April « 2010 « Where Is Hawkins?

April, 2010

Vietnam — No Comments
27
Apr 10

More of the Mekong Delta (Day 2)

After tossing and turning all night long along with a 7 am start time, I got up at 5, almost took two faceplants in the shower due to extreme slippage, and packed my gear while I prepared for the sweating.

We hopped on a bus to get to the boat to take us to the Cai Rang floating market. The market itself was pretty cool -lots of people dealing in bulk and with the tourists floating around, there was an opportunity for people to make a decent living selling drinks/snacks to tourists. Periodically they’d come by, latch onto the boat, and sell beer and water. We also stopped for some fresh pineapple, and I just enjoyed watching the traffic and commerce of the market while I sipped on some iced tea.

There were lots of good photo ops.

After the market, we went to some nearby villages to check out rice-husking mills and rice noodle marking shops around Long Xuyen. It was pretty cool and the seeming low-tech approach worked, and worked well. And the idea of family businesses was pretty nice – we tend to forget that here.

I did get to meet a man from Alaska who was down visiting his Vietnamese fiancee. He seemed like a nice enough older guy who had did 3 Iditarod races, which instantly made him super cool. If I only had money and lots of dogs…

We went back to lunch at Can Tho, where I had another awesome steak and beers again while talking with some nice Swedes and Austrians. The afternoon was spent via bus with several ferry crossings and eventually we ended up on a 3+ hour boat cruise down the river.

It made for a good sight-seeing tour and an excellent opportunity to drink beer with everyone on the boat. I was the only American, so it was pretty neat. Eventually we arrived at the Delta Floating Hotel in Chau Doc, and since it was about 9pm, it was time to hit the bed. I got another room with a fan and a mosquito net, which obstructed the fan’s breeze (not much of one, because it was situated about 15 feet away.) Another sleepless night, but hey, I am on a floating hotel in Vietnam. How sweet is that?

The overall pictures are here at Fotki.

Vietnam — No Comments
25
Apr 10

First day on the Mekong Delta

I picked a 3 day tour “mostly by boat” of the Mekong Delta because I like boats and I figured that I only have so much tolerance for bumpy bus rides. Well, I got both on this trip.

I was picked up ass early from the guest house at around 7am. We drove down to the river and hopped on a boat and headed towards My Tho. It was cool to just cruise down the river and chill and watch the scenery and absorb everything. I was impressed with the number of ships in various states of disrepair but still plugging along.

Our first stop was Unicorn Island. I think all of the Obama voters took the Unicorns off of Unicorn Island, and we ended up drinking honey tea, listened to some traditional music and walked around the island. We passed by awesome islands – Phoenix Island, Dragon Island and Turtle Island, which apparently is a great place to dive.

It was time to get back on the boat, and we made it down to Ben Tre province to check out a handmade coconut candy workshop. The candy was awesome, but all these years of having braces caused my teeth to flinch in reflex. After that, it was back on a boat again to go down the lush, green canals. They weren’t kidding with the “mostly by boat.” I also got some bike riding in, which was fun and yet horrible at the same time.

I met some nice Swedes and Austrians who were stuck because of the ol’ Iceland volcano who were trying to make the best of it. I mean, it’s a damn volcano – what are you supposed to do?

After a few more boat to boat transfers, we ended up on a bus and headed towards Can Tho. I scoped out the Mekong Restaurant and had Chateaubriand for dinner for under $5. Oh so good. Since I was traveling solo, I had to pop for the extra few bucks to get a single room. I got a room without air conditioning, and when it’s hot as hell and you’re a sweaty mess, you don’t sleep much. Instead, I did some quick photography work, charged up my gadgets, and prepared for another day of boats.

And for you Google Earth nerds, a 40mb KMZ of today’s activities. :) And naturally, the pics. Please note that I did geotag them because I’m hardcore nerd.

Ho Chi Minh City / Vietnam — No Comments
23
Apr 10

Day 2 in Saigon

I got a decent night’s sleep, and woke up ready to go to Cholon, Saigon’s version of Chinatown. There are three main pagodas, and I figured, I’m ambitious, let’s take the local bus. On the way out to the bus stop, I was accosted by a tout who wanted to give me a ride in a rickshaw, and waited for me while I ate my Pho for breakfast. A bit uncomfortable, but hey, such is the life.

Without a real clue as to what I was looking for and using the Rough Guide to Vietnam for my maps, I was pretty much screwed, and worked on basic urban landnav skills – use a basic compass and ranger beads and backtrack towards the pagodas. I found 3 pagodas, but am not sure if they were the ones I was looking for. The maps were wrong, and everyone I asked for help looked at me like they had no idea where they were either. Awesome.

I hopped the bus back into the city center, and decided that I should wander around the Ben Thanh Market, which is your average market selling all brands of knockoff clothing. At night, it becomes a night market (imagine that!) I walked around, grabbed some market Pho (om nom nom) and enjoyed the fact that I was the only white guy in sight. I like hiding in plain sight.

After lunch, I decided to head to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, which due to my illiteracy, I misread as the Ho Chi Minh Museum. I walked in and said “where the fuck is the propaganda?” Well, that’s another museum across town. I liked the museum – the city itself has survived so much chaos over the years, and it was interesting to see the background. It helped put things in context, since admittedly I knew one side of the Vietnam War and knew very little about Vietnam as a country from a historical background.

It was around 2pm and I realized I’ve drank 6 liters of water up until that point. At the risk of sounding like one of those weirdos who are obsessed with bodily fluids, I knew I was sweating profusely and if I stopped sweating, then we’d have a problem. My wicking clothing didn’t help much. However, I want to give a shout-out to Camelbak and Elete for keeping me hydrated and pumped full of yummy electrolytes.

I decided that I should walk the mile or so down to the river and across the bridge to the Ho Chi Minh Museum for some propaganda. The fact that they refer to him as “Uncle Ho” sounds a lot better than “Dear Leader” because he sounds like a nice Uncle – you know, the one who buys you porno mags when you’re 13. Admittedly, I didn’t know much about him, so I decided to jump in and read everything with a grain of salt. The museum was pretty disappointing. It was in a slick French colonial building but didn’t have much on the guy other than official party lines. so I felt that it sucked. In a way, it made me feel like there was an amateur theatrical performance – totally disappointing. I guess I’ll have to buy a book.

By this time, I was running out of steam, so it was time to go back, restage, do my photography chores, and then pack for my 3 day Mekong Delta cruise that left at 7am. Oppressive, I know, but it said “Mostly by boat.” So, theoretically, I could pretend I’m John Kerry and storm the villages with my camera. Awesome.

Ho Chi Minh City / Vietnam — 1 Comment
21
Apr 10

Saigon suckage

I was woken up by a rooster around 5am, making me feel horrible. Between jetlag and sleep deprivation, I was one miserable bastard. I showered, and prepared to step out the door and be humid and sweaty.

I left the hostel around 7am since most of the museums opened up early and I felt like making a day out of it. By my guess, the first stop, Reunification Palace, was about 4 inches away on the map, so I figured it’d make for a nice little jaunt. It only took about 20 minutes, and it was fun to get used to learning how to cross traffic and absorb the smells, along with the pollution and humidity.

It used to be the home/office of the South Vietnamese President until, oh, 1975, when some tanks rolled in and Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese and eventually unifying the country. The Palace is “preserved,” making it a nice little sight to see how it looked in the 1970′s. Most of the equipment was intact, and it was reassuring to see old Motorola equipment. Also, the building had the “70′s smell,” if that makes any sense. You could practically smell the lead in the paint. The good ol’ days. It was also around 8am, and I managed to get there before all the tour buses, which was rather nice.

I then hiked a bit further north to the War Remnants Museum, which had a highly propagandized version of the “American war,” complete with crimes depicted by US soldiers. The winner of the war controls the narrative, so in this case, I sucked it up and prepared for the onslaught of “truths.”

After leaving, I decided to walk to the Post Office, a nice building that had obvious French influences. It was pretty slick, and I had to pick up postcard stamps anyway – two birds with one stone, as it were. It was right across the street from the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was pretty weird to see this nice church while down the street you’d see the red flags with the hammer and sickle of the Communist flags. Different.

I grabbed a snack and walked down to the river and took some photos before I hit the wall. It was around 1pm, and my body just gave up on me. I took a taxi back to the hostel for a power nap that lasted over 6 hours. Oops.

I went to get some Pho for dinner, have a beer, write some postcards and just absorb the sights and sounds. Touts selling bootleg DVDs and books came into the restaurant to try to sell them to tourists. It was fun to just sit and watch and absorb the atmosphere.

Around 10pm, I decided to call it a night and walk back to the hostel. As luck would have it, I was accosted by a prostitute who promised to “make me happy.” “Make work suck less and get me a good night’s sleep?” I bid her adieu, and she hopped on the back of presumably her pimp’s bike, and I went to bed to shower off and get clean for a decent night’s sleep.

Vietnam — No Comments
18
Apr 10

Heading to Vietnam

In an effort to horde miles and intentionally route my flights to earn elite qualifying miles, I “bent” my flight from Vietnam through Dallas on the way out and Los Angeles on the way back. An extra 2000 elite qualifying miles for minimal effort except for time. Just 100,000 of these bad boys keep me flying in the front of the bus and give me perks. Status, it seems, is everything.

My flight from Chicago left at 8am, so I had planned on getting to the airport around 6:30am, have a snack, then get on the plane to DFW. I woke up around 5:30, causing me to panic a bit and then shower, shave and do last minute flight checks. Taxi to the airport, then uneventful check-in. Quick coffee at the O’Hare Admirals Club, then boarded my flight down to Texas. Oh joy.

The only real worry was that my upgrade didn’t clear to Tokyo, so I’d be forced to sit in coach. Not a big deal, because I had the seat next to me roped off, so I could easily slouch over and nap, but the anxiety of “you’re #1 on the waitlist” to “sit right here and wait ’til your name is called” made me a bit nervous. With minutes before pushback, the gate agent gave me a business class seat, and I took the window seat. Score.

Flight over was uneventful. I watched Avatar and Sherlock Holmes. Both sucked. I then spent the next 8+ hours riveted to season 2 of Damages. Damn you Glenn Close!

Landed at Tokyo’s Narita airport, an airport I’m now pretty familiar with and can navigate through while hung over. Great staff on the ground there, and I went to the JAL First lounge to eat some food, have a beer or three and then get on the 6 hour flight to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City.

I nodded off on the flight to Saigon and felt cramped. I’m a big guy and JAL’s economy seats just feel extra small and cramped. All was good.

Landing in Saigon was really cool – we had to go around again because of a missed approach, so it was neat to see the urban sprawl dotted with neon lights. Once we landed, it was super efficient. Passport control and customs were easy, although you needed to scan your luggage via x-ray, which was fine. I’ve had it done before in the Emirates and in other places, so it’s not routine. An American couple behind me seemed horrified at the prospect, which made me wonder if they were drug mules. Come to think of it, if they were busted for drugs, that would have been kind of awesome.

Once you exit customs, I was braced for carnage. All of the guidebooks said watch yourself as soon as you leave. I went to the ATM (there’s only one), withdrew 2.4 million Dong ($127) and went to a pre-arranged ride counter, who wanted to charge me $20 for a ride to the hostel. I decided to be adventurous and grabbed a taxi and haggled him down to $10, which was still too much, but I wasn’t in the mood to argue after all that transit time. I did get a broken English tour of the city, which was pretty nice.

Getting dropped off at the hostel was interesting. I didn’t realize that the hostel was down a series of alleys in the backpacking district. Now I realized why I had problems locating it on Google Maps and via sat imagery. It was midnight locally, so I got to the hostel, took a shower and crawled into bed. Hurray for being in Vietnam.

Next up: Running around Saigon – days 1 and 2.

Blog — 1 Comment
12
Apr 10

Anti-Social Networking

My blog was down for a week, mainly due to me trying to enable SSH on the blog (which required migration of servers at GoDaddy) and my fault (screwing up WordPress.) And you know what? I honestly didn’t care if it came back up or not.

I haven’t been on Twitter as well for almost a month. I took a leave of absence, mainly because I hated it. It was far too chaotic to keep up with, and I felt myself going in the direction of mass hysteria: Everyone tweets, so therefore, you must too. I care less about Facebook too – what was frequent status posts to make people laugh now holds no appeal. Who cares what I have to say?

Travel blogging is interesting. There are people who are good at gaming search engines and being self-promoters, and I’m just not one of them. Therefore, I won’t get the hits that they do. It’s not a big deal. I’d rather travel and do my own thing. I’m not a brand or nor do I live off a blog. I’m just a guy where travel comprises a portion of his life.

But the social network withdrawl mirrors my own personal withdrawl. It’s harder and harder to get out of bed most mornings, and it’s difficult to leave the house when I don’t have to. I feel broken in a way – like I’m missing the pieces that make people normal.

Vietnam — No Comments
11
Apr 10

Vietnam :)

Less than 70 hours before I leave for Vietnam. I’m not prepared, not packed and fighting bad allergies. Am I worried? Nah. :)

Where Is Hawkins?Where travel is cheaper than psychotherapy.