Vietnam - # 2 - Nha Trang + Jan 2012

This part of the trip could have been a lot more enjoyable than it was. A lot had to do with my state of mind, and the fact that I couldn't get out of the negative rut I had so easily fallen into. I guess I was expecting the beauty and friendliness and warmth and greatness of Thailand, but with a Vietnamese twist. Obviously that was not the case, and I was met with many challenges that I didn't know how to deal with. My previous travelling experiences were very different. I usually stayed in one place and took part in some sort of course or activity throughout my stay there. That is how I spend my time, socialized and relaxed. 

Travelling through Vietnam actually required travel. Going from one place to another, from one hotel/hostel to another, finding good places to eat at, finding good trips and adventures to take part in, meeting new people and getting along or not. 

I realize now that I didn't spend a lot of time preparing myself, and thinking about how to approach all the different experiences, good and bad. 

It's so much easier the other way. So much more relaxing. Why go through all this hassle? But there's a value in this struggle. You learn and you grow and you find out things about yourself and your surrounding that you weren't aware of before. How else can you grow and learn if everything is easy, and no real effort has to be put into something? 

It's not that I didn't do anything before, but before it was easy, and very natural. This was difficult and totally not the kind of activity I'm used to. 

I'm glad I challenged myself and stepped out of my comfort zone. I need to do that more often!

Anyways, here are the beautiful pictures I have taken along the way.

This was the bus from Ho Chi Min (Saigon). It was actually really comfortable.

And here started my Easy Rider 5 day tour up to Hoi An. I bought this trip from my hotel, and unfortunately was ripped off quite a lot. It turned out that my guide and driver wasn't actually a guide at all, but just a driver. He didn't really know much, or tell me much about anything. But, anyways, it was still beautiful and a very different way of getting across the country. I'll be more careful next time.

These were traditional mountain people meeting halls. A foreigner came here and wanted to make a resort with huts only of this style, but the government somehow stopped him. So now all these are abandoned and half finished.

A little rest stop along the way. All the villages had a similar gate. The name, the communist star, and some flags.

Sugar cane is a very common crop in Vietnam, especially in the southern regions.

And this was a baby watermelon :)

Sugarcane.

Oh tasty, and sweet and juicy :)

There wasn't a lot of traffic.

This was another Easy Rider.

Since Vietnam is a communist country, there are propaganda posters pretty much everywhere. In every little village there's a government building, and outside that building there are lots of posters. Even around the schools there are posters. They were very interesting, so I too lots of pics. Here they are.

And this is one of the many many wedding tents we passed by. Loud music, many people, lots of food and lots of motorcycles were there.

We stopped by a shop that made these beautiful pieces of furniture out of tree stumps dug up from different farmers fields. Really something beautiful.

There were lots of these typical statues. The soldier with the grains.

Coffee drying out in the front of someones house.

Cocoa tree and cocoa fruit. I took one and later opened it up. Very strange.

I love my hair.

Rice paddies prepped for replanting.

This was the first nights accommodation in a mountain village traditional house.

This is what one looks like from the back.

This was the front, and the motorcycle in the front with my bags all wrapped up and water proof.

Cute piglets piled up and sleeping.

This is how big the cocoa fruit is.

Piglets suckling.

Cute puppy that I couldn't help play with :).

And now for an interesting elephant ride through a pretty deep river.

Going in.

Like I said, we went pretty deep in.

Bonsai were everywhere. They are really expensive, really old, and a sign of prosperity and social standing for the family.

Then we went to visit some snakes.

It was trying to wrap itself around me.

Mom and daughter.

This is what the coffee fruit looks like.

Inside there were two coffee beans.

They are fresh now, so they need to be dried and other things before it's ready to make coffee out of it.

It didn't taste like coffee.

And this is how pepper grows. It grows in a vine that climbs up a tree.

Like this.

Coffee flower. The next generation of coffee plants.

Coffee plantation.

Dinosaur following me.

I'm poking it's nose. It's very funny.

It had a big mouth. I wonder if it could have swallowed me whole.

Very cool root swing under a big rock covered with roots.

These students were at the waterfalls eating oranges. I sat with them for a while and tried to communicate. Very friendly.

This rock is really strange. I was told it keeps growing. Strange!

Love this van. One day, I'll have one like it and live in it and travel across some country :).

My breakfast. Can of beans, omelet, soy sauce, and an insanely thick and strong coffee.

Then we visited a rubber farm. Lots of rubber trees everywhere, tapped and being harvested. Very cool to see.

The lion got my hand!!

These were everywhere. So beautiful. They spread and grew really large. There were red, pink, and white too.

Exotic meat BBQ. We had Venison and Porcupine.

At one of the hotels, they had a cute dog with super super cute puppies. They were very very young.

Going through the mountains now. Most of the people here weren't ethnically Vietnamese, but were some sort of tribal people, who looked different and spoke a different language.

Up there, where the mist is, that's where we're gonna drive over.

Here we're at the top. Really beautiful and prehistoric plants were everywhere.

It was huge. A jungle everywhere.

Pineapple plantation.

The end of the motorcycle trip. Almost done :)

My Awesome Hair

So, in Nha Trang, I trusted this lady with my hair. She did an amazing job with it.

Not my kind of place

I've been in this country for less than a week, and I feel I've been here for over a month.

I'm ready to leave...

This is not my kind of place at all.

It's very expensive. It's full of university style party people. The locals are not very friendly. The food isn't great. The weather isn't great. The choice of activities and day trips is very VERY limited.

Only good thing so far, I've bought a nice shirt and a nice pair of light and airy pants, and I got a nice haircut. Besides that, everything is meh...

I am looking forward to something though. I booked a 5 day 4 night trip up the coast on a motorcycle. I won't be driving because traffic is INSANE here, but I'll be sitting on the back of a cruiser bike for the duration. I think it's going to be great. I hope, or else Vietnam will go on my "Not Like" country list. And that will be a first.

Also, I found a great sandal that I want made in Hoi An, the place with all the tailors and shoe makers. Hopefully they can make it. I also want to get a nice pair of convertible shorts/long pants made. The ones I have now are wearing away, and I need something for the rest of my trip.

I've bought my motorcycle trip, I've bought my flight ticket to Thailand... I wish I had an earlier date... I might change it.

I am a bit down, and it's just so crappy to feel like that during vacation, when I should be having a wonderful time.

This is the first time in a long time that I'm actually travelling, and not just going to a place for the whole time and with a purpose. And what is also difficult with this sort of travel, I'm travelling on my own, and it's kind of sucking... sucking a lot actually.

I think, next time when I go travel again, I'll either go with other people, or go to one place and take part in something.

This morning I went scuba diving. I didn't think I'd actually freak out. But I did.

I realize I have a fear of edges, and gaps. Maybe it's because of all the crazy things like Bungee jumping and Skydiving I've done. Anyways, I was on the boat with all the scuba gear on, and I had to jump off of the boat into the water. It took me about 5 minutes to jump off, and then I was having a panic attack and freaking out. It took me about another 20 minutes to calm down enough and relax and breath through the mask and keep my face in, before attempting to dive. But, I kept freaking out and rushing to the surface. So, I only dived to 2.7 meters. I did see some pretty fish and corals, but the waters were pretty murky, so visibility wasn't great.

Also, my dive instructor was kind of spacey. She wasn't very good at calming me down, or making me feel confident in her ability to watch my back. I kept rolling on my side, which I found out later from a girl in my hostel, was because my weights were not adjusted properly and I wasn't balanced in the water. Also, she didn't really give me much instruction on how to actually move in the water. I think I needed more instruction on the actual mechanics, once you are in the water. The breathing and such was ok. Also, my face mask wasn't working well because I kept getting water in my goggles and that was making me panic as well.

All in all, a shitty experience so far.

I am hopeful that it will get better, and that's why I'm not just quitting this and moving on to the next country.

Vietnam - # 1 - Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) Jan 2012

So, this year during winter vacation I decided to go and see some places. I originally intended to go to Vietnam, then Laos and then Thailand. But after a few days in Vietnam, I felt it would be better to go just through Vietnam, leave Laos for another time, and then go to Thailand for a week and meet up with my sister.

That's what I did.

Here are the pictures and stories from the first city I was in: Saigon.

This was the boat that we went on for the Mekong Delta day trip. It was pretty stable and comfortable.

There were all these rickety houses everywhere. Also, a lot of water plants growing. I wonder if they have flowers.

There were lots of banana trees on the banks of the river. Free food!

You can see the French influenced architecture.

Someone enjoys plants. Even in such a small and dirty place, people managed to grow things.

There were antennae everywhere. I think it's for TV, but I'm not sure.

This was our little 10 minute, quiet and peaceful boat ride. The guy who took the photo was in the front of the boat, English guy, and I'm pretty sure he was drunk.

It was so beautiful and so peaceful. The way they rowed those boats was very different.

They don't sit down. They stand up the whole time. That's got to be tiring.

This was in the city. On some random street. Traffic there is crazy, but surprisingly, there are very few accidents. There are hundreds of bicycles, motorcycles, cars and pedestrians crisscrossing each other and going pretty randomly, but everyone is very alert and is always aware of everyone around them. It's amazing.

This was a really beautiful palm tree in a park. I don't remember where I was walking, but I think I was looking for a good place to cross the street. They don't stop there at crosswalks. You just have to walk across, no matter how busy or chaotic the traffic is. Just walk normally. The vehicles will go around you. It's very scary the first couple of times, but after a few times, you don't fear for your life anymore.

Then I went on a food and scooter tour through the different districts in Saigon. These were the other people who joined. It was really tasty, and I especially loved riding through the mad traffic.

This was the first stop. A super super amazing soup. So much flavour!!

The XO helmets you see are the other members of the tour group. And as you can see, we are in the scooter lane on the highway. There were so many of them!!

Then we stopped at a BBQ place and had some goat. It was very chewy and had a very strange flavour. Not my favorite. Got is for milk and cheese, not meat!

Then we had some BBQ prawns. Super tasty. The ladies who were our drivers did everything for us. We just had to sit, eat, drink and enjoy. They cooked and peeled and got everything ready for us. I felt very pampered.

Then at yet another restaurant, we had some frog legs. Tiny but good. Tasted like chicken, but chicken is good :).

And then, the BEST of all the dishes, were these scallops. WOW!! The herbs and sauce that was in there complemented the meat incredibly well. WOW! I ate so many of those!!

This wasn't all that good. It was a bit too spicy.

And those are razor clams. Very tasty with the right sauce.

As I soon discovered, Vietnam is not just a little communist, but VERY communist. The hammer and sickle sign and the red colour and the star symbol were EVERYWHERE.

I also went to the War Museum. It was very sad, and some of the pictures and stories were pretty horrific. War is always a terrible thing. I heard this quote before and I thought it worth including here:

When I was a child

I spoke as a child

I understood as a child

I thought as a child

But when I became a man

I put away childish things.

And then, at my hostel, I met this group of very wonderful ladies, and that Eastern European strange guy that always seemed to be angry or mentally very preoccupied. I ended up going with the group of 4 women to the next town, Nha Trang on a very wonderful and comfortable night bus.

Vietnam

I've been walking around all day and I came to the conclusion that I stink.

In a good way.

It's so amazingly hot here.

So amazingly humid.

It's not as nice as Thailand, but it's interesting and there are new things to experience.

As soon as I got here I could feel that the people are not as friendly. The locals and the tourists.

It's more hectic, more rushed, more high strung, less hippie, less mellow, less open and welcoming to tourists.

Thailand has done a really good job being accessible to tourists, and you can do SOOOO many things there for pretty cheap prices. Vietnam on the other hand, you have to spend a bit more money to actually get better trips and experiences. If you pay for your basic $10 day trip, you get 5 or 6 hours on a bus, lead around to buy local souvenirs, and mediocre food.

So, when it comes to tours and such, you really do get what you pay for here in Vietman.

Thailand, you can pay very little and have amazing experiences. I can't wait to go to Thailand.

Much more people will go back to visit Thailand than people who will go back and visit Vietnam.

I'm looking forward to getting out of the big city and go to a smaller city on the beach. It's pretty difficult to leave the tourist trail here, mainly because outside of the big tourists spots, people don't speak English and you'll have a very difficult time finding out how to get around, where to stay, and where to eat.