed was singing when during my massage I heard "Time after Time" come on... I mean I had the urge to sing and that boy is a singer so I knew he was somewhere singing to his massuese.... and it was no surprise to find out that I was right... we hit up a local watering hole before heading off to a nice dinner set in this amazing beach front pavilion. It was unreal. We then shook our tailfeathers on the dance floor.
December 26th was a definite highlight. Neil and Dave had been stalked all morning by a super genki Vietnamese man, insisting that we go on his tour. Our plan was to hire motorbikes and stroll around town and the surrounding areas to see the beautiful sites that the Na Trang had to offer. After we all enjoyed a glorious "American breakfast" consisting of fruit, eggs, and toast and sapid Vietnamese coffee iced and with condensed milk, we decided to go and try to find this man. We had all agreed it would be a good time.
The man's name was Trang, pronounced Tron like the movie. Trang stuffed us all in a heavenly airconditioned Mercedes van and drove us around Na Trang all day. Our first stop was the **** temple. It is cham ruins and it was beautiful, the only draw back was that Jehanne and I were not allowed to climb up the temple using the old worn steep stairs because we "are women". That is going to be just the first slight of chauvanism I will get on my trip around Vietnam and Cambodia. The temple had an abundant amount of food and Dong laid both inside and out for offering. During the full moon, one offers food to the temples and to Buddha. The majority of the population in Vietnam is Buddhist. Trang then led us past some graveyards that were interestingly placed on the mountainside, through some villages lined by a banana field to a heavily jungled area. We walked amoung the foliage and along some rocks to a place were we could all go cliff jumping. I gritted through my fear of falling and jumped into the refreshing water a few times. Trang said that Jehanne and I were the first ladies he has ever seen jump off the cliff. North America represent! Climbing back up the rocks out of the water is how I managed to get "injured in Nam". Surprise, surprise, but I slipped and fell hit my knee, mangled up my ankle, and bruised my shin. Yes. I had an injury that was going to be around for a few days! But so be it, I take the advice mum gave me on my graduation day, Keep on keepin' on....
After cliff jumping we headed to an amazing lunch- I had the traditional dish of fish simmered in a clay pot. Talking delicious! I loved it, definitely the best thing I had nearly the whole trip. I will have to say that my days in Japan have made me a little brasher when it comes to food. They really aren't too big on deboning fish in these parts so picking away at tiny little fish bones has nearly become a new past time- I feel like Heathcliff, just pulling away the whole skeleton all at once...that is at least the ideal way of deboning a fish, otherwise you really must pick through the thing....after lunch we jumped on a little boat taxi thing to head to Monkey Island. I don:t know what we thought we were in for... they call the island "Monkey Island" because it is infested with poor mistreated, completely exploited little monkeys. As we enter through island the mouth of a large wooden dragon, we are rushed along so we can see the last show of the day. Did not know there was going to be a show, but now we are all seated aside this little performance ring to see what will happen next
Now, no monkey show is complete without an opening act, and we were in luck because the monkey show on Monkey Island is served up with a side-show of dog. The show opened with little dogs marching around in obsurd miniature tu-tus and hats. The dogs paraded around doing little circus acts, such as pulling dog-sized carts with another dog aboard around and jumping through hoops as we awaited the main festivity.
To call what we witnessed a festivity is quite a stretch, because out from behind a dusty, old curtain come leash led monkeys to be let off thier hooks so they could perform amazing human like acts...such as riding a bicycle, swinging from a trapeze, teetering on a seesaw, and balancing atop a large rickety assemble of various stage props to catch things that their human master hurls at them and then the monkeys do some cute little stunt with the alleged item; such as catching a hat, placing it on her head, and giving the crowd ta-da hands.
There is something amusing about the monkey show, I hate to admit- but half the amusement comes from the fact that someone has been crazy enough to come up with the concept that humans would be so easily amused by watching this type of thing. The show is complete and total exploitation of an animal, and on top of that, right in front of our very eyes we witnessed an act of animal cruelty that made all of us gasp. We saw why the creatures had that look of fear in thier eyes as they fumbled over their pedals on the minature bikes.. because while one was aboard a rachitic trapeze contraption, which had been in no way enginered to balance out when any kind of weight was added to it, and of course due to this faulty engineering, the device began to wobble and fall over during the performance...which of course is 100% the fault of the monkey....and the monkey was reprimanded for its lack of care in making the machine wobble...and was treated with a sharp swat from its master..this event was enough to make me look around at the reaction of my mates and notice that at this point both Jehanne and Heather had left the venue.....There you have it folks...don't go to monkey shows, unless you want to be disturbed at the sight of the erratic domestication of a wild animal..for your own viewing pleasure.
After watching the show and the unhappy circumstance of explosive sunscreen, we went over to learn that we could feed the monkeys also. I am scared of feeding birds, with the exception of ducks, so for me feeding sharp toothed monkeys is not my idea of fun. But I watched and counteracted the movements of the hungry, creeping critters as others in my party fed food to the thousands of monkeys that infested the island...
As the sun began to set, we started back across the water to the mainland for the last stop on our day with Trang.
What a better day to end the day than with a mudbath? It was quite nice as we all upgraded our mudbath tickets for the "individual hot mudbath" experience. I was a little more keen on the idea for the group mudbath, you know so we could all experience it together, but then again, I am that kind of girl...and the group mudbath marketed itself as cold...and it was chilly so we got warm in our hotwater mineral mudbath. We all danced amoung the tropical mineral water waterfalls, and swam a few seconds in the pool that began to drain giving us the sign that we better get a move on, we were the last customers. We proceeded to our mudbaths, doucing ourselves like hogs in heaven and getting dirt in places dirt doesn't belong.....such as your ears...and for the next 12 hours or so you found yourself emitting mud. After the mudbath, and our soak, and our run through the wierd wall spraying thing, we changed and went aboard our Mercedes van for our trip home.
Throughout the trip Dave had been keeping all of SouthEast Asia up at night with a cough, so before we hit the hotel for the evening, we had Trang stop off at a pharmacy to help him get some medicine. Pharmacies in southeast asia are some of the strangest sights i have ever seen. Basically they are open counters with any type of medication one could need. You can get something as simple as Tylenol or you could get extreme pharmaceudicals. There is no better word to describe their medicine dispensing system other than dodgy. Dave got set up with some knock-you-out-upon-dose-you-can-barely-stay-alive-but-you-won't-be-coughin' cough depressant.
As we drove through the city with the still genki-Trang, I looked out the van and thought of how lucky we are to be from all these various places in the world, and to be able to travel to such wonderful places, and to be able to meet people like Trang who will stay in our minds for our lifetimes. Trang did everything he could have done for us throughoout the day. He entertained us by dancing and singing songs, of which he tried to teach us and all I retained was the easy one that went, "Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh." He also told us various stories about "real Vietnam" with entertaining details and interesting glimpses into the Vietnamese culture and tradition. One story made us all laugh, even though it was on a very serious note of both population control and spreading disease. It seems as though a few years ago the government of Vietnam tried to control the popultaion of the ethnic communities (small village communities of different ethnicities that live in various parts of the country). The ethnic communities were having too many children than they were forseeably able to handle, so the government began administering condoms to the community as a means of population control. Of course one must learn how to use a condom first before it will work, so along with the dispensing of the condoms there was a brief training course in which they practice putting condoms on thier thumbs. This is all well and good for people who understand sexual intercourse and the birth cycle. When the population control still wasn't working and the communities said the condoms were doing no good, they probed a little to find out that the participants didn't realize that during intercourse the condom actually does not go on the thumb.. The government realized that they had more than safe sex education to teach.
Our day with Trang was a day in the books for me. It is a definitely one highlight of the many highlights that the trip offered for me. We all returned to our hotel rooms to get ready to go to dinner. Heather was getting ready to jump in the shower, and I flipped the television on, Jehanne was in her room, and the boys were upstairs in their room. CNN was the only station in English, so naturally I turned to that to see what I have missed the last few days. What I saw was horrific. The station was reporting a tsunami in South East Asia triggered by an earthquake off the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia...CNN was reporting high fatality and they were reporting mainly about Thailand. A majority of my closest friends were traveling to Thailand over the Holiday Break, and I was unsure exactly where they were since they had done exactly what we had and changed thier plans. The report was saying thousands dead on the beaches of Thailand..... my heart sank, I yelled to Heather, and told her I was going to run upstairs and tell the boys and Jehanne. Neil's girlfriend Annie, was one of my friends who was there. As I knocked on the door they told me to come in, both of them just as shocked as me, they had already heard the news. Neil was more than paniced, and left immediately for internet access. We were all close behind him. I must say that I am very lucky. With a thankful email from Liz, I got news that the girls had changed thier plans from going to the Indian Ocean coast of Thailand to going to the Gulf instead last minute so they could all go to a party the night before... our other friends who were scattered throughout the island we would one by one get word from, assuring us that they were ok. At this point it was definite in Neil's mind as he confided to me that when we go North in Vietnam, he will go South to Thailand to be with Annie. The impact of this disastor has called me to be very introspective. If I had not gone to Vietnam with my friends, I had planned to go to Indonesia, and I had much interest in traveling around Sumatra since it is so much off the beaten path. I was considering, much to my father's disliking because of the rebellions in Indonesia, going alone. Everyday since this incident I have had very humbling moments, reflecting on how lucky I am and how important life is. The tsunami in South East Asia is the biggest natural disaster in modern history. The effects of the wave not only reach the shores of Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Somalia, Maldives, Tanzania, Kenya, Seychelles, and Bangaldesh, but they have reached households world wide. For me, this marks a moment in life that i will never forget the place I was when I got the news. The chilling tile on my blistering feet, the way the door swung open with the wind when I ran upstairs, or the faces on jehanne, heather, neil, and dave as they watched the horror unfold. Though the facts have changed a lot since we first heard the news, 2,000 killed in Thailand, 1000 in Indonesia, 2000 in Sri Lanka, the fact is this, the tsunami took the lives of over 150,000 people in SouthEast Asia, and I consider myself very lucky to have been where I was and to have been in the company of good friends, and to have friends who like me knew the importance of contacting people they know to ensure their safety.
After trying the phone, which honestly there was no point to do- at a dollar every minute or every fraction of a minute, and a connection that of the highest quality where the whole time you spent saying- "hello? hello? yea- I hear you, can you hear me??".... My other traveling comrades seemed to be able to reach home ok, but everytime I tried it was a hassle... you couldn't hear... or I would catch Sara driving home on christmas day- This is about all the info i recieved over the phone- our family Christmas had been delayed because interstate 64 had closed down due to massive snow (which honestly please- I have seen massive snow and with a continual run of a plow it could be apprehended) and Sara and Wes were the only ones to make it home...the life of the party was missing with Duncan and I gone. The boys met to watch some soccer and I caught up with the gals for some tapas and drinks..our last beach side evening before we caught the plane to Hanoi the next day.
Up early, which was a regular trend so we could get the most out of our days- One of my favorite things to do while traveling is take some time to myself. I like to take leisurely strolls, with really no intent on heading anywhere in particular, and take in all the sites. I chose this morning to do this, in my journey I saw two women fighting and drawing a crowd, an elderly woman pushing a giant scale that was talking along the coast, a group of women pouring the water in their pots to steam the crabs that they will soon set upon their shoulders and walk along the streets and the beaches selling them a man with a whole bakery case of bread arranged on a platter and balanced upon his head. I noticed the way the concrete crumples in the heat, and the way the children walk around barefoot. I saw the men congregate and pretend to be working on the side of the road. I watch the people of the towns, and I watch them watching me. You can feel the eyes on you. The best thing to do is learn how to say hello. Even if not common in a culture, in humanity a warm hello, smile and confidence will create the best atmosphere one could ever imagine, and the responses are truly great, you never know who you will meet. I strolled around the town listening to some beats on my headphones, and bumped into Dave and Neil. We all feasted again on the American breakfast, Neil came out with his news about leaving for Thailand, Jehanne and Heather headed for beauty treatments and the boys and I headed to the beach. We laid out upon gorgeous wooden chaise lounges while soaking in the rays of the sun. Getting drenched in sun felt so good since the majority (95%) of the time I am off work, it is dark in Japan. Remember Japan has no daylight savings hours- so the sun sets around 5 making all year feel like winter. The boys hired some jetskis- which of course resulted in Neil throwing out his back making it hurt worse than it already was. A few sips of a pinacolda later and a Tiger beer to cap off the rays, I found myself aboard yet another minibus taking us to the makeshift-hangar-that-calls-itself-an-airport, and it is the "new" airport mind you, that Nah Trang has to offer, singing Grateful Dead's You are the Light of the World louder than I realized to my carload of friends. After being talked to by one of those overly friendly tourists who acts like everytime he sees a Westerner it has been weeks, and wants to know everything about you, and you always meet them at the exact time when all you want to do is chill, we boarded the plane. Lucky me, as my destiny is always so ordained, I got seated across the aisle from that oh so friendly tourist- so I cringed, listened, while pulling out my book, and began reading as this man chatted with me for way too long. After that oh so pleasant flight, we exited to the Hanoi airport for our first real all-out group dysfunciton.
Keeping Peace in the North and some self-exploration of irrational fears
I had not really cared what we did the whole time, honest. When I say I don't care i usually mean it, but if something comes up I will object to, I will say that too. I just basically hate decisions, and I am so easily entertained that as long as while I am traveling I am not wasting time then I am perfectly content doing whatever. I had two things I wanted to do up North. I wanted to go to the Ethnography Museum in Hanoi, and I wanted to see Halong Bay. Now we had all initially thought we should get to Hanoi and go straight to Halong Bay, but due to our evening arrival in Hanoi, we needed to hold off on that because it is a good little road trip out to the bay and we had read that the best way to do it is by finding an organized tour. I am not much of an organized tour kind of person, but I must say for that experience unless you know someone in North Vietnam who has a boat, you are better off going with one. But somewhere in the mix of everything the information of the change in plans was lost amoung the group, jumbling into a series of moments of us walking from info booth to taxi station to info booth to guy with hotel in hanoi to info booth, all filled in with grunts and moans and way too many imperative sentences from all parties.
We finally settled on the fact that it was silly to go to halong bay that evening we should just stay in hanoi for the evening. We were escorted by a man who arranged for us a five seater car to get us to the hotel in hanoi. Of course it being Vietnam we got way too comfortable in the car forgetting that he of course was going to get in with us, crowding everything and nearly sitting on our laps, but it was pleasant and interesting as we got led to strange streets under highways and through back alleys to our hotel. The hotel ended up not having enough room for us and we ended up staying down the street at a really great place, and I got my own room that overlooked this great courtyard! Finally, I could walk around naked! This is a practice you get so abnormally accustomed to that it takes vacationing with a group of people to realize how much it is a part of your everyday life.
After dinner, Jehanne, Heather, and Neil went back for some R&R while Dave and I opted to go exploring through the town. We took a leisurely stroll down the streets of Hanoi, peering into places, looking for a place to maybe grab a drink. Our first stop was a dance bar.
Now, it is slightly strange being a woman in Vietnam. In Vietnam, it tends to be out of cultural norm for women to drink publically or smoke. So most bars are geared towards their clientele, which is a good business practice, but this makes it difficult for someone like me who was looking for a place to wet my whistle and have a chat with a friend..on top of that we had already been filled in on the sex industry Vietnam has to offer. Granted we heard more about massage parlors and barber shops, but still if there are hostess bars in Japan, there are the same bars in Vietnam.. So when you see dance bar written on the side of a building in huge letters, and you are a woman, you are automatically a little apprehended about the place...so after asking the men out side ok? and them nodding thier heads...we walked through the partitioned doorway into the dance bar the scene we came upon was great...a full ballroom dance floor in one of those dance halls that looks like it is straight out of a WWII era based movie, with a little under a dozen Vietnames couples cutting a rug to Kay Sera. We decided to have a go at it, to much delight of the other patrons, (as usual we were the only foreigners in the joint.) Dave waltzed me around the floor as I giggled with glee, and the music came to an end. We exited the door, full of merriment, and continued our walk around Hanoi at night, stopping occasionally to look at the selection of various pirated DVDs, one of the most popular goods Vietnam had to offer.
At the center of the Old Quarter in Hanoi is Hoan Kiam Lake. Hoan Kiam means Returned Sword. We came upon the lake and decided to go on a walk around it. The lake is nice in the evening with the moon bouncing it's beautiful rays across it's vastness and the reflection of Ngac Son temple that sets in the middle of it distorted in the water. We walked through the trees that dot the path surrounding the lake, chatting and having a pleasant stroll. Then all of a suddent, I saw a rat! I don't know why I was so shocked seeing that the city was full of water, and it was common to see people pouring various rubbage and waste from the food stalls straight into the sewage system along the curbs. But, the rat sighting triggered a fear that took me a long time to get rid of. The fear that makes me believe that everywhere I look, and in every slight shadow or flicker of light that I notice, that these strange things i am seeing out of the corner of my eyes could be nothing other than, one of those horrid creatures that are rodents!
For those of you who don't remember, this fear was caused by the mouse infestation that occured at my apartment on Art Hill that Gardner and Bryan so honorably helped to control. I called several people, who are probably reading this right now, in my moment of fear. You see, I had tried to solve the problem on my own, but after seeing the strenght of one Olympic Champion mouse's highjump out of a trash can- which when advised by the ever so wise Ray I threw a towel over- only to see it later slowly fall in to the bin and allow the smart little mouse to use it as a means to propel itself just high enough to take that fantstic leap which left the mouse soaring into the air straight at me- this is a tall kitchen bin people!..so naturally I ran out of my house and stood in a petrified crippling position staring in through the screen door as I called everyone i knew for help or guidance. It turned out the only people I could reel into coming over were Chris and Bryan, and they were heading from O'Fallon, Mo, during rush-hour...so I waited out on my stoop petrified in fear for a long time.....as you can see this day is one of those days that instills fear in you forever, so after seeing the rat, and grabbing Dave in pure fright, we walked around the lake and I told Dave the very animated story of 1022 Arthill 3N's mouse infestation, complete details to the sweatbands that Chris and Bryan wore in order to fully prepare themselves for the drastic feat of mouse removal...
As my story was coming to the dramatic close, we came across another joint that looked like a bar. We decided to head in. Once again, only men. So once again, we asked ok? and once again we got a "yes". We walked up the stairs and around the corner, and I looked at the bar, saw the stage, looked at Dave and said maybe not ok... so I asked again, ok? and they said yes, so we decided we would stay for a drink. This establishment was a little closer to an East Side establishment. Yet, the women were dressed nicely, and they stayed that way. We had a very friendly little waitress who liked to practice her English. We ordered our beers, had a brief discusssion over whether or not we were going to be knocked with a huge seating charge after we finished our drinks, and decided that either way we didn't care. Also there was no way we were going to leave after ordering and after discovering that as conservative as this club was, my cohort had never properly experienced a gentlemen's club, so we had to stay for our drink, and really when had anything ever been expensive in Vietnam? Within a few minutes we found ourselves being brought to our feet and dancing to Nelly with a group of the waitresses beside our table. Now if any moment in our travels was a James Bond moment for Dave, this was it. We got our extremely modest tab after staying for second round, and being asked to leave since the place was closing. We continued our walk around the lake and the zig-zag through the streets looking for our hotel.
It took us a little longer to find our hotel because everything had closed up at this point. Hanoi is a city with a few hours of sleep between the hours of 1:00 and 4:30. During this time the honking of the horns ceases, you can cross the road and only see one motorbike, and you can wander the streets only occasionally running into a few people walking around. We finally located our hotel, which had closed for the night. The hotel was locked down with a big metal gate closed over the entrance.. Well, damn...we thought. We didn't know there was a curfew. This wasn't the first time this had happened in Vietnam. The beach front property we had chosen to stay at in Nah Trang had also closed down at midnight. It is interesting, they close up the property and people sleep on cots in the reception, I don't think they are there to let fools like us in, but we just let them know the next day we were going to be out on the town and that we would be back around ~time. I honestly hadn't expected the same thing to happen in Hanoi... So, we were now locked out. We knocked- no answer. We sat on the stoop a bit, found a bell to ring, rang that a few times, and were finally let in. We apologized to the reception and went to our respective rooms, in which I stripped down and threw myself into a bed all to myself with pure bliss.
Flames, Games, Minorities, Goodbyes, and a splash of Jazzercize,
On day six, we explored Hanoi. We met downstairs for our breakfast and hit the streets. We all had a few errands to run, like change money, arrange our trips to Halong Bay, arrange for our Cambodian visas, and find out about going over to Sapa. After the events at the airport, it seemed the group dynamic had even tarnished further. Neil went to Thai airlines, and had his flight changed for later that day, and the girls decided that they were going to seperate from the group and go to Sapa first instead of going to Halong Bay first. With this news, it appeared that from this afternoon on out, Dave and I were travel partners. Our group of five had vanished...The pre-departure-dubbed "Team Vietnam/Cambodia" existed no more...not until we reunite for the last day of our vacation in Ho Chi Minh would Team Vietnam/Cambodia be seen as a unit ever again..
After our various errands we all met up to go to my one place of interest, the Ethnography Museum in Hanoi. We got our tickets and requested some English guides, and the woman at the ticket counter with no English skill or effort mimed the guesture of "eating", Neil in a moment of frustration and beautiful English semantics retorted, "What? You have eaten them? Bloody Hell! They ate the guides. " The woman continued guestures of in which resulted with the understanding that there were no guides to be had, that they were all at lunch. The fact that they were all at lunch at the same time was quite an inconvience for us, we were all actually in the mood of learning and expandind our minds. We continued through the museum, of which I guess Heather and Jehanne had little interest or had really been bitten by the shopping bug, or had gotten overly annoyed with the "group" dynamics, so they rushed and left early. That was the last time Team Vietnam Cambodia would be together until HCMC.
The museum covers the various ethnic minorities in Vietnam, Cambodia, and along the Vietnamese/Chinese border. It covers everything from the matriarchal lifestyle of some villages, in which the man takes on the wifes name, and the wife is recognized as the respected one... To the multitude of handmade crafts that the villages of Vietnam have to offer from conical hats to bronze work to laquerware to indigo dyed garments and cloth. In the garden of the museum stand actual houses of various structures that were erected by the villagers themselves. It really is an interesting museum, but I think a guide would have allowed for our brains to be stimulated much more. After leaving the museum, we headed back to the city. I got myself a jacket- since i was unprepared for the extremely chilly weather of North Vietnam, and Neil, Dave, and I sat down for a great feast of Indian food for lunch- our last supper of sorts (taken early as a lunch) for our little triad. After lunch we saw Neil off, hugs, good wishes and goodbyes as he went to send our love to all our mates in Thailand, Dave and I ventured over to the temple that sat in the middle of the rat-infested lake. We looked at the temple, of which i thought was a little disappointing, the gem of the temple is a taxidermist's masterpiece, a stuffed giant tourtise. After saying our prayers, we ventured back to the hotel to meet the girls for dinner.
Not to blow my own whistle, but I must say I was on top of my game when it came to North Vietnam. It felt nice since living in Japan has led me to a humbling dry spell that I honestly haven't known before. It makes your esteem teeter I must say.
For dinner we chose a place with interesting specialties, ranging from clay-pot stewed fish to waterbuffalo to rabbit to duck. As our drinks were being served loud music started up across the street. It was a large group of middle age Vietnamese women doing aerobics in the middle of the town square. Of course Dave is too curious to watch from afar, so within minutes the group transformed into a large group of middle age Vietnmaese women and Dave doing aerobics in the town square to some classic-80’s-Jane-Fonda-style beats. this stunt amused everyone around. It had obviously been a long time since Dave had attended a step class or an aerobics class (if he had even attended one in his life), because the moves were a wee complex for him, making him distort his body into the ugliest kicks and hip sways one has ever seen. The best moment was when the group turned around, Dave suddenly was the leader with everyone facing his back and he had no clue what moves to do. The first group was soon followed by a second group and the square was alive. We all returned to our patio table and watched the excercisers from afar. Our excitement of the jazzercizing aerobic group had made quite an impression on the staff at the restaraunt we were dining. Before the meal was over I was recieving love notes from our pubescent looking, yet 25 years old, waiter telling me that I was "beautinful". These little notes were written in group fashion, in which they all helped each other with their English. It was cute. We said goodbye, and continued onto the next establishment.
We chose the next place, Diva cafe, in order to satisfy our desire to see live music. But due to the chill of the evening we sat inside, away from the music. We all got drinks, and Jehanne got an Irish cofee that was prepared tableside with grandouer; the liquor ws set on fire and poured between glasses until we had - tahdah- an irish coffee. For some insane reason Dave was allowed to try his hand at pouring flames between sifters, this occurence led to the waiters of the restaruant brandishing their mad skills of match lighting, such as using a wall, or an expensive piece of furniture to strike it on. We left the cafe, which surprisingly was still standing, and headed back towards the hotel. In the square beside the lake stands this gigantic statue of someone of obvious importance. In the square there were a group of kids playing keepaway with a basketball (I say kids but really they were anywhere in the age range of 16-who knows~25) Dave and I decided we wanted to join them, so we cappped off our night with some keep-away until we were chased away by the police. Obviously it is ok to jazzercize in the square if you are middle-aged, but being young and playing keepaway is not ok. So we said goodnight and returned home. We were to be up early to leave for our trip to Halong Bay the next day.
The beauty of Halong Bay
Dave and I were come completely unprepared for our kayaking trip. The sheet we had required a few things...1) bugspray 2) a passport 3) a torch/flashlight 4) money for drinks. We had one of the required items. Money for drinks. The night before our trip we had dropped our passports at a local place to get our Cambodian visas (actually the place was the dodgy looking, swear I saw mice running around hotel that was our initial stop in Hanoi) We had gotten up extra early to try to retrieve our passports but due to unseen efficiency they had already been sent off. Bugspray- I had some lotion. I tried diligently to find a torch that morning but to no avail. So we went to the place wondering if they were even going to allow us to go on the tour, and with a shaking thier head's in disbelief of our inadequacy, we got an ok to go.
We loaded up for our trip and headed out with the group for our tour of one of the most beautiful natural wonders of the world, Halong Bay. Halong Bay sets off the coast of Northeastern Vietnam (near South China). The translated meaning of Halong Bay is the Bay of the Descending Dragon. The 3000 islets and islands and jutting rocks are representative of the back of a dragon. The legend has it that long ago two dragons were sent from the gods in the heaven to save the locals from invasion. The dragons defended the area spitting out gemstones and jade for protection and driving the invadors away with fear. The dragons loved the area they defended so much for it's tranquility and beauty, they decided to not return to the heavens, but to remain on Earth. The dragons descended into the bay to live.
Our drive down to the bay was filled with interesting facts such as how many motorbikes were in Vietnam and how when the Chinese introduced the cheaper models, motorbikes became the primary means for most Vietnames. We even scored the adress to the best dog restaraunt in Hanoi. We stopped off at the strangely dubbed "happy stop", which appears to be an overpriced charity/sweatshop for childeren who are handicapped, and even after that I was miserable, (I had to piss like a racehorse), amusing my companion.
Boarding our boat to get out to Halong Bay was a blast. We walked along the decks of several ships climbing up and over until we finally reached our ship. The ship was massive and way more than adequate for the six people in our tour group. Our group consisted of Dave and I (obviously), our guide Thuan (pronunciation Twan), Sylvia a mid-aged women insurance agent by career yet world travel by heart, Adrian this great 13 year old Aussie kid, and his overprotective mother Kay.
The boat headed out for the day amidst the stones and rocks providing mystic beauty passing fishing villages along the way. We stopped over at amazing cave (or surprising cave) which was full of old stalagmites and stalagtites (of which I learned the vietnamese word for but have since forgotten). Thuan led us in a game of guess what that rock looks like, or can you find the reclining buddha. I am sure to know one's surprise I was horrible at this game. I tend to think that I have a pretty vivid imagination, but throughout this trip we were presented with all these different things to see in the rock and rarely was I able to find them. I think possibly my imagination is just too different to see what everyone else sees. The cave was nice, but I kind of have a thing for concrete laid out over rock formations. Even though I know that if a path wasn't retained, no matter what tourism would occur, and providing limited orderly access is probably the best for the nature. This is one of those caves that spulunking doesn't occur in anymore. Adrian's mom Kay was white with fright the whole time as she kept wondering "where is Dave going?" as he ventured between the gaps, and coming back to get me or yelling for me to stop as I wandered around in typical Carrie fashion. Before leaving the island we got to feast our eyes on a beautiful site. Many ships had hoisted thier colorful sails and were drifting out into the mysterious looking bay of emerald water against a background of stones jutting toward the sky and mist from the warm water rising into the cool air.
Our boat headed out to the place where we anchored for the evening. Before dinner we all decided to go for swim. I am not sure why in the whole bay are boat was the only that appeared up for it. To be honest, the weather was nippy, but we jumped off the roof of the boat and swam in the surprisingly warm water of the bay. (actually it took me so long to find my bathingsuit top that by the time I joined everyone was getting out to get warm again) I must say that it was a good sign that we got everyone to join by saying come on, it'll be fun!! because it meant that these folk were up for anything it showed. We warmed up with tea and played cards into the evening. Dave taught me a game called 500 and I taught them all Big 2. I hadn't played Big 2 in ages. I was good, but I must admit after they got the hang of it, I was spent by Thaun.
I hadn’t even considered…..
I was sleeping soundly aboard the ship until all of a sudden i heard something crash into us, and a gaggle of people began running about. Earlier in the day, a small boat of children from the fishing village had attached themselves to our vessel using the boat to go around the bay and begging off the side of it for various trinkets such as pens and candy. All the noise of people running about, dogs barking, and the occassional crash had me completely convinced that our boat was being invaded by pirates. What a prime area for pirates to attack. Boats anchored in the same places night after night full of tourists and vulnerable people. I laid there petrified with fear, for I had whipped up in my head that not only was our boat being invaded by pirates, we were being invaded by sword-weilding, gun-toting modern-day Children Pirates!! I finally got the nerve to speak to Dave, who had also been awoken by the noise. We watched the shadows of people run past the window. We weren't sure if our door was locked! Who locks a door on a boat? i walked towards the door, but quickly ran back to my bed as I swore i saw the knob turning. I hadn't thought of the horrible nightmare that was unfolding!! I hadn't thought of the probablity that the boat I am on would get invaded by Children Pirates. It seemed like hours I laid there fearing for my life, fearing that I would be taken hostage by these sea-faring children, chased around by their mangy dogs, kidnapped, and then forced to walk a plank somewhere off in the hidden corners of the bay.
I sure do let my imagination get the best of me sometimes, and in retrospect I must say this was one of them. But I had done a great job convincing myself that evening that was exactly what was going down. Needless to say, I did not sleep well. Dave must have thought I was crazy.
The next morning we ate breakfast, and I expressed my relief that the Child Pirates had gotten what they needed and let me be. Everyone else seemed to sleep through all the ruckus. They just passed off what could have been our last night on Earth as just a little noise and a dog barking on a nearby boat. Come on guys!!, there were strange people on our ship!! I saw them through my window, how could you sleep through that?? How could you not fear for your life?? When Thuan joined us, he put my irrational fears to rest explaining that sometimes crews from the same company that own the boats will come to sleep on the less crowded ships. Or they will get together to make the day's preparations. I guess that is much more reasonable of an explanation, i just wish I had been warned so I didn't lay awake all night fearing for my life and the lives of others being taken by these Children Pirates.
Trying not to disturb the serene waters
After breakfast, we transfered boats and were taken to our private island. On this day we were going to kayak around Halong Bay. After instructions from Thuan, we geared up and hit the water. I must say, Dave and I are not much of a kayaking team. Dave took steering position, our nifty kayak had a foot controlled rutter and I took the front position. We paddled around the Bay playing guess what that is? and Dave and I conversed deeply. Thuan decided to lead us to a cave that you can go through at low tide to get to a hidden lagoon.
Dave and I armed ourselves for going into the cave. Luckily Sylvia had lent us an extra torch. Funny that the person with the extra torch was the woman traveling alone. After bumping my head on several stalactites resulting in me wielding yelps, we made it through the cave. What we came upon was pure beauty. We came into a gorgeous hidden lagoon. crystal blue water, mystic birds, and statuous greenery. We all silelently relished in the hidden gem that had become ours for those moments. Soon though we had to leave because the tide was coming in and the only way out was through the cave again. Dave and I led the egression out of the cave. We braved our souls for the group, armed with our oars we headed forward with the wee light we had into the dark cavern. As our eyes were adjusting to the loss of light, our expertise of kayaking got the best of us again. We rounded that first turn and the rapid water, ok flowing water, turned our bloody kayak right around. So now I was facing backwards and Dave, also facing backwards was in the front. It gave me a pleasant view of the next team, Kay and Adrian, and the last team Trang and the last bit of light from the entrance of the cave from the lagoon we had just left. We were soon instructed by both Kay and Thaun that we needed to turn our kayak back around. No sh*t! We were trying to do this. A lot of cursing was involved and a lot of me being melodramatic as I got hit in the head as we were now both blind and the light we did have emmitted less than a firefly. Yet, Dave was valiant in the efforts, which I must say, I was probably nothing more than a hindrance. We were suddenly doing a 180 when our kayak decided to lodge itself across the whole path of the cave. Now everyone else, who's kayaking skills and survival skills made you think they were all raised with Swiss Family Robinson, were gaining on us. A crash was eminent. As I just sat there trying to somehow manaeuver the boat or create a miraculous event just by pushing us off with my oar, causing no reaction, Dave began to create a plan. He went to call out something and lost the torch that was being held in his mouth in the water. We couldn't see it. We lost Sylvia's torch, we are now blind and wedged in a cave with the tide coming in. Adrian saw the torch, it was still lit! He tried to explain to Dave the position of it in the water underneath our kayak, and Dave began reaching for it. Now if you have ever been in a kayak, you know the probablilities of sitting in it and reaching at least 3 feet into the water directly underneath you is impossible. So after looking like a cat pawing at a light in the water for a few minutes, Dave decided he must get out. He got out, got the light, unwedged us, which sent me unprepared into the dark, and jumped back in to the boat. What a hero he was. We finally exited the cave in triumph and headed to a boat near a fishing village for lunch. The day was great, we had woven in and out of inlets and told stories and sang songs, only to retire to a beach for a campfire, coffee, and bonding. The bay is breathtaking to see change with the tide. When we had left in the morning, we pulled out straight from the beach, but when we returned in the evening the tide was so low that you could walk from our beach to other inlets nearby. Worn out from our day, we all drifted to sleep on our bungalows.
We returned to Hanoi the next day. After an amusing lunch, in which a remark asking Adrian how old his brother was?, resulted in him spitting his drink as if he were stunned, we hit the road. I took the liberty of working my game, and sitting up front wedged in between the driver and Thaun, learning all sorts of intimate details about the Vietnamese culture. Our pleasant and educational ride got extened as we got stuck in traffic that was heading to Hanoi because it was New Year's Eve. While I conversed, Dave carried on in the back and nearly got squished by a huge bus as he leaned out the window to not even get a shot of the "no trumpet playing" sign I had quickly noticed. The sign wasn't in actually "no trumpet playing" but meant you could not use your horn. Funny that as we sat there nearly the whole city was laying on their horn the whole time. I never understood why one would use a horn in gridlocked traffic, not as though that the guy in front of you is really the one holding up you and the thousands of cars behind you.
New Year’s Eve in Carraige Four
Once we got to Hanoi we said our sad goodbyes, and Dave and I set out to gather our passports and train tickets and catch the overnight train to Sapa. The streets of the Old Quarter in Hanoi are full of dodgy looking tourist centers. You can use these tourist centers for booking your trains, getting tours, and getting your visas. We used two different ones for our train tickets and visas so we had to hit both of them. After getting our deluxe sleeper car tickets, we headed over to collect our passports with our newly attached Cambodian visas. Funny thing was, our passports weren’t there. Ok. We have been gone for three days, and they don’t have our passports back yet? The place, where I was sure I saw mice running about, assured us they would have them soon. Well we weren’t going to be in Hanoi soon, we were going to Sapa and then when we returned we had only one day left in Hanoi before we caught a before the sun is awake flight to Cambodia. So they assured us they would be there. A tad disgruntled, we left and went to the trainstation to catch our train.
The trainstations in Vietnam are unlike any stations I have seen. There are no stairs or real sidewalks to take you from one platform to the other. You basically just walk over the tracks to your respective platform and board the train. We entered the station and got through the crowd to the ticket taker- handed over our ticket and proceeded into the railyard an hour or more early. I may have not stressed this yet, but unlike the 90 degree heat we were loving in Ho Chi Mihn, Hanoi was cold. Seeing your breath, chilly to the bone, colder than a witches tit, cold. Totemo Samuii. So we sat there freezing, occasionally looking at the un-updated board for the time of our departure.
After freezing in the cold for eons, we decided to walk across the tracks to what appeared to be the only train that was boarding. From what we read on our tickets we were to welcome the New Year aboard carriage 4. We walked along the train reading the carriage numbers, 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 13, etc. as we reached the end of the train and still had not found carriage four we decided to try again, maybe we missed it. So we walked back and looked once again. No carriage four. As we paced the platform checking out the numbers with no luck and trying our hand to get no help, a man saw us and motioned for us to follow him, so naturally we did. We told him we were looking for carriage four and he pretended to understand what we were saying. He walked us down to the end of the train, stepped off the platform and waved us on. At the very end of the train there were some engineers attaching one more car. We stood there amidst the few other people who looked slightly less confused than us and watched as the men latched the carriage onto the train, wired up some electricity, and came by and wrote in chalk on the side of it a large number 4. That was us. Lucky us. At least our tickets were legit. We queued up and waited to aboard the train from track level. Dave handed the man our tickets and I climbed up the side of the train to get in the door. As I reached the top and was good and in, the man motioned for me to get out, saying to us.. only one. We explained to him that there were two tickets there, but he was resistant to listen. The man thumbed the tickets and said, no only one. He stood there for at least five minutes holding up the line and yelling at us in Vietnamese. He refused to let us board and finally after a series of “Sir there are two tickets there!” he fumbled through the tickets again and realized that yes, in fact there were two tickets in his hands. Dave climbed up and joined me in our lovely light-flickering carriage number four.
Once aboard the train, a scene as if out of a British comedy occured, we shared our sleeper compartment with a Vietnamese man, a Chinese woman whom he works with, and two parakeets. We all sat on across from each other on the bottom bunk Dave and I on one side, and they on the other with the birds at their feet. Dave and I gave them our rendition of “Sin Ciao” and they leaned in for a “hello” We got out the phrasebook and tried to carry on a conversation asking, where they are from. What is their occupation, etc.
A phrase book for Vietnamese is almost of no use to someone who is as skilled in language as myself. Vietnamese is a language that is spoken through intonations. You can say one word and it will mean five different things, depending on your intonation. So if you raise your voice up for example a word will mean one thing, if you say the word flatly it means another, or if you drop it you have yet another meaning. So a phrasebook to help you in your attempt to speak and not be understood is nothing more than a means of defining your desire to be culturally diverse, yet linguistically inept. I must say that the phrasebook, which Neil bought off the first persistant child vendor we ran into for a dollar, was the phrasebook-of-all-phrasebooks.
This phrasebook was one of the many knock-off photocopied books that you see people hawking on the streets of various cities in Vietnam. This phrasebook was more than complete for the Western travelers, having various greetings and salutations, names of foods, traffic directions, how to pick up a date in a bar and explain to them the STDs you may or may not have, how to refuse a man, how to buy drugs, complete with the saying “I am a heroin addict, and I need a fix.” So, for all those junkies out there who make their way to Vietnam, be sure to pick up a phrasebook from the children vendors, and you are set. Not only will you be able to get your fix, you will be able to understand the directions to go get that fix; that is if you can understand if that word was rising or lowering meaning either neighbor or evil…..
So back on the train, armed with our phrasebook, amidst the confusion of carriage four, parakeets at our feet, the conversation came to a close. We had discovered that the two are not married, they were 22 and 23, yet seemed older due to maturity and professionalism I will never be able to touch. The man was Vietnamese and the woman was Chinese. They were returning to China after working in Hanoi during the week. We clasped our hands together a bit, nodded our heads, and came to a well, guess that’s about it moment, and all parted our separate ways. It was early and it was new years eve, but I chose to try to get to sleep early. I don’t think I have had a New Year’s with such a lack of excitement since I was around 8 years old. Oh well, though, it really is just another night in my book, and a good excuse for a party. The train was freezing, I couldn’t get warm. This was going to be a problem I would encounter for the remainder of my days in Northern Vietnam. I even wrapped myself up in the possibly vermin-infested rag that appeared to be a blanket that was provided on the train. I didn’t care. I wanted to be warmer.
I laid there tossing and turning all night freezing my can off, trying to sleep, until there were announcements about a stop. I can understand Vietnamese about as well as I can speak it. To me it all sounds like a seal trying to speak English or the teacher from Peanuts. We rubbed our eyes, chatted a bit and listened to the Chinese woman whom had a gorgeous voice hum Auld Lang Syne. The train stopped briefly and it appeared no one got off. We were trying to figure out where we were, and the train started back up. At this point I wasn’t sure if that had been our stop, but no one got off and most people were going towards Sapa, so there was no way that was our stop….but who knew…we weren’t sure. To be honest, for the last six months of my life I haven’t been 100% sure of anything. Well, at this point, we were going to be on the train until the next stop anyway. We gathered our things together, stretched to wake our bodies from the stiff positions they had been accustomed to in our slumber, and awaited the next stop. The train slowed down as it pulled into the station. We prepared for our exit, and then all of a sudden the woman whom we had shared the car with for the evening, the women who hadn’t spoken a word of English past hello, leaned over to us and said ever so cheerfully, “WELCOME TO CHINA”….. Goodness, We were now in China, we were definitely without our passports, and we had no clue what we were going to do. At that point we had nothing else to do other than get off the train, get our bearings, and decide what to do from there. Hopefully there would be no Chinese Government Agents there looking to collect foreign tourists with no passports or visas.
Blackballed by The Vietnamese Soup Nazi: Could it Get Any Worse?
As we climbed out of carriage four, we were instantly greeted by a man, asking “Are you looking for a ride to Sapa?”. Yes! We at least were in the right place! (Turns out that where we were not in China at all, but we were right on the border of Vietnam and China) After our moments of joy, the man continued honing in on us, asking us again if we needed a ride. We inquired how much he wanted for a ride to Sapa and he told us and we laughed at him saying no way that was too much. We continued walking, with the man following at our heels and Dave ducked into the bathroom. As he exited the crazy man told Dave to pay this random girl who was selling coffee at the station for using the facilities, he refused and we walked on. (now at times you do have to pay, but there are always signs posted and there were no signs posted) We walked out into the nightmare of minibuses, taxis, and vans who were looking to get the buck off the tourist. The man told us to follow him, we agreed on a cheaper price and went with him. He showed us his van and we got in, just to get back out when he decided to twist things and tell us the price we agreed on was per person and not together as it originally was. Disgusted we said, bite us, and went off to find another means of transportation. We met a taxi driver who agreed on a cheaper price and it would have been private. All of a sudden, the crazy man appeared, flailing his arms in the air, screaming at the cab driver in Vietnamese, and causing commotion. The cab driver told us he could not take us to Sapa. We were blackballed by this crazy man. Everytime we approached anyone, the crazy man appeared causing commotion. Finally I said forget it, lets just go with him, get there, to be honest we were only going to save maybe 3$, but 3$ goes a long way in Vietnam.
We loaded our bags into the van and got in. There was a Vietnames couple in there, who I guarantee paid substanciously less. We sat there at the station for what seemed like another 40 minutes as they squeezed another million people into this van. Dave and I stayed comfortable as everyone else held a minimum of two or so people in their laps. Screw them, they were screwing us, and we were not exactly happy with the situation…at least I wasn’t…. Dave, who is an actor and great singer, sang the whole way through the mountains to Sapa. Honestly we had no regard to the others in the car as they made random road side stops cramming more people on their laps and letting strange people out of the van. It ended up being a strange, but pleasant drive past the villages and up through the mountains.
When we arrived at Sapa I got out of the van, which I hated, as soon as possible. I didn’t want to deal with the crazy guy anymore, whom I think was determined to keep us in his van and take us to the hotel of his choice. But we broke their resistance and determination, getting out of the vehicle while ignoring their orders, and we began walking through the square. As we were walking through the square we were approached by two little girls from the local village. “Do you need a hotel?” they asked. Damn it! Not more people trying to swindle us into their rip-off establishment. But the girls were so cute. And we agreed to follow them- our plan was to get a cup of coffee, wake up, and then hit the town to see the sites. Once we got to the hotel, we got our much-needed coffee, and Dave and I agreed that we would get rooms there, they were 7$ and good enough for us- even though the rooms were not heated, we didn’t have the heart to say “no” to the sweet little girls with great English who had become our friends in fifteen minutes. The girls’ names were Cha and Lan.
We rented a motorbike and headed out for the day to see some beautiful sights and visit the local villages. Sapa is a small town set in the northern mountains of Vietnam. It is known for the number of ethnic minorities that live in the surrounding mountains who meet weekly at the market to trade goods. The mountains in the area are beautiful, tapering off into the distance, tiers carved gently into the landscape so that the land may be used for crops, peaks jutting into the horizon creating a mystical wonder with the absence of powerlines and other means of technology that now bog up the beauty of nature. The great thing about our first day in Sapa was we couldn’t see any of it! The cold weather had created a thick mist and you had maybe a 5-meter distance of visibility.
The lack of visibility made for an interesting bike ride up into the mountains. We never knew what we were passing or what we were heading towards. I held on as we climbed up the mountain in search of this beautiful waterfall we had heard about. We stopped on the side of the road for a few minutes and warmed up our freezing bodies by a little grill a woman was using to roast various nuts in some road-side tents. There was a little pow-wow of construction workers who entertained us for a few minutes and shared a snack with us. Determined to find this beautiful waterfall, we braved the cold more. We came to the base camp of Mount Fansipan and stopped there for a few minutes looking around. Some passerby’s yelled out to us to keep going…”Very beautiful…one more kilometer!!” they told us…. And still determined to make the most of our day, even though the feeling in our limbs was beginning to subside, we continued on up the road.
We finally came to it… a large group of Vietnamese people were gathered and taking pictures. What was beautiful was that the air was so cold, ice was forming to the trees and grass. It was so cold that the mist in the air was freezing. What we were looking at was creating a hysteria of excitement. It was not snow you see, but frozen air. And this thrilled the Vietnamese. It rarely snows in Vietnam, so ice forming naturally….Wow! Well after living in Niigata and having seen snow before, this did not excite me at all….so we took our pictures and headed back down to the town…you know I should have realized that when we were heading up the mountain and I saw motorbikes full of people holding branches with ice on them coming down past us, that maybe our definitions of “beautiful” were different. I guess it was beautiful… as beautiful as an overgrown roadside lot in the country can be when covered in ice…. Picture worthy? …maybe. Freezing your ass off worthy?….Only in Vietnam.
Due to some series of events, our attitude towards Sapa was a bit negative initially I must admit…Dave and I were both so frozen and had lost all sense of feeling that we both knocked over our stools as we stumbled into the diner to warm up for lunch. But we can’t let anything get us down. That was our attitude.
After lunch we headed to visit our first village. As interesting as it is to learn about different people, I felt very rude and out of place visiting the village. A woman who was cooking dinner with a younger man and an older man inside the home invited us into a home. We could not speak their language, and they could not speak English, so through body language we communicated and shared songs with one another. Music really is the most common language of the world. As the sun set, Dave and I walked back up the hill discussing how you feel you are exploiting someone’s culture by being there walking amidst someone’s everyday life in curiosity, but that in return you yourself are exploited. The exploitation is bounced back like to you like light on a mirror as you are constantly pestered being asked repeatedly to buy things and often times taken for granted or ripped off by someone trying to make a buck. I still think that without the tourism the capitalistic thought would not be so rabid in areas such as this, and without the knowledge of capitalism there is no need for it. But due to technological advances and globalization certain aspects of even the simplest lives become more and more tainted. Even with the recognition of all the differences of the people of the world today and the constant strive to be accepting of those differences, the knowledge of those differences and the knowledge of various cultures cause assimilation. As Dave and I pondered these thoughts and we reached our bike at the top of the hill, a man was there waiting for us, asking for us to pay for parking the bike on the side of the road. This demonstrated exactly what we were talking about. Seriously, what is a buck to us? And what is a buck to him? It definitely means a lot more to him. But something we would never personally think of asking out of someone, such as a buck for parking on the side of the road, is another person’s only means to trying to understand our culture.
Our plans for the evening were to go and watch Cha dance at a local establishment. She and a few of her friends were to perform a traditional dance and then they would hang out with us. We also were possibly meeting Heather and Jehanne whom were also in Sapa. We all found one another and watched Cha dance. We then got invited up for some tinikleing. Do you know tinikeling? That is when you dance through bamboo poles that you move to the beats. I had not tinikeled since grade school. After the show the bar turned into a rocking dance club. Well as rocking as a dance club can get in sapa I guess. We all broke it down with the local village girls before heading to another bar for some billiards. On our way to the bar Cha and Lan had us stop by their apartment so that they could show us some things. In the little cynderblock room with cracked concrete floors, and a makeshift door was a bed, a fireplace, a sewing basket, and a trunk of personal belongings. The girls showed us pictures, became fascinated with Dave’s digital camera, and decided that I was to dress in Cha’s clothes for the trek the next day. So they dressed me up and had me model the outfit they created for me. Colorful and interesting is about all I have to say about it…


The Long and Winding Road
After freezing our bums off in Sapa for the first day, it became apparant that I would never get warm there. So I bundled up for our trek. (Well as bundled as I could get given all the things I was to wear). We were woken up bright and early by the beautiful smile of Cha, who had arranged things to be our guide for the day. She came in with her bag of clothes for me to wear and admired all the various things we had sprawled around the room. I felt like Ethnic Barbie. Every last bit of me was covered in color. She put me in her Sunday best. On Sundays the people of the various villages around Sapa go to the market in Sapa to trade and buy goods. So here I am decked out in a blue skirt, and an intrinsicly beaded belt/sash thing. A vest and a bright green hair wrap. There no words that can truly describe how I looked....hysterical is a good start, ridiculous may be even better. But Cha was so happy and excited to see me in her clothes, and who can argue with that. It was quite tasking for me in general also, since I'm a girl who will barely wear a skirt out dancing, more than less for an all day trek. But I did it anyway. I did it to please my wee little hostess.

So we set out on our hike, walking down towards the villages. The first village we headed to was H'mong. The people of the H'mong village tend to dress in dark blue and black clothing and wear embroderied waistcoats and belts. The women wear a turban-like hat and the men wear a black skullcap. Dave and I asked couldn:t have asked for a better tourguide than our friend Cha. Cha believes she is 18 years old. No one really knows thier birthday, but she is 18 and cute as a button. She grew up in Sapa village and moved into town to work at the hotel and dance in the evenings. This is becoming quite common amoungst the younger village women. Cha lives in the modest of modest abode. She shares it with Lan. Lan is thirteen. Lan and Cha are best friends. They are quite different, but just like you find yourself with many of your friends...the chemistry is perfect. They treat one another like sisters, and you can see that Lan admires Cha like an ideal role model....working on her English and languages, listening to her thoughts....and Cha accepts the position with admirable dignity. She sets a good example, teaches Lan about life, they stick together, they share a bed, they share dreams, they share stories, they truely are special kids.

Cha appeared to be one of the most popular girls in town, leading us to the village, teaching us how to say hello in the different languages of all the ethnic minorities we passed. So here Dave and I were strolling along, singing, laughing, Dave nearly bearded with his I haven:t shave since I left stubble and me all dressed up in sparkling Sapa village garb saying hi to nearly everyone we passed. I still think we were the friendlist wee group in Northern Vietnam that day. We passed many people on thier way to Sapa for the Sunday Market. People had baskets upon thier shoulders carrying all sorts of things. Many people carried textiles...Many people carried crops....Some people carried livestock.....As we passed everyone saying *hello* many of the women of the villages admired the beaded belt/sash that Cha had put me in. The sash she had dressed me in was her new New Years sash. Every year at New Years the people of Vietnam get new clothes to wear. In the villages this is even more apparant. The villagers wadrobe is primarily handmade consisting of garments dyed with indigo and intricatley embrodiered belts and shirts and collars. We saw many people working on sewing the new clothes for the new year. Our friend Lan had finished her new collar while we were in Sapa, and had Cha help her attach it to her jacket. The collar was beautiful consisting of many different colors and an elaborate embrodiered design of stars and shapes. Her mom had woven and dyed the fabric she used and the different threads she had bought at the market. We were in Sapa right after New Years Day, but the New Year Holiday or Tet Holiday in Vietnam is not until early February. Even so, we saw many people wearing their New Years clothes to the market that day. You could tell the new clothes by the fresh stitching and bright colors. You can also renew old clothes by freshening up the stitching or adding a newly embrodiered piece. The beaded belt Cha had put me in was part of her New Year's clothes.

Our trek was very nice. We walked through the villages, up and down the muddy mountain paths talking. Cha and I shared stories of love and boyfriends. We shared cultural differences. We talked about where she learned English, how long ago she moved from her village to Sapa and when she began doing treks, what happens if she marrys a man who is not from Sapa village, we gabbed about the music she has heard and the movies she had seen. Upon hearing she had never seen, read, or even heard of the Wizard of Oz before, I tried to tell her the story. Of course Dave amused us with the accompianment of the songs, but I lost her as I was making sure not to miss any details...

All was going well. We were taking in the sites, the day was warming up, and the mist that had blocked all the views of the mountains the day before had lifted. As we headed down the muddy mountainside we were all being sure to tell each other to "take care". Now due to me being dressed in clothes that were not even mine, and they were some of Cha:s best clothes, I was determined not to get them muddy, so I would just have to not fall down. Dave turned to me and said something along the lines of watch out it was slick, and I turned to him and said no problem, I wasn;t going to fall, nope not today. (And as most of you reading this have probably seen me walk a few steps you know that me walking in and of itself is laughable- I think I trip up at least once a day, actually thinking about it I don't think I have ever met anyone who is clumsier than I am)

No sooner than I got the words "I'm not going to fall down today" out of my mouth did I slip and slide right down into the mud. Cursing at myself and apologizing to Cha, I got back to my feet only to slip a few steps later. After I regained my understanding of gravity, we came to a riverbed. It was nice and the sparkling crystal water flowed over the rocks. We walked along the rocks of the bed, until suddenly I look up and see Cha hopping across some rocks to get to the other side. I began to follow- after stepping over maybe two rocks...I then saw my fate... right there in the water, like a fortune tellers crystal ball... I saw my body falling into the river. ... as soon as this vision hit me I turned back... no way... it is way to cold for me to go and fall into a river....

After pacing the riverbank for what seemed like hours, and after being reassured by Cha there was no other way, that this shortcut is the best, I decided to go and meet Cha and Dave, who had set themselves down on some rocks on the otherside of the river waiting for my sorry self. So I hopped onto the first rock, with no problems, what had I been so silly about? I hopped onto the second and the third....then somewhere between the third and fourth, I began to slip. I regained my footing though and tried again. As I ever so graciously stepped from rock three to four, I suddenly found myself in the cold water. My feet were drenched. And as Dave would later point out, that any other person would have just waded across the water to the otherside and complain...but oh not me...my feet landed funny (I swear) and I dropped to my knees, and once again Dave would point out that at that point standing up and walking still would seem the most sensible, but I wasn't about to stop there...no, I had already seen my fate, I can't mess with it....So no sooner than when I fell to my knees did I find my face planted in the water. I don:t know how to reitereate the fact of how cold this water was. ‚Ó‚©‚ñf cold people.... So trying not to piss on myself from laughing so hard, as there was no better thing to do at this point for I was getting quite perterbed, I got out of the water and glared at Cha and Dave who were literally rolling on the ground holding their bellies in laughter. I guess it was quite a site (remember I am still dressed in Cha's clothes) So now I am dripping wet from head to toe, pissed off, but trying my best not to be, and now at least I am on the otherside of the bloody river, freezing my butt off.

So right there on the edge of the river, I took off as many of my wet clothes as possible. They were pointless to wear. The last thing I wanted to do is pull up the hood of my hoodie and fell ice on my head. So I put on my rain pants and a cami and Dave's jacket. It was colder than a witches tit. Yes, it was coming true. I would never be warm in Sapa. While I regained my sanity, I watched an old woman with nothing but leather strapped to her feet who was carrying enough wood to build a small shed with tied to their back cross the river at the very same place I just baptized myself . I could have only imagined if my clumsy self was born to a village in the Sapa area, what do clumsy people do there?
Our shortcut, which had been a bit prolonged, took us into the edge of the village. As we got there I noticed a bridge…damn thing couldn’t have been that far away as the older man who was trekking behind us had already sat down and was eating. Stupid River. After looking at a cool contraption that is used to crush rice grain into powder or meal. By using the river, a large cup fills with water and then empties causing an up and down motion on a big heavy lever which of course Dave got “too close to it” causing many people anxiety. Also everywhere I turned I would find Cha with her friends telling them the story of my river incident. Good thing I could laugh at myself. We were only one hour into our five hour trek.
We sat down to lunch that Cha had packed and brought for us. We soon became the prime entertainment of the children in the village. Dave and I tended to not immediately dismiss the kids who were begging constantly. Instead we found ourselves joking and laughing with them, becoming more friends (but always potential customers). I think this attitude was very different than the constant screaming of “No!” and the arms flailing retreat that appears to be their means of interaction with most travelers. After lunch we were greeted with a flood of smiles and laughter as we tried to teach the children to dance to some old 90s music that they had playing in the hut we had stopped for lunch in. We also boosted our popularity by sharing our leftover apple pieces to the sea of children who had assembled. Even in my drenched, freezing, ‘“bite me” attitude’ state, I was having a great time.
I have to say that the best thing about the day was walking along with two great people, Dave and Cha, and getting to know them quite well. We all shared stories while admiring the surroundings. Cha would introduce us to people, show us the plants used to make indigo dye, have people who were working on their new year’s clothes show us their beautiful embroidery. Cha is one of those people whom makes you wish that you could be as brilliant a learner as her. Someone like my grandfather or grandmother who can walk amongst the forest, and not only tell you what type of tree or flower you are passing, but what it can be used for. That type of intelligence is the intelligence I admire the most. Cha stopped and began looking amoungst the overgrown grass of a mountainside. When we asked her what she was looking for she said a snake. A snake eating a frog. She had heard it. Amazing.
The sun began to set as we reached our final destination. I once again was beginning to notice how cold I was. We had walked all day. We had walked around maybe 15 km through the mountains. All we had to do was meet our jeep to get our ride back to Sapa. Well our fortune was just not going to let it have it like that. As we reached the little store at the top of the hill, we waited for our jeep. Even after Cha made several phone calls and we were told one was on the way, no jeep ever showed. I must say that our groups spirits were being flushed down the toilet at this point, no matter how high we tried to keep them. The sun was now gone over the mountainside, so any bit of warmth that I had felt had now diminished. Cha was upset because no matter how long we waited for the jeep it didn’t show. We just all wanted to get back to the hotel for a warm shower and I could have used some clothes. But this was proving to be a task in and of itself.
After freezing in the shack for over an hour and going up and down the road to the phone, we gave up on the stupid jeep. We hitched a ride with some motorbikes that we rounded up for our trip back to Sapa. My bike set off first down the rocky mountain road. Dave, whose driver smelt, came behind me with Cha. The three bikes wove around road. It was a new road. It was a road that was not even nearly finished. So the road was basically the large gravel, or boulders laid flat on the side of a mountain. I have never feared for my life so much. As we flew down the path and cut around the curve I had a near death experience with a bulldozer’s crane. I must say I was not a happy camper as I screamed and cursed at the driver, whom I think thought I was overcome with the excitement of the adventure as I exhilarated myself with nervous laughter. As we pulled up in front of the Queen Hotel, I jumped off thanking the world for my safe return, and headed to my room for my long awaited hot shower.
The water caused me to hypervenhilate as it hit me. This was not a hot shower. This water was colder than the bloody river I had so graciously fell into over 8 hours earlier. Why?! Why?! Why must my day be going like this? What ?!@??$ I was screaming in annoyance…. Dave, fearing that he would have an immensely irate woman on his hands, quickly took care of things, bless his little heart. After reporting to the management that there was no hot water, who simply retorted yes our room had been turned off, Dave demanded that it be turned back on, and they said ok, but it would take about 30 minutes. Dave then reminded the management of our trek we had been provided with and the transportation we had not been provided with and the circumstances of my need for warmth, so was there any other place I could shower or could I have more blankets etc. The management simply replied to him, “Dave hold her.” The man even showed Dave how to hold me. Hold her he thought. I would consider Dave a good friend, but he is a fella that you say, “hey man can you look the other way” as you slip in and out of clothes, and the last thing I wanted Dave doing was hold my naked cold body to warm me (no offense babe). Dave and I got many interesting remarks in general since we were traveling companions. Many people thought we were married, or getting married, and many people could not fathom the fact that we are just friends. In the end I got to snuggle up in some extra blankets that the Queen Hotel so graciously provided and listen to the girl scream in the next room as the shower she was taking was scalding her. It was a long 30 minutes to wait for a luke warm shower. Yes, I was never to be warm in Sapa. We spent our last evening in Sapa going restaurant to restaurant looking for a place to warm our bodies. Instead of finding pleasant warmth, we found an entertaining Italian restaurant with the foulest mouthed man you would ever meet. His English was good, but he thought that saying f** every other word (literally) was the best form of expression. I told him to be careful as he may end up offending someone some time, that he was lucky Dave and I were tough skinned.

Yep, that is a dead water buffalo

Lan woke us up with her beautiful smile the next morning, our last morning in Sapa. She sat on our beds as we got ready and became fascinated when she saw me put in my contacts. The same thing had happened the day earlier with Cha. The girls had never seen contact lenses and when they tried on my glasses they thought they were funny. Not only the village girls had never seen them, but other people such as the guys who ran the canpground at Halong Bay. It is amazing what technology people are aware of or have seen in other parts of the world.

We had a few things we wanted to do that day. We were to help Lan set up an email account, she had been begging us since we got there to do that, we were to go to the market, and we were to visit Sapa village. All of Sapa was without electricity this day, so creating the email account would have to wait.
We wandered through the market admiring all the handmade goods. We met Lan’s grandmother and wondered what Lan would be doing later in her life. Was she destined to be a woman who grabs you by your arm saying “You buy from me?”? She already had a good start at this practice for her arms were filled with silver bracelets made by her father, and she would meet people and say if you buy, will you buy from me? At the market we walked through the food stalls looking at the dead chickens strung up, the slaughtered pigs, and the dogs laid out for their meat. Lan picked up some vegetables and got us some fruit to share, and the three of us hopped some motorbikes to Sapa Village.

Gambate fools!

Mel and I are going to teach ourselves to snowboard starting this week.
Here's to sore bums and eating snow!
http://www.ikenotaira.net/
That is a link to the resort I got my ski pass to...

Our last dinner, everyone's plates were decorated with amazing garnish...that is a carrot!

neil and I entering the tunnels... before getting to venture to the tunnels we were made to watch a very anti-american extremely North Vietnamese slanted video, wierd since we were in South Vietnam... but those days of S Vietnam are long forgotten