Below are the 17 most recent journal entries recorded in hanjinsan's LiveJournal:

Monday, February 2nd, 2004
6:57 pm	Hoi An Today we drove out to the My Son ruins, center fo the ancient Cham kingdom. The Cham kingdom was based in central Vietnam. They were semi-pirates, they raided Vietnamese ships and sacked Angkor Wat. We really wanted to visit here to see the precursors to Angkor Wat technology. We drove out there at 8am to get to the site. We then had to take a jeep to ride to the actual site. Our guide told us how last year there was a big race between the tourists and the locals to get here on bike. The locals beat out the Westerners apparently. We toured the site which consisted of 6 groups of temples. Only 2 of the groups B& C had structures still standing. It is a pity they weren't better preserved. Apparently, the VC had used the temples as a base and the Americans bombed the temples. The most magnificent structure which was 20m high exists today only in drawings. That structure withstood pretty heavy bombing until an American sapper team rigged it directly with explosives. Pity that was destroyed. We packed ourselves in a little toyota van to get back to our van. Apparently toyota's are offered here in very stripped down versions with extra seats. It was quite packed. We returned back to Hoi An to do some more shopping. We went back to the tailor at 3pm and found that they still needed to do some more alterations to Adoria's dress and was told to come back at 6. We went to this cute little French cafe where we had some yummy mousse and tea. We returned at 6pm where they had to do over some more changes and told us to come back aat 9pm. We met a cute British couple Rose and Crawford traveling throughout SE Asia. They were traveling since November. Apparently they got a world ticket and they were going around the world. We told them to give us a ring if they ever found their way to SF. We ate dinner at this restaurant called The Mermaid. It was quite good. We had green papaya salad, grilled tuna in banana leaves, and cao lao. It was all quite yummy. The cao lao was kind of a mix of noodles and pork with good flavor. The tuna was subtle and very tasty too. We returned to the tailor at 9pm where they had to do even more work on Adoria's dress because it flared out a bit a the bottom like a bell. We finally were finished at 10:30. Adoria was pretty dissatisfied about the entire affair because it felt like we got tailor made Walmart clothing. We were beat when we got to the hotel and found that we had no hot water. We had to call the engineer who fixed something to make it run. (Comment on this)
Sunday, February 1st, 2004
6:49 pm	To Hoi An Today we went to My Lai, site of one of the worst massacres of the war. American troops killed 500 villagers here in a fit of craziness. Most of the casualties were women, children, and elderly. We saw an interesting video about the village with Mike Wallace of 60 minutes in it. In the 1990's they built a memorial at My Lai to commenorate the deaths there. One story that was particularly poignant was the story of 3 helicopter pilots who saw the massacre from the air. They saw a group of GI's chasing after a group of villagers. The pilot landed his chopper between them and trained his guns on the GI's threatening to shoot if they didn't stop. They beckoned to the fleeing villagers and whisked them away to safety. They were able to save about 10 villagers. The others were not so lucky. They had 1 picture of a young boy covering up the body of his younger brother to protect him from bullets, but they both died anyway. All in all it was rather sad. We then transferred to Hoi An. Hoi An is a beautiful tourist town. Apparently it was a hub for foreign traders and tailoring. Tri gave us a pass to see a variety of different things around the city. We could see very historic homes, temples, museums and what not. It was pretty interesting. We also noticed that the streets were quite clean as compared to the other cities. Dinner at our hotel, Vinh Hung 3, was quite good too. We ate this dish called the white rose which apparently is only made by 1 restaurant anywhere - it was quite good. After dinner we went to have a dress tailored for Adoria at this one place, Thu Thuy. She was fitted for a dress for $45 and I had a linen shirt made for $17. They weren't into bargaining so much here and was only able to shave a dollar or two off the price. We will be returning the next day to get fitted again and see how it fits. (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 31st, 2004
6:41 pm	happy to leave scary hotel! We woke up at 5am to leave thehotel at 6:30am. We were happy to leave because the hotel stunk. We rode along this nice quiet country road next to some RR tracks. It was beautiful because the rice paddies were bright green, the air was clean, and the traffic was minimal. That part of the ride was good. Our guide Tri decided to change the itinerary a little and get away from the RR path to a beach area. We didn't like that part as much. It was like a dessert initially and we climbed similar terrain like we did the prior day. After we got around and down the hills we hopped the van. For lunch we tried looking for a pho restaurant that Tri remembered, but ended up eating bo nee - which means dodging beef. The beef came on these heated cast iron platters which cooled the food at our table, we ate it with baguettes. It was quite good, we then rode the van up to Quang Ngai where we stayed at the My Tra hotel, which was better than Huong Sen. We had a pretty good meal there and I had drinks with the guide and driver. I found out that Sa the driver makes $100 a month. He has a 21 year old son in school now and an 18 year old daughter. Apparently he has to pay for their education. Seems like the communists don't give free higher education. Sa paid for my drink. I felt badly about that. We'll probably give him a good tip at the end. Tri and I were going to visit the local hotel dance floor for a bit but they were charging guests so we didn't. The music was loud enough to hear in our room but they ended at 10:30pm. (Comment on this)
Friday, January 30th, 2004
6:26 pm	Leaving Nha Trang We set out from Nha Trang today on higheway 1. Highway 1 is really really busy and polluted. We had some pretty large climbs at the beginning. We followed the main road and had lunch at a cute little beach rest stop. There was a dog and cat here - they were friends and played with each other. We had to feed them our scraps. They also had jet skis there, but since it was dry season they were not able to get them out of the estuary - they kept getting stuck on sand bars. The beache itself was quite nice. Something you would picture in a Corona commercial except in Asia, with crappy beer and noisy people. After lunch we rode over a hill and down into this semi-scenic valley. There was a traffic jam here and people were quite mad here. I think people were yelling at us b/c we were taking up room. The road was a straight shot to our hotel in Dinh Lanh. Adoria couldn't ride the last 10k and took the van into town while i rode into town w/ our guide. When we got to our hotel, Hoang Sen were were expecting to meet up, but the driver went to the wrong hotel. They had already disembarked at the other hotel when I arrived a the real one. The other hotel was really sketchy it was really divey. The porter also started yelling at Adoria for a tip - but since I was carrying all the loose money she couldn't give anything and the guy stormed off. Needless to say our real hotel was pretty bad too. It was probably cutting edge communist technology 30 years ago but now it was a mess. The bathtub and sink drained out int the bathroom floor where a single drain captured all the water. The toilet luckily was on a separate sewage line. The place was also mosquito infested. We had to use mosquito netting over our twin beds. We must have killed tons of mosquitoes. The sink was leaky, the lights were dim and the floor was dirty. I now understand how my folks think there place is cutting edge. Our hotel was also next to the railroad tracks so that every 2 hours were would wake up to listen to the pleasant sounds of a locomotive barreling by. All around this place was the worst so far - hopefully it won't get any worse. We did trot into the little city where we passed by a little amusement park and ate some yummy pastries. All around we were glad to leave this place the next day. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 29th, 2004
6:14 pm	Rest day in Nha Trang! Today is our rest day! We got to go our own little private cove to do some snorkeling. We began our day at 9am. We got to the cove on our private boat but were dissapointed b/c the water was rather murky. Apparently the weather had stirred up the currents making the usually clear waters dark. We had lunch at a little fishing village where we fed a hungry cat and watched basket boats on the water. The boats reminded me of the teacup ride at disneyland, but on the water and with oars and a lot dirtier. We walked around at the fishing village a bit by b4 eating but the locals were offended that Adoria was traipsing around in just a swimsuit. Lunch was excellent. They had a soup w/ coals in the middle of a bundt-esque pan to keep it hot. We then got to see an interesting spectacle where an expensive blue lobster was stabbed in the abdomen and its blood drained out so that it could be added to whiskey. After lunch we rested a bit and hung out at a cafe. I wanted to buy a mask like a surgical mask so that I could wear it while riding. The emmisions standards are rather low here and I was having trouble breathing while riding on the pollute roads. The locals seem to use those things quite extensively. At the cafe the workers were watching the Matrix on TV. Something was odd about it. I suddenly realized that it was serverely editied to decrese the violence. Huge chunks of the movie were missing. After the cafe I bought a cute little pink mask. The store I went to only had women's colours so I was stuck with a pink print. Tri took us to a dinner at 7. We ate at a bq place where you cooked food at the tble. It was incredibly smokey in there. Adoria was repulsed too b/c it was exteremely dirty there. She had to sit next to a fence w/ gum stuck to it. The food was pretty good and pervaded our clothes w/ smell pretty well too. They had women dressed in tiger beer outfits serving food. I think they thought I was interesting b/c I spoke VN funny. They opened beer bottles w/ a weird screw wood contraption. We had some homemade rice alcohol that Sa brought along. It aws pretty good and also helped cure back pain. Tri also told us that Adoria's bicycle was stolen that day. That was kind of a bummer. On top of that she had brought here own clipless pedals which were now lost as well. Tri called up the home office to send replacement pedals from Saigon to arrive the next morning. Apparently the bike was stolen when Tri used it to bike to a bookstore. He gave his bike to a security guy to watch. When he came backt it was gone. The security guy was responsible and Tri could have made him pay for the cost of it but he was so poor he didn't have the heart. Anyways I'm curious as to wheter the pedals will arrive in time and if Adoria could use the spare bike (which was dong's as well) (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 28th, 2004
9:34 pm	Out from Da Lat Today we had a big ride. We were going to bike down to Da Lat. Dong had to home to Saigon so she couldn't stay. Tri told us she thought wwe were nice and that she wanted to say bye but her bus left before she could. We rode around the main lake in Da Lat 1st. It was a beautiful lake complete w/ a cheesy replica of the eiffel tower compliments of the French occupation. Da Lat is hot local tourist spot for newlyweds and we saw tons of cute couples. We had a bit of climbing initially. It was rather scenic and relatively quiet. We bumped into a Japanese cyclist who was training. Apparently he was lving in Saigon, learning VN, and training in DA Lat. He had already gone 70 km when we met him at 11am. We biked uphill for a bit and Adoria had to stop and recharge w/ food from her pack. We stopped by a tea factory where we had a bun chun-esque (sweet rice and red bean cake) and tea. It was quite nice. We fed a cat crackers - she really liked it. The factory wasn't open b/c of Tet but we bought some Jasmine tea. The rest of the ride was a huge downhill ride. We passed people on the side of the road roasting a chicken. I stopped by another group of guys cooking something in a pot. I took a picture of that. They then tried to offer me some whiskey but I had to refuse. I said it might kill me. I hope I wasn't rude. We ended the day at 3 where we ate lunch at a local restaurant and had milk fruit. I thought she was offering the milk from it, but apparently you are supposed to eat the whole fruit. We then toured a Cham tower where a little girl asked me to give her money for school or asked to go back to America to go to school. I wasn't sure which. The Cham tower was interesting - it wsa Hindu and you could see how the style influenced the temples in Angkor Wat. The Cham apparently conquered Angor Wat @ some point. We then rode to our Hotel - Vien Dong. It was very communistic. The bathroom was also the shower stall. We had a quick shower and ate dinner at the attached deserted restaurant. Theyb had some singers there that were interesting. The food was mediocre. We treid to walk around but the place was getting dark and creepy and we decided to sleep. Current Mood: accomplished (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 27th, 2004
9:15 pm	leaving saigon Today was our big day to leave Saigon. We bid farewell Bong Sen 2 our tiny little hotel and set off in the van out of Saigon. Dong, the guide's g/f decided to come on the ride to get familiar w/ the odd western tourist custom of bike touring. We rode in the van for about 3 hourts to get out of Saigon. It was only about 150 km but cars go fairly slowly here b/c of all the scooter traffic - even on the 'interstate' route 1. When we checked out of the hotel they accused us of taking a coke out of the mini-bar and then screwed around to figure out the controversey. Our guide hurried us out of the hotel and said he'll take care of it later. He told us it was a typical ploy of state run hotels to do things like that and delay an entire tour group. I personally think it's the hotel staff sneaking cokes on the side. We drove by a coke factory and the guide told us the story of how coke came back to the country. After Clinton came and normalized relations w/ VN coke had a representative contact the gov't 4 hours after he left. The VN gov't got into a joint venture w/ coke where the factory was split 60/40 in coke's favour. In the first two years the factory took a huge loss and the VN gov't pulled out of the venture. They didn't realize that there were supposed to be significant start up costs b/c right after the VN gov't pulled out Coke started predatory pricing of their product so that they were even cheaper than bottled water. That drove all the local companies out of business. ONce that happened coke started enjoying a large profit when they boosted the price of their products since they were the only big player left. We had lunch at a little roadside tourist restaurant. After lunch, Dong, Tri, Adoria and I set out on our bike ride. It was quite pleasant b/c kids would come out and say hello! At the end though there were significant hills. I stopped at a designated rest area - which happened to be Sa's relatives house. Dong came next and complained of headaches - probably from dehydration. Adoria and Tri pedalled up next. She had a crazy story where she was pedalling up a huge hill. A guy on a bike w/ a cooler on it was in front of her and stopped. Adoria was so tired that she had to get off her bike to walk it around the guy. The bike guy then pulled out an ice cream bar out of his cooler and and dangled it in front of her. It was tortuous b/c Adoria was exhausted, hot and didn't have money to buy it. He wiggled it in front of her in taunt - and she was sad. At the next stop Tri bought a huge papaya the size of a basketball. It wasn't that good though. We then rode a bit longer. I was running out of steam at the end - little girls on bikes were passing us. When we saw the van again I was happy. We loaded up and van'd it the rest of the way to Da Lat. When we got there it was nice and cool b/c it's in the mountains. We stayed at the Novotel - which is a really nice hotel - originally built during the French occupation - it was renovated later. It was beautiful. We at the adjacent cafe across the street. We were served the typical prix fixed tour fair by a rather severe eurasian waitress. She spoke French, VN & English. She reminded me of a school teacher. Her name was Diep but she went by Jeannette. Food was so-so there. We turned in at our nice room right after dinner... (Comment on this)
Monday, January 26th, 2004
6:25 pm	cycling begins! We started the cycling part of our tour today. Our guide, Tri and our driver, Sa were going to be our buddies for the next 17 days. They drove us out of Saigon so that we could have a nice ride to the Cu Chi tunnels. The ride there was pretty nice. We went by a rubber tree farm where we saw them collecting sap from trees. As we rode kids would wave at us and say hello - b/c I guess were quite the novelty - people in VN do not bike for fun. The Cu Chi tunnels experince was very weird. We saw an old propaganda film of how the villagers of CuChi repelled the Americans b/c of the intricate 300 KM tunnel system they built. They played nice cheery music whenever you saw the VN villages and bombs and nasty music whenever you saw the Americans. The tour was amazing. They showed us the designs and techniques they used to build the tunnels. They then took us to a rifle range where we got to shoot an AK-47 w/ authentic ammunition from the war. It was surreal. I realized how tough it is to hit anything b/c I was way off the whole time. We then got to go through some actual tunnel. They were quite dark and cramped and clausterphobic. I was able to move much faster throuth them than Adoria was. I guess it was my VN blood that allowed me to crawl fast. We had lunch after that where we bumped into the guide who brough us to the Mekong delta. The restaurant was a nice outdoor one. We got back to Saigon pretty early. We shopped a bit and ate at VN house (where we realized that G. Bush ate there) saw some music and turned in. Current Mood: sore (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 25th, 2004
6:06 pm	leaving Angor Wat - hello Saigon again ... We woke up at 6:30 to pack today. Both of us had some upset stomach so we were getting to know the bathroom quite well. We went out to the floating village today. We had to drive down this ramshackle road through this fishing village. It was quite poor. We went out on the central lake in Cambodia to visit the floating village. Apparently, since tourists were getting interested w/ the tour the local militia took over the lucrative tourist boats. The local strong man took over control and taxed the tourists. It was quite warlord-esque. We stopped at a floating fish farm. It was pretty neat b/c they raised fish under the boat in cages and also raised alligators. Alligators are quite lucrative b/c one of them can be valued at 1000 usd. The boat guide was rather chatty and gave me his life story in 5 minutes. He is an orpan and he is in high school. During the day he runs the boat and at night he goes to school. We left the floating village afeter about 20 minutes then headed to an Artisan colony. The artisan colony is a program sponsored by the EU. They train folks for 1 year in an art - wood crafting, sculpture, or textile. After they train for 1 year they go back to their village where the program gives them raw materials for their craft which they can sell. Some of the work is quite nice but rather expensive. A bed spread for a king bed ran 300 USD! We realized this was the place they used to decorate the Angkor Cafe - where they also marketed their goods their. We ate lunch at the Angkor Cafe again and went to Angkor Wat to take some last photos. We went to another overgrown temple (which was being restored by the US. Apparently there are tons of int'l organizations supporting the renovation of a portion of the 300+ temples by Angkor Wat) and then a lesser temple. Our and driver brought us to the airport - where they said they would wait until our Visa issue passed the ticket guys. We gave the driver a 6 USD tip and Sopheap a 15 USD tip. I hope that it is enuf but it's hard to tell in a foreign country. Adoria was quite hungry at the airport. She was able to last until the flight. Right now I'm on the flight felling sated after eating a sandwich. It was small yet quite good. I wonder why mom never made Vietnamese sandwiches when I was young. She usually made crappy sandwiches - counter to all the Vietnamese sandwiches I've eaten. We landed in Saigon w/o fanfair. I did notice 2 Korean women who sat next to me on the flight. They were hell-driven to get off the flight and be 1st in line. Right when the plane landed they jumped into the aisle - just as I ( on the aisle seat) got up to get my bag. They glared at me while I let Adoria who was across from me get up. Oh well - I guess they really took the phrase - 'you lag you lose to heart.' When we got to customs I got a bit nervous - we had to use a letter to get through b/c our visa was setup for a single entry rather than multi-entry. We got in one line and were told to wait in another when we got to the front. We got to the other line and got to talk to real communist officers. They seemed particularly mean. We waited a bit for them to give us a visa. During that time I saw them deny this one Japanese guy entry. Apparently he thought he could just show up. He was severely hosed. He got into a shouting match w/ the immigration guys and I thought they would do something nasty to him. They didn't and were were fortunate enuf to get through the original customs line quickly again. After about 2 hours of customs fun we finally made it to our htoel - we ate at Brodard cafe ( which felt like a VN denny's complete with glass case w/ pies) and crashed. We almost didn't have hot water for a shower but called the front des and the engineer gave us a stupid westerner look and fixed it with a flick of a switch. Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 24th, 2004
7:31 pm	Elephants! We had a buffet breakfast today at about 7:45am. It was so so. So far I have been less than impressed with the food here. We went to the Angkor Thom temple first. Adoria and I got to go on an elephant ride. It was pretty cool. We sat on an elephant to ride through the main gate of Angkor Thom. It was pretty neat, the elephants got a little spooked when we rode past some monkeys. They sort of growled at them. The ride was short but fun. I thouht it was a good value at 10 USD/head. when we got off, I tried to pet the elephant. I'm not sure if he liked that or not. He sort of growled but it could have been a purr but Adoria didn't think so. We toured Angkor Thom at that point. It was very neat. It seemed more expansive than Angkor Wat. We had lunch at a place called the Angkor Cafe. I think our guide brought us there because we had complained about the gluttony of the buffet last night. Angkor Cafe was this little cafe just across the street from Angkor Wat. It was sort of strange because it was a really nice cafe in the middle of nowhere. What was even cooler was that we were able to get iced drinks and eat fresh vegetables. It was delicious. Apparently this place was managed by a French chef with local agreements. We had our usual 2 hour nap after that a nd saw a couple more temples at 3. We got to see the temple where Tomb Raider with Angelina Jolie was filmed. Our guide told us about bumping into her while she was filming. We also visited the temple where they took the picture on the cover of LP Cambodia! On top of that there is an old man on the cover who we saw as well. He was 80 some odd years old and had been maintaing the temple his whole life. Apparently he does his normal routine and people photograph him and his broom all day long. After that we photographed monkeys! Baby and mom together were adorable. Then we went back to the hotel and ate at a Thai restaurant next door. The power went out during dinner but that did not seem to phase them. We ordered 4 dishes and the portions were huge! So we were unable to finish everything. We ate dinner by candlelight. It was rather nice. We went home and packed for the next day. Current Mood: ecstatic (Comment on this)
Friday, January 23rd, 2004
7:09 pm	Flight to cambodia We woke up at 4am today. One flight was at 6:30am. We tumbled out of bed hecka early. I went down when our driver called. We got to the airport before 5am before the airport even opened. When we got there, there was a small crowd. We did the normal plane thing. The interesting thing was that we kept on moving from checkpoint to checkpoint about 4 in all and saw the same lady at each. Adoria was dead to the world on the flight. I was watching a Vietnamese/American couple on the flight with their young kids. The littlest one was a handful. We got to Siem Reap in Cambodia at about 8:30am and met up with our driver and guide. We went straight to Angkor Wat. Sopheap our guide took us ona little private tourof the whole place. The immensity of the temple is hard to describe. I especially liked the bass reliefs of the various Hindu stories - the abduction of the princess and the rescue by the monkey army, the creation myth of the demons and gods stirring the ocean of milk, and the battle of gods and demons. After we were done we went to eat at an open air restaurant. The food is similar to Thai food. We learned that Cambodia just recently ended its civil war and because of that they have to import virtually everything. After lunch we visited 3 more temples. The tour was pretty pampered. The driver would always open doors for us and he had a nice cool towel for us at the end of our day. They brought us to our hotel at about 1pm because we had to take a break in the heat of the day. The hotel room was pretty nice and spacious. We took a nap until 3pm and saw the reamining 3 temples of the day. One tourist began following us a bit to listen to our guide. It was a little strange because she would then run back to her group and tell them what she heard. She kind of hopped from group to group eavesdropping. We got back to the hotel at around 6pm, took a quick shower (with hot water!) and our driver and guide took us to a buffet restaurant with traditional Cambodian dancing. The show was nice, the buffet was not. I got a little ill from the food and I was disgusted at the gluttony all around. People were living in abject poverty across the street while people at the restaurnat were fighting for unlimited fixings. It was the western tourist at its worst. The guide said that we could have the driver wait for us to take us back to the hotel but that felt weird so we sent them home. We took a $2 USD tuk tuk ride home, which is a much nicer motorized "sitlo" where we turned in to our posh hotel. Lonely Planet said it is top end. Current Mood: exhausted (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 22nd, 2004
7:04 pm	visiting grandpa The day after Tet, the 1st of the year, was very quiet. We slept late and had pho for lunch at pho 24. It was quite good. We surfed the net after that and checked on e-mails. Today I plan to visit grandpa. We caught a cab at 4:30 to go visit him. It was neat seeing him at home. I found out that he would never be going back to the US b/c he is getting pretty old and incontinent these days. I was bummed out over that b/c I figure this is probably the last time I'll ever see him again. We chatted for a while. I told him about mom's cancer. He was pretty sad about that. I sensed that he really wanted to see her one last time and couldn't I wanted to take GPa out to dinner but he didn't want to go. I later found out it was b/c of his failing health. His daughter - my 1/2 aunt decided to take us out to a VN vegetarian restaurant. It was amazing. The food was very creative and he made meat-esque things out of tof that was almost indistinguishable from the real thing. We then went to G.Pa's house one last time where I took a bunch pictures of hm and gave him one last hug. I hope the pictures come out OK. G.Pa wanted a copy too. My 1/2 aunt (My Hanh) have me her card in case I needed anything and sent us home w/ a lick from their dog, Gao (bear). (Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 21st, 2004
6:52 pm	visiting the mekong delta Today was an odd day. We went on a tour of the Mekong Delta. We had to got down to backpackers alley (where they had cheap tourist stuff) to catch a bus which was part of the $9 tour extravaganza. When we got on we were greeted w/ an interesting cross section of humanity - ranging from Australian tarts to Heavy Metal head bangers. When we started the trip we found out that the floating market part of the trip was not going to work b/c it was closed. The one meathead of a guy was sort of swearing at the guide under his breath b/c of this. He eventually got into a shouting match w/ the guide b/c he had signed up on the tour w/ the intention of seeing the floating market. The guide responded by saying he really didn't give a rat's ass what he wanted only that he was there to show them what he had been told to show. Way to anger the natives in a country where they can shoot you. After bellyaching for a while and uniting w/ the Australian tarts they ended up 'changing' the tour so that they could see the market. They switched some things in order to see the market. Turns out though - the market wasn't even really running that day b/c of Tet. The ride was somewhat excrutiating w/ the meathead pretending he was a physician to the tarts and then being turned off by hem when they found out he was just a med tech. We went on a boat-ride and saw maybe 3 boats that were vaguely market like. We visited a paper factory, a coconut candy factory , a puffed rice factory and a little cafe on Vinh Long Island. It was all quite rural and it was fun interacting with the natives. After the boat ride was done we had a cramped sardine bus ride ride to the city. When we got back to Saigon we went to a ritzy restaurant (Nam Ka) and proceeded to blow budget. Even twhen we tried our best the bill came out to be $60 USD. If that restaurant was in the states it would compete w/ the likes of French Laundry. After that we ended up milling about the central plaza and saw a neat little fireworks display at the stroke of midnight for Tet. I asked a woman what all the crowds were about - she looked at me stragely b/c I looked VN but spoke it oddly. The fireworks were quite nice and when they were done we went to Bong-Sen - our hotel - for a party where we got a few drinks. I wanted to socialize, but Adoria did not so we turned in for the night even though I thoug she was a party pooper. Current Mood: moody (Comment on this)
Tuesday, January 20th, 2004
6:40 pm	Touring Saigon Our plan for today was to go to the backpacker area and then cruise around Saigon. We went there and booked a tour w/ DeltaTravels to the the Mekong Delta. Hopefully the 1 day tour will be good. It was only $9 USD. We walked through the flower market there too. They had amazing bush/flower sculptures. We bumped into a sit-lo (pedi-cab) who offered to take us around for $10 USD for 3 hours! That was way to expensive - because Lonely Planet stated the going rate was $1 USD/hour. We bargained him down to $5 USD. He took us to Cho Long - the chinese area of the city. It was quite a long ride there. We saw apts. where the ex-pats lived - they pay $400 USD/month. The market was like the other VN markets - it was dissapointing cuz not a single Chinese person was in sight - I guess that's like VN stores in China Town in the US. We sat a chatted with the Sit-Lo guy and his brothers for a while. He kept on insisting that a $10 rate was fair. After that we went to a Chinese Pagoda. That was OK. We then went to the Hong Kong market (which was more of the same marketwise) then went to Bong Sen where our Sit-Lo guy tried to whine how poor he was. We ended up giving him 10K VND~ $6.60 USD. I tried to get hime to pick us up in the morning but he told us to get a cab - I guess he didn't need the money that much. We then walked around a bit - had lunch; had ice-scream (they mixed up my order and I got 10 yummy thing ice-cream w/ durian! Yuck - I felt bad for the waiter and ate it anyway) I got accosted by a beggar woman and her baby. They were pretty aggerssive b/c she grabbed my arm Yuck. We did some more shopping and walking after that. Adoria bought a dress for $45 USD and had it altered in 2 hours! We then walked around a bit. The main street was closed. The streets were kind of designed in the French styple - wide boulevards w/ roundabouts. For New Years some of the streets were closed off. At the opera house they even had Elvis Phuong and the HCMC ballet. The ballet was interesting half of them were costumed half not. It was funny watching the ballet where they were half wearing street clotes. They also had steet circus performers. Adoria was getting hungry so we ended up at a place called Kimo's overlooking the plaza. Everything on the menu was out. We tried some Australian lamb - which was horrendous - maybe even rancid - After that we turned in. (Comment on this)
Monday, January 19th, 2004
2:57 pm	First day Saigon We woke up around 8:30am. We got this free coupon to eat breakfast at the hotel restaurant. They had chau (porridge) w/ salted egg, pork, duck etc. It was very good. I also ate some cereal and fruit. We then took a little tour of the city. We first stopped by 'Notre Dame'. It's a pale copy of the original and quite a bit cheesey. After that we went to reunification palace. That was pretty interesting. It's neat reading about the American war from the communist side. The 60's style cutting edge architecture was very interesting. After that we went to the war remnants museum - formerlly known as the Chinese & American war crimes museum. It gave the Vietnamese Communist side of the conflict - as they say history gets written by the victors. After that we went to the market. It was really packed yet orderly. I bought a dragon fruit there. Adoria was going to try on some shorts but she was too big. I then tried on XXL shorts which I didn't like. Apparently I'm huge compared to folks here. After that we went to Saigon Tax - which was an upscale version of the market. We brought ong ngoai (grandfather) a Tet basket there for 200K VND. It was friggin huge. We were pretty beat by then. We went home and ate at Lemongrass restaurant (so-so) took a cold shower and went to bed. Current Mood: excited (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 18th, 2004
2:51 pm	arrival at saigon We just got to Bong Sen II. The airport was chaotic. We almost couldn't find our bags, but customs was ok. We waited a while for the guide to show up. Apparently he thought we were going to call him when we arrived. All was good when he showed up though. It's weird but apparently my name is as common as John here. We got dropped off at Bong Sen II but on the way our car got pulled over by the police. Apparently he thought the driver ran a red light. The driver tried to give him some money but he was mean and confiscated his papers. We got to hotel Bong Sen II after that wo any real issues. We had dinner at a place called Vietnamese House (which was good) and went to bed. Current Mood: relieved (Comment on this)
Saturday, January 17th, 2004
2:32 pm	the plane flight I just arrived in Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific. It was a 14 hour flight from SF to HK. There was an Indian sitting next to me but he moved up one row to sit with his family. I asked to use his seat cuz Adoria & I didn't have an aisle seat. He gave me a dirty look and begrudgingly let me use his seat. The people sitting behind me were kind of psycho too. The pushed my seat when they got food. On top of that they literally kicked my chair up. What was also strange is they served dinner at 1am. I had curry chicken. It was pretty good. Adoria chatted with the guy next to us on the way over. His name was Tom and he was flying on business to Singapore. He seemed nice enuf. He was some sort of wafer/chip engineer. Adoria gave him her e-mail. It's good to meet new people. Right now we're hanging out in HK airport. It's pretty neat and clean. It's funny watching the cleaning folk. They all seem really irratable and have their little social hierarchy. The HK->Bangkok flight was fairly uneventful. The only thing of interest was that an English fellow had to use the WC right after take off. The stewardesses got a little mad but I think the guy had no choice. Bangkok is muggy. We had to walk across the entire airport to get to the right transfer desk. What is weird here is that there is a little playground here, but instead of kids playing thare are all these people napping. Adoria didn't want me to take a picture but I took one surreptitiously w/o flash. Current Mood: tired (Comment on this)