Vietnam - Days 1 and 2

In Saigon, Vietnam I ignored every piece of advice from my doctor and the medical staff on board the ship. I had drinks with ice cubes in them. I drank the local tap water. I ate uncooked vegetables… And it was all delicious. Michael and I woke up early today to watch us sail into Ho Chi Minh City (all the locals still call it Saigon, its name prior to the reunification of Vietnam). Saigon is not a coastal city; it sits on the Saigon River (not the Mekong river itself, the Saigon river feeds into the Mekong delta though) so our ship had to travel down it for a few hours to get to port. I was up early enough (though not as early as Mike) to see the endless expanse of jungle on either side of the muddy Saigon river broken by occasional villages and lone buildings. Fishermen were out in their little boats to catch the day’s livelihood and here I was in a huge lumbering behemoth, ruining all the quiet tranquility of an early morning on the river. I tried taking pictures but the humidity was so bad that the lens on my camera fogged up. It was not even 7 A.M.
Michael and I didn’t actually have any plans for Vietnam but our friend Hua was going to spend the day with family and he invited us to join him. After going through the usual procedures before disembarking the ship (mainly getting our passports) we met up with Hua’s Aunt and Uncle. They aren’t actually his Aunt and Uncle they are more distant relatives (in-laws of his Aunt back home in Los Angeles). Their family relation to him would normally be meaningless to us in the U.S. but in Vietnam, as in most of the world, Hua might as well have been their son. We had to communicate with his Aunt and Uncle mostly with gestures since they did not speak a single word of English. That didn’t stop his Aunt from talking to us in Vietnamese as if we understood it, and sometimes we did, if it was accompanied by the appropriate gestures.

We took a taxi to their house and were introduced to Hua’s cousin Quoc (pronounced like book but with a w instead of a b) who was in college and spoke some English. Eventually we were introduced to Quoc’s two younger sisters though I don’t remember their names. On the way across Saigon in a taxi I was struck by how the city was exactly as I pictured it. There were people wearing rice hats carrying bamboo poles with vegetables perched precariously on either end walking calmly through the barely controlled chaos of hundreds of people on motorbikes going every which way. Many of the buildings looked run-down and dusty but it had charm. In Beijing there was a strange juxtaposition of new and shiny office buildings with run-down lots and dirty streets that I found confusing. In Saigon everything just felt right.

Hua’s Aunt and Uncle had a nice house, and it was pretty evident that they were middle class and enjoyed a fairly comfortable existence. In their living room there was a nice Sony television, a DVD player, and a bizarre Buddha shrine with blinking LED lights. Hua’s family served some fruits which I had never seen before including longans, which are related to lychee fruit, and another fruit that had no English name (as far as anyone knew). They both tasted good but I am apparently allergic to one of them because after eating the fruit my throat felt itchy and started to swell up. It went away after 30 minutes or so and I don’t know what I would have done if it had not. We spent some time watching television (they even had HBO!) while we decided what to do.

With the decision made to go get some pho (traditional Vietnamese noodle soup) we went on our way…. on motorbikes. Michael and I rode on a bike with Hua’s uncle and Hua rode behind his cousin who, as we would find out later, had only been driving for a week. It’s absolutely impossible to explain what it’s like to ride on a motorbike through Saigon where drivers rarely pay attention to the street lights. The entire first half of the ride to the pho restaurant I was convinced we were going to crash, but half way through it I began to loosen up and really enjoy it. To get an idea of what it’s like to ride on a motorbike in Saigon consider this: On most of the smaller roads there are no dividing lines for lanes, drivers just weave in and out of each other, going different directions, while watching out for pedestrians, street-side vendors, and the occasional car or truck. On the larger roads that do have dividing lines everyone ignores them.

We arrived at the pho restaurant where we sat at a plastic picnic table with metal stools and ate a wonderful meal. The crazy street ambiance of the humid late morning in Saigon and a family serving their specialty to anyone willing to spend a few dong (the currency of Vietnam) was exciting. I know a lot of people who would never be willing to try something like this, to eat what amounts to street-food at a dirty plastic picnic table, with no air conditioning, (or napkins) in the middle of some strange city. They don’t know what they are missing. During the meal I had to grapple with a problem that I will face at every meal in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and India. In Southeast Asia it is considered taboo to eat with your left hand because it is impure since you use it to do things like wipe yourself after going to the bathroom. Since I’m left-handed this was going to be a big problem.

When the pho arrived at the table (about 30 seconds after we sat down, how’s that for fast food?) I attempted to pick up the chopsticks in my right hand, but could not operate them properly. I switched them to my left hand for the briefest of moments and Quoc got my attention and said, “No left hand!” I thought of explaining that I was left handed but didn’t bother, I’m sure they knew. He just smiled and his father called someone over to get me a fork and a spoon. Hua’s Uncle showed me that I had to hold the fork in my right hand and the spoon in my left, which is something I’d actually seen a number of people doing in lieu of chopsticks. That was the first of several times in which I would be corrected for using my left hand to eat but on none of those occasions did I feel offended though I know if that had happened in the U.S. I would have felt differently.

After leaving the pho restaurant we rode to another place for more food. We had a plate of chicken and rice and after eating it I was stuffed. After lunch, at Hua’s request, we went to a store that sold bootleg DVDs which are ubiquitous in Southeast Asia. We bought five movies or so for less than $10. Quoc’s father insisted on paying for the DVDs as he had for the meals. Michael, Hua, and I all felt bad that he was buying everything for us but there was nothing we could do except appreciate his generosity. We then all rode home and sat down to watch one of the movies we had bought. The first one we put on did not come with English subtitles, at least we couldn’t figure out how to display them. The second movie was something Quoc had picked out called Dragon Wars. It looked as if someone had filmed it in a movie theater with a handheld camera but it was still watchable. Unfortunately the plot was ridiculous, something about an ancient Korean serpent that ends up in modern day Los Angeles.

During the film it started raining heavily and continued to do so for the next few hours. Hua explained to us that in Vietnam most people take a siesta in the afternoon because it rains almost every day during the rainy season. This makes sense considering the large number of street-side vendors who operate in Saigon, many of whom do not have anything to protect their wares from the elements. Conversely, during the dry season it gets extremely hot. In the late afternoon it stopped raining and Quoc’s father left and returned with more food for us. At various points during the day we were given iced coffee and whole young coconuts from which we drank coconut juice.

The rain came and went and sometime in the evening it finally stopped so we (Quoc, his mother, two younger sisters, Michael, Hua, and I) took a taxi to a local market. Michael and I bought rice hats that Quoc’s mother insisted on paying for. Through Quoc she kept insisting on buying us things and at one point told us, “don’t be shy, if you want anything just let me know”. We saw some things we wanted but did not want her to pay for them so we decided we would come back tomorrow, alone.

Since we wouldn’t let her buy us anything she bought us more food instead. We ate some strange dried meat and fish that looked sort of like beef jerky. Later on we sat down at a small plastic table on the sidewalk near the market while a family prepared our dinner a few feet away. We had an amazing dinner of noodles, spring rolls, and more that I can’t remember now. As we ate, people whizzed by on motorbikes and yelled at each other in Vietnamese. A total stranger corrected my use of my left hand for eating and one of Quoc’s sisters showed me how to properly dip a spring roll into the sauce provided. There was a real feeling that everyone involved wanted to help me integrate with their culture rather than just staring at me in disbelief at my clumsiness, which is something that many of us from Semester At Sea have experienced in other countries. I felt then, as I do now, a strong sense of gratitude for having this chance to learn from people who live so differently from me, people who I will probably never see again but will certainly never forget.

By the end of the day I had eaten at least 6 meals, not including the various snacks that I was given in between each meal. It’s been a little over a week since my first day in Vietnam but it seems as if it happened a month ago. I’m sure there are a lot of little details that I’m missing, but overall I am amazed at the kindness of everyone I met on this first day in Vietnam. I’ve met so many different people on this trip so far, an elderly Japanese couple, a young businessman in Hong Kong, Hua’s family in Vietnam and Japan, random strangers in Thailand, and despite everything that makes them different from one another and myself an invisible thread of kindness runs through them all. It makes me wonder if it is kindness, and not intellect or some other quality, which really makes us human. We are, to anyone’s knowledge, perhaps the only creatures on Earth that will willingly help a stranger, even if it detrimental to ourselves. Of course, we have a great capacity for cruelty and deception, and I’ve met a number of suspicious and dubious characters, but so far I’ve met far more people who were kind and helpful.

Around 10 or 11 P.M. Quoc’s parents got a taxi for us, and we said our goodbyes to everyone. Hua would be spending another day with them later but Michael and I would never see them again and I felt incapable of expressing my gratitude for their kindness, especially since Quoc’s parents did not speak any English. When we arrived back at the ship I took a much needed shower and sat down to write about my day but I got tired quickly and went to sleep. After this great first day in Vietnam I was very excited about being here, and couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

My second day in Vietnam ended up being less eventful than the first. After a late start Michael and I went to get an early lunch at Lemongrass a restaurant in downtown Saigon that was supposed to have great food. Afterwards we walked down to the market to buy some things that we didn’t want Hua’s Aunt buying for us the day before. I bought some gifts for friends and family and some things for myself, including some Vietnamese tea I have never heard of and $100 sneakers that cost $20 (which would come in handy after Thailand where I walked through a stream in the jungle with my other sneakers). We then decided to try and keep pace with our many meals the day before so we went to a pho restaurant for an after-lunch meal. After stuffing ourselves once more we asked the waiter for directions to the art museum and then went on our way.

However, we never found the art museum. As we started walking it began to rain, lightly at first, but before long it was a downpour. It didn’t take very long for us to get soaked and since we could not find the museum we tried to find a bar or someplace where we could dry off. After walking around in desperation we finally found a Danish bar, of all things, and went inside. When one of the bartenders saw us she immediately handed us Tiger beer t-shirts, for free, and told us to go get changed in the bathroom. We ordered some beers we sat down and watched the riots and police intervention going on in Burma (Myanmar).

Sharing the bar with us were several businessmen from America and Scotland, respectively, and two middle-aged Vietnamese women. It seemed really weird that two Vietnamese women would be in a Danish bar in the middle of the afternoon so we tried to figure out what they were doing there. Michael and I watched as one of the men in the bar walked over to one of the Vietnamese ladies, whispered in her ear, and walked to the back somewhere. This was all very confusing, but before long all the pieces would fall into place. One of the Vietnamese women, who wore very expensive jewelry, walked over to us and asked us where we were from and if we were enjoying Vietnam. Eventually we would learn from her and her friend, who did a lot of the talking because her English was better, that she came to the bar to pick up men. She wasn’t a prostitute though, which was my first suspicion. She explained to us that she was married to a rich businessmen from Canada or the U.S. (she told us that she was “blinded by his money”) who spent a lot of time outside of Vietnam. Since he was never around she slept with other men (at least we think that’s what she was trying to tell us). Her husband obviously had a lot of money as she told us that several of her children were attending college in the U.S.

A little while later she bought both of us beers and then talked to us more, asking us how old we were. When we told her she laughed and said, “Too young!” and then turned to her friend, said something in Vietnamese, and then they both laughed. At that point Michael and I both felt very awkward especially since we didn’t know whether or not we should buy her a beer in return (we didn’t want to give her the wrong impression). We didn’t have too long to think about it because she had to leave to pick up her daughter from school. The entire situation was very weird and amusing, but at least we had some time to dry off. Since the rain had stopped we left to try and find the museum again.

When we finally gave up searching for the art museum we decided to eat again even though we weren’t very hungry. We found a street that had tons of Japanese and Korean restaurants and even though we wanted Vietnamese food I had to use the bathroom so badly that we decided to eat some Korean food. The food was good (and very spicy) but neither of us was hungry. We stuffed ourselves as much as possible and then decided to catch the shuttle bus back to the ship to drop off the things we had bought at the market. On the way to the shuttle bus it began raining lightly again. While we waited at a street corner a Vietnamese woman standing next to Michael put her umbrella over his head to shelter him from the rain while we crossed the street. It was such a small gesture but I thought it meant so much.

On the way back we heard someone mention a Jazz club so after returning to the downtown area we walked around trying to find it which ended up being quite easy. It was 8 P.M. and the band started at 9 so we sat and ordered drinks. While waiting for the music to start we watched a Vietnamese man get increasingly drunk as he drank a bottle of wine on his own. By the time the band came on he was sitting back in his chair with his eyes barely open and a drunken smile on his face. The band was really good, especially the pianist who was amazing. It’s a shame neither of us brought our cameras since we could have recorded some video. Occasionally an American came on stage when the band played blues songs and he played harmonica or guitar and sang. At one point the band even played a Jazz version of a Billy Joel song!

Thirty minutes into the show an elderly American women sat next to us. Eventually we started talking to her and after we introduced ourselves and explained what we were doing in Vietnam she asked what universities we went to. When I told her I went to Temple University and was studying Psychology her face lit up. Apparently she used to teach Psychology at Temple University and she now does therapy in Saigon. She gave me a business card in case I wanted a job in Vietnam when I graduated. It’s so strange to come halfway around the world and randomly meet someone from back home.

Michael and I stayed at the club as late as possible and then went to catch the last shuttle bus home only to find that there was no shuttle bus. A Vietnamese guy with a motorbike asked us if we needed to get somewhere and we broke another rule and accepted a ride from a total stranger (I felt safer doing that in Vietnam than I would in the U.S.). He spoke good English and when we told him we needed to get to the port he told us to hop on the bike and off we went. He got us there extremely quickly and was very nice, if I had had more money with me I would have given him more than the $2 he asked for. When we got back to the ship we went to bed quickly because the next day we were going to Cambodia.