On Dec 18th we returned uneventfully to the same little hotel in Saigon. The border crossing, as I suspected, was a much larger, paved, and more sensible affair than on the other way through - we still had to hike a short distance with our bags, and have them scanned, but the steward on the bus collected passports and had them processed for us. We only had to line up once to verify that our photographs matched our faces. The scanner was interesting: the body scanner didn't work, so anyone with a snub-nose tucked in his waistband walked right through; the suitcase scanner might have been working, but there was only one operator, who pulled individual bags aside if he was suspicious, but paid no attention to the rest of the bags that flowed through on the conveyor belt while he investigated the one that concerned him.
On our first day back we went for breakfast, did laundry, and bought train tickets to Phan Thiet, from where we we would take a short bus ride to Mui Ne. There are major sand dunes, kite surfing, ocean wave surfing, and some nice beach walks there. We planned to see how much we liked being there, and that would determine when we would buy our onward tickets to Da Lat, which seemed a likely place to hole up for Christmas. Da Lat has beautiful waterfalls, gardens and scenery, although we weren't sure what season is best for the gardens.
We spent our first evening back working with Truong and with Tam. I helped Joe finish deciphering Inception, and Deb did mock interview questions with Tam to help her prepare for her IELTS exam. For some odd reason we picked the 20th as our onward train date, so we had two more days to kill in Saigon. We considered inviting Tam back for another mock interview; and hanging out in the park in the evening with all the young people and families who like to congregate when the temperature drops.
In the evenings, in many Asian cities, social life begins - sidewalks cluttered with motorcycles on blocks devoid of restaurants during the day suddenly spring to life as outdoor street cafés complete with a cook and his handcart cooking station, usually involving a wok and burner. Staff and family members set up tables and chairs and then run around serving customers and bussing the tables. There can be five or six along one short block, with no shortage of choices that include noodle dishes, pho, fried rice and other standard dishes. Meanwhile, in the park people dance, play hacky sack and badminton, or stroll with friends, and the students sit in large groups and share conversation, study tips and useful personal items. It's quite a warm and relaxed lifestyle.
At lunchtime every day, people shut down for ninety minutes or longer. They'll eat, again at sidewalk food stands, and then nap, anywhere. Some nap on the floor beside their desks at work, or they'll put up a hammock across the framing in the back of an open truck. I saw a bus driver stretched out in his cargo compartment with a comfy pillow.
At lunchtime every day, people shut down for ninety minutes or longer. They'll eat, again at sidewalk food stands, and then nap, anywhere. Some nap on the floor beside their desks at work, or they'll put up a hammock across the framing in the back of an open truck. I saw a bus driver stretched out in his cargo compartment with a comfy pillow.
I stopped at a hairdresser at 1 p.m. and unfortunately woke up the barber, his mother, two aunts and a grandmother all sound asleep in the barber chairs. He was only too happy to wake up and give me a cut for three times the going rate, according to Truong. He didn't crack a smile, and he fussed for a lot longer than I'm used to, but I was shocked at how well my hair combed after his haircut. In Cambodia I saw a number of open-walled businesses set up where there were low tables, like at an open air restaurant, but with hammocks beside each. Workers would pull in off the road for a midday lunch and a nap. It struck me as a very civilized daily routine. Mind you, the Vietnamese get up at the crack of dawn or before, often at 5 a.m., to begin their day.
Deb and I are pleasantly surprised at how comfortable we feel in Vietnam. The people are relaxed, cheerful and empathic, often laughing along with you without sharing a word of each others' languages. They celebrate Christmas, but only because it is an excuse for another party, and to make the foreign tourists feel less lonely about being away from home during Christmas. One lady was singing Jingle Bells loudly in Vietnamese in a minimart; Deborah joined in singing the English words, and the lady grabbed her arm and sauntered down the street with her, both singing in two languages. Then they both peeled with laughter and the lady said good-bye in English.
Not that we didn't enjoy the people in Cambodia, but Saigon has its own energy and the odd thing is that in spite of being part of the same peninsula and sharing a long common border, Cambodians and Vietnamese seem astonishingly different in appearance, language, religion and culture.
Crossing the street in either country is still a cheap thrill - it feels so dangerous. But in traffic there is only one rule, essentially. Drive wherever you want, across any lane, any direction, even the sidewalk; but don't hit anything or anyone, including tourists. It sounds weird to a westerner, but it works, and it keeps traffic flowing in a city that would snarl if they had to obey traffic lights and a more rigid set of rules.
Dec 20th: Our last day in Saigon was interesting. I spent hours trying to finish Chandler's Tragedy of Cambodian History, and then in the evening we sat with Tam for a few more hours prepping her for her pending oral English exam. While we were with her, the skies opened up. We sat inside a restaurant over a pot of tea and watched rain cascade down in sheets and bucket-loads. Later we waited for Joe to arrive with a gift he wanted us to deliver for him, and as we waited, there was a major brawl in the lobby of our hotel between a tour agent who worked at the front desk and some very unhappy customers. A couple of ladies took turns slapping the tour agent, and then one picked up a metal stool and whipped it at her right in front of where I was sitting. I wish I could have found out the precise details, but it is never wise to get involved in a foreign language situation like that, even with just mild curiosity.
We got up at 5 a.m. the next morning and by 5:30 we were in a hired car heading for the train station, which was actually not very far away. There was no traffic at that hour of the morning. We had worried about distance and rush hour traffic, and so we overpaid significantly for our ride, a set price. We were in our train seats a solid hour before departure! As we arrived at the train, the car attendants marched past us in perfect drill, single file, wearing caps and suits like a flight crew, and each carrying a briefcase in the same hand. They looked very paramilitary, including two young ladies in the crew.
The train ride was fine except for a very loud and rambunctious child in the seat next to me - the loudest one in the car. I usually have better luck. Still, my luck was intact when we arrived at the Phan Thiet train station and caught our bus to Mui Ne. We'd had no luck arranging a booking over the internet, so I asked the bus driver to drop us at the Mui Ne Lodge, which was a name that had stuck in my brain from the Lonely Planet guide.
Deb and I are pleasantly surprised at how comfortable we feel in Vietnam. The people are relaxed, cheerful and empathic, often laughing along with you without sharing a word of each others' languages. They celebrate Christmas, but only because it is an excuse for another party, and to make the foreign tourists feel less lonely about being away from home during Christmas. One lady was singing Jingle Bells loudly in Vietnamese in a minimart; Deborah joined in singing the English words, and the lady grabbed her arm and sauntered down the street with her, both singing in two languages. Then they both peeled with laughter and the lady said good-bye in English.
Not that we didn't enjoy the people in Cambodia, but Saigon has its own energy and the odd thing is that in spite of being part of the same peninsula and sharing a long common border, Cambodians and Vietnamese seem astonishingly different in appearance, language, religion and culture.
Crossing the street in either country is still a cheap thrill - it feels so dangerous. But in traffic there is only one rule, essentially. Drive wherever you want, across any lane, any direction, even the sidewalk; but don't hit anything or anyone, including tourists. It sounds weird to a westerner, but it works, and it keeps traffic flowing in a city that would snarl if they had to obey traffic lights and a more rigid set of rules.
Dec 20th: Our last day in Saigon was interesting. I spent hours trying to finish Chandler's Tragedy of Cambodian History, and then in the evening we sat with Tam for a few more hours prepping her for her pending oral English exam. While we were with her, the skies opened up. We sat inside a restaurant over a pot of tea and watched rain cascade down in sheets and bucket-loads. Later we waited for Joe to arrive with a gift he wanted us to deliver for him, and as we waited, there was a major brawl in the lobby of our hotel between a tour agent who worked at the front desk and some very unhappy customers. A couple of ladies took turns slapping the tour agent, and then one picked up a metal stool and whipped it at her right in front of where I was sitting. I wish I could have found out the precise details, but it is never wise to get involved in a foreign language situation like that, even with just mild curiosity.
We got up at 5 a.m. the next morning and by 5:30 we were in a hired car heading for the train station, which was actually not very far away. There was no traffic at that hour of the morning. We had worried about distance and rush hour traffic, and so we overpaid significantly for our ride, a set price. We were in our train seats a solid hour before departure! As we arrived at the train, the car attendants marched past us in perfect drill, single file, wearing caps and suits like a flight crew, and each carrying a briefcase in the same hand. They looked very paramilitary, including two young ladies in the crew.
The train ride was fine except for a very loud and rambunctious child in the seat next to me - the loudest one in the car. I usually have better luck. Still, my luck was intact when we arrived at the Phan Thiet train station and caught our bus to Mui Ne. We'd had no luck arranging a booking over the internet, so I asked the bus driver to drop us at the Mui Ne Lodge, which was a name that had stuck in my brain from the Lonely Planet guide.
We walked in with our fingers crossed and dropped our bags, but the clerk said they were full. We stacked our bags and I prepared to do "Plan B", which is when Deb sits with the bags while I hike up and down and locate a room we can live with. They range from $10 to $80 along less than a block, where we are. However, the clerk suddenly said, "Hold on!" - someone was checking out at that very moment, and fifteen minutes later we were in their room, one of a narrow little strip of bungalows with air con and hot water heaters, sketchy wifi and beach frontage.
"Ok, how much...?"
"$15," he replied.
It's the gardener's cottage compared to the rooms with stars and swimming pools a few doors away, but it has everything we need, as well as proving our friend Tony Conforti correct. He'd told us we could rent a bungalow on the beach for $15. I was skeptical - I thought, there's got to have been inflation since Tony saw those rooms - but he was right. Ours is possibly the cheapest beach-side room but there are even cheaper ones on the opposite side of the road.
There was wifi at the room, a good router, strong signal, and the owner who speaks English fluently with a U.S. accent got internet on his iPad there, but my laptop wouldn't - it read "no internet" or "internet", had five bars connection, but either way, no pages would load. If I stepped to the front office and connected to a different router, I got connected to the internet, but pages loaded very slowly. There's free wifi everywhere you go in Vietnam, but outside of Saigon, maybe it is only at dial-up speeds. We strolled the street, and stopped for a delicious lunch, which they served with complimentary tea and two quarters of dragon fruit. This is a major area for dragon fruit, and we saw the orchards all along the rail line as we approached Phan Thiet. We saw some of the other menu offerings as well - Christmas menu suggestions, perhaps.
Dec 21st: We walked along the beach this morning and saw the iconic local fishing technology: blue plastic coracles and blue fishing boats.
In the afternoon we shelled out for a private jeep and driver to see the "Mui Ne "Tour" sites. We were underwhelmed by the tour. A "Fairy Stream" was interesting - a stream of freshwater flows down a very flat hard-packed sandy bed between two steep banks of kaolin topped by oxide sand, in dramatic contrast. It would have been more magical and possibly "fairy-like" in the absence of dozens of other tourists, a modicum of garbage strewn along the banks, and a dozen bratty adolescent boys who should have been in school instead of hassling the tourists for handouts. The drivers should do something to make sure that doesn't happen to their clients.
We had a lookout over a "fishing village" (actually the fleet) which was a great view. Then we drove 50 kilometres past white sand dunes to one of several official "White Sand Dunes" areas. There was an extra charge for entry that we hadn't been warned about. Our jeep, in spite of its wide tires, didn't venture out onto the dunes; instead, we were delivered into the hands of a crew that tried to sell us half an hour on a quad for another $25. We declined, and walked to the top of the nearest dune from which we took photos of the dunes and some of those who'd succumbed to the quad experience. We had to endure the ear-splitting quads whipping by on their way up and down, but at least we weren't sitting right on top of that noise.
On the way back into town we stopped at the "Red Sand Dunes" - same sand, slightly different colour. Hundreds of kids tried to rent us plastic strips to toboggan down these, but the dunes weren't steep enough or high enough to get much of a ride, and again we declined. There were even more bratty boys present, a little brigade with sticks in this case, who teased, made fun of and harassed the tourists with mimicry and sexual lewdness, led by one particular joker of a ringleader who played to the amusement of his friends at the expense of the tourists, one young couple in particular. Their boldness was intimidating to several tourists, especially young women travelling without male companions. The ringleader took a try at me, but he got right up in my face so I stepped even closer, and growled at him, and he decided to pick on someone else. Again, I found it difficult to understand why the drivers did nothing to prevent these little shits from harassing their customers. Obviously this behaviour is going to be related to future visitors, who may choose not to take these tours, and the income is going to decline. I found it a shocking contrast to what I'd been told, and previously experienced, about the respect that younger Vietnamese show to elders.
As it was, our tour was absolutely guaranteed to last four hours, but we were delivered back to our hotel in under three, hardly impressed with what we'd been shown. The walk along the beach was free, and better, and free of harassment; there are free bicycles, or bicycles for rent, that can be used to see the "Fairy Stream" and the fishing fleet, which are just at one end of the resort strip. And there are group tours for much less cost that would take you to those and to the sand dunes.
Dinner was a success, a tasty plate of seafood noodles for Deb, a giant Tiger beer for a buck for me, and a "mango pancake" - actually a crepe with fresh mango slices and chocolate sauce.
Dec 22nd - another long walk on the beach, followed by relaxing, reading, and creating my photo album. I hadn't swum in the South China Sea yet. The water was cloudly, perhaps because of clay run-off. It is warm, but I have no idea where the effluent from the town goes, so I was hesitant.
One thing that's interesting about Mui Ne is the number of Russian tourists there are, and the signage supports them. In Saigon we noticed a lot of Australians, some Germans, some French. Here there were also French and Belgians, but the resort strip seems to be particularly Russian-friendly. Restaurant staff did their best to speak Russian, French, Chinese, Japanese and English. I've rarely had conversations with Russians. They seem relatively unsmiling - the men a bit sour and stolid, the women somehow pouting when they talk. I've watched a vlog by a young Russian woman who addressed this phenomenon after living and studying in the U.S. and then returning - she also found it remarkable, and had to make a conscious effort to slip back into her unsmiling Russian character. But the few Russians that we chatted with in Cuba who knew some English were very nice.
There was wifi at the room, a good router, strong signal, and the owner who speaks English fluently with a U.S. accent got internet on his iPad there, but my laptop wouldn't - it read "no internet" or "internet", had five bars connection, but either way, no pages would load. If I stepped to the front office and connected to a different router, I got connected to the internet, but pages loaded very slowly. There's free wifi everywhere you go in Vietnam, but outside of Saigon, maybe it is only at dial-up speeds. We strolled the street, and stopped for a delicious lunch, which they served with complimentary tea and two quarters of dragon fruit. This is a major area for dragon fruit, and we saw the orchards all along the rail line as we approached Phan Thiet. We saw some of the other menu offerings as well - Christmas menu suggestions, perhaps.
Dec 21st: We walked along the beach this morning and saw the iconic local fishing technology: blue plastic coracles and blue fishing boats.
In the afternoon we shelled out for a private jeep and driver to see the "Mui Ne "Tour" sites. We were underwhelmed by the tour. A "Fairy Stream" was interesting - a stream of freshwater flows down a very flat hard-packed sandy bed between two steep banks of kaolin topped by oxide sand, in dramatic contrast. It would have been more magical and possibly "fairy-like" in the absence of dozens of other tourists, a modicum of garbage strewn along the banks, and a dozen bratty adolescent boys who should have been in school instead of hassling the tourists for handouts. The drivers should do something to make sure that doesn't happen to their clients.
We had a lookout over a "fishing village" (actually the fleet) which was a great view. Then we drove 50 kilometres past white sand dunes to one of several official "White Sand Dunes" areas. There was an extra charge for entry that we hadn't been warned about. Our jeep, in spite of its wide tires, didn't venture out onto the dunes; instead, we were delivered into the hands of a crew that tried to sell us half an hour on a quad for another $25. We declined, and walked to the top of the nearest dune from which we took photos of the dunes and some of those who'd succumbed to the quad experience. We had to endure the ear-splitting quads whipping by on their way up and down, but at least we weren't sitting right on top of that noise.
On the way back into town we stopped at the "Red Sand Dunes" - same sand, slightly different colour. Hundreds of kids tried to rent us plastic strips to toboggan down these, but the dunes weren't steep enough or high enough to get much of a ride, and again we declined. There were even more bratty boys present, a little brigade with sticks in this case, who teased, made fun of and harassed the tourists with mimicry and sexual lewdness, led by one particular joker of a ringleader who played to the amusement of his friends at the expense of the tourists, one young couple in particular. Their boldness was intimidating to several tourists, especially young women travelling without male companions. The ringleader took a try at me, but he got right up in my face so I stepped even closer, and growled at him, and he decided to pick on someone else. Again, I found it difficult to understand why the drivers did nothing to prevent these little shits from harassing their customers. Obviously this behaviour is going to be related to future visitors, who may choose not to take these tours, and the income is going to decline. I found it a shocking contrast to what I'd been told, and previously experienced, about the respect that younger Vietnamese show to elders.
As it was, our tour was absolutely guaranteed to last four hours, but we were delivered back to our hotel in under three, hardly impressed with what we'd been shown. The walk along the beach was free, and better, and free of harassment; there are free bicycles, or bicycles for rent, that can be used to see the "Fairy Stream" and the fishing fleet, which are just at one end of the resort strip. And there are group tours for much less cost that would take you to those and to the sand dunes.
Dinner was a success, a tasty plate of seafood noodles for Deb, a giant Tiger beer for a buck for me, and a "mango pancake" - actually a crepe with fresh mango slices and chocolate sauce.
Dec 22nd - another long walk on the beach, followed by relaxing, reading, and creating my photo album. I hadn't swum in the South China Sea yet. The water was cloudly, perhaps because of clay run-off. It is warm, but I have no idea where the effluent from the town goes, so I was hesitant.
One thing that's interesting about Mui Ne is the number of Russian tourists there are, and the signage supports them. In Saigon we noticed a lot of Australians, some Germans, some French. Here there were also French and Belgians, but the resort strip seems to be particularly Russian-friendly. Restaurant staff did their best to speak Russian, French, Chinese, Japanese and English. I've rarely had conversations with Russians. They seem relatively unsmiling - the men a bit sour and stolid, the women somehow pouting when they talk. I've watched a vlog by a young Russian woman who addressed this phenomenon after living and studying in the U.S. and then returning - she also found it remarkable, and had to make a conscious effort to slip back into her unsmiling Russian character. But the few Russians that we chatted with in Cuba who knew some English were very nice.
Next entry: Delightful Da Lat
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