Sunday, December 14, 2008

Goooooooooooood morning Vietnam!!!!!!!!

So what do I think about Vietnam? Good question. What can you say about a place where:
a) you have to say "no thank-you" to about three thousand people within a walking distance of 1km?
b) people generally like to stare at you, laugh at you (plunking your big Amazon self onto one of the little itty-bitty makeshift restaurant chairs) and grope your freakishly white arms/face/thights?
c) people are always looking for a way to extract more money out of you and generally rip you off?
d) your tour guides whom you paid a substantial amount of money steal two iPods from the group and turn particularly venomous when the victims of the theft demand them back?
e) drivers of buses, cars and motorbikes lay on their horns all the time?
f) you get robbed walking down the street?

Let me be honest. If I had written this blog about two hours ago, it would have been a pretty negative one. I should mention that I was fresh off yet another overnight bus of which the driver honked his horn consistently and stopped for four "dinner" breaks between the hours of 11:00pm and 4:00am. This is not the first bus I've been on like this. Then at 6:00am when we were pulling into what was supposed to be Saigon, for those who hadn't been awoken by the horns blaring, he blasted Vietnamese love ballads. Like loud. Anyway, I was told that I would arrive in Saigon this morning, but it was Nha Trang. The tour guide said, "No, no, Saigon another 10 hours away." So I've been bumming around Nha Trang all day waiting for another overnighter tonight (cause I paid for a sleeper bus...may as well save myself a night's accommodation, yeah?), exhausted and with no place to go but the beach. The beach would be nice if Vietnamese dudes didn't come and plunk down next to me and start touching this alabaster skin (and by the way, I have a tan right now....by my standards...) that they can't get enough of. And asking me questions. And asking me to buy stuff. And when I say no, asking me for kisses. If any of this rings familiar, it's because this is just like Italy/Greece/Turkey. Only this time I'm really trying not to get defensive right off the bat, and there's a lot more touching. Anyway, it felt like there was no escape, so up until about a couple hours ago, I was fed up with Vietnam and feeling so ready to be home that I was working myself up quite the Pity Party.

And then I went back to the beach, for lack of anything better to do. And I was harassed by another Vietnamese dude who squeezed my thigh muscles and said, "Yes, athlete" and wanted to give me a massage that worked its way from 100,000 dong to FREE. Of course, I still declined, and he eventually left. And then someone else dropped herself into the sand next to me, and saved this blog from being a particularly negative one (OK, I admit that this blog hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows...). I won't even try to spell her name here, but she was a 21-year-old Vietnamese girl and after about 20 minutes I realized that she legitimately didn't want to sell me anything. She was just (from what I gather) a marine biology (???) student who is also studying English and goes to the beach each evening to find a "foreign girl" to practice her English with. So we chatted for over an hour, and she was such a sweetheart, asking me about Canada, telling me about Vietnam, etc. And she reminded me that aside from the ones with dollar signs in their eyes (and there are billions of them), Vietnamese people are by and large quite lovely. I've given a few impromptu English lessons while I've been here, including with the girl who runs the shop in Hoi An where I had my boots made. She was one of the people who loves to grope me, and it wasn't quite as irritating with her, because I really don't believe she was hitting on me or trying to pickpocket me. I was wearing short shorts and a tank top and I think she legitimately was fascinated by the length of my legs and the paleness of my skin. Kate, my partner in crime for much of Vietnam, thought it was pretty hilarious cause this girl literally couldn't keep her hands off me. She sat in my lap, rubbed my thighs, hugged me, held my hand, the whole nine...It was a little strange at times (the hands on my bare thighs felt a little wrong) but she was a sweetheart. And there have generally been a lot of really friendly (well, not so friendly) people around. Unfortunately, it's just those few bad seeds...

Par example, on our Halong Bay tour...I don't think I can really get into the whole story except to say first and foremost that I was on a boat with a baker's dozen Irishmen, a few Brits, and a couple of Aussies, all of whom history has shown even the most venerable of Canadian livers has difficulty keeping up with. And this group was definitely no exception. I don't know where they get the energy or the tolerance, but they put me to shame. Anyway, our first night on the boat, three iPods were left on the deck next to the crew's iPod speakers. The music (randomly, Whitney Houston...) was shut off at 4:00am, and everything was fine. Then the next morning, the rather sour barmaid accused the crew of breaking the speakers and demanded a rather outlandish sum to replace them. The people who'd left their iPods were instantly suspicious and demanded their iPods back. The barmaid kept insisting that she had no iPods, she had no iPods until things got increasingly heated and she miraculously produced one iPod from her pocket. Everything escalated until everyone was shouting (actually, I wasn't. I was nursing a hangover and staying out of it...but it definitely killed the mood for everyone). One iPod was found, but the other never was and it all resulted in all our bags getting searched and then the personal baggage and private cabins of the entire crew getting searched when the boat reached the shore. The tour guide, who'd previously been really funny and likeable, at first was trying to mediate between the crew and the passengers, but got pretty nasty in the end when the accusations started flying. It just left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, you know? I'm not going to get into the details of the rest of the weekend, but it was a really fun group and good times and after three nights with them, I am still recovering...I met up with some of them, in particular Kate, again in Hoi An, which was great. It was back to that Lao feeling of knowing people everywhere you go...

So after what one of the Irish dudes labelled iPodGate '08, I already had a bad taste in my mouth...and then I got my bag stolen. I will give details of that later on, but will say that my passport and wallet were thankfully not in the bag in question. It's funny, cause since that happened, my stamina has just been gone. I don't feel that upset, but since it happened, I've just been positively exhausted and feel really vulnerable to all the touts and their entreaties to give me their money in one way shape or form. I'm a bit done, is all.

Which is good, I suppose, since I have only a few days to go. Every time I start feeling okay with leaving, I remind myself that in one week's time, I will be in the dead of winter on the Prairies. And the fact that I'm still somewhat cool with that makes me think that I really am spent.

One more blog to come!

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