Conkle Lake, Ambleside Park (West Van), Outside of Ironroad Studios, On a Motorcycle Lift, Savary Island, On the Back of a Train, Middle of the Woods Outside Kamloops, McSpadden Park, Riverside Park Beach (Kamloops). Good, but not quite there.
Next: 1.Freedom Farm. 2.Your Backyard. 3. In and around a tree.
Halong Bay, Vietnam
Holy Cambodia and Canadian Rudders! Seems like such a long time ago that I was giving carefree brush jobs in a different continent. And that’s because it fucking was. I apologize for the serious dropping out of internet socializing, but I don’t really mean it.
I left it hanging on the first night of our bike trip, in Stung Treng on the Mekong River in Cambodia. The next morning we headed North East to the town of Ban Lung, our final destination; it was rumored to have plenty of waterfalls and a blue crater lake that I was intent on checking out. The ride into town was beautiful as we caught another blue day, and as we neared Ban Lung the ground turned a deep rusty colour which made the scenery even more beautiful, and we finally started to get into some curves and bends in the road, gathering height and riding out into beautiful vistas. We rolled into town in the afternoon, ate another shitty meal, and then headed straight out to the lake. It was absolutely gorgeous and extremely clean as it was a sacred area for the locals, so nothing was built around the lake but a couple of docks and signs with awkwardly awesome statements such as “Please be passionate about the nature.” We spent the afternoon jumping off the dock, and watching monkeys play fight in trees. At one point I was swimming by the shore when a monkey got his ass kicked and fell out of a tree. I didn’t know they were such able swimmers…. still nervous from my Monkey Island debacle I had no trust in this monkey, but he was super cute and chill and just paddled around and then went back up the tree to beat up his buddy. Or whatever monkeys do.
We found a pretty sweet little place to stay at that had a lot of wooden walk-ways and a jungle valley view and ate some burgers and played cards. The next morning we jumped on our bikes, stoked that we had our own transport and didn’t have to rely on taxis, and began the great waterfall adventure. It began with a trip to the gas station to top up, which became the beer-up as we noted that they sold. We popped open the seats on the bikes and used the little storage space they have there as a cooler, fitting about five drinks and a bunch of ice in each space. It was impressive, and it functioned perfectly as there was even ice left at the end of the day. Unfuckingreal. Business done they directed us to the turn off we were looking for and we began the off-roading aspect of our adventure, which got even more challenging when a sheet of rain plummeted from the sky and the dust turned to mud. Typical of the rainy season, this only lasted 15 minutes and we were dry by the time we saw the elephants. And stopped. And stared. Elephants! Fucking sweet! I was all jazzed up by this point, and by the time I turned around to ask Rylie and Sarah “So should we ride some elephants out to a waterfall?” I already knew the answer. I mean, can you say no to that shit? It was $25 bucks for everyone so there was no financial constraints.
The elephant ride was slightly terrifying but cool. They are tall bastards, and it was a bit of a challenge getting on, but after that, I mean the elephant does all the work. It was pretty awesome to feel the elephants shoulders move as he picked his way through rough terrain, stepping over huge logs and going through streams. The mahout, the elephant trainer, rests his heels in a nook behind the elephants broad ears and uses that to guide him, as well as grunts and yells when the elephant is eating too much. Which is all the time. Like horses, all they wanted to do was eat, so they would stop at any chance they got to tear the leaves off a branch or uproot a plant. I didn’t care though, I would have just sat on the elephant for an hour while he wandered around and ate shit.
Upon our arrival the mahout got the elephant to go onto his knees and we jumped off. It was impressive but I hoped it wasn’t too hard on the old guy! We wound our way down some wooden stairs to see a beautiful waterfall clearing an overhang that probably sank back about 15 feet. From the lip the water fell and vines grew down, touching a pool of water that gathered below, and there was absolutely no one around. I got naked, Rylie followed, and we somehow took Sarah’s skinny dipping virginity without even knowing it. We dove in the water, cool and refreshing, and paddled around laughing with amazement. We climbed behind the waterfall, and Rylie grabbed onto a vine and swung in and out a number of times and then let go, plunging into the waterfall. It was awesome. He did it again. Also awesome. During this time I was swimming over and clambering up on the rocks behind him, ready for my turn to Tarzan into the waterfall. I positioned my feet, leaped out, and grabbed the vine, only to hear it snap and and send me plummeting into the rocks below. Fuck dude, that hurt. I landed right on my foot and ass and then floated around bleeding and cursing: the exact fucking opposite of what I had anticipated. I limped my clothes back on and applied a band-aid to my foot, intent on not letting the pain interfere with my having a good time. This was hard, but I did okay.
We rode to the next waterfall and watched as some dude came out dressed in traditional garb with a bow and arrow, while wearing just the most pimping watch. Then a bunch of ladies showed up and tried to explain something to us in Khmer, and when we could not understand them they proceeded to all enter the water dressed and then laugh at us. A monk also showed up and washed his clothes.
That night we rode over to a European restaurant in search of a guaranteed delicious meal and were not disappointed. Schnitzel and pasta. We also saw the largest bug that I have ever seen in my life. It was pretty much a GIANT green leaf with legs and it seemed to be injured as it worked its way towards us across the restaurant floor. We then got to watch an awesome dog vs. bug showdown, in which a golden retriever puppy mercilessly toyed with the bug and won. At this point I am drinking red wine and I have a serious fucking limp, as in I was hopping as it was faster than walking, so the dog could have taken me too.
The next day we rode the entire route home, which took less time than expected, something like seven hours. We traded bikes a bunch and different people were carrying different bags with different passengers on the way home, trying to keep it spicy. It was a hot day. We were very lucky as we had had crap weather the entire time in Cambodia, then we randomly decided that we would go on a bike trip and it cleared up for us and shone the whole time. Beautiful. It got a bit hairy on that last day though as we had run out of sunscreen and were forced to buy Cambodian. After loosely searching for a couple of days Rylie finally found some without “Whitener”. Great. Except that it didn’t work at all. So for the entire ride home we were slopping this shitscreen on us, in progressively heavier and heavier loads, and we still ended up getting burnt to shit. Just fried, except for sweet Sarah who had the ability to just brown up nicely.
We rolled into town just before sunset, a nice little trend for us. The last 20 kilometers or so were the funnest, riding on packed dirt roads through small villages on the Mekong. Everyone was very happy to see us and we got lots of smiles and waves. By this time we had been riding for quite a while and were a little bored so we were doing all sorts of weird things like foots up riding and having Rylie on the back of my bike sitting side saddle, which is something that women frequently do in Cambodia. This got us some awesome looks, which groups of boys collapsing into laughter and women pointing and yelling with glee, as well as a couple of what the fuck is wrong with you looks.
Ben was very pleased that we returned the bikes functioning and whole; the only thing we had destroyed was a helmet and it really was cracked to shit.
The next day we got on a bus to Siem Reap and the Angkor Wat Temples and a whole different world.
Well, gotta go catch my final flight and lay down a bit because I feel ILL. Fuck you coffee!!
My last post ends as I arrive in Phnom Pen, and yet right now I sit in Siem Reap, home to the famed Angkor temples, waiting for the night bus to leave at 1:30am to take us to Bangkok. It is currently midnight. We rose at 4am this morn, after a brief 3 hour sleep, and spent a full 12 hours tuk-tuk (a small wagon pulled by a moto) and walking around temples. Please forgive my sub-par writing: at least now I can stock it up to exhaustion.
Phnom Penh. I wish I could tell you more about it, but my time spent there was pretty fucking wild. After my initial off the boat gambling debacle, one that can only be justly relayed in person, I went back to my shitty hotel room and stared up at the ceiling for a bit, drifting into a fitful sleep in which I awoke multiple times wondering what the hour was. When I finally dragged myself out of bed and found my alarm clock it reported that it was 5:30pm, resulting in my prompt dismissal as an error. I stumbled my way out to the lobby and rubbed my eyes in disbelief as the wall clock repeated the information at me. What. The. Fuck. 15 hours of sleep. I stood outside in the drizzling rain thinking considering the fact that Rylie and Sarah’s flight came in at 4:30 and I had hoped to meet them at the airport. Five minutes later they arrived to find me standing in the same place awaiting them. I was overjoyed to see my old friend Rylie, and happy to meet his friend from Victoria, Sarah, a super chill easygoing girl. We swapped hugs and stories, and spent the evening wandering around eating market food, drinking avocado shakes (best thing ever…), stopping by the Zeppelin Cafe for some good tunes and bad cocktails. We ended up playing cards with some dull bulbs who convinced us to come to a nightclub where we did the ol’ revolving door and went home to bed.
The next day we woke up at a moderate hour and tuk-tuked out to one of multiple ‘Killing Fields’ scattered throughout Cambodia, remnants and reminders of the extremely disturbed Khmer Rouge regime, the most famed leader being Pol Pot, that ruled the country from 1975-9. This brutal ‘Communist’ party, led by many former teachers, pronounced the date of their rise to power ‘Year Zero’, and proceeded to drag their country into the depths of despair and terror. Those who were educated, involved in the former regime, dissenters, the wealthy, or simply other arbitrary attributes, such as those who wore glasses were brutally murdered by the thousands in these fields, most often by blunt farming instruments or knives, and tossed into mass graves. One could literally find teeth, bone splinters and torn clothing that had turned up with the latest rain. There was a tree in which babies heads were smashed against, the soldiers holding tightly to their legs with a violent swing. The audio tour went into depth and was informative and overwhelming at the same time, causing one to slip into a depressed state of futility, capped off by the mountain of skulls the main building encloses. 3 Million of the country’s population of 8 million died during those years. Brutal. We rode back in silence, unable to handle the museum the experience is often paired with, aware it would be full of brutal pictures of senseless killing, one after another.
The next morning we rose at 6:30 am and made out way to the market, where we caught a mini bus up to Kratie in Northeast Cambodia. The drive was seriously rough and Rylie got ill in the corner three times without a single person noticing. The fact that I was passed out on gravol and blaring Khmer music (fucking terrible pop) seemed to mute that experience for the rest of us. His later recounting of this incident and Sarah’s revelation that she had almost peed her pants made us double over with laughter in the back of the van, laughing so hard that what these people probably do fairly often almost tore us tourists apart. The three men that were sitting in front of us had been staring at us for an absurdly long amount of time already, and they took this opportunity to blatantly turn in wonder, making us laugh even harder joking about what they must be thinking about us. Before we left on the bus ride a wrinkled old toothless man came up to the window and started howling with laughter at us, grabbing people around him to join in. We ended up laughing back just as hard, and though we did not know what he was laughing at we were able to make up a couple of things that had us going. We were right to think that he was laughing due to the ride ahead.
Well, bus time. Sorry so short!
And I forgot to bring a wife…. What a dummy. I am sure that she would have stopped me from getting involved in a less than desirable gambling scheme in the home of a Cambodian local, but that is neither here nor there.
Saigon. Ho Chi Minh City. Pre-1975. Post-1975. Same same but different, as they love to say here. On my last day in Saigon, or HCMC, I took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels, which were built by the Viet Cong, or the National Liberation Front, again, same same but different. The terms are so interesting, as the second of the set is the term used by the Communist government, the victors of that terrible war. History is written by the victors, is is not? Hence Saigon becomes Ho Chi Minh City, and in very few government venues do you find the NLF refered to as the Viet Cong (VC). Choose a narrative and stick to it I guess.
The Cu Chi tunnels were quite fascinating, as it is the preservation of a short section of a network of tunnels that at one time spread throughout much of the country, with one stretch leading from Saigon to the Cambodian border, and were an extremely important element in the VC’s victory over American and South Vietnamese forces. These tunnels allowed the VC to hide in the jungle, undetected by American troops and invisible to helicopters and air patrols. There were three levels: 3 meters deep, 7 meters deep, and 10 meters deep, with the lower level necessitating air holes which had to be built into termite nests in order to hide them from the Americans. Once the Americans caught on they brought in dogs, who could smell them out quickly, and often used the air hole to fill the tunnels with poison gases, which were even at that time illegal as per the Geneva Conventions of 1949, making this a war crime. I have heard accounts of this being used on tunnels, only to find it full of dead women and children who were simply trying to avoid the constant barrage of bombs and terror that had overrun the countryside. Don’t get me wrong, as the war stretched on the VC also gained a reputation of being extremely brutal to it’s own citizenry, many who were stuck between two demanding loyalties, neither of which they really wanted to fulfill.
The VC, in return, used black pepper and spicy chilies to throw off the dogs, as well as using the scent of American soap to mislead them. The tunnels themselves were narrow and small, and at points I had to slide on my bum, going down down down into a hot and dark hellish nightmare. After only 100 meter I emerged blinking into the light, covered in sweat and dirt and unable to comprehend how people were able to endure such conditions for great lengths of time, and great distances. Having never experienced war, I will never be able to truly understand it’s hideous demands.
The guide also showed us a half a dozen brutal but basic booby-traps that the VC set up in the jungle: innocent pieces of ground with a bit of leaves on it suddenly give way to sharpened poisoned bamboo or jagged pieces of metal, often made from destroyed US military equipment, aimed to disembowel, damage, or destroy a person. Hide-outs in the ground were dug so a soldier could pop up easily through a small square of ground that was made to blend seamlessly into the forest floor. One also had to use their imagination to fill in the jungle around her as defoliants such as Agent Orange ravaged the jungle, with most of the trees that we see today being 35 year old or younger. At that time it was a deep and dense jungle that spread throughout the land. It was easy to see how an American soldier would absolutely lose their mind; the heat, the brutal booby-traps, the inability to locate the enemy, the ever-constant bugs, as well as snakes, scorpions, and giant centipedes.
At the end of the journey we watched a propaganda film from the late 60s, which repeated the line “American Killer Hero” a number of times, making the Americans in the room squirm with anxiety. Don’t worry friends, no one is a hero here.
Upon return to the city I spent the afternoon with two Americans that I had met on the tour, checking out some more historical sights and engaging in some fantastic conversations. It was much needed as most encounters with English speakers here have been quite shallow and disappointing. At the end of the day we exchanged big hugs and thanked each other profusely for challenging each other and leaving one another with new things to ponder over.
Not five minutes after leaving their company I walked into an Internet cafe to find the Canadians I had danced the night away with in Nha Trang. We went for some beers together and ended up on their roof-top smoking joints and talking about our childhoods, theirs being considerably more complicated than mine. It was pretty interesting but they were passing out by eleven so I begged my leave. All of a sudden I was baked and on the streets of Saigon with one beer left to drink. I ambled down the dark street and came upon a group of locals that were singing beautifully, accompanied by an overturned empty detergent bucket being used as a drum. I stopped to listen for a few moments, and they quickly offered me a seat. I accepted their offer with a smile and we began to drink together, (OH GOD GIANT RAT…. and I’m used to it.), and they continued with their songs. They were absolutely beautiful, though I could not understand a single word. Soon they asked me to sing a song for them, and we spent the evening laughing, drinking beer, and exchanging songs. It was lovely. At about 1:30 they asked me if I was hungry, which I eagerly nodded my head to, and two of the boys jumped out of their seats onto their scooters to return momentarily with some big juicy sandwiches in hand. Up until that point I had avoided them, as they are filled with all sorts of mystery meat and pates, but as I was their guest I munched away, pleasantly surprised at how delicious I found it. 10 minutes later all I could do was sit there with my mouth open trying not to tear my tongue off from spiciness; one of the boys looked at me and giggled “spicy?”. Yes, I softly replied, unable to really think about anything but the pain: soon I found that when I closed my mouth and just let it really burn then it slowly began to fade away. Sometime after two we were all yawning, and we said our goodbyes. I asked them how much I could throw in for the beer and food and they looked at me with a minorly offended look and denied any payment. I thanked them profusely and made the short walk home and to my bed, only to wake up hung as fuck for my Mekong tour at 7am the next morn.
I managed to sleep off my hangover, mouth open and drooling a bit, on the bus ride out to the grand Mekong River. We got on a boat and checked out the floating market, which was quite interesting. Each seller boat sold only one fruit of vegetable, and they advertized their wares by hanging one of their stock on top of a tall pole of bamboo. Buyers would snake their way through these boats, trying to find what they desired at the best price. We also stopped at a coconut candy making place, which was delish, and a honey store. Later we stopped by a “Crocodile farm”, which fully raised crocs for their meat and skin, which was used to make things such as crocodile shoes, belts and coats, as well as their feet for key-chains, like lucky rabbits feet. What really made me sad were the animals that were encaged just for the pleasure of tourists: they had a couple of depressed monkeys and some disturbed birds. One of the birds lived with the monkeys, and the entire time it just paced back and forth in front of the cage’s door, chirping dejectedly and every once in a while pecking at the cage. The other bird was it its own cage and had a dozen or so limp pieces of grass that it was given to amuse itself, which it had surrounded itself in, trying to fashion itself a pathetic nest in a rather deranged manner. When I questioned the woman as to why they had these birds here she replied questioningly: For the tourists, don’t you like it (the bird)? I told her that I liked it very much and that I would love to see it go free so that one could see it in it’s natural element. I don’t think she really understood.
The Mekong is an exceptionally wide river, and the section we were in was split in two by a large island down the middle. It was quite beautiful, though amazingly flat. That evening we slept in a floating hotel, which was surprisingly unexceptional. It was funny because they were trying to make everyone share a room, and had no idea what to do about the girl that was all by her lonesome. Mwahaha. Thankfully, I ended up with my own room.
The next day we rose at 6am and boated down the river and into Cambodia, stopping at a quaint and easy border crossing to buy our visa’s and get our passport stamps. Soon enough we were back on the river, watching the jungle go by and young boys bathing in the river right alongside their cows. After a couple of hours the city of Phnomn Penh appeared in the distance and I had a great sense of excitement in my heart. Cambodia at last!
I got off the boat and began to walk around town, noticing immediately the difficulties in not sharing the same alphabet with a foreign language. Where as before I was able to read addresses and street signs in order to orientate myself on my map, I was now completely at loss.
The internet cafe that I am in right now closes at 12am, and it is 12:15. Gotta go!
The boat trip was quite a success despite a rocky beginning, in which I lost my group and was wandering around like a sad little girl on the jam-packed dock, holding up my ticket and looking pitifully lost. It was 8am people. I always look pitifully lost at that hour anyways. Thankfully my guide found me and threw me onto the boat with not a minute to spare. I had expected it to be full of Westerners, and I had actually counted on this as I was looking to make some friends to go to Vinpearl water and amusement park with me, but I was surprised to find the boat packed full of Vietnamese tourists. No problem, as they were all very friendly and curious, as usual, about my loner status. It is actually quite hilarious, because at first people feel openly sorry for me. “That’s soooo sad” one woman crooned at me. I think it is hard for them to understand why someone would go traveling without a loved one or their family, as that is how most Vietnamese I have met are traveling. It is kind of hard to find a decent reply to those sorts of sentiments, questions such as “why don’t you have a friend with you?”. They still remained unconvinced by any answer I give. What they do do is invite me to eat with them, or make a special efforts to include me and talk to me often. Hahaha. Don’t they realize my plan is working?
On the first island we went to an aquarium that was in the shape of a giant concrete pirate ship, which was pretty rad. I do feel sorry for the big-ass fish that don’t really have very much room to swim, and it makes me wonder about fish depression. I feel like if they had a chance they might hop right out of their tank and just end it right there. I would, if I were them: make a break for the sea…
The second island was quite pretty, and the guide doled out some slightly shitty snorkeling masks, but they got the job done which is what counts. The reefs were amazing, and there were lots of fish and sea life, so the hour went by very quickly and I did a lot of diving down to get a closer look at things. It was awesome! Best snorkeling so far.
The third island harbored a floating fish farm, allowing people to pick out any additions they would like to add to the lunch, and people really took up that opportunity. I watched a poor squid get murdered, and a bunch of lobsters too. I didn’t know lobsters could swim so fast! In fact I had never seen them swim before…pretty cool. I wonder about the definition of a fish farm, as there is no way that they have the fish in there from birth, as the netting wasn’t that fine. They must catch sea creatures when they are fairly grown and then just store them in these nets…
Lunch was big and delicious, and after lunch there was an epic show put on by ‘The Funky Monkey Boy Band’, which is to say the entire staff of the boat. I must admit, it was pretty radical as they just had some shitty instruments, including a drum set, that they pulled out of nowhere, but they managed to sound alright and even played some good tunes. There were two other groups of tourists on the boat, both German, and they were called out after the first song to go sing a German song. It was fucking hilarious. What I should have seen coming in all my pleasure at their minor humiliation was that I was next. Oh well, a few beers in I rocked the fuck out to ‘Hey Jude’, getting the crowd enthused enough to do the wave. Nice. They sang a song about Ho Chi Minh, and some other Vietnamese songs, as well as some Red Hot Chili Peppers and American bands. Sweet shit. This was all filler for the boat to find a good spot in the middle of the ocean, where they set up, yes, a floating bar. Basically, it’s one guy on a big ass tube with a big bucket of liquor, and then everyone else is given a tube and you swim over and hold on. You then have to rocket howevermany drinks you can down your gullet before the salty waves overtake your cup: I did just fine, thankyouverymuch. We also got to jump off the top deck of the boat, which was actually high enough that I had to do the whole don’tthinkjustrun trick. I managed to make friends with an Vietnamese-American woman, whose family had left the country in 1975 on the last of the departing American ships. Holy history! She was with her Vietnamese niece, who didn’t speak any English, and we decided that we would attack the amusement park together the next day, as well as meet up late for drinks. Sweet.
The final island found me a drunken haze, and I wandered around looking for a bit of a hike. There were no trails, so I settled myself down in a beach chair far away from the crowds and unwound for a bit. It was absolutely lovely. The heat soon overcame me and forced me into the sea, where I amused myself by giving some Vietnamese tourists water-rides, full kid style. See me in the ocean with an adult woman in my arms, swinging her around in circles, counting to three, taking in a very obvious deep breath, and then dunking her under. Very few Vietnamese can swim, despite their 3,200km coast line (I think I remember that correctly), so for her it was quite a rush! She was just stoked, and it made me laugh my ass off as well. As soon as I put her down another girl ran up to me and made me do the same until I had to beg off due to fatigue. I swam out and just floated as one can only do in the ocean, looking at the sky, blue and clear. I began to question the my answer to Maddie’s earlier query: If you could chose only one for the rest of your life, would you choose lake or ocean? I am torn.
The tour ended and I returned to my hotel exhausted from the days events, and intoxicated from the beer and mystery bucket beverage. The next thing I knew I was waking up from a four hour nap, only an hour before I had plans to meet Linh and her niece for a few drinks. I went for dinner, where I saw another girl eating alone. I tried numerous times to try to make eye contact to no avail, so thinking her shy, I just out and invited her to join me. Boy was I wrong. As soon as she sat down she emitted a waterfall of words, many of dubious nature. I found myself defending the eating of dog-meat by the Chinese, questioning her own meat eating ways. “Are you aware that pigs are actually really intelligent animals, yet most Western farms pack them in in horrific conditions?” Yes, she was. “Isn’t this just a judgement passed on something that is simply a different cultural norm? Who the fuck are we to judge?” This shut her up for a bit, but soon she was off about how all the Vietnamese girls are just looking for a ticket out of here through Western men, which does have some truth to it for some girls, but also a broad generalization. I tried to tell her I had to go meet Linh for drinks, but she just kept on talking!! I had to get up, and make for the door, inviting her to come if she’d like. She did like, and I was soon sitting at the bar listening to her and Linh get super excited about how they both worked at Disney Paris and on both Disney Cruise lines and did you know Bryce Winningham, who was like, totally married, and oh wasn’t Jenny Bouche a slut? Yes. Yes she was.
Chatty Cathy soon realized she had forgot her cellphone somewhere, and ended up abandoning us completely with her four dollar drink. Nice. Would I pay four dollars for her to go away? Yes. So it worked out well. I ended up meeting one nice girl, Nell, which brings the total of tourists that I genuinely liked up to 3. Yikes. We proceeded to drink and dance the night away, ending up in the ocean playing on one of those giant floating fun parks, with the trampoline, slide, and giant mountain to climb. It was good fun, though her drunk-ass 18 year old sister, who was an attention craving maniac, put an added spin of bat-shit crazy on the night. Not that it needed it.
On the way home I stopped for a sandwich and got seriously sexually harassed by this fucker. I kept on having to slap his hands away from my boobs, which were admittedly looking fine under my thin wet long sleeved shirt, but I also was hanging my wet under shirt over my shoulders in an attempt to prevent myself from being too risque. Unfortunately, nothing can stop the thunder nips and he took great notice of this. He kept on trying to grab for them, and then shouting stuff in Vietnamese to the group around him, and who would then all explode in laughter. Total douchebaggery. I shut him up miming to him that he probably had a small pecker, much to the amusement of his friends, I then gave him a final shove and walked away quickly. Not stoked. I soon realized I was going the wrong direction and had to turn around and pass by them again. I stayed on the other side of the street, which did nothing as he crossed the street and came at me again. I was just pissed by this point, and told him to fuck right off, pushed him away again, and walked away as fast as I could while trying to maintain my cool. Every inch of my body wanted to give him a good shit-kicking, and I was fairly confident that I could, but I really didn’t want things to escalate so just kept my fist balled and walked away. The couple of blocks home couldn’t have seemed longer, and I was bummed at the way that he was able to make me feel so exposed, so unsafe. Some fucking men just have no idea that what is a joke to them is a serious head fuck to a woman, as I just had all sorts of scary rape scenarios going around in my head. He didn’t follow me and there were enough people in the surrounding area that I probably would have been fine, but fear can eat you up inside. A gnawing, debilitating monster. I find it so hard to accept that as a woman, who often doesn’t feel so much like a ‘woman’, I need to act differently as a traveler: “Women should not walk home alone at night.” But men can? So should I be taking a taxi for 4 blocks? Why should I trust the taxi driver any better than my own chances? The sick part was that I actually had a passing thought that I deserved what was coming for being where I was at that time. Yet if I followed every warning thrown at me, I wouldn’t have had a cold drink, eaten a salad or watermelon, or gone out during the day, due to the sun, or dawn and dusk, due to the mosquitos, or even the night, due to criminals. I would sit in my hotel room, clutching my passport, paranoid that the hotel manager is thinking about knocking me out and selling my organs on the black market. Oh my. How to make sense of it all. I do my best.
The next day I woke surprisingly free of a hangover, thank you sandwich and ocean swimming, and headed over the Vinpearl amusement and water park. The gondola over was scary and awesome, and the rides were pretty decent as well. The Alpine coaster was the best, as it took you directly up a steep mountain and then wound you down it, allowing you to work the brakes yourself! It was fucking crazy! You could get going sooo fast, and then all of a sudden a sign would pop up saying “Brake!” and you would have to hammer on the brakes to take a corner…or not. I was a little worried at time it might fly off its tracks, but I’m alive to write this story aren’t I? There was also another coaster that was small but extremely tight and got going super fast. It blew my mind a bit.
We spent the early afternoon on their white sand beach, mercifully free of pushy vendors, swimming in the ocean and reading. Oooh yeah. The late afternoon was filled with me running around the water park, going on as many slides as I could. It was pretty crazy. None of this shit would be legal in Canada, as I got whiplash from a jump on one, in which you go down a steep but stepped slide face-forward on a crazy carpet-esque thing, and then another, called “The Space Hole” was a completely dark tube of havoc. They started you out by pointing to a sign that had a very specific body posture, legs crossed, arms behind your head, which is very purposefully designed as this slide was absolute murder, flinging you around in utter darkness, and then shooting you out into a giant circle of slide, with a hole in the middle, like a toilet bowl…..or a space hole I guess….I definitely got some bruises out of that one!! Also, the joints were not very smooth, and it was a bit painful! On other slides you used a tube, and there were many sections where it was complete darkness, inviting all sorts of vertigo, causing me to worry that I was going to crack my head on the side. Full tuck was employed. There was also the largest lazy river that I’d ever seen, encircling the entire water park, and a kick-ass wave pool that on one side narrowed into a channel, allowing the waves to reverberate on the walls, smashing you against the sides and bringing you perilously close to the random archway they had constructed over top of it. Yikes and yipee!
That evening I made it back to the hotel just in time to grab a bite and then jump on my first sleeper bus, as so far I have been rocking the train. Not so great. Very little space for your belongings, and even my feet hit the end of the bed-seat. It also didn’t lay out flat, so for people that sleep on their back it might be okay, but for a vigilant stomach sleeper it was minorly torturous. There were also a zillion stops with the lights flashing, and the swerving of the crazy driver was a bit hard to fall asleep to, but all of a sudden it was 5:30am and we were being tossed into the depths of Ho Chi Minh City. I stumbled out of the bus into a crowd of shouting taxi drivers, each vying for my attention. I was not sociable at this hour so it took all of my will power to not tell them to fuck off, keeping it to terse ‘No thank you. No. Seriously. No. Just leave me alone”. I kept on having to walk further and further away to read my guide book, kicking myself for not having a place to stay planned before I arrived. I crossed the street and began to wander when this lady caught me and showed me to her hotel, 10 dollars cheaper than anything in the book, and very close. I accepted quickly and passed the hell out.
I awoke at 11am, got my bearings, and did a walking tour of the city. It is so funny how many moto-taxi’s offer you a ride in certain areas, scoffing at my smiles and gestures at my legs, stating “I have these for a reason you know”. “You can’t walk there” they retort, “that’s 4km away!!”. 20 minutes later I am at my destination, no problem, and I get to take in all the sights. I checked out Reunification Palace, which was famously overthrown by the North Vietnamese Liberation Army (aka. Viet Cong) in the fall of Saigon, signifying the end of the war. After I went to the War Remnants Museum, which was extremely poignant and terribly sad. I was surprised, and at the same time not, that I was the only one shedding tears. How does one not mist up reading the stories about all of the children born with mental illnesses and disfigurations from Agent Orange, with pictures showing them being cared for by their smiling mothers in their one room shack. Fuuuuuccckkk. There was a section of photographs that had been shot by many different journalists who had been killed in the war, capturing the horrific torture techniques used by the US army and other such atrocities and war crimes. Children screaming in terror, a man at the very second a bullet is entering his brain, the corpses of pregnant women, the absolute perversion of humanity. Yet outside, people smiled and posed for pictures in front of the tanks used to kill, where Vietnamese were tied to ropes by their feet and dragged to their death. We just saw those pictures inside. It makes no sense to me, the girl who has to go sit at a bus stop and weep for nothing and everything.
I had picked myself up and began to walk home when I spotted a thin, long restaurant bustling with locals, and found myself a seat among the crowd. I got so many smiles returned from my tentative ones, and soon felt at home, with the man at the neighboring table striking up a conversation, clinking beers with me, and the asking for my plate on which he put some lamb, returning it to me smiling with the word “sharing” falling from his lips. It almost made me want to cry again, seeing the resilience of these people that have been through so much and comparatively have so little, yet their spirit remains fierce and friendly. It makes me want to slap all the foreign idiots who complain that the Vietnamese ‘aren’t friendly’ and they are just ‘out to make a buck’. I have been told so many times never to accept anything from a Vietnamese person, as they will turn right around and charge you three times over. Yet, multiple times I have been taken under the wing of a local, offered beer and food with no desire for compensation except some struggling English conversation and smiles. Many also want a picture: “Look at this crazy white girl I found wandering around Vietnam…. and all alone too! Boy we felt sorry for her!” I think that people need to look beyond the wall of hardened tourist-hunters, those trying to sell you something, and see the true spirit of Vietnam. Even those who are viciously hawking their wares can be broken down, smiles and laughs can be shared, and you realize that they are just humans trying to get by in a country that is just now working its way out of decades of terror, violence, and poverty. Have we no compassion? I just don’t fucking know.
Pictures from the War Remnant Museum. The Vietnam War was extremely brutal, and these pictures accurately reflect that. From the deaths and deformities brought about by the unchecked use of Agent Orange, to the deranged murders of civilians by American soldiers, Vietnam has really been through some shit. According to the museum’s stats: 3 million Vietnamese were killed, 2 million of them being citizens, 2 million people injured, and 300,000 missing. This isn’t even counting the continuing damage brought about by Agent Orange and the use other poisonous chemical weapons. Such damage is passed on through poisons in the ecosystem, water table, through breast milk, and through genetic mutations that will continue on for hundreds of years. I was so depressed after that I just sat at a bus stop and cried. How can you not?
Vinpearl Amusement Park.
