Sixintheworld.com

Sixintheworld is not a political blog, nor do I want it to become one, so forgive the coming political musings. If you are here to read travel stories, don’t worry, there are many more to come.

Vietnam, or Nam to those who served there, is a loaded word in the American psyche. It conjures images not only of war but also the domestic unrest it created. Until our recent military engagement, the Vietnam war stood out as a crucible in American history. For thirty years, Americans have lamented losing a war that wasn’t their own and thought about how things could have gone differently. The war stands out as the pit of humility in the center of our usual American bravado. I assume most Americans who spend time in Vietnam end up thinking about the war. I certainly did and after a month of rumination came to the following realizations:

1. False assumptions helped create the Vietnam war. Though the recent actions of our leaders speak to the contrary, Americans are not imperialists. We might invade other countries with McDonald’s, Tom Cruise, and Starbucks, but we have little desire to use guns and tanks to extend our influence. If we were truly imperialist, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, and Japan would be states and Canada would be nervous. As a citizenry we believe nations should be free to govern themselves, not coerced by dictators or repressive ideologies. Americans in the 1960’s thought they were fighting to free Vietnam from the snares of communism, but the Vietnamese saw the US as just another imperialist oppressor. The Vietnamese misread our intentions and we misunderstood theirs. They wanted to be free of outside powers and were no more eager to be puppets of Moscow or Beijing than Paris or Washington. We saw Ho Chi Minh as simply another face of Mao or Stalin and would not tolerate his rule.

2. Communism was a very bad thing, bad enough to fight against. Millions of northern Vietnamese suffered for 20 years under communism. After the fall of Saigon, the rest of the country suffered for 15 more. It took the Vietnamese three decades to realize Marxist-Leninsm was unsustainable. Communism sounds equitable to the liberal heart, but it fails to account for human nature. Removing people’s freedom is no way to liberate them. When there is no reward for work, people lose their incentive to perform. Productivity lags, quality suffers, and malaise sets in. After a decade of stagnation, near starvation and an inability to grow, the “communist” leaders in Vietnam have abandoned all but the name of communism. At its peak almost half the world was draped in an ideology that stifled people’s freedom. As heirs to the doctrine of unalienable rights, we necessarily must resist the spread of ideologies that squelch them.

3. The Vietnamese were never good communists, but they were and still are very good autocrats. I have not found a good Ho Chi Minh biography, but from what I can gather, this new Vietnam would please Uncle Ho. He may have been a communist, but he was not a philosopher idealist like Mao or Lenin. Today’s propaganda states that Ho saw the communist ideology as a path to delivering millions of Vietnamese from poverty. Yesterday’s argues he didn’t say much about communism because Mao had already said it all. Today Mao must be turning over in his glass sarcophagus at capitalist China, but Ho would probably be proud of capitalist Vietnam. His primary purpose in life was to establish a self-determined nation. Fighting the French and the Americans was the continuation of a struggle that had gone on for two millennia with opponents such as the Chinese, the Khmers, and the Chams. If only we could learn to separate those mired in an ideology from those who see it as a temporary tool, we might save ourselves a lot of grief. The legacy of Vietnam’s flirtation with communism is the one party system.

4. We lost the war but we won the peace. For the last 20 years I have heard that Vietnam was our big mistake. I studied the war in school and have read a number of books about both the war and its aftermath. Until this visit I was very much in the camp that deemed it a horrific error in judgment, which cost 58,000 American lives and saw millions of Vietnamese killed and displaced. I felt sorry for those who lost family members in an unpopular and fruitless struggle. After spending a month in Vietnam, however, I have been overcome by a wave of irony. We definitely lost the war. There are many reminders here to drive home that fact, but I have to feel in the words of an unpopular dead president that we “won the peace.” This place is an incubator of capitalism. Of course there is still rampant corruption and human rights abuses, but they are gradually improving. Once you pay off the army, the police, or the party, for the most part you can do what you want. Being in Vietnam for APEC was a nice coincidence. We had one friend here who described it as the country’s coming out party. Vietnam today is in many ways the kind of country we were trying to help create. It isn’t exactly the same as the democratic (and corrupt) government we were trying to sustain, but for the average Vietnamese, it creates economic opportunity and protects most of the essential freedoms. They still need to shed the one party system, but with only two million members in a land of 98 million that has to change over the next decade.I still feel the Vietnam war was an error in judgment, but I don’t think the fight to resist communism was wrong. The cause of those who died fighting was just as honorable as those who died resisting fascism.

5. Resisting oppressive ideologies does not always require a traditional war. Many Americans believe we won the Cold War based on the strength of our economy. It could bear the burden of massive military spending while the communist countries’ could not. Others believe it was internal forces that brought down the iron curtain. I think it was a little of both, but in either case, it was not a conventional war that ended communism. It was clear to both the leaders and the people that there was a better life. When enough of the people understood the oppression they were under, and the opportunities they were missing things, things had to change. Money invested in economic aid, economic pressure (not starving people but out-competing them), and mass education appear to be a much more effective means of changing ideologies than blowing people up.

6. Technology, trade and industry are the great liberators of our day. I have always been a believer that the free flow of information created by modern technology, especially the Internet, can liberate people from poverty and repressive regimes. Recently, I have been even more impressed with the impact business and industry have on the world. Before the trip, I was having a little first-world-middle-class guilt. Traveling around nations on the rise and talking with people in their new middle class has washed away a lot of that guilt. I no longer feel that because I have, others have not. Rather than feeling remorse that people work in factories to produce my electronics or in my company’s call center, I am proud to be part of the economy and business that create opportunities for people around the world. This transforming power hasn’t reached the whole world yet. We travelled around enough of China to see the poor countryside. We saw the poor of Vietnam as well. These people stand in stark contrast to the people who are now part of the world economy. Our inflow of capital creates not just factory workers, but a rising entrepreneurial class to serve these new working classes. These people will educate their children and create more economic opportunity for more people around the globe in a virtuous cycle. Their educated children will be more likely to question ideologues. People who have good lives will want to protect not destroy them. There are still plenty of places in the world (like Sudan) where people are so far behind that vision might seem impossible. But perhaps the people of Sudan will create the electronics for the next generation of Vietnamese. That may be utopian, but no more so than talking about the Vietnam of today to a North Vietnamese child growing up in the early 70’s, where the only radios allowed were the ones that tuned into government stations. It still would have sounded impossible to the child of Vietnam in the mid 80’s, when everyone ate meat twice a month, and the best you could aspire to was owning a bicycle.

As Dax and McKane and I were discussing our travels the other day, I asked them where they might go on a similar trip 30 years from now. We wondered whether Iraq might be a stop on their itinerary. It might seem improbable today, but no more so than Vietnam would have seemed when Anne and I were kids. The images of the Iraq war will dwell in their subconscious just as the images of Vietnam dwell in ours. If they are in a conflict-free Baghdad in 2036, will the world really have changed? Will the war have faded in most people’s memory? Will radical Islamic terrorism have gone the way of communism? If so, will the war have sped up or slowed down its demise? Will we have become effective at changing the world through economic growth rather than military might? Most importantly, will we have figured out how to avoid the Vietnams and Iraqs of the future? The optimist within me expects the best. I hope 30 years from now the world is at peace and brimming with opportunity, even in places that know only despair today. The realist in me understands this is a formidable dream and will require work and wisdom which so far have eluded us.

Now back to your regular scheduled travel news….

Technorati Tags: Communism, Ideology, International Trade, Political Musings, Technlogy, Vietnam, Vietnam War, Vietnamese Cuisine

Vietnam is the one country where we really took our time. Our visas were good for one month and that was just about the perfect amount of time to see the small country from top to bottom at a leisurely pace. Contrary to other travelers’ experience, we enjoyed the north more than the south and found Halong Bay and Hanoi to be the highlights. Here’s a list of our favorite things to do in this rapidly changing country.

1. Asher — Play with Vietnamese children
2. Kieran — Play on the beach on a remote island in Halong Bay
3. McKane — Jump off boats in Halong Bay
4. Dax — Take a cooking class in Hanoi
5. Anne — Wander the hectic streets of the Old Quarter in Hanoi
6. Tom — Wade through seas of motorbikes in the cities

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Vietnam

The biggest surprise about the food in Vietnam was how fresh it was. The country is small and everything, produce and meat alike, is rushed daily from the countryside to the ciites. Everything is cooked outside in neighborhood street kitchens so the sights and smells are tantalizing. Tom and the boys loved learning about the cuisine from their cooking teacher, An, in Hanoi and will be available for demonstrations once we get home. Here are our favorite foods from this tasty country:

1. Tom — Bun Cha (grilled pork)
2. Anne — Pho (beef noodle soup)
3. Dax — Afghani Chicken at Omar Khayyam’s Indian Restaurants
4. McKane — Pho 24 chicken noodle soup
5. Kieran — Choco Pies
6. Asher — Spaghetti Bolognese

(At least the little kids are consistent with their preference for sweets and Italian food. That doesn’t seem to change no matter where we go!)

Technorati Tags: Family travel, food, Hanoi, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Vietnam

Vietnam can be a confusing place for those accustomed to truth. It’s not so much that the Vietnamese are dishonest, rather they are eager to please and as such will tell you anything they think you want to hear. Here’s an example: “Does the train go to Mui Ne?” “Yes, sir. It drops you off right at the beach.” Translation: The train stops about an hour from Mui Ne, nowhere near the beach and you will have to pay through the nose for a taxi to take you there.”

We LOVED Vietnam and were able to enjoy it much more once we accepted the fact that truth can be a matter of opinion and life is much more interesting when you don’t know what to expect. So here are the top 6 things we learned in Vietnam:

1. “Yes” and “of course” often mean no.
2. There is no part of an animal you cannot eat.
3. You can fit a family of six and their luggage on the back of a motorbike.
4. You’ll never get a wife if your motorbike isn’t tricked out.
5. No trains go to Mui Ne.
6. Don’t believe anybody who tells you the bus has air conditioning. While it probably does, it will almost certainly be “out of order.”

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Vietnam

We haven’t posted for many days because we’ve been cruising the Mekong River and racing through Cambodia to get to Siem Reap in time to meet up with our guide from 2003. We’ve had many adventures along the way, most of them stemming from our 3-day tour of the Mekong Delta, Tom suggested I write a novella about our experience, but I think that would be a bit excessive. Instead I’ve put together an account that even for me is a bit long (blame Tom). So if you’ve got a moment, grab a tasty beverage, kick back, and travel with us up the Mekong…

One of the great benefits of extended travel is wisdom: the longer you spend in a place, the wiser you become to its ways. After almost a month in Vietnam, we learned that there is a great disparity between what people promise and what they deliver, especially when dealing with tourists. Rather than letting this upset us any longer, we decided to embrace the craziness and give the country one last chance to surprise us. Tom was ready to catch a “direct” bus to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a sure way to drop a quick 5 pounds and arrive aching and exhausted, but I was more inclined to throw all caution to the wind and pursue a far more interesting option: a three-day tour of the Mekong Delta, a cobbling together of random boat rides interspersed with the occasional visit to a candy factory or floating market. No one was thrilled by the prospect, but after a restful, scam-free week in Saigon, we figured we were up for an adventure.

I chose a tour company based on a recommendation by the Rough Guide and some quick internet research. Given the feedback of previous customers, I felt confident that once we turned over our money, Delta Adventure Tours would actually get us to Phnom Penh on the promised day in roughly the promised manner. They did, but what happened on the way is yet another chapter in the ever expanding volume of “The Great Deception.”

Upon booking the tour, I laid out all my concerns and recounted all our previous mishaps to the booking agent. The manager, an “American Vietnamese,” assured me that she understood Western expectations of service and ran a top notch operation. Everything would go according to plan: the busses, boats, and hotels would have room for all six of us; we would be able to choose our own restaurants; and above all we would have a wonderful time. Sensing my well-founded skepticism, she gave me her business card and told me to call should we have any problems along the way. Big mistake on her part.

The first bus was only 20 minutes late to pick us up from the hotel, a decent start to the trip. Since the boat was only a few kilometers away, the quick ride to the dock was uneventful. The boat was lovely, but already populated with tourists. There were, of course, not enough seats for us, but this was only a temporary problem. The crew told us that we could move to the top deck as soon as the vessel passed the police checkpoint. Tourists are officially forbidden from riding there, but as with many other rules, this one only applies when the police are actually looking. Our first real disappointment came when the tour guide began circulating the boat collecting money for breakfast. While there were options of dishes, two to be exact, this was not the freedom from tour food we had been promised. As the cruise was three or more hours, we forked over the dough and made peace with the first deception.

Once the boat got going and half the passengers moved above, we settled into a comfortable repose. Well, four of us were a little more comfortable than the other two.

At 8:00 am, the day was already hot, but the breeze was refreshing and the sites along the riverbanks engaging. The breakfast–spring rolls, mixed vegetables, and a pineapple filled with fried rice–was tasty. So far things looked promising.

At the conclusion of the first cruise, we split into three different groups based on the tour we had booked–1 day, 2 day, or 3 day. We boarded smaller boats which took us through a floating market on the way to Turtle Island, the home of honey farms, coconut candy factories, and countless souvenir stalls. After learning how the candy is made, feasting on a variety of local fruits, and holding a python, we were put on even smaller boats reminiscent of a cross between a canoe and a rowboat for a 15-minute cruise down a 10-foot wide channel of muddy water. Any time big Tom sets foot in a leaky little craft we worry about sinking and this time was no exception. If he breathed too deeply the boat rocked. If he had sneezed, it likely would have capsized. Since we were carrying a lot of high tech gear and two small humans, he held his breath for the duration of the ride.

Miraculously our previous boat was waiting for us at the location where the channel spilled into the river. We hopped back on and were whisked away to yet another island for a generous 45-minute respite of cycling or swinging in a hammock. The interlude might have been relaxing after the rigors of our factory tours, but for the curious behavior of our guide. “John Wayne,” as he told us to call him, was a friendly fellow who obviously relished his position. As the small boat puttered toward the island, he explained that this area of the delta had been hit by the typhoon the previous week and some 100+ people had died. He went on to mention Typhoon Utor, which was currently brewing in the South China Sea, and expressed his sincere desire that it would not hit our current location. Had he ended here, we would have been fine. Instead, he made the bizarre decision to continue in an attempt to alarm us. It went something like this: “There is very bad weather in Saigon now. The place we left with the boat this morning has had very high winds and much rain. It is very dangerous. I talked to my friend in Saigon, and he say that his company told him to go home from work. All the people are going home because of the weather. No electricity.” What? We knew when we had checked the typhoon at 2:00 that morning, it had been days away and was expected to hit Danang hundreds of kilometers to the north. Business closures in Saigon must have meant something serious had happened since then.

John Wayne pointed out the clouds in the distance behind us. Though we were under sunny skies, they were black. At home we would think tornado, but here we thought typhoon. After sounding the alarm, he tried to allay our fears: “It’s still very far away. Last week the typhoon came here, but this one, I hope, does not come here. At least I hope it does not come here.” By the time we reached the island, the black clouds were directly overhead. We wandered through the debris left by Durian–the gazebo where we would have relaxed but which was now a pile of sticks in the corner, the fences ripped from the ground, the palm fronds scattered here and there. We couldn’t help but wonder: “What would it be like to weather a typhoon in this place, with no building to shelter us, no electricity (it still hadn’t been restored since the previous storm), and no easy way back to the mainland?” At least it would be safer than a rickety little motorboat in the middle of a tempest-tossed river.

We played cards and swung in hammocks for the designated 45-minutes, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the clouds, which did nothing more than deliver an ominous wind. The motorboat delivered us safely to another dock where a bus was waiting to take us to our hotel for the night. John Wayne promised that he would continue to track the storm for us, since we didn’t speak Vietnamese and therefore couldn’t understand the radio. He seemed to relish this monopoly on information.

Our bags stashed safely in the belly of the bus, we set off for what was supposed to have been a 2-hour trip. It turned out to be more like 4. We stopped briefly to pick up a Swiss couple, whose tour company had left them stranded and pawned them off on our company. With no choice in the matter, they were diverted from a three-day tour that included free breakfasts and a visit to a crocodile farm to our food exclusive, more sedate version. The Swiss, who turned out to be fun companions, were not the cause of our delay, rather it was the rain, or so John Wayne claimed. We had a ferry crossing late in the journey for which we had expected to wait no more than 30 minutes. It took closer to an hour, but this still did not account for our 8:45 pm arrival. Perhaps, like most of the other busses we’ve been on, they paint a rosier picture at the outset in an attempt to please us, figuring we’ll be understanding when it takes longer.

Our hotel was down a long and interesting alley lined by people’s living rooms and inhabited by a few elusive rats. The receptionist handed out keys and explained that our room contained four beds and was on the fifth floor. Ugh. The staircases in Vietnam are tall and steep and our packs were heavy at the end of a hot day. We made the long haul up and quickly returned to the lobby to join the group on a walk to waterfront to find a late dinner. John Wayne led us to a restaurant of his choice. We looked at a few others, but elected to stay with the group (the boys always enjoy the opportunity to visit with fellow travelers). The food was adequate, the company entertaining, and before we knew it, we were back in the room for a brief 6 hour sleep on a foam mattress under a ceiling fan. We were grateful for the roof that held the ceiling fan since our new British friends had been offered a specially air conditioned room on the top floor. The air in this not so deluxe room was supplied by a large gap between the wall and ceiling. Needless to say they asked for a different room.

At 7:00 the next morning, we congregated in the lobby ( a generous word) for breakfast–the usual lackluster offering at the usual mediocre price. While perhaps we could have forayed out into the city for different fare, the tour company left us little time to do so, a calculated move on their part to be sure. By 7:40 we were on another boat headed to a vast floating market. We jumped on the roof of the boat and bought entire pineapples for 25 cents and small watermelons for 75. (We posed for a pyramid shot on top of the boat, but our photographer opted for a portrait orientation, capturing us but leaving out the market behind. Oh well.)

Ever onward, our itinerary for the day included a tour of a rice noodle/paper factory, of which the highlight was the neighboring pigs; a visit to a land-based market, which involved encounters with new animal body parts and a trauma involving a mud fish; and a tour of a rice factory. With all of this accomplished by noon, we were back to the hotel to grab our bags and find lunch. John Wayne took everybody to a nearby restaurant, but since the dining area was up a tall, cramped flight of stairs that might not accommodate our backpacks and we had been hankering for freedom, we busted out along with a few others from the tour and headed around the corner to a different cafe. We returned at the time John Wayne had specified, but the bus was nowhere in sight. We gawked at the turtles, snakes, fish, and frogs that awaited boiling and frying, until John Wayne notified us that the bus would be at least another 40 minutes. Should we be surprised? What a silly question.

At this point, most people took off to wander the town. McKane joined a trio of single women, Dax skateboarded in an alley, Tom took the little two to search for ice cream, and I watched the bags on the sidewalk. While I was waiting, a sport utility vehicle drove up with a few tourists, probably on a private tour. After a hushed conversation with the other guide in the corner, John Wayne approached me. “Would you and your family like to travel to the next boat in this car? It would be much more comfortable for you and you could get on the boat before everybody else.” Immediately my radar went off. While certainly a tempting prospect, this could only mean one thing: they’d overbooked the bus. I asked, “But where will our luggage go?” A gargantuan duffle bag filled the front passenger seat and our bodies would fill the remaining space. “I will take care of your luggage. Don’t worry. I will put it on the bus and it will be waiting for you at the next hotel.” By now Tom had returned, and we shared a roll of the eyes at this new development. The Swiss who had been bumped from their tour promised to keep an eye on our bags, so we piled into the car and listened while John Wayne feverishly gestured and explained where the driver should take us. Were we concerned that he spoke not a word of English? Mildly. Nervous that we would now be separated from our few meager but necessary possessions? Moderately. Worried that we might end up in the wrong place? Majorly. But we went anyway. This, after all, was our great and final experiment with Vietnamese tourism.

Two hours later we were ejected from the car without a word on a rural roadside. Fortunately, a tidy, wooden boat with welcoming red paper lanterns sat only 20 feet away. The crew hopped to attention when we looked their way and acted as though they had been expecting us, so we figured we were in the right place. More than an hour and a half later, after the sun had already set, the bus arrived jam packed with people, luggage filling the first two rows of seats. Sure enough, there would not have been room for us, so the ride in the car was not just a kind gesture but a necessary one.

The bus had been delayed once again by the ferry as it traveled to pick up our group at the hotel. A new group of 2-day tour participants had been on board for over 4 hours while our 3-day group had been waiting and riding for the same period. Everyone had been promised a beautiful sunset cruise on the Mekong, but the fact that the sun had already set proved a problem. Before anyone else boarded, our Swiss friend came and explained that many of the people on the bus were tired and didn’t feel up to a 3-hour cruise. They preferred to stay on the bus and drive the additional 30 minutes to the hotel. She asked if we wanted to join them. Tom said absolutely. We had already been on the boat for a few hours and we were tired and hungry. I wasn’t sure, but when I realized yet another meal was being prepared to be sold to us on the rear deck, I agreed leaving was the best option. We went back to the bus only to discover John Wayne yelling at our lovely Swiss friend. It turns out the idea to abandon the boat was not his, as we had thought, but hers. She was joined by many others, but John Wayne singled her out as the criminal mastermind.

About 20 people remained on the bus. John Wayne stood at the front and first asked, then begged, all to return to the boat. Had he been his usual kind and charming self, we might have obliged, but instead he turned hostile, leading us to believe there was some ulterior motive for keeping us on the boat. He lectured us that we had a contract with the company. We had signed up for a boat ride and therefore were obligated to take it. We reminded him that we had signed on for a sunset cruise, and that the company could not deliver it. It had broken its end of the deal, so therefore we were not breaking ours. He then screamed that the other passengers did not trust us, and should we steal anything from their bags, they would sue his company. This was just absurd.

John Wayne refused to budge. The boat sat at the dock. We sat on the bus. After a few more tense moments and heated words, a group of Danish senior citizens returned to the boat. They had been irate at the delay earlier in the day, but were not prepared for another conflict now. Those who were supposed to return to Saigon discussed booking alternate transportation and leaving the tour altogether. As we talked with the other mutineers, we realized that they had been sold the same bill of goods by the manager in Saigon. She had made similar blanket assurances of meeting their every need and encouraged them to call in case of trouble. With great amusement and curiosity, we dug out her card and dialed her number.

For the next five minutes Tom explained the situation and debated potential outcomes. Kim, the manager, repeated John Wayne’s argument that we were obligated to take the boat. Tom reminded her that she had fallen through on her end of the deal, so the businesslike decision would be to accommodate the shortchanged customers by granting their simple request–to accompany the luggage on the 30-minute drive to the hotel. Why was this a problem? Kim grew increasingly belligerent and came up with a litany of excuses to deter us: the ride was really 2 hours; the road to the hotel was in very bad condition; the other tourists were concerned about theft. Then, with Tom in midsentence, she hung up. End of discussion. We could hear John Wayne talking to her on his cell phone outside the bus. We’re not sure what they resolved, because what happened next was bizarre. He angrily climbed the stairs and announced that another bus was coming for the luggage. We would be left behind. He did not care what happened to us from that point on. We were on our own. Good bye.

We looked at each other in mild amazement wondering what had really been at stake here. Why would 13 people staying on the bus make John Wayne and Kim so angry? We came to the conclusion that they must have lost some revenue on the “optional” meal they were serving on the boat. Remember, this is the tour where all decisions regarding food are supposed to be at our discretion. “It’s better for you that way,” they had said in Saigon. Sounds like a subtle form of culinary coercion to me.

The boat finally pulled away from the dock and we knew our lot had been cast. We discussed bribing the driver to take us on, if in fact, the other bus arrived. Our discussion ended abruptly, however, when he hopped on, started the engine, and drove away with all of us still seated. A quick 30 minutes later, we had traveled a well-paved road straight to our intended destination. The bags were unloaded, and we all checked in. We decided to walk as a group to the town in search of a restaurant of our own choosing. We had a great time and stayed far too late for our own good, since we had to leave at 6:30 the next morning.

After another night under the fans, we staggered to our last forced breakfast. I passed John Wayne in the hallway, but he refused to look at me. I was relieved we were getting a new guide for the final day of the trip. We had enjoyed our time with him prior to the mutiny and were sorry for his frustration, but a third day under his direction might have been too stressful to bear. Our new guide, Viet, was much younger and seemingly more easygoing. He herded us into the bus for a final trip to the dock. Once again our luggage was loaded on the seats, leading us to wonder what mysterious cargo was filling the space below. Viet explained that the bus had to return to Saigon, so we would be dropping our bags off for temporary storage along the way. In typical fashion, this meant that minutes later our backpacks were sitting unattended on the sidewalk outside a random building on a random street. As we sped away, Tom snapped a few pictures from the back of the bus just in case we needed proof they once existed.

Another ten minutes and we were on the sixth boat of our tour, another small rowboat that would take us to the Cham minority village. Dax and McKane shared a boat with a Chinese-Canadian woman while Tom, Kieran, Asher, and I were joined by Viet in another. As we plied the waters surrounding yet another floating village, we asked about his life and how he had decided to become a tour guide. Sweet and soft-spoken, he quietly explained that his parents had made great sacrifices for him to attend college. Upon completion he had wanted to become a teacher, but the government would not give him a position since his revolutionary pedigree was deficient. His father had been a captain in the South Vietnamese army during the American War, an ignoble past for which his descendants were penalized. He had spent two years in a reeducation camp following the war performing hard labor, but this was not enough to clear his record and win his children places in universities, jobs, or even passports. Viet would not be able to accompany us across the border into Cambodia because the government repeatedly denied his application for a passport.

It was ok he assured us. He had changed his career path and hoped to save enough money serving as a tour guide to one day start his own tour company. I explained that if he could just be honest with visitors and provide them with reliable, straightforward service, he would be an overnight success, putting his less scrupulous competitors out of business. He agreed, emphasizing that he was more sensitive than most. After all, had any of our other guides wished us a Merry Christmas as he had?

I thought Viet and I had an understanding, that he appreciated our frustration as customers in the wild world of Vietnamese tourism. I thought wrong. When the time came to fill out Cambodian visa forms, I asked for 6. Visas are readily available at the border and I was willing to pay the tour company a $2 markup for processing them while we sat on the boat and chatted with new friends. I was relieved when Viet told me that the fee for children was only $7 instead of the $22 for adults. I assumed that meant with the $2 premium, the real price was $5. VIet took our passports, $87 US, and promised to return. As we disembarked at the border crossing, he handed me the passports with the visas already stamped inside, wished us luck, and ran off. We passed through Vietnamese immigration and walked through the border zone to Cambodian immigration. There a sign proclaimed that visas for children under 12 were free. Duped again! I had just put $21 unnecessary dollars in the pocket of the tour company. In fitting fashion, I had been deceived all the way up to my very last moment in Vietnam.

My anger abated after a few minutes on the Cambodian boat. Though it was uncomfortable and fume filled on the inside, most people jumped on the roof, a tricky feat, to enjoy the sunshine, fresh air, and beautiful views. We had almost three hours on uninterrupted relaxation, with nothing being sold to us and nobody lecturing us.

Our docking point was an anonymous location some 45 kilometers outside Phnom Penh. We walked a crumbling single board gangplank to the shore and passed under some forbidding barbed wire into a quiet courtyard. Here we waited for the bus that would take us on the final leg of our long journey into the city. After about 20 minutes it arrived–a small, run down minibus with a hotel logo on the side. I knew we would be dropped at a hotel where the tour company wanted us to stay, but I had expected a real bus to take us there. We nervously counted seats as once again the bags were stowed on seats. There were exactly enough for all the passengers, two large bags of bananas, the driver, and his friend.

As we drove, it began to grow dark. Though we had been promised a 4:00 pm arrival in the city, it was clear the company had never intended to let us arrive in the light of day. We were running late, so we would arrive after sunset when it would be more difficult to venture out on our own to find alternate hotels. If this bus was anything like the “scam busses” that run from Bangkok to Siem Reap, the guesthouse put a bounty on our heads payable directly to the Vietnamese tour company. Each person they delivered, whether they stayed or not, was worth a fixed price to Saigon. Dropping passengers off in a remote location, wearing them out on a bumpy 2 hour bus ride, and delivering them in the dark of night greatly increased the chances they would stay at the appointed location.

Our Swiss friends wanted to stay on the river as we did, so we agreed to travel together after arriving in the city. The hotel was eager to drive us for a nominal fee, promoting its own suggested hotels along the way. We had the van drop us at a centrally location and began our search from there. The Swiss ended up down the street at a hotel that had only one remaining room and a steep staircase, while we opted to stay at the place we had been dropped. When the proprietor of the hotel tried to convince Tom he could provide better service down the road in Siem Reap than could our friend and former guide, Pon Heary Ly, he turned to him and said, “Don’t even go there. I have been lied to over and over again for the past month and I don’t want you to lie to me now. I have a guide. I have a driver. I have a hotel. So leave me alone.”

So at the end of the day, Vietnam had had her way with us once again. Good sports, we acknowledged she had taken advantage of us, but agreed the opportunity to explore her cities and meet her people had been well worth the abuse. Perhaps by staging our little mutiny, we left a legacy of our own. In the future, the tour company might think twice before forcing its clients into unfavorable situations or attacking them for wanting better service. But if that were to happen, Vietnam might become just another predictable country and in the process lose her charm. Given that alternative, I’ll take her just the way she is.

Technorati Tags: Cambodia, Chau Doc, Mekong Delta, Mekong River, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Tourism, Vietnam

So the past week we spent most of our time in the beautiful city of Saigon. The city itself was huge, a bustling metropolis with thousands and thousands of motorbikes and loads of things to do. We traveled around the city trying to fit as much in as we could during our short stay. Every day we rushed from site to site, checking out the Vietnamese past, present and future. There were temples, malls, and huge markets filled with all kinds of oddities. Despite everything we did, I still feel that we lacked to see a good portion of what is really Saigon. But aw well, we saw enough for me to write this post! The following top six list is my favorite six things we did in Saigon as we tore it up the Andrus family way. The list is, as usual, in no particular order.

1. Diamond Shopping Center - This place is huge. It’s basically a vast department store with a monstrous entertainment center and food court. This place has everything a family could need. There are clothing and make up departments on the first three floors but we didn’t care to check any of them out. Instead we spent most of our time on the fourth floor playing games. The center has a wide variety of games, ranging from a Korean DDR rip off to bowling to pool. We spent countless hours throwing balls, playing drums, shooting cue balls, and scarfing some good old fashioned KFC. There was also a food court downstairs, but the entire thing was overpriced foreign food, so most of us skipped out on it. Another attraction, and the main reason we came to Diamond, was the English language movie theatre, but the only movies currently playing were Monster in Law and World Trade Center, neither of which we wanted to see. Overall this is a good place to go and have fun.

2. The Markets- The markets in Saigon are vast and full of assorted clothes and oddities. From knock off Diesel T-shirts to pig sphincter, you’ll find it here. Our family bought a couple shirts and the like and had some fun talking to all the shopkeepers. We weren’t really going to buy anything in one market until we heard a strange voice saying, “Come on, buddy! Buy some postcards!” We couldn’t tell who had said this until a small, old Vietnamese man called out again. We talked to him for quite some time about his experiences. We found out he had fought with American and Australian G.I.s in the war and had learned his excellent 1970’s-era English from them. He explained that he couldn’t get a better job than selling postcards or driving a motorbike since the current government looks down on people with his previous occupation. We bought some postcards from him and left the market to shouts of “You take care, buddy.” Markets are always a good place to see what the locals really buy and a good chance to meet some new people.

3. Eating - Saigon has a fairly good supply of restaurants. Most serve you decent food and are quite cheap if you eat alone. Our family constantly runs into the problem of having to order a lot, and when we do order, it’s either way too much, or not enough. Aside from that the food here was pretty good. We sampled some Vietnamese food, which was not my favorite (for a country that prides itself on their cuisine they really need to get their act together). The main appeal was the foreign food. All the foreign food that we had was better than the Vietnamese food. There are a wide array of backpacker oriented restaurants that serve Western food that is very delicious, 333 cafe being far and alone the best of them all. The Vietnamese, as McKane, Kieran and Asher will tell you, have gotten the art of making pizza and pasta down. Now if they could just work on their beef steak. But if you want a fast Vietnamese favorite, you should try Pho 24. This restaurant is the best fast food Pho (noodle) shop we went to, and aside from the time when mom got tripe in her beef soup, our family always had a good time. There is always the old reliable KFC. We ate many a meal here and found out it wasn’t that bad. We devoured countless cones of ice cream and ate pounds of chicken.

4. The parks - The huge parks that dominates many different portions of Saigon are a good place to relax after a walk. You will undoubtedly meet some Vietnamese and get to know a few. If you have kids, there are lots of grassy patches for them to play on. The Vietnamese children are generally running around playing soccer and will gladly kick the ball with your kids. Asher and Kieran were too shy so they huddled close to our parents and shrunk back when the ball came their way. The park is also a fun place at night. Here is where all the Vietnamese couples come on dates. They park a motorbike, sit on it, and talk or cuddle. At night you can play a hacky sack like game with your friends. The Vietnamese, being the ever friendly people they are, will invite you to play or come and join you, and they will destroy you. Our family had a good time at the parks. Even though we didn’t stay long, we got a feel of how important the parks are for the countless Vietnamese who are stuck in the city all day.

5. Mekong Delta Tour - Even if the tour company cheated our family out of a few dollars, it was still a good experience. It showed us what the Vietnamese countryside was like (poor and underdeveloped, but trying to change). We toured rice paper/noodle factories, checked out some pigs, rode on ridiculously long boats and busses, and learned a few card tricks from our guide, John Wayne. This tour was fun, but if you do take it, DON’T EAT WITH THE GROUP! I don’t think that last statement needs any further description. The Vietnamese loved that we were a family and gave Kieran and Asher free things regularly, but when you give a six year old boy a dying fish, it creates quite the trauma.

6. Heavily Propagandized Museums - We checked out a few of these bad boys. We started in the Reunification Palace. Here we viewed what the South Vietnamese president lived like during the war. We watched some propaganda films that told us that we were evil colonialists trying to deprive the world of freedom, and saw some wartime ‘artifacts’. Ha, more like fake replicas. The real ones were hidden in the back of the museum somewhere by the communist leaders ages ago. They even try to tell you that the two tanks outside are the North Vietnamese tanks that broke through the gate and stormed the palace. Odd then that the tanks are quite new and that the crew had time to stop and get a photo shoot before they nonchalantly stormed the palace of their greatest enemy, or so the photos would tell us. Moving on we went to the War Remnants Museum. This was also a propaganda palace with pictures of Americans dragging dead bodies around and shooting little children. Odd there are no traces of Vietnamese crimes… hmmmm, maybe they should look into that… There was also very nice exhibit hosting the photos of journalists who were killed during the war. This section was lacking in the usual propaganda and we were surprised. We soon found out that this was an exhibit created and funded by the State of Kentucky, and then it all made sense. The museum also hosts old American tanks, planes and artillery pieces from the war, which we thought might also be replicas. These may not sound like the best museums to visit but they are worthwhile. They give you a look into what it was like during the war, even if the view is distorted.

Well there’s my list. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Saigon and if you are thinking about coming to Vietnam, this would be the first place I would tell you to go.

Technorati Tags: Diamond Plaza, Family night, Ho Chi Minh City, Mekong Delta, Vietnamese Cuisine, Rotorua, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Saigon, Vietnam, War Remnants Museum

Defying the meterologists’ predictions, Typhoon Durian passed south of Saigon early this week and we saw nothing but a few clouds from our 11th floor hotel window. Typhoon Utor hit the battered Philippines today and hopefully will follow Durian’s example by steering clear of us in the upcoming days. The weather has been our friend throughout our 103 days on the road, as we’ve had only a few brief encounters with rain and none with wind, hail, or fire. We can only hope our luck will hold out.

It’s hard to believe, but we’ve been in Saigon for over a week now. In that time we’ve had two laptops in for repairs, stayed in three different hotels, and managed to see a few of the big sites. We’ve eaten at KFC five times (at the kids’ request), our first fast food in almost a month, and now realize how wonderful it was to have fresh food as our only option in the north. We’ve walked miles and miles of city blocks, shopped in more markets than we can count, howled with monkeys at the zoo, and bowled ten frames on the fourth floor of a shopping mall. We head out in five hours for a three day tour of the Mekong Delta which will land us in Cambodia, our sixth country to date. We’re starting to worry that we’re having too much fun and as a consequence moving too slowly. If we stay a month in every country, we won’t be back home for at least a few years.

Saigon is awash in Christmas decorations, which has caused a sensory overload, since our little brains can’t put Christmas and 90 degrees/80% humidity together. We think we’ll be in Bangkok for the big day, but you never know. Despite our griping about the transportation here, we’ve loved Vietnam and have a deepened appreciation for its history and its people. If we get the time in the next few days (perhaps on one of the 5 or 6 different boats we’ll be cruising on), we’ll write more about Saigon, because there is much to be said. But since my wake up call is in just a few hours, I’ll stop here. That should make some of you….you know who you are, and yes, you should feel guilty….very happy.

Technorati Tags: Family travel, Ho Chi Minh City, Mekong Delta, Typhoon Utor, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Saigon, Typhoon Durian, Vietnam

After a long day of getting ripped off, being given wrong information, and not being able to find a hotel, we were done with Mu Nei, but when Mom saw a picture of a guy going down a sand dune on a plastic sled, she said that it might be worth staying for. So Dad spent another two hours and finally found a hotel/bungalow place to stay. It was a pretty nice place–birds, trees, and flowers everywhere, along with free breakfast. Dad went to buy the tour for 5:00 am because if we went any later it would be too hot. So the tour was ready, we had a hotel, we were ready for 1 day in Mu Nei. We had to go to bed early for the 4:45 wake up call to get on the 5:00 car.

It took 45 minutes to get to the first dunes by car, but it was the farthest part of the tour. We had about a 15 minute walk to get from the parking lot to the dunes. It would have been easy, but the whole way there a wedding photo shoot kept blocking our path. They even held up the dune we were supposed to go down. We had to wait a while for them to finish. Dax went down first, then it was my turn.

I was hesitant at first, but I faced my fears and slid. It wasn’t that bad except for that they plopped Kieran on my back right when they pushed me down. It was the only time I didn’t crash out of the 3 times I went on that dune. I would have gone more if I didn’t have to walk up the dune and if I hadn’t sliced my arm on the last one. I crashed on the last one because of the way the guide put me on the sled. Instead of going face first, he made me put my knees first and I couldn’t really keep a good grip on the strings. When I went over a bump, my arms flew behind me. My sled came to a complete stop, so I rolled off down to the bottom of the hill. But I wasn’t the only to fall: Mom, Dax, Kieran, and Dad fell too, but Ash didn’t because she was too little to go. We didn’t get any pics of Dad or Dax falling, because dad had the cam and Dax fell before dad got down to take pictures.

When we were done at the dunes, we went to the Red Cliffs where we met Nam and his friend. Nam said he was 16, but he looked 12. His friend said she was 13, but she looked 9. They may have been little, but they were strong. They carried Kieran and Asher up the steep hill and Asher back down, so dad gave them 24,500 VND. They weren’t satisfied because we didn’t buy their postcards. We left them behind and went to the yellow sand dunes where there was loads of kids trying to rent us the mats for sliding. These dunes were much easier for the little kids, so they could do it alone. Dad rented 4 mats from the kids, but one boy he didn’t pick got angry because he “got there first, it was his sale.” Dad did eeny meeny miney mo between all the kids so the boy was very angry. He was telling us how mean our family was and out of his many Western customers our family was the only bad one. On our way out of the yellow dunes he called Dax “monkey boy” because of the hair on his legs (Most Asian men don’t have body hair). Then Dax started chasing him. Dax was only playing but the boy was still mean. Then the boy I rented my mat from all of the sudden started saying “bulls***.” I told him that if he swore he wouldn’t get customers, but he just said, “It ok. I get customers. Bulls***!” When some Brits came over the hill, we told them not to buy from my kid and the mean kid. But none of the kids followed them. For some reason, they just kept following us. Most of them were really nice and laughed and talked. Some were telling the mean boys to stop being rude. Mom bought postcards from a sweet little girl who followed her the whole way. She made a lot more money by being nice than the boys did by being pushy. We got to our car, and when we drove away, I yelled out the window, “I love you all! But not him (pointing to the mean kid)! Just kidding, but you have to be nice!” He yelled back with a smile on his face, “I hate your whole family!” He was one weird kid.

After the yellow sand dunes we had to decide if we wanted to go to to the Fairy Springs or not. We decided not to go because we were all really hungry. So dad just took pictures of the fishing village instead. We drove for about 20 minutes to our hotel and then ordered our free breakfast. Ash, Kieran, Dax, And I all got a chocolate pancake and two lemon juices. The pancakes were so good that Kieran, Dax, and I all got another one, I even had one for lunch along with fries and rice. The little kids and I played in the pool with the coconut I found at the beach until we had to go to the bus that took us to Ho Chi Minh City. The bus ride was long and uncomfortable because they oversold. But we got there, and here I am in Ho Chi Minh City writing my post. Well that’s all, so have a good time and read the blog! He’s going, he’s going, he’s gone!, McKane is out.

Technorati Tags: Adventure, crash, kids, Mui Ne, while sand dunes, sand dunes, sledding, Vietnam