Ho Chi Minh City vs. Bangkok

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and Bangkok, Thailand have quite a bit in common. They are both large cities with crazy traffic. They are both a little overwhelming to a first-time visitor. People who live in smaller towns nearby generally dislike them. Scams are prevalent in both cities. They are both hard to avoid when you are traveling through Asia.

In less than 48 hours, we were able to compare these cities almost side-by-side. After our overnight bus from Nha Trang, we spent almost an entire day exploring Saigon. That evening, we caught a short flight back to Bangkok. We spent the night in a dark, hot hostel dorm room near the Bangkok train station, and then we had most of the day again to explore before catching our overnight train north. We found a lot of differences.

Transportation: In Bangkok, we have taken every form of public transportation available to us. Sky Train, subway, riverboat, tuk tuk, taxi, and even public bus. On this particular day, we spent our time on the Sky Train and the subway. These trains are easy to navigate and cheap, and for everywhere they don’t reach, we would usually take a tuk tuk or public bus. Even walking around Bangkok is relatively easy with elevated walkways protecting you from the crazy traffic below.

Saigon’s public transportation was nearly non-existent, as far as we could tell. They had the cyclos, of course, more for ripping off tourists than actual transportation, and you could always find a taxi, but they had no metro system, and we didn’t see many public buses (to be fair, we didn’t really look for them). We got around on the backs of motorbikes by booking tours and took a taxi when we needed it, but mostly, we relied on walking everywhere we wanted to go, even though each street crossing was a near-death experience. If we had a specific destination in mind, I think we would be able to find a bus that would take us there, but the simple exploring we wanted to do was not particularly easy.

Tourist Attractions: Fortunately, we stayed in a hotel in the middle of Saigon’s District 1, so we could walk to the main tourist attractions. Many (not all) of them relate to the country’s civil war. Like the Vietnamese boy we met in Da Lat told us, Vietnam has a violent history of war, war, war. On our last day in Vietnam, we visited the War Remnants Museum, a reminder of the horrors of what they call “The American War.” We spent a sobering morning learning about Agent Orange, tortured prisoners, and the American invasion of Vietnam. It was healthy to gain a perspective different from the one we learn in high school history class, but it was depressing to see the combination of atrocious acts and such a negative view of our own country.

Thailand, on the other hand, seems to be the only country in this region that has mostly avoided modern wars. There are no war museums. Their King is the longest-reigning monarch in the world today, and everyone we talk to adores him. It is a country familiar with peace, and the big attractions in Bangkok reflect that. You can visit the palace where the King used to live (unlike in Saigon, where the “palace” is the Reunification Palace, where the former southern government was located). You can see Buddhist temple after temple. Or, you can do what we did our first day back in Bangkok, which was head to the local cinema and watch Iron Man 3 in 3D for $6.

Downtime: Remember that bus ride into Ho Chi Minh City where I couldn’t sleep? I was looking forward to a nap in a park somewhere the next morning. It didn’t happen. We convinced the hotel we stayed in last week to store our packs for us and went for a walk. Vietnam takes good care of its parks, which meant that nearly every patch of grass in the two parks we walked through was either wet or being watered. Instead, I decided to lay down on a bench while TJ read a book, but a polite policeman quickly spotted me and waved for me to sit up. Even the museum employees frowned at me for taking a seat in the air-conditioned part of the museum and pointed me toward a few chairs outside, in the heat. Finally, we stumbled across a shopping mall with a bookstore, bought our status as customers by picking up a copy of the newest Jack Reacher book, and spent the afternoon on their comfortable sofas reading. In the air-conditioning.

In Bangkok, we already know where the big malls are, so we headed straight there for a cheap food court meal and the movie I already mentioned. We know we can leave our packs at the train station if we don’t have another option, but in this case, we left them at our hostel. Even if we weren’t headed for a shopping mall, the Sky Train provides short bursts of air-conditioning that give us breaks from the heat, so we’re not as desperate while we’re out and about.

Food: We enjoyed Vietnamese food, but since we were still new to the country, we hadn’t quite figured it out yet. We were still gravitating toward the fancier, more expensive restaurants with English staff and menus. We were caught off guard when we passed restaurants that served dog and cat dishes, and we weren’t sure what to think when our tour guides in Da Lat told us they liked horse meat (they were serious). We stuck to safe dishes in nice restaurants when we were alone, and TJ fell in love with a dsih called Beef Loc Lac. Whatever we ate tasted delicious, but we were paying extra for the comfort.

We’ve gotten familiar with Thai food, though, and we love it. We can order our favorites in any restaurant. The little stand behind the train station that charges a dollar per meal and has Thai words spelled in Roman letters on the menu? No problem. The food court that deals in “coupons” and allows you to point to the food that looks good? Even easier.

Language: Before we left Thailand, we speculated about what the other countries in Southest Asia would be like. Obviously, they would be different, but how different? We suspected it would be a lot like going from the US to Canada – different to a resident of one of the countries, but not all that different to a visitor.

Instead, we discovered the difference was more like going from the US to Mexico. Every country we visited has its own language, its own currency, and its own culture. They even each have a different alphabet! The Thai alphabet is a complete mystery to us, despite the weeks that we have spent here. We can sometimes recognize familiar words like “Singburi” or “Baht” in the right context, but we can’t even begin to guess at how to pronounce other words. Orally, though, Thai is starting to sound familiar to us. Even though we don’t know what they mean 99% of the time, the sounds are soothing. And we get excited when we hear someone use a word from our limited vocabulary.

Vietnam was basically the opposite. Orally, we were completely lost. Our entire Vietnamese vocabulary consists of Bo (beef) Loc Lak, Bahn Mi (bread), and the toasting refrain of “Mot, Hay, Baa, YO!” Nothing else sounds remotely familiar. However, their alphabet is based on Roman letters, so we could awkwardly try to pronounce words from menus and street signs. More importantly, we could make sense of directions and transportation. If someone pronounced the name of a street or city, we could generally recognize it once we saw it written down. That was a pleasant change from Thailand!

So, after a night on a bus, a day in Saigon, an evening on a plane, and a night in a Bangkok hostel, we are officially back in Thailand. And even though we very much enjoyed our week in Vietnam, we couldn’t be happier.

Vietnam Beaches

We’re still a bit nervous when it comes to mini-buses, thanks to our round-about adventure to Singburi, so we were dismayed when our “29-seat bus” pulled up in Da Lat, and it was actually a 15-seater. We hoped it was simply a transfer to the bus station, where we would find our real bus. Four hours later, though, we found ourselves in Nha Trang, on Vietnam's coast, grateful to be alive and without a scratch. Our bus driver was very talented when it came to ALMOST running off the road or hitting other buses.

From the moment we arrived in Nha Trang, we let out a sigh of relief. We enjoyed Da Lat, but it was very much a Vietnamese tourist town. Several times, we ran into service personnel who didn’t speak English and were not at all interested in trying to communicate with us. In Nha Trang, we didn’t stray far from the tourist district, and almost every sign had English on it. In fact, there might have been more Russian than Vietnamese on signs and menus, and there were Russian tourists everywhere.

Our experience only got better when we arrived at our hostel. Two ladies checked us in and showed us around. One of them, Li, took a liking to us when she saw our passports and realized TJ was only five days older than she was. She quickly became my best friend in Vietnam.

We spent our first full day in Nha Trang doing what you should do in a resort town – going to the beach! It was hot and sunny, so we spread out my sarong as our beach towel and relaxed. When it got too hot, we went for a swim in the ocean – because I’m fearless and can totally do that now.

As evening approached, the beach got very crowded. A big group of people got together and started playing team-building games. Naturally, TJ jumped up when they got near us and flagged in the winning team for their centipede race.

Feeling bold after his brief referee role, TJ then joined a smaller group of guys playing volleyball. I got to sit and read a book without him interrupting me, and he got to interact with people who barely knew a word of English. We were each in our element.

Once we had our fill of the beach, we headed back to our new hotel to clean up. We had to change hotels this morning because our first didn’t have a room available. This hotel didn’t have my new best friend at the reception desk, but it did have a nice room that opened onto a fantastic balcony.

The next morning, we checked out of our fancy balcony room and put our bags in storage. We had an overnight bus booked to Ho Chi Minh City and an entire day to kill before we were on our way. Our plan was to visit nearby Vinpearl Island, where they have a cable car over the water. Our receptionist told us it was too far to walk to the cable car (she was right, it was about 4 km and HOT outside!), so we hailed a taxi and headed to Vinpearl!

It turns out that the ticket for the cable car includes access to Vinpearl Land, an amusement park on the island. We took the 12-minute cable car ride across the bay and exited directly into the theme park. Within minutes, we were sweating, so we went straight to the indoor, air-conditioned arcade. Our first stop was the 4-D movie: “Exploration of Tunnel!” It was an American movie, narrated by an old man with a Southern accent who warned us about Indian burial grounds. About thirty people sat in movie-theater seats that moved around according to where the tunnel led us. There was no mistaking our theater for an American one, though. True to Asian tendencies (if you look at the traffic and general queuing standards here), the initial scramble to find a seat was absolute chaos. Pushing from behind, pulling people aside, the crowd caught us off guard! Somehow, we managed to find two seats next to each other on the very last row.

We spent the better part of the afternoon inside the arcade after our short movie. All the arcade games were free! We played whack-a-mole, air hokey, horse racing, and gun shooting. TJ showed off his Dance Dance Revolution skills, and I scored a bonus round at the basketball hoops. Once we had our fill, we ventured outside to explore the rest of Vinpearl Land.

The best part of the park was a ride they call the Alpine Coaster. We buckled ourselves into a small cart that carried us up the hill, and then we coasted down a luge track while looking at the beautiful views. It was so much fun!

When it started raining, we ducked into the (also free) aquarium and spent a couple hours with the fish. They had one of those tunnels underneath the main tank with a moving sidewalk to push you along. We went through twice.

Just before we left, we noticed a crowd of people at a covered pavilion. It was a circus show, staring dogs and monkeys! 

After sunset, we took the cable car back across the bay and hired a cab to return us to our hotel. We had just enough time to shower and eat a good dinner (the best way to begin an overnight trip), and then we walked back to our original hostel. I got to hang out with Li while we waited for our bus to pick us up.

Our ride back to Ho Chi Minh City was easily the most frustrating overnight transportation of our trip. The girls at our hostel had tried their best to get us on a sleeper bus (the nice kind, not the Cambodian kind), but everything was, as we had heard in Saigon, full. This was the only bus available, and it was normal reclining bus seats. We didn’t care, and the price was cheap, so we didn’t worry about it too much.

Not far into our journey, the bus driver turned on the radio. Loud. Even through my trusty earplugs, it was deafening. The Vietnamese voice had the cadence of a comedian, which is hard to ignore even when you don’t understand the language. I gave up on sleep and pulled out my book, thinking I would read until I got sleepy enough to fall asleep anyway. Twenty minutes into that idea, the bus driver decided to turn all the lights off, including the reading light above my seat.

My next choice was the MP3 player. I pulled out the old one I’ve been using since 2007 and tried to turn it on. Dead battery. TJ helped me dig out our bag of spare batteries and changed it. The player turned on, and then it turned off again, broken.

This is about the time TJ warned me that my inner four-year-old was showing. I was not handling it well. Our next hotel was in Bangkok, twenty-four hours away. We weren’t even sure what we were going to do with our backpacks when we got to Saigon. Our laptop battery was almost dead, and we had no way to charge it. After a long, full day, I was exhausted, and my only option was lying there awake, listening to loud Vietnamese music alternating with Vietnamese talk radio. TJ comforted me with thoughts of napping in a park when we got to Saigon, handed me his iPod, and closed his eyes. I took a deep breath.

By the end of a Billy Joel album, the Vietnamese music had miraculously stopped, and I fell asleep as soon as I handed the iPod back to TJ. I slept hard for an hour or two, until we stopped for a rest break at 4:00 in the morning. As we got back on the bus to leave the rest stop, I confessed to TJ that if the music started again, I would cry. Right on cue, the bus driver cranked up the radio as he pulled out of the parking lot. It didn’t stop until we got to Saigon.

Da Lat is for lovers!

*Warning: This post has a picture of snake in it!*

Sometimes Courtney and I have a great plan for our next few days. Sometimes we make it up as we go. Da Lat has definitely been the latter. We stumbled off of our bus from Ho Chi Minh City at 5:15am. We had no map, no plan, no hotel, no idea where we were, no exit strategy, and very little sleep. We strapped on our backpacks and stumbled down the street just as the sky was beginning to brighten. We asked a few strangers which direction to the center of town, and we got a few confused looks before they pointed out the way. We found the middle of town just as the sun was coming up, and stopped to watch the sunrise over the lake.

As we sat there, we borrowed the wifi signal from the cafe next door and found an open hotel near the center of town. We strapped our backpacks back on, and after viewing one of the rooms and being satisfied, we booked our next few nights. Step one, complete.

Step two was to pass out and sleep til early afternoon. Eventually we woke up and wandered from our hotel in search of food. We found a little bar in the basement of a nearby hotel that we had heard about, and sat   down to dinner and a few drinks. Just what the doctor ordered.

On our way home, we stopped in the local market and found a candy vendor for dessert. We walked away with a bag full of sugar coated dried fruit and little cubes made of aloe vera. They were delicious. 

As we were getting ready for bed, we heard muffled singing coming from somewhere nearby, but we couldn't figure out where. We listened out the window, opened our door and listened down the hall, but it never seemed to get louder. Then it dawned on us. Our hotel is right next to a large karaoke place. The singing was coming from slightly intoxicated Asians singing their favorite songs on the other side of our wall. Thankfully, the place closes around 11:30, so its been mildly amusing/irritating instead of terrible. 

We got up the next day and checked the weather forecast. Afternoon showers were on the way, so we decided to stick around town and see what we could find that morning. What we found was the Hang Nga Guesthouse, also known as the "Crazy House." 

This place was wild. It was filled with winding tunnels and towering staircases linking the rooms of this guesthouse. We spent forever exploring every nook and cranny of this insane hotel. 

We grabbed a bite to eat and then headed back to our hotel just as the rain clouds were rolling in.

The skies opened up, and stayed that way for most of the day. Courtney and I took the opportunity for a relaxing dinner and a movie night in at our hotel. 

We were up early the next morning. We had booked a day tour with the Da Lat Easy Rider Club. The Easy Riders are a group of motorcycle enthusiasts turned tour guides. You can book them for just a day, or even for a multi-day journey around Vietnam. Our guides, Phuong and Bom, met us at their office and we were off. 

Our first stop was at a nearby pagoda. Before a long journey, Vietnamese people come here to pray for good luck, so that's exactly what we did. They also have a giant dragon statue!

We stopped at a few places along the way with great views of the surrounding countryside. The central highlands of Vietnam are beautiful.

Our next stop was at a local coffee plantation. They grow a number of different coffee beans here, and as of last year, Vietnam was the world's number one exporter of coffee.

From there, we went to the Elephant Waterfall. We followed our guide down a very treacherous path down the rocks to the bottom of the waterfall, but we're so glad we did. The views were amazing!

On our way back up, Bom took us across a few precariously placed rocks that lead to a cave behind the waterfall. It was so intense to be behind that much falling water.

We walked back up the hill to the pagoda at the top, and were rewarded with a picture with the giant happy Buddha.

After that, we sat down to a traditional Vietnamese lunch with our guides. Before we knew it, our table was full of rice, vegetables, pork, beef meatballs, tofu, chicken, and spring rolls. I was also offered a shot of interesting looking "rice wine'. Game for anything, I counted down with our two guides "Mot, Hai, Ba, YO!" (One, Two, Three, Cheers!) and downed the glass. Not bad, I thought. Then they showed me the jar it came from.

Snake wine is a traditional Vietnamese drink. They take wine made from rice and yeast, and shove a few snakes, head and all, into the jar. They let it sit for about 6 months, and then its ready to serve at about 30% alcohol. Our guides informed us that the people drink it as a local remedy, especially as a cure for gout.  A few more Mot Hai Ba YO's later and I had a snake wine buzz.

After lunch, we stopped at the rice winery to see how the rice wine is made. Turns out, its just like making moonshine in the hills of North Carolina.

As we started heading back, the skies were growing darker. Sure enough, about halfway back to town, it started pouring. Not just raining, but pouring. Our guides were great, and managed to avoid most of the streets-turned-rivers by snaking (no pun intended) their way along canals and through alleyways.

We made it safely back to our hotel, and even managed to dry out a little before dinner. We went to the same guesthouse for dinner as the night before, as it was lots of good food for cheap (dinner and drinks came to around $5). While we were waiting on our food, we struck up a conversation with a fellow American sitting at the table across from us. She was from Washington, and had just arrived that day. As we were talking, the 9-year-old Vietnamese boy next to her interrupted us. "Excuse me, I don't want to interrupt, but I would like to practice my English with you." How could we say no!?! The four of us proceeded to talk all through dinner about everything from his favorite subject in school (he likes math and recess, but history is boring! Too many wars.) to the places he wants to visit in America (The big bridge in California) to why there are people on earth (I kid you not, he asked me who the first human was and where the rest of us came from, and then sat there, interested, and listened while I gave him the evolutionary history of mankind). His mother sat next to him the whole time, smiled, and looked very proud. After saying goodbye to our new friend and encouraging him to always ask questions, we headed back to the market.

The market was crazy thanks to all of the Vietnamese toursists on holiday for Reunification Day, or the day the Americans left Vietnam (ironic, no?). We managed to find what we were looking for. A few limes and a bag of sugar. We got back to our hotel and made freshly squeezed, all local limeade. We added a little vodka, and sat back to relax after an amazing three days in Da Lat.