2009.11.19 by Daniel
Another sick day in Nha Trang
On the morning of November 19th I was just as sick as I had been the previous day, and my throat hurt just a little bit worse. We spent the morning laying around surfing the internet and being generally lazy. The weather was still a little stormy too, pretty much exactly as it had been the previous day. We had pho for breakfast at the same place we'd gone the previous night, and would continue eating there almost exclusively for the remainder of our stay in Nha Trang.
After breakfast we decided to take a walk down the beach to get some fresh air and some sun. Tien was trying to convince me that mid-day sunlight was terrible for you whereas morning and evening sunlight was good for you. I tried to explain that sunlight is both good and bad for you, depending on how much of it you get. I'm not really an authority in that area though, so I suppose I could've been wrong, but I'd never heard anything leading me to conclude that mid-
day sun was worse.
We walked down the beach the opposite direction and found a bunch of wooden beach chairs under little wooden huts. We sat at one but were quickly told that it cost 100k for a day to rent one, so we kept walking. It began to rain lightly but with heavy wind, so we retreated to a nearby gazebo where other people were doing the same. We sat there for a while and the weather didn't relent, but luckily a woman came wandering by trying to sell fruits. We somehow managed to get into an argument about what fruits we were going to buy, I guess she thought we could eat a whole pineapple along with 3 mangoes and countless other fruits. Sometime I'm amazed at how easy it is for Vietnamese people to make each other feel guilty for breaking agreements that were never even made. In the end we got a good selection of fruit for a decent price, if only because I had the money and I wasn't going to buy shit if she kept trying to sell me fruit I didn't want.
As we were sitting in the gazebo eating our fruit, another woman came by trying to sell us cigarettes and all sorts of other things we didn't want. She was persistent and stayed there a while. All of the sudden a huge terrible breaking sound came from behind us. We turned around to see a large coconut rolling across the grass away from large pieces of broken tile. I would later learn that coconut injuries are more common in Vietnam than auto injuries.
I was beginning to get fatigued again, and really irritated that I had gotten sick in Nha Trang since we'd been waiting so long to get there. We headed back to the hotel and laid around all day as I gobbled up medicine and we both geeked out on the ever frustrating and intermittent wifi we leeched from the hotel next door.
Having read a few articles in The Onion about National Awareness Month and an article making fun of a man for defending what he believed the constitution to be, I realized that I was pretty ignorant of what the constitution really said and really a lot of other things that I'd grown up believing that I had yet to verify. Generally I felt a lot like the ignorant, misinformed people that irked me in political and religious arguments. With nothing to do in the middle of the night, I decided to go ahead and read the constitution. I didn't get very far into it because I kept getting side-tracked reading context and related information, but I must say that I did learn a lot and it was incredibly eye-opening.
We got some dinner and slept away the night, and I was still frustrated about being sick, hoping I'd be well the next day so Tien and I could enjoy our vacation.
• • • • •
2009.11.18 by Daniel
Exploring Nha Trang
The winds howled through the cracks of the door and windows of our hotel room all night and the next morning was very breezy. I spent a large portion of the morning catching up on all the internet stuff I'd missed during my offline stay in Mui Ne. Most notably, a 3D mandelbrot set had been discovered and rendered into some impressive images. I also noticed that I had exactly one week left in Vietnam.
I was feeling significantly more I'll that morning, but I thought I might only have a sinus cold or something lame and trivial so I didn't pay much attention to it, expecting that it would go away in a few days
The cold water In our bathroom was broken so that only boiling hot water came out of the shower until there was no more, then it went to only cold water. This behavior would continue throughout our stay there, requiring us to take cold shower baths.
We got breakfast late that morning at the place directly next door to The Manchester that I wouldn't recommend. Over breakfast Tien and I talked a lot about humor and jokes. Even though there seem to be a lot of differences between Vietnamese and American humor, there also seem to be some global constants to humor. I tried to explain things like Knock Knock jokes, one-liners, and other types of humor. Most jokes in Vietnamese are longer jokes with a lot of context. This goes hand-in-hand with their love for comedy theater.
After breakfast we took a walk down the beach where it was incredibly windy. It was nice though to be out in the sun. The wind wasn't cold either and that was nice. The weather looked stormy though, the waves were huge and the water was really rough, so I wasn't too hopeful about getting to swim.
We found our way back onto the sidewalk by the main road and passed an area where there were about 50 large dragonflies hanging out. I thought about photographing them, but didn't because I didn't have anything that would make it easy to get a good shot. We also found many shops that were selling seahorses, both alive and dead and in various containers. Some were floating in liquid, some were dried and ready to be eaten whole, and some were in fish tanks with nothing more than water. Tien said that seahorses are supposed to have amazing medicinal functions, just like eating live lizards. Lore is always a little humorous to me.
The destination on our walk was a place called the Vinpearl, and it was amazingly difficult to walk there. We actually had to walk beyond it over a hill and then come around back to it, winding in the roads of its campus that had no sidewalks. Clearly this place was made to be traveled to and from by motor vehicle.
The Vinpearl is actually a huge island theme park with a lot of attractions. We didn't know this when we set out to go there, but discovered it when we arrived at the mainland side of a gondola that takes people to and from the island. There were also boats of various size that would ferry people back and forth. I was feeling pretty tired from my illness and the walk and didn't feel like I had the energy for a theme park, so we opted to go back another day and instead spend our day on the mainland. We intended to visit an aquarium, but when we got into the taxi and told him to take us there he said it was on the Vinpearl island. This was another mistake of not doing research and not using the guidebook. I'm never going anywhere without the guidebook again.
Instead of going to the aquarium we went to a place called Ponagar Tower that was an ancient stone temple. It was a bit like something you'd find at Angkor Wat. It was a small temple but Tien enjoyed it much. There was an older Japanese man doing tricks with tops, swords and yo-yo's on the upper landing of the complex. He was pretty funny, partly because he kept messing up. He would say everything in Japanese and there was a translator and a few drum players beating on tribal drums for dramatic effect as he did things like accidentally throwing a top larger than my head, nearly hitting a bystander.
I was feeling increasingly ill and tired so we headed back to The Manchester for a nap. I was developing some flu like symptoms like fever and sore throat, so I assumed that's what it was. We went for dinner and found an absolutely delicious pho place at the end of a dark alley and conveniently near a pharmacist. We had our dinner and picked up a cocktail of medication for my symptoms.
We got breakfast late that morning at the place directly next door to The Manchester that I wouldn't recommend. Over breakfast Tien and I talked a lot about humor and jokes. Even though there seem to be a lot of differences between Vietnamese and American humor, there also seem to be some global constants to humor. I tried to explain things like Knock Knock jokes, one-liners, and other types of humor. Most jokes in Vietnamese are longer jokes with a lot of context. This goes hand-in-hand with their love for comedy theater.
After breakfast we took a walk down the beach where it was incredibly windy. It was nice though to be out in the sun. The wind wasn't cold either and that was nice. The weather looked stormy though, the waves were huge and the water was really rough, so I wasn't too hopeful about getting to swim.
We found our way back onto the sidewalk by the main road and passed an area where there were about 50 large dragonflies hanging out. I thought about photographing them, but didn't because I didn't have anything that would make it easy to get a good shot. We also found many shops that were selling seahorses, both alive and dead and in various containers. Some were floating in liquid, some were dried and ready to be eaten whole, and some were in fish tanks with nothing more than water. Tien said that seahorses are supposed to have amazing medicinal functions, just like eating live lizards. Lore is always a little humorous to me.
The destination on our walk was a place called the Vinpearl, and it was amazingly difficult to walk there. We actually had to walk beyond it over a hill and then come around back to it, winding in the roads of its campus that had no sidewalks. Clearly this place was made to be traveled to and from by motor vehicle.
The Vinpearl is actually a huge island theme park with a lot of attractions. We didn't know this when we set out to go there, but discovered it when we arrived at the mainland side of a gondola that takes people to and from the island. There were also boats of various size that would ferry people back and forth. I was feeling pretty tired from my illness and the walk and didn't feel like I had the energy for a theme park, so we opted to go back another day and instead spend our day on the mainland. We intended to visit an aquarium, but when we got into the taxi and told him to take us there he said it was on the Vinpearl island. This was another mistake of not doing research and not using the guidebook. I'm never going anywhere without the guidebook again.
Instead of going to the aquarium we went to a place called Ponagar Tower that was an ancient stone temple. It was a bit like something you'd find at Angkor Wat. It was a small temple but Tien enjoyed it much. There was an older Japanese man doing tricks with tops, swords and yo-yo's on the upper landing of the complex. He was pretty funny, partly because he kept messing up. He would say everything in Japanese and there was a translator and a few drum players beating on tribal drums for dramatic effect as he did things like accidentally throwing a top larger than my head, nearly hitting a bystander.
I was feeling increasingly ill and tired so we headed back to The Manchester for a nap. I was developing some flu like symptoms like fever and sore throat, so I assumed that's what it was. We went for dinner and found an absolutely delicious pho place at the end of a dark alley and conveniently near a pharmacist. We had our dinner and picked up a cocktail of medication for my symptoms. • • • • •
2009.11.17 by Daniel
White Sands and our arrival in Nha Trang
Tuesday morning we woke up with the intent to go to some white sand dunes that were about 20km north. We got breakfast at a place just up the road on our way. There was a modeling show on TV and I was watching it to see what gear the photographers were using. They were interviewing the models a lot and I wondered what they were talking about. I guessed that the show was in English, but the sound was down and drown out by really loud Vietnamese music.
Over breakfast we talked about our plans and decided to go straight to Nha Trang instead of stopping along the way at some temples. Tien wasn't excited about our bad luck finding things to do in Mui Ne, and since the second place we had planned to go was pretty remote she expected it to be much of the same.
Back on the road, we headed off into unexplored territory that looked not much like what I'd seen in Vietnam before. I caught the scent of a Colorado summer in the air. We saw a lot of farm animals, including geese that were hanging out with cows and goats and water buffalo. We passed by a lot of sand and the landscape turned into rolling hills with trees scattered around it, much like the high Colorado prairies.
The road turned into dirt and sand mixed together and the motorbike became a bit wobbly because of the sand shifting under the bald tires. We could see the white sands in the distance on the far side of a lake by a small forest.
We eventually made it to a spot where a few motorbikes and jeeps were valeted at a little shack, so we did the same and began walking through some trees next to the lake that was at the foot of the white sands, through some shops, past some other tourists and up towards the sand dunes. A kid followed us much like the two from the night before, asking us to rent his sled and pointing things out to us.
We walked around a bit, but sand is sand so there wasn't really much to see. We took some photos and the kid kept asking if we wanted him to take our picture. Eventually I conceded, thinking he might charge us for it. He took two, then had us stand somewhere else and took two more. When I looked at them I was very pleasantly surprised at his composition, each pose taking one wide and one close shot. I tipped him a few thousand dong and we headed back to our bike. He trailed behind and complained endlessly in Vietnamese that the money I gave him wasn't clean enough and he wouldn't be able to use it to buy cake.
Tien had driven on the way out so I got to drive on the way home. This was my first time in like 12 years riding a motorcycle on dirt. We quickly sank our rear tire in a spot where I had gotten off to walk before. We both laughed and Tien got off so I could wobble my way up out of the sand and across to where the dirt was solid again.
As we headed back the way we came, over the rolling hills and through a pretty countryside I thought again about buying a motorcycle one of these days so we could just cruise the countryside at our own pace, not having to rely on buses. I also changed my mind about Mui Ne being a lame place to go, it's pretty nice outside of town in the countryside.
There was a herd of cattle that had been grazing in a field where there were many graves marked with swastikas, a symbol of power and not of Nazi affiliation, and now these cattle were taking up the whole road. I squeezed by and then stopped and watched a big truck make its way by, something I wasn't sure would be easy for it to do.
When we arrived back at the hotel we returned the bike, packed and checked out, but our bus wasn't coming for two hours. There was a warm breeze coming in through large open windows and blowing around the chandeliers in the lobby where the Internet was still broken. Tien and I decided to go wait by the beach. There were no hammocks, which was a disappointment, but we found a little table to sit at and enjoy some drinks while playing cards with the ocean waves breaking about 50 feet away. Tien kicked my ass at the game I had taught her, I only won twice.
We got one last meal in Mui Ne, then went upstairs to wait for the bus. I explained photographic composition and exposure to Tien while we were waiting, but had to finish the discussion on the bus.
After exhausting the topic of photography I realized I forgot my headphones in my backpack which was stored in the cargo area. This was a pretty bad thing to do since I was then forced to endure the most epic movie I'd ever seen and then hours of loud Vietnamese theatrical comedy.
The bus had headed north beyond the white sand dunes, introducing us to even more beautiful countryside and coastline. The bus was comfortable too so it was an enjoyable ride. We even stopped for 15 minutes at the first rest stop I'd seen that had Internet access. My iPhone GPS worked too, which kinda made sense because we were near Da Lat and it had worked there. It continued to work as we headed north and I wondered if the norh of Vietnam had the mobile infrastructure to accommodate the retarded assisted GPS in the iPhone. After all, my phone hadn't been unlocked when I was in Hanoi, so I wasn't sure it didn't work there.
It began to rain right at dusk. I also began to feel sick in my throat. I had been feeling a few symptoms once in a while for the past day or so, but this was the first real evidence that I was coming down with something.
When we got to Nha Trang it was still raining lightly. As I was getting into a hotel shuttle I noticed a motorbike stashed in the cargo area of a bus, a brilliant idea that I wouldn't have expected to be permitted.
We checked into a hotel that I'd seen reviewed somewhere online, The Manchester. Our room was on the sixth floor with an ocean view and deplorable wifi access.
On our walk to find dinner, just when I thought we'd gone the wrong way from restaurants we came across an authentic Italian restaurant where two men were talking loudly in Italian. After sitting down an older Italian man, the cook, came out to introduce the specials and show us the list of Italian wines. I got the chefs special and as I sipped my wine I pulled out my iPhone and found an Actiontec wireless network. It almost felt like we were sitting in Sunnyvale.
Over breakfast we talked about our plans and decided to go straight to Nha Trang instead of stopping along the way at some temples. Tien wasn't excited about our bad luck finding things to do in Mui Ne, and since the second place we had planned to go was pretty remote she expected it to be much of the same.
Back on the road, we headed off into unexplored territory that looked not much like what I'd seen in Vietnam before. I caught the scent of a Colorado summer in the air. We saw a lot of farm animals, including geese that were hanging out with cows and goats and water buffalo. We passed by a lot of sand and the landscape turned into rolling hills with trees scattered around it, much like the high Colorado prairies.The road turned into dirt and sand mixed together and the motorbike became a bit wobbly because of the sand shifting under the bald tires. We could see the white sands in the distance on the far side of a lake by a small forest.
We eventually made it to a spot where a few motorbikes and jeeps were valeted at a little shack, so we did the same and began walking through some trees next to the lake that was at the foot of the white sands, through some shops, past some other tourists and up towards the sand dunes. A kid followed us much like the two from the night before, asking us to rent his sled and pointing things out to us.
We walked around a bit, but sand is sand so there wasn't really much to see. We took some photos and the kid kept asking if we wanted him to take our picture. Eventually I conceded, thinking he might charge us for it. He took two, then had us stand somewhere else and took two more. When I looked at them I was very pleasantly surprised at his composition, each pose taking one wide and one close shot. I tipped him a few thousand dong and we headed back to our bike. He trailed behind and complained endlessly in Vietnamese that the money I gave him wasn't clean enough and he wouldn't be able to use it to buy cake.
Tien had driven on the way out so I got to drive on the way home. This was my first time in like 12 years riding a motorcycle on dirt. We quickly sank our rear tire in a spot where I had gotten off to walk before. We both laughed and Tien got off so I could wobble my way up out of the sand and across to where the dirt was solid again.
As we headed back the way we came, over the rolling hills and through a pretty countryside I thought again about buying a motorcycle one of these days so we could just cruise the countryside at our own pace, not having to rely on buses. I also changed my mind about Mui Ne being a lame place to go, it's pretty nice outside of town in the countryside.
There was a herd of cattle that had been grazing in a field where there were many graves marked with swastikas, a symbol of power and not of Nazi affiliation, and now these cattle were taking up the whole road. I squeezed by and then stopped and watched a big truck make its way by, something I wasn't sure would be easy for it to do.
When we arrived back at the hotel we returned the bike, packed and checked out, but our bus wasn't coming for two hours. There was a warm breeze coming in through large open windows and blowing around the chandeliers in the lobby where the Internet was still broken. Tien and I decided to go wait by the beach. There were no hammocks, which was a disappointment, but we found a little table to sit at and enjoy some drinks while playing cards with the ocean waves breaking about 50 feet away. Tien kicked my ass at the game I had taught her, I only won twice.
We got one last meal in Mui Ne, then went upstairs to wait for the bus. I explained photographic composition and exposure to Tien while we were waiting, but had to finish the discussion on the bus.
After exhausting the topic of photography I realized I forgot my headphones in my backpack which was stored in the cargo area. This was a pretty bad thing to do since I was then forced to endure the most epic movie I'd ever seen and then hours of loud Vietnamese theatrical comedy.
The bus had headed north beyond the white sand dunes, introducing us to even more beautiful countryside and coastline. The bus was comfortable too so it was an enjoyable ride. We even stopped for 15 minutes at the first rest stop I'd seen that had Internet access. My iPhone GPS worked too, which kinda made sense because we were near Da Lat and it had worked there. It continued to work as we headed north and I wondered if the norh of Vietnam had the mobile infrastructure to accommodate the retarded assisted GPS in the iPhone. After all, my phone hadn't been unlocked when I was in Hanoi, so I wasn't sure it didn't work there.
It began to rain right at dusk. I also began to feel sick in my throat. I had been feeling a few symptoms once in a while for the past day or so, but this was the first real evidence that I was coming down with something.
When we got to Nha Trang it was still raining lightly. As I was getting into a hotel shuttle I noticed a motorbike stashed in the cargo area of a bus, a brilliant idea that I wouldn't have expected to be permitted.
We checked into a hotel that I'd seen reviewed somewhere online, The Manchester. Our room was on the sixth floor with an ocean view and deplorable wifi access.
On our walk to find dinner, just when I thought we'd gone the wrong way from restaurants we came across an authentic Italian restaurant where two men were talking loudly in Italian. After sitting down an older Italian man, the cook, came out to introduce the specials and show us the list of Italian wines. I got the chefs special and as I sipped my wine I pulled out my iPhone and found an Actiontec wireless network. It almost felt like we were sitting in Sunnyvale. • • • • •
2009.11.16 by Daniel
Adventures in Mũi Né
I dreamed about Sarah Palin doing art projects for President Obama while he was busy running all over Washington DC trying to escape the secret service because they were holding him back from doing the things he wanted to do. I woke up with Doe-A-Dear stuck in my head.
I went to take a shower, and upon increasing the "heat" dial on the electric hot water heater that was attached to the shower, the light in the bathroom flickered and went out. In the pitch black with my hand still on the dial, I decreased the temp and the light flickered back on.
After showering I got dressed I poked my head out the front door of our room and some mysteries from the previous night were unraveled. Beyond some local fishermen taking their nets out of the circular boats and emptying them there were many boats anchored not far out in the ocean. Two guys on a motorbike rode down the beach and parked near the fishermen. I wanted to ride a motorcycle on the beach.
Tien and I went to get breakfast, which was supposed to be included in the price of our hotel. On the way we passed some older Vietnamese men with a lot of missing teeth who were drinking beer and eating crabs for their breakfast. We also saw some chained up monkeys, a golden lizard that I was not familiar with, and a dozen small dogs. We found our way to the large dining area of the hotel restaurant. It was an open walled lodge type of building with a tall peaked roof and only one of the 50 or so tables was occupied.
The owner of the resort interrupted our conversation to sit with us while we were waiting for breakfast. He had much the same character as the sleazy guy on the bus the previous night and the guy we stayed with in Binh Duong. Later Tien and I would talk about how many of the Vietnamese men who go to America and come back have this very haughty attitude, and she would express her hopes of not becoming like that.
The bread was stale, the food was bland, and the price was not included with our room. Bien Nam was probably the worst deal I've ever gotten on a room, and I do not recommend it to anybody who is going to Mui Ne. With that in mind we went for a walk on the beach which we now saw was home to many other hotels. We walked along the beach, stopping at each to inquire about vacancy, price, wifi and to see a room. There were varying qualities of hotels and we settled on one that had wifi in the lobby, a friendly staff, a much cleaner room, a halfway decent view of the ocean, and for 25% less per night.
As we were walking along the beach there were numerous jet ski's parked on the shore. I hadn't seen a jet ski in Asia except on the river in Thailand, and wondered why because they're so speedy and nimble, the aquatic equivalent of the ubiquitous motorbike. Here they were on the Pacific Ocean being used for entertainment.
We checked out of our old hotel without so much as a word from the owner asking us why we were leaving or asking us to stay and I thought that he was probably used to having one-night guests. We checked into our new hotel and took a nap. Tien was sleepy, but I was not, so after a few minutes of restless napping I got up and shaved my face and head.
When Tien finally got up we were both pretty hungry, so we decided to go to town. We stopped by the lobby to return our key and I played on their wifi just enough to discover that they had a wireless with no connection to the internet.
We went out front to try to wave down somebody to give us a ride into town. Not many people were passing by, and most already had passengers, so I thought we might as well walk down the road while trying to hitch a ride. It was remarkable though that I had been asked innumerable times before if I needed a motorbike when I did not, and here I was without one in sight. It wasn't like Malaysia either where a taxi mysteriously appeared from behind a building just when we needed it.
We walked for a while and found some guys sitting in front of a hotel with some motorbikes there. Tien talked to one of them and he said he could find another person so we could both ride into town for 25k each. Just after he left to go find another motorbike rider willing to give us a ride, the valet told Tien that we could probably rent a motorbike for the day for not much more than 50k. A second man on a motorbike came by, then the first man came back with a third guy on a motorbike and what ensued was a long bickering argument about how we needed to rent from the guys we first spoke to even though they were not going to allow me to ride their bike, which was something we wanted. In the end I said "fuck it" and we left the three stubborn motorcyclists there and started walking down the road again.
We walked for a while and it was actually pretty nice to use my body, something I'm so used to doing in the USA but don't get much chance to here in Asia. There were beautiful trees with flowering leaves, and the ocean was visible through a thin line of trees between the road and the beach. Eventually the second motorcyclist from the argument came up to us on the road, talked to Tien for a while and we agreed to rent his bike for a day for 180k. I'd never driven a manual without a clutch though, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do so without first watching Tien. As soon as she took off down the road I realized that it was just like riding an auto except you could kick a pedal to change gears without worrying about the clutch.
Renting the bike was a great idea. We were now cruising down Highway 1 of Vietnam right by the ocean with warm air on our face on our way to find food for our hungry bellies. We passed a herd of water buffalo and a bunch of people who were drying fish on screens and then found ourselves at a dead end. We were lost again.
We wandered around some coastal villages, finding several dead ends, and were just about to make some progress on finding our way to town when we got a flat tire. Obviously this was incredibly lame since I was hungry and it wasn't our bike anyway, but at least there was a moto shop right there where we had it repaired within 30 minutes. We had to buy a new tube and kept the old one as well as the contact information of the shop who did the work. I also took some photographs, but mainly because that's what I do.
With our new tire and some instructions on how to get to town, we headed off still in search of food for our bellies. I honestly was beyond the point of hungry and didn't care much anymore, though I knew I should eat. 
We rode and rode and rode. We saw a lot of cool things, like the harbor where most of the boats anchor, some cool buildings, forests, animals, but amazingly we couldn't find a restaurant. We passed all the way through town and out to where the sizzler was, though we never did find that, and all we saw along the way were cafes with snacks, but no real food.
We found a sign for The Mui Ne Easy Riders that said "I'll show things the lonely planet did not." I thought that was awesome, and it was accompanied with pictures of vietnamese bikers on proper motorcycles geared up with luggage and white people on the back.
We went all the way back through town and found ourselves lost at the first dead end we had found, which was a kite surfing camp.
Finally we gave up and went to get some gasoline and as dumb luck would have it, we found a restaurant. Too tired and frustrated to show our joy, we pulled over, ordered some food and drinks, and were promptly attacked by about 50 flies. I'd never seen a place with so many flies. I ordered a beer and the man went and pulled the bottle out of a crate of empty bottles, a hat, a helmet and other miscellaneous things. When I was done with my beer I set the glass down there were like 15 flies crawling all over it within 30 seconds. It was probably due to all the dead fish, since we were in a fishing village. We got our food to go because the flies were too much.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped to get a hot dog, which is not the same as it is in America. In Vietnam a hot dog is some kind of triangular crepe thing with no meat in it. We took a different route home and found ourselves riding along a big field of sand and trees where kids were jumping into the sand the same way I did when I was their age. We found our way up the big roads and vacant round-a-bout from the night before and were soon cruising that beautiful section of the coast again. The day was beautiful, the ocean was beautiful, I had my fiancé with me, I had hot food to put in my belly, and we weren't lost. I was happy. So happy I had Tien stop so I could take her photo. As I was composing my shot a used trash bag blew up against my leg.
Back at the hotel we sat on our bed and watched the ocean beyond the tin roof cabana where nobody was sitting. Since it was so late, just about sunset, the heat had worn off, so we decided to go back to the sand dune park nearby and have a look around.
Children greeted us with sleds for rent to slide down the sand dunes. We valeted the bike and started hiking up the dunes. Two kids followed us trying to rent us a sled for 30k, which we were not interested in. There were a lot of other people there watching the sunset, even many white people. I always try to smile and nod a greeting to other travelers as I pass them if it's appropriate, and it always amazes me how white people don't want to talk to each other or acknowledge each other's existence.
Before heading home we got some snacks and a deck of cards. Back at the hotel the internet was still down and they didn't know why. I knew why though. It was misconfigured and was getting no responses to its DHCP queries. It probably needed PPPoE, but those settings were not remembered in the firmware, which means it may have been hard reset as a last ditch attempt to fix what is probably an unreliable DSL connection. I hate DSL.
Back in the hotel room Tien washed our clothes and we hung them to dry on a rope that I brought to use for just such an occasion, then I taught her how to play a card game that I know but don't know what it's called.
After showering I got dressed I poked my head out the front door of our room and some mysteries from the previous night were unraveled. Beyond some local fishermen taking their nets out of the circular boats and emptying them there were many boats anchored not far out in the ocean. Two guys on a motorbike rode down the beach and parked near the fishermen. I wanted to ride a motorcycle on the beach.
Tien and I went to get breakfast, which was supposed to be included in the price of our hotel. On the way we passed some older Vietnamese men with a lot of missing teeth who were drinking beer and eating crabs for their breakfast. We also saw some chained up monkeys, a golden lizard that I was not familiar with, and a dozen small dogs. We found our way to the large dining area of the hotel restaurant. It was an open walled lodge type of building with a tall peaked roof and only one of the 50 or so tables was occupied.
The owner of the resort interrupted our conversation to sit with us while we were waiting for breakfast. He had much the same character as the sleazy guy on the bus the previous night and the guy we stayed with in Binh Duong. Later Tien and I would talk about how many of the Vietnamese men who go to America and come back have this very haughty attitude, and she would express her hopes of not becoming like that.
The bread was stale, the food was bland, and the price was not included with our room. Bien Nam was probably the worst deal I've ever gotten on a room, and I do not recommend it to anybody who is going to Mui Ne. With that in mind we went for a walk on the beach which we now saw was home to many other hotels. We walked along the beach, stopping at each to inquire about vacancy, price, wifi and to see a room. There were varying qualities of hotels and we settled on one that had wifi in the lobby, a friendly staff, a much cleaner room, a halfway decent view of the ocean, and for 25% less per night.
As we were walking along the beach there were numerous jet ski's parked on the shore. I hadn't seen a jet ski in Asia except on the river in Thailand, and wondered why because they're so speedy and nimble, the aquatic equivalent of the ubiquitous motorbike. Here they were on the Pacific Ocean being used for entertainment.
We checked out of our old hotel without so much as a word from the owner asking us why we were leaving or asking us to stay and I thought that he was probably used to having one-night guests. We checked into our new hotel and took a nap. Tien was sleepy, but I was not, so after a few minutes of restless napping I got up and shaved my face and head.
When Tien finally got up we were both pretty hungry, so we decided to go to town. We stopped by the lobby to return our key and I played on their wifi just enough to discover that they had a wireless with no connection to the internet.
We went out front to try to wave down somebody to give us a ride into town. Not many people were passing by, and most already had passengers, so I thought we might as well walk down the road while trying to hitch a ride. It was remarkable though that I had been asked innumerable times before if I needed a motorbike when I did not, and here I was without one in sight. It wasn't like Malaysia either where a taxi mysteriously appeared from behind a building just when we needed it.
We walked for a while and found some guys sitting in front of a hotel with some motorbikes there. Tien talked to one of them and he said he could find another person so we could both ride into town for 25k each. Just after he left to go find another motorbike rider willing to give us a ride, the valet told Tien that we could probably rent a motorbike for the day for not much more than 50k. A second man on a motorbike came by, then the first man came back with a third guy on a motorbike and what ensued was a long bickering argument about how we needed to rent from the guys we first spoke to even though they were not going to allow me to ride their bike, which was something we wanted. In the end I said "fuck it" and we left the three stubborn motorcyclists there and started walking down the road again.
We walked for a while and it was actually pretty nice to use my body, something I'm so used to doing in the USA but don't get much chance to here in Asia. There were beautiful trees with flowering leaves, and the ocean was visible through a thin line of trees between the road and the beach. Eventually the second motorcyclist from the argument came up to us on the road, talked to Tien for a while and we agreed to rent his bike for a day for 180k. I'd never driven a manual without a clutch though, and I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do so without first watching Tien. As soon as she took off down the road I realized that it was just like riding an auto except you could kick a pedal to change gears without worrying about the clutch.
Renting the bike was a great idea. We were now cruising down Highway 1 of Vietnam right by the ocean with warm air on our face on our way to find food for our hungry bellies. We passed a herd of water buffalo and a bunch of people who were drying fish on screens and then found ourselves at a dead end. We were lost again.
We wandered around some coastal villages, finding several dead ends, and were just about to make some progress on finding our way to town when we got a flat tire. Obviously this was incredibly lame since I was hungry and it wasn't our bike anyway, but at least there was a moto shop right there where we had it repaired within 30 minutes. We had to buy a new tube and kept the old one as well as the contact information of the shop who did the work. I also took some photographs, but mainly because that's what I do.
With our new tire and some instructions on how to get to town, we headed off still in search of food for our bellies. I honestly was beyond the point of hungry and didn't care much anymore, though I knew I should eat. We rode and rode and rode. We saw a lot of cool things, like the harbor where most of the boats anchor, some cool buildings, forests, animals, but amazingly we couldn't find a restaurant. We passed all the way through town and out to where the sizzler was, though we never did find that, and all we saw along the way were cafes with snacks, but no real food.
We found a sign for The Mui Ne Easy Riders that said "I'll show things the lonely planet did not." I thought that was awesome, and it was accompanied with pictures of vietnamese bikers on proper motorcycles geared up with luggage and white people on the back.
We went all the way back through town and found ourselves lost at the first dead end we had found, which was a kite surfing camp.
Finally we gave up and went to get some gasoline and as dumb luck would have it, we found a restaurant. Too tired and frustrated to show our joy, we pulled over, ordered some food and drinks, and were promptly attacked by about 50 flies. I'd never seen a place with so many flies. I ordered a beer and the man went and pulled the bottle out of a crate of empty bottles, a hat, a helmet and other miscellaneous things. When I was done with my beer I set the glass down there were like 15 flies crawling all over it within 30 seconds. It was probably due to all the dead fish, since we were in a fishing village. We got our food to go because the flies were too much.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped to get a hot dog, which is not the same as it is in America. In Vietnam a hot dog is some kind of triangular crepe thing with no meat in it. We took a different route home and found ourselves riding along a big field of sand and trees where kids were jumping into the sand the same way I did when I was their age. We found our way up the big roads and vacant round-a-bout from the night before and were soon cruising that beautiful section of the coast again. The day was beautiful, the ocean was beautiful, I had my fiancé with me, I had hot food to put in my belly, and we weren't lost. I was happy. So happy I had Tien stop so I could take her photo. As I was composing my shot a used trash bag blew up against my leg.
Back at the hotel we sat on our bed and watched the ocean beyond the tin roof cabana where nobody was sitting. Since it was so late, just about sunset, the heat had worn off, so we decided to go back to the sand dune park nearby and have a look around.
Children greeted us with sleds for rent to slide down the sand dunes. We valeted the bike and started hiking up the dunes. Two kids followed us trying to rent us a sled for 30k, which we were not interested in. There were a lot of other people there watching the sunset, even many white people. I always try to smile and nod a greeting to other travelers as I pass them if it's appropriate, and it always amazes me how white people don't want to talk to each other or acknowledge each other's existence.
Before heading home we got some snacks and a deck of cards. Back at the hotel the internet was still down and they didn't know why. I knew why though. It was misconfigured and was getting no responses to its DHCP queries. It probably needed PPPoE, but those settings were not remembered in the firmware, which means it may have been hard reset as a last ditch attempt to fix what is probably an unreliable DSL connection. I hate DSL.
Back in the hotel room Tien washed our clothes and we hung them to dry on a rope that I brought to use for just such an occasion, then I taught her how to play a card game that I know but don't know what it's called. • • • • •
2009.11.15 by Daniel
Traveling to Mui Ne
Sunday morning when I woke up I noticed a recurring morning phenomenon; stiff ankles. I thought about how I should probably stay more active to avoid that displeasure.
Right after waking up Tien called a bus service and found a bus going to Saigon at 9:30. Thu got us some hot breakfast from the market while we packed. We ate and headed off by bus. We were still unsure about the train schedule and availability and decided just to head to a travel agency in Pham Ngu Lao and see what we could find.
As we were leaving Binh Hoa I saw a scooter stacked 4 boxes high that had fallen over while parked and the driver was trying to pick it back up. A peloton of cyclists passed by. Real cyclists, not just school kids on their way. We did pass a school though and I noticed that all schools in Vietnam look the same. Tan buildings with big fences and blue signs with white text.
As we got to Saigon I noticed some large text written with plants on a wall. As we passed I looked back at it and saw it was a billboard wall made with an array of pot holders so you could use pots containing different colored plants to make patterns. Potted plant pixels.
The clouds were dark and it began to rain. I feared bad weather or worse, really bad weather.
I noticed a police checkpoint set up at the side of the road. I had also seen one as we were entering Long Xuyen and I would see another as we were leaving Saigon. I never found out what the story was.
Just after getting into a taxi I saw a guy on a motorbike with no helmet and a styled Asian hairdo with the addition of a mullet.
I saw two young girls on a scooter collide with a woman carrying baskets on each side of her handlebars in busy Saigon traffic.
I saw a guy on a motorbike sharing headphones with his passenger the way Tien and I do. I'd never seen anybody else wearing headphones while riding.
Our taxi turned down Nguyen Trai street, home of the Ruby Star, and we drove for many, many blocks. There were tons of stores full of awesome girl clothes and I thought about how if I was a girl I'd go nuts in a place like that. For a man of my style and stature there is neither the inclination nor the option for such an occurrence.
After arriving at the same travel agency where the two motorbike taxis had dropped us off at last time, Tien and I quickly figured out our travel situation, bought bus tickets and went to find coffee. We only had to go next door to Highland Coffee. We had eaten lunch here before, it was the cafe where the French club owner was negotiating with the local DJs. The food was good here but we just wanted coffee. It had western prices but with them, western flavor, which was very welcome. I had savored a cappuccino.
We stayed there for an hour while I caught up on some internet stuff and charged my phone whose battery had been depleted while playing Fieldrunners on the bus, then went outside and boarded our bus to Mui Ne.
There were very few people on the bus and about half of us were white, though not all speaking English. Most were a group of three girls and one guy who I thought were Ukrainian.
As we headed north there was a variety show on the TV with guy and girl hosts who I recognized. Tien said the man's name was Nguyen Ngoc Ngan, which may not sound like you think but is still pretty hard to pronounce.
There were a lot of songs sung between guys and girls reaching dramatically out into the air and gazing at each other during the harmonies and looking away during the solos. I asked Tien why so many Vietnamese people like this kind of thing and she just laughed and said it was romantic. I asked why Vietnamese people like romance so much and she didn't know. It seemed odd for a conservative culture to be so enamored with romance. I thought that as far as video media is concerned, romance was to Vietnamese people what action is to Americans.
A bit later two Vietnamese people got on, one guy and one girl, and immediately struck up a conversation in English with the Europeans. They both spoke english very comfortably and phrases such as "you know, like" made it clear they had lived in America for a while. The man said he was engaged, though not to the girl he was with, then continued to flirt with the Norwegian girls, a detail I garnished from unwilling eavesdropping. He talked on about money and living in America, and it even seemed like his girl friend was being his wingman. For a while I thought he might just be the guy we stayed with in Binh Duong. He was certainly just as sleazy with all the same lines.
One of the bus employees came by asking where to drop us off, but we really didn't know because we hadn't planned that far ahead. The man in front of us said he could recommend a cheap hotel to us.
I put my headphones back on and we lost ourselves in a variety of music that I picked while scanning the songs. Debussy, The Thompson Twins, Oscar Peterson, Simply Red, Zero 7, Above and Beyond. We settled on classical and I drifted off for a few songs.
When I woke up we were slowing down next to the ocean to let the Norwegians off. There was a sizzler restaurant and a wind surfing and scuba diving tour place. We rode a little farther and got off where the man who was recommending our hotel got off. A guy on a motorbike was waiting for a fare, and he flagged down another passing motorbike to take us to a hotel. As we were riding Tien's driver talked on and on and on in Vietnamese. We left town and headed inland a bit, which wasn't encouraging because I wanted to be in the city or at least by the water. We took some big roads, passed an empty round-about by some big sand dunes, and eventually popped back out onto a highway that paralleled a beautiful beach. I could see the caps of breaking waves in the darkness. The air was warm, and it was magical riding along the coast through that warm night air on a motorbike next to Tien.
Tien's driver led us to a dark resort hotel with trees scattered between various buildings. Tien later told me that he had skipped the hotel that the man had recommended because it was apparently too loud and was a dirty place. I honestly couldn't imagine what a hotel was that was dirtier than the place he took us to. It had water stains on the wall, chipped plaster, it smelled funky, there was a board covering the window in the bathroom, and it looked pretty much like it wasn't kept up very well.
We checked in and agreed to pay 400k a night, which was clearly too much for what we were getting. We had come so far out of town and hadn't passed anywhere that was definitely open that I figured the price to take the motorbikes elsewhere would've been more than the difference, so I decided to go ahead and take it.
Right after checking in we went 50 feet down to the beach where there were lots of red and blue lights bobbing in the dark ocean. We couldn't tell what they were, though it was clear some of them were boats because a few times somebody turned on a flashlight and shined it around the boat they were standing on.
There were also some circular boats that looked like baskets sitting on the shore. Somebody was busy filling one of them up with some kind of supplies as if they were about to go out into the water.
The sand was coarse and the water seemed a little dirty, so with that and the fact that I was tired we decided against swimming or even staying at the beach and returned to our room for the night.
• • • • •
2009.11.14 by Daniel
Finding a new place in Binh Hoa
Saturday was a pretty lazy day. Tien and I were still recovering from our motorbike trips and I swore off ever going long distances on Tien's scooter ever again. We did, however, plan to head north from Saigon to Mui Ne and Nha Trang the following day by bus, and hopefully also by train.
We stayed around the house all day, but that evening we went for a ride around town at sunset. I brought my camera gear and photographed some boats in the river. We turned this way and that while riding through her village, going along waterways and over bridges, waving to the folks on the boats I was photographing and to the locals we passed who beamed at the sight of a white guy.
Right before dusk I spotted a big rice paddie that hadn't been harvested, the same one I had photographed tien at a few days earlier but on the opposite, remote side. There are so few places in Tien's village where you can get right next to the rice paddies and I was excited to find such a great spot. On top of that, Tien said she had never been there. 
I was happy to have shown tien a beautiful new place in her own village. Unfortunately the light was dark and I had no tripod so I couldn't take the photos I wanted, but I did the best I could. We sat a minute and enjoyed the vast green before us, then turned on our dirt path and headed back home.
This neighborhood was distinctly different from most of the places she had taken me. It was pretty hard to get to and far from the main roads. Most of the houses had open front walls, giving you full view into the living rooms where people were watching TV, playing with their kids, praying. Many of the houses had only a fence, not hard steel locking gate. Some had only glass windows on a locking door. I liked this neighborhood, it was like a tiny remote village tucked just 1km off the main road.
• • • • •
2009.11.13 by Daniel
Can Tho and The Floating Market
We woke up at 6am on Friday to get a head start on the floating market which only lasts the morning. When we fetched our motorbike from the valet there was a tiny blob of bird crap on my seat. Only after trying to flick it off and getting it on my fingernails did I consider bird flu.
We gassed up the motorbike on the way to breakfast. All of the gas station in Vietnam are full service, but this was the first time I noticed that their pumps are configured to turn off at 20k dong and every 10k afterwards, making it easy for them to count without looking as they fill numerous bikes.
We cruised through the city and through more construction. Bridges are the most common project after new buildings. I wished that I had a compass so I could better know where I was. I wished I had an iPhone 3gs and considered the idea of leaving my 3g with Tien. I thought maybe it wouldn't be good to force her into an Apple world where Apple had such little penetration and thought about other smart phones, like the Droid, and contiuned down a line of thinking that many technologists have gone down where they end up damning the circularly innovating companies like Nokia and Motorola who have been busy doing nothing remarkable until Apple lit a fire under their ass by releasing the iPhone. Now everybody is releasing new platforms for smart phones that sync data (omg what an idea), have real browsers and email, and have standard platforms for app development (no thanks to Sun and Java here either.) I then continued by damning every carrier who locked their customers into contracts with a particular network and no way to get a device outside that network. iPhone, droid, pre... Three new smart phones, all locked to their providers. I silently thanked the hackers for breaking through this asinine misbehavior and allowing us to actually use the devices we have paid for. I still had no compass.
At breakfast I ordered eggs with bread and iced coffee and proceeded to burn myself on the platter my eggs were served in, then ate the peppers that were in the pan with my eggs. This day was not off to a good start.
I thought a lot about Colorado. I had decided to go back to Colorado for December to see my family and stay with my brother now that he's out of the army and back in America and was really excited about it. It had been a long time since I'd spent a good chunk of time there, and I hadn't spent much time with my brother in years. Hiking and video gaming, here we come.
We scooted on over to the market and found ourselves on a road running parallel to the river. We stopped so I could take some photos of the floating market and a guy who was loading watermelon into a boat offered to ride us around the market for 100k. I thought that might be a little steep, especially since he was on his way out anyways. Tien didn't want to go with him because he didn't have any life jackets. Even after I pointed out that he was an experienced captain and that there was a whole river full of boats that people were busy not falling out of she still didn't agree so we went back to the corner market, valeted the bike and hired a boat with life jackets for 100k. These life jackets sat untouched and barely noticed at the front of the boat for the duration of our voyage.
It was just Tien and I with the captain as we cruised up and back down the river through innumerable boats exchanging fruits and vegetables. There were a few common styles of boats, most being the big junkers that were anchored to each other and the riverbed. Most people in junkers would sit with some of their goods on top of the cabin waiting for somebody to come by. They had bamboo poles sticking up off of their boat with example fruits tied to them so people could spot what was available at a glance while passing by. Some people were cruising around in smaller ferrying goods from here to there.
Sometimes we would be right next to the other boats and sometimes we would be far away. I kept switching between my 10-20mm lens and my 50mm, wishing I had an 18-55mm or a second body.
There were many other tourists, some in large tour groups and some with privately rented boats like ours. I saw a slightly heavy slightly balding white guy with an SLR on the back of a boat taking a lot of photos and thought I probably looked just like that. I watched my other self for a while and didn't care much for how I looked.
As we were pulling back into port our captain gently and accidentally ran the boat into a brick wall sticking out from the steps leading I to the water. He looked back and laughed then corrected his parking job.
Back at the market we found a place to get some drinks. I got a fresh sugar cane drink that was delicious. We sat and enjoyed the drinks for a while and I thought again about smart phones and realized that the iPhone doesn't have a Vietnamese keyboard layout.
We didn't stay at the market long and opted instead to cruise the city. After having been the driver in Da Lat and the fact that my ass hurt so bad sitting on that seat, I really disliked being a passenger. I was missing the five contact points of a bicycle, having really only one since the motorbike was too small for the foot pegs to do me much good.
I tried to enjoy the ride while looking at the river, some parks and all the local daily things, but I was honestly really happy to return to the hotel for a rest before starting the journey home.
We grabbed lunch at the restaurant that we had intended to visit the night before and then began our long and painful ride north under the mid day sun.
I saw a John Deere sign and wondered how much business they got in the Mekong where so much of the work was done by hand.
A steam roller came driving down the road going the opposite direction. Apparently in Vietnam they redo the roads while still letting people drive on them.
The billowing clouds in the sky reminded me of that song "little fluffy clouds", which I first heard incorrectly as being by Orbital, and I decided to put them on my iPod.
After one and a half orbital albums we stopped to take a break. We looked in vain for a place with wifi and decided to settle for hammocks instead. Laying there with an ice cold drink, staring up at the ceiling of our wooden hut, tien asked me if I knew about those kinds of houses. She told me that the roof was made of coconut leaves and said that when she was a little girl her family lived in a house made that way. That was amazing for me to think about, having come from living in a house made from bamboo and coconut leaves to now, and the unknown future.
As I paid for our drinks I realized that Ho Chi Minh was on all the bills in Vietnam. I wondered why it was that only this one man was so important and how that had steered the Vietnamese culture.
It was just Tien and I with the captain as we cruised up and back down the river through innumerable boats exchanging fruits and vegetables. There were a few common styles of boats, most being the big junkers that were anchored to each other and the riverbed. Most people in junkers would sit with some of their goods on top of the cabin waiting for somebody to come by. They had bamboo poles sticking up off of their boat with example fruits tied to them so people could spot what was available at a glance while passing by. Some people were cruising around in smaller ferrying goods from here to there.
Sometimes we would be right next to the other boats and sometimes we would be far away. I kept switching between my 10-20mm lens and my 50mm, wishing I had an 18-55mm or a second body.
There were many other tourists, some in large tour groups and some with privately rented boats like ours. I saw a slightly heavy slightly balding white guy with an SLR on the back of a boat taking a lot of photos and thought I probably looked just like that. I watched my other self for a while and didn't care much for how I looked.
As we were pulling back into port our captain gently and accidentally ran the boat into a brick wall sticking out from the steps leading I to the water. He looked back and laughed then corrected his parking job.
Back at the market we found a place to get some drinks. I got a fresh sugar cane drink that was delicious. We sat and enjoyed the drinks for a while and I thought again about smart phones and realized that the iPhone doesn't have a Vietnamese keyboard layout.
We didn't stay at the market long and opted instead to cruise the city. After having been the driver in Da Lat and the fact that my ass hurt so bad sitting on that seat, I really disliked being a passenger. I was missing the five contact points of a bicycle, having really only one since the motorbike was too small for the foot pegs to do me much good. I tried to enjoy the ride while looking at the river, some parks and all the local daily things, but I was honestly really happy to return to the hotel for a rest before starting the journey home.
We grabbed lunch at the restaurant that we had intended to visit the night before and then began our long and painful ride north under the mid day sun.
I saw a John Deere sign and wondered how much business they got in the Mekong where so much of the work was done by hand.
A steam roller came driving down the road going the opposite direction. Apparently in Vietnam they redo the roads while still letting people drive on them.
The billowing clouds in the sky reminded me of that song "little fluffy clouds", which I first heard incorrectly as being by Orbital, and I decided to put them on my iPod.
After one and a half orbital albums we stopped to take a break. We looked in vain for a place with wifi and decided to settle for hammocks instead. Laying there with an ice cold drink, staring up at the ceiling of our wooden hut, tien asked me if I knew about those kinds of houses. She told me that the roof was made of coconut leaves and said that when she was a little girl her family lived in a house made that way. That was amazing for me to think about, having come from living in a house made from bamboo and coconut leaves to now, and the unknown future.
As I paid for our drinks I realized that Ho Chi Minh was on all the bills in Vietnam. I wondered why it was that only this one man was so important and how that had steered the Vietnamese culture. • • • • •
2009.11.12 by Daniel
Heading to Can Tho
Thursday I woke up in pain from the events of the previous day. My foot was definitely bruised in a few places and the cut was dry. My sandals are pretty soft though and did a great job of easing the pain.
Back at the market for breakfast Tien and I discussed plans to go to Can Tho, a city located a few hours south by motorbike and home to a famous floating market on the river, and to Nha Trang. We decided to go to Can Tho that evening and Nha Trang that weekend or so.
Thu came around with some mangos and a durian. The durian looked like some kind of organ inside, an alien brain dreamed up by H R Giger. They made me try the durian, otherwise known around the western world as "stinky fruit." it was very strange with several successive flavors and a distinct after taste that unfortunately lasts for hours even when chased with a fresh mango.
That afternoon I rained on and off, sometimes very hard, and Mai suggested that we not go to Can Tho that night. We did though, waiting for what looked like clear skies and a bit later than we wanted.
The roads were worse than I expected. Tien had said it would take three hours when I said it would probably take two. She was right though, of course, because she lived there briefly while taking classes at the local college. The sunset was gorgeous with big billowing clouds in the far distance. Darkness set in about halfway there, but it didn't rain.
We passed through a lot of construction, of course. There was a large building that looked finished with a balcony on the second floor that stuck out over the entryway. The third floor stuck out above the inside of the balcony, shading it from the elements and there were no doors between the balcony and the inside. Vietnam is the kind of place where it's never so cold you have to turn on a heater. The floors are made from tile and withstand the elements and human abuse, so you don't always need windows.
The ride seemed to stretch on forever and my ass began to hurt badly. Later I would discover bruises back there on the bones and tissue, and would then decide never to take a long trip on Tien's motorbike ever again.
As we got to Can Tho I noticed two things that set it apart from other places we'd been. First, there were numerous Christian churches, which is very rare in Vietnam. Usually there will be one church and buddhist shrines and temples everywhere. This was probably the first time I'd seen several in a row and it was reminiscent of the USA and it's competitive divisions of Christianity. The other thing I noticed was more progressive fashion that seemed to have a purpose or theme outside the normal engrish phrases. There was a sense of brand style in some of the shops rather than the free for all found most of the other places I've been. The only other place I'd really seen this in Vietnam was the westernized shops in Saigon that were sometimes even owned by the brand, like Dr. Marten's.
We rode down main street and turned off a few side roads searching for a hotel. By this time Tien was doing most of the searching and I was busy trying to find an unbruised part of my back side to sit on. Eventually we found a hotel for $15 and took it. We went upstairs with the intention of resting for a while before heading back out to a place Tien used to eat, but we didn't make it back out until the next morning.
• • • • •
2009.11.11 by Daniel
Hiking on Mt. Cam
We planned to go hiking on Mt. Cam on Wednesday. It's a long way to get there, so we had planned to wake up at 5am. I rarely sleep well before having to wake up early, and this was no different. I wasn't watching the clock though, since that doesn't help you sleep, and so we overslept a little.
When we were all up I packed my camera and water into a backpack. I wore zip-off synthetic pants that dry quickly, the perfect thing for long exposure to sun but still good for swimming and hiking. 
I was the only one who was really dressed for hiking though... Tien, Thu and Mai looked more like they were going shopping, and I wondered if we would actually do any hiking at all.
We got breakfast at a stall in the market on our way out. I got to watch the woman make the hu tieu, which is just pho with different noodles. That was kinda neat, I always wondered how that process worked. The magic is the soup in a huge pot. There were flies everywhere at the stall, landing on the meat and vegetables. When the woman sitting next to me paid she got her change returned to her right on the noodles that were going to be used to make people's food. I've never worked in a restaurant, but I'm pretty sure flies on the meat and dirty money on the ingredients wouldn't fly in America.
Tien and I headed off on her bike with her sisters following. I had the headphone splitter connected to my iPod so Tien and I both got two earbuds to listen to the new Late Night Alumni album that had come out the previous day or so. We took a dirt back road out of her village, one that we'd passed but hadn't taken before. It was neat to see what was back there.
A waterway ran between two dirt roads on each shore that were almost big enough for a car. There were people fishing on little canoes and rickety wooden docks. A man squatted next to the river smoking a cigarette. People with bicycle powered stands for bread and yogurt pedaled by on their way to the main streets of the village.
We turned onto the main road that buses and big trucks used to transport big loads between Chau Doc and Long Xuyen. A little naked boy was playing with a stick on a brick wall a few feet from the road.
I noticed that many of the motorbikes only had a hand brake on the right handle and wondered why this was. I thought at first they only had a front brake, but saw that they did have a back brake. I thought that maybe the one handle operated both brakes, which is uncommon in America but might have been more common in a place where motorbikes were as plentiful as cars in America. It certainly allowed people to have a free left hand for talking on cell phones, which they did. I later realized that I had thrown out the idea of a foot brake when thinking about automatic transmission scooters, and that the rear brake was where it should be, on the right foot.
I saw a man with his canoe dry docked at the side of the road as he repaired leaks in the bottom of it. I wondered how common it was for them to sink.
After Late Night Alumni was done I put on Squirrel Nut Zippers and the song Good Enough for Granddad came on. It was probably my first time hearing it and it made me happy thinking about how my grandfather, who I never knew, traveled all over the world and was a happy man, and here I was traveling and happy too.
We stopped at a village market to buy some things to take up Mt. Cam to a friend of Tien's family. A man came by selling lottery tickets holding a small boy with no legs. At first I was sad that the boy had no legs, but then I thought about the NOFX song Nubs and thought that disabled people are just like every other person. Everybody has their problems and everybody can be happy. Disability isn't something to rejoice in, but it's not something to wallow in either.
As we approached Mt. Cam we passed several temples that looked like something you'd see in Thailand or Cambodia. There was writing in an alphabet that was like Thai or Khmer, which I can't really distinguish, especially when they're written ornately.
We stopped at the foot of the mountain after paying to enter the park and rested for a bit. I was wondering where we'd start hiking from, and then I began to wonder if we'd hike at all. Just like last time, guys on motorcycles were following us around talking and talking and talking. We ended up hiring them to take us to the top of the mountain and then we would walk back down, an idea I wasn't completely happy with. As long as I got to hike though I'd be happy.
I got on the back of a bike with squeaky brakes and a broken speedometer and we headed up the steep incline that cuts across the side of Mt. Cam. Looking back, the green fields that stretched to the horizon last time I was here were replaced by endless pools of water cut into lines by rows of trees, as if the whole country was flooded. The country wasn't flooded though. It's always under water like this, you just can't see it below the blades of rice leaves.
At the top, we went to the temple. Two boys met us and sold us some incense and began walking with us. Tien and Thu went inside to pray and I wanted in the bottom of the pagoda with Mai. When Tien and Thu returned we went onto the lawn by the pagoda, spread out a rain jacket and had a little picnic lunch. They had brought beer, 7up, bread, meat, soy sauce, fruits, chop sticks and sliced vegetables. We sat there and ate our lunch, throwing scraps of meat to the temple dogs that came wandering by. The two boys hung around, climbing on the handrail of the pagoda and chasing the bigger dogs away. Thu gave them some money and told them to get us some ice and cups for our drinks, and when they returned she gave them each an apple. I showed them some juggling with some rambutans and contact juggled their apples. They were happy boys that talked a lot. They had dark skin, probably from being outside all the time. Tien said that they would show us the way to a waterfall where we could swim.
After lunch we took off walking and the motorbike brigade swarmed around us again. Tien asked if we should take the motorbikes or hike, and since I was set on hiking I said we should hike and continued doing so. The girls straggled as the boy and I walked ahead, and eventually Tien decided to get the motorbikes to take us to the trailhead.
I thought we would lose the boy in the motorcycle exchange, but he managed to get on one of the bikes and was there at the trailhead leading the way down into the forest. He and I continued to set the pace down the trail while the girls walked behind us. The trail was a well traveled trail, maintained with steps leading down and trash everywhere. It ended up being more like a sidewalk through a stretched out village with stores scattered along the trail and people living in houses by the stores, just like any other Vietnamese village. People were rebuilding their stores, redoing the cement on the sidewalk, napping in hammocks, watching TV, and there were even a few old beggars singing songs at the side of the trail.
I was happy to be hiking. I could sometimes hear the creek in the forest to our right. The boy kept on talking as if I understood him. Tien said he was talking to me, saying things like "keep going, sir" and "just this way, sir." Eventually he led us to a cascading waterfall with large rocks where people had built homes and stores next to. There were statues of rabbits and other animals, and a little heart at the edge of a rock. There was also a steep waterfall at the bottom and a few wires that you could use to attempt to save your own life with should you slip and slide towards your demise. We went away from that part to a higher area where there were two pools separated by a waterfall going down the side of a large rock.
As I was the only one dressed for hiking, so was I the only one dressed for swimming, but nonetheless Tien rolled up her pants unnecessarily and waded into the water up to her waist. We spent a long while playing in the water, taking pictures and having fun. I fell down the waterfall bruising my foot and palm and gashing a hole in my left heel, but I didn't care much. I just had the boy fetch me a beer and drank it while sitting in the pool of water.
After we were rested and cooled off we headed down the trail once again. There were lots of dogs along the way, and lots of puppies. I saw a rooster eating off the counter in an open kitchen. We soon stopped again where some men were reclining in hammocks watching football. When I say "football" I mean what Americans call soccer. America seems to be the only country that doesn't call it football.
We sat at a table and a happy woman brought me iced coffee. Tien asked her for some bandaids for my barely bleeding foot. I migrated to a hammock for a while and everybody thought I would break it. A while later the woman invited us into her home. We went with her to the back where her house met the waterfalls and sat on the rocks eating grapefruit and looking out over the tree tops at the infinite pool of water stretching beyond the mountain to the horizon. It was a nice home, and her family was nice. Her son was a monk from the temple on top of the mountain.
After a while of sitting and eating we bid them farewell and headed off down the trail again. There were still more dogs, many of them pregnant. I wondered what kind of predators lived in the woods that were above these dogs on the food chain.
A while later I saw a motorbike on the trail and knew we were back at the bottom. Our guide boy stayed near us until we left, and I felt a little pained leaving the boy behind even though that was his home.
The ride home was mostly vocal trance and sunset seen from the back of a motorbike. Water was everywhere, and school children were on their way home. I saw some of them gathered at the side of the road waiting for a small ferry that was pulling up to the shore getting ready to lower a walkway for them to board.
Back at home we sat and rested and Tien nursed my bruises and bug bites with a solve-all ointment that they always have handy. That night we sleep soundly.
I was the only one who was really dressed for hiking though... Tien, Thu and Mai looked more like they were going shopping, and I wondered if we would actually do any hiking at all.
We got breakfast at a stall in the market on our way out. I got to watch the woman make the hu tieu, which is just pho with different noodles. That was kinda neat, I always wondered how that process worked. The magic is the soup in a huge pot. There were flies everywhere at the stall, landing on the meat and vegetables. When the woman sitting next to me paid she got her change returned to her right on the noodles that were going to be used to make people's food. I've never worked in a restaurant, but I'm pretty sure flies on the meat and dirty money on the ingredients wouldn't fly in America.
Tien and I headed off on her bike with her sisters following. I had the headphone splitter connected to my iPod so Tien and I both got two earbuds to listen to the new Late Night Alumni album that had come out the previous day or so. We took a dirt back road out of her village, one that we'd passed but hadn't taken before. It was neat to see what was back there.
A waterway ran between two dirt roads on each shore that were almost big enough for a car. There were people fishing on little canoes and rickety wooden docks. A man squatted next to the river smoking a cigarette. People with bicycle powered stands for bread and yogurt pedaled by on their way to the main streets of the village.
We turned onto the main road that buses and big trucks used to transport big loads between Chau Doc and Long Xuyen. A little naked boy was playing with a stick on a brick wall a few feet from the road.
I noticed that many of the motorbikes only had a hand brake on the right handle and wondered why this was. I thought at first they only had a front brake, but saw that they did have a back brake. I thought that maybe the one handle operated both brakes, which is uncommon in America but might have been more common in a place where motorbikes were as plentiful as cars in America. It certainly allowed people to have a free left hand for talking on cell phones, which they did. I later realized that I had thrown out the idea of a foot brake when thinking about automatic transmission scooters, and that the rear brake was where it should be, on the right foot.
I saw a man with his canoe dry docked at the side of the road as he repaired leaks in the bottom of it. I wondered how common it was for them to sink.
After Late Night Alumni was done I put on Squirrel Nut Zippers and the song Good Enough for Granddad came on. It was probably my first time hearing it and it made me happy thinking about how my grandfather, who I never knew, traveled all over the world and was a happy man, and here I was traveling and happy too.
We stopped at a village market to buy some things to take up Mt. Cam to a friend of Tien's family. A man came by selling lottery tickets holding a small boy with no legs. At first I was sad that the boy had no legs, but then I thought about the NOFX song Nubs and thought that disabled people are just like every other person. Everybody has their problems and everybody can be happy. Disability isn't something to rejoice in, but it's not something to wallow in either.
As we approached Mt. Cam we passed several temples that looked like something you'd see in Thailand or Cambodia. There was writing in an alphabet that was like Thai or Khmer, which I can't really distinguish, especially when they're written ornately.
We stopped at the foot of the mountain after paying to enter the park and rested for a bit. I was wondering where we'd start hiking from, and then I began to wonder if we'd hike at all. Just like last time, guys on motorcycles were following us around talking and talking and talking. We ended up hiring them to take us to the top of the mountain and then we would walk back down, an idea I wasn't completely happy with. As long as I got to hike though I'd be happy.
I got on the back of a bike with squeaky brakes and a broken speedometer and we headed up the steep incline that cuts across the side of Mt. Cam. Looking back, the green fields that stretched to the horizon last time I was here were replaced by endless pools of water cut into lines by rows of trees, as if the whole country was flooded. The country wasn't flooded though. It's always under water like this, you just can't see it below the blades of rice leaves.
At the top, we went to the temple. Two boys met us and sold us some incense and began walking with us. Tien and Thu went inside to pray and I wanted in the bottom of the pagoda with Mai. When Tien and Thu returned we went onto the lawn by the pagoda, spread out a rain jacket and had a little picnic lunch. They had brought beer, 7up, bread, meat, soy sauce, fruits, chop sticks and sliced vegetables. We sat there and ate our lunch, throwing scraps of meat to the temple dogs that came wandering by. The two boys hung around, climbing on the handrail of the pagoda and chasing the bigger dogs away. Thu gave them some money and told them to get us some ice and cups for our drinks, and when they returned she gave them each an apple. I showed them some juggling with some rambutans and contact juggled their apples. They were happy boys that talked a lot. They had dark skin, probably from being outside all the time. Tien said that they would show us the way to a waterfall where we could swim.
After lunch we took off walking and the motorbike brigade swarmed around us again. Tien asked if we should take the motorbikes or hike, and since I was set on hiking I said we should hike and continued doing so. The girls straggled as the boy and I walked ahead, and eventually Tien decided to get the motorbikes to take us to the trailhead.
I thought we would lose the boy in the motorcycle exchange, but he managed to get on one of the bikes and was there at the trailhead leading the way down into the forest. He and I continued to set the pace down the trail while the girls walked behind us. The trail was a well traveled trail, maintained with steps leading down and trash everywhere. It ended up being more like a sidewalk through a stretched out village with stores scattered along the trail and people living in houses by the stores, just like any other Vietnamese village. People were rebuilding their stores, redoing the cement on the sidewalk, napping in hammocks, watching TV, and there were even a few old beggars singing songs at the side of the trail.
I was happy to be hiking. I could sometimes hear the creek in the forest to our right. The boy kept on talking as if I understood him. Tien said he was talking to me, saying things like "keep going, sir" and "just this way, sir." Eventually he led us to a cascading waterfall with large rocks where people had built homes and stores next to. There were statues of rabbits and other animals, and a little heart at the edge of a rock. There was also a steep waterfall at the bottom and a few wires that you could use to attempt to save your own life with should you slip and slide towards your demise. We went away from that part to a higher area where there were two pools separated by a waterfall going down the side of a large rock.
As I was the only one dressed for hiking, so was I the only one dressed for swimming, but nonetheless Tien rolled up her pants unnecessarily and waded into the water up to her waist. We spent a long while playing in the water, taking pictures and having fun. I fell down the waterfall bruising my foot and palm and gashing a hole in my left heel, but I didn't care much. I just had the boy fetch me a beer and drank it while sitting in the pool of water.
After we were rested and cooled off we headed down the trail once again. There were lots of dogs along the way, and lots of puppies. I saw a rooster eating off the counter in an open kitchen. We soon stopped again where some men were reclining in hammocks watching football. When I say "football" I mean what Americans call soccer. America seems to be the only country that doesn't call it football.
We sat at a table and a happy woman brought me iced coffee. Tien asked her for some bandaids for my barely bleeding foot. I migrated to a hammock for a while and everybody thought I would break it. A while later the woman invited us into her home. We went with her to the back where her house met the waterfalls and sat on the rocks eating grapefruit and looking out over the tree tops at the infinite pool of water stretching beyond the mountain to the horizon. It was a nice home, and her family was nice. Her son was a monk from the temple on top of the mountain.
After a while of sitting and eating we bid them farewell and headed off down the trail again. There were still more dogs, many of them pregnant. I wondered what kind of predators lived in the woods that were above these dogs on the food chain.
A while later I saw a motorbike on the trail and knew we were back at the bottom. Our guide boy stayed near us until we left, and I felt a little pained leaving the boy behind even though that was his home.
The ride home was mostly vocal trance and sunset seen from the back of a motorbike. Water was everywhere, and school children were on their way home. I saw some of them gathered at the side of the road waiting for a small ferry that was pulling up to the shore getting ready to lower a walkway for them to board.
Back at home we sat and rested and Tien nursed my bruises and bug bites with a solve-all ointment that they always have handy. That night we sleep soundly. • • • • •
2009.11.10 by Daniel
The trip home from Da Lat
Sunday morning was warm and glorious. Eating breakfast outside was a treat that morning. We hung around the hotel until a van came to pick us up at 12:30 and take us off to our bus. We had expected the van to arrive sooner and give us time to eat while waiting for the bus, but there wasn't enough time so we boarded and headed out with the expectation that we'd stop in an hour or so where we could find some food. This was not the case.
The first place we stopped was a tea and fruit juice place that had pretty much no food. There were a few things like cakes that you would eat with your tea, so Tien and I got some cakes and ate them on the bus as we headed up a mountain pass that was in the middle of being reconstructed.
The bus had a DVD player and a TV at the front so people could be entertained along the way. This was a home entertainment style DVD player, which means it wasn't really built to handle being moved along a bumpy dirt road winding through jungly mountains. Needless to say it skipped a lot and they eventually turned it off. I wondered why in a country like this with so many dirt roads a company like Mailinh who had busses that went everywhere didn't just rip their DVDs into something that could be played from a cheap solid state media player. I wondered about the technological and business aspects of such a proposition, along with my idea to put wifi at popular bus stops, since there never is any and I'm sure people on their netbooks would use it. Perhaps the country just isn't quite ready for that step...
Tien and I didn't get a chance to eat until 4:30pm. Hu tieu never tasted so good.
Back on the road, I saw a motorbike with logs about 6 feet long stacked sideways on the back seat so that it took up the full lane of the road. The sunset was beautifully colored, like tropical fruits. There were beautiful green rice paddies illuminated by that gorgeous dusk light, but I had a hard time photographing it and I realized it wasn't just because we were in a moving vehicle. Vietnam is so flat that you don't get to see much of the beauty. Trees and lines of buildings block off so much of the natural beauty of the rice paddies and fields, and there are so few mountains that you rarely rise above it so you can look down on it. It's a shame, really.
Well into the darkness of light we passed over a bridge where there were house boats floating on still water, reflecting their lights all around them. It was magical.
As we were coming into Saigon I saw an airplane on its descent. It was the first airplane I had seen since we left the airport several weeks ago.
I saw a huge billboard at the side of the highway advertising HHH Zippers.
Back in Saigon, we caught a taxi to the Bui Phan but it was full except the most expensive room, so we headed to the Ruby Star and got a cheap, awesome room. WiFi on this floor was a problem, I was unable to get out to the internet. Upon further investigation I discovered multiple cascaded DD-WRT routers all using 192.168.1.0/24 on both their LAN and WAN, and this was keeping me from getting out to the internet. After a few guesses I was into the admin panel and was able to reconfigure them each with their own LAN subnet so that there was no overlapping IP space and I was soon able to actually get out onto the internet. I considered different approaches but settled on this since I was doing all configuration over the air. It was good enough for one day.
Monday morning I woke up and when I signed on I had some more problems with the internet. My computer had switched to a different AP with the same SSID and a different LAN subnet. This was no good. I decided to go ahead and fix this problem once and for all by adding the WAN ports of each router to the switch, disabling DHCP, giving all the APs the same SSID and assigning them static addresses in the DSL modem. This allowed roaming access throughout the hotel, the way it should be. It worked like a charm and I felt pleased with having done something productive. I rather missed the IT world and the puzzle of finding elegant answers to technological problems.
Tien and I grabbed breakfast and decided that rather than stay in Saigon and rent a motorbike, we would return to Binh Hoa. There was potential fun in Saigon but returning home for a few days rest was appealing, and we'd definitely be coming through Saigon again numerous times anyway.
The standard procedure for hotel checkout is playing on computers until it is time to catch a taxi to a bus, then check out of the hotel and head out. This is what we did.
I saw a girl on the back of a motorbike reading a book and my NV240HD failed when I tried to take a photo of her.
I saw a girl with a shirt that said "I swoop want water."
That evening we were back with the family in Binh Hoa, sharing the details of our trip to Da Lat. The bus trip from Saigon always wears me out because it's not comfortable and I can't relax without my body moving into a painful position, 
so after dinner and a little bit of teaching Ngoc english from a book she had we fell fast asleep.
Tuesday was pretty much a rest day. We did the routine shower and get breakfast at the market. This morning though Thu brought over some mangos and peeled them. They were delicious. I don't think I had ever eaten mango before, except the dried kind. While we sat there eating mango we planned to go hiking on Mt. Cam and to the floating market in Can Tho. That evening we took a little ride around at sunset and took some photos. That evening Mai made us sweet soup, which is a desert style dish with sweet peas, coconut and some squiggly things made from flour that have the consistency of those tapioca drinks.
so after dinner and a little bit of teaching Ngoc english from a book she had we fell fast asleep.
Tuesday was pretty much a rest day. We did the routine shower and get breakfast at the market. This morning though Thu brought over some mangos and peeled them. They were delicious. I don't think I had ever eaten mango before, except the dried kind. While we sat there eating mango we planned to go hiking on Mt. Cam and to the floating market in Can Tho. That evening we took a little ride around at sunset and took some photos. That evening Mai made us sweet soup, which is a desert style dish with sweet peas, coconut and some squiggly things made from flour that have the consistency of those tapioca drinks. • • • • •
2009.11.07 by Daniel
A day on a moto
Saturday morning Da Lat was colder than it was the previous day. I couldn't tell if it was going to clear up or pour down rain on us. Regardless, Tien and I decided to rent a scooter for the day and go explore the town.
A man who worked at the hotel said we could rent a motorbike from him for 70,000, which is roughly $8 USD. We walked across the street to another hotel that was owned by the same people and Tien told them we were there to rent a moto. A girl from the hotel disappeared under the stairs into what I thought was a fountain but ended up being the way into the car port. We sat there for 5 minutes listening to that poor girl trying to start that motorbike and I couldn't help but wonder when the last time it had been ridden was.
Eventually they brought round another moto for us that had very little trouble starting. They said that the cops in Da Lat wouldn't pull me over for not having a license, which made sense since it's one of the most popular tourist destinations in Vietnam. Tien was happy that I would be driving. She is a bit timid on a bike, then there is the masculine feminine factor, and then there is romance. Of course, it could also be that she just doesn't like driving... Anyway, I got on in front, started it up and headed off in the wrong direction. As I was pulling a U turn I realized that riding a scooter is different from a motorcycle, and riding and automatic is different from a manual. Also, I had only once ever taken a passenger on a motorcycle, and that was just to give Lisa a ride around the block on my Honda CM450C before I sold it. This scooter took some getting used to, but I got the hang of it in a few hours and felt as comfortable as ever on two wheels.
The first thing we did was buy a map of the town that showed local attractions. This proved to be both useful and useless, depending on just where we were busy getting lost.
The first place we went was Da Lat University. Tien said she had seen it on TV and it was beautiful. We got gas and got lost before finding it on top of a hill north of the lake near downtown. We parked and walked into the campus and discovered that this was not the place Tien had seen on TV. While I took some photographs Tien cleared up the confusion by asking a student where the place she was looking for might be. He showed her on the map where it was, the Teacher Training College.
We left the campus and got lost again before finding the other college which was on a hill opposite the big lake in the center of town. It was indeed more picturesque, but Tien was disappointed that it wasn't more beautiful. There was a couple taking wedding photos by the brick archways along side the building.
It was mid day by then and I got the brilliant idea to have lunch on the lake. The day was bright, and too breezy to open the awnings to shade is from the mid day sun. The restaurant was a tourist restaurant and the food was accordingly disappointing. Tien barely ate any of it and I was just hungry enough to choke most of it down. Beer cost 4x what it was other places and the "classic club sandwich" had eggs on it.
While we were at the restaurant I tried out the GPS on my iPhone and for the first time ever in Vietnam it worked. I pulled up the geocaching app and found that there was a geocache by Trúc Lâm. I also pulled up lonelyplant.com and found a few choice attractions, one of which was not on the map. We paid for our terrible food and left.
After what must have been 30 or more minutes of driving around in circles we found our way to the Hang Nga Crazy Couse. This place was not at all what you'd expect to find in Vietnam. In fact, this was more like Disneyland or something, but it was actually a persons house at one time. An employee there who was very hard to understand told us that the architect had gone to school in Russia and had come home to build this in 1990. I couldn't understand much else of what she said, 
and I wondered how on earth people who spoke such awful english got jobs at tour places while the man at the front desk of our hotel spoke English almost impeccably.
Tien and I wandered the house for a while and I took a bunch of photos. It was a very dificult place to photograph though because of the odd shapes and orientation of everything. One of the interesting things about the house was that so much of it was made from wood. Vietnam is a country that does not have much timber. Most of the homes are made from brick and mortar or cement, even up in the highlands like Da Lat where there are evergreen trees. The crazy house was almost entirely wooden on the inside.
We found our way to some parts that were still being built; there is always construction in Vietnam. We found a really old car in a glass garage and I wanted to photograph it but had a poor time through the glass even with a polarizer. I photographed some construction in a new mountainous tower and then we left.
Next stop was the geocache, but we certainly couldn't do that without first getting lost and finding some more construction. We ended up taking a narrow muddy road, which was precarious on a scooter, and then merged onto what must be the smoothest street in Vietnam. It was welcome and I enjoyed it much as it swayed through a small farming valley and up into a forest.
We were unable to find the geocache by Trúc Lâm, partly because I didn't want to reach into a hole in a brick wall that was guarded by a large spider, though I suspect the cache might be missing anyway. I didn't care that we came all that way and didn't find the cache, I had wanted to return to Trúc Lâm anyway since we got rained out the previous time we were there.
A tour group of older people had just gotten off of a gondola that stops at the temple and we had to wade through the crowd to get to the temple. This time it was sunny and beautiful. There were beautifully tuned wind chimes making wonderful tones in a gentle breeze and I hoped in vain that I would be able to buy such a beautiful chime at the gift shop out front. I am a fan of neuroacoustic science and had learned that monks use chimes to entrain their minds. It was evident here because you could hear the slight detuning, the binaural beat. I started to explain the science of it to Tien, but decided it was too complex for her vocabulary or at least better suited for another time. This was photography time.
We went down by a small lake where there were picnic tables looking over a forest on a hill and down to another lake with gentle forested mountains beyond it. We sat for a while and rested, then decided to head back to town. The sun was beginning its descend and I wanted to find somewhere to watch it set.
We headed to a train station where there was a museum of old trains but it was closed. We went to look for the Buddha and got severely lost and never once even caught site of it sitting up on its hill. Giving up, we got smoothies from a shop in the town center and went back to the lake. The ride there was cold because the sun was almost completely set by then and when we finally found a nice lawn it was mushy and wet. We opted to sit on the sidewalk to see the last bit of the sunset. The smoothies were awful and added to the coldness. We called off our miserable sunset experience and headed back to the hotel to rest for a while.
We were soon hungry since we hadn't eaten much for lunch so we decided to go back out for food. We took our moto down to the town center and got hu tieu, headed back to the hotel, returned our moto, decided to head back to Saigon the next day and went to sleep.
The first place we went was Da Lat University. Tien said she had seen it on TV and it was beautiful. We got gas and got lost before finding it on top of a hill north of the lake near downtown. We parked and walked into the campus and discovered that this was not the place Tien had seen on TV. While I took some photographs Tien cleared up the confusion by asking a student where the place she was looking for might be. He showed her on the map where it was, the Teacher Training College.
We left the campus and got lost again before finding the other college which was on a hill opposite the big lake in the center of town. It was indeed more picturesque, but Tien was disappointed that it wasn't more beautiful. There was a couple taking wedding photos by the brick archways along side the building.
It was mid day by then and I got the brilliant idea to have lunch on the lake. The day was bright, and too breezy to open the awnings to shade is from the mid day sun. The restaurant was a tourist restaurant and the food was accordingly disappointing. Tien barely ate any of it and I was just hungry enough to choke most of it down. Beer cost 4x what it was other places and the "classic club sandwich" had eggs on it.
While we were at the restaurant I tried out the GPS on my iPhone and for the first time ever in Vietnam it worked. I pulled up the geocaching app and found that there was a geocache by Trúc Lâm. I also pulled up lonelyplant.com and found a few choice attractions, one of which was not on the map. We paid for our terrible food and left.
After what must have been 30 or more minutes of driving around in circles we found our way to the Hang Nga Crazy Couse. This place was not at all what you'd expect to find in Vietnam. In fact, this was more like Disneyland or something, but it was actually a persons house at one time. An employee there who was very hard to understand told us that the architect had gone to school in Russia and had come home to build this in 1990. I couldn't understand much else of what she said, and I wondered how on earth people who spoke such awful english got jobs at tour places while the man at the front desk of our hotel spoke English almost impeccably.
Tien and I wandered the house for a while and I took a bunch of photos. It was a very dificult place to photograph though because of the odd shapes and orientation of everything. One of the interesting things about the house was that so much of it was made from wood. Vietnam is a country that does not have much timber. Most of the homes are made from brick and mortar or cement, even up in the highlands like Da Lat where there are evergreen trees. The crazy house was almost entirely wooden on the inside.
We found our way to some parts that were still being built; there is always construction in Vietnam. We found a really old car in a glass garage and I wanted to photograph it but had a poor time through the glass even with a polarizer. I photographed some construction in a new mountainous tower and then we left.
Next stop was the geocache, but we certainly couldn't do that without first getting lost and finding some more construction. We ended up taking a narrow muddy road, which was precarious on a scooter, and then merged onto what must be the smoothest street in Vietnam. It was welcome and I enjoyed it much as it swayed through a small farming valley and up into a forest.
We were unable to find the geocache by Trúc Lâm, partly because I didn't want to reach into a hole in a brick wall that was guarded by a large spider, though I suspect the cache might be missing anyway. I didn't care that we came all that way and didn't find the cache, I had wanted to return to Trúc Lâm anyway since we got rained out the previous time we were there.
A tour group of older people had just gotten off of a gondola that stops at the temple and we had to wade through the crowd to get to the temple. This time it was sunny and beautiful. There were beautifully tuned wind chimes making wonderful tones in a gentle breeze and I hoped in vain that I would be able to buy such a beautiful chime at the gift shop out front. I am a fan of neuroacoustic science and had learned that monks use chimes to entrain their minds. It was evident here because you could hear the slight detuning, the binaural beat. I started to explain the science of it to Tien, but decided it was too complex for her vocabulary or at least better suited for another time. This was photography time.
We went down by a small lake where there were picnic tables looking over a forest on a hill and down to another lake with gentle forested mountains beyond it. We sat for a while and rested, then decided to head back to town. The sun was beginning its descend and I wanted to find somewhere to watch it set.
We headed to a train station where there was a museum of old trains but it was closed. We went to look for the Buddha and got severely lost and never once even caught site of it sitting up on its hill. Giving up, we got smoothies from a shop in the town center and went back to the lake. The ride there was cold because the sun was almost completely set by then and when we finally found a nice lawn it was mushy and wet. We opted to sit on the sidewalk to see the last bit of the sunset. The smoothies were awful and added to the coldness. We called off our miserable sunset experience and headed back to the hotel to rest for a while.
We were soon hungry since we hadn't eaten much for lunch so we decided to go back out for food. We took our moto down to the town center and got hu tieu, headed back to the hotel, returned our moto, decided to head back to Saigon the next day and went to sleep. • • • • •
2009.11.06 by Daniel
A Tour of Đà Lạt
Friday morning I woke up to the delightful news that all but one of the files on my corrupt hard disk had been recovered and I knew I had that file, a photo from last new year, back in america.
Tien and I went outside and had breakfast on the terrace in front of the hotel entrance. It was cold out there but the only place to sit was outside. We needed to find some warm clothes.
After some small interactions with the hotel staff I thought about how at one time I thought that you would know you knew a language well if you got their jokes, but by this time I knew I was dead wrong. Humor exists outside of spoken language and is sometimes the first thing you find to communicate with somebody.
I looked down into the courtyard and saw a man by a Motorcycle with an easy rider logo on it.
Tien and I decided it would be a good way to see the city if we took a tour. After breakfast a bus came by the hotel and took us off to where a tour had just started.
We were greeted by a tour guide who was incredibly hard to understand. Most of what he was saying I could derive from the context and surrounding sounds, but it was the important bits, the things I didn't know and thus had no context for, that I was unable to understand.
The first place we went was a temple called Truc Lan. It was a meditation center where people came from all over in order to study. We didn't stay long and it began raining shortly after we arrived.
Stop 2 was a waterfall called Datanla. The parking lot was at the top and we were given the option to ride a roller coaster to the bottom or walk down. Despite the fact that last time Tien had been on a roller coaster she went into shock I asked her anyway if she wanted to take it. Of course she didn't and so we walked.
The waterfall was beautiful and pretty big compared to all of the waterfalls I've seen in recent years. The path to it went through the forest and under the roller coaster a few times.
Back at the top there were shops that I had ignored on the way down. There were women knitting hats and men carving wood into various shapes. Tien bought a black knit beanie with a white flower on it. I went to look for a drink and discovered that beer was only 9k compared to 15k for a pepsi. We were just getting started on the day so I bought a pepsi.
Stop three was the Lat Kings house. I listened to the tour guide talk for a while and made out much of what he said, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth even listening to him and gave up.
Tien and I took a bunch of photos in the kings house and I really wished I had more of my gear or a d700 to widen the perspective of my PC-E 24mm lens. Some girl from our tour seemed to always be standing in my way talking on the phone so I eventually skipped ahead of her. We ended up with not enough time and were late getting back to the bus, but were somehow the first ones there.
On the way to lunch Tien said that nothing has changed in the 11 years since she was past in Da Lat. This was remarkable because it seems like they're always doing construction everywhere in Vietnam. Colorado Springs would be so jealous.
Stop four was lunch. The restaurant was playing instrumental anthems like Chariots of Fire, Crockett's Theme, and a dream rock rendition of I need Your Love. The sauce with the chicken had a tinge of MSG, but otherwise the food was remarkably delicious. Even the beef that came in a tin foil packet that shouted to us that it was made another and reheated for our lunch was incredible.
Stop five of our tour was a big Buddha statue that the tour guide claimed was the biggest Buddha in Vietnam. Tien and I disagreed silently, knowing that the Buddha on Mt. Cam was bigger. I just smiled and nodded through the rest of what he said about the monks doing something and some other people that seemed really important had done something else.
Stop six was called The Valley of Love. It was a sad, wet, cold place where pale colored carnival rides sat motionless in the mud under a crying grey sky. There was a monkey chained up in a cage by himself going crazy and a metal lattice awning without a single flower growing on the one vine resilient enough to withstand the gloom. There were some miserable horses and yet more construction.
As we were leaving this last sullen stop on our tour I thought about the catch 22 of tourist places. Here in Da Lat I didn't have a thousand eyes staring at me everywhere I went and random people saying hello to me as I walked down the street. The flip side was that it was not as genuine and the prices were obviously geared towards foreign travelers.
We returned to the hotel and crashed, tired from all the walking. It was evening when we awoke. We got some dinner at a place that had only one thing available, then bought and umbrella and went for a walk down by the lake. We found a market where I bought a knit hat and an Adidas jacket and immediately felt much warmer. I thought it was weird that I had to buy a jacket in Vietnam, but I guess that's how it really is. We also bought some pistachios and a bottle of wine, then moseyed on back to the hotel for the night.
We were greeted by a tour guide who was incredibly hard to understand. Most of what he was saying I could derive from the context and surrounding sounds, but it was the important bits, the things I didn't know and thus had no context for, that I was unable to understand.
The first place we went was a temple called Truc Lan. It was a meditation center where people came from all over in order to study. We didn't stay long and it began raining shortly after we arrived.
Stop 2 was a waterfall called Datanla. The parking lot was at the top and we were given the option to ride a roller coaster to the bottom or walk down. Despite the fact that last time Tien had been on a roller coaster she went into shock I asked her anyway if she wanted to take it. Of course she didn't and so we walked.
The waterfall was beautiful and pretty big compared to all of the waterfalls I've seen in recent years. The path to it went through the forest and under the roller coaster a few times.
Back at the top there were shops that I had ignored on the way down. There were women knitting hats and men carving wood into various shapes. Tien bought a black knit beanie with a white flower on it. I went to look for a drink and discovered that beer was only 9k compared to 15k for a pepsi. We were just getting started on the day so I bought a pepsi.
Stop three was the Lat Kings house. I listened to the tour guide talk for a while and made out much of what he said, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth even listening to him and gave up.
Tien and I took a bunch of photos in the kings house and I really wished I had more of my gear or a d700 to widen the perspective of my PC-E 24mm lens. Some girl from our tour seemed to always be standing in my way talking on the phone so I eventually skipped ahead of her. We ended up with not enough time and were late getting back to the bus, but were somehow the first ones there.
On the way to lunch Tien said that nothing has changed in the 11 years since she was past in Da Lat. This was remarkable because it seems like they're always doing construction everywhere in Vietnam. Colorado Springs would be so jealous.
Stop four was lunch. The restaurant was playing instrumental anthems like Chariots of Fire, Crockett's Theme, and a dream rock rendition of I need Your Love. The sauce with the chicken had a tinge of MSG, but otherwise the food was remarkably delicious. Even the beef that came in a tin foil packet that shouted to us that it was made another and reheated for our lunch was incredible.
Stop five of our tour was a big Buddha statue that the tour guide claimed was the biggest Buddha in Vietnam. Tien and I disagreed silently, knowing that the Buddha on Mt. Cam was bigger. I just smiled and nodded through the rest of what he said about the monks doing something and some other people that seemed really important had done something else.
Stop six was called The Valley of Love. It was a sad, wet, cold place where pale colored carnival rides sat motionless in the mud under a crying grey sky. There was a monkey chained up in a cage by himself going crazy and a metal lattice awning without a single flower growing on the one vine resilient enough to withstand the gloom. There were some miserable horses and yet more construction.
As we were leaving this last sullen stop on our tour I thought about the catch 22 of tourist places. Here in Da Lat I didn't have a thousand eyes staring at me everywhere I went and random people saying hello to me as I walked down the street. The flip side was that it was not as genuine and the prices were obviously geared towards foreign travelers.
We returned to the hotel and crashed, tired from all the walking. It was evening when we awoke. We got some dinner at a place that had only one thing available, then bought and umbrella and went for a walk down by the lake. We found a market where I bought a knit hat and an Adidas jacket and immediately felt much warmer. I thought it was weird that I had to buy a jacket in Vietnam, but I guess that's how it really is. We also bought some pistachios and a bottle of wine, then moseyed on back to the hotel for the night. • • • • •
2009.11.05 by Daniel
Going to Da Lat
Thursday morning when I woke up the first thing I did was plug in my dead hard disk to see if it had yet another life. Luckily it did and I put my laptop to work backing up my photos and music.
When Tien woke up we went next door for breakfast. I was thinking a lot about Colorado and the fact that my brother was now out of the Army. It had been 5 years since we'd had a family Thanksgiving together since he joined the army just before Thanksgiving. I thought about driving straight to CO as soon as I landed in SF, or perhaps switching my flight to land in Denver instead. It would be nice to have a family holiday again, though I was disappointed knowing that Tien wouldn't be there...
At dinner the previous night Tien and I had decided to go to Da Lat instead of Nha Trang, and after breakfast we went to the travel agency where I'd gotten my ticket for Cambodia and got the information we needed to book a ticket to Da Lat. We went back to the hotel, reserved a ticket on the bus and geeked out for a bit.
We were a bit late checking out of the hotel and the bus service called saying we would miss our noon bus and would have to take the next one leaving at 1pm. We caught a taxi and headed off down Nguyen Cu Trinh to a bus station I'd never been to before.
When we arrived at the bus station, which was a small travel agency in the middle of the city, it was 11:45. Tien talked to some guys on motorbikes who told her we could still catch the 12 o'clock bus if the took us there. She got on one and I got on the other and we sped off through mid day traffic. The ride was quick with a lot of weaving and it reminded me of the ride I took with My just before leaving Bangkok.
The motorbikes took us to a travel agency about 4 blocks from where we had been staying. The problem was that we had booked a ticket with Mailinh and this was not a Mailinh bus. Tien got into a little argument with one of the drivers who demanded that we pay him 100,000 for the ride, which was 4x what our taxi to the 1pm bus cost. When tien gets upset she quits talking in English, even if I ask her to translate, so I didn't know what was going on until after we were already on the bus, otherwise I would've told that guy to get lost because it was not our problem if he impersonated a Mailinh employee with the good intention of getting us to our bus on time. I talked briefly with tien about not clamming up on me so I can help her in situations like that, we accepted a learned lesson and let it go.
The bus was nice. We took off through an area of Saigon I hadn't seen and I decided we should rent a motorbike when we come back so we can go explore farther. The river was cool and there were new buildings being built. It looked more like a modern civic center.
I read the rest of Iron Orchid. It was a decent book but nothing amazing. The ending wasn't all that climactic.
Tien began to feel motion sick because she didn't take her medicine in time. She had some intention of staying awake on the ride and it backfired. I felt really bad and had flashbacks to all those times I've spent taking care of really drunk people.
We stopped for food briefly just before turning off of the main highway into the hills. The terrain was immediately different in more than just the hills. The vegetation was more thick and tough. We continued through winding roads for a few hours and then took a longer break. Tien and I got drinks and skipped food thinking the bus ride would soon be over.
Back on the road we headed into some mountains that reminded me of the western approach of monarch pass in Colorado. The sun soon set and I listened to Tom Waits while Tien slept. The evening silhouettes of hills with hose and street light scattered off in the distant darkness were familiar to me.
We arrived in Da Lat after 8 hours. We'd been told the ride would be 5 hours. I was hungry and tired.
The usual group of taxi drivers were waiting when we arrived. The first man to approach me was dressed in quality jeans and a leather coat and a helmet. He said he was with the easy riders and could take me anywhere. I told him I was with Tien and VN conversation continued with a bus driver who ended up being our local transport.
We were let off at a hotel and were greeted by a happy woman. Since we hadn't arranged a driver or a hotel and had just been scammed in saigon I was very skeptical of what was going on and was ready to walk away if every detail wasn't good, but it ended up that every detail was fine and so we got a large room on the second floor with breakfast included for half of the price we had been used to paying in Saigon.
One of the first things we noticed once we were finally in our room was that Da Lat was cold. Not cool, but cold. It was also raining gently.
We went to find some dinner and ended up at a Chinese restaurant where I once again ordered something that I expected would have no seafood. We weren't anywhere near the ocean, but that didn't stop the ocean gods from frowning on my meal. I just gave the icky parts to tien and hungrily devoured the rest.
Tien was really cold on the way Home so we went hat shopping. We ended up not finding anything and just went back to the hotel. I put my computer to work backing up the files that were on the crashing disk, cuddled up with tien under two heavy blankets and fell fast asleep in the cold and quiet.
• • • • •
2009.11.04 by Daniel
Heading out for Nha Trang
Tuesday morning at breakfast Tien's mom brought over a young boy who was big for his age. His older sister showed up soon afterwards and we all ate some snacks. They were Tiens cousins and I recognized their father from our engagement party when he came to pick them up on his scooter.
We returned home, packed for our trip to Nha Trang, had lunch and caught the bus right outside Tien's house at 2pm.
The bus was not the usual bus service we take, Mai Linh. It took a different route through narrow back country roads that were more jungly than the main roads. I recognized the route from the trip we took where the man was joking about fighting with me. The bus seemed to be going pretty fast but that may just be because the road was so narrow. After a while we got to an area with muddy dirt roads with huge puddles and many bumps.
The driver turned on some pop Vietnamese music and I wondered what a Vietnamese reggae fusion would sound like.
I got out a book, Iron Orchard, and read. Brianna had found the book on the street and gave it to me. It was entertaining light reading that was good for a trip. After we stopped for a break I continued reading until it was too dark, then I just enjoyed music and watched the lights pass in the darkness.
We came upon an accident, the first serious one I've seen in Vietnam so far. The diver of a large truck was standing by the back where a bloody man was wallowing in pain on the ground. His motorbike was stuck between the front and rear axels and there was an anonymous pool of liquid coming from the darkness under the truck. I wasn't sure if he was the only passenger.
Tien looked at the scene then looked away with a shriek. She looked at me with worried eyes and said "He died." I thought this was an odd way to say it. Later I came to the conclusion that her phrase told a story from a scene that she hadn't experienced which was why it sounded weirder than saying "he is dead." I told her that he hadn't died. The bus drove on and I never heard a siren or saw an ambulance.
As we came into Saigon it was clear that it had been raining hard. Pools of water were standing near intersections and the sidewalk by the river was reflecting the tail lights of motorbikes that rode down it.
The ride seemed endless and my ass hurt from having my buttock muscle stretched in the same position in that tiny seat for so long. We rode through some interesting neighborhoods in Saigon including going over a bridge that we'd seen near the new roads on our way out of town last time. Eventually we arrived at the bus station where we caught a taxi to a hotel I'd stayed at once before, the Bui Phan. The issue with the bed bugs at the ruby star made us not want to go back there, plus I wanted a bath tub.
The hotel was conveniently right next door to Viva Coffee, so we ate there for dinner. In Vietnam, most cafes are also restaurants. Tien's mom called up worried and told us that the weather was bad in Nha Trang. Her mom worries about everything, but this time she was right. The latest AP headline read something about 32 people being dead from flooding up towards Hanoi. There was a photo o a man motorbiking in Nha Trang in over a foot of water that covered a whole street, and it was still raining.
Wednesday morning I got out of bed, picked up my laptop and found tiny bugs crawling on it. The Bui Phan had them as well... On top of that there was heavy construction going on outside our hotel.
Tien and I had a late breakfast and talked about cultural differences like how multicultural different cultures are and how conservative they are. Afterwards we went online and looked up new destinations. Traveling as a pair was expensive and airfare was also looking more expensive because it was nearing time for peoples fall and winter getaways. We thought about going to Thailand and I even got in touch with a friend of a Sara's whose family owns a resort north of Phuket. We didn't decide on anything then.
Instead we went out for a walk to look for an external hard disk that I'd meant to install in my laptop before leaving America. As we left the hotel I saw a Yamaha R6 parked at the motorbike shop next door. It was remarkable because nobody rides anything over about 110cc in Vietnam and this was at least 600. Also, almost nobody rides real motorcycles, just scooters which are more practical.
We walked a long way stopping at computer shops and explaining to them what exactly I was looking for, a FireWire 2.5" SATA external hard drive case. Amazingly this was t all that hard. For one, I had one with me so I could just show them and then point out that I just needed the case, a d two, there were plenty of computer part shops with drive cases. To my dismay, none had FireWire ones so I had to settle for USB. the sad life of a technology enthusiast.
On the way home I saw a shirt that said "Hollister California" and hated fashion. What on earth is so great about Hollister? I'd never liked that brand and I liked it even less knowing that it could be found in Vietnam, knock-off or not.
Back at the hotel a confusing technological coincidence happened where my old 500gb drive had mysteriously quit working while we were out looking for a new case, which meant I didn't even need a new case. It also meant I had lost all of my photos and music. On top of that, I broke my only screwdriver while I was right in the middle of investigating the problem so I had a pile of computer parts on a hotel bed and no way to assemble them.
The hotel was conveniently right next door to Viva Coffee, so we ate there for dinner. In Vietnam, most cafes are also restaurants. Tien's mom called up worried and told us that the weather was bad in Nha Trang. Her mom worries about everything, but this time she was right. The latest AP headline read something about 32 people being dead from flooding up towards Hanoi. There was a photo o a man motorbiking in Nha Trang in over a foot of water that covered a whole street, and it was still raining.
Wednesday morning I got out of bed, picked up my laptop and found tiny bugs crawling on it. The Bui Phan had them as well... On top of that there was heavy construction going on outside our hotel.
Tien and I had a late breakfast and talked about cultural differences like how multicultural different cultures are and how conservative they are. Afterwards we went online and looked up new destinations. Traveling as a pair was expensive and airfare was also looking more expensive because it was nearing time for peoples fall and winter getaways. We thought about going to Thailand and I even got in touch with a friend of a Sara's whose family owns a resort north of Phuket. We didn't decide on anything then.
Instead we went out for a walk to look for an external hard disk that I'd meant to install in my laptop before leaving America. As we left the hotel I saw a Yamaha R6 parked at the motorbike shop next door. It was remarkable because nobody rides anything over about 110cc in Vietnam and this was at least 600. Also, almost nobody rides real motorcycles, just scooters which are more practical.
We walked a long way stopping at computer shops and explaining to them what exactly I was looking for, a FireWire 2.5" SATA external hard drive case. Amazingly this was t all that hard. For one, I had one with me so I could just show them and then point out that I just needed the case, a d two, there were plenty of computer part shops with drive cases. To my dismay, none had FireWire ones so I had to settle for USB. the sad life of a technology enthusiast.
On the way home I saw a shirt that said "Hollister California" and hated fashion. What on earth is so great about Hollister? I'd never liked that brand and I liked it even less knowing that it could be found in Vietnam, knock-off or not.
Back at the hotel a confusing technological coincidence happened where my old 500gb drive had mysteriously quit working while we were out looking for a new case, which meant I didn't even need a new case. It also meant I had lost all of my photos and music. On top of that, I broke my only screwdriver while I was right in the middle of investigating the problem so I had a pile of computer parts on a hotel bed and no way to assemble them. • • • • •
2009.11.04 by Daniel
Political talk at dinner
While the tragic mystery of my corrupt hard disk was unfolding I made progress with other technology. A new version of Blackra1n had come out that allowed me to upgrade my iPhone from 3.0.1 to 3.1.2 and jailbreak it. This was the simplest iPhone jailbreak ever and had the option to only do the network unlock and not install other low level tools or app installers. Getting to 3.1x was good because there are some useful apps that don't run on older versions, like Dropbox. Yelp also doesn't run on older versions, but that's not helpful outside of America.
Tien and I went for another walk to find a screwdriver and some dinner. We tracked down a screwdriver with little problem and on the way back to the restaurant we found a doughnut shop. Regular people do not eat doughnuts before dinner, but Tien had never had a doughnut before so we indulged and bought six. We walked down the street and shared three of them on the way to dinner.
We chose Viva Coffee for dinner and got a table on the upstairs patio. During this stay in Saigon we ended up eating there quite a bit no only because most of our other outings to find decent restaurants came up fruitless, but because it was literally 2 skinny VN doors down from our hotel.
We had only ever sat downstairs outside, and as we made our way through the inside and upstairs we found that the rest of the cafe was quite different. Outside was decent patio furniture and glass tables with trees that had colored lights hanging from the branches. There were large reaching awnings that could be set nearby your table to give you cover if you needed it. Inside there were rooms with bright colors under dim light with couches set around central coffee tables. The stairs going up were zebra print. There were large screen TVs everywhere playing various asian and American movies. There was even a large TV outside where we were going and at first nobody was there to watch it.
We ordered dinner and I had a cocktail. The cocktails in Asia are never, ever as good as they are in America. Most aren't even close to the same taste, and sometimes they're flat out wrong. I had been making my way through the cocktail list trying to find anything that was made right, but this last night turned out to be no victorious climax as I was served a Sex on the Beach with a cherry, a pineapple and a little straw hat as garnish. Not even close. Fortunately it still tasted decent, whatever it was.
Tien and I talked about differences again, mostly differences in freedom. I explained again how Americans have rights that we believe that every person should have by default, not because of some exception or allowance in the law that says it's OK, but because it's a right that should never be taken away. Free speech, freedom of religion, the right to bare arms, etc.. The freedom of speech was a big point. She kept asking me if there was anything an American could say that would get them in trouble. I told her there really wasn't, we were free to say whatever we like. We could bad mouth the government, the police, the president, whoever we want that we disagree with. If you got in trouble it was because of the circumstances surrounding what you said or it was unjust. She thought this was amazing because, of course, she's from Vietnam where they say you can say what you want but then they don't let you say anything contrary to popular thought or anti-government or revolutionary. The VN government is even giving buddhist monks a hard time because they see even such a passive religion as competition to the leadership of the government.
We also talked a lot about gun ownership and how that is a dividing issue in America. Tien said she's really scared of guns and she thinks that Americans always want to shoot and kill each other because that's what's on TV and in the movies. Obviously she doesn't think American life is really like the movies, but to what extent it is different she does not know. I explained both sides of the argument and then went into detail about my perspective on the issue, that we should be allowed to own guns in order to protect ourselves from intruders and as principle to keep oppressors in check.
While we were chatting and eating I checked my phone and saw that my brother had posted a Facebook update. After 4 years in the Army, including two tours in Iraq as a combat medic, he was once again a civilian.
Tien and I went for another walk to find a screwdriver and some dinner. We tracked down a screwdriver with little problem and on the way back to the restaurant we found a doughnut shop. Regular people do not eat doughnuts before dinner, but Tien had never had a doughnut before so we indulged and bought six. We walked down the street and shared three of them on the way to dinner.
We chose Viva Coffee for dinner and got a table on the upstairs patio. During this stay in Saigon we ended up eating there quite a bit no only because most of our other outings to find decent restaurants came up fruitless, but because it was literally 2 skinny VN doors down from our hotel.
We had only ever sat downstairs outside, and as we made our way through the inside and upstairs we found that the rest of the cafe was quite different. Outside was decent patio furniture and glass tables with trees that had colored lights hanging from the branches. There were large reaching awnings that could be set nearby your table to give you cover if you needed it. Inside there were rooms with bright colors under dim light with couches set around central coffee tables. The stairs going up were zebra print. There were large screen TVs everywhere playing various asian and American movies. There was even a large TV outside where we were going and at first nobody was there to watch it.
We ordered dinner and I had a cocktail. The cocktails in Asia are never, ever as good as they are in America. Most aren't even close to the same taste, and sometimes they're flat out wrong. I had been making my way through the cocktail list trying to find anything that was made right, but this last night turned out to be no victorious climax as I was served a Sex on the Beach with a cherry, a pineapple and a little straw hat as garnish. Not even close. Fortunately it still tasted decent, whatever it was.
Tien and I talked about differences again, mostly differences in freedom. I explained again how Americans have rights that we believe that every person should have by default, not because of some exception or allowance in the law that says it's OK, but because it's a right that should never be taken away. Free speech, freedom of religion, the right to bare arms, etc.. The freedom of speech was a big point. She kept asking me if there was anything an American could say that would get them in trouble. I told her there really wasn't, we were free to say whatever we like. We could bad mouth the government, the police, the president, whoever we want that we disagree with. If you got in trouble it was because of the circumstances surrounding what you said or it was unjust. She thought this was amazing because, of course, she's from Vietnam where they say you can say what you want but then they don't let you say anything contrary to popular thought or anti-government or revolutionary. The VN government is even giving buddhist monks a hard time because they see even such a passive religion as competition to the leadership of the government.
We also talked a lot about gun ownership and how that is a dividing issue in America. Tien said she's really scared of guns and she thinks that Americans always want to shoot and kill each other because that's what's on TV and in the movies. Obviously she doesn't think American life is really like the movies, but to what extent it is different she does not know. I explained both sides of the argument and then went into detail about my perspective on the issue, that we should be allowed to own guns in order to protect ourselves from intruders and as principle to keep oppressors in check.
While we were chatting and eating I checked my phone and saw that my brother had posted a Facebook update. After 4 years in the Army, including two tours in Iraq as a combat medic, he was once again a civilian. • • • • •
2009.11.02 by Daniel
Day to day in Binh Hoa
Friday we woke up and did some internet stuff. I was catching up on a lot of Internet in the morning. Tien got me a breakfast sandwich and made me a banana and strawberry smoothie. What a lucky guy I am, my fiance bringing me food at my computer!
Tien found the information we needed about how to get me a drivers license in Vietnam and it was incredibly simple. We headed to Long Xuyen to get the things we needed in order to apply for it: a photograph of 20x23mm and a notarized translation of my CA driver's license. We also cruised around to look for a DC power adapter since I forgot the one that goes with the WRT54G that I brought from America. We found one near a park, and after buying it I decided to go take some photos in the park. I was looking for high places to photograph down from in order to make the miniature perspective of the tilt/shift work, so we also headed up to the Panda Cafe on the 6th floor of a building overlooking a main intersection and had some drinks and took some more photos from there. We then cruised down to a local market area, past a block full of flower vendors that smelled a lot like San Jose smells in the spring. I told Tien about this as we were passing through. We picked up some stuff for Thu and headed home to spend the evening hanging out with her family. I tried to hook up the WRT54G and found that the power adapter did not work.
Saturday morning we woke up and headed straight to the translation service and then to the police station. It was a day for people to drop things. While we were riding along I saw three people drop things off of their motorbikes. I've also noticed that school is in session now because the streets are full of uniformed students. The girls look beautiful in their all-white traditional clothes, and the boys have a classic schoolboy look in their blue pants, white shirts and red ties. Most of them ride bicycles to school, some hitching rides with others or on motorbikes.
When we got to the police station they informed us that they couldn't give me a driver's license unless my visa was good for at least 3 more months. This was mildly disappointing and I couldn't help but wonder if it was a subtle attempt at extortion. I didn't care enough to find out so we left and went to have brunch at a cafe where we often used to go to surf the net. The food was OK and the drinks were great. We talked about our plans to travel to Nha Trang and possibly to Thailand, what else we would do while I was here, and about whether or not I would return to the USA on Nov 25th, which I think is likely.
We went and swapped the power adapter for one that we thought should work even though it was slightly underpowered, cruised the 20 minutes home from Long Xuyen and found that it did not work. I really didn't think it would be so hard to find a 12v 500mA DC adapter, but surprise surprise, Vietnam is full of surprises.
That evening we went out in the neighborhood for a walk. We stopped at a little cafe where some locals were watching a ridiculous television show. We ate ice cream and mosquitoes ate me. My ice cream was one of those triple flavors, chocolate, mint and durian. That was interesting... it's the first time I've had durian since I knew it was the "stinky fruit." It definitely has a very, very odd and distinct flavor and scent.
Tien and I ate dinner on the floor with her mom and sister that evening. I was a little melancholy and I think this made them slightly uncomfortable, but it's not like we could talk about it. The side-effects of not being able to speak to anybody except Tien were beginning to get to me.
Aside from nonverbal communication, another thing that was getting to me was a pain I'd had in my ankle. Ever since I got off the plane in Tokyo I had a pretty significant pain in my left ankle. I thought it might be a pulled muscle or a bruise on my ankle, but the more I had thought about it the more I thought it might be something with my ligaments. It is a pain stretching from the middle of my shin on the inside, down to the top part of my ankle joint, and also is affected by the arch of my foot. Tien gave me a massage and rubbed some Ben Gay™ that her brother in law had brought from america and that made it feel much better, though not healed.
Sunday morning I woke up at 7:15, which is early for me. While Tien and I were at the market having breakfast I saw a shirt that said "Do u know now much plannet u mean to me" and thought that was pretty funny. We talked a bit about where we wanted to go on a trip, and afterwards we headed to Long Xuyen to find yet another power adapter.
After visiting about 10 stores we finally tracked down a 498mA power adapter and decided to buy it even though the man at the shop said it was not very good quality. We took a back road to get back to the main road which I always enjoy because I like seeing new areas. The road took us by the river and on the way we found a crowd of people standing at the waters edge. They weren't celebrating, but they weren't frantic either. Tien listened to what they were saying and told me that a child had fallen into the river.
A man away from the crowd began to shout, but nobody payed attention. I thought this was interesting because it seems that Vietnamese people shout a lot. This ended up being one of those "never cry wolf" situations because he was trying to tell them he saw something in the water. A few more people also began shouting and soon a teenage boy ran over and jumped in the water to look for the child there. Several people swam along the shore, which dropped off very steeply, and were diving under looking for the child. We stayed a while but the child was never found...
I had talked to Tien before about how children here are not taught to swim which leads to many of them drowning, and here was a real life example of such a tragedy. I feel stupid and ashamed that I never thought about the fact that the children in Tien's family can't swim and it wasn't until a few days later that one of her other family members suggested that they be put in swimming lessons. Tien couldn't swim when I met her, and I wondered if anybody else in her family could.
When we got home I tried the power adapter on the wireless router and it was too unstable and thus did not work. I decided to give up on the whole thing, I'll just mail the power adapter once I get back to the USA.
That night I opened a bottle of Da Lat red and had wine with dinner. It was the first wine I'd had since leaving California and it was delicious and familiar. It felt good to have a familiar taste that is heavily bound to California. That night I slept deeply.
Tien and I had planned to go to Nha Trang on Monday, a beach resort town up towards Danang, but that morning Tien said we weren't going to go. She had a sore on her mouth and did not want to travel far until it was healed. I wasn't sure if this was for medical or aesthetic reasons, though I suspected both and agreed.
At breakfast I was trying to teach Ngoc some english words and realized that she had a very difficult time saying words that begin with the letter S. I asked Tien about it and she said there are very few words in Vietnamese that begin with that letter. I thought about phonetics exercises and games that we could do to train her mouth to say english words.
Instead of going to Nha Trang we talked about going back to Mt. Cam where we could hike up the mountain and swim in the pools of the stream that go down from the lake on top of the mountain. We made tentative plans to do this the next day. We also made tentative plans to teach Ngoc and Nhi how to swim in the pool in Long Xuyen.
We had lunch and I wondered about why there were no tuk tuk's in Vietnam. Tien said that her dad and brother both used to be tuk tuk drivers, but a while back the police said that people weren't allowed to have them anymore. She couldn't explain the detailed reasons why, but said that one of the reasons was because there were too many motorbikes. I suspected that the tuk tuks were causing accidents or clogged traffic. I found it hard to believe that anything was limited on the streets of Vietnam, it seems like you can ride whatever you can build on the street.
That afternoon was very uneventful and empty, and the boredom of Binh Hoa began to set in. We were going nowhere and I couldn't talk to anybody except Tien. I was sitting idle and feeling like I was wasting away. Tien and her sisters decided that evening that we would go to a Catholic All Saints Day festival that was going on up the highway. I wasn't in much of a mood to go by this point, but it was better than sitting at home and I was up for anything at that point.
The crowd was huge. People were filling up the little two lane highway and vendors came to sell flashy lights, stuffed animals, foods, all sorts of trinkets and just about anything. There were hundreds of people walking along the highway buying things, chatting, riding bikes, talking on cell phones, etc.. Some were going to the graveyard to burn incense and light candles for their loved ones. Very few were going to church to pray.
I felt very uncomfortable in that crowd. It was like being so famous that every single person in the crowd knew me, but I wasn't famous for necessarily good reasons. And it was like I had a sign around my neck that said "please say hello." Hundreds of eyes watched me as I did absolutely nothing interesting. People laughed and joked while watching me. Dozens of people shouted "hello" and dozens more said things that I couldn't understand. If I had been in a better mood I think it might have been OK, but with my frustrations from being so idle I wasn't really in a good mood for it.
Instead I just tried to take photos of stuff, but was uninspired. The night was also very dark and it was hard to get a clear picture. We went to the church and I took some photographs of that, lamenting that I had no tripod. I resolved to buy one or make one.
The incense at the church smelled wonderful on the air and there was a full moon.
That night I talked briefly with Tien about how I was frustrated with the inability to communicate and the fact that we weren't finding anything to do except be lazy at home. We decided to go ahead and go to Nha Trang.
• • • • •
2009.10.31 by Daniel
Returning to Binh Hoa and Long Xuyen
Wednesday we got breakfast at a new place. It was in the tourist area in Pham Ngu Lao and had a menu in English, French and Vietnamese. We both ordered orange juice that was fresh squeezed and not sweetened. Its natural flavor was delicious and a nice contrast to the MSG overload from the previous night. The food was so so, you really can't male a tomato omelet too bad or too good.
We headed back to the hotel where I heard from David that he thought he might be contagious and didn't want to expose us, so he declined a meeting and wished us well. With that we decided to plan our return to binh hoa. Tien heard that her cousin was driving to Saigon and back that evening. At first we thought this would be great, but she changed her mind after hearing that there were many people coming along because it was a bus. She said that because we would be guests it would be a cultural obligation for us to buy food for everybody, which would be fine if it were just a few people in the car, but not with a bus full of people. We decided to get bus tickets instead. She arranged them, we packed our bags, checked out and headed off to the bus stop in a taxi.
The taxi took a route that was unfamiliar, through new, wide streets with overpasses and bridges over a river. It was unlike any roads I'd seen in Saigon. It was modern, something I'd expect to find in Hanoi. It made me happy to see Saigon taking on this sort of project.
We were dropped off at a bus stop that I don't think we've ever been to before. After getting our tickets we had thirty minutes left so we got food and coffee. This may have been the dirtiest bus stop I've ever seen, but the food and coffee were delicious.
We boarded our bus and it was very familiar. It's interesting to be familiar with something when you don't understand any of the words that are being said there. I doubt I could navigate this bus system myself. Incidentally though, the man sitting next to me spoke English, which may be a first for Vietnamese buses. Tien and I played wurdle until the bus pulled out of the parking lot, which felt like it was pocked with craters. The music went on and tien fell asleep. I wrote this, and now the man on my right and tien on my left are Leaning their heads on my shoulder as I peck away on my iPhone. I wonder if the camera on the iPhone has a wide enough angle to capture this scene...
Our bus stopped at the usual spot to refuel and let us all move our legs, freshen up and get food. Tien and I ordered pho and it was absolutely delicious. This was great not only because I have a head cold, but I have had a long string of mediocre or bad pho for I don't know how long. Coffee and tea were also nice. We headed off again and got to Binh Hoa after dark.
Mai and Thu met us down the street from Tien's house with motorbikes and rode us home where the family was waiting. It was really great to see everybody and to be home. Tien and I sat in the living room with her mother and sisters and nieces enjoying each other's company and catching up on the last few days. I passed out some gifts I had brought from America, jewelry for the ladies and Jelly Bellies for the kids. Tien's brother said that he was raising frogs. Everybody thought I should take medicine for my cough and that I should eat food, but honestly I wasn't hungry. Tien warmed some water for me, I took a shower and passed out. It's amazing how traveling can wear you out sometimes.
I had a good night's sleep despite that I had to wake up and pee twice during the night. At Tien's house this isn't such a simple thing. You have to unlock this huge steel gate and slide it back, which makes a loud screeching metal sound. The day was already warming up and I took a cold shower that felt nice.
Tien's sister in law was out on the back porch mincing a bunch of tiny fish. I had seen a slap-chop in CA before I left and thought it might be a good gift. I still wonder how it would've gone over...
Tien and I went to the market for breakfast and had hu tieu and coffee. Familiar food and familiar faces. Afterwards we went to see Thu's new house being built. It is a two story brick and cement house at the edge of the market in Binh Hoa, about a city block from Tien's parents house. Later Tien would show me a rendering of what it will look like and it looks pretty cool. It has an upstairs patio, which I love. Thu found one that is similar but looks different and more to her liking, but the builders say they can't make changes after they've started building.
We headed back through the market and went shopping for fruits and vegetables. This is an open air market with fruits and meats laying out in the open air. There were several fruits that I didn't recognize. Thu bought one and cut it up for us to eat and it was very delicious. It tasted like a grapefruit but had a much thicker rind. In fact, it did end up being a grapefruit, but not the ones commonly seen in America.
We headed home and took a nap. I couldn't sleep much so I played Field Runners, which I haven't played in a long time and not since they upgraded some features. Tien gave me a massage, one of the things I really missed.
That evening we went to Long Xuyen and had dinner on a boat that cruised up and down the river. It was fun, but the boat was really loud and vibrated a lot. Nhi's spoon kept shaking in her bowl, I guess she had the epicenter of the vibrations below her. I spotted a medkit and felt like I was in a video game.
• • • • •
2009.10.28 by Daniel
Killing time in Saigon
On Monday, Tien and I decided to find a new breakfast place. We walked several blocks through the heart of the tourist area at Pham Ngu Lao and found a lot of places that looked overpriced and inauthentic. I honestly don't like things to be too touristy, so when I see people with color t-shirts from the cities they have visited sitting at a fancy looking restaurant where all the seats face the street, I shy away. We walked down a block with big business offices and came upon a fancy cafe with about 20 motorbikes out front and knew it must be good. This is how I am going to gauge restaurants from now on, by how many motorbikes are out front. If there are few it's either bad food or for tourists.
After breakfast we again we went looking for meds and found nothing. Tien said she'd call her friend who is a doctor and ask him about it. We walked and talked and went and had smoothies. We, or rather I, talked a lot about music and culture and how I feel like VN is prime for an alternative culture to thrive. I feel like there is a lot of artistic talent here that has no direction and is still tied to the traditions of the culture, and that if there was a cultural icon who broke away from that tradition it would have a huge effect on the direction of the next generations. Music and visual art were my two main points of illustration. The fact that there is no alternative music to speak of and no graffiti in Saigon demonstrate the ties to cultural traditions.
We headed back to the hotel room and did some research online about pharmacies and malaria. I was horrified by the stories of people on Lariam (Mefloquine). The photos and story of the Somalia Affair were enough for me to stay away from that med. Malarone was probably out of the question, but I did find doxycycline and that looked very promising. What was even more promising was learning that Vietnam doesn't even have much of a malaria problem to begin with, and that's why it's so hard to find anti-malarials. Apparently there is only a problem with malaria in the high regions surrounding Laos, and one remote forested region down south. Tien's doctor friend said this and I didn't believe it at first, but I found malaria maps online to back it up. I wondered about the american medical system...
Again I napped, and again it was too long. I've decided to call off afternoon naps at all costs until I get my sleep schedule well in order. Tien and I woke up just after sunset and went to have dinner. We had pho, and we played a word game that I played with Lila's son Maks in the car on the way to the airport where you find a word that begins with the last letter of the previous word. Car, Road, Dream, Mellon, Nearby. This was a fun game to play for the word association aspect of it and for the vocabulary aspect for Tien.
After dinner we wandered back to a pirate DVD and Book store we found on my last trip, got some movies. We ate smoothies on the way back to the hotel, then stayed up late watching Minority Report on my laptop.
On Tuesday Tien and I went back to coffee viva for breakfast. We sat in the back next to a bronze statue of a topless girl reclining and arching her back. There was supposed to be a fountain or pond, but it was dry and smelled like fish so we moved. Over breakfast we talked about things we could do on this trip. We considered Ha Tien Beach, Ha Long Bay since she had never been there and Nha Trang since I had never been there. Other countries were also considered but Laos was ruled out with the highlands of Vietnam because of malaria. We also talked about getting me a motorbike license back in Long Xuyen.
On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a motorbike rental shop and looked at prices. It was $6 a day including helmets, which sounded really appealing. We decided to go plan more at the hotel and come back when we needed the bike. We picked up a pizza for an afternoon snack and went to a park by the hotel to look for a geocache. We found where the cache was but decided not to get it in the broad daylight because of the muggles. Instead we went to the hotel and chilled out for a while and ate our pizza. Tien called her old teacher Tyler about hanging out with him but he was busy that evening. I heard back from David that he was back from Singapore but was sick. He was resting for the rest of the day and would let me know if he was feeling better the next day. So, with nowhere to go we decided to nap.
We went out to walk around at dinnertime and had trouble agreeing on a restaurant. Tien eventually pointed to a decent looking place that was Australian themed. I got a big Saigon Red beer and some beef with rice. It was absolutely delicious at first bite, then I was hit by the MSG train. It wasn't a hint, it was obvious. Fortunately it was in the sauce and I was able to eat a lot of the rice and other tasty bits without it tasting too bad, but my mouth was still tingly afterwards. Tien's mixed fried rice wasn't too bad, but I directed us to our now usual smoothie spot for after MSG cleansing. The smoothie shop was conveniently right across from the geocache, which is now the only cache in Saigon. We found it quickly, took a trackable and went back to the hotel. We put on Harry Potter and the half blood prince but fell asleep about thirty minutes in, not because it was a bad movie.
• • • • •
2009.10.25 by Daniel
Hanging out with Dat and Trinh
On Sunday, my first morning back in Vietnam, Tien and I went to our old breakfast place. It was OK, but honestly it's lost its sentimental value with the realization that it's not that great of a restaurant. It is very convenient though. After breakfast we went back to the hotel room and did some online stuff and fell asleep for a long, long time.
When we woke up, Tien's friend Trinh and her boyfriend Dat were on their way to visit us with a couple of motorbikes. Tien and I hadn't eaten dinner yet so when they arrived we went out to find some food. We'd planned on getting pho, but Tien forgot about that and we ended up going to KFC. I was amused by this, expecting their menu to have interesting variations not available in America, but I didn't see anything that was out of the ordinary. I quizzed Tien on what KFC meant and who that guy was, and she had absolutely no idea. Not much of a surprise there from a girl who didn't know McDonalds or Starbucks until she went to Malaysia, and this is one of the things I love about her.
After dinner we headed out into the night traffic and instantly got separated from Dat and Trinh. Saigon traffic can be pretty crazy and Tien isn't used to the big city so she isn't assertive in her motorbiking. This later lead to us putting more effort into figuring out how to get me a motorbike license in VN. The four of us on two bikes cruised around the city a little bit in rain amounts varying between none and pouring, but it was warm so it wasn't all that bad. We did get drenched though, and decided to just call it a night.
That night I found it very hard to sleep, most likely from how long I'd slept earlier that day.
Monday morning we woke up and tried to find a place different from the usual place we eat breakfast, but couldn't find anything before our hunger took priority and we went back there. On our walk we saw a minor motorbike crash. I haven't seen many traffic accidents here, and none have been bad since people tend to go pretty slowly, but this was the first of two that I saw that day.
Trinh and Dat came back to the hotel and we four headed out to a park where Trinh liked to go a lot when she still had free time, Bình Quoí 1. It was labeled as a tourist park, but was essentially a portrait photographers playground. 
There were barely any tourists there, but what there were plenty of was beautiful girls dressed to the 9's posing in front of cameras. There were also several couples who were getting their engagement photos taken by professional photography crews, complete with off-cam lighting, props and makeup artists. The park was laid out with paths leading past backdrop after backdrop. A waterfall, a cart, a cyclo, a ruined brick wall, a ruined wall with pillars, a stone with flowers next to a pond, a bench on a lawn, a bamboo swing, a barrel and ladle, a causeway across a pond, a canoe in the pond, water lilies, flowers growing in vines up trees, stone statues, so on and so forth. This made it easy for photographers to play musical backdrops with each other, shuffling from one to the next to put their respective couples into the various scenes. Honestly it was pretty brilliant, and it didn't cost anything for us to get in either. I assume they made their money off charging professional crews and selling food and water at the eateries that were scattered throughout the campus.
The four of us spent an hour or so walking around and taking photographs, then headed back towards downtown. We stopped on the way back and I got some absolutely terrible spaghetti carbonara while Tien enjoyed delicious vietnamese food. I resolved not to buy anything too culinarily distant from VN food from now on.
On the way home I saw a blind beggar holding a cane and a hat with his eyes rolled back in his head kneeling at the side of the road where hundreds of motorbikes were passing by.
Back near the hotel Tien and I tried to find a pharmacy for my malaria meds but couldn't find anything. We resolved to find it later and went back inside to take a rest. I fell asleep and didn't wake up for several hours. My sleeping schedule still hadn't adjusted yet and it was taking a toll on my daylight hours and my energy.
We went briefly out with Dat and Trinh again to grab some dinner, then they headed home while Tien and I retired to the old Ruby Star.
• • • • •
2009.10.23 by Daniel
My layover in japan was short and nice. I walked around a bit and Took pictures during sunset, then developed some photos from a photoshoot I did for Rob's friends last weekend. I didn't bother with the $6 Internet and before I knew it I was boarding the flight to Saigon.
Vietnamese people are chatty, social people. I really wonder it is they talk about so much. One man dropped a bag out o an overhead bin onto another mans head across the aisle from me then apologized profusely. There were kids running up and down the aisle of the plane, standing on the seat playing with the lights, and a man got out of his seat right as we were about to take off to help a woman with a screaming baby. I couldn't help but smile at it all, what a show.
I sat next to a couple from Indiana who was on their way to volunteer at a cafe called the masters cup which I took to be a Christian entity. They were nice folks and I talked to the gentleman about traveling in Asia. He mentioned that VN was limiting visas since about a month ago, not giving out more than 30 day visas and for only a single entry. Good thing I've still got my 6 month with over 30 days left. He later said that he had been in Vietnam during the war, which makes him the first American I'd talked to about the war who had actually been in the war and then come back. Regrettably we didn't get much time to talk about it because I didn't find this out until the end of the flight.
We taxied forever and I soon drifted off with drams about taxiing to the coast of japan and then floating off across the ocean to Vietnam instead of actually flying there. I woke up briefly for takeoff and then fell asleep to the feelings of the g-force and the many conversations all around, both of which were surprisingly calming. But then, it was 3am so maybe that had something to do with it as well.
I thought I was dreaming when I woke up. On television was a mix between Harry potter, star wars episode 1 and star trek. I wasn't dreaming though, apparently this is some dreadful new show. I kept anticipating a light saber duel between Spock and Malfoy.
I ordered a glass of wine and it was poured from an opaque plastic bottle you'd expect to find juice in. Meh, it was free so I can't complain.
We landed late and sat on the plane for a while before heading to the gate. I breezed through immigration and customs to find my lovely fiancé Tien and her awesome sister Mai waiting for me at the front door. We eventually found a taxi that would take Mai to the bus stop after dropping Tien and I of at the familiar Ruby Star.
The streets of Saigon were mostly empty due to what must have been a decent rain. They were wet and shiny and looked clean. It was great to have my fiancé back after so long apart and so many frustrations with I-129F. Here we were though, back in Saigon. It was very familiar and it seemed like only yesterday that I had been here.
October arrival in Saigon
My layover in japan was short and nice. I walked around a bit and Took pictures during sunset, then developed some photos from a photoshoot I did for Rob's friends last weekend. I didn't bother with the $6 Internet and before I knew it I was boarding the flight to Saigon.
Vietnamese people are chatty, social people. I really wonder it is they talk about so much. One man dropped a bag out o an overhead bin onto another mans head across the aisle from me then apologized profusely. There were kids running up and down the aisle of the plane, standing on the seat playing with the lights, and a man got out of his seat right as we were about to take off to help a woman with a screaming baby. I couldn't help but smile at it all, what a show.
I sat next to a couple from Indiana who was on their way to volunteer at a cafe called the masters cup which I took to be a Christian entity. They were nice folks and I talked to the gentleman about traveling in Asia. He mentioned that VN was limiting visas since about a month ago, not giving out more than 30 day visas and for only a single entry. Good thing I've still got my 6 month with over 30 days left. He later said that he had been in Vietnam during the war, which makes him the first American I'd talked to about the war who had actually been in the war and then come back. Regrettably we didn't get much time to talk about it because I didn't find this out until the end of the flight.
We taxied forever and I soon drifted off with drams about taxiing to the coast of japan and then floating off across the ocean to Vietnam instead of actually flying there. I woke up briefly for takeoff and then fell asleep to the feelings of the g-force and the many conversations all around, both of which were surprisingly calming. But then, it was 3am so maybe that had something to do with it as well.
I thought I was dreaming when I woke up. On television was a mix between Harry potter, star wars episode 1 and star trek. I wasn't dreaming though, apparently this is some dreadful new show. I kept anticipating a light saber duel between Spock and Malfoy.
I ordered a glass of wine and it was poured from an opaque plastic bottle you'd expect to find juice in. Meh, it was free so I can't complain.
We landed late and sat on the plane for a while before heading to the gate. I breezed through immigration and customs to find my lovely fiancé Tien and her awesome sister Mai waiting for me at the front door. We eventually found a taxi that would take Mai to the bus stop after dropping Tien and I of at the familiar Ruby Star.
The streets of Saigon were mostly empty due to what must have been a decent rain. They were wet and shiny and looked clean. It was great to have my fiancé back after so long apart and so many frustrations with I-129F. Here we were though, back in Saigon. It was very familiar and it seemed like only yesterday that I had been here. • • • • •
2009.10.22 by Daniel
Heading back to Vietnam
It's been a long time since I've written anything, mainly because I haven't been traveling. 
I left Colorado and drove back to San Francisco in mid August, over two months ago. In that time I've mainly been focusing on two things: finishing an I-129f petition for Tien and studying and practicing flash photography. Most of that time has been spent sleeping on the floor or couch in Brianna, Lily and Terresina's living room. I did get a sublet for a few weeks right up on top of twin peaks, and I did stay with some other friend in that time. Some people had suggested that I get a job and an apartment and prepare for Tien's arrival in the US, but I just didn't want to do things that way. Instead, once I finished Tien's petition I decided to go back to Vietnam. So, here I am on Northwest Airlines flight 27 from San Francisco to Tokyo where I have a quick layover before flying to Saigon.
Honestly, the last few months have been difficult personally because my future has been up in the air and it's been up to me to steer the direction of my life through wide open uncertain circumstances. My fiance is still in Vietnam and probably can't enter the US for 7 more months. I've been wading through the US immigration system pretty much on my own. I have no job and no home of my own. There was the option of starting up a photography business of my own. For a while I didn't even have a phone, then I realized that was ridiculous and forked over $70 a month for an iPhone plan which was extra great because of tethering. I still don't have health insurance which led to me skipping an optional vaccination and needing to find malaria meds in VN because I didn't find the SF Travel Clinic until last night, and I just started planning this trip 3 days ago.
Two nights ago I took the girls out for dinner as a thank you for being so hospitable and to have one last great time with them before heading out. Yesterday I took care of last minute preparations. One of the things I did was buy a pocket camera to replace the LX3 I had purchased in Saigon last time. I lost the LX3 at Lovefest after drinking a bit too much. I honestly have no idea where I lost it, but I was happy I didn't lose my D300 instead. The camera I picked up was a $150 Samsung NV24HD. The look is what first caught my eye, then its remarkable interface, then its ability to do 60fps video and lastly its 24mm equivalent lens. A few quick googles showed happy owners so I followed the impulse and bought it. Following impulses is working out pretty good for me.
That night I headed down to Lila's house to crash there for the night. Will had wrecked one of their cars so like last time I let her them borrow mine. This works out great because they get a car and i don't have to pay storage costs. Lila and I took Maks to his new school in Palo Alto and then she dropped me off at SFO. My friend Blake is living out in SF now and was flying back to CO for a week, so I met up with him at the airport after checking in for my flight. We caught up on recent life details and future life strategy while he waited in an incredibly long line at the Southwest Airlines ticket counter. I left him still in it when I had to go to the international area.
At the security checkpoint I was happy to see that they had gotten rid of that lame requirement to remove your laptop. The posted signs only said to remove oxygen mask systems, full size DVD players and game systems, but no mention of laptops anywhere. My happiness at not having to unpack my bag was ended with a snide comment from a TSA agent about how I was supposed to remove my laptop for the x-Ray machine. I wished her luck when she said she was going to take it out for me, but thought again about how I needed that luck since I'd be the one repacking my bag. Stupid TSA security theater.
I bought an $8 ham sandwich and a single serving bottle of wine because I'd need to sleep on the plane. International flights may be one of the only legitimate excuses for drinking in the morning. I ate, emailed Tien, canceled my per-month iPhone plan and boarded the plane. We took off ahead of schedule and are looking at a shorter than expected travel time. Maybe I'll catch sunset in Tokyo. Hopefully it's not foggy like last time.
My trip was taking the same route I took last time, SF to Tokyo to Saigon. Last time I flew on All Nippon Airways and it was absolutely the best airline experience I've ever had. I had tried to get another flight with them, but after searching I found that United and NWA (Delta) were roughly half the cost at $680 round trip. I thought this was a fantastic deal considering I was buying two days in advance, but then I remembered the recent flood that ravaged Hoi An and other coastal towns in that region and it made sense.
Transcontinental flights are already pretty awesome with their in-flight entertainment systems in each seat, typically more room than domestic flights and meals and drinks are included in the ticket price. I wasn't so sure how delta would stack up against Ana and was a little interested in finding out. 3 hours into my flight I have some results...
The entertainment system for the whole plane crashed shortly after I started using it. The flight attendant on the intercom said it would take 15 minutes to reboot, and it did. A sight that was familiar to me came on the screen: tux the penguin and a bunch of black and white textual technological jargon.
After a few iterations the system eventually stabilized and I was allowed the displeasure of finding innumerable bugs and limitations. The media wasn't sortable and was not listed alphabetically. When browsing reviews, the "next" function was 4 clicks away while the default was "watch trailer", which clearly assumes that people intend to watch trailers more than skip to the next review. The media was Aldo incorrectly linked so that clicking Forrest Gump let you watch a Honduran movie called Sin Nombre. There were 4 unhelpful listings for Delta TV that ended up being popular american television shows. The most disheartening thing was their lack of selection, there are only a handful of movies available, nothing for me to watch. The in-flight map showed that we had flown 8500 or so miles shortly after takeoff. This was accompanied by a flat map, not a globe. The "comments" link only let you take a survey and not actually leave comments, which stiles one my personal pet peeves of interface elements that say they do one thing and do something completely different. "Download now" is the worst offense of this kind on the Internet. So, yeah, big fail on the delta entertainment system unless the label it as alpha or maybe beta.
The next test was the meal. It was actually very good, but plastic silverware is wasteful and cheap. They did provide hand towels, coffee, beer and wine though, so that was also nice. All in all, not too bad.
One of the highlights o this trip is meeting up with an old room mate and coworker, David Tran. He's a Vietnamese Parisian who is on a trip to Saigon to see his family. he's actually in Singapore right now but will be returning on Monday which gives Tien and I some time to spend in Saigon with each other and her friend Trinh and gives me time to adjust to the time difference, find malarone and get started on that two day lead in before entering malaria infested areas.
I left Colorado and drove back to San Francisco in mid August, over two months ago. In that time I've mainly been focusing on two things: finishing an I-129f petition for Tien and studying and practicing flash photography. Most of that time has been spent sleeping on the floor or couch in Brianna, Lily and Terresina's living room. I did get a sublet for a few weeks right up on top of twin peaks, and I did stay with some other friend in that time. Some people had suggested that I get a job and an apartment and prepare for Tien's arrival in the US, but I just didn't want to do things that way. Instead, once I finished Tien's petition I decided to go back to Vietnam. So, here I am on Northwest Airlines flight 27 from San Francisco to Tokyo where I have a quick layover before flying to Saigon.
Honestly, the last few months have been difficult personally because my future has been up in the air and it's been up to me to steer the direction of my life through wide open uncertain circumstances. My fiance is still in Vietnam and probably can't enter the US for 7 more months. I've been wading through the US immigration system pretty much on my own. I have no job and no home of my own. There was the option of starting up a photography business of my own. For a while I didn't even have a phone, then I realized that was ridiculous and forked over $70 a month for an iPhone plan which was extra great because of tethering. I still don't have health insurance which led to me skipping an optional vaccination and needing to find malaria meds in VN because I didn't find the SF Travel Clinic until last night, and I just started planning this trip 3 days ago.
Two nights ago I took the girls out for dinner as a thank you for being so hospitable and to have one last great time with them before heading out. Yesterday I took care of last minute preparations. One of the things I did was buy a pocket camera to replace the LX3 I had purchased in Saigon last time. I lost the LX3 at Lovefest after drinking a bit too much. I honestly have no idea where I lost it, but I was happy I didn't lose my D300 instead. The camera I picked up was a $150 Samsung NV24HD. The look is what first caught my eye, then its remarkable interface, then its ability to do 60fps video and lastly its 24mm equivalent lens. A few quick googles showed happy owners so I followed the impulse and bought it. Following impulses is working out pretty good for me.
That night I headed down to Lila's house to crash there for the night. Will had wrecked one of their cars so like last time I let her them borrow mine. This works out great because they get a car and i don't have to pay storage costs. Lila and I took Maks to his new school in Palo Alto and then she dropped me off at SFO. My friend Blake is living out in SF now and was flying back to CO for a week, so I met up with him at the airport after checking in for my flight. We caught up on recent life details and future life strategy while he waited in an incredibly long line at the Southwest Airlines ticket counter. I left him still in it when I had to go to the international area.
At the security checkpoint I was happy to see that they had gotten rid of that lame requirement to remove your laptop. The posted signs only said to remove oxygen mask systems, full size DVD players and game systems, but no mention of laptops anywhere. My happiness at not having to unpack my bag was ended with a snide comment from a TSA agent about how I was supposed to remove my laptop for the x-Ray machine. I wished her luck when she said she was going to take it out for me, but thought again about how I needed that luck since I'd be the one repacking my bag. Stupid TSA security theater.
I bought an $8 ham sandwich and a single serving bottle of wine because I'd need to sleep on the plane. International flights may be one of the only legitimate excuses for drinking in the morning. I ate, emailed Tien, canceled my per-month iPhone plan and boarded the plane. We took off ahead of schedule and are looking at a shorter than expected travel time. Maybe I'll catch sunset in Tokyo. Hopefully it's not foggy like last time.
My trip was taking the same route I took last time, SF to Tokyo to Saigon. Last time I flew on All Nippon Airways and it was absolutely the best airline experience I've ever had. I had tried to get another flight with them, but after searching I found that United and NWA (Delta) were roughly half the cost at $680 round trip. I thought this was a fantastic deal considering I was buying two days in advance, but then I remembered the recent flood that ravaged Hoi An and other coastal towns in that region and it made sense.
Transcontinental flights are already pretty awesome with their in-flight entertainment systems in each seat, typically more room than domestic flights and meals and drinks are included in the ticket price. I wasn't so sure how delta would stack up against Ana and was a little interested in finding out. 3 hours into my flight I have some results...
The entertainment system for the whole plane crashed shortly after I started using it. The flight attendant on the intercom said it would take 15 minutes to reboot, and it did. A sight that was familiar to me came on the screen: tux the penguin and a bunch of black and white textual technological jargon.
After a few iterations the system eventually stabilized and I was allowed the displeasure of finding innumerable bugs and limitations. The media wasn't sortable and was not listed alphabetically. When browsing reviews, the "next" function was 4 clicks away while the default was "watch trailer", which clearly assumes that people intend to watch trailers more than skip to the next review. The media was Aldo incorrectly linked so that clicking Forrest Gump let you watch a Honduran movie called Sin Nombre. There were 4 unhelpful listings for Delta TV that ended up being popular american television shows. The most disheartening thing was their lack of selection, there are only a handful of movies available, nothing for me to watch. The in-flight map showed that we had flown 8500 or so miles shortly after takeoff. This was accompanied by a flat map, not a globe. The "comments" link only let you take a survey and not actually leave comments, which stiles one my personal pet peeves of interface elements that say they do one thing and do something completely different. "Download now" is the worst offense of this kind on the Internet. So, yeah, big fail on the delta entertainment system unless the label it as alpha or maybe beta.
The next test was the meal. It was actually very good, but plastic silverware is wasteful and cheap. They did provide hand towels, coffee, beer and wine though, so that was also nice. All in all, not too bad.
One of the highlights o this trip is meeting up with an old room mate and coworker, David Tran. He's a Vietnamese Parisian who is on a trip to Saigon to see his family. he's actually in Singapore right now but will be returning on Monday which gives Tien and I some time to spend in Saigon with each other and her friend Trinh and gives me time to adjust to the time difference, find malarone and get started on that two day lead in before entering malaria infested areas. • • • • •
2009.08.04 by Daniel
My 39 hour day
By the time Monday morning rolled around I had slept away over half of my weekend while doped up on NyQuil and Imodium. I was finally starting to feel better on Monday, so much so that I decided I was well enough to drive to CO. I think I may have said goodbye to Brianna and Lily while I was still asleep, but Terresina was still there. She was sick too, from a night of drinking. I gave her my sympathies and a farewell and headed out to have lunch with Rob. It was a glorious San Francisco day that made me not want to leave, but I did.
At 3:30pm I headed off across the Bay Bridge. It had been so long since I'd seen it and they had done a significant amount of work on the eastern span in the time I was gone. I'd really love to photograph it during construction. You can't even see it when you're driving because the barriers on the side of the bridge are so big. I was soon off into the hills with the windows down and the music up and began enjoying my drive quite a bit. I remembered other times I'd taken that drive, particularly July 2nd a few years ago when I left at the same time of day to drive all night by myself as I was doing again.
I had been traveling to new places for so long and experiencing new things that I hadn't had much time to let things settle in properly, but as I drove over Donner Pass this began to happen. The familiar feelings of the mountains and the open road were great and helped me sort through some unsettled thoughts in my mind.
I caught a scent in the air that reminded me of Double Dragon.
The sun set as I passed through Reno without stopping; the light was beautiful. I continued thinking about the past. I began thinking about all of the other drives I'd done between San Francisco and Colorado Springs. The trip when Andreas hit the rabbit in the middle of the night on the ice. The trip when Zach and I had to drive hundreds of miles through a snow storm and had to sleep in my car at a rest stop in the middle of Wyoming. The night I drove it alone in my convertible with the top down. The time Fava and I drove out together and he drove back alone. The time when Shawn, Beth, Jeff and I picked up the hitch hiking pro mountain boarder in who had run out of gas in the middle of Utah in the middle of the night. The time I flew to Salt Lake and Vince picked me up and we drove back on the snow in his Legend. The time we got lost on our detour to Las Vegas. The time we all laid down at the side of the highway and gazed at stars. The time Olivia hit a dead deer with my car. The trip when Gabe and I stopped frequently to take photographs.
Yeah, I've done this drive a lot. I just wish it was shorter than 1300 miles.
At about 8:45 PST I was cruising along listening to Rancid and I noticed I was feeling really good health-wise, like I was going to be well very soon. I felt awake and on my game for the first time since leaving Japan. Just as I was realizing this I saw lightning strike way in the distance ahead of me, and just after that I saw a meteorite shoot across the sky towards the sunset. I wondered if the Perseid meteor shower was coming soon.
Tuesday morning at 1:30am PST I was greeted at the Utah border with a sign telling the death toll of I-80 for 2008 and so far in 2009. As beautiful as it is, Utah has never seemed all that welcoming, and it's things like this that really highlight that fact.
At 2:40 I saw another meteorite as I was looking for a gas station. Salt Lake City has hidden its gas stations but I used my GPS to find one that was a mile off the highway, exactly where it shouldn't be. It was closed. I found another one though, and then found my way back to the highway with my GPS telling me turn right, turn left, recalculating. As I got onto the highway it said told me to continue driving for 430 miles. So I did.
As the sun was peaking over the horizon I came upon a wind farm in Wyoming. I pulled over to photograph it and was delighted to find a dirt road that led me nearby the bases of the windmills, so I spent a long time photographing them. The sun was well above the horizon when I left to find breakfast in a nearby town. The coffee I got with breakfast was terrible though and I was nearly out of gas so I stopped again and got some snacks for the road and good coffee. This little convenience store that was tucked away outside of town was convenient indeed as it was the first place to offer truly free wifi. I caught up with some friends and told Nate that I'd be in his city within 3 hours, then headed back onto the highway.
The sun was high in the sky and was hot and I began to get sleepy. I thought about pulling over to take a nap since I hadn't slept at all on the drive yet, but when I looked for a place to nap I realized that Wyoming around I-80 has no trees as far as you can see. There was no shade anywhere and I sure as hell wasn't going to nap in a hot car so I just kept driving.
I made it to Colorado, followed my GPS through the somewhat familiar streets of Fort Collins and out onto I-25. Then I noticed that I was in Colorado and the drivers here are not to be trusted and so I got on my guard. I looked at the highway though and thought that maybe if Colorado would build a highway wider than 2 lanes people wouldn't seem to drive so terribly here. Maybe they would even get along on the road.
When I got to Nate's house he wasn't home. I couldn't sign onto his wifi either, and I had no phone service, so I was in a predicament. I went to find free wifi and couldn't find it for the life of me. Everything was protected. Even the coffee shop didnt' have wifi and the surrounding nets were all protected, including the library. I eventually drove a long way to a coffee shop that I thought Nate would be at, but he wasn't. In fact, nobody was because it was out of business. Like a gift from God though, I was blessed with an open wifi signal and I used it to check facebook where I got a message from Nate telling me he wouldn't be home and I should go to his office on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder.
Boulder was different than I expected. It was more like a normal tourist Colorado mountain town than I had imagined. It was clean. Even the hippies were clean, which was weird. It was rich and expensive and had lots of nice things and people who owned nice things walking around talking and riding bikes and shopping. It's definitely an active place. It seems like a place for people who love the activity of city life but don't like the city.
I went into Nate's office and met some co-workers of his. Then I went to their meditation room, or something like that where there were pillows and Tibetan prayer flags, and tried to take a nap but I couldn't sleep even though I'd been awake for over 28 hours by then. Instead I did online things, made some plans, called Fava, played with cameras. Then we went out for dinner.
It was me, Nate and his buddy Chris who had just gotten back from traveling around Japan, Australia and New Zealand for 3 weeks. We had a good conversation about traveling and some of the interesting differences and awesome experiences that go with it. When the bill came I thought we were in Malaysia, but in fact the price was in dollars and really was that expensive. I remembered a life I used to live where I had a job and hence had money and had no cares about spending $30 on dinner every day. I need to not do that right now.
Nate and I cruised back to his apartment, which I'd never seen before, and chatted a little before I realized my clock was an hour earlier than it was and thought that we should go to bed. Nate went to bed but then I couldn't sleep so I stayed up and wrote this. I am next going to write Tien, then I am going to shower, and then I am going to get a good night's sleep that will be a proper finale to 39 consecutive waking hours.
As the sun was peaking over the horizon I came upon a wind farm in Wyoming. I pulled over to photograph it and was delighted to find a dirt road that led me nearby the bases of the windmills, so I spent a long time photographing them. The sun was well above the horizon when I left to find breakfast in a nearby town. The coffee I got with breakfast was terrible though and I was nearly out of gas so I stopped again and got some snacks for the road and good coffee. This little convenience store that was tucked away outside of town was convenient indeed as it was the first place to offer truly free wifi. I caught up with some friends and told Nate that I'd be in his city within 3 hours, then headed back onto the highway.
The sun was high in the sky and was hot and I began to get sleepy. I thought about pulling over to take a nap since I hadn't slept at all on the drive yet, but when I looked for a place to nap I realized that Wyoming around I-80 has no trees as far as you can see. There was no shade anywhere and I sure as hell wasn't going to nap in a hot car so I just kept driving.
I made it to Colorado, followed my GPS through the somewhat familiar streets of Fort Collins and out onto I-25. Then I noticed that I was in Colorado and the drivers here are not to be trusted and so I got on my guard. I looked at the highway though and thought that maybe if Colorado would build a highway wider than 2 lanes people wouldn't seem to drive so terribly here. Maybe they would even get along on the road.
When I got to Nate's house he wasn't home. I couldn't sign onto his wifi either, and I had no phone service, so I was in a predicament. I went to find free wifi and couldn't find it for the life of me. Everything was protected. Even the coffee shop didnt' have wifi and the surrounding nets were all protected, including the library. I eventually drove a long way to a coffee shop that I thought Nate would be at, but he wasn't. In fact, nobody was because it was out of business. Like a gift from God though, I was blessed with an open wifi signal and I used it to check facebook where I got a message from Nate telling me he wouldn't be home and I should go to his office on Pearl Street in downtown Boulder.
Boulder was different than I expected. It was more like a normal tourist Colorado mountain town than I had imagined. It was clean. Even the hippies were clean, which was weird. It was rich and expensive and had lots of nice things and people who owned nice things walking around talking and riding bikes and shopping. It's definitely an active place. It seems like a place for people who love the activity of city life but don't like the city.
I went into Nate's office and met some co-workers of his. Then I went to their meditation room, or something like that where there were pillows and Tibetan prayer flags, and tried to take a nap but I couldn't sleep even though I'd been awake for over 28 hours by then. Instead I did online things, made some plans, called Fava, played with cameras. Then we went out for dinner.
It was me, Nate and his buddy Chris who had just gotten back from traveling around Japan, Australia and New Zealand for 3 weeks. We had a good conversation about traveling and some of the interesting differences and awesome experiences that go with it. When the bill came I thought we were in Malaysia, but in fact the price was in dollars and really was that expensive. I remembered a life I used to live where I had a job and hence had money and had no cares about spending $30 on dinner every day. I need to not do that right now.
Nate and I cruised back to his apartment, which I'd never seen before, and chatted a little before I realized my clock was an hour earlier than it was and thought that we should go to bed. Nate went to bed but then I couldn't sleep so I stayed up and wrote this. I am next going to write Tien, then I am going to shower, and then I am going to get a good night's sleep that will be a proper finale to 39 consecutive waking hours. • • • • •
2009.08.01 by Daniel
A sick friday, catching up with the 4211 girls
Friday I woke up sick as a dog in Rob's place. I had full on flu symptoms on top of the ongoing digestive problems and was not a happy camper. I slept well though, amazingly. I took a shower and played online a little while Rob kept sleeping. I decided to look up H1N1 symptoms and saw that I had most of them, so I thought I should take this more seriously just in case. I left Rob sleeping and went to find breakfast and medicine. I loaded up on NyQuil, ate a banana and drank some Odwalla Mo'Beta.
I noticed I was near Brianna's house so I went over there. There was an older Asian lady in the entryway where I thought Brianna's new place was, and I thought I might have the wrong street. I got out my phone and it signed onto her wireless network so I knew I was in the right place. I don't have cell phone service in the USA yet, but I used Skype on my iPhone to call Brianna. She said she was at work and wouldn't get off for many hours.
I was feeling ill and was getting tired so I parked my car on a quiet street and went to sleep. The sun came out so I drove to Golden Gate park and found a shady area under a tree near a public restroom and slept for several more hours.
I headed back to Brianna's place around 5pm. Shortly after I got there she showed up with a big smile and gave me a big hug. We went inside and she made me some green tea and a snack while we talked about what had happened in the two months that I was gone. Her new house was really cool. She shares it with Lily and Terresina, but they weren't home.
Lauren called and then came over. She had just recently gotten back from a three week trip to Australia. We caught up a bit while Brianna talked to some boys on the phone and then showered. Terresina showed up around 9pm. She had two new tattoos and a heavy gold chain around her neck.
One of Brianna's boyfriends came over with a bottle of tequila and Terresina and Brianna made dinner for all of us. We listened to Corinne Bailey Rae and talked and drank and and a good old time reminiscent of dinners at 4211. The three of them went out to party in Mission and I stayed home on the couch to sleep off my illness, the medicine in full effect and doing its job of alleviating symptoms. In a new apartment but on the same old couch I hoped to get a good night's sleep.
• • • • •
2009.07.31 by Daniel
38 hour Thursday
Thursday morning I woke up above the Pacific Ocean somewhere off the coast of Japan. I knew this because right after I saw the clouds and ocean below I looked at the helpful map showing where we were on the planet. I was given breakfast and the loudspeaker announced that we were one hour out from Tokyo.
After eating I dozed some more, opening my eyes once in a while to see what was outside my window. Blue ocean with tiny white caps under hazy clouds. Nothing but a cloud. Picturesque rice paddies that were unharvested and nobody and no boats in sight. Soon we were on the ground and I was sleepily waiting in the security checkpoint line to get back into the international terminal. I looked around at all the unfamiliar people and heard them speaking in accents, some that I didn't recognize. I heard a japanese girl speaking in deliberate, clear english. I thought about the world and how small my world had been while I was growing up, and my world was larger than many. I still couldn't help wondering if I'd done life a little wrong. I only traveled internationally once when I was young, and I didn't travel much on my own volition, and usually not to new places but back to old places. I didn't learn a second language. As an english speaker it is difficult to chose which language to master as your second, but that's really not an excuse because two are better than one. The line was long and I had plenty of time to think about these things. Getting through security was easy and they didn't seem to care that I had a bunch of liquids that I didn't remove for their inspection. So much of security is theater.
I found a little office area with wired ethernet and went to work trying to find a way to get free internet. These guys had done their due diligence though and I couldn't find any way around paying. This was a problem because last time when I tried to pay I still couldn't get online because Boingo's billing mechanism was broken. On top of that, the Boingo software for Mac is terrible, like so many OEM apps for Mac. They really shouldn't bother with those kinds of things and should spend that money on something more productive.
I wandered around the airport, plodding along tiredly. It was familiar, I had spent enough time here last time that I knew where I was and where to go to get whatever. My flight wasn't listed on the display yet though since it was too many hours away, so I just wandered aimlessly. I exchanged some money and went to an electronics shop with some stuff that isn't available in the USA, which is just a novelty to me but still entertaining. When my flight did appear on the monitor I was 2 gates down from where I needed to be, which would've been really convenient if it weren't boarding in 8 hours. I got some tea, found a power outlet and managed to successfully pay for internet access. This allowed me to kill many hours of my layover while catching up on blogging and chatting with some US folks who were up.
After sitting for too many hours I walked around the airport some more. I noticed the stark differences between Japan and Vietnam. Before landing in Tokyo I looked down at the rice paddies and it was immediately evident that we were not in Vietnam, even though there were rice paddies for as far as you could see. Japan was so clean, so quiet, so organized.
As I was walking around looking for gifts for friends a man offered me samples of sake, which I gladly tasted. It was delicious and I thought about buying a bottle, but the fact that you can't even take duty free liquids over 100ml through Japan made me wary of what other ridiculous liquid restrictions I would encounter.
After what seemed like an eternity my plane began boarding and I watched everybody line up and get on, then when the line was nearly nothing I boarded and took my seat. I sat next to an older Japanese woman with a dignified demeanor. She began writing a note and when I glanced over my eyes picked up the word "unforgivable". I was curious, and although I didn't read the whole note, I did also see that she mentioned her choice of airlines by their reputation vs simply price. She folded the note up, put it in an envelope and gave it to one of the flight attendants. From then on the flight attendants would stop by from time to time and talk and talk and talk, saying "hai" over and over as this woman spoke with calm certainty. I wondered what the note actually said...
After watching some of Cirque Du Soleil's Dralion, which has an awesome juggling scene, I switched to The Soloist and proceeded to be thoroughly unimpressed. Afterwards I managed to finally get some more sleep...
Thursday I woke up to the ongoing sounds of a boy crying. Not wailing, but genuinely crying. I realized it had been going on for quite a while and wondered why his, who was seated in the next section up, didn't come back and help him. The first thing I saw was the darkness map of the world with our plane positioned over the pacific right on the border between light and dark. The boy's dad eventually came back and took the boy off to the bathroom. I closed the window shades on the two windows next to me and went back to sleep. I couldn't stay asleep though. It was an uncomfortable drifting in and out of sleep. Eventually we were landing in San Francisco and as I carried my bag off into SFO I finally woke up.
About 5 immigration people asked me if I had all my bags as they checked my passport. It seemed like they couldn't believe that person could have such little luggage. That may have been the thing that set me apart from the rest and made them select me to a full luggage search. The guy going through my luggage also couldn't believe that I only had one bag. He, like the passport control officer, found it hard to believe that I didn't have a physical mailing address. The passport control officer scratched off "San Francisco" and wrote in my parents address in Colorado Springs. The man searching my bag asked me "Why did you write down Colordo Springs if you live in San Francisco?" to which I replied that I did not write down c/s. It seems so simple, move out of apartment, quit job, live out of a backpack, yet so many people don't understand until they stop to think about it.
Sara was supposed to pick me up but I wondered if she'd even be there after my flight was late and my time was wasted while the LEO did a half search of my tightly and intricately packed backpack. She was though and it was great to have a friend there to whisk me away in a sleek automobile. We headed down 101 to Mountainview to meet up with some of the SugarCRM crew. Pretty much the whole local IT team plus Kyung showed up and we filled a nook in the restaurant with loud friendly conversation. Sara had to go and I was bummed that we didn't have long enough time to catch up with each other.
After lunch I caught a ride back to Sugar where Lila had brought my car. I sat and talked a while about my travels and the way that poor countries and technology fit together, then headed up to Lila's house to pick up some stuff I'd left there. When I got there I took a shower, which was great because I had been out for over 36 hours without a shower. I also tried to take a nap but couldn't sleep, so I decided to head on up to SF.
As soon as I started driving I got sleepy. Luckily I'd driven this route a few hundred times so I could drive it comfortably while sleepy. It was lame though, I didn't want to drive that route. I had quit my job partly because of that drive. Between that drive and the SugarCRM HQ I felt like my old life had been severed and I was having to pick it back up to get to something underneath it. I just wanted to let it go and move on, those times were gone.
The first place I went in SF was to my mailbox which hadn't been checked in two months. All of the mail fit into the box, so it wasn't too bad. The post office is right downtown SF, near embarcadero, and it was nice to submerge myself back into the heart of SF, like jumping straight into a pool to help you get used to the water quicker. The weather was kinda bad, breezy with a little rain, but it was familiar and that was great. The air was cool and clean, so different from anything I'd experienced in the previous two months. I also heard seagulls for the first time in two months.
Then as I was driving to the Sunset I witnessed the first crime I'd seen in two months. I thought about how I hadn't felt threatened in any way in Asia at all. The worst thing I'd encountered were animals and the fear of getting ripped off by agreeing to an inflated price, but I hadn't been scared fo being mugged or anything while I was there. I was sad that it took less than an hour for me to witness a crime in SF. I love this city and honestly I don't see that much crime here, so that was a bit of a slap.
Right as I was getting to Golden Gate Park I remembered the microclimates of San Francisco, and even though it was somewhat warm downtown it sure as hell wasn't warm by the ocean. I turned around and drove all the way back downtown and went to my storage unit to get my jacket and picked up some other gear while I was there, including some camera gear I hadn't played with in a long time.
The ocean was vibrant and the horizon had a crisp line as I drove to Java Beach to get coffee and internet. I didn't stay long because Rob told me to meet him at Noriega Pizza, so I headed down there. We talked a little bit and it was good to see a great friend, but I had a hard time saying a lot of stuff about my trip because I still need time to process it. Maybe... maybe this is as good as it'll get and I should just blab about it without thinking too hard. At any rate we had good convo and then headed to Sea Biscuit to meet up with Rob Taylor so they could record a podcast for (d)NOT.
I don't know if it's just the fact that I can understand the language, but I think that San Francisco has more doers than other countries I've visited. Aside from Rob and Rob recording their gig in a coffee shop with friendly and familiar folks walking in and out catching up with the latest goings on, I've seen a lot of other people around already that look like they're up to something fun. There is a cool energy in San Francisco that I really really like. Some of it is the natural energy of the city, and on top of that there is the sentimental aspect, the familiar places with so many good memories tied to them. I was really really happy to be back.
We dropped Rob Taylor off at home and headed back to Rob's place and geeked out with laptops, linux, Star Trek and a sip of whiskey.
• • • • •
2009.07.29 by Daniel
The Last Days in SE Asia
I woke up to an oncoming silence created by the absence of electrical power on Tuesday morning. This was a good way to get an early start because I couldn't sleep without the fan protecting me from the mosquitoes and cooling my body. I took a shower and headed out for breakfast with Tien. We went to a new place that is near the internet cafe we frequent, right next to the lake by the river in Long Xuyen.
At breakfast Tien told me that she'd talked to the principle of the school where she works and he had reminded her that she had employment obligations that last through September. This meant that she couldn't travel with me because she would have to resume teaching in less than a week. We had planned on either moving to Saigon to work or more preferably to travel a bit, probably back from Bankok down through Malaysia where we could see all those beautiful beaches that we missed out on last time. Now this was not going to happen because Tien would be busy. The only reasonable option for me was to return to America on my scheduled flight which left the next night. Even though this was an option that I never wanted to have to pick, it felt nice to finally have a final word on what would happen.
When we got home there was still no power. We decided to go to Saigon that day and stay over night. Tien got on the phone and found us a bus leaving at 4pm while her mom and sister fixed some food for us. Tien told me a story about being attacked by a wild dog near her house when she was in Jr. High. She was outside playing with her puppy and some crazy wild dog ran up and started to attack her and her puppy, so she picked up the puppy and ran but the dog chased them. Some local folks saw what was happening, found some bamboo sticks and killed the wild dog. At the end of this story we realized we didn't have enough time to catch the 4pm, so we shot for the 5pm and began packing.
Tien and I went to the market to get some gifts for my family and friends. Her family kept wanting me to take more and more stuff, not realizing the restrictions that come with living your life out of a backpack. I simply couldn't take a lot of what they wanted to give me because I didn't have the room and I was already heavy laden. On top of that, the food and liquid restrictions are so tight these days that you can't really take either of those products. That was a shame, I was hoping to bring back that bottle of CK Entirety.
I said my goodbyes to the family that had so graciously taken me in two months ago, feeding me and clothing me and giving me all that they could to make me comfortable, and had then become my own family. Saying goodbye is hard when you don't speak their language though. How do you convey the details of the small things you really appreciated? I did my best and then four of us got on two scooters and headed to the Long Xuyen bus station. I had a new energy, the energy that comes with having a plan and putting it in motion. I was happy to be doing anything, and more so happy to be on my way back to the USA where my family and friends were waiting, my car was waiting, and I still had the freedom of unemployment. I was so caught up in thinking about how great it would be that I forgot that Tien wasn't coming with me, and when I remembered this my heart sank a bit and something felt not right. There was nothing I could do about it though.
It was harvest time in her village and I saw a man on a cart pulled by two water buffalo heading off through the waters of a tracked up rice paddy. Many people were out moving big bags of rice from vehicle to larger vehicle.
Back on the bus to Saigon for the last time of my trip, I thought about how I'd be traveling in a few days in my own car with my GPS guiding my way, 80mph across the open highways of western America. That style of travel is so different from the way people travel in Vietnam and I was really grateful for the American ways that I had taken for granted. The automobile and the highway truly were and are avenues of freedom and an opportunity that millions of people do not have.
I put on the Samurai Champloo soundtrack and kept thinking about my old familiar ways, the joys that I had given up when I left America. I was really looking forward to getting back. I had a sore throat though and my stomach was still a little upset. Tien was on my arm, visibly upset but not falling apart, just looking up with those worried eyes that she gets when something is not right.
When we arrived at the bus station most of the ground was under about 1 foot of standing water. We once again found a taxi to take us to ye olde Ruby Star where I got a larger room than usual, complete with a bath tub. I got a beer, drew a bath, and relaxed. Then I got online and began pinging a bunch of people in America and planning what I'd do when I touched down. That night I slept deeply.
Wednesday morning we woke up to the sounds of big engines, small engines, and honking. Our larger room came complete with a double window that was partly broken and created a hole where the sounds of Saigon could assault our sleeping bodies. We did have to get a move on though, so it was probably for the good. Tien got a phone call from FedEx and while I was in the shower a courier showed up with some gear from Joby. They asked to use a photo of mine on their page and sent out some gear as a thank you. I had planned to use this while I was in Asia, but here it was arriving hours from my back to America and I now had to pack this unused gear in my bag with all of the gifts. To top it off, the shipment came from Santa Cruz California.
We hurried out for breakfast at a usual spot, then came back to the hotel where I managed to pack most of my things into my backpack. I gave some of the left-over stuff that I wouldn't need to Tien to take back to her house. We checked out and left our bags with the hotel receptionists. We're in pretty good with them since we stay at that hotel so much, and we trust them, so it was a good alternative to carrying our bags around in the mid-day Saigon heat.
We headed out to find a book store. Tien had finished the tiny book we'd bought for her to read and were looking for something significantly more challenging and intellectual. We asked a cyclo and scooter taxi driver if there were any bookstores nearby, but they said not for 2 km and offered to take us there. We declined and found store selling books about 200 feet away. It was basically a media piracy store. We picked up 1984 and a DVD collection of Tom Cruise movies, a strange dose of western culture for Tien to digest before she (hopefully) gets to America in a few months.
We were hot and parched by then so we went to find a coffee shop. We found a really western style cafe with a bunch of backpackers hunched over laptops and pay terminals. We sat at the cafe and talked for a while, tried to figure out what to do with an empty day in Saigon. I couldn't think of much except shopping but Tien didn't want clothes or jewelry or shoes or any of that stuff. Instead we went to the store where I bought my LX3 and looked at laptops. They had a decent selection, but we weren't really happy with any of them. The Acer netbook was nice feeling but I didn't trust its quality. Plus, I had forgotten my wallet back at the hotel so we couldn't buy it outright anyway.
We ended up grabbing our bags and having a taxi take us to a little street where there were numerous computer shops. We looked around a bit and although I was able to find an Asus netbook, it was more than I had on me. We settled on a Benq Joybook. Interestingly, the one we bought did not come with Windows but ran a derivative of Fedora 8 called Linpus. At first I was thinking this would be bad, but on second thought I decided it could be good. Desktop linux is pretty usable now, and it would do pretty much everything Tien needed, so I decided to take a slight risk and get it. Worst case we could load Windows on it later...
There was a cafe nearby called Jazz Cafe where we went to camp out for a few hours, play with her new laptop and kill some time. They weren't playing Jazz. The laptop was pretty good, a standard current netbook with a decent build, light weight and slightly hot. The screen was nice too. Unfortunately the OS was ... lacking. I decided that rather than trust some one-off distro of Linux I'd load it up with Ubuntu. That is something I'm familiar with and could help her with if there were problems. On top of that, i just happened to have a USB key that had a bootable Ubuntu 9.04 install on it. How geeky is that? I was worried that I'd mess something up and not have time to fix it, but 30 minutes later we were up and running on Ubuntu with no hiccups.
While the OS was installing it finally hit me that I wasn't going to be with Tien much longer. I explained to her that I have this third person mode that I go into that detaches me from the emotional effects of the things I need to do and that I wasn't just unaffected by the pending geographical separation and time apart. I was worried she'd think I didn't care, which I did, but I've found in my life that worrying about inevitabilities is wasteful, even if it seems insincere.
Eventually it was time to go, so we found a taxi to take us to the airport. There was a TV screen inside the taxi that was playing a video of people rollerblading down the Great Wall of China. It then turned to something about Michael Jackson and showed a video morph of what MJ looked like from when he was young to when he died. I realized that the King of Pop died a long time ago and all that remained was a plastic ghost. I wonder if MJ's body has even begun decomposing yet or if it's still as fresh as a McDonalds french fry.
At the airport Tien's mom and sister Thule met us. I went to check in for my flight and when I got to the checkin area it looked like everybody was moving to another country. Everybody in the whole line had at least 3 suitcases stacked on carts. Some had several boxes. I couldn't believe all of the luggage this entire group of people had, and they weren't even together. Luckily a woman motioned me over to some premium super-duper megastar member high speed lane that I did not deserve to be in and I checked in for my flight in about 2 minutes.
Tien's family and I found a little cafe area to sit at while we waited for the last hour before my flight. Tien translated a few things but mostly we just enjoyed each other's company. Tien and I were trying magic tricks with a Malaysia .20 piece and I made a syphon out of two bendy straws to mix Tien's apple juice with my Sprite. I went to use the bathroom and there were two girls in there, a mother and an attendant. At first I wondered if I was in the right bathroom, and I was. I thought about San Francisco and about an Erasure concert I went to, sometimes there just is no gender separation in the bathroom. Another odd thing about this bathroom was that one wall was a huge window that looked out into the parking area, so all of those scooter parking folks could watch you urinate. This was no different from watching men urinate on the side of the road everywhere else in Vietnam, so that too wasn't really uncomfortable. On the way I went to use the hand drier but decided against it when I saw that people had used it for an ash tray.
Before long it was time to leave Tien and her family. I had already said goodbye to Tien's mom and sister a few times, so this was just another goodbye for them, but Tien was in a trance. I thought at first she was trying to translate some stuff in her mind, but realized that she was just overwhelmed with emotion. I thought she fell apart when I embraced her, but she kept herself together. It was only after she was out of sight that I finally felt the effects of realization that I wouldn't see her for a long time. Passport control went quickly, there was a short wait at the gate, and soon I was sound asleep in my seat flying away from Vietnam.
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