A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
A Private Message to the Vietnamese Man Standing Outside My School Yesterday:

It's nice that you wear that pollution mask -- it shows that you are concerned about your health. However, pulling the pollution mask under your chin so you can smoke a cigarette would indicate that you could use a little lesson on "relative risk".

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 8:35 PM

 
Tourism Objective #2 was the Caodai temple at Tay Ninh, about 40 kilometers away from the tunnels. It become clear very early that our driver didn't know his ass from a roadsign in terms of our direction. It was at this point that we began our endless asking-for-directions parade through the Vietnamese countryside. At practically every intersection we happened upon he would pull over and ask directions. Now I know it is kind of unfair to criticize a man for actually asking directions, but this was truly overkill.

Things soon began to go terribly wrong with our vehicle also. At first it seemed minor -- the air conditioning started cutting out intermittently as we went over bumpy roads (read: all roads). I was somewhat sympathetic at this point, since my crappy Honda Civic has a quaint habit of turning on the wipers every time the car is jarred in any significant way (like stopping or starting, for example). At any rate, due to my own car experience, I was prepared to be magnanimous about this, even though it was getting damned dusty in the car with the windows open in the endless construction zone.

Halfway to Tay Ninh, the minivan stalled at an intersection. Mind you, we were on a schedule here -- we were trying to get to the Caodai Temple for the noon service. So the driver pushed the vehicle down a hill onto a village sidestreet and had us get out while he fiddled with all the exposed wiring located directly under my seat. Ninh and I stood around watching for about 15 minutes while all the neighborhood dogs expressed their vocal displeasure at our continued presence.

We were on the road again fairly quickly, but with no electrical items whatsoever. Sadly, 10 km down the road it crapped out altogether, in the middle of a road construction area that featured one gravel pile after another and large trucks kicking up dust every couple minutes. Not the most salubrious surroundings for waiting.

Ninh and I waited in the car while our idiot driver headed up the road to see what could be arranged. After 10 minutes he returned and said he had arranged for a car to pick us up and take us to the temple, and he would meet us there later with the car. Seems he needed a new battery -- no juice whatsoever. We were directed to walk down the road about 50 yards.

It turned out we waited there for 45 minutes for the (I believe) non-existent second car to pick us up. Fortunately it was a fairly entertaining wait for me. We were seated on little wooden stools under a jackfruit tree in front of a very strange business. Maybe not as strange as the combination luncheonette/spay and neuter clinic in my hometown, but pretty odd nonetheless. It consisted of a basic red brick two-"car" garage-like building with a large metal-roofed lean-to attached. One third of the business was a Vietnamese-style minimart with dried rice flour snacks, cigarettes, motor oil -- pretty much the necessities of life. The second third was a motorbike repair shop -- these things are ubiquitous in Vietnam. The lean-to third of the building was a barbershop, complete with barber chairs and mirrors. During our time there we managed to see all three business in action.

By the time our driver had made a temporary fix to the car (including a push-start -- something I haven't seen for a long while), we were behind schedule, but managed to arrive at the temple at 12:10, at which time Ninh and I accidentally defiled the temple by going through the doors designated for men only.

The main Caodai temple is almost indescribable, though of course I will make the attempt. The Caodai religion seems to be mostly Buddhist, but has incorporated elements of many other religions and philosophies and has included some mystical aspects in which they speak to famous historical figures like Shakespeare, Descartes, Joan of Arc, and Lenin. The physical result of this melange of influences is a building that can only be described as over the top. Man, is that thing ever gaudy. Along both sides of the sanctuary, visible both inside and out, are huge eyes (symbol of Caodaism) surrounded by triangles of pink, blue and white flowers. The great part is that it's not just an eye -- each one has an enormous black eyebrow as well, giving them a very creepy appearance.

The building is constructed more like a Catholic church than a Buddhist temple, with tall towers on either side of the large front doors and a sloped roof. There the similarity ends, however. Two statues flank the entrance. On the right side is what looks like an Asian pope, complete with mitre. On the left a swarthy crazy-eyed long haired man wields a sword. He looked like he would be more comfortable at the helm of a pirate ship than greeting parishioners. Dragons snake up each pillar, and on the roof a huge globe, complete with continents, provides a jumping point for the strange horselike creature atop it. Tigers and other eoitic animals roam the higher reaches of the building, and many brightly colored flowers festoon the walls.

The interior is nearly as eye popping (no pun intended). At the entry end there is a small balcony where musicians and a small choir make music during the service. Tourists file past the mucisions and a few prostrate worshippers and onto long walkway balconies on either side of the sanctuary. Two rows of giant pillars go down the huge room, each featuring a variegated green dragon snaking upward on a background of pepto pinl. Red and blue flowers are liberally sprinkled throughout, and I'm not talking some nice navy blue here -- think of a cross between turquoise and pool-bottom-blue and you've got the idea.

The arched ceiling is painted with clouds and affixed with thousands of mirrored stars. Four different kinds of tile have been used ont he floor, slightly stairstepping to an elaborate altar/throne area very much in the Chinese style. The worshippers themselves kneel in straight rows, men on the right and women on the left. The priests and more important members are toward the front and wear colorful ao dais (Vietnamese national clothing) and pope-style paper hats. The rest wear all white. The whole setup was very odd to me -- tons of tourists milling about taking photos, pointing and whispering while people are worshipping. Those Caodais must hate the noon service.

After the service and a bit of wandering around, we began the Endless Hour of Waiting for the Damned Taxi to Be Fixed. During this hour I was absolutely parched with thirst, but as Ninh believes that you can't trust anyone, she wouldn't let me buy a bottle of water from a vendor. Clearly the vendors could sense how much I coveted that water -- they came around every 10 minutes to torture me. All in all, it was a very productive day, and the only really annoying part was that because we were running so late we couldn't stop to take photos on the way home. Oh well, maybe next time.


© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 8:13 PM

 
Our first stop in our Tuesday tour of the countryside was Cu Chi, a tourist trap where hundreds of kilometers of tunnels were built and used during the wars with the French and Americans. I say "tourist trap" not because there were a lot of tourists there at the time (Ninh and I were practically alone at 8:30 on a Tuesday morning), but because it's clearly designed primarily for foreign tourists and has been modified in such a way that it bears little resemblance to what it was like when the tunnels were used. Kind of a Disneyfied battlefield visit.

Ninh and I got a private tour given by a gung-ho North Vietnamese guy in army fatigues. We began with a short hike through a young forest and a propaganda video, as usual. It was a new style video, however -- the footage purported to come from 1967, and began by describing the Cu Chi district as a bucolic paradise in which rural families laughed and played and grew rice and city dwellers came to enjoy picnic lunches on the banks of the Saigon River.

That was the "before", of course. To hear them tell the tale, you'd think the U.S. arbitrarily decided to bomb the hell out of it just for the sake of killing bunnies and ruining the happiness of adorable little Vietnamese children. rather than maybe because there were hundreds of guerilla soldiers hiding and conducting warfare from underground. The American B-52's came in like "insane devils" to lay waste to this innocent country Eden.

It was an interesting tour, however. The path from one tunnel entrance/exhibit to another meandered around quite a bit due to the huge bomb craters dotting the landscape like acne scars. In the interest of allowing entrance to tourists larger than your average malnourished VC soldier, they have opened up fairly large staired entrances to each labeled (in English only) and roofed chamber. Most were shown in sets of two -- you would enter one dimly fluorescently lit chamber, say a sleeping area for example, then you would have to bend over and waddle through an uncomfortable and dark little tunnel to an adjoining chamber with a similar set of stairs to the outdoors. Those who have traveled with me will be impressed that I did this at all -- I loathe caves, caverns, tunnels, and all things underground. I did feel some pressure to feign enjoyment, however, since Ninh was so nice as to take me there.

After several of these tunnel pairs, a photo taken at a war room table with me and a bunch of mannequins dressed like VC officers, and an overlarge sample of manioc, the mealy potato-like root that the VC considered a staple food during the war, we were off to our next destination.

© 2002 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 4:09 AM

 
Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

I spent all day Tuesday with Ninh, Mr. Lanh's very nice wife, going to the Cu Chi tunnels and the Caodai temple, both located some distance from Saigon. From the outset things went slightly wrong -- Mr. Lanh had written down 16B rather than 15B for my address (which, with the insane numbering system they have here, could be blocks away), left a critical 20 minutes late, at what I felt was the crack of dawn, 6:20 a.m.

The Vietnamese, however, are apparently early risers, as the streets were absolutely packed with commuters, parents taking their kids to school (starts at 7 here), and vendors ferrying goods into town via motorbike. I soon learned that although we were essentially headed towards the suburbs, there is no such thing as a "reverse commute" benefit in a country in which the vehicles in the dominant direction disregard the fundamental reasons for the white center line. The reverse commuters were herded way over to the right while the more powerful stream of traffic hogged three-quarters of the road.

I also learned during this drive that I was very wrong to criticize and shield my eyes in fear when driving with my friend Helen all these years, due to her unfortunate penchant for tailgating (no offense, Helen). She's a veritable poster girl for Driver Safety compared to our minivan taxi driver. Part of the problem was actually that his horn didn't work. At least, I assume it was broken -- I can't think of a single other reason why he wouldn't have used it 37 thousand times during the course of the day if it weren't.

Initially, I viewed this broken horn situation as a huge boon to my mental health -- imagine a day without honking! That idea was soon proven naive, at best. Our driver routinely performed dangerous maneuvers; threading between cars, motorbikes and huge trucks, cutting people off, and driving six inches from the vehicle in front of us were but a few. The problem was that because he could not warn anyone of his nefarious intentions with an ear-piercing blast of his horn, he managed to surprise a lot of people. The result was a significant increase in danger for all involved, a rise in my personal blood pressure, and even a net increase in horn usage since nearly all of our driver's potential victims expressed their displeasure in horn.

And I haven't even begun to relate our actual vehicle-related misadventures -- stay tuned for the next episode of Katy's Trip to the Countryside.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 1:10 AM

 
Sign posted in the parking lot of the Caodai Temple in Tay Ninh, Vietnam:

NOTE:
WE WOULD LIKE
RECOMMENDING YOU SHOULD
NOT BUY ANYTHING IN HERE
THE PRICE IS A BIG
DIFFERENT
THANK YOU.


posted by Katy at 3:54 AM

 
A Word to the Wise IV

If you are planning to hire a mini-minivan to take you on a day trip 50 miles out of town on every conceivable quality of road (except good), have the driver take you for a spin around the block a few times before your final decision is made. Does the air conditioner cut out on bumpy roads? Does the driver ask for directions every other block? Does the vehicle turn on only after the driver fiddles with little wires under the steering wheel? Does the engine sound like it's completing it's 300,000th mile? If any of the above are true, keep looking. If all of the above are true, I think we know the same driver.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 3:51 AM

 
After six weeks here I've largely worked through the various tourist activities here in Saigon, but yesterday I found myself walking by the Notre Dame Cathedral (built by the French, naturally) and realized I hadn't seen the inside yet. It wasn't that I was that interested -- I've pretty much maxed out on Catholic churches over my years of travelling, but since I didn't have anything better do so I figured what the hey?

It's a nice enough church but not too exciting -- cream colored walls, dramatic pillars, nice proportions and lots of little altar alcoves up both sides, like most Catholic churches. The church also has a fair amount of stained glass, stations of the cross, a handful of Marias and other statuary, but compared to the average Buddhist temple it's downright ascetic.

The visit would have been a dead loss if it hadn't been for Neon Joseph and Child. At least I'm assuming it was Joseph -- it was a father-and-toddler type of thing, and there just aren't that many man-and-boy combos that Catholics make into statuary. The best part about these two is that the white statue is framed with buzzing white neon tubes with neon Vietnamese words arching above it. I was quite disappointed that there weren't more devotional candles in front of Neon Joseph, but apparently NJ isn't too popular with the locals. But I loved it -- should I ever become Catholic, I know where I'll go to light candles.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 8:15 PM

 
Another consumption-related personal transformation has occured in the area of iced coffee. My first experience with iced coffee was not exactly a positive one, as chronicled here several weeks ago. I didn't know what I was doing, and accidently ordered a "ca phe da" rather than a "ca phe sua da", as recommended. The "sua" is a very key word -- it means they add milk. But really, how could I be expected to remember the exact Vietnamese name? As I found out, "ca phe da" is iced black (and I mean BLACK) coffee and is strong as all hell. Vietnamese coffee uses a lot of grounds to meake very little liquid, so it more closely resembles espresso than the regular American drip version. Most drink it either black (you might as well just inject it into your vein) or with milk. The individual stainless steel Vietnamese coffee dripping apparatus is put over a cup already containing a shot of sweetened condensed milk. I was initially a bit hesitant about this sweetened condensed milk business -- something about it just seemed kind of icky to me.

Although my initial attempt was unsuccessful, I didn't want to give up on the concept altogether since I do like coffee in general (being true to my Seattle roots), and I have loads of time to spend lounging about in coffee houses. So the first time I visited Highlands Coffee, an extremely Seattle-style coffee house, I ordered the iced coffee with fresh milk. Mind you, this ain't no feeble low-fat version -- it's unpasturized whole milk, something I vaguely remember my guidebook specifically warning against in the "Health" chapter.

Nonetheless, the drink was great, so I determined then and there that I did like iced coffee, but that I liked it with fresh rather than condensed milk. Of course now I realize that that was just my irrational sweetened condensed milk prejudice talking. Ca phe sua da made the traditional Vietnamese way is fabulous and is much better than that pitifully watery fresh milk version. Now not a day goes by without at least one ca phe sua da. The really good ones taste like dessert, yet they have so much caffeine that I'm wired for an hour. The perfect drink right before that deadly dull TOEFL class.

© 2002 Katy Warren







posted by Katy at 9:07 PM

 
When I first arrived in Saigon I was very conscientious about my consumption habits. I didn't buy food or drinks from street vendors, I didn't eat fruit or uncooked vegetables, I rinsed my toothpasty mouth with bottled water, and I ordered all my drinks without ice.

After a very sort while I realized that living with ice in an insanely hot climate like this one was ridiculous. And if I had to sacrifice the bacterial well-being of my digestive system in return for cold drinks, so be it. Still, I was careful to get ice only in places where they served it in cues. Having seen street vendors drag huge chunks of ice down the street on dirty carts or just pulled on the sidewalk with rope, I had sincere doubts about the purity of the uncubed ice.

As most who know me could predict, however, sheer laziness eventually took over. Now I eat food from sidewalk vendors on a regular basis, rinse with tap water, consume any fruit that comes my way, and don't even blink when I see ice in my beer or soda that's clearly been hacked off an industrial sized block with a dirty pick and hammer.

And here's the thing -- I feel fabulous. No sign of the Tourista or whatever the Asian equivalent is called. As a result, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Mom and Dad for their generous genetic gift of an iron-clad constitution. Life in Saigon just wouldn't be the same without it!

© 2002 Katy Warren






posted by Katy at 8:09 PM

 
November 20th is Teachers' Day in Vietnam, a day which purports to demonstrate the high regard in which teachers are held here. Students traditionally bring flowers, small gifts, etc, and schools hold celebratory assemblies to thank teachers for their hard work. It's a very nice idea, though frankly, knowing how little the Vietnamese teachers are paid ($4 an hour) and how they have to scrounge for work at schools all over town to make ends meet, I would venture to guess that most would prefer to be rewarded economically rather than with candy, flowers, stuffed animals and neckties. Or maybe I'm just bitter because all I got from my students were flowers.

Our school opted, apparently, to punish us in honor of Teachers' Day. They cancelled classes all day, which not only meant no kitchy gifts from our students, but also meant that we wouldn't be paid for that day. I teach two classes on Wednesday, so that was 45 much needed dollars not coming to me at the end of this month. We will be teaching those classes eventually, as they've tacked them onto the end of the term like a snow day. However, I need the money now while I am firmly established in Saigon rather in March when I might be taking off for other exotic travel destinations.

Instead of working we were invited to a celebratory "Teachers' Day Tea Party" in the evening. I will concede I got a huge kick out of the invitation agenda -- forty minutes of speeches from school officials and teachers, followed by gift presentation. Then from 6:50 - 7:00 pm were to be allowed time for "Refreshments and Socializing." At seven o'clock things were to get even worse: "Teachers Are Expected to Participate in Singing." So basically they took my income away for the day and rewarded me with forced karaoke.

As it turned out, the experience was not as bad as expected in some ways (I was able to maintain a 30 foot buffer zone between me and the karaoke machine at all times), but worse than expected in others. Things started off pretty well with a traditional dance performed by Vietnamese teachers. Admittedly some of them looked like they were up there at gunpoint, but it was nice nonetheless and they outfits, as usual, were gorgeous. A couple of fairly short, well-prepared speeches followed, then Mr. Nam, my downtrodden-looking boss, apparently decided to scare the shit out of us and remove any semblance of a festive mood from the room.

He proceeded to give a rambling 15 minute speech about the demanding nature of the students, the myriad complaints he receives in his office about poor teachers, how difficult his job is, and how teachers unjustly complain about his decisions. He generally gave the impression that the only thing holding the school back from excellence is the sketchy performance of its teachers. Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had started naming names and firing people on the spot at that point -- he clearly hates his job, if he chose such an inappropriate setting for this diatribe. As I was leaving the party, Mr. Nam asked me my impressions of his speech. My comment that I found it somewhat "scary and dark" was met with earnest and lengthy assurance that he wasnn't talking about the expat teachers at all. He's probably lying about that, but at least I know my job is secure.

After the speeches and ceremonial gift giving (accomplished in the slowest possible way) and some socializing over French pastries (Lord, the food is good here), I was on my way, carrying my Teachers' Day tin of tea, chocolates, and box of yam cookies. Hmm, yam cookies. I think those may be destined for donation to my friendly neighborhood disabled panhandler.

© 2002 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 3:19 AM

 
This morning for breakfast I had the Vietnamese version of the Egg McMuffin. All over Saigon these ladies with metal carts roll into town at the crack of dawn and serve up these breakfast sandwiches made with fresh French bread. Incidentally, though admittedly they were paternalistic colonizers here in Indochina, I bless the French every day for their contributions to Vietnamese cuisine, architecture and the roman alphabet. Thank God I don't have to try to figure out chinese-style characters on top of everything else.

Anyway, the lady fries up an egg on the tiny little gas stove under her cart, then puts the egg, strips of processed meat, slices of cucumber, some kind of mystery vegetables, and a couple different kinds of oil-and-vinegar type sauces into the sliced roll. Let me tell you, it's WAY better than an Egg McMuffin, and only costs 20 cents. I may have found my new favorite breakfast.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:36 PM

 
I have discovered a new version of Hell on Earth. Previously, I had thought that Hell on Earth would be watching an entire episode of Barney, or listening to George W. Bush field foreign policy questions. But now I realize how pitifully minor these annoyances are.

I now know that Hell on Earth is trying to teach English in a classroom with no air conditioning, no fan, no way to open the outside door, and 15 whining 10 year olds begging to leave early.

Even when I arrived at 8:00 am I knew it was going to be bad. The school is teeming with kids on Saturday morning, and nobody had any idea when the power would come back up. Electricity here is, shall we say, inconsistent. Ironically, the school is located just two blocks from the main headquarters of the power company. I'm betting those guys have backup generators in their basement.

My 4th floor classroom was about 85 degrees when we started, but we were getting a generous dose of the morning sun through the unopenable windows and glass door. By the time of the break an hour later, it was easily 95 degrees in there, all of us were visibly sweating, and unfortunately, 10 year olds do not tend to keep their feelings and complaints to themselves. We only got through about a quarter of the lesson, they had no interest in games or songs (a miracle, truly), and insult was piled on injury when my fellow sufferers and I discovered that the other half of the building had power starting about 10 minutes into the lesson. Evil, evil gloaters they were too.

By the end of the 2 hours, half the school seemed to be having class outside, which was no picnic either. Next time I know to take the class to the park (or even the parking lot) instantly when I learn the A/C isn't working. Otherwise some 10 year old might suffer irreperable harm to his or her eardrums as I scream in frustration.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:22 PM

 
A Word to the Wise III:

When you enter your massage room, check the ceiling for bars. That way you won't be surprised when someone begins to walk on you.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 3:15 AM

 
On my second day of Phu Quoc adventuring my driver and I developed a workable means of communication. I would speak my language, he would speak his, and elaborate hand gestures and pointing at the map were involved. Mind you, the whole map thing seemed like kind of a foreign concept to him, so this was no speedy process. Also, since he never responded to ANY verbal comments on my part ("STOP" being the most common one), I learned to hold both my hands out in front of him in the universal "stop" signal whenever I felt the urge to take a photo, walk around, or resituate my hindquarters on the motorbike without courting bodily injury.

We began the day by crossing thorugh the mountains in the middle of the island. This direction was very much to my surprise, since during our elaborate morning map discussion I had thought we had agreed on another route. No big deal, though -- a subsequent series of charades established that we were just doing the loop backwards. The benefit of this direction was that the road was paved. Paved! Sometime quite recently they had laid an thin, single-lane strip of concrete down the middle of the two "lane" clay gravel road that existed before. Frankly, it doesn't look like it will last long, considering the heavy rains they get during the monsoon season, but it's sure nice for now. Cars and trucks do have the right of way on the paved section -- whenever we would meet one (not that often) we and any other 2-wheeled vehicle would just veer onto the wide clay shoulders.

The drive was beautiful and intensely green and forested, with periodic fruit orchards, tiny rice paddies or pepper farms on hillsides and valleys. Pepper is one of the main exports from the island. They plant rows of 8 foot poles in the dirt, then the bushy pepper vines crawl up and around it. When they're fill grown, they look like a giant green version of Marge Simpson's hair. Or maybe like a hundred Marges buried up to her forehead and planted in straight rows.

After another fishing village photo session (I have a sneaking suspicion that I will have a comprehensive album of just boat and fishing pictures when I get my film developed) we turned off the road onto another backbreaking rutted trail. We emerged at one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen, Sao Beach. Sand so soft it felt like stepping on a velvet cushion, and white as salt. Really, it was like hourglass sand -- fine, white and sparkling in the sunshine. I had the beach practically to myself, apart from the strange young Japanese man who buried his wife in the sand up to her head. I don't even know what to think about that -- she really didn't look as into the exercise as he was.

We spent the rest of the day exploring An Thoi, the southernmost town on the island (never have I seen so many millions of drying fish in one place), Long Beach, the pearl farm, and various other weird sights along the way. The oddest was perhaps the Thousand Stars Resort, at which we stopped for a Coke. The resort was very well put together for the most part -- nice "bungalows" made of brick and plaster, all with good views and air conditioning, clean hotel rooms, restauraunt, great seating area for beachgoers, etc. The weird thing was that they installed all these hideous garish kitchy statues all over the place, giving the whole operation kind oa Hawaiian Fun House sort of feeling. On the beach between the patio and the water, for example (read: blocking the view), were a statue of three happy jumping dolphins and another of a giant topless mermaid. Also looming about the grounds were a Chinese mandarin, a tiger, a full-sized horse, huge dragon, turtle, and many more. If I were forced to identify the artistic medium employed, I'd guess cement and surplus paint. I do hope this sort of decoration does not proliferate as this island develops -- might as well go to the Saigon Water Park.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 8:22 PM

 
Since I am really only capable of lolling about on the beach for two days, I made the most of the remainder of my stay. So in the morning I hired a motorbike to drive me around town, visited the market (lots of fish), the harbor (lots of beautiful boats), and toured a nuoc mam factory. Nuoc mam is the fish sauce that the Vietnamese serve at every meal that you put on rice or whatever else you might have in front of you. It's great stuff, but the overpowering stench of the "factory" (which really more closely resembled a brewery with huge wooden vats) was indescribable, and it's a damned good thing they didn't offer me any samples during the tour because I might never have been able to tolerate it again.

After lunch I took off with another motorbike driver, who unfortunately spoke not a single word of English. We headed north into the area that was closed to travelers until very recently by the military. Our drive alternated between the graded clay road and paths not accessibly by your average auto due to their narow width, rocks and bumps caused by monsoon season rains, and the periodic perilous bridge. These bridges generally had a gentle curve, a soothing shape that offset the alarming clattering sound while going over, the narrowness, the missing planks, and the disturbing lack of railings. Personally, I would have been more than willing to stop and walk over each of these rather than risk the combined weight of two people and a motorbike on those creaky planks, but my driver never hesitated for a second.

We saw no other tourists the whole day, and just wandered from deserted gorgeous beach to fishing village to another deserted gorgeous beach. Our final destination was the top of the island, where an enterprising crazy person had set up a beach restaurant completely in the middle of nowhere. The amazing thing was that he and his family had obviously worked very hard on this place, with home-made party tents set up all around made more festive with decoratively scissored blue tarp and a Japanese-lantern-style technique in which in lieu of the Japanese lanterns hanging from wires strung from tree to tree, he had attached something more available in his situation -- beer cans. Really, the place looked great, considering, and could seat maybe 50 people in the various makeshift tents. Naturally, considering his location at the back of beyond, my driver and I were the only ones there. I have no idea how this guy gets by, but if he can, life must be good in such a lovely place.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 7:32 PM

 
To provide a little background information, Phu Quoc is just a few miles off the Cambodian coast in the Gulf of Thailand. It is shaped like an upside-down teardrop and is about 30 miles long. According to the Lonely Planet guidebook, it is disputed territory between Cambodia and Vietnam, but since possession is 9/10th, as they say, the presence of a sizable Vietnamese military base at the north end of the island would seem to tip the scale in Vietnam's direction.

Most of the tourist activity is on the west side of the island, where the airport, main town, and the longest beach (and I mean long -- it must be at least 15 miles) are located. As I mentioned previously, it is still quite undeveloped. There are really only a handful of "resorts" on Long Beach, and they are very small scale apart from the monstrosity being built by the government. None except the government resort has a pool, for example -- they are basically just bungalows, some motel-style rooms, beautiful beach with umbrellas and a large open air dining area.

For the first two nights we stayed in a bungalow at one of these Long Beach resorts, doing basically nothing: walking down the beach, eating fresh seafood, reading novels under the beach umbrellas and going swimming every hour or so. It was really rough, as you can imagine. Sometimes I had to exert myself to reapply the sunscreen or get something to drink.

My second two days were decidedly more adventurous. We moved to a new location, a tiny jungle bungalow resort a few miles north of Duong Dong, the main town. They came to pick us up on motorbikes, as usual. The first bit of the drive was smooth sailing, as the communists have conveniently paved the stretch between airport and the new government resort (located close to the Kim Hoa where we were staying). Just past the airport the road transitioned into the well-graded, mostly well-drained clay and gravel road which mostly runs the length of the island. About 5 miles north of Duong Dong we turned off onto an inferior dirt road, which in turn became a bone-jarring, rocky dirt track fit for neither man nor beast, though admittedly there were a fair number of cows, chickens and pigs milling about.

The resort itself reminded me of going to camp Zanika Lache as a 10 year old Camp Fire Girl. Maybe 10 or 12 small bungalows (we each had our own -- quite a change from Zanika Lache), a large open-air eating area under a huge thatched roof, and a walk down a short hill to the beach. Coconut palms and other tropical plants everywhere, and each of the bungalows was made of woven palm fronds, bamboo, and a thatched roof. Oh, and we had plenty of mosquitoes, too. I knew there was another reason it reminded me of Camp Fire Girl camp. We only had electricity from about 6:30 - 10:30 pm, so all the guests would hang out in the dining room eating, chatting, reading etc. It was really great -- beautiful setting, friendly and interesting guests and staff, and fabulous food all in the middle of nowhere.

More on my adventures in Phu Quoc later today -- I think this may be getting boring anyway.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:08 PM

 
Fishing is the main industry on Phu Quoc, and although most fishermen in larger boats fish all night and sleep during the day, we were fortunate enough to watch a smaller boat and crew perform its smaller scale fishing process right in front of the beachside restaurant (really more of a thatched open-air tent with tables) at which we were devouring fresh squid with garlic, onions and rice. And yes, it was probably better than any squid you will ever taste in in the USA.

So here's how it works. The boat takes off from the beach, leaving behind a man, a tiny peasant woman in conical hat, a basket connected to a rope on the boat, and a wooden apparatus that looks like a cross between the stocks they had to punish wrongdoers in colonial America and a rotisserie with two wooden stakes driven through it at opposite angles. The boat heads out a hundred yards or so, trailing the rope, then they feed out a long net mostly parallel with the shore, which is connected continuously with the original rope. A second rope (or the third part of the rope/net combo already described) is then brought back to the shore along with another basket and wooden pulling contraption.

After an hour or so of moving the whole shebang up and down the beach a few times in little increments, the ladies on the shore get to work with the hard labor. She sits on the part of the wooden machine closest to the salnd, winds the end of the rope twice around the rotisserie/spindle, and starts pulling the wooden stakes toward her in a continuous motion, using her feet as well both to brace herself and to push and pull the rope in simultaneously. The man, naturally, has the far less taxing job of coiling the rope carefully into the basket as it comes through. Women really get shafted on workload here.

Once the rope is mostly hauled in on both sides and the net is visible, boys and young men come out of the woodwork to pull the ends together and roll up the net gradually, herding the fish toward the center. When the net is pulled onto the beach with the fish jumping around inside, the women converge again, sitting around the net and tossing unwanted items (jellyfish, garbage, etc) back into the sea, and putting all the little fish (there were none more than 8"), squid and crabs of sufficient size into something resembling a plastic laundry basket. Let me tell you, there did not seem to be many fish in there considering the size of the net and the amount of labor and time that went into the whole operation, but the participants seemed satisfied with the haul.

After the women separated out the various kinds of sea life, the catch was divvied up among the various participants. Thankfully, they gave most of the proceeds to the woman who worked the hardest pulling in the rope. Of course, that probably just means she's responsible for cleaning the damned things, too.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 8:38 PM

 
Are you aware that there is, in fact, a perfect temperature for water? It is found in the Gulf of Thailand off the beaches of Phu Quoc. I swear, if I hadn't been worried about becoming cajun-style Katy from the tropical sun, I'd have spent every waking hour lolling about 20 yards off shore watching the beautiful blue fishing boats and the glorious coconut palms shading the endless sandy beach. Truly an undiscovered paradise, which I'm sure will be ruined within 20 years. The fact that we spotted a cruise ship anchored off shore the first day seals its eventual doom, as far as I'm concerned. But in the meantime, it's a fabulous place to visit.

Although I had been pronouncing the name of this island "Foo Coke" for the last several weeks, it turns out it sounds more like "Foo Kwuck" (rhymes with "luck") with the "Kwuck" going up like a hiccup. Actually, many people pronounced it "Foouck", which sounds like a hiccup in its entirety. Sadly, this means that my mother, who is notoriously and impatiently cruel to hiccuppers, will never be able to go there and retain her sanity.

Since I'm starving and craving really good air conditioning after my days in the jungle, you will just have to consider this post an appetizer for the more complete descriptions of my trip that are to come. Meanwhile, you can talk amongst yourselves about how great my tan must be.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 4:57 AM

 
I'm leaving tomorrow at 5:00am for five days on Phu Quoc, a tropical island just off the coast of Cambodia, so I won't be posting until my return. However, I'm sure I'll be thinking warm thoughts about all of you while I'm sipping fruity rum drinks out of coconut shells and reading trashy mysteries.
posted by Katy at 10:00 PM

 
A friend and I checked out Columbia Asia International Health Care center yesterday, just in case I come down with Dengue Fever or trip on a curb or something. There are several of these 24 hour clinics aimed at the international community, and this one comes highly recommended and is said to be reasonably priced, not that I have any basis for comparison.

What interested me most was their fee schedule. A Vietnamese person going to a Vietnamese doctor pays the least -- $12 minimum per visit or thereabouts. A non-Vietnamese person going to the same native doctor pays double -- minimum $24. If you want to see a foreign doctor, the Vietnamese person would pay $24 and the expat would pay $36 for a basic visit.

So there's a weird discrimination thing going on in two ways. They charge the non-Vietnamese more for the same service, presumably because they figure they can afford it, and they undervalue the Vietnamese doctors, though I'm not sure if it is due to their training or simply some internalized racism on the part of patients willing to pay more for Western docs. I suspect the latter, and I guess the clinic might as well benefit financially from the biases of the community. I'm told that some of the western doctors at thewse clinics are, in fact, volunteers here for a few weeks or months, which makes their higher fees almost pure profit for the clinics. Well, more power to them if they can get it, I guess. Supply and demand pricing -- capitalism in action in communist Vietnam.

As for me, I figure my most likely reason for a visit to Columbia will be an unfortunate run-in with a motorbike or bicycle. I'm confident that a Vietnamese MD can bandage my wounds and set my multiple fractures every bit as well as an American, French, Swedish or other foreign doctor. Perhaps better, considering the huge volume of street accidents they must see around here. Finally, a perfect justification for me being cheap!

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 9:54 PM

 
Getting a reliable Honda om (or "xe om") driver can be a tricky proposition. Around your own home, you get to know the regular drivers and can figure out who is trustworthy or who speaks English sufficiently well to minimize serious communication breakdowns. Plus, since they see you every day, it is truly in their interest to avoid flaky or unscrupulous behavior, since they live on repeat business.

When you select a xe om driver at random it's pretty much a crap shoot. Mary Lu and I went to a delicious duck soup dinner on Tuesday, and upon our departure, selected a xe om driver, the only one outside the restaurant. Mary Lu explained our destination to him and he ran to the corner to recruit another driver for me. Foolishly assuming we were all on the same page destination-wise, we all set off.

Turns out there was confusion all around, but that was the least of my problems. Just past the Notre Dame Cathedral (the French built like crazy here), with Mary Lu half a block ahead, my driver stopped at the side of the road and started motioning toward my left foot and jabbering a mile a minute. Naturally, I had absolutely no idea what he was getting at or what was expected of me -- the language gap was as wide as the Pacific. He knew "motorbike" in English, and I know "thank you" in Vietnamese. Not a good basis for communication, really.

So I got off the bike and stood on the sidewalk while my driver continued to look at the wheel, poke around, and point back toward the cathedral while trying to communicate some mysterious message to me.

Since I generally lack patience and know my way around pretty well by now, I finally just waved at him and told him I was walking (my other very useful Vietnamese phrase, used daily to fend off cyclo and xe om drivers trying to solicit my business). I set off at a rapid pace, knowing that Mary Lu had to be a bit alarmed about what had happened to me.

After a couple blocks of brisk walking, who should roll up but my erstwhile driver, motioning for me to get back on. So I did -- I mean, what the heck? With any luck it would get me to Mary Lu's a few minutes sooner.

Unfortunately, there was a serious lack of luck on that accursed ride. First, despite my frantic calls and flailing arm movements, my driver immediately pulled a u-turn and wove his way through the oncoming traffic, going the wrong way on a one-way street in the opposite direction from my destination. I couldn't quite figure this out. I mean, he had to have seen which direction I was walking. Did he think I was that confused about where I lived?

After I got him back on the right track, he continued to drive on the wrong side of the street for some inexplicable reason, even though we were now on a two-way street. After a few blocks of perilous weaving, he pulled over and stopped entirely, thus answering one of the evening's mysteries: he needed air in his tires. By that time I had had just about enough of this drive in general and this driver in particular, so I got off and walked the remaining four blocks.

All in all, I made it safe and sound and learned that it's really nice to have a xe om driver who speaks some English. Either that or I really need to get moving on those Vietnamese lessons.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 9:40 PM

 
I wandered over the the Botanical Gardens/Zoo/History of Vietnam Museum complex yesterday, and was scarred by the experience. The botanical gardens were nice, if a bit seedy, and the History of Vietnam Museum was pretty good, mercifully ending its march through history with the defeat of the French and the rise of the Indochine Communist Party, who "proposed the correct revolution platform in 1930", according to the museum displays. I've had about enough anti-US propaganda -- it was good to see some official vitriol directed at the Chinese and the French.

No, the problem with this outing was the zoo. The less said the better, really, but since I'm here anyway, I'll tell you all about it in painful detail. The HCM City Zoo was depressing in a way that only 3rd world zoos can be. I see extreme poverty every day and, though it doesn't really reflect well on me, it doesn't bother me as much as seeing these pitifully caged animals.

The birds were first. The pelicans had a fairly nice enclosure -- largish with greenery and a pond -- but they all spent 95% of their time chewing at their feathers like they had fleas or some persistently annoying tropical parasite. However, these guys were living in the lap of luxury compared to their avian brothers, who were mostly in 10' x 15' concrete floored cages with one failing rtree and a large bucket of water. I don't even like birds and it made me kind of ill.

And things just got worse. The two tigers, in separate cages, just paced back and forth along parellel 15 foot stretches of fence with their eyes glazed over. The emus were losing their feathers in a big way -- bald spots, if you can believe it. The smaller cats each got their own cage with concrete floor, dirty water, and a live bunny hopping around. There were no dead bunnies in sight -- I can only assume they were waiting for darkness for the big hunt. Either that or they were all drugged, not an entirely unlikely theory.

I truly believe that one of the alligators was dead. I watched for several minutes and he never moved a muscle. The hippos were each allotted a space about 10 times their body size, with a V-shaped concrete pool less than 20 feet wide and 3 feet deep. One of them was actually standing up with his front legs on the wall trying to look at his pitiful compatriot in the next enclosure.

Every single animal in that zoo appeared to have a skin condition, some unknown disease, or severe depression. The elephants looked like their ears had been half chewed off, and the many deer (God only knows why they had such a huge deer section, most of which looked pretty much like the ones that Dad hits with his car every couple of months) were all losing patches of hair in various places.

All in all, the visit convinced me to never again go to a developing country's animal exhibit. It's the first time I've been to a zoo in which I walked around hoping the next cage would be completely empty, a sign that at least one animal had escaped the misery. I hear that in Cambodia they closed all the zoos and ate all the animals. It sounds callous, but I can't help but think that would be a decent solution for the Ho Chi Minh City Zoo.

© 2002 Katy Warren
posted by Katy at 7:43 PM

 
For those of you who read this page religiously (hi Mom and Dad!), you may recall that on my first day here I complained about the mega-kazillions of motorbikes and mentioned that it took me more than 15 minutes to cross a single street in the middle of the day.

After almost 3 weeks here, I have reached a whole new level of auto/motorbike indifference, or perhaps it could be described as Pedestrian Fatalism. Yesterday I crossed that selfsame street with barely a pause, calmly maintaining the same walking speed across approximately 16 "lanes" of motorbike traffic. I am One with the Road.

This metamorphasis did not come easily. In my early days in Saigon, I would start and stop, apologize and wave to drivers, run the last few steps to avoid collisions, and wait endlessly on street corners for green lights, if the lights were working at all. I would even wait until the way was clear in both directions! Really, looking back, it's a miracle I ever made it out of my hotel.

But now I have developed a Zen approach to street-crossing. I am serene. I believe I will cross safely, and although I never assume anyone will stop for me, I become an integral part of the complex living mechanics of Saigon intersections and drivers invariably go around me without a problem. They don't pause, I don't pause, we are all happy and reach our destinations in safety.

It's not that I deliberately step out into the raging river of motorbikes. I stand calmly on the corner and wait for my moment. Not necessarily the moment in which there are no vehicles in sight -- that moment never arrives. I wait for the moment when I can firmly believe that at my normal walking speed, I will be able to maintain a straight line across the road with the minimum number of motorbikes required to swerve around me. I set a determined course, and rarely deviate in speed and direction.

At least, that's the situation now. I'll let you know how my tactics change when I either cause a major accident or get sent to the local hospital with several broken limbs and blood gushing from my head.

© 2002 Katy Warren


posted by Katy at 3:01 AM

 
A Word to the Wise II:

Do not touch the walls. You just don't know how high that cabbie was aiming when he pulled his taxi over to relieve himself.

© 2002 Katy Warren



posted by Katy at 4:45 AM

 
In my neighborhood there are two decidedly odd restaurants: Bia Hoi, and Hard Rock Cafe Saigon. Bia Hoi primarily features large unmarked plastic bottles of home-brewed beer from morning to night. No matter what time of day it is, the place is packed with men knocking back brewskis in ice-filled glasses. Bia Hoi apparently means Beer with Ice, but I think of this place as Beer in Bulk. Unfortunately, it may be a long time before I get to try Bia Hoi, as I have never once seen a woman customer in there. Maybe if I get good and drunk before going into Bia Hoi I could manage it with more aplomb.

I can give a more comprehensive description of the Hard Rock Cafe Saigon, as I went to dinner there tonight in the interest of research. Like so many other items in Vietnam (shoes, books, clothes, old masters) it is a blatant ripoff of the official name-brand, and has absolutely no link to the other Hard Rock Cafes, as pitiful and bankrupt as they are. Normally I would avoid this place like the plague, but it said right on the sign outside "Welcome the Hall frame of Rock", and who could resist such an invitation?

Apart from the classic motorcycle up front (which bears a plaque commemorating the life and death of James Dean), the sizable merchandise counter display, and the perfectly recreated logo, there was very little to remind one of the official Hard Rock Cafe. Above my table was a black and white photograph, thoughtfully labeled, of Phil Spector, along with a poster of Motley Crue circa 1987. Other bands represented in posters and photos included Oasis, The Beatles, Depeche Mode, and many classic Hair Bands such as Poison, Kiss, and Guns and Roses, not to mention the impressively coiffed Jon Bon Jovi who appeared to be watching me eat.

Above the bar, the only actual musical element, a flimsy-looking electric guitar (ownership not attributed to any actual celebrity), was flanked by black and white photos of those legendary Hard Rockers Smokey Robinson and Ray Charles. Inexplicably, and for all I know this is true of all the Hard Rock Cafes, most of the other decor was automotive and/or motorcycle related. Hanging from walls, posts, and the bar itself were licence plates, wheels, steering columns, bike chains, and many other unidentifiable (to me) rusty mechanical parts.

Finally, the back alcove featured a pool table and a three-wall mural of what looked to be an old west frontier town, but with motorcycles in front of the saloon. I have no idea what to make of that, but it did give the thing an American flavor.

Now that I've visited the Hard Rock Cafe Saigon for the purpose of writing this post, I need never set foot in there again, which will hopefully mean that I will never again hear the Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys back to back for the remainder of my stay here. I hope you people appreciate how I sacrifice myself for you.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 5:16 AM