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Hebe, Chen and Irriwaddy Dolphins in Kratie, Cambodia
We left Phnom Pensh by bus, heading north to Laos. But we made a stop at a small town called Kratie, the only place where you are guaranteed to see the rare (almost extinct) Irriwaddy dolphin. It was in Kratie that we met Hebe (Heebee) and Chen, two travellers from Shenzhen China.
Hebe is one of the most wonderful young women I have met – beautiful, energetic, positive – and very outgoing! She won my heart when she told me, the second time we got together, that she thought, when she first met me, that I must be a movie star because I was so 'elegant!' Imagine!
Hebe and Chen and Doug and I went together to see the Irriwaddy dolphins. We managed to rent the only tuk-tuk in Kratie (it was that or renting motorcycles), and were therefore able to enjoy the beautiful half-hour ride along the Meking River and through rural countryside and small villages to where the dolphins can be spotted.
The four of us got into a little Mekong River boat with a long-tail motor, and our driver ferried us out into the middle of the river. Then he cut the engine and we floated silently about, waiting to catch a glimpse of a dolphin.
We were not disappointed. We saw many dolphins, or maybe the same few dolphins many times. They're not the leaping and jumping variety of dolphin: they stay mostly under water, just surfacing long enough to breathe. But it was lovely drifting about there in the mighty Mekong, especially as the sun was slowly sinking, casting an orange-pink glow over everything.
Hebe gets an anti-tetanus shot
Not long before we met her, Hebe had managed to walk into a metal bar and cut her forehead. She was sporting a sizable gauze bandage on her forehead. I managed to convince her that she should get a tetanus shot, but arranging it, in a small town like Kratie, wasn't easy.
As luck would have it, we met Susan, a New Zealand health care worker who was volunteering in Kratie for a year. She directed me to a clinic that she said ought to have anti-tetanus vaccine. When I went to the clinic, a group of people were clustered around a stretcher watching as a man pumped the chest of a young girl. His technique was like none other I've seen. But the girl remained inert.
Eventually a guy (her father?) picked her up and, holding her in his arms, got on the back of a motorcycle. Another guy, who was holding a bag of IV fluid that was hooked up to her arm, got on behind them. And then all four of them headed off to the hospital. She remained completely inert. I still wonder if she made it... .
I managed to talk to an 'assistant doctor' at the clinic, and arranged for Hebe to get an anti-tetanus shot from a midwife who was working at a doctor's office a few blocks away. Hebe was taken there on the back of a motorcycle driven by a guy who worked at the restaurant that we were all having dinner at, and where I'd met Susan. Susan, bless her soul, went along with them to hold Hebe's hand – and to make sure she actually got the shot!
Over dinner, and breakfast the next morning, Hebe and Chen mapped out a China itinerary for us – and invited us to come visit them in Shenzhen, where they both live. Chen's done quite a lot of travelling in China, and been to Tibet twice, so he knew where to go and how to get there. But he speaks no English, so Hebe acted as interpreter.
Crossing from Cambodia to Laos: A 'Frontier' Border Post
Hebe and Chen were on their way north, heading for Don Det Island, one of the “Four Thousand Islands” in the Mekong River in southern Laos. We were heading in the same direction, so we decided to go together. We got a mini-bus north to the Cambodia-Laos border.
The border was just a couple of shacks, one on either side of a desolate stretch of pavement. The Cambodian side was slightly more organized than the Lao side. We stopped first at the Cambodian side to get our passports 'stamped out.' Two uniformed border guards were sitting in the shack. They studied all of our passports carefully, doing their best to read our names and nationalities, and copying them carefully into their big ledger books. They fleeced us all for a US$1 'stamp fee,' which of course goes straight into their pockets – for cigarettes and beer.
As we were being 'stamped out,' several tourists were coming from Laos and being 'stamped in.' But not the three young black fellows from Guinea-Bissau. The Cambodian border guards refused them entry without even looking at their passports. This infuriated a German gal who was travelling in our mini-bus. She took those guards on, demanding to know why they weren't letting the Guineau-Bissauans into Cambodia. “This looks like discrimination!”
The guys from Guinea-Bissau had gotten their Cambodian visas in Vientiane. They furthermore had special 'visa on entry' stamps in their passports. So their papers will all in order. But the Cambodians were determined to deny them entry: “This is just a small border post. We don't have a computer to check their passports. You don't know our country. Their visas could be false. They could overstay their visas. They have to go back to Vientiane and fly to Phnom Penh or Siem Reap where they have computers and can do everything to check.”
The German girl carried on arguing for some time, with a few of the rest of us chiming in. Eventually a head-honcho came out of a building out back and made it clear that the Guinea-Bissau boys weren't going to be passing through this border. His reason was more compelling: “If I let these men in and they cause trouble, then I will be in trouble because it is my responsibility.” Indeed. One doesn't want to disobey orders if one is a government worker in Cambodia. “Off with his head!”
Before we left I had a quiet chat with the head-honcho, thanking him for explaining the situation to us and assuring him that we understood. His expression changed from hostile to charming with my first 'thank-you,' and by the time we parted he was shaking my hand warmly and thanking me.
We walked across the no-man's land that separates Cambodia from Laos, and stopped at the even cruder hut on the Lao side, where a sleepy guard stamped us in, for another US$1. He'd no sooner finished with us than he was off to a nearby palapa for a little lunch with his family. Meanwhile we waited for a bus to appear to take us to Don Det.
Don Det Island: Hot, hot, hot!
The mini-bus took us to the 'ferry landing' for Don Det and Don Khone islands. 'Ferry landing' is perhaps too formal a word. A stretch of beach with a few bamboo shacks, mostly selling drinks and snacks, and a gaggle of long-tail boats and boatmen waiting to take us across.
Two members of our group were heading for Don Khone, and the rest of us for Don Det. Nevertheless, the boatmen put the two in the larger boat, and were making to load the rest of us in the smaller boat when I pointed to our small mountain of luggage and suggested, in sign language, that perhaps the larger boat would be more suitable. It would also be safer: Mekong River boats are basically leaky canoes with unreliable engines.
We got to Don Det. The boatmen leapt out without so much as a backward glance, not even pulling the boat fully into shore. It was up to us to unload ourselves and our luggage... . The beach we'd landed on, the only real 'beach' on the island, was strewn with cement hydro-poles in disorganized piles – they looked like big pick-up sticks. Some guys were shovelling sand into woven plastic bags. There were a few board planks lying a little further up the beach – we later saw that these were meant for carts and motorcyclists. Considering its status as a tourist destination island, this was hardly an welcoming sight.
We managed to find a room, although the places near the 'beach' were pretty full of young back-packers. We were decidedly older than most of the travellers there. We did meet some other golden-oldies – a Canadian couple from Calgary – who we palled around with a bit. The four of us rented bicycles one day and did a little ride round the island and down to the island of Don Khone, connected to Don Det by an old railway bridge.
Unfortunately Don Det was just too hot to stay for any length of time. The island has no electricity (yet, it's coming – hence the poles), which is wonderful most of the time, but deadly in one important respect: there's no fan at night! And the river breezes weren't reliable or strong enough to keep us cool, even with all of the windows open in our little bungalow.
Don Det Wildlife
We lasted for three days – and nights. It was mostly a lazy time, lounging about and swimming (mouths closed) in the Mekong River. But there was one moment of high excitement: a snake under the stairs of a restaurant we'd just had dinner in. We were just about to descend the three or four stairs to the dirt road when one of the restaurant workers motioned for us to stop.
He was crouching at the bottom of the stairs, using a flashlight and poking at something with a long stick. At one point he motioned for us to come down along one side of the stairs. When we got to ground level we could see the very large snake under the stairs. It was at least six feet long, yellow and black striped in broad bands. It's head and tail ends looked the same.
Quite a crowd gathered to watch as two guys tried to poke and prod the snake to get it to go away (they didn't seem to care much where). At one point the snake struck out towards them, and everyone jumped back. I asked a woman if she knew the name of the snake in English. She didn't. But she did say that it was a very dangerous snake. “If it bites you, ten minutes and you are dead.”
Apparently if locals see this snake in the night it is good luck, but if they see it in the day, it is bad luck, and they have to go to the temple and pray. Fortunately the snake did move off, but it was sobering to know that we were sharing this small island with such a dangerous snake. I also saw my first scorpion (ever!) on Don Det. It was in the shower with me one morning, advancing towards my foot with its tail curled up. It took me a few seconds to realize what it was – but only a nanosecond to get out of there!
From Don Det to Champasak
Our next destination in Laos was Champasak, a small town on the 'other side' of the Mekong which was reputed to be pretty and had the added attraction of an Angkor-era wat to visit nearby. Getting off Don Det was easy – another boat ride with too many people and too much stuff, the water level dangerously close to the gunwales of the boat, but we made it.
The scene with buses on the other side was hilarious, frustrating, and terribly Lao. Many boat people were arriving from Don Det and Don Khone. We all wanted to go to different destinations: Champasak, Pakse (a larger town further north), Vientiane, and Ubon, in Thailand (by way of Pakse). Not that complicated really, but.... this is Laos.
There were three buses. None of them had signs on them. A few guys asked all of us disembarking boat people where we were heading (by giving us a choice of destinations: 'Pakse?' 'Ubon?'), and then directing us to one bus or another. We all boarded the buses while they went off into a little snack bar and sat down to have a drink. We sat and waited. We could see wads of money changing hands.
After quite some time of waiting, all the while getting hotter and sweatier in the stifling buses, one of the guys came over and asked us all again where we were going. It seemed some of us had been mis-directed. So those people were told to get off the bus, get their gear, and get on another bus. Then we waited again while the locals had another snack bar confab.
Again one of them came out and asked us where we were going. And again some of us were asked to change buses. This happened three times. Some people changed buses three times. (We were lucky – we didn't change at all.) Three-quarters of an hour later the guys were satisfied we were all in the right place, and all three buses took off, slowly, up the hill. The Laos are not known for their organizational capabilities.
The Boat to Champasak
The mini-bus dropped us at the 'ferry landing' (only slightly larger than the one to Don Det and Don Khone islands) to Champasak. His parting words were: “two boats, one big, one small; both boats
5000 kip” (about $1). We looked around. We could see one 'big boat' – three river boat hulls topped with a large wooden platform – big enough to carry several cars; and several small boats. But none of them seemed in any danger of departing any time soon.
There were the usual snack shacks by the ferry landing. Several Lao people were standing around in the shade of one of them. We headed there, hoping for info, and maybe a drink. One of them spoke a little English.
“Are you waiting for a boat to Champasak?” Doug asked. “Yes, waiting,” said the best-dressed guy in the bunch. He was wearing a clean short-sleeved shirt.
“When is the boat going?” Doug asked. This drew a round of guffaws from the assembled group. Apparently it was a funny question. “We don't know,” the guy said. “Maybe soon.” He looked in the direction of the big ferry.
“Are there small boats going?” Doug, undaunted, persisted. “Maybe going, but maybe big boat go first,” clean shirt replied.
“How much are the boats?” Doug asked. “Ten thousand for small boat, one thousand for big boat,” was the answer. “We'll wait for the big boat,” Doug said. They all laughed again.
All of a sudden the big boat's engine fired up, and we hustled across the uneven dirt lot, dragging our bags behind us. We boarded the boat and stood with the rest of the passengers on a covered side-platform, right beside the captain's steering wheel. We watched, and felt the boat sinking lower into the water, as the three vehicles drove aboard. Then the boatmen hand-cranked the little wooden loading ramp up just enough that it was clear of the river bank, and we started off.
One of the boatmen came round collecting the fares. The Laotians gave him 1000 kip each. Doug gave him 2000 kip for the two of us. He accepted it without comment, but then came back around demanding 5000 kip for each of us. Doug said “no,” and pointed to all the Laos, saying “one thousand, one thousand, one thousand.” He started to insist, but Doug just turned away. Discussion over. So on this occasion we paid the same price as locals – often we pay five to ten times as much.
It was a remarkably awkward and ungainly boat. But it got us there. And clean shirt offered us a ride to our hotel in the back of his pick-up. He drove in the usual Lao style – as fast as road and vehicle would allow – and we sat on the floor of the truck's box, hanging on to the sides and hoping we didn't have far to go.
Champasak
Champasak is a great little village with only one main road. We did a couple of bicycle rides through rice paddies and even smaller villages. We also cycled to what remains of Wat Phu, a pre-Angkorian ruin which was a little disappointing after Angkor Wat, but set in a charming landscape.
Our hotel was right on the Mekong, and we sat at the little restaurant overlooking the river at breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food was so-so, and the service just plain hopeless. Here in the south the Laotians are exceptionally diffident. It's hard to get any attention, at a restaurant or guest house.
One morning as we were sitting drinking our coffee and tea we noticed that the restaurant's garbage was being tossed over the railing onto the banks of the river. We watched as a young boy picked up several plastic bags filled with garbage and tossed them into the river. Apparently that was his job. The bags floated, only a few feet off shore, and were still there the next day.
The Mekong is used as both sewer and garbage dump by all of the people who live along it. It is also used for washing (dishes, clothes and cars0 and bathing, and of course as a source of drinking water. When we took the boat back across the river we saw a woman dip a big cup into the river and chug-a-lug the water it down. No surprise that diarrheal diseases are common here, and are especially lethal in children.
Tadlo
From Champasak we went up the Mekong (by bus, not boat) to Pakse, a reasonably large city with nothing particularly to commend it. There was a good Indian restaurant which got us thinking again about going back to India. We went to the Vietnamese embassy and were told that we didn't need to get a visa in advance; we could get one at Lao Bao, the boarder crossing we're going through.
So no waiting around there, we headed, by local bus, up to Tadlo. Tadlo is a very small village – a collection of villages really – set in a pretty hill-and-dale landscape. It's known for its waterfalls and its ethnic villages – a good place for 'trekking' and for elephant rides. We were hoping it would be a good place to spend a week or more.
Our guest house had a lovely restaurant overlooking the falls and the little river below it. We spent hours sitting there yakking with other travellers and watching as adults and kids waded into the river turning over rocks looking for frogs or used nets to catch small fish. Sometimes they'd wear swim-masks, standing bent over double, bottoms up and heads down on the surface of the water, looking for fish. At night they'd hunt and fish with lights strapped to their foreheads. The river was alive with little lights – no rest for fish nor frog in these waters!
We were told it was frog season while we were there – frogs are in hibernation, so not eating, and nothing in their stomachs. Apparently they're most delectable when their stomachs are empty. We saw little frogs being sold live, in big washtubs, at the markets, being grilled on Lao bucket-barbecues, and dried and skewered on sticks. With such intensive harvesting, it's amazing there's a frog left in Tadlo.
We also watched groups of kids with long bamboo poles roving around peering up at the trees. They were hunting for big cicadas, which amazingly are still plentiful, and very noisy. They'd spear them and either eat them live or pop them into a small basket or bottle and take them home to be deep fried for dinner. One of the kids offered us a fat, wiggling, winged cicada but we weren't hungry at the time.
The falls were pretty enough, and it was fun to watch the kids playing in the little pools and rapids, jumping off the rocks and shooting a few yards down the river. But it was difficult to enjoy all of this without being pestered by poor village kids who have come to associate foreigners with hand-outs. They'd swarm foreigners, demanding pens, candy, food, and balloons. Some were even so bold as to open zippers on day-packs and purses, quickly snaking their little hands inside to see what they could find.
This kind of begging is one of the saddest impacts of tourism in southeast Asia. Every time we see a foreigner giving candy, pens and money to kids we cringe. We are responsible for getting them hooked on begging. On the other hand, it's hard to see these dirty, skinny little waifs, to know that they are in fact hungry, and not to feel the urge to give them something... .
Our First Elephant Ride – and Likely our Last!
There was an upscale lodge just up the hill from where we were staying. They had a couple of elephants that they used for tourist rides. As neither of us had been on an elephant, and the forest around Tadlo was green and lush, we decided to take one. We were disappointed, first because of the somnolence of the mahout, who couldn't rouse himself enough to greet us, and spent the ride with his head bowed, sleeping, except when the elephant, equally somnolent, hesitated. Then the mahout would stir just long enough to kick the elephant's ears to make it plod on.
We came to the conclusion that the elephant was tired, likely because it was not getting enough to eat. There was no food, other than a few bunches of bananas, on the little hill that it hung out on during the day. No grass, no palm or bamboo leaves. Elephants generally eat almost non-stop – they have to to maintain their body weight.
Another disappointing aspect of the elephant ride was that we passed through acres of logged and burned jungle – almost no 'pristine wilderness.' And we lumbered through a desperately poor 'ethnic village' which was littered with old construction materials, rubbish and satellite dishes. There were no 'ethnic' handcrafts for sale, no snack bars where we could buy a drink, no way for visiting tourists to contribute to the economy of the village. This was disappointing and distressing: we felt like voyeurs – well-healed foreigners gawking at primitive dirt-poor villagers. We were glad when the ride ended.
Tadlo was almost overrun with ttavellers and tourists. It was here that we met Babsi, a young woman from Germany who'd just had a motorcycle accident. Her arm was badly scraped, with signs of infection in several places. She'd seen a 'doctor' in Tadlo, but little had been done. (Health care is very rudimentary in Laos and Cambodia.) So together we washed the worst spots, picked out some of the road grit, and sprayed the area liberally with antiseptic. By the time we left her arm was looking pretty good.
It was here that we also met Ali, a forty-something year-old Canadian woman from Calgary who had quit her job with an oil company, sold her house, and taken off on what she calls her 'runaway travels.' She'd even changed her name! She was bright and sparkly with an infectious laugh. I admired her spunk: travelling as a woman alone is not easy, but she was enjoying every minute of it.
And we met a Swedish couple who were running out of money. The ATM in Vientiane hadn't been working when they were there, and Tadlo was a little pricier than they expected. We lent them $20 worth of Kip to get them to Savannakhet where both we and they were headed.
From Tadlo to Savannakhet – On the Banana Daquiri Express
We only stayed in Tadlo for a few days. The day before we left we took a walk to the main road, and were yakking with a group of travellers that were waiting for a bus into Pakse. The bus came along and stopped. A woman in a pink blouse jumped out and said “Pakse?' Vientiane?” We were wanting to go to Savannakhet, another town between Pakse and Vientiane. We'd been thinking we'd have to take a bus to Pakse, overnight there again, and then find a bus to take us on to Savannakhet. I decided to ask: “Savannakhet?” She nodded yes. “Tomorrow?” She nodded again.
So the next day we were waiting at the stop when the bus swung around the curve and came to a shuddering halt beside us. On top of the roof, wo goats that were standing, bracing themselves against the motion. Now it's not uncommon for buses to carry livestock – local buses double as cargo trucks and carry anything and everything. But usually animals are hog-tied, and securely roped to the roof. These goats had just a rope around their necks, the end tied to a railing on the roof. One slip and they'd be over the side, hung and strangled in seconds.
The pink lady greeted us again. “Savannakhet!” we beamed. “Savannakhet!” she confirmed. Six of us got on – the Swedish couple, a Canadian couple from Moncton New Brunswick, and us. The Canadian couple, Nancy and Terry, were heading for Pakse, where they planned to get another bus to Savannakhet – they didn't know they could get a direct bus. Within a half hour we'd convinced them to carry on with us to Savannakhet. But by this time they'd already paid for their tickets to Pakse, about a third of what we and the Swedes paid to get to Savannakhet. And the amazing thing was that, despite the fact that their tickets were checked at least three more times before we got to Savannakhet, they never had to pay up the difference. This was one occasion where the Laos' inability to read worked in favour of the foreigner!
The bus ride to Savannakhet was one of the most memorable rides ever. We changed buses in Pakse, and after the usual false starts – leaving the bus station only to stop several times within the first half-hour to pick up too many passengers and too much cargo, then stopping to get diesel fuel (with the bus running and all of us sweltering inside) – we were finally on the road to Savannakhet, a ride which should have taken around three hours.
But...it took more like five – or six. This was because we made two lengthy stops. The first, about an hour and a half after we started, was in a small town which apparently is famous for its Lao Lao whiskey. Lao Lao is made from glutinous rice. It's plentiful, and potent, but not necessarily pleasing to the palate! We loaded around 40 plastic containers – 7 gallons or so apiece – onto and into the bus.
The first 20 jugs of Lao Lao went up onto the roof, just in front of several bunches of bananas, which prompted Terry to rename our bus the 'Banana Daiquiri Express.' The next 20 went inside the bus – down the aisle and in the back seats – where passengers sat on them for the rest of the trip.
The second stop, around an hour later, was to pick up 50-60 piglets. They were crammed into four loosely woven baskets by the side of the road. But they were loaded, onto the roof of the bus, mostly one by one. Several men and boys worked together, grabbing pigs out of the baskets by their back legs and handing them up to a guy on the bus' ladder, and by him to a couple of guys on the roof.
The first 20 or so pigs were thrown (literally) into a nylon bag. Once the first basket was empty, it was passed up onto the roof, and the pigs in the bag were tossed (again literally, and none too gently) from bag to basket. For their part, the pigs squealed in noisy protest the entire time. Their Lao loaders seemed to think this was hysterically funny – no sympathy for animals here! We 'falangs' (foreigners) just stood around photographing the whole spectacle.
So now we had the makings of a great barbecue on board – banana daiquiris and roast pork. Very reassuring in case of breakdown!
Savannakhet
We arrived in Savannakhet after dark. The Swedes, Terry and Nancy and we all went to the same hotel, a place that didn't look like much, but had mercifully soft beds. We'd been suffering through the nights on rock hard beds for weeks. “Beds like a farmer's field, with furrows,” as Doug described them. Just before lights out the Swedish couple knocked on our door and repaid us our loan to them – along with a little package of chocolate coins, tied up with a pink bow! First chocolate we've had on the trip!
Nancy, Terry and we didn't stay long in Savannakhet. We did however decide to drop in at the Vietnamese consulate there, and were told in no uncertain terms that we did need a visa for Vietnam – the guy in Pakse had mis-advised us on that score. So we put in our applications and said we'd pick them up in a few days... .
Terry, Nancy an we were all planning to go north to see the famed Konglor Cave, a seven kilometer long cave that goes right through a mountain – and has a river running through it that can be navigated by (small) boat. This meant first going to Tha Khaek by bus, and then somehow (our guidebooks weren't clear about how) getting to a little village named Na Him, which is about 40 km from the cave (no word on exactly how to get there either).
Getting to Na Him: How Much Will That Be?
The bus ride to Tha Khaek was comparatively sedate – just the usual stops for fuel and food. Once we got to our guest house, we were able to get a little more info about Konglor Cave. We read, in the guest house comment book, that there was a wonderful new 'resort' just 4 km from the village of Na Him. Definitely worth going to at least for lunch, if not to stay. We decided we'd stay there.
In terms of getting to Na Him the receptionist at the guest house told us we could hire a minibus to take us to the cave, and bring us back, all in one day, for a mere US$400. We demurred, stating that we actually wanted to spend a few days there. “Oh well, you can take a bus to Na Him. It goes from the station down the road.”
The next morning, down the road we went. When we got to the station, it was just a sea of sawngthaews (song-taos), small pick-up trucks with bench seats down the long sides of the box and a canopy over top – the most common 'buses' in Laos. We must have looked like a bunch of deer in the headlights. A waiting baguette-seller asked “Na Him?” and we all nodded and enthusiastic “yes!”
She lead us to one of the sawngthaews and motioned for us to get in. We asked the driver how much he wanted to take us to Na Him. “Forty thousand kip (around $8)” he said. “Forty thousand, forty thousand, forty thousand, forty thousand,” he repeated, pointing at each of us in turn. “Forty thousand!” we exclaimed. “We can go by bus to Savannakhet for forty thousand!” He just smiled.
We suggested ten thousand for each of us, mimicking his sign language and pointing to each of us, saying “ten thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand, ten thousand.” “No” was all he said.
We realized that we had no idea how far Na Him actually was from Tha Khaek, or where exactly we were going. Time to consult our Lonely Planet bible. As Doug searched through that, I got out a notebook that I'd written some info in. As we looked at our books and pointed at various place names, the driver peered over our shoulder. He of course could not read or understand English; indeed it's doubtful he could read Lao – few Laos can read or write.
In the end I decided to try our best negotiating gambit. I got out a 50,000 kip note and held it out towards him, pointing to Doug, and then myself. “Him and me, two persons,” I added. He took the 50,000, then rummaged around in his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. Then he handed me back a 20,000 kip note! Terry and Nancy did likewise, with the same results. So we all paid 15,000 apiece – a long way from 40,000! We figured the guy, seeing us consulting our guidebook, somehow knew what the fare should be: the gig was up.
As it turned out, the ride was some 145 km and three hours long, the last half, heading inland, up over a couple of small mountain passes and into a beautiful valley. The village of Na Him was just a dirty conglomeration of wood and bamboo shacks – definitely not an inspiring place and not somewhere any of us wanted to stay. Terry went to a pharmacy to use the phone to call the resort. Yes they had two bungalows free. He didn't ask the price. We just hired a sawngthaew and headed out.
The Sainamhai Resort and Vongsamay: Not A Man to Let the Moss Grow Under His Feet!
The Sainamhai Resort was incredible. We all felt like we'd died and gone to heaven. Lovely new wood and bamboo bungalows set in a beautiful garden landscape on the banks of a little river. Soft beds, hot water, reading lights, screens on the windows, and an open-air restaurant overlooking the river. Laughing children playing in the river, smiling and waving and not asking for anything. A friendly host, Vongsamay, who spoke good English.
We ended up having a long chat with Vongsamay. He was from a poor family, one of nine boys, whose father died when he was young. One of his older brothers went to Vientiane to school, and when he started working he sent for his mother and the rest of his brothers to come to Vientiane and live with him. He supported the whole family as the rest of the kids went to school.
Vongsamay was chosen by his government to go to Cuba for higher education. He was allowed to pick from several fields he could study – accounting, business, architecture. He chose architecture. He lived and studied in Camaguey, Cuba from 1982 until 1987 - “the best years in Cuba” he said. The Cuban government paid for everything – his flights there and back, his room and board, his clothes, his books, and even his vacations. He has very fond memories of Cuba and the time he spent there.
When he came back to Laos he became involved in designing and overseeing the construction of buildings associated with the many hydro-electric projects that have been undertaken by the Lao government, all in conjunction with international consultants. Now he's the site facilities manager at the hydro dam near Na Him, which is just about to undergo a major expansion: 2-3,000 workers will be coming to live on site soon, and staying for the next five years.
But Vongsamay is not content to work full time at this job. He's already thinking about the future, about his retirement (he's almost 50), and about how he will continue to provide for his family – his wife and three daughters. He's certain that the Na Him area is going to see a big increase in tourism – a new bridge is being built across the Mekong River, from Tha Khaek to Thailand; the nearby road from Vietnam to Laos is seeing more and more traffic; and there's a new road to Konglor Cave, which the Lao government is promoting as a major tourist attraction.
So Vongsamay bought two hectares of land on the river, and started building his restaurant and bungalows. And he's done a lovely job. His resort was among the nicest places we came across in Laos. He's already enjoying considerable success, with group tour bookings and tourists like us, who come for one night and end up staying for three or four.
International Women's Day
As it happened, International Women's Day was the day after we arrived at Sainamhai Resort. They were planning a party and invited us to join in. As we were having breakfast I heard a kid bleating forlornly out back of the restaurant. I went and peeked over the railing to see if it had lost its mother. It was hanging from a tree awaiting the knife. We'd be having goat for lunch.
The guests arrived – mostly family and co-workers of Vongsamay's – and the women busied themselves in the kitchen (this is how they celebrate I.W. Day!) while the men sat around drinking beer. The main dish was 'Lao spaghetti' – noodles with chopped fresh greens (mint, coriander and beans) and a thin meat sauce (goat juice?). There were also plates of goat meat, a little on the tough side. And a plate of congealed goat's blood with lime juice and coriander. But the piece de resistance was a small dish of goat's testicles. Again, sadly, we were much too full for either the blood or the testicles. (I had three platefuls of spaghetti that day.)
The party ended early, but the 'falangs,' who hadn't been busy in the kitchen all day, weren't as tired as Vongsamay and his wife. So we stayed up telling travellers' tales, trying to outdo one another with our goofiest, stupidest and scariest stories. We'd been joined by this time by yet another Canadian, Graham from Vancouver who works in Yellowknife, and who's done a lot of travelling (every chance he gets he's gone). It was fun being in the company of other travellers – we haven't done much of that yet on this trip.
Konglor Cave
It turned out to be a little more difficult arranging to get to Konglor Cave than we had thought it would be. In the end we had to hire a 'private' sawngthaew to take us there and bring us back – for the hefty sum of $50 Canadian. Fortunately the drive out there (and back) was fabulous. We went through a beautiful valley carpeted in rice paddies and tobacco fields, with patches of deciduous forest, all enclosed by black saw-tooth topped mountains. Our ride out there was made more interesting by a detour we made into a very small village, off-roading through the 'yards' of bamboo-shack-on-stilt houses, to drop off our driver's baby. (None of us had even seen the baby when we got into the sawngthaew!)
The ride through the cave was entertaining, to say the least. We had to take two boats, because the river is so shallow in spots that if there are more than four people to a boat it bottoms out. In several places we had to get out anyway, and wade through the river as our two boatmen portaged the boat over a rocky spot. All of this in the pitch blackness, lit up only by the pitlamps on our drivers' heads.
We stopped in one spot where there were some interesting stalagmites and stalactites, dramatically floodlit. We struggled in our wet flip-flops up the slippery rocks of the cave and along perilous paths to get a better view of these beauties. On the way back I noticed that the flood-lights had been turned off. Presumably there were no more tourists coming through.
About half-way through the cave we came upon another boat that was disabled due to a broken starter cord on the engine. We stopped, Terry and Nancy's boat stopped, and our four boatmen and the two boatmen from the disabled boat all stood around with their headlamps surveying the situation. Then one of them went off down the river, and came back with a skinny little length of reed or wood. He used it to fish around inside the housing for the cord until he managed to pull the end out, and restart the engine.
Seven kilometers and about an hour after we entered the cave we came out on the other side of the mountain to a lush forested valley – it was almost like an appartition. There were the usual collection of snack shacks there, but we contented ourselves with strolling about admiring the trees and giving our bums a rest from the hard seats of the boats.
The trip back through the cave was rather faster as we were now moving with the flow of the river, and there were no stops. When we got to the other end, we noticed that there were dozens of locals getting into boats – including a bunch of school kids. The boats were carrying not only six or more people per boat, but also cases of beer and bags of who knows what. I guess it's just the tourists that can only have two to a boat... .
Back to Savannakhet
We left Na Him early the next morning, hitching a ride to the 'main' road with three dam workers who were staying at the resort until their accommodation is finished. We stood on the road for around an hour, waiting for a bus to come by. A sawngthaew stopped and the driver asked us if we wanted to go to Tha Khaek – for 50,000 riel. We all just laughed.
Then out jumped a dapper-looking fellow who came up and said: “Hello, where are you trying to go?” Perfect English. We told him that two of us (Doug and I) were trying to get to Savannakhet, and two (Nancy and Terry) to Vientiane, and that we understood that there would be a bus coming down the road, hopefully sometime soon, going to Vientiane. “Yes, the bus to Vientiane will be coming soon,” he agreed.
“So we can all take that bus, and the two of us who want to go to Savannakhet can just get out when we reach the junction with the highway...?” “No, no, that is not possible,” he said. “You cannot go to the junction. You have to take a sawngthaew.” He gestured toward the sawngthaew. It was absolutely jam-packed, and even though we knew they'd all move over for us, it looked like one uncomfortable ride. And anyway, we weren't going to pay 50,000. So we just smiled and said “no thanks.”
The bus arrived shortly after and we all got on. “Vientiane?” asked the swamper-ticket taker guy. “Yes for two; the other two to the junction – route 13.” “O.K.” he said, and stowed our luggage in the compartment. No problem – of course.
When we got out at the junction the guy asked Doug for 75,000 kip each! Doug gave him 50,000 for the two of us, and he said “O.K., O.K.” And that was that.
We had just enough time for a quick bowl of soup at a roadside cafe before the bus to Tha Kheak rolled to a stop. It was deluxe – pleated floral-patterned curtains, air-con that actually worked, and pretty good suspension to boot. One of the most comfortable rides we had in Laos. Unfortunately it was short – just to Tha Khaek, where we changed to another bus with even fancier gold silk tassle-bordered curtains, but air-con that didn't work, and windows that didn't open. We sweltered for the remaining three hours of the journey, arriving in Savannakhet drenched with sweat.
Our Last Supper in Laos
We picked up our Vietnam visas the next day. Then we walked around town a bit, visited a big wat with a lovely garden filled with all sorts of exotic plants, and watched some guys making cement Buddhas. A woman was making Buddha hair-curls in a mould. Doug asked her if she could make some for him.
Then we walked down to the river and sat for a while enjoying the breeze. It was only just slightly cooling. We decided we'd get the remote control for the air-con in our room that night. Neither of us had slept much the night before: it was just too hot.
We decided to walk along the river for a bit, and spied a fancy-looking house-boat restaurant below us. We went down to check it out. It was beautifully done, and had a great menu. So we went back there for dinner – our last supper in Laos, and our good-bye to the Mighty Mekong, at least for now.
We had a scorchingly spicy salad and a nice grilled Mekong River fish. Just as we were finishing a waiter came out with a big paper box-shaped balloon. He lit a container of sterno, upended the balloon on top of it, and then held the balloon in place while it filled with hot air. As it began to float he let it go, and it rose into the dark sky and drifted off down the river, getting higher and higher, until it looked much like one of the stars it was drifting towards.
Good-bye Savannakhet! Good-bye Laos! Hello – again - Vietnam!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Cambodia Jan. 24 - Feb. 15, 2009
Cambodia's been a bit of a bumpy ride. Although there are parts of it we have really enjoyed, there are parts that have been, well, very challenging. Perhaps the most difficult thing to cope with has been the tremendous contrast between the nouveau-riche Cambodians, all with their 4WD Lexuses, which are literally a dime a dozen here – as many as a dozen in one city block – and the abject poverty of the urban poor, the street people, and the endless streams of beggars.
We are trying to understand the wealthy Cambodians' drive to show off by buying expensive cars, clothes and jewelry as part of the larger dynamic of social dysfunction in a country where, just 30 years ago, a ruthless dictator imprisoned, tortured and executed thousands, where millions more died of starvation as a result of his misguided communist policies.
But it's hard not to be judgmental as we dodge oncoming droves, or wade through sidewalks filled with Lexuses, Mercedes, Cadillacs, while fending off persistent beggars, and seeing the incredible poverty of the vast majority of people. I'm afraid we're both feeling quite oppressed and outraged by it, and it has affected our overall enjoyment of the country. So it's time to leave, and we'll soon be off back to Laos.
That aspect of Cambodia aside, we did enjoy our week of traipsing around the group of ancient temples commonly (but erroneously) referred to as “Angkor Wat.” (Angkor Wat is in fact just one of the temples. There are literally hundreds of others, mostly smaller, but some bigger, and some definitely, in our view, more fantastic.) We were awed, as all visitors to Angkor are, by the sheer size and number of temples, by the artistry, and by the knowledge that they were constructed at least 800 years ago, using the simplest of tools. What of the monuments and edifices our society, our culture, has built? Not one of them will be around 800 years from now.
We splurged and bought one week passes to Angkor. We didn't spend all day tramping around temples, but started late, around 10:30, when the large groups of tourists were already leaving to go to fancy restaurants for lunch, and ended most days by 3:30 or 4. Somewhere in there we had lunch at a food stall within the temple complex. We took our time, as long as we wanted, looking at the awesome stonework, the beautiful and intricate sculptures. We just sat in the midst of the ruins and imagined the spectacular ceremonies that might have occurred there.
We hired a wonderful tuk-tuk driver named Pov (pronounced 'Bo'), who drove us from temple to temple, waiting for us as we explored. He was lovely. Careful, considerate, and always with a wonderful smile. Once our week of temple-hopping was done, we asked Pov to take us out to the biggest lake in Cambodia. It's a lake fed by the mighty Mekong, and it's level changes dramatically depending on the season. There are a number of famous 'floating villages' on the lake that tourists go out to see, generally in large groups on special 'tourist boats.'
We dislike tours, and had decided we didn't want to be part of that scene, but would just like to take a drive and see the lake. We'd been advised by several travellers, and by the blurb in our guidebook, that we would not be able to get anywhere near the lake unless we went on a tour, but we decided to give it a try anyway. We're intrepid that way... .
We drove out through paddy fields and small villages, following the course of a stinking polluted 'river' into which poured all the sewage and garbage from houses and shops all along it. We saw kids swimming in it and women bathing in it. It's all they've got.
As we neared the lake a couple of guys on motorcycles came up beside us and motioned for us to stop. Pov finally did, although he knew we were not going to want to talk to these guys. They were trying to sell us $15 tickets (each) for a boat ride on the lake. We just kept repeating “no boat, no boat,” and finally they gave up with us. Pov got quite a kick out of all this, and although his English was very limited, he was clear about one thing: we did not want to take a boat out onto the lake.
A little further on down the road, now almost at the lake, we were motioned to stop at the 'Boat Tour Operators Committee' centre. The guy who motioned us over looked almost like a police man. Pov stopped; he seemed a little anxious. The guy started in on us about how we had to buy tickets for a boat trip and how we couldn't go any further down the road. I was having none of it. I just repeated my mantra, “no boat,” and added “now going, now going down road.” And motioned for Pov to go.
The official looking guy gave up, and off went Pov, at this point almost delirious with his association with people with such power. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Then we got to 'the lake.' But of course it wasn't the lake at all. It was what looked like a land-fill – a vast expanse of bare dirt literally covered with litter and bisected by a muddy river lined with.... tour boats! There was a kiosk and a barrier across the road. But now Pov was himself empowered. He just yelled to the two guards that his passengers were just going to take a look at the lake, not ride in a boat, and kept right on driving, right around the kiosk. I loved it! Good for Pov!
So there we were, looking down on the pathetic sight of a muddy litter-filled river and a lake nowhere in sight. A young fellow came up and asked if we'd like to go out to the lake in his boat. “Where is it?” I asked. He pointed down the river. It was a small boat, with maybe a dozen seats. “How much?” I asked. “Thirty dollars.” “Twenty,” we said. “We'll give you twenty.” “O.K.” he said, “twenty.” “And,” I added, our driver comes with us. The guy looked dubious. “Twenty-five,” he said. You must pay for the driver. “He's Cambodian!” I exclaimed. “He shouldn't have to pay. And he has to come,” I added. “He's our body-guard.” The guy got a kick out of that, and we finally agreed that Pov could come if we paid $23.
Now Pov would never, on his own resources, be able to go out on the lake, and he had never been out on it. This was one way in which we showed him our appreciation for driving us about. It was a little gift to him. But it was just as much a gift to me. It was so wonderful to witness his tremendous enjoyment of that boat ride. He stretched out in one of the seats at the back and he took it all in.
It took around 10 minutes to motor down the river and get to the lake. The floating village was right there. It was pretty interesting – quite a large and very permanent collection of buildings – houses, stores, schools, restaurants – all loosely grouped together. Some were on stilts, some were more like barges. Many were colourfully painted; some were pretty dilapidated. It was a real community, interestingly of mostly Vietnamese (not Cambodian) fishermen.
We stopped at a restaurant and tourist trap store that had a cage filled with crocodiles. There was also an enclosure filled with big flapping fish. Pov enjoyed hob-nobbing with the tourists, looking at the crocodiles, laughing at the fish. When we got back to the boat there he was, sitting in the driver's seat pretending to drive the boat, a huge smile on his face. Just that image alone – of Pov lost in childlike glee at the wheel of that boat – was worth the entire trip to me. There was no time for a photo – it's a memory I'll have to keep in my mind.
After our time in Siem Reap, the city where the Angkor Wat temples are located, we went to a small city called Battambang. It's about half way to Phnom Penh, and we'd been told it was a nice place to visit. And it was. Battambang is a cultured sort of city, with quite a western feel. It has wide tree-lined boulevards, and a nice walkway along the river. It also has a number of 'universities,' schools and colleges. People sit around reading. Many of the townspeople speak English. The town was quite clean. There were actually garbage cans around, and people use them.
But most impressive was the evening exercise session at the riverside park. We were walking to meet a Canadian couple we'd met (for a game of bridge – ya hear that Dot!) when we saw several groups of people – all women – doing dance aerobics to disco music in the park. It was so great. They were having such a good time, dancing in long lines, following a male(!) leader. Some of them were singing along to the lyrics as they pumped their arms and kicked their feet.
Other people were walking for exercise, playing badminton, or playing a kind of hacky-sack game with a shuttle-cock. But these guys were good. They would wait until the shuttle-cock was behind them and then kick it from behind! Wow! Other people just sat in the park watching the action, talking, or eating food from the many stalls set up along the road. Corn on the cob, sandwiches, fruit, drinks. It was like a fair. And... it happens every evening! What a great thing!
It was in Battambang that we relented on our NO motorcycles rule and hired a couple of guys to drive us round the countryside. The NO motorcycles rule is a result of two things: first my fear of motorcycles as a result of an accident I had on one in Cuba (I was driving, for the first time, and literally just drove it right into the ditch); and second the terribly dangerous situation here in southeast Asia with millions of motorcycles and no rules of the road. We see accidents almost daily, and many tourists with bandages on arms and legs from spills they've taken.
But... Battambang was different. The little tour we wanted to take was on very quiet country roads that were so rough that even tuk-tuks couldn't navigate them. And there was almost no traffic on them. So we hired a couple of guys who'd been recommended as good and careful drivers, and we made it clear that slow and safe was what we wanted. We also insisted on wearing helmets, which many tourists don't do (the fools!).
Our first 'stop' was the 'bamboo train.' This is an ingenious idea – a low-tech way of using the railroad tracks for small scale transportation. Here's how it works. Individual people (not rail companies) have built a sort of pump-car to transport people and goods along the tracks. Here in Cambodia, the 'pump-car' consists of a small (about 4'X6') wooden platform covered with a bamboo mat that sits on a couple of sets of miniature train wheels. An engine about the size of a lawn-mower engine sits on top of the platform. A belt attached to the engine and one of the sets of wheels provides the power that scoots the 'bamboo train' along the tracks. Simple, cheap and very effective.
Once our train was set up on the track (it had to be turned around first, which involved picking up the platform, engine and wheels and reassembling them in the opposite direction to where they'd been), we piled on with our drivers and their two motorbikes. We were given pillows, and sat at the front of the platform. Our drivers sat on their bikes. The 'engineer,' who looked like he was about twelve years old, filled the engine with gas, then started it up and off we went.
We had to stop a couple of times and unload everything when we met up with another 'bamboo train' coming towards us that was more heavily loaded. One was carrying a big load of wood with a small woman on top. So everything was taken off our 'train,' including the engine, and the whole thing was lifted up and taken off the track so the other train could pass. Then our train was reassembled, and we were on our way again. Fantastic!
Apparently the 'bamboo trains' will soon be a thing of the past, as the governments of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam have plans to use the line for a new train that will go from Bangkok to Saigon. It's a great idea, but it will require all new track. The tracks we were on were as wavy as a couple of wet noodles – it was a very bumpy ride! So, in terms of the new international train, we'll believe it when we see it.
Back on our bikes, our little ride we went through a fair amount of rice-paddy country-side and a few small villages with no electricity and no running water. The houses were mostly made of wood and up on stilts. Some had palm thatch rooves, others corrugated iron. They appeared fairly neat and clean, and the people looked well fed. Kids had clothes and shoes. We saw several groups of school kids riding bikes. All had white shirts or blouses and dark pants or skirts. All also had big smiles and yelled “hello.” They see very few tourists, and seemed truly thrilled – almost awed – to see us.
Given what we've heard about the rural poverty here in Cambodia we were fairly favourably impressed. Our driver said that the rice crop had been good this year, so the villagers were well fed. His family, like other families, owns a two hectare plot of land on which they grow rice. It yields around 700 kilos of rice a year. He comes from a family of nine children. The rice they grow is enough to feed them all with just a little extra that they can sell. They all do something else to make money. He's a motorcycle taxi man.
At one point we saw a great big pig sleeping in the shade of a tree. “They feed them marijuana!” my driver yelled. “What?” I called back over the roar of the motorcycle engine. “What did you say?” “They feed them marijuana to make them eat more and sleep a lot. So they get very fat very fast.” “Do they smoke it themselves?” I asked. “No, they don't smoke it, they eat it. You know, like 'happy pizzas.'” I did know. 'Happy pizzas' and 'happy shakes' are all over southeast Asia, as is marijuana generally. But I had assumed that it was mostly tourists that gobbled up the marijuana-laced goodies. Apparently the Cambodians enjoy it as well. Silly me!
One of our destinations was a hilltop wat (temple) which was used as a prison and execution site during the terrible years of the Pol Pot regime (1975-79). Thousands of Cambodians were executed during this time at sites all over Cambodia. At this site, hundreds were executed, mostly by having their throats cut or by being bludgeoned before they were forced over the edge of a cliff and into a large cave that was and is part of the temple.
As we walked down the stairs into the cave, we could sense the horror of the place. At the bottom was a glass-enclosed building filled with the skulls and bones of those who were executed here. One of our young drivers accompanied us into the temple. He talked to us at some length, and very emotionally, about the temple and about that time in Cambodia's history. Some of his family members were murdered by the Khmer Rouge.
It's hard to find a Cambodian family who did not lose at least one family member during this time – either to execution or to starvation. Families were also broken up by the Khmer Rouge, mothers and fathers separated from children. So many Cambodians just don't know what happened to their family members. The appalling atrocities that occurred during this time, the sheer horror of it all, is absolutely overwhelming. This is a terribly damaged country, with a brutally traumatized people. It is truly impossible for us, as westerners who have never witnessed or experienced anything remotely like this, to even begin to imagine what it must have been like, what it must be like now, for these poor little people.
When we got back to Phnom Penh, we went to see the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. Toul Sleng, also known as S21, was the largest of the detention and execution centres. Well over 2000 Cambodians were executed here. The museum was actually in the old school buildings that were used as the prison, torture, and execution centre. It has been left just as it was when Vietnam finally invaded Cambodia and liberated the Cambodian people from Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The dreadful cells, the implements of torture, and hundreds and hundreds of photographs of the people. Most were just mug shots, many of children, even toddlers. But some of them were photos of people being tortured. I couldn't keep looking. It was just too disturbing and depressing.
There is nothing more repulsive and degrading as man's inhumanity to fellow man. What a terrible terrible time Cambodia has been through. I am left speechless. For me perhaps the worst thing of all is the knowledge that not only did these atrocities happen here, not so long ago, but that they have happened repeatedly throughout history and that they continue to happen. We do not 'learn from history.' And the world is not prepared or willing to intervene even when it recognizes that atrocities and genocide are occurring. We sit by and wring our hands and say 'never again,' until the next time it happens, when again we sit by and wring our hands and say 'never again." I feel truly hopeless and helpless in the face of it.
Today we have spent almost the entire day holed up in our hotel room watching t.v. and avoiding the city sights and smells. Phnom Penh is like a massive open garbage dump. And it's hot and humid, so often stinky. We are looking forward to getting out of here tomorrow. We are going to a small place in the northwestern part of Cambodia called Kratie. Kratie is in the Mekong Delta. It is famous for the Iriwaddy dolphins who live in this part of the river. We hope we will see some – we've heard that others have. We also hope we'll see less garbage and fewer beggars.
And from there it's on through northern Cambodia and into Laos. We got our Laos visas today. They'll give us another month there. Just over the border from here is a place called 4000 islands – they're in the middle of the Mekong River. We've heard, and were hoping, that this will be a nice place to relax and recover from our trip through Cambodia. Time to process all we've seen and experienced.
We are trying to understand the wealthy Cambodians' drive to show off by buying expensive cars, clothes and jewelry as part of the larger dynamic of social dysfunction in a country where, just 30 years ago, a ruthless dictator imprisoned, tortured and executed thousands, where millions more died of starvation as a result of his misguided communist policies.
But it's hard not to be judgmental as we dodge oncoming droves, or wade through sidewalks filled with Lexuses, Mercedes, Cadillacs, while fending off persistent beggars, and seeing the incredible poverty of the vast majority of people. I'm afraid we're both feeling quite oppressed and outraged by it, and it has affected our overall enjoyment of the country. So it's time to leave, and we'll soon be off back to Laos.
That aspect of Cambodia aside, we did enjoy our week of traipsing around the group of ancient temples commonly (but erroneously) referred to as “Angkor Wat.” (Angkor Wat is in fact just one of the temples. There are literally hundreds of others, mostly smaller, but some bigger, and some definitely, in our view, more fantastic.) We were awed, as all visitors to Angkor are, by the sheer size and number of temples, by the artistry, and by the knowledge that they were constructed at least 800 years ago, using the simplest of tools. What of the monuments and edifices our society, our culture, has built? Not one of them will be around 800 years from now.
We splurged and bought one week passes to Angkor. We didn't spend all day tramping around temples, but started late, around 10:30, when the large groups of tourists were already leaving to go to fancy restaurants for lunch, and ended most days by 3:30 or 4. Somewhere in there we had lunch at a food stall within the temple complex. We took our time, as long as we wanted, looking at the awesome stonework, the beautiful and intricate sculptures. We just sat in the midst of the ruins and imagined the spectacular ceremonies that might have occurred there.
We hired a wonderful tuk-tuk driver named Pov (pronounced 'Bo'), who drove us from temple to temple, waiting for us as we explored. He was lovely. Careful, considerate, and always with a wonderful smile. Once our week of temple-hopping was done, we asked Pov to take us out to the biggest lake in Cambodia. It's a lake fed by the mighty Mekong, and it's level changes dramatically depending on the season. There are a number of famous 'floating villages' on the lake that tourists go out to see, generally in large groups on special 'tourist boats.'
We dislike tours, and had decided we didn't want to be part of that scene, but would just like to take a drive and see the lake. We'd been advised by several travellers, and by the blurb in our guidebook, that we would not be able to get anywhere near the lake unless we went on a tour, but we decided to give it a try anyway. We're intrepid that way... .
We drove out through paddy fields and small villages, following the course of a stinking polluted 'river' into which poured all the sewage and garbage from houses and shops all along it. We saw kids swimming in it and women bathing in it. It's all they've got.
As we neared the lake a couple of guys on motorcycles came up beside us and motioned for us to stop. Pov finally did, although he knew we were not going to want to talk to these guys. They were trying to sell us $15 tickets (each) for a boat ride on the lake. We just kept repeating “no boat, no boat,” and finally they gave up with us. Pov got quite a kick out of all this, and although his English was very limited, he was clear about one thing: we did not want to take a boat out onto the lake.
A little further on down the road, now almost at the lake, we were motioned to stop at the 'Boat Tour Operators Committee' centre. The guy who motioned us over looked almost like a police man. Pov stopped; he seemed a little anxious. The guy started in on us about how we had to buy tickets for a boat trip and how we couldn't go any further down the road. I was having none of it. I just repeated my mantra, “no boat,” and added “now going, now going down road.” And motioned for Pov to go.
The official looking guy gave up, and off went Pov, at this point almost delirious with his association with people with such power. He was grinning from ear to ear.
Then we got to 'the lake.' But of course it wasn't the lake at all. It was what looked like a land-fill – a vast expanse of bare dirt literally covered with litter and bisected by a muddy river lined with.... tour boats! There was a kiosk and a barrier across the road. But now Pov was himself empowered. He just yelled to the two guards that his passengers were just going to take a look at the lake, not ride in a boat, and kept right on driving, right around the kiosk. I loved it! Good for Pov!
So there we were, looking down on the pathetic sight of a muddy litter-filled river and a lake nowhere in sight. A young fellow came up and asked if we'd like to go out to the lake in his boat. “Where is it?” I asked. He pointed down the river. It was a small boat, with maybe a dozen seats. “How much?” I asked. “Thirty dollars.” “Twenty,” we said. “We'll give you twenty.” “O.K.” he said, “twenty.” “And,” I added, our driver comes with us. The guy looked dubious. “Twenty-five,” he said. You must pay for the driver. “He's Cambodian!” I exclaimed. “He shouldn't have to pay. And he has to come,” I added. “He's our body-guard.” The guy got a kick out of that, and we finally agreed that Pov could come if we paid $23.
Now Pov would never, on his own resources, be able to go out on the lake, and he had never been out on it. This was one way in which we showed him our appreciation for driving us about. It was a little gift to him. But it was just as much a gift to me. It was so wonderful to witness his tremendous enjoyment of that boat ride. He stretched out in one of the seats at the back and he took it all in.
It took around 10 minutes to motor down the river and get to the lake. The floating village was right there. It was pretty interesting – quite a large and very permanent collection of buildings – houses, stores, schools, restaurants – all loosely grouped together. Some were on stilts, some were more like barges. Many were colourfully painted; some were pretty dilapidated. It was a real community, interestingly of mostly Vietnamese (not Cambodian) fishermen.
We stopped at a restaurant and tourist trap store that had a cage filled with crocodiles. There was also an enclosure filled with big flapping fish. Pov enjoyed hob-nobbing with the tourists, looking at the crocodiles, laughing at the fish. When we got back to the boat there he was, sitting in the driver's seat pretending to drive the boat, a huge smile on his face. Just that image alone – of Pov lost in childlike glee at the wheel of that boat – was worth the entire trip to me. There was no time for a photo – it's a memory I'll have to keep in my mind.
After our time in Siem Reap, the city where the Angkor Wat temples are located, we went to a small city called Battambang. It's about half way to Phnom Penh, and we'd been told it was a nice place to visit. And it was. Battambang is a cultured sort of city, with quite a western feel. It has wide tree-lined boulevards, and a nice walkway along the river. It also has a number of 'universities,' schools and colleges. People sit around reading. Many of the townspeople speak English. The town was quite clean. There were actually garbage cans around, and people use them.
But most impressive was the evening exercise session at the riverside park. We were walking to meet a Canadian couple we'd met (for a game of bridge – ya hear that Dot!) when we saw several groups of people – all women – doing dance aerobics to disco music in the park. It was so great. They were having such a good time, dancing in long lines, following a male(!) leader. Some of them were singing along to the lyrics as they pumped their arms and kicked their feet.
Other people were walking for exercise, playing badminton, or playing a kind of hacky-sack game with a shuttle-cock. But these guys were good. They would wait until the shuttle-cock was behind them and then kick it from behind! Wow! Other people just sat in the park watching the action, talking, or eating food from the many stalls set up along the road. Corn on the cob, sandwiches, fruit, drinks. It was like a fair. And... it happens every evening! What a great thing!
It was in Battambang that we relented on our NO motorcycles rule and hired a couple of guys to drive us round the countryside. The NO motorcycles rule is a result of two things: first my fear of motorcycles as a result of an accident I had on one in Cuba (I was driving, for the first time, and literally just drove it right into the ditch); and second the terribly dangerous situation here in southeast Asia with millions of motorcycles and no rules of the road. We see accidents almost daily, and many tourists with bandages on arms and legs from spills they've taken.
But... Battambang was different. The little tour we wanted to take was on very quiet country roads that were so rough that even tuk-tuks couldn't navigate them. And there was almost no traffic on them. So we hired a couple of guys who'd been recommended as good and careful drivers, and we made it clear that slow and safe was what we wanted. We also insisted on wearing helmets, which many tourists don't do (the fools!).
Our first 'stop' was the 'bamboo train.' This is an ingenious idea – a low-tech way of using the railroad tracks for small scale transportation. Here's how it works. Individual people (not rail companies) have built a sort of pump-car to transport people and goods along the tracks. Here in Cambodia, the 'pump-car' consists of a small (about 4'X6') wooden platform covered with a bamboo mat that sits on a couple of sets of miniature train wheels. An engine about the size of a lawn-mower engine sits on top of the platform. A belt attached to the engine and one of the sets of wheels provides the power that scoots the 'bamboo train' along the tracks. Simple, cheap and very effective.
Once our train was set up on the track (it had to be turned around first, which involved picking up the platform, engine and wheels and reassembling them in the opposite direction to where they'd been), we piled on with our drivers and their two motorbikes. We were given pillows, and sat at the front of the platform. Our drivers sat on their bikes. The 'engineer,' who looked like he was about twelve years old, filled the engine with gas, then started it up and off we went.
We had to stop a couple of times and unload everything when we met up with another 'bamboo train' coming towards us that was more heavily loaded. One was carrying a big load of wood with a small woman on top. So everything was taken off our 'train,' including the engine, and the whole thing was lifted up and taken off the track so the other train could pass. Then our train was reassembled, and we were on our way again. Fantastic!
Apparently the 'bamboo trains' will soon be a thing of the past, as the governments of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam have plans to use the line for a new train that will go from Bangkok to Saigon. It's a great idea, but it will require all new track. The tracks we were on were as wavy as a couple of wet noodles – it was a very bumpy ride! So, in terms of the new international train, we'll believe it when we see it.
Back on our bikes, our little ride we went through a fair amount of rice-paddy country-side and a few small villages with no electricity and no running water. The houses were mostly made of wood and up on stilts. Some had palm thatch rooves, others corrugated iron. They appeared fairly neat and clean, and the people looked well fed. Kids had clothes and shoes. We saw several groups of school kids riding bikes. All had white shirts or blouses and dark pants or skirts. All also had big smiles and yelled “hello.” They see very few tourists, and seemed truly thrilled – almost awed – to see us.
Given what we've heard about the rural poverty here in Cambodia we were fairly favourably impressed. Our driver said that the rice crop had been good this year, so the villagers were well fed. His family, like other families, owns a two hectare plot of land on which they grow rice. It yields around 700 kilos of rice a year. He comes from a family of nine children. The rice they grow is enough to feed them all with just a little extra that they can sell. They all do something else to make money. He's a motorcycle taxi man.
At one point we saw a great big pig sleeping in the shade of a tree. “They feed them marijuana!” my driver yelled. “What?” I called back over the roar of the motorcycle engine. “What did you say?” “They feed them marijuana to make them eat more and sleep a lot. So they get very fat very fast.” “Do they smoke it themselves?” I asked. “No, they don't smoke it, they eat it. You know, like 'happy pizzas.'” I did know. 'Happy pizzas' and 'happy shakes' are all over southeast Asia, as is marijuana generally. But I had assumed that it was mostly tourists that gobbled up the marijuana-laced goodies. Apparently the Cambodians enjoy it as well. Silly me!
One of our destinations was a hilltop wat (temple) which was used as a prison and execution site during the terrible years of the Pol Pot regime (1975-79). Thousands of Cambodians were executed during this time at sites all over Cambodia. At this site, hundreds were executed, mostly by having their throats cut or by being bludgeoned before they were forced over the edge of a cliff and into a large cave that was and is part of the temple.
As we walked down the stairs into the cave, we could sense the horror of the place. At the bottom was a glass-enclosed building filled with the skulls and bones of those who were executed here. One of our young drivers accompanied us into the temple. He talked to us at some length, and very emotionally, about the temple and about that time in Cambodia's history. Some of his family members were murdered by the Khmer Rouge.
It's hard to find a Cambodian family who did not lose at least one family member during this time – either to execution or to starvation. Families were also broken up by the Khmer Rouge, mothers and fathers separated from children. So many Cambodians just don't know what happened to their family members. The appalling atrocities that occurred during this time, the sheer horror of it all, is absolutely overwhelming. This is a terribly damaged country, with a brutally traumatized people. It is truly impossible for us, as westerners who have never witnessed or experienced anything remotely like this, to even begin to imagine what it must have been like, what it must be like now, for these poor little people.
When we got back to Phnom Penh, we went to see the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum. Toul Sleng, also known as S21, was the largest of the detention and execution centres. Well over 2000 Cambodians were executed here. The museum was actually in the old school buildings that were used as the prison, torture, and execution centre. It has been left just as it was when Vietnam finally invaded Cambodia and liberated the Cambodian people from Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The dreadful cells, the implements of torture, and hundreds and hundreds of photographs of the people. Most were just mug shots, many of children, even toddlers. But some of them were photos of people being tortured. I couldn't keep looking. It was just too disturbing and depressing.
There is nothing more repulsive and degrading as man's inhumanity to fellow man. What a terrible terrible time Cambodia has been through. I am left speechless. For me perhaps the worst thing of all is the knowledge that not only did these atrocities happen here, not so long ago, but that they have happened repeatedly throughout history and that they continue to happen. We do not 'learn from history.' And the world is not prepared or willing to intervene even when it recognizes that atrocities and genocide are occurring. We sit by and wring our hands and say 'never again,' until the next time it happens, when again we sit by and wring our hands and say 'never again." I feel truly hopeless and helpless in the face of it.
Today we have spent almost the entire day holed up in our hotel room watching t.v. and avoiding the city sights and smells. Phnom Penh is like a massive open garbage dump. And it's hot and humid, so often stinky. We are looking forward to getting out of here tomorrow. We are going to a small place in the northwestern part of Cambodia called Kratie. Kratie is in the Mekong Delta. It is famous for the Iriwaddy dolphins who live in this part of the river. We hope we will see some – we've heard that others have. We also hope we'll see less garbage and fewer beggars.
And from there it's on through northern Cambodia and into Laos. We got our Laos visas today. They'll give us another month there. Just over the border from here is a place called 4000 islands – they're in the middle of the Mekong River. We've heard, and were hoping, that this will be a nice place to relax and recover from our trip through Cambodia. Time to process all we've seen and experienced.
Vietnam: Phu Quoc Island January 9-24, 2009
For the last two weeks we've been here on Phu Quoc Island, not far off the south-western shore of Vietnam. It's actually closer to Cambodia, and Cambodia does 'claim' it, but Vietnam's got the bigger army, so Vietnam's it is.
In a word, for us, it's perfect. A tropical island with golden sand, dark aquamarine waters, hot sunny days – but very little humidity, and almost always a freshening breeze. Graceful palms and thatch-topped palapas that look like toadstools line the beach. The nights are warm enough to be sleeveless for dinner, then just cool enough to sleep without a fan.
We are happily ensconced in a little bungalow about 100 yards from the beach. There's no development in front of us: we look out over a field of sedge grass and a placid lily pond to the open waters of the Gulf of Thailand. Most days a small herd of cows – two of whom have new-born calves – roam the grassy verge alongside the beach. A guy and his wife come with a net. He wades into the pond, splashing the water with a stick to scare the fish into his net. A few birds flit about over the pond, catching insects.
Our bungalow is basic, with no phone, no tv, and no hot water. But we set a jug and a pail of water in the sun around noon, and by late afternoon they're piping hot. “Give me the warm power of the sun!” We have a fan, which we hardly use, and a fridge, which we use a lot. Water and beer are icy cold. For all of this we pay just $15 a night.
We go to sleep to a chorus of frogs, and awake to the pre-dawn reveille of roosters. Just like home. We don't get up until a thermos of hot water is delivered to our door. Then we make tea and coffee, and sit out on our patio deck drinking copious cups. An hour or two later a breakfast of eggs and bread arrives.
We spend the morning sitting or laying in hammocks reading. We listen to the BBC World News on the radio. Fidel is dying, Hugo Chavez is making ridiculous remarks, Israel is bombing Gaza, and the economic situation everywhere just keeps getting worse. Doug sweeps yesterday's sand from the patio. I imagine the news going with it, over the edge. I write for hours, trying to make sense of the torrent of notes from previous trips.
Around mid-day, when the sun's too hot to sit in comfortably, we retreat inside and make ourselves some lunch. Before we came out to the beach we went to the market in town and bought oranges, tomatoes, cucumbers and bread. Then to a store for cheese, yogurt, and crackers. As my Aunt Syl used to say: “We just want a light lunch – nothing to fill us up!”
Then we head to the beach. There's seldom anyone on our stretch of beach, which is the least developed section. To our left there's almost nothing – one more small resort and cafe, and then just miles of beach. To the right, which is towards town, there's more development. Several hotels, resorts, cafes and restaurants.
So we are gloriously alone. We swim in water that is only just cool enough to be refreshing. We bob up and down in the waves. We loll. Then we sit and drip dry, looking out on an endless sea. We watch the waves. Each one is different, unique, like a snowflake, with its own personality – turbulent or tame, roaring or whispering.
The horizon before us is so wide that we can see the earth's curve – or we imagine we can, which is just as good. Way out there, a well-spaced line of little fishing boats reminds me of ants on a log. Just as insignificant, and vulnerable. They don't go out when it's windy, and there's no fish in the restaurants those days.
Sometimes we take a walk along the beach. If we scuff our feet when we walk in the dry sand, it makes a squeaking noise. Why is that we wonder? When we walk in the wet sand, it squelches. We leave deep, neat foot-prints that the waves wash away within seconds. Like the ants, we're insignificant, and hopelessly transient.
When the sun starts dropping towards the horizon, and it cools off a little, we head back up to our bungalow to have our bucket-baths. We sit on the deck again and count our blessings for having found this perfect place. Sometimes we visit with other travelers. There's a couple from Lasqueti Island in the bungalow behind us, and a lovely young German gal in the one beside us.
And then it's time for dinner. We walk barefoot along the beach to our favourite restaurant, the Nhat Lan. Most of its tables are right on the beach, and we always manage to get one up front, with an unimpeded view of the ocean, the bruised-purple sky, the fading light, and then the stars as they begin to pierce the darkness. The food is fabulous – especially of course, the fish, caught that day and cooked to perfection.
We walk back in the dark, our attention drawn up to the now bright stars, and then down to the equally tiny and bright – almost electric – blue lights of the plankton at the water's edge. Each wave casts a new pattern of lights on shore – magical like night-fairy dust.
The sound of the waves is drowned out by the raucous croaking of frogs and the shrill chirping of crickets as we cross the little bridge that leads from the beach to our bungalow. We lower our lovely lacy, lily-patterned mosquito net draped over the bed – protection from the odd mosquito – and read until we fall asleep.
We revel in the glorious emptiness of our days. We relish the quiet, the peace. We plan no activities. It is enough just to be here and enjoy this place.
If we could, we'd stay here for weeks, perhaps months. But our Vietnam visa expires on January 25, and we've already extended it once, which is all that's allowed. So we're off to Cambodia, with the hope that we might find something almost as perfect there.
For the last two weeks we've been here on Phu Quoc Island, not far off the south-western shore of Vietnam. It's actually closer to Cambodia, and Cambodia does 'claim' it, but Vietnam's got the bigger army, so Vietnam's it is.
In a word, for us, it's perfect. A tropical island with golden sand, dark aquamarine waters, hot sunny days – but very little humidity, and almost always a freshening breeze. Graceful palms and thatch-topped palapas that look like toadstools line the beach. The nights are warm enough to be sleeveless for dinner, then just cool enough to sleep without a fan.
We are happily ensconced in a little bungalow about 100 yards from the beach. There's no development in front of us: we look out over a field of sedge grass and a placid lily pond to the open waters of the Gulf of Thailand. Most days a small herd of cows – two of whom have new-born calves – roam the grassy verge alongside the beach. A guy and his wife come with a net. He wades into the pond, splashing the water with a stick to scare the fish into his net. A few birds flit about over the pond, catching insects.
Our bungalow is basic, with no phone, no tv, and no hot water. But we set a jug and a pail of water in the sun around noon, and by late afternoon they're piping hot. “Give me the warm power of the sun!” We have a fan, which we hardly use, and a fridge, which we use a lot. Water and beer are icy cold. For all of this we pay just $15 a night.
We go to sleep to a chorus of frogs, and awake to the pre-dawn reveille of roosters. Just like home. We don't get up until a thermos of hot water is delivered to our door. Then we make tea and coffee, and sit out on our patio deck drinking copious cups. An hour or two later a breakfast of eggs and bread arrives.
We spend the morning sitting or laying in hammocks reading. We listen to the BBC World News on the radio. Fidel is dying, Hugo Chavez is making ridiculous remarks, Israel is bombing Gaza, and the economic situation everywhere just keeps getting worse. Doug sweeps yesterday's sand from the patio. I imagine the news going with it, over the edge. I write for hours, trying to make sense of the torrent of notes from previous trips.
Around mid-day, when the sun's too hot to sit in comfortably, we retreat inside and make ourselves some lunch. Before we came out to the beach we went to the market in town and bought oranges, tomatoes, cucumbers and bread. Then to a store for cheese, yogurt, and crackers. As my Aunt Syl used to say: “We just want a light lunch – nothing to fill us up!”
Then we head to the beach. There's seldom anyone on our stretch of beach, which is the least developed section. To our left there's almost nothing – one more small resort and cafe, and then just miles of beach. To the right, which is towards town, there's more development. Several hotels, resorts, cafes and restaurants.
So we are gloriously alone. We swim in water that is only just cool enough to be refreshing. We bob up and down in the waves. We loll. Then we sit and drip dry, looking out on an endless sea. We watch the waves. Each one is different, unique, like a snowflake, with its own personality – turbulent or tame, roaring or whispering.
The horizon before us is so wide that we can see the earth's curve – or we imagine we can, which is just as good. Way out there, a well-spaced line of little fishing boats reminds me of ants on a log. Just as insignificant, and vulnerable. They don't go out when it's windy, and there's no fish in the restaurants those days.
Sometimes we take a walk along the beach. If we scuff our feet when we walk in the dry sand, it makes a squeaking noise. Why is that we wonder? When we walk in the wet sand, it squelches. We leave deep, neat foot-prints that the waves wash away within seconds. Like the ants, we're insignificant, and hopelessly transient.
When the sun starts dropping towards the horizon, and it cools off a little, we head back up to our bungalow to have our bucket-baths. We sit on the deck again and count our blessings for having found this perfect place. Sometimes we visit with other travelers. There's a couple from Lasqueti Island in the bungalow behind us, and a lovely young German gal in the one beside us.
And then it's time for dinner. We walk barefoot along the beach to our favourite restaurant, the Nhat Lan. Most of its tables are right on the beach, and we always manage to get one up front, with an unimpeded view of the ocean, the bruised-purple sky, the fading light, and then the stars as they begin to pierce the darkness. The food is fabulous – especially of course, the fish, caught that day and cooked to perfection.
We walk back in the dark, our attention drawn up to the now bright stars, and then down to the equally tiny and bright – almost electric – blue lights of the plankton at the water's edge. Each wave casts a new pattern of lights on shore – magical like night-fairy dust.
The sound of the waves is drowned out by the raucous croaking of frogs and the shrill chirping of crickets as we cross the little bridge that leads from the beach to our bungalow. We lower our lovely lacy, lily-patterned mosquito net draped over the bed – protection from the odd mosquito – and read until we fall asleep.
We revel in the glorious emptiness of our days. We relish the quiet, the peace. We plan no activities. It is enough just to be here and enjoy this place.
If we could, we'd stay here for weeks, perhaps months. But our Vietnam visa expires on January 25, and we've already extended it once, which is all that's allowed. So we're off to Cambodia, with the hope that we might find something almost as perfect there.
Vietnam: The Central Coast Dec. 9 – 31, 2008
Hue
The night train from Hanoi to Hue (pronounced Huay, not Hoo-ee as the Americans, who bombed most of it, called it) was uncomfortably cold. We'd paid the extra for a 'soft sleeper,' which was much softer than the board-like 'hard sleeper' we'd been tortured by from Lao Cai to Hanoi, and air-con. What we didn't realize was that the air-con would be turned on high, and that even the train man wouldn't be able to turn down. After several complaints about it we, like others, used the sheet we were given for our mattress to stuff into and over the air-con grill. But still the cold came through. And the blankets were small and thin, so I spent most of the night desperately trying to cover both my freezing feet and my cold shoulders – but it was either one or the other. So despite the soft sleeper, I didn't get much sleep, and arrived in Hue feeling exhausted and hung over.
The best thing about the train ride was meeting and talking with the young Irish couple who shared our compartment, and a Canadian woman, closer to our age, now living and working in Nepal. She and a friend have started an NGO focusing on providing economic opportunities to people who are often excluded from other kinds of projects – street sellers for example. She and I had a great chat about our working histories, including our shared experiences with 'bitchy women syndrome' – girls behaving badly. Although she was sorry to hear about it, she was not at all surprised by the selfish and mean-spirited behaviour of my colleagues. Her comment: 'well, now you're here traveling in Asia, and they're undoubtedly carrying on with their in-fighting back there.' Too true!
We were met at the train station by a clutch of touts, all wanting us to come with them to their hotel. One young man offered us a free ride into town, a distance of four kilometres or so, promising that if we didn't like his hotel, we were under no obligation. So the five of us piled in. As it turned out, the hotel was fabulous – new, comfortable, with hot water, tv and lovely balconies in every room – and, best of all, a little bit away from the city's centre, with its tourist strip and string of hotels. The staff are all very friendly and helpful and, music to our ears, they're happy to provide us a big thermos of hot water in the morning so we can make ourselves tea – for me, and coffee – for Doug, in our room. So we're set – we could stay here for weeks! Except.... that it's still a little cooler here than we expected. We still need our sweaters at night!
Hue was the political capital of Vietnam from 1802 to 1945, under the 13 emperors of the Nguyen dynasty. It continues, according to our Lonely Planet guide, to be the 'intellectual, cultural and spiritual heart of Vietnam.' It's less than a third the size of Hanoi, with only about 300,000 people, and from the looks of it so far there are less than a hundredth of the motorcycles on its streets. It is blissfully quiet and slow-paced. People actually walk here, and ride bicycles. The streets are wide and tree-lined, lovely for walking. And you can cross even the 'busiest' streets without feeling like you're playing Russian roulette with your life. What a relief!
Despite our exhaustion we set off to see the 'citadel' – a huge walled city that once served as the centre of the imperial dynasty. Within the citadel is the Forbidden Purple City where the emporer's family, and royal concubines, lived. Only female servants and eunuchs were permitted within its walls. Unfortunately Americans did not spare the citadel in their bombing sprees, and many of the buildings within the enclosure were heavily damaged or destroyed. What's left, a collection of beautiful and colourful ruins, suggests a sumptuous life. Some of the buildings are being restored – a huge and painstaking process – by the Vietnamese government. The restorations are a priority primarily because Hue has been designated as a World Heritage Site, and therefore draws tens of thousands of tourists, all of whom, like us, come to see the citadel and the famous 'Forbidden Purple City.'
As we strolled back towards our hotel we were looking for a little pho (noodle soup) place, but all we saw were com (rice) places. We stopped to take a closer look at one of them, a typical rather grotty-looking place on a street dedicated to fruit and vegetable vendors. A slim older woman in a beautiful printed silk top and trousers invited us to sit down. We asked 'pho?' and she nodded. We sat, and watched as she plucked three packages wrapped in banana leaves that were hanging on a wire at the front of her stall. These contained our individual portions of noodles. Another gal placed a plateful of mixed greens on our table – water cress, cilantro, basil, bean sprouts, and a few other unidentified herbs, along with a few slices of lime. Our hopes were raised: so far we haven't been given these ingredients, essential, in our view, to a real bowl of pho. Then our bowls arrived, steaming hot and filled with noodles and finely shaved pieces of pork. It was one of the best pho soups we've had yet. Who'd have thunk?
As we were slurping it down, the silk-suited woman came over to watch, gesturing towards us in a question of 'do you like it?' We gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up, saying 'very good, number one!' and smiling broadly. She was chuffed. The next thing we knew she had brought us each a glass of cold Vietnamese tea, and then a little banana-leaf packet with a slab of gelatinous rice inside – something we'd seen the locals eating, but hadn't yet tried. She sat down beside us, glowing with pride as other vendors in the little market area called back and forth, drawing attention to her happy foreign customers. With service like that, we'll be back! This was the second time we had had such a great bowl of pho, and received such solicitous service, at a humble street stall in a market, frequented pretty much exclusively by locals. The first time was the day before, in Hanoi. Most tourists are too afraid they'll pick up something nasty from eating in these places. Interestingly, it's often at the more upscale places that one runs into trouble.
The Delightful Mr. Cu
We had a short nap after lunch, then lazed about reading, trying to recover from our train journey. Then it was time for dinner. We set out looking for the Mandarin Restaurant, which was highly recommended in our trusty Lonely Planet: “A magnet for travelers, the cheerful owner, Mr. Cu, speaks English and French and serves big dollops of travel advice along with pho, BLTs, salads and pancakes.” And.. “he has consistently improved his services since the first LP mention, a rarity worth noting.” Indeed it is! We often find that once places are recommended in the LP their prices go up, and the quality of their services goes down. So we decided to give the Mandarin, and Mr. Cu, a try. The restaurant was not where our book said it should be, but we did find a sign there which gave us directions to the new location, just a few blocks away.
He was standing in the broad open doorway of his restaurant, at the top of a short flight of stairs. As we walked towards the stairs, he opened his arms in welcome, smiled, and said: “come in, come in please!” As we mounted the stairs, I asked “Are you Mr. Cue?” He admitted that he was, and I said “We've been looking for you!” We shook hands – he exuded unusual warmth and grace even in this simplest of gestures. He cut an elegant figure – a little taller than most Vietnamese, slim, and well-dressed in a nicely tailored dark suit. He had a handsome face with strong chiseled features – softened by the wrinkles of age, and warmed by his lively thoughtful eyes. A delightful man.
Mr. Cu was born in the spring of 1945, on a sampan on the Perfume River, a broad river that separates the modern business centre of Hue from the old city, with its historic imperial enclosure and the famed 'Forbidden Purple City' where the emperors' concubines and family lives. Mr. Cu was the second of six children. His parents were poor – his father worked as a cyclo (bicycle taxi) driver in the city. They were too poor to have a house, so they lived on the little sampan. Mr. Cu's mother was particularly anxious around the time of his birth: the Americans were bombing a bridge on the Perfume River that was still in Japanese hands. The bridge was not far from where Mr. Cu's family tied their boat. But he arrived without incident, and the family continued to live on the boat for another eight years, when they managed to buy a house in the centre of the city.
Mr. Cu and his brothers and sisters all attended school. At that time, education was 'free' – parents did not have to pay to send their children to school. Mr. Cu completed grade twelve and then, like most of his classmates, went to work. He became a bus driver. And then came the Vietnam War. Hue is located on the coast of Vietnam, almost precisely in the middle, between what was North and South Vietnam. It lies just south of the DMZ or 'Demilitarized Zone.' The Americans had a base here, and recruited locals for a variety of jobs. Like many South Vietnamese, Mr. Cu was keen to work for the Americans – they paid well. He applied for a job as a driver. Apart from his experience as a bus driver, Mr. Hue had the right credentials for the job: his family was 'clean' – it had no connections to the Hanoi government. He was hired by a US Army contractor to drive a stand-by fire truck at Hue's airport. The job lasted only two years: in 1971 and 1972 the U.S. began their withdrawal from Vietnam. Mr. Cu was let go.
But he was soon re-hired by another US Army contractor, this time driving 'big trucks.' The U.S. Army's withdrawal from Vietnam meant that its equipment, furniture and the personal effects of its service men and women had to be transported to depots for shipment back home. There was a lot of stuff to move, but by 1973 the troops and their paraphernalia were gone, and Mr. Cu was again without work. There was little work in Hue, so Mr. Cu went south to Qui Nhon, a larger city on the coast, about half-way between Hue and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City, or HCMC). He looked up one of his old bosses, a Vietnamese woman who had managed the transport of goods for the U.S. Army in Hue. She had married a Korean man, who had helped her win a contract supplying rice and vegetables to the Korean Army, which had a base in Qui Nhon. Mr. Cu became her personal chauffeur.
In 1974 Mr. Cu met and married his wife in Qui Nhon. They lived there until 1975. After the American withdrawal from Vietnam, the Hanoi government had difficulty controlling the population. There was widespread violence and looting. According to Mr. Cu, it was a 'crazy time.' He decided that he and his wife would be safer in Hue, closer to his family. The drive between Qui Nhon and Hue was difficult and dangerous. They arrived on May 15th, the day before their first baby was born. Mr. Cu took his labouring wife to the hospital for the birth, but there were no doctors or nurses to help them. Mr. Cu had to look after his wife himself, washing her sheets and clothing and bringing her food. He agreed, with a laugh, that they might just as well have stayed at home. Their next child, another daughter, was born two years later, in 1975.
From 1975 to 1990 Vietnam was ruled, as it is today, by a communist government located in Hanoi. But during this fifteen year period, Vietnam, like other 'good communist' countries, was heavily subsidized by Russia. Russia gave large amounts of money to Vietnam: the country was almost entirely dependent on Russian aid. According to Mr. Cu, 'the government owned everything.' There was no private enterprise. Mr. Cu, having worked for the Americans, was unable to get work with the only employer: the communist government of Vietnam. He describes this as a 'very difficult time.' But when he spoke of how he got through it, he laughed a lot. “The North Vietnamese were very poor. They had three dreams: to own a watch, a radio and a bicycle. They particularly wanted self-winding watches, the ones where you can just wave your hand: you don't have to wind it. Many South Vietnamese had been given such watches as presents by U.S. Army personnel. Some of them were broken, but I learned how to fix them. I would fix them so they worked. Sometimes they would only work for a few seconds – just long enough for me to sell the watch. But I had no shop. I just sold on the street. So when the watch stopped, they would have no way of finding me! Radios I knew nothing about. I couldn't fix a radio. But my brother-in-law could. So he fixed the radios, and I sold them too. And I learned how to repair bicycles.”
Mr. Cu described how North Vietnamese people would arrive in Hue – many with no shoes – looking for 'presents.' “They thought that all of us in South Vietnam were rich, and that we would give them things. They were so poor. It was sad really.” During this entire period of time, food was scarce: the government instituted a ration system. Citizens were entitled to buy only 15 kilos of rice and one kilo of sugar per person per month. There was a black market for meat, vegetables and fruit. When we told Mr. Cu that this was still the reality in Cuba today, he just shook his head. “I know, very sad.”
In 1990, when Russia felt apart, all aid to Vietnam was cut off. The situation became desperate. Interestingly, the Hanoi government's reaction, unlike that of Cuba, was to allow private enterprise. Tourists were allowed to visit Vietnam for the first time since before the war. This was the dawning of a new era for Vietnam – an era which has seen an incredible growth in development and in opportunities, and prosperity, for the Vietnamese people. (The contrast with Cuba, where private enterprise is still prohibited, is striking. It is not just the American embargo that is beggaring Cuba: it is the determination of Cuba's leaders to maintain a draconian communist regime.) Mr. Cu's ability to seize an opportunity when he saw it again came to the fore: he opened a small cafe in the government owned 'Hotel #2 Le Loi,' one of only four hotels at that time in Hue, all government owned, but the 'Le Loi' the best and most popular of the lot.
During his first year of business, Mr. Cu's customers were largely Vietnamese. They'd come for a coffee, and to watch the t.v. and videos that Mr. Cu wisely installed. By 1991 tourists started coming in larger numbers, and Mr. Cu's cafe became 'the place' to go, recommended in guide books not only for its food, but perhaps more importantly for Mr. Cu's ability to speak English. Most of the staff at the other hotels and cafes spoke only Russian. Their service was slow, and their food was bad. Meanwhile, Mr. Cu's outgoing personality and willingness to help foreign tourists was making him friends.
These friends, many of whom he still has contact with, helped him to steadily improve his service – and his food. An American from Colorado taught him how to make banana pancakes. Mr. Cu's banana pancakes became famous enough to win the #8 Le Loi restaurant a special mention in a 1993 New York Times article on Vietnam. Other foreign tourists helped their friend Mr. Cu by writing and designing menus for his restaurant and advising him on good business practices. The enterprising Mr. Cu was ever quick to implement their suggestions.
The popularity of Mr. Cu's cafe did not go unnoticed by the authorities. He had frequent visits by the local police, who would ask him all sorts of questions about the tourists in his cafe: where were they going and what were they doing? He laughed when he told us about this. “How do I know where they're going? I don't ask them!” he would answer. The popularity of his cafe was also a sore point for the hotel, whose restaurant was almost always empty. In 1994 the hotel management (ie. the government) decided to get rid of the competition, and terminated his lease. In his typical indomitable style, Mr. Cu relocated just a few doors away, at #8 Le Loi. He leased a building owned by a French organization that had been running a school and social development centre for Vietnamese children. The building was run down and dirty, but Mr. Cu fixed it up and opened his new restaurant, which he called 'The Mandarin.'
We asked Mr. Cu how his restaurant got its name. “Ah,” he laughed (always laughing!), “that's a good story!” When Mr. Cu was forced to relocate from #2 to #8 Le Loi, an American tourist who had first met Mr. Cu in 1992, when he and a friend were bicycling around Vietnam, and who had met and married a Vietnamese woman, and stayed in touch with Mr. Cu, said: “you're new restaurant has to have a name!” He suggested 'The Mandarin.' Why? “Because,” said Mr. Cu, “your restaurant is located in Hue, which is famous for the imperial city and the old emperors of Vietnam. But you are not an emperor. You are just a mandarin!” And it's remained 'The Mandarin' ever since.
Mr. Cu's tenure at #8 Le Loi lasted only 18 months before the French organization decided they wanted the building, and the land, back. So he was forced to move again, this time into the Army (Vietnam) Hotel. Over the next six years, Mr. Cu the hotel managers made him move his restaurant three more times – to different locations within the hotel. And then they too kicked him out. In 2000 he leased a building, again from the Vietnamese Army, at #3 Hung Vuong, one of the main streets in Hue. Again he was wildly successful. And again his lease was terminated, although this time he'd managed to last for five years – the longest period yet.
But this move proved one move too many for the indomitable Mr. Cu. He said he felt “old and tired.' He suffered a debilitating depression. “For eight months I did not leave my room. I didn't care about anything. An American friend was very worried about me. He would come almost every day to visit me. Sometimes he slept in my room. He made me go to a doctor for treatment. I got medication, and started to get better... .” A little later, Mr. Cu, again on the recommendation of an American friend, went to see an American woman doctor who recommended daily exercise to prevent further episodes of depression. Mr. Cu has taken her recommendation to heart: he exercises and takes only a minimal dose of medications, and his depression remains under control.
During the eight months of his debilitating depression it was Mr. Cu's wife – his partner and the cook (still) at the restaurant – who took on the responsibility for moving the restaurant one more time. It was her decision, on advice from another American friend, to buy a piece of land and build their own restaurant. To this day Mr. Cu does not know how she did it. “I had nothing to do with it. I stayed in my room. I didn't care.” For six months the Cu's ran two restaurants – the one at #3 Hung Vuong and the new one at #24 Tran Cao Van Street. “The Vietnamese Army wanted us to continue: they needed someone to pay for the lease of the building! Sometimes I would be at one restaurant and get a call from the other one. I would have to run over to see what was the matter.”
Now Mr. Cu sits, or rather perches, on a chair just inside the new 'Mandarin' restaurant. He turns in his chair to face the street, watching for tourists. When he sees them, he jumps up, and walks down the stairs to the sidewalk to greet them. “Please come inside, I have a table for you!” His manner is more charming than pleading, and genuinely friendly. Mr. Cu likes people. And people like him. He says that business, up until lately, has been good. But now he is noticing the downturn in the world economy: there are fewer tourists this year than previously. Things are “difficult.” But despite the downturn, Mr. Cu's restaurant should continue to do well. It serves up some of the best food in town, at reasonable rates, and in a spotlessly clean restaurant. He offers free internet and wifi, and there's a booking desk for tours and tickets. And there's Mr. Cu himself – always friendly, always helpful, and always smiling.
In addition to his other accomplishments, Mr. Cu is a well-known photographer. His many framed photographs – all taken in and around Hue – are hung on every available bit of wall space in 'The Mandarin.' He has a wonderful eye. He started taking pictures in 1994, when he moved from #2 to #8 Le Loi. Business was slow, so he borrowed his brother-in-law's camera and started taking photos. He learned as he went. In 1997 Mr. Cu's photos were shown at an exhibition in Italy; in 1999 in France. He sells both large and post-card sized prints of his photos to tourists who frequent his restaurant. My favourites are his photos of ordinary Vietnamese people engaged in everyday activities: a barber cutting a child's hair, two children playing with a cat, a group of women sitting on a bench in a park, kids eating ice-cream, and a classic of a couple of very old women, twins, squatting in the dust, their ancient lined faces set in looks of grim determination: what are they thinking?
For me, Mr. Cu epitomizes the resilience, resourcefulness and industriousness of the Vietnamese people. The communist government's decision in 1990 to allow private enterprise opened the door to a new era for Vietnam. An era of growth and prosperity. And Mr. Cu believes, despite these hard times, that it will continue. “Some people now complain about the government. But it doesn't matter. Our leaders are old. Soon they will be gone, and younger people with more modern ideas and open attitudes will come in. Things will change. Things will get better.”
Posting a Parcel in Vietnam: Watch Out Canada Post!
As Canadians we have, over years of experience, come to associate the words Post Office with sometimes civil, but more often surly, inefficiency: women and men moving at considerably less than half-speed, spending more time dithering about, examining their fingernails and talking to their colleagues, than serving customers who inevitably wait, patiently or impatiently (it doesn't matter) in long queues, to post a parcel, pick up a registered letter, or just buy some stamps.
So we were totally unprepared for our visit to the Vietnam Post Office in Hue. We went there to mail a parcel: a few paintings on silk and a couple of embroidered t-shirts, rolled up in a cardboard tube that started its life as a container for badminton birds.
We had read that we must take our parcel to the post office unwrapped so they could examine the contents. At an earlier visit, we'd been told that they would wrap it. We showed up at the post office around mid-afternoon, and took our unwrapped tube to the 'International Letters and Parcels' wicket.
Behind the glass, a young woman dressed in the Post Office uniform – a pair of flowing white silk wide-legged trousers topped with a close-fitting, long-sleeved royal blue tunic, the front and back panels of which fell gracefully to mid-calf. She looked like she was dressed more for a formal dinner party than a day's work at the post office. Although all young Vietnamese women are beautiful, she was particularly pretty, with a lovely smile.
She took the tube from us, removed one of the caps, and looked inside. But rather than dumping the contents out on her desk, she just asked us, in excellent English, what was inside. We told her. She picked up a couple of forms, made a few quick marks on them, and then passed them over to us with instructions on how to fill them out.
Meanwhile, she started into the wrapping process. First she used a huge set of shears to cut a piece of brown paper. She wrapped the tube around twice, then used a special roll of wide blue packing tape, emblazoned with white Vietnam Post Office letters and symbols, to seal first the length of the tube, and then the two ends. She first criss-crossed each end with two short length of tape, then covered the ends of those tapes with a circular wrap. She did all this in the space of about three minutes, maybe less. We were impressed: no one was going to get into this package.
But she wasn't finished yet. She handed us the tube, on which she'd written “to” and “from” in the appropriate places, and asked us to write the addresses. Once we'd done that, we handed it back to her. She used a length of sturdy string to tie up the tube, and attached a customs declaration to the ends of the ties. Once that was done, she used a special 'gun' to attach a metal clasp to the ends of the string, sealing them together.
Then, with lightening speed, she consulted a book of tables to establish the price of sending the package to Canada. She affixed the necessary stamp, and then another stamp indicating the 'class' of the package (first class, registered). She used clear packing tape to cover both of the stamps – no stealing those (they're worth several days' wages to many Vietnamese) – and a section of the string.
She did all of this in less than five minutes. And during the process she also directed a man on how to fill out the multiple forms he needed to fill out to send six books to different addresses in the USA, and a young woman on where to get the proper envelope to use to send a beautifully gift-wrapped package. When she was speaking with them she looked up just long enough to make sure her communication was understood, and to smile at them in a friendly, encouraging way.
We looked on amazed, almost stunned, wishing we had a video camera, to document her stylish super-efficiency. No one 'back home' would believe a postal person could – or would – provide service like this!
She handed us a copy of our statement of contents, on which she'd filled in the amount we needed to pay (for the stamp only, not the wrapping service, which is 'free'). We gave her a large bill and she gave us our change, quickly and efficiently counting the notes for us so we could see that it was correct, and we were done. As we walked down the stairs of the Post Office building we both shook our heads in disbelief: we had just mailed an unwrapped package to Canada in less than seven minutes. Look out Canada Post!
Danang
Before leaving Hue we went to our favourite dinner joint, the Saigon Pho, for one last meal. We'd taken some photos of the cooks and waitresses, which we handed to one of the girls as we came in. They crowded round, gawking and giggling at the photos, passing them back and forth among them. It took quite a while before we could distract them long enough to order our meal.
When we were finished, we went over to say thanks and good-bye to the duena, a middle-aged woman who sat regally on her stool in the corner, taking the cash from the waitresses and giving them the change togive to the customers. Although she was often expressionless, when we told her we were heading to Danang the next day, her face lit up. “You are going to Danang? Tomorrow?” she asked. “Yes, tomorrow.”
She stood up and grabbed one of her business cards from the little stand beside her. “My son is opening a restaurant in Danang the day after tomorrow. I am going to be there. Please come. Can you come?”
We hadn't planned to stay in Danang more than one night – it was just the nearest train station to Hoi An, an old historic city that we wanted to visit. But her invitation was too good to refuse. “Yes, we'll come! We'll see you there.” She was chuffed: “See you there!” she echoed.
As it happened, the restaurant, which was called 'Saigon Noodle,' was some distance away from our hotel. But we decided to walk. It started to rain when we were about half-way there. We quickened our pace.
We knew we'd found the place when we saw several great stands of flowers out front of a brightly lit restaurant. A young man stood in the doorway. We showed him his mother's card, and he welcomed us in. Within seconds she appeared, ushering us to a table with great fanfare. “Welcome, welcome! I'm so happy you came!”
We were, of course, the only foreigners. Tables of locals turned to look at us - the people being welcomed so warmly by the duena. They smiled appreciatively too. It was clearly a family and friends affair, but we weren't party crashers: we were welcome, and special, guests.
The menu was identical in all respects – right down to the cover – to that of the Hue restaurant. And the food was just as good. The duena's son had done a beautiful job finishing and decorating the place, and had made some good innovations in terms of locating the cooking area along one side of the restaurant, behind a little counter, in full view of its patrons. The chief cook, his wife, was radiant, stirring great pots of soup and passing filled bowls to the waitresses, who stood in a chorus line on the other side of the counter.
We took photos, the duena wielded a movie camera, and we all celebrated what we hoped would be the beginning of a successful business. Before we left, we once again went to say our thanks and good-byes to the duena. We asked her and her son for some business cards so we could leave them at our hotel for other guests, and told them we'd write to the 'Lonely Planet' and recommend both their restaurants. They thanked us profusely - “so kind, so kind.”
The duena took my arm and pulled me close. She looked into my eyes and said: “You are good woman.” To which I replied: “You are good woman!” Good woman and good mother. She is one of many many Vietnamese people we have met who have found a way to capitalize on the recent surge in tourism in their country. And she is sharing her hard work, the fruits of her labour, with her son. We wish them every success: they deserve it.
Hoi An
We took a tourist bus to Hoi An, about an hour from Danang. Although it's a lot smaller than Danang (population just over one million), Hoi An (population 75,000) attracts far more tourists. It's literally flooded with them. On many of the central streets, and almost all of the restaurants, tourists outnumber locals by a wide margin.
Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage site, famous for its historic buildings, some of which were built by the Japanese in the late 1500s and 1600s. There are photo ops at every turn. But what really draws the tourists, in droves, are Hoi Ans scores of clothes stores. These stores sell not only off-the rack clothes – dresses, shirts, jackets, suits, pants, shorts and bathing suits – but will make anything you can show them, or describe to them. Or you can bring them something you like, and they'll copy it. They also have great books of patterns. They do it in just a day or two, and their prices are unbelievably cheap - $50 for a man's suit, $7-10 for a dress, $30 for a jacket.
We saw some lovely fabrics – lots of silks – and great designs – everything from ultra-tailored, which is favoured by the Vietnamese, to modern (western) blousey and baggy. They do it all. Some tourists were there just to buy their winter wardrobes. It's cheaper for them to fly to Vietnam and spend a week or two having clothes made than it is to buy them in their own countries.
One day we rented bikes and cycled out to the beach not far from Hoi An – thirty kilometres of golden sand with just a handful of tourists, mostly clustered in front of the various resort hotels that front on the beach – thankfully far enough back as to be almost invisible to those on the beach.
We sat and watched the waves crashing in. The South China Sea. We didn't see any pirates, but we did watch as several fishermen in round woven basket boats called caracols manoeuvred their way in and fought their way out through the surf, standing up in their 'boats' and using just one paddle. The boats seemed pretty inefficient, but they're cheap and disposable (likely only lasting one season, or maybe two), and that's likely more important to the fishermen. We couldn't believe how far out these guys went. We'd lose sight of them completely. We were glad to see that they seemed to go out in pairs or little groups.
While we were in Hoi An we extended our Vietnam visas for another month. There's just so much to see and enjoy here. The country is beautiful, the people are wonderful, the food is fabulous, the accommodations are terrific, and the country is one of the cheapest we've ever travelled in. We're managing very comfortably on around $35 a day – for both of us. Unbelievable. But it won't last. Vietnam is on a roll, tourism is increasing, and the word is spreading... .
Nhatrang
It was a long 9 hour train-ride from Danang to Nhatrang, about half-way to Ho Chi Minh City – or Saigon as all but the northern Communist government officials and western ultra-politically correct types call it. What made it longer was the dreadful 'rail tv' – loud adverts, a dumb 'Home Alone' movie in English with a voice over giving the story-line in Vietnamese (presumably cheaper than dubbing, and more effective than sub-titles, as many Vietnamese cannot read), and a truly awful series of Vietnamese comedy shows with screeching women and screaming men. The Vietnamese passengers (there were only four foreigners in the car) loved it, or slept through it.
The train staff came round several times with drinks, snacks and dinner. The first big snack, around 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon, was duck embryos. These are immensely popular in Vietnam, and we've seen people eating them everywhere. To us, they are absolutely disgusting. Duck embryos, complete with little beaks and feathers, cooked inside the eggshell along with their yolks. Ug. I was amused to see a little girl steadfastly refusing her mother's attempts to get her to have a bite of one. She turned and twisted in her seat, trying to get away from the proffered spoon, making truly awful faces. I guess it's an acquired taste. But they all seem to acquire it. It's amazing to watch beautiful women and handsome men devouring these poor little would-be ducklings.
Nhatrang's an interesting place. Fairly modern, with lots of construction going on (but that's going on almost everywhere in Vietnam). It's right on the coast. Our hotel is about a block from the beach – another long stretch of golden sand with just a few tourists, most of whom keep to their rented deck chairs well up on the beach.
Walking around Nhatrang – as well as Danang, Hoi An, and to a lesser extent Hue – has increased my concerns about the global economic crisis. The number of tourists here is down – way down according to locals who depend on it. Hotels everywhere are empty – especially the big fancy ones. Yet everywhere large hotel chains are building massive new hotels. Massive is almost not big enough to describe these monsters, or monstrosities. They are completely out of scale with the rest of the built environment, in which few buildings are over three, or maybe five stories at most. They are also uniformly ugly – great concrete and glass structures with none of the lyrical grace of the indigenous architecture.
Along the beach front we passed miles of ugly, naked concrete walls. Walls that surround resort hotel complexes, many of which sit almost empty. And equally ugly construction fencing, guarding half-finished resort hotels, many of which appear to have been abandoned several months, if not years, ago. Small wonder. There are already far more hotels than tourists. It appears everyone expected more and faster tourist growth than has actually taken place, and no one did their homework, in terms of realistic projections, before starting their projects. Perhaps they were too keen to be the first past the post, so focused on out-competing one another that they lost sight of the goal.
One can't help but wonder what the impact will be when these big hotel chains decide to write off these ill-conceived projects, they will surely have to do unless.... unless the Chinese, who seem to be the only ones with real money in their pockets, decide to spend it on travel to destinations like Vietnam. We already see a fair number of Chinese tourists. They generally travel in schools, like fish, following a guide around a museum, a historical site, a natural wonder. But at this point there are hardly enough of them to even begin to fill a fraction of the hotel rooms already available, and empty, let alone the ones now under construction. These big white elephants represent yet another unhappy economic story in the continuing saga of downturns and crises. And, more importantly, in the greed and mindless actions and developments that have fueled them. Will the west ever learn 'restraint' or 'circumspection?' Or are we genetically programmed to 'damn the torpedoes and go full speed ahead?'
Ho Chi Minh City
Five million people, three million motorcycles. Ho Chi Minh City, known as Sai Gon by pretty much everyone here except the 'politically correct' westerners, is a walker's nightmare. Traffic obeys no rules, but flows like a relentless river. When there's a blockage ahead, the river separates into little streams that flow up onto sidewalks, or the wrong way up one-way streets. No where is 'safe.'
But it's also a lively colourful place – a bustling metropolis that exudes high-octane energy. Our arrival at the train station coincided exactly with Vietnam's winning of the Asia cup for football (what we call soccer). The place went wild. Porters running along the platform with full baggage carts whooping and yelling; ticket-check girls jumping and laughing. In the streets it was pandemonium. Every single one of the three million motorcycles was out there, riders waving flags on long poles, singing at the top of their lungs, cheering. They cheered, clashed cymbals, blew on home-made horns – anything to make as much noise as possible. And the jubilation was all-inclusive – youngsters, oldsters, men, women – everyone celebrated. One guy was so excited he stalled his bike. What was truly wonderful, from a westerner's perspective, was that there were absolutely no drunken louts or obnoxious rowdies in the crowds. It was all just fun – like a kid's party. And it was a great introduction to this amazing city!
Hue
The night train from Hanoi to Hue (pronounced Huay, not Hoo-ee as the Americans, who bombed most of it, called it) was uncomfortably cold. We'd paid the extra for a 'soft sleeper,' which was much softer than the board-like 'hard sleeper' we'd been tortured by from Lao Cai to Hanoi, and air-con. What we didn't realize was that the air-con would be turned on high, and that even the train man wouldn't be able to turn down. After several complaints about it we, like others, used the sheet we were given for our mattress to stuff into and over the air-con grill. But still the cold came through. And the blankets were small and thin, so I spent most of the night desperately trying to cover both my freezing feet and my cold shoulders – but it was either one or the other. So despite the soft sleeper, I didn't get much sleep, and arrived in Hue feeling exhausted and hung over.
The best thing about the train ride was meeting and talking with the young Irish couple who shared our compartment, and a Canadian woman, closer to our age, now living and working in Nepal. She and a friend have started an NGO focusing on providing economic opportunities to people who are often excluded from other kinds of projects – street sellers for example. She and I had a great chat about our working histories, including our shared experiences with 'bitchy women syndrome' – girls behaving badly. Although she was sorry to hear about it, she was not at all surprised by the selfish and mean-spirited behaviour of my colleagues. Her comment: 'well, now you're here traveling in Asia, and they're undoubtedly carrying on with their in-fighting back there.' Too true!
We were met at the train station by a clutch of touts, all wanting us to come with them to their hotel. One young man offered us a free ride into town, a distance of four kilometres or so, promising that if we didn't like his hotel, we were under no obligation. So the five of us piled in. As it turned out, the hotel was fabulous – new, comfortable, with hot water, tv and lovely balconies in every room – and, best of all, a little bit away from the city's centre, with its tourist strip and string of hotels. The staff are all very friendly and helpful and, music to our ears, they're happy to provide us a big thermos of hot water in the morning so we can make ourselves tea – for me, and coffee – for Doug, in our room. So we're set – we could stay here for weeks! Except.... that it's still a little cooler here than we expected. We still need our sweaters at night!
Hue was the political capital of Vietnam from 1802 to 1945, under the 13 emperors of the Nguyen dynasty. It continues, according to our Lonely Planet guide, to be the 'intellectual, cultural and spiritual heart of Vietnam.' It's less than a third the size of Hanoi, with only about 300,000 people, and from the looks of it so far there are less than a hundredth of the motorcycles on its streets. It is blissfully quiet and slow-paced. People actually walk here, and ride bicycles. The streets are wide and tree-lined, lovely for walking. And you can cross even the 'busiest' streets without feeling like you're playing Russian roulette with your life. What a relief!
Despite our exhaustion we set off to see the 'citadel' – a huge walled city that once served as the centre of the imperial dynasty. Within the citadel is the Forbidden Purple City where the emporer's family, and royal concubines, lived. Only female servants and eunuchs were permitted within its walls. Unfortunately Americans did not spare the citadel in their bombing sprees, and many of the buildings within the enclosure were heavily damaged or destroyed. What's left, a collection of beautiful and colourful ruins, suggests a sumptuous life. Some of the buildings are being restored – a huge and painstaking process – by the Vietnamese government. The restorations are a priority primarily because Hue has been designated as a World Heritage Site, and therefore draws tens of thousands of tourists, all of whom, like us, come to see the citadel and the famous 'Forbidden Purple City.'
As we strolled back towards our hotel we were looking for a little pho (noodle soup) place, but all we saw were com (rice) places. We stopped to take a closer look at one of them, a typical rather grotty-looking place on a street dedicated to fruit and vegetable vendors. A slim older woman in a beautiful printed silk top and trousers invited us to sit down. We asked 'pho?' and she nodded. We sat, and watched as she plucked three packages wrapped in banana leaves that were hanging on a wire at the front of her stall. These contained our individual portions of noodles. Another gal placed a plateful of mixed greens on our table – water cress, cilantro, basil, bean sprouts, and a few other unidentified herbs, along with a few slices of lime. Our hopes were raised: so far we haven't been given these ingredients, essential, in our view, to a real bowl of pho. Then our bowls arrived, steaming hot and filled with noodles and finely shaved pieces of pork. It was one of the best pho soups we've had yet. Who'd have thunk?
As we were slurping it down, the silk-suited woman came over to watch, gesturing towards us in a question of 'do you like it?' We gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up, saying 'very good, number one!' and smiling broadly. She was chuffed. The next thing we knew she had brought us each a glass of cold Vietnamese tea, and then a little banana-leaf packet with a slab of gelatinous rice inside – something we'd seen the locals eating, but hadn't yet tried. She sat down beside us, glowing with pride as other vendors in the little market area called back and forth, drawing attention to her happy foreign customers. With service like that, we'll be back! This was the second time we had had such a great bowl of pho, and received such solicitous service, at a humble street stall in a market, frequented pretty much exclusively by locals. The first time was the day before, in Hanoi. Most tourists are too afraid they'll pick up something nasty from eating in these places. Interestingly, it's often at the more upscale places that one runs into trouble.
The Delightful Mr. Cu
We had a short nap after lunch, then lazed about reading, trying to recover from our train journey. Then it was time for dinner. We set out looking for the Mandarin Restaurant, which was highly recommended in our trusty Lonely Planet: “A magnet for travelers, the cheerful owner, Mr. Cu, speaks English and French and serves big dollops of travel advice along with pho, BLTs, salads and pancakes.” And.. “he has consistently improved his services since the first LP mention, a rarity worth noting.” Indeed it is! We often find that once places are recommended in the LP their prices go up, and the quality of their services goes down. So we decided to give the Mandarin, and Mr. Cu, a try. The restaurant was not where our book said it should be, but we did find a sign there which gave us directions to the new location, just a few blocks away.
He was standing in the broad open doorway of his restaurant, at the top of a short flight of stairs. As we walked towards the stairs, he opened his arms in welcome, smiled, and said: “come in, come in please!” As we mounted the stairs, I asked “Are you Mr. Cue?” He admitted that he was, and I said “We've been looking for you!” We shook hands – he exuded unusual warmth and grace even in this simplest of gestures. He cut an elegant figure – a little taller than most Vietnamese, slim, and well-dressed in a nicely tailored dark suit. He had a handsome face with strong chiseled features – softened by the wrinkles of age, and warmed by his lively thoughtful eyes. A delightful man.
Mr. Cu was born in the spring of 1945, on a sampan on the Perfume River, a broad river that separates the modern business centre of Hue from the old city, with its historic imperial enclosure and the famed 'Forbidden Purple City' where the emperors' concubines and family lives. Mr. Cu was the second of six children. His parents were poor – his father worked as a cyclo (bicycle taxi) driver in the city. They were too poor to have a house, so they lived on the little sampan. Mr. Cu's mother was particularly anxious around the time of his birth: the Americans were bombing a bridge on the Perfume River that was still in Japanese hands. The bridge was not far from where Mr. Cu's family tied their boat. But he arrived without incident, and the family continued to live on the boat for another eight years, when they managed to buy a house in the centre of the city.
Mr. Cu and his brothers and sisters all attended school. At that time, education was 'free' – parents did not have to pay to send their children to school. Mr. Cu completed grade twelve and then, like most of his classmates, went to work. He became a bus driver. And then came the Vietnam War. Hue is located on the coast of Vietnam, almost precisely in the middle, between what was North and South Vietnam. It lies just south of the DMZ or 'Demilitarized Zone.' The Americans had a base here, and recruited locals for a variety of jobs. Like many South Vietnamese, Mr. Cu was keen to work for the Americans – they paid well. He applied for a job as a driver. Apart from his experience as a bus driver, Mr. Hue had the right credentials for the job: his family was 'clean' – it had no connections to the Hanoi government. He was hired by a US Army contractor to drive a stand-by fire truck at Hue's airport. The job lasted only two years: in 1971 and 1972 the U.S. began their withdrawal from Vietnam. Mr. Cu was let go.
But he was soon re-hired by another US Army contractor, this time driving 'big trucks.' The U.S. Army's withdrawal from Vietnam meant that its equipment, furniture and the personal effects of its service men and women had to be transported to depots for shipment back home. There was a lot of stuff to move, but by 1973 the troops and their paraphernalia were gone, and Mr. Cu was again without work. There was little work in Hue, so Mr. Cu went south to Qui Nhon, a larger city on the coast, about half-way between Hue and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City, or HCMC). He looked up one of his old bosses, a Vietnamese woman who had managed the transport of goods for the U.S. Army in Hue. She had married a Korean man, who had helped her win a contract supplying rice and vegetables to the Korean Army, which had a base in Qui Nhon. Mr. Cu became her personal chauffeur.
In 1974 Mr. Cu met and married his wife in Qui Nhon. They lived there until 1975. After the American withdrawal from Vietnam, the Hanoi government had difficulty controlling the population. There was widespread violence and looting. According to Mr. Cu, it was a 'crazy time.' He decided that he and his wife would be safer in Hue, closer to his family. The drive between Qui Nhon and Hue was difficult and dangerous. They arrived on May 15th, the day before their first baby was born. Mr. Cu took his labouring wife to the hospital for the birth, but there were no doctors or nurses to help them. Mr. Cu had to look after his wife himself, washing her sheets and clothing and bringing her food. He agreed, with a laugh, that they might just as well have stayed at home. Their next child, another daughter, was born two years later, in 1975.
From 1975 to 1990 Vietnam was ruled, as it is today, by a communist government located in Hanoi. But during this fifteen year period, Vietnam, like other 'good communist' countries, was heavily subsidized by Russia. Russia gave large amounts of money to Vietnam: the country was almost entirely dependent on Russian aid. According to Mr. Cu, 'the government owned everything.' There was no private enterprise. Mr. Cu, having worked for the Americans, was unable to get work with the only employer: the communist government of Vietnam. He describes this as a 'very difficult time.' But when he spoke of how he got through it, he laughed a lot. “The North Vietnamese were very poor. They had three dreams: to own a watch, a radio and a bicycle. They particularly wanted self-winding watches, the ones where you can just wave your hand: you don't have to wind it. Many South Vietnamese had been given such watches as presents by U.S. Army personnel. Some of them were broken, but I learned how to fix them. I would fix them so they worked. Sometimes they would only work for a few seconds – just long enough for me to sell the watch. But I had no shop. I just sold on the street. So when the watch stopped, they would have no way of finding me! Radios I knew nothing about. I couldn't fix a radio. But my brother-in-law could. So he fixed the radios, and I sold them too. And I learned how to repair bicycles.”
Mr. Cu described how North Vietnamese people would arrive in Hue – many with no shoes – looking for 'presents.' “They thought that all of us in South Vietnam were rich, and that we would give them things. They were so poor. It was sad really.” During this entire period of time, food was scarce: the government instituted a ration system. Citizens were entitled to buy only 15 kilos of rice and one kilo of sugar per person per month. There was a black market for meat, vegetables and fruit. When we told Mr. Cu that this was still the reality in Cuba today, he just shook his head. “I know, very sad.”
In 1990, when Russia felt apart, all aid to Vietnam was cut off. The situation became desperate. Interestingly, the Hanoi government's reaction, unlike that of Cuba, was to allow private enterprise. Tourists were allowed to visit Vietnam for the first time since before the war. This was the dawning of a new era for Vietnam – an era which has seen an incredible growth in development and in opportunities, and prosperity, for the Vietnamese people. (The contrast with Cuba, where private enterprise is still prohibited, is striking. It is not just the American embargo that is beggaring Cuba: it is the determination of Cuba's leaders to maintain a draconian communist regime.) Mr. Cu's ability to seize an opportunity when he saw it again came to the fore: he opened a small cafe in the government owned 'Hotel #2 Le Loi,' one of only four hotels at that time in Hue, all government owned, but the 'Le Loi' the best and most popular of the lot.
During his first year of business, Mr. Cu's customers were largely Vietnamese. They'd come for a coffee, and to watch the t.v. and videos that Mr. Cu wisely installed. By 1991 tourists started coming in larger numbers, and Mr. Cu's cafe became 'the place' to go, recommended in guide books not only for its food, but perhaps more importantly for Mr. Cu's ability to speak English. Most of the staff at the other hotels and cafes spoke only Russian. Their service was slow, and their food was bad. Meanwhile, Mr. Cu's outgoing personality and willingness to help foreign tourists was making him friends.
These friends, many of whom he still has contact with, helped him to steadily improve his service – and his food. An American from Colorado taught him how to make banana pancakes. Mr. Cu's banana pancakes became famous enough to win the #8 Le Loi restaurant a special mention in a 1993 New York Times article on Vietnam. Other foreign tourists helped their friend Mr. Cu by writing and designing menus for his restaurant and advising him on good business practices. The enterprising Mr. Cu was ever quick to implement their suggestions.
The popularity of Mr. Cu's cafe did not go unnoticed by the authorities. He had frequent visits by the local police, who would ask him all sorts of questions about the tourists in his cafe: where were they going and what were they doing? He laughed when he told us about this. “How do I know where they're going? I don't ask them!” he would answer. The popularity of his cafe was also a sore point for the hotel, whose restaurant was almost always empty. In 1994 the hotel management (ie. the government) decided to get rid of the competition, and terminated his lease. In his typical indomitable style, Mr. Cu relocated just a few doors away, at #8 Le Loi. He leased a building owned by a French organization that had been running a school and social development centre for Vietnamese children. The building was run down and dirty, but Mr. Cu fixed it up and opened his new restaurant, which he called 'The Mandarin.'
We asked Mr. Cu how his restaurant got its name. “Ah,” he laughed (always laughing!), “that's a good story!” When Mr. Cu was forced to relocate from #2 to #8 Le Loi, an American tourist who had first met Mr. Cu in 1992, when he and a friend were bicycling around Vietnam, and who had met and married a Vietnamese woman, and stayed in touch with Mr. Cu, said: “you're new restaurant has to have a name!” He suggested 'The Mandarin.' Why? “Because,” said Mr. Cu, “your restaurant is located in Hue, which is famous for the imperial city and the old emperors of Vietnam. But you are not an emperor. You are just a mandarin!” And it's remained 'The Mandarin' ever since.
Mr. Cu's tenure at #8 Le Loi lasted only 18 months before the French organization decided they wanted the building, and the land, back. So he was forced to move again, this time into the Army (Vietnam) Hotel. Over the next six years, Mr. Cu the hotel managers made him move his restaurant three more times – to different locations within the hotel. And then they too kicked him out. In 2000 he leased a building, again from the Vietnamese Army, at #3 Hung Vuong, one of the main streets in Hue. Again he was wildly successful. And again his lease was terminated, although this time he'd managed to last for five years – the longest period yet.
But this move proved one move too many for the indomitable Mr. Cu. He said he felt “old and tired.' He suffered a debilitating depression. “For eight months I did not leave my room. I didn't care about anything. An American friend was very worried about me. He would come almost every day to visit me. Sometimes he slept in my room. He made me go to a doctor for treatment. I got medication, and started to get better... .” A little later, Mr. Cu, again on the recommendation of an American friend, went to see an American woman doctor who recommended daily exercise to prevent further episodes of depression. Mr. Cu has taken her recommendation to heart: he exercises and takes only a minimal dose of medications, and his depression remains under control.
During the eight months of his debilitating depression it was Mr. Cu's wife – his partner and the cook (still) at the restaurant – who took on the responsibility for moving the restaurant one more time. It was her decision, on advice from another American friend, to buy a piece of land and build their own restaurant. To this day Mr. Cu does not know how she did it. “I had nothing to do with it. I stayed in my room. I didn't care.” For six months the Cu's ran two restaurants – the one at #3 Hung Vuong and the new one at #24 Tran Cao Van Street. “The Vietnamese Army wanted us to continue: they needed someone to pay for the lease of the building! Sometimes I would be at one restaurant and get a call from the other one. I would have to run over to see what was the matter.”
Now Mr. Cu sits, or rather perches, on a chair just inside the new 'Mandarin' restaurant. He turns in his chair to face the street, watching for tourists. When he sees them, he jumps up, and walks down the stairs to the sidewalk to greet them. “Please come inside, I have a table for you!” His manner is more charming than pleading, and genuinely friendly. Mr. Cu likes people. And people like him. He says that business, up until lately, has been good. But now he is noticing the downturn in the world economy: there are fewer tourists this year than previously. Things are “difficult.” But despite the downturn, Mr. Cu's restaurant should continue to do well. It serves up some of the best food in town, at reasonable rates, and in a spotlessly clean restaurant. He offers free internet and wifi, and there's a booking desk for tours and tickets. And there's Mr. Cu himself – always friendly, always helpful, and always smiling.
In addition to his other accomplishments, Mr. Cu is a well-known photographer. His many framed photographs – all taken in and around Hue – are hung on every available bit of wall space in 'The Mandarin.' He has a wonderful eye. He started taking pictures in 1994, when he moved from #2 to #8 Le Loi. Business was slow, so he borrowed his brother-in-law's camera and started taking photos. He learned as he went. In 1997 Mr. Cu's photos were shown at an exhibition in Italy; in 1999 in France. He sells both large and post-card sized prints of his photos to tourists who frequent his restaurant. My favourites are his photos of ordinary Vietnamese people engaged in everyday activities: a barber cutting a child's hair, two children playing with a cat, a group of women sitting on a bench in a park, kids eating ice-cream, and a classic of a couple of very old women, twins, squatting in the dust, their ancient lined faces set in looks of grim determination: what are they thinking?
For me, Mr. Cu epitomizes the resilience, resourcefulness and industriousness of the Vietnamese people. The communist government's decision in 1990 to allow private enterprise opened the door to a new era for Vietnam. An era of growth and prosperity. And Mr. Cu believes, despite these hard times, that it will continue. “Some people now complain about the government. But it doesn't matter. Our leaders are old. Soon they will be gone, and younger people with more modern ideas and open attitudes will come in. Things will change. Things will get better.”
Posting a Parcel in Vietnam: Watch Out Canada Post!
As Canadians we have, over years of experience, come to associate the words Post Office with sometimes civil, but more often surly, inefficiency: women and men moving at considerably less than half-speed, spending more time dithering about, examining their fingernails and talking to their colleagues, than serving customers who inevitably wait, patiently or impatiently (it doesn't matter) in long queues, to post a parcel, pick up a registered letter, or just buy some stamps.
So we were totally unprepared for our visit to the Vietnam Post Office in Hue. We went there to mail a parcel: a few paintings on silk and a couple of embroidered t-shirts, rolled up in a cardboard tube that started its life as a container for badminton birds.
We had read that we must take our parcel to the post office unwrapped so they could examine the contents. At an earlier visit, we'd been told that they would wrap it. We showed up at the post office around mid-afternoon, and took our unwrapped tube to the 'International Letters and Parcels' wicket.
Behind the glass, a young woman dressed in the Post Office uniform – a pair of flowing white silk wide-legged trousers topped with a close-fitting, long-sleeved royal blue tunic, the front and back panels of which fell gracefully to mid-calf. She looked like she was dressed more for a formal dinner party than a day's work at the post office. Although all young Vietnamese women are beautiful, she was particularly pretty, with a lovely smile.
She took the tube from us, removed one of the caps, and looked inside. But rather than dumping the contents out on her desk, she just asked us, in excellent English, what was inside. We told her. She picked up a couple of forms, made a few quick marks on them, and then passed them over to us with instructions on how to fill them out.
Meanwhile, she started into the wrapping process. First she used a huge set of shears to cut a piece of brown paper. She wrapped the tube around twice, then used a special roll of wide blue packing tape, emblazoned with white Vietnam Post Office letters and symbols, to seal first the length of the tube, and then the two ends. She first criss-crossed each end with two short length of tape, then covered the ends of those tapes with a circular wrap. She did all this in the space of about three minutes, maybe less. We were impressed: no one was going to get into this package.
But she wasn't finished yet. She handed us the tube, on which she'd written “to” and “from” in the appropriate places, and asked us to write the addresses. Once we'd done that, we handed it back to her. She used a length of sturdy string to tie up the tube, and attached a customs declaration to the ends of the ties. Once that was done, she used a special 'gun' to attach a metal clasp to the ends of the string, sealing them together.
Then, with lightening speed, she consulted a book of tables to establish the price of sending the package to Canada. She affixed the necessary stamp, and then another stamp indicating the 'class' of the package (first class, registered). She used clear packing tape to cover both of the stamps – no stealing those (they're worth several days' wages to many Vietnamese) – and a section of the string.
She did all of this in less than five minutes. And during the process she also directed a man on how to fill out the multiple forms he needed to fill out to send six books to different addresses in the USA, and a young woman on where to get the proper envelope to use to send a beautifully gift-wrapped package. When she was speaking with them she looked up just long enough to make sure her communication was understood, and to smile at them in a friendly, encouraging way.
We looked on amazed, almost stunned, wishing we had a video camera, to document her stylish super-efficiency. No one 'back home' would believe a postal person could – or would – provide service like this!
She handed us a copy of our statement of contents, on which she'd filled in the amount we needed to pay (for the stamp only, not the wrapping service, which is 'free'). We gave her a large bill and she gave us our change, quickly and efficiently counting the notes for us so we could see that it was correct, and we were done. As we walked down the stairs of the Post Office building we both shook our heads in disbelief: we had just mailed an unwrapped package to Canada in less than seven minutes. Look out Canada Post!
Danang
Before leaving Hue we went to our favourite dinner joint, the Saigon Pho, for one last meal. We'd taken some photos of the cooks and waitresses, which we handed to one of the girls as we came in. They crowded round, gawking and giggling at the photos, passing them back and forth among them. It took quite a while before we could distract them long enough to order our meal.
When we were finished, we went over to say thanks and good-bye to the duena, a middle-aged woman who sat regally on her stool in the corner, taking the cash from the waitresses and giving them the change togive to the customers. Although she was often expressionless, when we told her we were heading to Danang the next day, her face lit up. “You are going to Danang? Tomorrow?” she asked. “Yes, tomorrow.”
She stood up and grabbed one of her business cards from the little stand beside her. “My son is opening a restaurant in Danang the day after tomorrow. I am going to be there. Please come. Can you come?”
We hadn't planned to stay in Danang more than one night – it was just the nearest train station to Hoi An, an old historic city that we wanted to visit. But her invitation was too good to refuse. “Yes, we'll come! We'll see you there.” She was chuffed: “See you there!” she echoed.
As it happened, the restaurant, which was called 'Saigon Noodle,' was some distance away from our hotel. But we decided to walk. It started to rain when we were about half-way there. We quickened our pace.
We knew we'd found the place when we saw several great stands of flowers out front of a brightly lit restaurant. A young man stood in the doorway. We showed him his mother's card, and he welcomed us in. Within seconds she appeared, ushering us to a table with great fanfare. “Welcome, welcome! I'm so happy you came!”
We were, of course, the only foreigners. Tables of locals turned to look at us - the people being welcomed so warmly by the duena. They smiled appreciatively too. It was clearly a family and friends affair, but we weren't party crashers: we were welcome, and special, guests.
The menu was identical in all respects – right down to the cover – to that of the Hue restaurant. And the food was just as good. The duena's son had done a beautiful job finishing and decorating the place, and had made some good innovations in terms of locating the cooking area along one side of the restaurant, behind a little counter, in full view of its patrons. The chief cook, his wife, was radiant, stirring great pots of soup and passing filled bowls to the waitresses, who stood in a chorus line on the other side of the counter.
We took photos, the duena wielded a movie camera, and we all celebrated what we hoped would be the beginning of a successful business. Before we left, we once again went to say our thanks and good-byes to the duena. We asked her and her son for some business cards so we could leave them at our hotel for other guests, and told them we'd write to the 'Lonely Planet' and recommend both their restaurants. They thanked us profusely - “so kind, so kind.”
The duena took my arm and pulled me close. She looked into my eyes and said: “You are good woman.” To which I replied: “You are good woman!” Good woman and good mother. She is one of many many Vietnamese people we have met who have found a way to capitalize on the recent surge in tourism in their country. And she is sharing her hard work, the fruits of her labour, with her son. We wish them every success: they deserve it.
Hoi An
We took a tourist bus to Hoi An, about an hour from Danang. Although it's a lot smaller than Danang (population just over one million), Hoi An (population 75,000) attracts far more tourists. It's literally flooded with them. On many of the central streets, and almost all of the restaurants, tourists outnumber locals by a wide margin.
Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage site, famous for its historic buildings, some of which were built by the Japanese in the late 1500s and 1600s. There are photo ops at every turn. But what really draws the tourists, in droves, are Hoi Ans scores of clothes stores. These stores sell not only off-the rack clothes – dresses, shirts, jackets, suits, pants, shorts and bathing suits – but will make anything you can show them, or describe to them. Or you can bring them something you like, and they'll copy it. They also have great books of patterns. They do it in just a day or two, and their prices are unbelievably cheap - $50 for a man's suit, $7-10 for a dress, $30 for a jacket.
We saw some lovely fabrics – lots of silks – and great designs – everything from ultra-tailored, which is favoured by the Vietnamese, to modern (western) blousey and baggy. They do it all. Some tourists were there just to buy their winter wardrobes. It's cheaper for them to fly to Vietnam and spend a week or two having clothes made than it is to buy them in their own countries.
One day we rented bikes and cycled out to the beach not far from Hoi An – thirty kilometres of golden sand with just a handful of tourists, mostly clustered in front of the various resort hotels that front on the beach – thankfully far enough back as to be almost invisible to those on the beach.
We sat and watched the waves crashing in. The South China Sea. We didn't see any pirates, but we did watch as several fishermen in round woven basket boats called caracols manoeuvred their way in and fought their way out through the surf, standing up in their 'boats' and using just one paddle. The boats seemed pretty inefficient, but they're cheap and disposable (likely only lasting one season, or maybe two), and that's likely more important to the fishermen. We couldn't believe how far out these guys went. We'd lose sight of them completely. We were glad to see that they seemed to go out in pairs or little groups.
While we were in Hoi An we extended our Vietnam visas for another month. There's just so much to see and enjoy here. The country is beautiful, the people are wonderful, the food is fabulous, the accommodations are terrific, and the country is one of the cheapest we've ever travelled in. We're managing very comfortably on around $35 a day – for both of us. Unbelievable. But it won't last. Vietnam is on a roll, tourism is increasing, and the word is spreading... .
Nhatrang
It was a long 9 hour train-ride from Danang to Nhatrang, about half-way to Ho Chi Minh City – or Saigon as all but the northern Communist government officials and western ultra-politically correct types call it. What made it longer was the dreadful 'rail tv' – loud adverts, a dumb 'Home Alone' movie in English with a voice over giving the story-line in Vietnamese (presumably cheaper than dubbing, and more effective than sub-titles, as many Vietnamese cannot read), and a truly awful series of Vietnamese comedy shows with screeching women and screaming men. The Vietnamese passengers (there were only four foreigners in the car) loved it, or slept through it.
The train staff came round several times with drinks, snacks and dinner. The first big snack, around 4:00 o'clock in the afternoon, was duck embryos. These are immensely popular in Vietnam, and we've seen people eating them everywhere. To us, they are absolutely disgusting. Duck embryos, complete with little beaks and feathers, cooked inside the eggshell along with their yolks. Ug. I was amused to see a little girl steadfastly refusing her mother's attempts to get her to have a bite of one. She turned and twisted in her seat, trying to get away from the proffered spoon, making truly awful faces. I guess it's an acquired taste. But they all seem to acquire it. It's amazing to watch beautiful women and handsome men devouring these poor little would-be ducklings.
Nhatrang's an interesting place. Fairly modern, with lots of construction going on (but that's going on almost everywhere in Vietnam). It's right on the coast. Our hotel is about a block from the beach – another long stretch of golden sand with just a few tourists, most of whom keep to their rented deck chairs well up on the beach.
Walking around Nhatrang – as well as Danang, Hoi An, and to a lesser extent Hue – has increased my concerns about the global economic crisis. The number of tourists here is down – way down according to locals who depend on it. Hotels everywhere are empty – especially the big fancy ones. Yet everywhere large hotel chains are building massive new hotels. Massive is almost not big enough to describe these monsters, or monstrosities. They are completely out of scale with the rest of the built environment, in which few buildings are over three, or maybe five stories at most. They are also uniformly ugly – great concrete and glass structures with none of the lyrical grace of the indigenous architecture.
Along the beach front we passed miles of ugly, naked concrete walls. Walls that surround resort hotel complexes, many of which sit almost empty. And equally ugly construction fencing, guarding half-finished resort hotels, many of which appear to have been abandoned several months, if not years, ago. Small wonder. There are already far more hotels than tourists. It appears everyone expected more and faster tourist growth than has actually taken place, and no one did their homework, in terms of realistic projections, before starting their projects. Perhaps they were too keen to be the first past the post, so focused on out-competing one another that they lost sight of the goal.
One can't help but wonder what the impact will be when these big hotel chains decide to write off these ill-conceived projects, they will surely have to do unless.... unless the Chinese, who seem to be the only ones with real money in their pockets, decide to spend it on travel to destinations like Vietnam. We already see a fair number of Chinese tourists. They generally travel in schools, like fish, following a guide around a museum, a historical site, a natural wonder. But at this point there are hardly enough of them to even begin to fill a fraction of the hotel rooms already available, and empty, let alone the ones now under construction. These big white elephants represent yet another unhappy economic story in the continuing saga of downturns and crises. And, more importantly, in the greed and mindless actions and developments that have fueled them. Will the west ever learn 'restraint' or 'circumspection?' Or are we genetically programmed to 'damn the torpedoes and go full speed ahead?'
Ho Chi Minh City
Five million people, three million motorcycles. Ho Chi Minh City, known as Sai Gon by pretty much everyone here except the 'politically correct' westerners, is a walker's nightmare. Traffic obeys no rules, but flows like a relentless river. When there's a blockage ahead, the river separates into little streams that flow up onto sidewalks, or the wrong way up one-way streets. No where is 'safe.'
But it's also a lively colourful place – a bustling metropolis that exudes high-octane energy. Our arrival at the train station coincided exactly with Vietnam's winning of the Asia cup for football (what we call soccer). The place went wild. Porters running along the platform with full baggage carts whooping and yelling; ticket-check girls jumping and laughing. In the streets it was pandemonium. Every single one of the three million motorcycles was out there, riders waving flags on long poles, singing at the top of their lungs, cheering. They cheered, clashed cymbals, blew on home-made horns – anything to make as much noise as possible. And the jubilation was all-inclusive – youngsters, oldsters, men, women – everyone celebrated. One guy was so excited he stalled his bike. What was truly wonderful, from a westerner's perspective, was that there were absolutely no drunken louts or obnoxious rowdies in the crowds. It was all just fun – like a kid's party. And it was a great introduction to this amazing city!
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