Home Again

A few days before I came home, a friend asked me what I will miss both about Saigon. I didn't have an answer. At all. So, like my entry on 10 things that get old in Saigon, I left the impression that I hate it. Which isn't really true--hating a place is not the same as being burnt out. So here's some reasons why you should come to live in Vietnam:


It's cheap. Even after the "foreigner tax," many people pay as little as $400 for rent and $1 for a damn good local meal. Things like clothing are very inflated for foreigners, but still relatively cheap. You don't really want to buy high end things like electronics, because they are more expensive than at home and you may buy a crappy knock-off.

There are tons of jobs. Sadly for me, the easiest job to find by far is teaching English. Some people like it, and it is pretty easy. People make from $15 to $20 an hour, so even on the low end they are able to save a lot of money. Or they can work very few hours and relax.

You will lose weight. Maybe Vietnamese food is very healthy--it's mostly low fat and low sodium, and fresh fish is more available than in the US. It's also very excellent. There is an awful lot of really gross stuff like dog meat, organs, turtle soup, but they are easy to avoid (unless you go with a Vietnamese crowd--they always order such things) but there if you want a little gastronomic adventure. Unfortunately, there isn't as much variety as in the US and restaurants from other countries aren't as good (with the exception of thai food), so like me, you may stop eating so much--even desserts, which are pretty but not very tasty. I didn't need to lose weight to start with, and now weigh only 110.5 pounds.

It is a great place to see an entirely different culture and make tons of social taboos in relative safety. The chances of being punched out or tackled are nil--if you do something wrong, people will generally smile or laugh. There aren't many muggings either--you should worry more about pickpockets and bag slashers.

It is a good hub for many vacation sites. Which is a mixed blessing, because it does cost some money to get out of the city but will be totally worth it.

Anyway, now that I'm home, I'm alternating between feeling like I'm in a totally foreign place and feeling like I never left. My first impressions: the diversity of people is a very new and wonderful thing (even white people are a startlingly new sight). I went into a bank and was helped by someone completely competent. There is so much junk food I had no idea where to start (a box of Entenmann's soft chocolate chip cookies). I'm often afraid of crossing the street. The air, even in Brooklyn, smells clean and sweet. People are always in the way, are a chore to walk around (something I noticed since Hong Kong).

Speaking of Hong Kong, don't fly United. The seats do not have their own screens, so you will be horribly bored for your unbelievably long flight. The food is totally inedible and of small portions (being inedible makes any portion small). I had to transfer at Chicago O'Hare, which is an awful airport. People were extremely rude and unhelpful. I had to pick up my checked luggage, which took forever, and recheck it and barely made my connection to NY. My bags were put on two other flights. I waited 20 minutes for the first, the second came so late I had to have it delivered.

3rd Time in Hoi An

It must be the low season. The Hoi An specialty souvenirs weren't there this time around.

But who cares? We were staying at the Fusion Maia resort, closer to Da Nang, for some serious relaxation.

Resorts are state-of-the-art, with beautiful pristine pools and beach views, but all that is ruined because you have to share.

Problem solved--our own private pool!

Nice views of the beach. I couldn't tell you about the water because we were too busy swimming in our own salt and crab free pool.

Nothing like a huge moth after a massage.

After the Nam Hai, it's hard to be impressed by a buffet breakfast. It's still pretty good, especially with items you can order from a menu.

Like waffles with chocolate and cinnamon.

A few days before, Jenny did all the fun stuff with her company--eco-tours, bike riding, fishing, lots of BBQ's on the beach and luxury dinners. All I got was a bike to rent. It's a lovely countryside to cruise through, but extremely hot with no hope of shade anywhere. We're thinking maybe we're done with Hoi An now.

Adventures in a Corridor

Trains should be the ultimate way to travel: inexpensive, eco-friendly, comfortable, with endless views of the countryside. So why aren't they?

A first-class cabin--it doesn't get any better. This was my prison for 15.5 hours. It has a loud air conditioner blasting freezing canned air mixed with cigarette smoke, durian, and whatever else is buzzing around your neighbor's cabin. It's ancient and never-been washed. The window is coated in filth, and anyway it's too small to comfortably look through. The beds aren't too bad, though the train itself constantly hurls bodies to and fro. And the cost was just barely cheaper than a plane ticket.

The views of rice paddies and shrimp farms were often strikingly beautiful, but hard to appreciate from across the hall.

All in all, a good test for claustrophobics and germiphobes.

Filthy as it was, this was my favorite part of the train. An open window does wonders. I wanted to stick out my head, tongue waggling like a dog's, the whole trip. Going home, the flight from Da Nang to Saigon was worth every dong.

From English to Vietnamese and back again

Totally wrong subtitles, but A+++ for effort!

I just had to watch the whole movie again with fudged English subtitles, totally worth it. There is no Netflix in Vietnam or any legitimate way to get DVDs. You can buy rip-offs for fifty-cents, usually watchable at least once, or steal off the internet.

Ten things that get old in Vietnam:

1. Teaching English. I can write paragraphs on the quality/ motivation of the students for every age, but the fact is I came here with very little training and have no passion for teaching English. It is very easy to get started in Vietnam, and with the low living costs one can save lots of money--even with a few tourist trips thrown in. But with the hassle of foreign management, undependability of weekly schedules, and the classes themselves--almost always with about 25 kids who don't want to be there, many people don't last for more than a year.

2. Nouc Mam (fish sauce). It's the ubiquitous condiment for everything and, yes, is made from fermented fish. Considering what it's made of, it could smell worse, but the taste must be slowly acquired. It didn't bother me much at first, then I got used to it, but over time I just got over it. I never add it to anything voluntarily, and it wipes the smile off my face when someone dumps it in for me.

3. Jackfruit. I used to like it. But the jackfruit we always have at home comes from mom and dad's country-home and maybe is a little over-ripe. It has a slightly stinky flavor that one picks up on over a few months, and now I gave up on it entirely. It's deceptively similar to it's cousin Durian, which few people without a genetic mutation can abide being within 30 yards of. I got used to durian stench as I passed fruit stalls every day on my way to work, and I can eat it, though the first bite is still a punch in the jaw. Anyway, it leaves bad breath for two days and completely ruins everything else in the fridge, so it's not a welcome home companion.

4. People getting their chopsticks into my dinner. Eating is a communal activity in Vietnam, which I very much enjoy, except that people often plop things onto my plate. It's a sign of respect or that you're too skinny and should eat more, but it's very much at odds with the American's right to choose. In the US, we carefully select everything we put on our plate, judging our food for many different qualities. People here take all that away from you--they can't have any idea of what you'd actually prefer, but they throw stuff on your plate anyway. I personally enjoy chicken that's a little burnt around the edges, but no one would think to offer me what they'd consider to be lesser chicken. Or, worse, I get too-rare meat or Rhambutans infested with insects. It makes me want to stop eating just to spite everyone.

5. The money thing. People here take very little bits of money very seriously. You must haggle, which also means you must know the price of everything--like you're always playing the Price is Right without the new car. As a foreigner, I'll always be ripped off. Even if I haggle well, the price will always stop at just over ridiculous. I always leave the shopkeeper grinning with bits of me between their teeth. Even the local eateries will give me a big-nose tax. But usually the difference is 20,000 VND at most, or $1. So most of you will say "who the hell cares." Unless you live with a Vietnamese family, who will loose sleep over a stray 5,000 VND. If I see something I want, I'm not allowed to buy it unless we haggle for less than the usual (usual for Vietnam is pretty damn low) price. Imagine if you can, fellow Americans, wanting something, affording it, and not buying it.

6. Things are so damned hard to find. My constant fantasy is walking into a Rite Aid and having toothpaste, loofahs, toys, stationary, chocolate, ice-cream, cookies, canned soup, detergent, all sorts of medicine, band-aids, soda and shaving cream at my fingertips. Here, every little thing is a chore to hunt down, and I have the added misfortune of having to find the lowest prices. The malls here are totally useless--full of the most expensive brand name outlets with prices higher than in the US. It took me months to find a simple pack of playing cards, and it was in some nameless street stall. Now ask me about tea-strainers, screws and nails, model airplanes and envelopes and I'll give you a nice long unfocused stare.

7. The inevitability of a traffic accident. Driving on these crazy streets has been fun, but my luck is running out. There is a large degree of uncertainty about what makes an accident, and I've had lots of handlebar-clipping lately, and one guy turning into me burned a patch off my leg with his muffler, but there's always the Big One that comes to everyone here eventually. People who say Asians make the worst drivers should come here at the source. Here, a good driver is a dead driver. Politeness means hesitation means death. If you think you have the right of way, you're dead. There are always people making left turns into traffic, u turns, going down the wrong way on a one-way street, coming head-on into traffic and you have to flow around it or herd for protection at all times. You'll have to make your own dumb-ass moves yourself often enough. And one thing that really annoys us back home--people never look when they turn onto a street. It's mind-boggling--I mean, it's not like there's something else to look at--maybe they black out for a second. Despite all this, there aren't nearly as many accidents and fatalities and even shouting and cursing (unlike in Ha Noi, where you can get a proper NY style chew-out) than there should be with this kind of traffic. But tell that to my hairless leg.

8. The city itself. It's just too damn big, and every block is the same pointless self-serving village-style assemblage of hovels and street markets. Getting to see any greenery is a real chore--the parks here are few and pathetic. So you have to spend a lot of money on plane or coach tickets to go all the way to Mui Ne or Da Lat. For delights like Ho Coc and Binh Chau (still haven't made it back there yet) you need an expensive private van, which could be worth it if you find a group. The local buses are very cheap, but packed and uncomfortable and totally impossible for a foreigner to figure out. There are trains, but they can be as expensive as planes and the rides are very, very long. Riding a motorbike on the highway can be suicidal.

9. The unkind treatment of animals. The dog-eating thing doesn't really bother me, as I'm not crazy about them and anyway they are easy to avoid. Cats are lower than rats here, for the ridiculous reason that Meo sounds like the Vietnamese word for poor, Nheo. It's the way they treat birds that really makes me want to kill someone. Bird hunters are extremely successful, so much that birds that are extremely common in asia like the Red-Whiskered Bulbul are now totally absent here ( I saw only one flock of them in the abandoned District 2, though every other shop has one in a cage). They are kept in tiny cages, poorly cared for and often subjected to raw sunlight, cigarette smoke and traffic noise, not as pets but as good luck charms. The rich are absolutely required to have a small flock of captured hawks to promote the success for their businesses, which is pretty stupid as a caged Black-Shouldered Kite is one unlucky animal. I've seen cages absolutely crammed with swallows, possibly for people pay to release them around temples (and then for the starved, cramped bird to be recaptured). I've seen birds I've been dying to see in the wild, like Rufous Treepies among others, stuck in a sort of traveling aviary on the back of a motorcycle. And the last straw is seeing a motorcycle laden with cages packed solid with Golden Weavers, extremely beautiful birds that are disappearing in the countryside, and all the bird books can't figure out why.

I'll have to wait for number 10--unfortunately I'm writing this article at SOZO cafe watching the white, tattooed freaks get chased by walking sunglass huts, where my money is going to help disadvantaged people and my chocolate muffin and soursop and ice-cream smoothie is going to my stomach. Not the atmosphere to complain in, really.

Fancy Shmancy

A great splurge at Xu's Restaurant. Jenny had a 500,000d voucher and we paid almost 400,000d on top of that ($45 in total)--very pricey for Vietnamese food. As in most fancy restaurants, the portions were tiny, so after several courses we were still hungry. However, they were all exquisite pieces of art constucted by Iron Chef wannabees.

The desserts were very reasonably priced but thimble sized. A smurf's durian (yup, got used to it) tiramisu, brownie with ice-cream, pandan (yuck) creme brulee, and granola-yogurt shot lets you experience the taste but not the satisfaction of a great big sloshing tummy. So we went home and had tea and cookies. And bread and butter. And maybe a steak and potatoes.

At the Hotpot Bar

A massive lunch at Kichi Kichi. It's like a Jetson's hotpot bar. You snag all kinds of crazy crap from a conveyor belt and chuck it into a hole in the table with boiling soup.

Jenny had a blitz-krieg/ lego tactic of piling up towers of dishes, and then I realize that (holy crap) we have to eat everything or pay a fine.

All-in-all, lots of fun. I'm not entirely sure how they can keep all that meat and fish fresh, but hopefully the boiling water kills most of the germs. One note for us timid foreigners, careful of the eggs--there's a chickie inside.

The Other Chicken

I tentatively nibbled Frog in Singapore, but never thought of getting full on the alien meat. The second time I had to admit: frog is good. Especially when your wife gets free vouchers for the restaurant.
The decor is in extremely bad taste (if you have a conscience about eating frog, that is). We ate like cannibals under a picture from my favorite children's story, Frog and Toad.

We started with batter-fried mushrooms (those delicate ones with very long stems) that were ridiculously scrumptious. The fried frog was good as usual, but spoiled by an egg sauce like watery apple juice and stinking of sulphur--not a good choice.

Curry frog. Very palatable, down to the bread-dipping. Frogs need to be fried to truly sing, figuratively speaking, and frog that's fried and then covered in curry is much better.

That Ol' Timey Opera

Our farewell party at Nam Cat Tien. Some ol' 9 fingered drifter stopped by our table to recite some Vietnamese folk-opera.

1000 Birds!

My friend Bao who took me in on his tour in Da Lat offered me a ride to Cat Tien. How could I say no?

Jenny booked me a cheap bungalow. The accommodations were infinitely better than last time. I had my own bathroom, which didn't drain and was a little gross. At least I didn't have to share the toilet with dog-sized spiders.

The room came with its own giant gecko. Thankfully this one was pretty quiet--they often like to wait until you are asleep and then, with expert ventriloquism, scream "Gecko!" into your ear. They're so beautiful in real life--hard to imagine someone wanting to stuff them into a jar to make alcohol.

Some amazing local birds I'd been dying to see were in my own backyard. This Black and Red Broadbill looks like a muppet, with a stuck-on bill enameled in sky blue and yellow. I also had many woodpeckers, Racket-Tailed Drongos, treepies and Velvet-Fronted Nuthatches.

Bao was here to train the young staff at Cat Tien as bird guides. They showed great promise.

A little lecture on birding history and some morphology.

Taking a break by the riparian habitat outside the Forest Floor Lodge, where we had easy views of Golden-Fronted Leafbirds.

As always, the food at Cat Tien was phenomenal. The menu is pretty small, but the chicken and fish are extremely fresh and well seasoned. Here we tuck into some local banh canh.

In the middle of nowhere, we took shelter in an abandoned hut from a violent thunderstorm. Vietnamese don't share the petty fears of Westerners--while I was thinking of lightning rods and the movie 2012, everyone else calmly sat for a smoke and munched on some sour wild fruit I'd never seen before.

The hut had some neat grafitti. We obviously weren't the first to take cover here.

Well, this is the rainy season. After two days with long, drenching downpours, there were a lot of downed trees to be cleared. The roads were slow-going.

None-the-less, we got amazing views of very sought-after birds from our truck, like Green Peafowl, Junglefowl (the deadly wild chicken), and this Siamese Fireback.

A bird that's very commonly heard but often impossible to see: the Blue-Winged Pitta.

We saw 74 species that trip, not bad for the off-season. After updating my lists, I found that I'd reached exactly 1000 species of birds, which is a strange number to stumble upon.

Water Puppets

Well, we were bored. So why not go to a water puppet show?

The first time I saw this was 2.5 years ago in Hanoi. This was exactly the same show in every detail. The stage, for no apparent reason, is a tub of very dirty-looking water. The puppets are beautiful lacquered machines--they don't exactly compete with today's 3-D entertainment, but they must have been cutting-edge tech in their time. The show is introduced by a simple boy puppet chatting with the musicians in Vietnamese--not very reassuring to the foreigner. But the following scenes are generally written to show off a puppet that can swim or dance or squirt water.

Belly Blues

Sometimes you just have to spend $35 on dinner. We came to the Intercontinental Hotel for some painful money extraction. The question "was it worth it?" keeps popping up. A quick look at the spread makes it seem like it is.

My first plate held more food than I've seen in months--mashed potatoes, always a nostalgic treat; some salmon, rare in Vietnam; a really tasty pork rib; a tekamaki for sushi lightweights; what unfortunately turned out to be lamb, never easy on my stomach.

There's so much amazing crab in Vietnam. Don't know how long the ecology will last, but it is nice to not be in the same room as fake crab-sticks. Unfortunately the guts were really sour and spoiled the lump meat, but that's a pretty meaty claw.

Little spiny lobsters. A couple of these really makes the price worth-while.

The desserts really stole the show.

This was amazing, like something out of Willy Wonka. Very hard not to just stick my face into a never-ending chocolate fountain.

The selection was mind-boggling. Every morsel was a piece of art yet tasted spectacular. I tried to have one of everything. I rolled out of there like a stuffed goose and spent the next day bent over in agony, crouched forehead-against-floor. Worth it? Hard to tell.

Tomb Raider

Cambodia has temples like New York has mailboxes. They are pretty hard to keep track of, especially since the Khmer keep switching between Hinduism and Buddhism. Angkor Wat is the most famous and well built temple, so it is used as a sort of focal point. I don't even remember the name of this temple (feel free to google it), so I call it Tomb Raider like most tourists because it was a setting for the movie. It's pre Angkorian and pretty small, but has huge character thanks to the fig trees growing around it, sometimes pulling it apart and sometimes holding it together. Like other Buddhist temples, it was defaced by a late king who converted Cambodia back to Hinduism. He only ruled for 5 years, but long enough to carve out every Buddha on every temple and put a third eye of Shiva (not even a very pretty eye) on the large faces. The temple walls had plates like a Stegasaurus all along the top, thousands and thousands of them, with a little seated Buddha, now all gone. Still, I feel that only adds to the history of the place, and this is one of my favorite temples.

You can see the third eye carved in this temple entrance.