Motorbike Diaries

PHOTO ALBUM - Dalat and Mui Ne

PHOTO ALBUM - Cat Ba Island

After Saigon, we took a bus up to Dalat, a vacation destination in the Vietnamese central highlands.  Dalat was created as a French colonial town and today is a very nice, picturesque town that appears to be a weekend get-away for Vietnamese.  Its elevation is about 5000 feet above sea level, so the days are comfortably warm and the nights cool enough to wear a jacket.  And as Elise mentioned at the end of the last post:  Dalat wine is sold anywhere from $1.50 to $3 per bottle and is very drinkable…so we enjoyed plenty of that.  And we are continuing to find it readily available all around Vietnam.  Elise is very happy.

In Dalat there is a loosely affiliated group of motorcycle guides that calls itself the Easy Riders who do tours.  They hit you up immediately and we quickly realized that would be a fun way to see the countryside after a sales pitch from Mr. Bin at our hotel.   So we booked a day tour – me on a 250cc Yamaha motorbike, and Elise rode with Mr. Bin on the back of a larger Honda.  The tour covered the countryside where we took a short hike to a viewpoint, visited coffee plantations, a minority village, an incredible waterfall, and toured a weird architectural phenomenon in town – the crazy house.  The crazy house is a hotel that was designed by a Vietnamese architect who was trained in Russia and has well-decorated themed rooms and the place more resembles something a child would enjoy playing in with its maze of corridors and walkways over very nice grounds  and scenic views.

We spent another great day motor biking out to a trailhead and then climbing Lang Bien Mountain which at an elevation of 2400m (~7400ft) above sea level, it is the highest point in southern Vietnam.  Great views and beautiful long-needle pine forests. 

After that, since we were getting hooked on motor biking the Vietnam central highlands, we booked another Easy Rider tour – this time a 2-day, 1 night guided trip from Dalat to Mui Ne, a beach-town that is sometimes called the “Sahara” of Vietnam due to its hot, arid climate and impressive sand-dunes.  The ride was spectacular, following little-travelled mountain roads and eventually descending from the cooler climate of the central highlands to the hotter coastal towns through dragon-fruit plantations (the plant looks like it could be a plant version of a dragon).  The best part were the meals as our guide took us to “hole-in-the-wall” roadside places for lunch and a nice Vietnamese restaurant at night (that served rice cooked in a clay pot over charcoal…still makes my mouth water) where we shared family-style meals that were very inexpensive (local prices).  Our only complaint is that  we booked Mr. Bin for the tour (the same guide as our day trip) but were then switched to his brother-in-law the morning we left Dalat.  The brother-in-law did a good job, but was not quite as outgoing, energetic, or English-fluent guide.  We were perfectly happy and would have done the tour anyway, but a bit disappointed about the change not being presented to us up-front.  The “bait & switch” continues to be a theme on our tours in Vietnam.  In this case, who cares – the scenery and food more than made up for it. 

Our motorcycle guide recommended a resort at the far eastern edge of the Mui Ne strip called the Rang Dong Resort.  It is a little far from the main restaurants and resorts, but nothing a motorbike or bicycle ride couldn’t solve (everything is spread out anyway).  The best part is that we had a fairly nice bungalow complete with WIFI, fridge, cable TV, AC, and pool view for $15/night.  And since it was pretty much a Vietnamese weekend place, we had the whole place to ourselves for the four nights we were there.  Our stay consisted of sun-bathing at the pool, motor biking to the sand-dunes, and eating some great Vietnamese seafood.  One night we ate at Lam Tong restaurant at tables on the sand and picked the fresh red-snapper we wanted grilled right out of a tank.  Riding motorbikes and bicycles out on the coastal roads and visiting the sand-dunes was our favorite activity.  There are two sets:  the white dunes about 30km away from town, and the red-dunes only about 6km.  The pictures will speak for themselves.

At that point, we needed to head back to Saigon for two reasons.  The first was to pick up our passports which had hopefully been processed with a visa extension for an additional month in Vietnam.  Thankfully, once we arrived in Saigon, our passports were waiting and there were no issues.  The second reason for returning to Saigon is that my brother, Brad, had recently pulled off a world-travel logistical stunt that involved him stopping by Vietnam for a visit for a week.  Last minute he booked a who-knows-how-many leg journey to spend time in India with his good friend Prakash’s family who had recently experienced a family tragedy due to an automobile accident.  Amazingly, this who-knows-how-many leg last-minute journey of planes, trains, and automobiles actually ran very smoothly with stops in San Francisco to process an India tourist visa, and experimenting with a new online and  visa-on-arrival process for Vietnam.  Given our recent Vietnam visa challenges we were skeptical, but I am baffled after our experiences that Brad getting a Vietnam visa on arrival worked like clockwork and was inexpensive.  Asia never ceases to amaze me by how completely unorganized some things can be, and how efficient others are – even for the same thing! 

Anyway, we were very glad Brad could come visit.  We met him at the Saigon airport and jumped on the same domestic flight from Saigon to Haiphong in northern Vietnam.  Our destination was Cat Ba island, situated very near Halong Bay.  Halong Bay is a world heritage site and arguably one of the top natural wonders of the world.  With thousands of islands with secluded beaches and sheer limestone cliffs that jut out of the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, Cat Ba Island and Halong Bay sounded like a pretty good place for Brad to spend his “layover” in Vietnam. 

Here are the highlights of our week:

-          Drinking Bia Hoi (draft beer) with the locals on a sidewalk beer-station in Haiphong where we stayed the night prior to catching a morning ferry to the island.

-          Arriving in Cat Ba town to find an $8/night hotel room that would sleep all three of us with a balcony that overlooks the craggy island peaks and Gulf of Tonkin.

-          Purchasing multiple bottles of Dalat wine at $2.50/bottle and drinking said wine (as well as Hanoi Vodka mixers) on the balcony mentioned above.  The lady at the convenience store was very appreciative of our repeat business.    

-          Introducing the TV series Modern Family to Brad and catching up on this season’s episodes viewed via the internet.  Quality show.

-          Renting motorbikes and touring the island’s rural roads overlooking dramatic landscapes of seaside cliffs, beaches, and farmland among very rugged mountain peaks that look more like a fairy tale than real life.

-          Touring the secret North Vietnamese hospital cave, a large cave that was turned into a hospital and secret hiding place for the army and even Uncle Ho at one time for a week.  A retired, super-friendly, and very proud North Vietnamese Army soldier gives the tour.  The cave consisted of hospital rooms, sleeping rooms, kitchens, and even a pool and movie theatre.   No matter how many bombs were dropped on the mountain above, everything inside the cave was unharmed.

-          Taking an overnight boat cruise through the bay that included floating villages, sea kayaking, visiting a cave, and islands.  The route and activities that were  “sold” to us changed slightly (for example the boat did not tour near as much of the bay as we were told) – another example of a “bait & switch” – notice the theme?  But hey, it was still a blast and now we’re just expecting it!

-          Sneaking into a resort on Monkey Island via a remote trail and grabbing a quick beer  before returning to our boat.

-          Drinking plenty of wine that was snuck onto our overnight boat trip and sharing a glass with our crazy non-English speaking captain.  Alcohol works just fine to bridge the language gap.

-          Discovering phosphorescence in the water by spitting our toothpaste and going “number 1” into the water off the side of the boat.  The result of course is a glowing sparkle that can be seen in the pitch-black of night.  We then proceeded to have our 20-year old German boat-mate jump off the upper-level of the boat into the water to watch the phosphorescence that way (yes, you probably have noticed that was after going “number 1”) until our guide came out and stopped us from swimming due to the dangers involved in swimming at night.  There is a safety conscience in Vietnam so our fun ended immediately.

-          Having beers on the CatCo #3 beach at a high-end resort’s beach-front bar on a sunny day.

-          Getting locked out of the hotel at 10:30 at night..  After a long time knocking very hard on the front door and asking for help from adjacent business owners who made phone calls for us, the hotel owner’s daughter, and who we presume is her boyfriend,  randomly came downstairs to open the front doors.  We were pretty slow because it took another 10 minutes and the stair climb to our room before the light-bulb went on in our heads and we realized that she and her boyfriend may have been enjoying a little alone time while the parents were out.   Given all the surrounding business owners were helping us try to get back into the hotel, we’re guessing her secret wasn’t safe for long.

-          While searching for dinner one night, we passed a large rowdy Vietnamese group having a great time at a restaurant and there was a keg.  Of course, both are a good sign that this would be a good place to eat.  While trying to find a table, I heard what sounded like a beer-chugging contest going on.  After turning around, it was Brad randomly in a chugging contest with a Vietnamese kid and the entire crowd chanting appropriately.  Brad was defeated.  Not sure how he got singled out but he got a free beer out of the deal.  The rest of the evening was spent having dinner at this place, listening to techno and dance music, and watching this group Karaoke. 

Brad left Cat Ba on a ferry this morning on a 48-hour journey back to Colorado.  We wish him a safe trip and as smooth of one as he has had so far.  Elise and I are staying on Cat Ba for a few more nights.  An 18-km trek through the National Park is on the agenda for tomorrow.  Then it’s off to Hanoi and more of northern Vietnam. 

We are now very comfortable with the travelling lifestyle.  The downside to that  is that time seems to be speeding up.  We have already been in Vietnam 25 days but it feels like we just arrived.  An up-side is that Elise and I have recently found ourselves debating what day of the week it is. 

Saigon

PHOTO ALBUM - Saigon

I’ve found I really like the big cities we’ve been to in Asia because there’s just so much for the senses to take in. There are smells everywhere from all the food and drink vendors on the sidewalks, a constant stream of motorbikes zooming around honking their horns, and usually an array of French or British colonial-style buildings mixed in with the modern architecture and run-down buildings. Saigon definitely ranks high on my list of major cities we’ve been in so far. The city itself is very visually impressive. Lots of modern, unique sky-scrapers (that are even more interesting when they’re lit up at night),  architecturally beautiful museums, churches, government buildings, etc, and parts of the city wouldn’t look out of place in Seattle with all the high-end retail and cafes. There are well-taken care of parks scattered throughout the city center, as well. It was fun to walk through the park near our guesthouse in the evenings, just to see the power-walkers, the kids playing hackey-sack with a shuttle-cock looking thing, and watching the dance lessons under the pavilions.

Brian and I found plenty of people-watching opportunities, as well. Drink vendors just set up little tables on the sidewalk, so we’d enjoy a ca phe sua da (super-strong coffee with condensed milk over ice  - my newest guilty pleasure on this trip) in the morning or a beer at the end of the day. It’s a fun way to mingle with both fellow travelers and locals. One night we were seated at a table with couple older Vietnamese guys who looked like they had just gotten off work and were having a beer. We were on one side of the table, they were on the other, and for the most part we had just been minding our own businesses. Given it was a hot day, which in turn was warming up the beer faster than usual, Brian and I decided to commit what is in America one of the cardinal sins of beer-drinking and asked for ice for our glass. This is common practice here, and although we resisted doing this for a long time, we inadvertently had to try it once in Cambodia, and found it really wasn’t that bad. It’s not like the beer isn’t only a step above water, anyway.  So we were brought a bucket of ice for the table (since of course, the Vietnamese we were sharing the table with were drinking their beer with ice), and suddenly, we were their new drinking buddies. There were rounds of ‘cheers’ (“Yo” in Vietnamese) every few minutes, and they kept insisting we share their bag of cut-up mango with them (I know, I know – mango and beer, we are committing beer-drinking sins left and right. But they eat mango while it’s still not ripe, so it’s really crunchy and not so sweet, and they dip into a spicy/salty mixture, which does go quite well with beer).  They spoke zero English, so we learned a couple more Vietnamese words – mango in Vietnamese at least sounds the same as it did in Khmer, so that’s easy for me to remember, although I’m still not sure how to say ice correctly (Dah? Dai? Deh?).  It definitely made for an entertaining happy hour.  Lesson learned that afternoon: “When in Rome…”

Speaking of that saying, we had to take it to heart to learn how to cross the street here. I think this is a city of 6 million people, and there are probably just as many motorbikes.  Crossing the street is a science that we can’t say we mastered, but faked our way through well-enough to not get creamed.  Consider that motorbikes (and often cars) don’t drive in a lane, they drive in whatever open space they can find (sometimes, going the wrong direction). With the number of motorbikes around Saigon, there just aren’t many open spaces left in the steady stream of traffic – so the ‘gap’ we generally look for to cross a street is just never there.  So we did as the locals do, and said a little prayer and just start walking slowly, trying to telegraph our every move to the drivers coming by.  It is amazing – you simply put your faith into the hands of hundreds of motorbike drivers speeding down the road, walk slowly and steadily across the street, and the virtual river of bikes just magically parts and “flows” around you.

While we were here, we also took advantage of the opportunity to educate ourselves on the Vietnam War (or as it is known here, the “War of American Aggression”).  Neither one of us really know much about the war or politics of that time period, as we’ve started to see a pattern in how US history that doesn’t reflect so greatly on the US isn’t really taught in too much detail in school. We went to the Reunification Palace, the War Remnants Museum, and the Cu Chi tunnels while we were here, so we definitely got to see plenty of the Vietnamese perspective.  The Vietnamese talk of their defeat of the French in the colonial days and America in the Vietnam War to win their independence with a pride similar to how we talk about our defeat of the British to win ours. My understanding of the war was always that the communist north invaded the non-communist south, and since US foreign policy at that time seemed to be attempting to prevent the spread of communism at all costs, we went in to support South Vietnam.  From the Vietnamese perspective, the north was liberating the south from the oppressive US puppet government put in place, so that the country could be reunified.  My guess is the actual truth is somewhere in between the Vietnamese and American perspective. Regardless of the politics of leading into the war, the civilian casualties inflicted by the US was appalling, as is the long-lasting impacts of the defoliants (ie,Agent Orange) we used.  I know there probably atrocities on both sides (they don’t really discuss treatment of American POW’s), but it’s still disturbing to hear what people are capable of during a war. We were the only Americans on the tour we took to the Cu Chi tunnels, and the guide came up to us a few different times to apologize for talking about some of the brutal things that were done by Americans during the war, and reassure us that everything was fine now, Vietnamese and Americans are friendly today.  On the flip side, I was admittedly disturbed by the 1968 video we were shown at the Cu Chi Tunnels, in which they kept talking about the brave young Vietnamese men and women who received medals for being good “American Killers”.  They should probably consider updating that video, as it was clearly propaganda used to motivate peasants to fight against the Americans in the 1960’s.   The Cu Chi tunnel visit was quite interesting – the Vietnamese had built this entire underground tunnel system to for people to hide during bombing and attacks, and to facilitate movement of the Viet Cong soldiers and weapons into Saigon.  We got to crawl around through a small portion of the original tunnels, and it’s a pretty tight fit. Definitely not a comfortable way to walk around…I can’t imagine traversing those on a daily basis (or even for longer than the 50 m or so we walked through!).

On the same tour in which we went to the Cu Chi tunnels, they also took us to visit a Cau Dai temple. Cau Dai is a religion that originated in Vietnam in the 20^th century, and to be honest, I still don’t really grasp it. It seems like they’ve incorporated parts of Buddhism, Catholicism, Hinduism, and probably some other religions.  Jesus and Buddha are both worshipped, as is Victor Hugo.  Yes, Victor Hugo, the French poet.  Regardless, the temple itself was really colorful and full of symbolism from all the religions named above (and there’s even a nice painting with Victor Hugo). We got to watch the noon prayer service, which while fascinating, made me a bit uncomfortable – I can’t imagine going to church and having 100 tourists standing above taking pictures of everyone worshipping.  I think these tours to this temple run every day, though, so I guess they’re used to it.

In another example of backwards business practices in Vietnam, we had some drama at the end of the Cau Dai Temple/Cu Chi Tunnel tour. Everyone booked the tour through different travel agencies, and if the travel agency doesn’t have enough people to do a full tour on their own, they send them to another travel agency to run the tour. So everyone ends up being consolidated into one tour group. Turns out, one of the agencies that had signed up 11 passengers and then shipped them to the tour company we were with never actually gave the tour company the money that the passengers paid. Apparently ,this had been a problem in the past, and the way the tour company handled it was to tell this agency that the next time they didn’t pay for the passengers sent to their tour, they would leave the passengers and not take them back to Saigon on the bus.  As you can imagine, this did not sit well with 11 passengers who were told they would be stranded at the Cu Chi tunnels, and would have to find a taxi ride back to Saigon.  After about 15 minutes of the tourists trying to talk some sense into the tour guide by reasoning that this was not the tourists’ problem and would result in poor customer satisfaction that would be damaging both tour companies (of course our tour-guide was put in the middle– this was his boss’s decision), the boss finally called and said that the passengers could get on the bus because the delinquent tour company finally agreed to pay. All ended well – but talk about a screwed up business strategy!!

We’ve since moved on to Dalat, in south-central Vietnam. We’re at almost 5000 feet elevation here, which is making for dry days and cool nights, a pleasant change from the heat of Saigon.  We are told this was a popular honeymoon destination for the Vietnamese, and I can see why – cute French colonial architecture, a nice man-made lake in the center of town, plenty of flowers around, and supposedly there’s a “Valley of Love” just outside of town. They even make some drinkable wine here, which at $1.50 - $3/bottle, we plan to stock up on before we leave. We've been enjoying the beautiful countryside the last couple days before we heading to Mui Ne for more beach time.

Good Morning Vietnam

PHOTO ALBUM - Sihanoukville, Kampot, Kep, Phu Quoc

We left Sihanoukville and made some quick stops in Kampot and Kep before crossing the Xa Xia land border with Vietnam.  Kampot is a river town near the Cambodian coast that serves as a base for – among a few other things - touring Bokor National Park.  We took a tour of the Bokor Hill Station – the ruins of a French Colonial hotel/casino that was built in the 1920’s on top of a nearby mountain in the national park.  Because of the elevation (1700m), it is a nice escape from the lowland heat and provides some spectacular views.  Right now, you can only get there with an organized tour agency because the road is under construction.  The ruins were abandoned twice because of wars and the remaining structures have grown orange lichen all over giving a ghostly appearance.  A Chinese company is investing a billion dollars to create new hotels, casinos, swimming pools, golf course, etc. for a mega resort.   It was nice to see the place before it becomes too developed. 

After Kampot we moved on to spend one night in Kep – another former French colonial town - with the intention to eat a large plate of fresh crab at the crab market.  The crab dinner did not disappoint.  We also enjoyed a night-cap and tasted our first quality glass of red-wine in Southeast Asia, a Cabernet-Merlot served at a fancy French restaurant near our guesthouse.   This French restaurant overlooked the Gulf of Thailand, was decorated in a trendy style, and was playing music that included such classics as John Denver’s “Country Roads” and even a Karen Carpenter song I recognized but don’t know the name of.  This was another one of those moments where we had to ask ourselves, “where in the world we were again?”

In our first blog entry we established travel “KPI’s” We feel now would be a good time to give a KPI status update. 

# times Elise and Brian get in "a disagreement":  Let’s be honest, we will never go into any details on the world-wide-web on this KPI.  However, after 4 months, we are performing well in this area.  It is probably not worth keeping track anyway because as long as we don’t kill each other and also come home happily married, we should be good to go in this area.  Projections are positive for both.

# times Elise is allowed to be in tears):  Elise is proud to report that to date she is at zero to date.  She must be meant for travelling because no stressful situations or uncomfortable conditions have yet to break her.  However, she did get a bit testy with a tuk-tuk driver in Kep.  One inherent annoyance of arriving to a new town on a bus is that you are often mobbed by moto-taxi or tuk-tuk drivers who want to sell you a ride to your guesthouse.  Sometimes we don’t know exactly where the bus is dropping us off and like to get our bearings before committing to a ride (often you can walk).  But fierce competition among drivers results in latching on to you from the instant you step off the bus.  Apparently Elise had enough of that and when an overbearing tuk-tuk driver leached on to her in Kep, she very firmly – actually forcefully – told him to please get back and leave her alone while she got her bag and talked to her husband.  Any of you blog readers who know Elise probably would have found that as entertaining as I did.  We may need to add “# of times Elise snaps at a tuk-tuk driver” to the list of KPI’s.    

# times Elise and Brian get significantly ripped off:  We’re still good here.  No major rip-offs.

# times Elise and Brian get ripped off just a little bit:  It is very difficult to define a minor rip-off.  Realistically, we are charged “tourist” prices instead of local prices in a lot of cases.  Everything is negotiable and many times we have no clue what the going local price is for something.  For example, we were perfectly happy with our purchase of oranges in the village market near Battambang, Cambodia until the little girl in the Smiling Child library pointed out what the price should have been.  We had another recent example in Vietnam where after a small purchase a fellow passenger on the bus pointed out to us that we paid double what we should have.   On the other hand, the very small amount of “extra” that we paid (fractions of a dollar) goes a lot farther in those vendors’ hands than it does in ours.  So it does no good to worry about stuff like that. 

However, our first blatant scam happened on the border crossing into Vietnam.  Because of some vague information we found in our research, we decided to buy an all inclusive bus/boat ticket from Kep, Cambodia to Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam.  The price looked the same as doing it ourselves, but from what we could tell, we would not have to negotiate several transfers and ticket purchases.  We were told the bus goes through the border and would take us to the ferry terminal.  The reality is the bus took us to the border and put us in the hands of some motorcycle taxi drivers and paid them cash for our fare and to buy us our boat tickets (we could have easily done this ourselves).  However, the moto-taxi driver then proceeded to buy us the cheaper “slow boat” ferry ticket (3-4 hours and uncomfortable) instead of the 1-1/2 hour hydrofoil.  I am confident he pocketed the difference (about $9).  Once we realized what had happened it was too late and that guy just lied to us and said we were supposed to have the slow boat.  But we had no proof or leverage at that point and were on the other side of an international border.  No big deal in the big picture, and we arrived on the island after a very long day of travelling.  But if that’s how the game is played in Vietnam (which we’ve heard it is) then so be it.  We have since turned on our “bullshit meters” to high alert.

Phu Quoc island was very nice.  It is a relatively expensive resort island off the coast southwest of Vietnam.  But we found a very nice inexpensive bungalow near the beach and enjoyed two days in the sun reading books and planning our visit to Vietnam.  We also decided to take a sunset cruise/fishing/night squid fishing excursion our last night.  It included hotel pick-up and a BBQ dinner.  This turned in to our next rip-off but makes for a funny story.  We booked through our bungalow’s front desk.  We were supposed to be picked up at 4pm, but at 4:30 realized that no one was going to show up.  Our hotel then called the tour company and from the broken English we think we were forgotten about or our bungalow’s concierge never called in for our tickets.  Since we were leaving the next day, they scrambled to change us to a less-expensive tour – one that left later but did not include fishing.  That was fine with us and the price difference was refunded.  We were then taxied to a boat and left to wait for a tour.  We sat on the boat for about 45 minutes wondering if anything was going to happen when finally a group of Vietnamese tourists showed up and the boat fired up its engines.  No one seemed to acknowledge us or speak English.  This seemed odd, but we just decided to go with it.  We cruised out in the choppy waters, picked up some sea urchins that were grilled up for anyone to taste for about $1 each, then anchored for squid fishing.  At that point we started to notice sea-sick passengers starting to vomit over the edge of the boat.  We’ve observed that Asians seem quite susceptible to motion sickness based on many bus rides so far, so I began to fear that this was going to get bad.  And it did.  We were shown how to squid fish (drop a lure into the water and slowly bring it up, much like crappie fishing).  But that only lasted about 10 minutes until there was a constant flow of vomit entering the water from all sides of the boat from about three-quarters of its passengers.  Chunks were appearing floating in the water all around.  I was trying to think positively and thought maybe this would make the fishing better, but we were soon asked to put away the fishing gear and headed back to shore because everyone was so sick.  Our cruise lasted all of 45 minutes dock to dock with 10 minutes of fishing in clouds of vomit.  So now we’re back at dock at least two hours early.  We sat on the boat another half hour until dinner was ready – no BBQ, but actually some pretty tasty rice soup with squid – and chatted with the few of our fellow passengers who also were not sick and stuck around for dinner (there were about 6 of us left, and we started with over 20).  We were owed a ride back to the hotel, but had no clue if and when someone would show up to take us back so we grabbed a Sinh To (fruit shake) at the nearby market and then hailed our own moto-taxi back.  Total waste of money, but we can’t help but just laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.

Our final rip-off (or better described as just a screw-up based on misinformation, poor Vietnamese bureaucracy, and no ability to communicate and coordinate through any complex ”red-tape”) is our Vietnam Visa.  We thought we were saving money by purchasing our Vietnam Visa in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (the cheapest place in the world to buy it).  You have to buy a visa in advance for Vietnam and every other advance visa we bought there is “grace period” for you to enter the country from the date you bought the visa.  The length of stay then starts from the date you cross the border. Unfortunately, our 30-day visa for Vietnam was issued to us starting the day after we bought it and no one asked or informed us that we needed to specify a start date – and we had no way of knowing.  All information we could find ahead of time online and in the guide books was vague or contradictory to us.  So we entered Vietnam with already 2 weeks of our 30-day visa expired – so much for trying to plan ahead!   We have applied for a 1-month visa extension in Saigon (now actually called Ho Chi Minh City) and are now waiting a week hoping it goes through.  For us, Vietnam will require more than a month – we were planning on the extension anyway.  But now we’ll have to settle for 6 weeks max pending a visa extension.

After Phu Quoc, we moved on to Saigon, where we’ve spent the last few days. Getting here was a bit crazy. After our ferry docked on the mainland in Rach Gia (this time a nice high speed Hydrofoil), we booked a bus ticket to Saigon on a medium sized aircon bus..  Our driver was a maniac.  He drove at high speeds, passing many a large bus and motor bike and narrowly avoiding head-on collisions.  Our journey included a fender bender in which he merged in and had a glancing blow off another large truck.  No big deal – the drivers calmly talked and resolved the issue as there was no major damage - nothing a little gasoline wipe-down of flaked off paint couldn’t fix.  The highlight of the trip was a pissed-off motorcycle driver who was enraged by being run off the road.  We didn’t see it, but we’re guessing that is what happened.  The moto driver stormed onto the bus and for about 5 minutes yelled and cursed at the driver and even bitch-slapped him a few times.  We give props to our driver for staying calm and just taking the blows until the guy finally calmed down and left.  We’re guessing this wasn’t the first time.

So that was our first impression of travelling in Vietnam.  I think it will be a different “game” here so we’re preparing ourselves appropriately. We’re currently in Saigon – a very nice, modern, and energetic place.  Saigon deserves its own blog entry so more about that next.