Vietnam Vacation, Pt. II: Hoi An, Danang (airport), HCMC, and back to the homeland...

After spending a day and a half in Nha Trang, lounging on the beach, cruising around on a moto (let the record show we wore helmets and were in a “non- Peace Corps country” so this was legal!), and stopping where our hearts desired, it was time to move on to our next stop: Hoi An. We left Nha Trang at midnight on a night train, which ended up being a pretty great way to travel since a) we saved money on a hotel for the night and, b) our beds on the train were not half bad (they had comforters!). When we woke up, we were only an hour or so from Hoi An so we munched on a breakfast of black sesame cakes while craning our necks to watch the passing scenery through the window.

Hoi An is a city of about 122,000 people, set on the southern boarder of the central highlands. It is a culturally thriving place with local crafts as a main staple-- silk lantern making, wood carving, and pottery are still actively produced in the area. In 1999 it was named a Unesco World Heritage site. The streets are small and free of cars, and much of the “Old Town” has been preserved through current family members who continue to open their homes to visitors for a small fee.

While there, Garrett and I bought an “Old Town” pass, which allows you to see five “cultural sites” for 90,000 dong, the proceeds of which go to maintaining the sites. It was worth it to see the above-pictured Chinese assembly hall,  Phúc Kiến (founded in 1757) and one of the preserved old houses, Tán Ký which dates from the early 19th Century. Also worth it so that this ridiculously awkward picture of me in front of the assembly hall could come into existence.

We also got to see the Great Wall with our ticket!

Afterwards, we stopped for some cao lau from a street vendor: a Hoi Anese specialty of thick doughy noodles with marinated shrimp, bean sprouts and greens, topped with pork slices and served with a crispy rice cake.

In the evening, the Japanese bridge swells with tourists and vendors who set up stalls with different kinds of food and paper lanterns, which tourists can buy and send off in the river as an offering or a prayer.

For 50,000 dong (about $2.50) we had a nice view of the sun setting from a paddle boat on the river.

For a minute I was scared we’d be eaten by sharks

But then I remembered that was silly and anyway, impossible

Dinner! It’s hard to see here but those hoanh thanh (won ton) are each about the size of my face.We dubbed them "Vietnamese nachos" = greasy, fried chips with a topping of tomato, onion, chives, pineapple, and ground beef… And washed down with glasses of “fresh beer” for 3000 dong each ($0.10).

Our second day in Hoi An began with a bike ride across the Thu Bon River to Cam Nam Island, easily accessible from Hoi An's second bridge, which is much more imposing in size than the quaint Japanese covered bridge you've seen in previous pictures. I’d read in our guidebook about a bookstore on the island owned by an ex-pat, which was worth the trip not for its impressive collection, but for how awesomely bad its offerings proved to be.

This was among our favorites, since barang (that's with a “b”) is a widely-known term in Cambodia used in reference to foreigners.

And how could this not be a favorite?

Or this? Insta-classic is what I say.

After riding back to Hoi An we went to a restaurant called “Green Moss” for lunch, where you could take a cooking class to learn how your meal was prepared for just $2 more than your order.

 We opted for the pumpkin soup and cau lau with tofu

NOM! Those browned won ton chips on top were amazing

The lady who showed us how to make our meal took a liking to us so we got to come back in the evening to see how our dinner was prepared for free :)

Shrimp wantons: a less greasy and more refined version of the “Vietnamese nachos” we’d had the previous night. These were undeniably better.

Despite how much this looks like a fish, it’s actually grilled eggplant in a brown sauce, with chili peppers, spring onions, lemongrass, and peanuts.

The moon festival occurred while we were in Vietnam (it happens on the first and 15^th day of every month of the lunar calendar) so “moon cakes” were readily available. These cakes have a spongy, angel-food-like exterior and can have various kinds of fillings like ground mung bean, coconut, red bean paste, and taro. Garrett bought one with a particularly interesting ingredient list to bring back to his host family in Phnom Penh, who is half Chinese. ‘Salanganes nest’ –the first ingredient on the list—is used in birds-nest soup as well as in traditional medicine, and is thought to be an aphrodisiac. It comes from the “swiftlet” bird, and currently amasses more than $2000 per kilo in the international marketplace.

We spent two days in Hoi An, strolling narrow streets to stop in handicraft shops, getting new clothes made (I have shorts that actually fit me now!), and even running into a fellow PCV on the street (Spoiler!) Our friend Trophy happened to be traveling around Vietnam at the same time we were, and I spotted her as we were walking to dinner one night. It provided a reminder of how small this East Asian community really is.

After all of our adventures, it was time for us to make our way back to HCMC for our last day in Vietnam before heading back to that ever lovable and exasperating place we call home. We woke early to drive up to the nearby city of Danang where the airport is to catch our 8:00AM flight back to HCMC.

For our last day we ambled aimlessly, seeing what we saw as we went and just enjoying the day.

I can be really awkward. Did you know that?

 I call this one, Snowperson Encased in Post-Modern Bird.

For our final evening, we had big plans to go to a traditional water puppet show and then out for a nice meal in our new clothes from Hoi An. The show was, as predicted, a little hokey, but worth it nonetheless for the accompanying traditional music. You can see video of it below.

Let it be known that *Garrett* was taking the video and **not me,** so you can blame him for the slightly shaky screen and random guy’s tuft of hair that sometimes obscures the view.

As we exited the theater we were greeted by a torrent of rain. We thought we’d be fine in our plastic ponchos, so we braved the storm and headed into the deluge to scope out a dinner location. Within minutes my shoes were completely soaked, my big toe poking through the sole (I'd purposely worn old shoes out since it was raining), and the hem of my new midnight blue silk dress was drenched. Oh and Garrett’s pants were wet too. So we weighed whether or not we would actually enjoy a shmancy, probably out-of-our budget meal in wet clothes as our last memory of HCMC, or if we would rather do something a little cozier which wouldn't require us to further delve into the rain...

As you can see, we chose option number two. It was the perfect end to a lovely vacation, and nothing could have made me happier than eating Pizza Hut delivery with a diet coke in the comfort of my hotel room as the rain beat down outside.

Thanks for tuning in to my travelogue and I look forward to keeping you updated on other adventures and projects in future posts!

Vietnam Vacation, Pt. l: Ho Chi Minh City, Mui Ne, and Nha Trang

The summer in Cambodia is LONG, folks. For the first part of it, I was busy with my library project: completing the world map (which took about three weeks), and then working on the inside of the building with my three student helpers. We've managed to get a lot done in the month or so devoted to it: we've cleared the space of clutter, “thrown out” (or rather, shoved into a separate room so I can pretend they don't exist) old books, maps, an alarming number of dusty portraits of the king and company, a collection of musty sombreros (I have no idea for what purpose these were being stored in the library… unless there was some sort of Spanish club or weekly fiesta night of which I'd unfortunately been left unaware), and much more.

We painted the walls, windows, and bookshelves, and began painting the benches. After much hard work and being told repeatedly by tongue-clicking mings (aunts) at the market that I was “more beautiful before [this project started],” I knew a vacation was in order. My boyfriend Garrett, fellow PCV and human extraordinaire, and I made plans to go to Vietnam.

To begin our journey, Garrett and I met in Phnom Penh to travel to Takeo to see the K6s (new group of volunteers) swearing-in ceremony, which marked the end of their training and the beginning of their lives as Peace Corps volunteers. It was pretty cool to see things “as they were” (when I was still in training) but also "as they are now" as I rode my bike into my training village with a widened perspective to visit my previous family, whom I hadn’t seen in over a year! It was pretty fantastic to see my bong s’rey (big sister) again after so long and to chat with her so much easier than I could during training when my Khmer was still just a tiny bird in the process of hatching from its egg (can that be a real metaphor? I believe I just made it so).

After the ceremony, Garrett and I traveled back to Phnom Penh to catch a bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), also known as Saigon. The bus ride was only six hours! That’s a shorter amount of time than it takes to get to Siem Riep. Anyway, since I think journeys of this magnitude are better expressed visually, I’ll jump right in with maps and pictures to narrate through those.

The total distance we traveled by plane, train, and automobile was 20+ hours. As you can see, Vietnam is a REALLY LONG country! It’s about 40 hours by bus/train from top to bottom. Because of its length, the scenery is constantly changing from place to place, which made bus and train rides particularly engaging.

So we begin in HCMC with what else? Food. Since I’d heard that Vietnamese food is “like Khmer food but way better” I was excited to try it! Here we have a sticky rice cake with banana, cut up into pieces with scissors in front of you and topped with tapioca and sesame seeds before serving. SO GOOD.

NOM.

While in HCMC, we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels- the infamous tunnels with which the Viet Cong won the war through surprise attacks on American soldiers and navigation by military personnel and transport of goods. A typical entrance to the tunnels looks like this: a definite challenge to squeeze through for your average well-fed American.

Booby traps were used to capture American soldiers in a pretty gruesome manner: spearing them with metal rods as they fell into a foliage-covered pit, or puncturing legs and other extremities with rotor-till like metal spokes, thus preventing any possibility of escape.

Our guide prefaced this display by saying, “The Viet Cong didn’t actually wear uniforms.” I’m not sure who decided it’d be an authentic representation to have these soldiers displayed around a fire, cozily writing letters home and sipping out of flasks when that was not the reality at all. The Viet Cong often spent weeks and even months in the tunnels, which were cramped and airless, as I can attest from having crawled through one myself, hunched over and trying not to head-butt the person in front of me’s rear-end.

Here we have a preserved tank, which tourists are encouraged to climb up onto and explore… Immediately after this display, our group was led to a firing range where visitors can gear up and shoot AK47s, pistols, or rocket launchers to their hearts’ content… This seemed a morally regrettable juxtaposition to me, and just a tad reprehensible at a site on which decades of suffering and fear plagued the people who were now encouraging visitors to release still more artillery fire into the mountainside. This, in addition to the “pleasure house swimming pool” made me a little weary of this historical site and left me with mixed feelings with regards to its effect.

This same day, we visited the War Remnants Museum which proved, as expected, an extremely powerful and poignant historical site. While the images I saw wandering through the museum are not soon to leave my head, I appreciated seeing what the American War (as it is referred in Vietnam) did to the Vietnamese people: how much destruction it caused and how little has been done in years following to account for it. It’s sad and disappointing on the part of Americans, but also inspiring to see the scale of Vietnam's recovery from rubble in just a few short decades and to see how forgiving its people seem to be.

Onward from HCMC! Next on our itinerary was Mui Ne, a small beach town on the southeastern coast, just five hours away by bus 

Mui Ne is renowned for its red sand dunes, which extend from the landscape opposite the coast. We barely ventured into the dunes but they were breathtaking nonetheless. Sunset is definitely the time to go since the evolving colors of the sky are reflected by similar hues in sand and water.

Possibly my favorite picture from the trip

  Or maybe this one

No, no- it’s gotta be this one

See? We can be normal sometimes

Said to Garrett later of this picture: “I don’t know why I’ve got my leg popped like that. It’s just something I’ve seen people do.”

We had some amazing seafood while we were there!

From Mui Ne we continued up the southern coast to Nha Trang (pronounced “Nyah Chahng) by bus- another five-hour drive.

The coast of Nha Trang is more varied than that of Mui Ne since there are mountains in the background, however there are also more tourists so Mui Ne still holds a more favored spot in my heart.

I was so glad the hotel thought to remind me not to stick my electric plugs into glasses of water. I’m always forgetting that!

PHỚ ! This is a breakfast staple in Vietnam, and for good reason: thick strands of white noodles bathe in a savory broth that’s topped with thin slices of beef and garnished with your choice of blanched and steaming bean sprouts, mint leaves, lettuce, garlic, chili sauce, and several other unidentifiable but lip-smacking sauces. Anthony Bourdain provides a pretty good description of phở' here (bottom of 80-82). Be warned: it’s blush-worthy.

More seafood! Prawns and lobster on the beach

This lucky pup and his friend got our leftovers...

How could they not? :)

Vietnamese night markets are good for diversion since there are always great finds to stumble upon, like this E.T. turtle.

Beyond the curious consumer goods there are plenty of typos to revere

As well as yummy, cheap food to try at different small eateries set up on the sides of the market. This was a favorite of mine: garlicky scallops with chives and peanuts.

And another favorite: beans in dessert! (my favorite food group. FYI). This yumminess is called xôi chè and is a typical Vietnamese dessert comprising various warm puddings with jellied lotus nuts, mung and broad beans, and mixed with coconut shreds, finally topped with a smattering of tapioca, sweet and condensed milk, and ice shavings. It was delicious and for 10,000 dong ($0.49), couldn’t be beat.

This has already been a very long entry so I’ll stop myself here and continue my story in another post, where our two wily protagonists continue their journey with an overnight train ride to a distant land on the southern-most edge of Vietnam's central highlands to a place called Hoi An. A chance encounter with another Peace Corps Volunteer? A thrilling novel called Badger, Beano and the Magic Mushroom? Public urination and a ten-day imprisonment in a Vietnamese incarceration center? Read on to find out which of these tales proves true...