Nha Trang, Vietnam
Currently writing this from Nha Trang, Vietnam. Nha Trang is sort of the beach resort area of Vietnam. It has very nice and clean white sand beaches along with some really fancy hotels and spas. It almost has a Miami-like feel to it; the entire beach runs parallel to the main street where all the major hotels are directly across the road. Extremely easy to navigate and walk around here.
I've been here for 5 days and my bus to Hoi An leaves tonight in about 2 hours. I've had a very interesting time so far. I ended up meeting an English guy named Shawn and we went out on the piss and drank excessively for 2 nights in a row since it was his last few nights in Vietnam and it was my upcoming birthday. Beer here is a bit more expensive than Saigon especially at some of the nicer clubs/bars but it's still quite cheap.
The hotel I am staying at is 12USD/night but I ended up splitting it with the English guy Shawn so it only cost us 6USD/night. For the price, this is probably the nicest place i've stayed in so far. It has AC, two large double beds, satelite TV, closets, and an extremely nice bathroom complete with a bathtub.
For my first night here I sort of went on a pub crawl, drinking at about about 5-6 places in this area. The nightlife here is decent, lots of travelers and locals. Went to a really nice and small place called The Shamrock Pub (nothing is more Irish than Shamrocks) for a little while where the owner had a fanastic selection of MP3s on his computer and a good selection of beer.
There is another place here called Crazy Kim's Bar which is run by a former Vietnamese refugee from Canada aptly named Kim. Seems like it was made quite popular by Lonely Planet, nevertheless it's still a decent place. Her bar is somewhat famous too because she runs a volunteer English school to teach the local kids. Some of the proceeds in her bar go to helping feed the street kids and she is an extremely strong advocate against pedophilia.
Every pub crawl on the island invariably ends up at the Sailing Club. When every other place shuts down at around midnight or 1AM, this place stays open well into the hours of the morning. Infact, I don't remember it closing. It's essentially quite a fancy club that's located right on the beach. At around 1:30AM, the entire dance floor/bar is jam-packed and depending on your idea of nightlife, this can be great fun. Me, Shawn, two Kiwis girls, two English girls and a couple Irish guys ending up staying there until about 5AM in the morning. They actually stayed later than me to watch the sunrise but by that time I was too tired and had already left for the night. All and all, a good place to hang out and it's pretty much your only option after everything else closes.
The previous day we had booked a boat trip at a place called Mama Linh's boat tours for 4 USD which was pretty much gone the entire day and included an excellent lunch with fresh fruit. Rumor has it that it was something of a booze cruise but to be honest I wasn't sure what to expect. The next morning even though I was extremely hung over, I still managed to make it on the boat tour. Everything I had heard about it was completely true, the entire boat tour was one large party with music, a live band with drums, and large amounts of alcohol. I actually feel a little bad because there were a couple familes on the boat with kids while the rest of the groups were travelers just looking for a good time.
As the boats went from island to island, we were followed by a caravan of about 5 other boats all going in the same direction. Once we reached where we wanted to go, every boat would dock next to each other allowing people from other boats to move freely between the boats. At first it was just music and beer then out of nowhere, some sort of Vietnamese cover band made up entirely of members of the crew started singing cover songs. They were suprisingly good too.
After that we ended up moving to a different island for snorkeling. After snorkeling we were thrown tubes and handed bottles of wine for what they called a "floating bar". This consisted entirely of everyone from each boat floating around the water in a tube, drinking beer and wine.
At our last stop, some of the people from the other boats were so hammered they ended up dancing on the roof of one of the boats. I have an extremely funny video of it from my camera that I will end up posting on here in a couple days. Anyway, Mama Linh's boat tour was well worth it and I can highly recommend it to anybody that goes to Nha Trang. I had a fanastic time.
The next few days I ended up getting a couple massages at a really fancy hotel and spa for 6USD. I'm not really a big massage person but these were well worth it. The last massage I had was in Thailand on the beach and it was almost 2.5 months ago. These ones were on an entirely different level. For 6USD, you got to use the steam room, sauna, jacuzzi, and a pool. The massage itself was 60 minutes long. Absolutely worth it. Anyway, since my birthday was on August 17th, that was my birthday present to myself. I also had another massage this morning just for the hell of it. For 6 bucks, you can't go wrong.
Anyway, Nha Trang has been quite fun. I've had a great time and met another group of interesting people. Even though I had fun, I also had my first negative encounter in almost 3 months of traveling. I've been to a lot of dodgy and shady places in Cambodia, Malaysia and Thailand but i've NEVER had anything stolen from me at all until Nha Trang. When me and Shawn (the English guy I met) were walking back to our hotel we ended up getting surrounded by a group of motorbikes. Basically these gangs consist of a bunch of girls on motorbikes who come up to you trying to sell you stuff or asking if you want to go with them. Obviously, they're looking to prey on drunk people. By the time, we had pushed them off us, Shawn had his camera stolen from his pocket and my pair of jeans were razorbladed and I ended up losing almost 40USD. They're fucking pros, I didn't even feel it happen. You get warned about this stuff but you never expect it to happen to you. Though it hasn't really jaded my experience of Vietnam yet but it has made me a bit more aware. Obviously, this could have happened in any big city like New York or London as well. I later learned when talking to other travelers that this is quite a common occurence in Nha Trang. The gangs aren't looking for a fight but generally an easy grab and go. Once they have your wallet or camera, they drive off on their bikes not to be seen again. If anyone causes trouble, just drive away.
That's my Nha Trang story. Don't let the robbing fool you, this is still a fanastic place. Vietnamese people except for a few bad apples and the folks trying to sell you stuff are still wonderfully friendly people. Hell, even the people trying to sell you stuff generally have a sense of humor about it. I'm heading on a night bus to Hoi An and should arrive sometime tomorrow morning. While i'm there I plan to have a couple professionaly tailored suits since they're rumored to be extremely cheap there.
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam
So I'm currently in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon which was the capital of South Vietnam until 1975) in Vietnam. As you may or may not know, Saigon was renamed to Ho Chi Minh City after the North Vietnamese army captured Saigon. Though, Ho Chi Minh City is the politically correct name of the city used by government officials, everyone else here still calls it Saigon unless they're from North Vietnam. Every bus, restaurant or business here still uses Saigon in its name. Officially though, Saigon only refers to District 1 of Ho Chi Minh City. The city itself has a population of about 7 million people (not counting the people who live here illegally) and is spread out over approximately 14 districts; it's absolutely massive.
The bus ride from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to HCMC took five hours and for the most part was uneventful. Custom and immigration took approximately 20 minutes, almost all of which involved queuing in line. Since I had previously gotten my 30-day Vietnamese visa in Sihanoukville, Cambodia my passport was quickly stamped and I was on my way. On the bus ride, I happened to meet a former South Vietnamese soldier who now lives in San Jose, California as a math teacher. We talked a bit about Vietnam and what he thinks of his former country; having been formally educated by the U.S. government his English as you might have guessed was excellent. In his mind, he considers himself an American now. He has a family in the U.S. and of course has a U.S. Passport, that pretty much makes him Americanized. He's been living in the United States now for 20 years and this is his second trip back to Vietnam. He says that he can hardly recognize Saigon anymore since lots of the streets have been renamed and buildings torn down. His opinion is that most Vietnamese share no hard feelings towards the war (maybe in the North, a little bit) and they like most foreigners (especially Americans) because they bring lots of money to the country. This seems especially true when you consider that like Cambodia, the U.S. dollar is still one of the de facto currencies accepted though it's not as extreme as is the case in Cambodia where everything works in U.S. dollars.
Once the bus arrived in Saigon, I managed to follow him because he knew of a good hotel and he helped me bargain a room down to 5USD/night. Something I'd probably have little luck doing since I don't speak a word of Vietnamese. The hotel is close to a street called Pham Ngu Lao which is where the majority of the budget hotels and travel agencies are located in Ho Chi Minh City. There are also quite a few good bars and small little restaurants/cafes in the area. In most spheres it's considered the backpacker ghetto of Vietnam, similar to Bangkok's Khao San Road but decidedly much cleaner and a bit more upscale in my opinion.
I've spent the majority of my time here sitting down in cafes on the street drinking beer watching people and talking to other tourists and local Vietnamese. Beer here is accordingly cheap. There are about 5 or 6 different national beers. Most cost about .65 cents USD for a large bottle of beer. Draft beer is even cheaper than that. So far my favorite has been Saigon Beer, it cost about 10,000 dong (.62 cents USD).
Since Vietnam was once occupied by the French before the Americans, it still retains a lot of French culture. For example, a good portion of older Vietnamese population speak French fluently while the younger generation tends to speak more English. Walking around Ho Chi Minh City can be compared to walking around Paris in a way. There are thousands of small little personal cafes where you can sit on the roadside and drink beer or coffee. In additional to the menus being written in Vietnamese, they're also written in French at most places. Lots of buildings here, especially in the Saigon district are distinctly French in architecture. Just sitting at a cafe here it seems you're most likely to encounter a group of tourists speaking French rather than English. Apparently Vietnam has become a popular place for French to go on holiday.
Yesterday, I spend the day walking around District 1 touring the Reunification Palace (Formerly South Vietnam's Presidential Palace), the War Remnants Museum (Also called Exhibition House of American War Crimes), Municipal theater, Ben Thanh Market, and Notre Dame Cathedral, a French-built Catholic cathedral in the city centre.
The Reunification Palace was pretty interesting though a bit boring. The palace itself was fully restored to the 1960s era prior to the invasion of Saigon. Most of the rooms are roped off only allowing you to look inside, though all of the five floors are accessible. In the basement, you can see all the 1960s-era electronic equipment such as radios, typewriters, and phones supposedly preserved in time. Lastly, parked outside the palace is tank 843 which crashed through the palace gates on April 30th, 1975.
The War Remnants Museum was slightly more disturbing. Outside the museum itself were American-made tanks, American jets and "Huey" helicopters stationed out front. The museum itself was mostly made up of gruesome photographs which depicted all the violence American soldiers committed in the war towards the Vietnamese. Pictures of mass graves, American soldiers holding the remains of dead Vietnamese while smiling and smoking cigarettes. There is also an entire exhibit decided to Agent Orange and the millions of deformities caused by the chemical. Though most of the signs are in French and Vietnamese, it's easy to understand what they mean just by looking at the picture. There is also a small section decided to the American Anti-War movement, copies of magazines and pictures showing anti-war demonstrations explaining that it was the American government, not the people that were largely responsible.
That's pretty much it. The rest of the sights are just buildings. Not much to explain about that, pictures are enough of a description. Notre Dame Cathedral was just a big church and the Ben Thanh Market was just a big market. It doesn't get any simpler.
A couple other things about Ho Chi Minh City. The traffic and congestion here is horrible. It seems the entire city population is dependent upon motorscooters. It's an interesting sight seeing thousands of motoscooters weave in and out of traffic, narrowly missing cars, bikes and anything in their path. The driving here is madness, even more chaotic than Bangkok or Phnom Penh. The difference is the roads seem to be much better and cleaner. The rules? There doesn't really seem to be any traffic rules, it's every man for themselves. The amount of people trying to sell you stuff here is also maddening. Anywhere you go, as soon as you sit down at a restaurant or walk down a street there will be people trying to sell you things. Newspapers, photocopied books, zippo lights, fake designer sunglasses, Gucci wallets, anything and everything. It starts to get extremely annoying, when a simple "no" doesn't work after 3 or 4 times you just need to learn not to make eye contact until they walk away or ignore you. To be honest, I found it much worse in Cambodia but a lot of people think it's worse in Vietnam. The difference here is people speak English better so it tends to seem more aggressive.
Anyway, I have night bus to catch at 8:00PM to Nha Trang which takes approximately 10 hours. Nha Trang is the beach resort area of Vietnam and is supposed to have some very nice beaches. Depending on how I like it, I may spend my birthday there since it's coming up on August 17th. Otherwise, i'll continue heading north to Hanoi stopping in Hoi An and Hue along the way.
Sihanoukville, Cambodia
After leaving Siem Reap, I once again for the second time headed back down to Phnom Penh en route to Sihanoukville for beaches. Unfortunately, the roads are extremely bad here. The national highway system is a clusterfuck of sorts. Dirt roads, muddy streets and badly paved roads. Generally speaking, in order to get anywhere in the country you need to head back to Phnom Penh where the majority of the bus companies are located. This can be seemingly difficult to understand being that you may actually be closer to your destination elsewhere but in order to get there it's cheaper and quicker to backtrack to Phnom Penh. Nevertheless, the bus ride back to Phnom Penh wasn't nearly as bad as getting to Siem Reap.
Once I arrived in Phnom Penh I was greeted by the all too familiar sight of sleazy motodrivers and tuk-tuks. I explained to one of them where I wanted to go and agreed on the price, this was good I thought; no bullshit. 10 minutes later I find myself passing the guesthouse I wanted to stay at; I explained this to the motodriver who just smiled and said "yes yes." Another 10 minutes later the moto-dop arrives at another guesthouse claiming that Lakeside Guesthouse was "full" and that this one was better. Un-fucking-believable. I called him on his bullshit, explaining that i'd been to Phnom Penh before and that this ritual wasn't going to work on me. Mad that I didn't want to stay at his "friend's guesthouse" (so he wouldn't get a commission), he finally took me to Lakeside Guesthouse where I stayed before. That's the end of the story pretty much, I got off the bike and didn't pay him a cent. Morale of the story I told him, don't be a fucking scam artist and maybe you'll get paid next time.
Naturally, this story may sound bad here to someone just reading it and not accustomed to typical guesthouse scams in SE Asia but I can assure you it's not a big deal. The guesthouse the driver had taken me probably wasn't bad. In fact, they're all the same. Nevertheless, this type of shit happens daily to unsuspecting travelers who don't know any better. It's important not to lose face or get aggressive in these situations, it won't help. Just politely explain or rather sternly explain that this is not where you wanted to go with a smile and eventually after the dismay of the motodriver who has just lost his commission you will be taken there with no harm done. After a while these scams become more of a delay or setback than something to worry about. The bottom line is that you'll eventually get to where you want to go as long as your persistent.
Anyway, I ended up staying one night in Phnom Penh again and got the bus to Sihanoukvile at 7:00AM in the morning. I don't remember how long it took because I was mostly asleep and trying to cloud out the noise from the bus and cars with my headphones. When I got here I was greatly by exactly what I expected hundreds of moto-dops and touts trying to take you to "their friend's guesthouse" (whom will pay them the highest commission) Of course, all of these guys are your "friend" or "mate." Why wouldn't you trust them!? I can compare the experience to a cross between being attacked by a rabid pack of animals trying to devour their prey and a thousand Wallstreet businessmen trying to fight off their last bid of a stock before the market closes. This is the low season here so tourist numbers diminish exponentially this time of year.
I really had no clue where to stay even after reading various travel guides and websites so I figured I would wing it. I remember someone in Siem Reap mention they stayed at a guesthouse called GST and that it wasn't too bad. Once I saw the sign advertising that guesthouse I had already made up my mind. The place itself isn't really bad but it seems like during the tourist season it's not so much as a guesthouse but a factory that pumps tourists in and out by the truckloads. The guesthouse must no doubt pay a good commission to all the motodrivers who are easily seen hanging out in front or bringing in new prey. The service is a bit impersonal but the food is good enough. The restaurant staff is comprised of about 10 young kids aged between 9-17 whom work for approximately 2 dollars a day. To them all westerners look-alike. No less than five times when I ordered food it generally ended up at the wrong table of westerners until they realized their mistake. Not a big deal, just a bit frustrating. The guesthouse is really big by most standards. Lots of empty roams. Due to it being low season, I got a decent but bare room for 3 USD a night with a comfortable bed, a bathroom, fan and more importantly a T.V. which I haven't had in any of my rooms for about 1.5 months.
The T.V. has since proved to be quite entertaining. I've been here 5 days and it's been raining nonstop with heavy downpouring. I've watched more television in 1 day than I have in probably 2 months of traveling. I've also read about 3 books. It's funny, back home I might buy a book and read it over a week or so when I wasn't busy. Now, I average one book a day at about 500 pages.
Today I finally saw the first glimpse of sunshine so I took to the beach all day. Probably did a good 5km walk on the beaches. The beaches here are disgusting, at least on this side though perhaps i'm a bit jaded since Thailand has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. While the populated ones are alright minus the hoards of beggar children, the other beaches on the farside away from development look like trash dumps. Straws, soda cans, plastic bags, paper, anything and everything. The most disturbing thing I found on the beach were a couple of syringes laying in the sand. After this, I sort of lost interest in walking any further on that beach. If you know where i'm from then the best description I can give would be that some of the beaches here make Revere Beach look like a Caribbean oasis, not an understatement.
Later on I moved to another beach that was a lot cleaner and more populated by locals. The waves were pretty strong and the water seemed a bit cold though refreshing. I spent the rest of the day reading a book and watching the locals or if they weren't locals they were rich Cambodians on holiday. It's pretty funny. Cambodians(Khmers) are deathly afraid of the sun or getting any sort of tan. You see to them someone who has dark skin or is tanned denotes somebody who is of lower class. It's the exact opposite of western culture where people who are tanned are considered healthy and rich because they don't work and have all the time in the world to lay on a beach and get burned. To Khmers, it pretty much means it's someone who has been working in the field all day. So in a sense people who are white must be rich because they're not outside working. Much to my amazement, I watched fully clothed Khmers, young and old equipped with long sleeve shirts, trousers and hats jump unhindered into the ocean. If I hadn't seen them at the beach, the last thought on my mind would be that they were going swimming. It was a pretty interesting sight.
After all that rain from the previous days the sun was still relentless. Even though I had already built up a good base tan from months of being on the beach in Thailand and Malaysia I still managed to burn badly over my already darkened tan. I plan on staying here one more night and then I am off to Phnom Penh for the third time enroute to Vietnam. It pisses me off that i'm actually closer to Vietnam now but it's cheaper to backtrack all the way up to Phnom Penh again to catch a bus to Vietnam. If I wanted to get a taxi to the Vietnamese border from Sihanoukville, it would cost me 45USD. In Phnom Penh, the bus is something like 10 USD.
