Foreign travel often has a tendency to explode our assumptions, and turn everything we take for granted upside down. What follows is a brief glimpse into a journey to Vietnam which did exactly that.
The airport in Ho Chi Minh City, Saigon as most know it, is intimidating, for even the most seasoned traveler. It begins with the perpetual permafrost persona of Immigration Officials with enough arrogance to last multiple lifetimes. Clearing that hurdle, a scrum of hustlers then converge like buzzards on a carcass, as all travelers are stereotyped as ‘walking wallets’. We cannot leave fast enough!
Fleeing the airport to the backpacker area of town we find a little oasis of calm at the unpretentious CAM Mini-Hotel. Outside in its adjoining alleyway, caged songbirds push lyrical notes from feathered throats while their owners sit outside consuming exotic smelling meals in a blur of chop-sticks.
The Olympic-class craziness of crossing Saigon streets has our decision making process resembling that of an anxious squirrel. We can make it. No we can’t. Yes we can. Eventually, with a kangaroo-size leap of faith we step out into the daunting tight as teeth traffic hoping our action doesn’t put us in traction. Vietnam’s lifespan threatening roads are a constant game of ‘chicken’, where one can easily end up as a dead duck!
Roads are treated as battlegrounds, and people seem under the impression they are inoculated against accidents at birth. Who knows, perhaps the Vietnamese believe Nirvana may be obtained through the head-on crash? Horns are the brake pedal, and drivers foster a mind-set that horn-honking safeguards them from any harm, but my paranormal powers of deduction suggest the lion’s share of the Darwin finalists must surely have been dropped on their frontal lobes as very young children!
Driver incompetence has proven to be the rule rather than the exception, with driving being Vietnam’s most popular contact sport. Last year’s stats indicate 26,874 accidents; with 10,548 killed and 30,175 injured. This equates to 73 accidents, and 110 people killed or injured every single day of the year!
The mugginess responsible for our perspiration incontinence is so brutal I swear that people walk out into the zoo of traffic just to feel a breeze! With Saigon’s rush hour an all-day all-night affair I’ve resorted to running in place on the bed in our room to keep an edge for my upcoming ultra-run across the country.
Crossing the road after visiting a bank today, we are involved in a frightening ‘drive-by snatching’! Two thieves on a motorcycle make a grab for Christine’s money belt, but miraculously my ’shero’ manages to catch it with her elbow. The belt is ripped in half, but it forces the muggers to abort the robbery or risk toppling their bike. As the thugs race away our hearts are thudding in our chests from the dangerously close call, as the belt contains all her money, visa, passport, and Traveler Checks. The attempted robbery is a serious reminder that danger is never far away in the verminous city of Saigon. Nice save my darling!
Home to over 7,000,000 people, the city abounds with contrasting images. Beautiful French architecture, horribly deformed beggars, wonderful little cafes, streets reeking of human excrement, steaming fresh croissants, rats in the streets, ladies dresses in elegant ao dais, bicycles buried beneath preposterous loads of shellfish traps, third world dogs all mange and rib, cyclo drivers, foreign smells, a gut wrenching war museum, coconut carts, curious back alleyways, diesel fumes, squid carts, five on a motorcycle, snake wine, photocopied book sellers, monks with toques, shoeshine boys, caged snakes, child gum sellers, duck-topped buses, bicycle garden shops, locals in tendon-snapping squats, and barbaric markets where dinner writhes, wiggles, croaks, clucks, and barks! Yes, around every corner there seems to be exciting new stimuli playing out in the conundrum that is Saigon.
In Vietnam the name ‘sidewalk’ is a blatant misnomer. Saigon’s ‘walking dread’ area colossally cluttered obstacle courses of food carts, motorbikes, merchants, barber shops, and anything else to make walking near impossible. Countless Saigonites also use them for cooking meals, cleaning dishes, and getting leg-less on snake wine or beer while sitting on itty-bitty plastic stools sized for kindergarten kids! Sidewalks my arse; eight days a week they clearly rate no better than ‘sidestumbles’!
A few hours south in the river town of Cai Be we rent bikes to immerse ourselves in the fascinating sights and rhythm of daily life in the delta of the Mekong. Originating in Tibet, the mighty river flows 4,350 km; carving through the countries of China, Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and finally Vietnam, before being absorbed here into the South China Sea.
Longing for the scent of the sea after ten days of madness in Saigon we head for the tiny island of Phu Quoc, 15 km off the coast of Cambodia. The good news is there are likely less than a dozen foreigners on the entire island. The bad news is checking into a hotel our passports are immediately confiscated and taken to the police station. We’re unsure of the paranoia, but having no choice in the matter, just keep our fingers crossed they’ll be returned once we’re ready to leave.
Exploring the tranquil island on a rented motorcycle we stop at the remote but spectacular Sao Beach. Only one local family lives here, and we are greeted by the kids. We offer them some tic-tac mints, showing them they are candy. Cautiously putting them in their mouths, they burst into ear to ear enamel and quickly become exuberant little tour guides; happily escorting us around the stunning beach they call home. When we saddle up on our motorbike to leave, our new little pals wiggle their fingers at us and we wiggle back.
The road we’re on actually crosses an airfield, but with no planes in sight, we seize the opportunity to roar up and down the runway on our crotch-rocket. After all, how often do you get a chance to crank the throttle and cruise with knees to the breeze on an airport runway?
Phu Quoc’s ginormous insect residents include one looking like a furry egg with wings. The Goliath bug is a good reminder to keep my mouth zipped while on the motorbike, because if one of these bad boys should happen to whap me in the ‘chiclets’ there’s a fifty-fifty chance I may never whistle again! Slothfully chilling at Saigon Phu Quoc Hotel’s elegant pool, we savor fresh fish dinners on our balcony, contemplating a sparkling sea illuminated by fire-lit lanterns on a gaggle of squid boats out plying their trade.
Returning to Saigon we instantly miss the island’s mellow vibe, and wandering into the War Museum, are taken aback by the horrific pictures of savagery committed during the gruesome ‘American War’. Looking for something on the lighter side we visit a shoemakers shop, and studying what appears to be a crocodile belt, I want to confirm my theory and ask the shopkeeper ‘what animal’?
With marginal English he catches me off-guard by replying ‘chicken’. A dubious shake of my head sends him scurrying to the back of the store and he proudly drags out the full skin of a crocodile for my inspection! Having now confirmed my new ‘chicken’ belt is in fact reptile leather, I pay him the full price and everybody is happy; except of course the crocodile.
Christine and I join the Saigon Hash House Harriers Club for an atypical run through the countryside today, passing paddy-hatted farmers plucking lotus roots, tending to their ducks, and wading through mud over their kneecaps while almost impossibly catching eels by hand.
After a lot of ‘trail and error’ the run finishes at an old abandoned French fort. Then, with all runners present and accounted for, the absurd ritual known as’ The Circle’ commences, and the Grand Master begins berating runners for their Hash sins; both real and imagined. The good news for us sinners is that all our ‘sins’ are punishable by chugalugging a beer; the bad news is it’s from a hand held urinal!
Throwing back more than enough beer to compromise our ability to safely operate machinery, the beer-swilling extremists engage in a sing-a-long of bawdy Hash songs to help shorten the ride back to Saigon. Having put some serious thought into the matter, I just don’t think the adulthood thing is ever going to work for me!
A couple of weeks later it’s time to let Saigons be Saigons, and we bus 7 hours north through pine-forested mountains to Dalat. The problem here is warmth, or more accurately the lack thereof. Surprised by the highland’s icy air, it takes only one night with frigid digits before we’re fumbling for our next bus fare, and spotting a bus bound for Nha Trang’s promise of warmth, we’re all over it like freckles on a redhead!
Vietnam can be a more than a little stress-inducing given the unfamiliarity of the language, traffic, customs, and peculiar food offerings. Markets offer unrecognizable meaty things looking like leftovers from an organ donor clinic, guaranteed to spawn intestinal unrest and leave us shackled to the porcelain singing through our sphincter.
The same can be said for many of Nha Trang’s restaurants, and tonight we peruse an appetite-cauterizing menu that looks like it was based on a dare. Transcending logic, and likely capable of putting even a slaughterhouse janitor off his lunch, it proudly offers the following creepy cuisine:
- Marrow and goat’s brains
• Goat’s penis & breast with oriental medicine in bowl
• Snake head in steamed pot
• Stuffed swimming bladder
• Grilled salamander
• Jellyfish mixed with wild boar
• Goat’s blood wine or Goat penis wine
For reasons unknown my mind suddenly goes A.W.O.L., and to Christine’s horror I order the goat penis wine, and take a swallow. Yowza! With my liver aquiver, a full on shiver, and my esophagus traumatized for life, I immediately lose my fondness for goats! Honestly, I don’t know what on earth I was thinking by partaking in this bleating buffoonery. Note to self: chat to therapist when home.
On a morning run I encounter a guy pedaling a cyclo that looks like a 3-wheeled baby buggy on steroids. He seems eager to race, so sharing a smile I take up his challenge, infusing my strides with a little extra giddy-up to ensure there’s no chance of a photo finish. Farther down the street I’m handed a flower by little girl, and as I stop to put it in my hair, she shyly tries to muffle her girlish giggles with cupped palms. Little interactions like these are why I’m so enamored with getting the feel of a country through my feet.
After a few blissful beach days we are once again prisoners of the dreaded bus. During a 13 hour journey to Hoi An it seems we’ve lost part of our hearing from constant eardrum-rupturing blasts of the air horn. It’s either that, or because of our kidneys relocating to the vicinity of our ears as a result of being shaken like a Bond martini over mean roads with potholes the size of a bathtub!
The diminutive riverside town of Hoi An has a charming ‘elegantly shabby’ feel to it and a lovely unhurried vibe. Bougainvillea abounds, and people stroll or pedal past egg-yolk coloured houses as the sun’s mood-lifting morning light bounces off the walls. Hoi An’s specialty is its countless tailor shops making quality clothes that leave a happy wallet, and we find it impossible to resist wardrobe additions while ‘threading’ our way through the historic little town.
Our timeline dictates that once again it’s time for a loathsome bus! With visibility minimal on the cloud-swathed Hai Van Pass (The Pass of Clouds), we implore the mountain Gods to be kind as the bus negotiates 21 kilometers of treacherous switchbacks with alarming cliff drop offs.
Finally our frayed nerves get a break when the bus stops beside workers hand carving colossal blocks of marble at Marble Mountain. Time-wise, the severe road conditions have not exactly produced a podium standing result. It has taken 6 ½ hours to travel 140 km; a pathetic average speed of less than 14 mph!
Traveling up the spine of the country from Saigon to Hue, the wearisome journey has involved over 1,000 kilometers on antiquated Vietnamese buses. Gingerly exiting like a couple of arthritic crabs, we are convinced the rusty relics are designed for invertebrates, and should be required to carry some kind of warning for anything with a backbone longer than a toothpick!
Hue’s psyche-sapping rain hammering down is not uncommon with the city known for being a gulag of fog and rain 300 days of the year! And though concerned about growing webs between our toes, the more serious problem is we can’t find a guide willing to make an overnight stay in Khe Sahn due to a fear of ‘ghosts’ from the war. This giant letdown is now putting my attempt to run across Vietnam in jeopardy.
After two days of struggle we think we’ve resolved our driver dilemma, and visit a market near the Perfume River to purchase a ‘paddy hat’ for Christine to wear during my run. Originally named for a floral aroma of flowers that once fell into it, the river’s name is now a serious misnomer but the scenery is grand. Sadly, on the morning we are about to leave we are told our plans to hire a guide in Dong Ha have once again failed!
I’m immensely distraught over the situation, but Mr. Huy, one of the English-speaking staff at the hotel, comes to our rescue. Somehow garnering both a car and driver, he agrees to accompany us on the trip to act as our interpreter. What an immense stroke of good fortune this turns out to be!
The morning after getting out of hospital I’m still quite shaky, but ever so grateful to be alive. The doctors, staff, and both our interpreter and driver are very much in our thoughts. Due to my current condition I’m unable to walk any decent distance, so Christine and I hire a pair of cyclo drivers to pedal us to the Forbidden Purple City and Thien Mu Pagoda.
After returning to town, the predatory pedalers try fleecing us out of more than twice the agreed price; sending a torrent of profanity tumbling from my mouth before my brain has a chance to put its pants on. Despite their threatening gestures we refuse to capitulate and walk away, leaving the moral pygmies to search for easier prey. Fortunately, in addition to losing their principles, they’ve also lost their backbone.
Back at the hotel Christine somehow manages to cut her toe, so I rummage around in a side compartment of my shaving kit in search of a bandage. Suddenly ratcheting up the gasp factor, my fingers find a ‘joint’ left over from a camping trip back home. Horrified by this careless oversight, I realize that for the last few weeks I’ve unknowingly been a drug smuggler in Vietnam!
With the humble herb in hand I bolt into the bathroom to eradicate it. However, having had the little fellow as a traveling companion for such a great distance, it somehow seems cruel to have its life end in the watery grave of a toilet. So in lieu of death by drowning, I arrange for a cremation ceremony!
Switching on the bathroom fan I assist the incriminating evidence in going up in smoke to put an end to this careless cannabis caper. Then, paranoid over the fumes finding a nosey nostril to nest in, we quickly show the crime scene the soles of our shoes.
Letting out a huge sigh of relief capable of separating leaves from trees, we recognize just how lucky I’ve been in carrying the contraband undetected in my backpack. Amazingly, it has slid through major airports and travelled more than a thousand kilometers overland from our start in Saigon! The laws on drugs in Vietnam are severe, and surviving any time in a ratty prison is not something I even want to think about.
Anxious about ongoing chest pains resulting from my ultra-marathon, we abandon our intended visit to Laos to return home early and seek medical attention. Flying back to Hanoi we learn that our first opportunity to leave the country is not for another six days, so until then we’ll just hangout enjoying the vibe of Vietnam’s capital city.
Hoan Kien Lake is Hanoi’s hub, and is a lovely sanctuary within the city’s mayhem. Smoochy young couples canoodle on the lakeshore beneath gorgeous mimosa trees dressed in Christmas lights, large tethered balloons hover overhead, and a quaint temple appears to magically float on the lake.
Joined by an American couple, we hire transport to the Perfume Pagoda. The car horn works but not its wipers, shock absorbers, or brakes. Actually, I’m not sure of the latter, because they are never put to the test. To us this is awfully familiar. Or familiarly awful!
Our eyes try to adjust to the fleeing landscape as the car threads its way through traffic like pylons on a race course. Learning our guide’s name is pronounced as ‘Miss Chance’, and the driver’s as ‘Mr. Zoom’, we can’t help but chortle at the suitability of the names. I mean come on; you just can’t make this kind of stuff up!
Our experience leads us to believe we have now deduced Vietnam’s rules of the road:
- When driving anywhere in Vietnam, overtaking is mandatory.
- Every moving vehicle is required to overtake every other moving vehicle, irrespective of whether it has just overtaken you.
- Cornering should only be done on two wheels.
- Overtaking should only be undertaken in suitable conditions, such as in the face of oncoming traffic or blind corners, and preferably in the center of a village or city.
- Steer directly at anything that can kill you and then swerve at the last second before the crash.
- No more than two inches should be allowed between your vehicle and the one you are passing, and not more than one inch in the case of bicycles or pedestrians.
Leaving the car, our eyes devour the exotic scenery while we are rowed along the Yen River. Limestone monoliths similar to those in Halong Bay rise up from a waterscape choked with floating islands of water hyacinth and flamingo-pink water lilies. Also rising out of the river is an old pagoda, and nearby, locals stand in shallow flat-bottomed boats mere inches above the water using poles electrified by a car battery to paralyze and catch fish.
On Christmas Eve in Hanoi Christine and I splash out at Mama Rosa’s beside Hoan Kien Lake. Sampling ginseng and licorice wines with the owner after a fabulous feed, an unknown local dressed up in a Santa Claus outfit suddenly walks in off the street. The restaurant is full of people, but ‘Santa’ approaches only one table; ours.
Presenting us a with small gift wrapped package, he then jingles a small bell and buh-bye’s us! Flummoxed by this gesture, we open his unforeseen present, shocked to find a matchbox-sized pair of ceramic shoes. We have no idea what prompted this generosity but it is a lovely way to cap off the evening. The gift of the shoes seems such an appropriate coincidence given the saga of my epic run across the country.
The intoxicating journey through the mosh-pit of awesomeness that is Vietnam has left us infatuated with an awe-inspiring country we had previously only related to a gruesome war. Our hats are off to these warm and gracious people whose resilience shines on despite the many misfortunes they have endured. During these splendid travels Christine and I have accrued a montage of magic memories, along with a profound sense of achievement from conquering personal challenges.
The trip was an opportunity for reflection and a chance to reassess our life priorities. Our dramatic experience on the run has given us a greater appreciation of not only our lives, but also of each other; and for that Vietnam, you have our eternal gratitude.
Mark Colegrave 2000