Woohoo!

I am HOME!! And I should be sleeping, considering I only got maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours or so. But at the moment I'm pretty wired. Ah, jet lag! All my flights took off and landed without a hitch. There was no overbooking and in fact there were plenty of free spaces in both business and first class. First class is particularly sweet on international flights because you can actually turn the seat into a BED! I wish they held some random lottery for these extra spaces: "The following passengers are being upgraded to first class for this flight: seat 17A, 35C, etc. etc." How sweet would that be? But I guess you don't want to upset the very high-paying customers up there already or upset the folks who wouldn't get chosen.

I'm not sure if I'm all that coherent right now, so I guess I'll try to get some sleep. Just a quick note to say that I'm soooo happy to be home. The sight of Dunkin' Donuts at the airport brought a grin to my face. And I'm currently falling in love all over again with my MacBook. Was the screen always this ginormous?? Also, how exciting is it to be able to brush your teeth with the tap water... better yet, you can even drink it! :D

And we're off!

... sort of. My plane leaves around midnight tonight. I just checked out of my hotel and now have about 6 hours to kill until the taxi picks me up. Hmm... what to do? I think it will involve a lot of sitting around in cafés and eating. If this were a career option I think I'd be a millionaire at it. Speaking of being a millionaire, I wonder how it will feel when I see my bank account balance drop from seven figures to three. Dong is a silly currency, but you definitely feel rich playing with it.

So the plan is Hanoi to Seoul, Seoul to New York, New York to Boston. Part of me is hoping they'll need volunteers to give up their seats on an overbooked plane to NY for a fabulous flight voucher worth big bucks, but those kinds of things never seem to happen to me. We'll see. If you're still reading this blog after all this time, thank you first of all, but more importantly see you soon!!

In your face

That's how Vietnam is. If there were an award for overuse of the horn, it would definitely go to this country. It even beats out India I would say, and that is no small feat. I would love to see the authorities attempt to institute a no honking policy here... people would have no idea what to do with themselves. I've done a considerable amount of mumbling to myself here, things like, "Yeah buddy, I hear ya" and, "Dude, what is your @$! problem?" This of course accomplishes nothing, but makes me feel mildly better about getting beeped at constantly when I'm crossing the street.

The other way Vietnam is in your face is in the food markets. Produce I can handle, but the meat and seafood sections are just too much. If I were a hardcore carnivore it wouldn't be a problem, but as someone who flirts heavily with vegetarianism it is stomach-turning. Today a fish flopped out of its little bucket as I was walking by, a cry for help I believe. And then there were these three turtles, destined shortly for turtle soup I imagine, and one of them was craning its neck to reach the water that the fish were in below. So sad. I'm easily reminded of the first time I went veg, after spending a year in France and seeing the flagrant displays of dead animals in the markets there.

I couldn't bring myself to take any pictures of these animals on death row, so I focused on the spice section instead.



Ah, Vietnam's famous weasel coffee. There are other countries with variations on this theme, but it goes something like this: weasel eats coffee beans, stomach acids go to work on them, weasel passes coffee beans, harvesters pick them up and roast and grind them, then sell them to the coffee-loving public. Mmm...

Au revoir, les sandales

It's time to bid farewell to my trusty sandals, my vegan Birkenstocks. I've definitely gotten my money's worth out of these puppies, but they've seen far too many miles and way too many squat toilets to merit a place in my pack for the flight home. I've officially entered Lazy Tourist mode, just biding my time in Hanoi until my flight on Tuesday night. I actually dig this city, though; I'm starting to have my favorite "spots," like the vegetarian restaurant down the street from my hotel and the frozen yogurt shop around the corner. Overall I'm not really keen on Vietnam, but Hanoi is pretty cool. I definitely notice the pollution here more than Bangkok, though. My eyes are a bit irritated and I'm fighting a cold, although this is probably not related. In that sense I don't feel bad being lazy; I need my energy for my 30 hours of travel on Tuesday into Wednesday.

One thing I did accomplish today was getting a haircut, just a trim around the ears. And I did it in a little shop despite the fact that the hairdresser didn't really speak English. I was able to mime what I wanted, covering the top of my head protectively while saying khong (no), then pointing to the area around my ears and making the universal sign for "a little bit". It's amazing what you can accomplish with very little language. On that note, I have managed to understand a bit more Vietnamese in my time here, either from repetition or necessity. It's not as bad as it seemed at first, although the tones still pose a great challenge.

Trip Superlatives

As I near the end of my trip, it seems appropriate to compile a list of the best, and in some cases the worst, of all the places I've been to. Here goes:

Best food: Thailand
Best coffee: Vietnam
Best tea: hot - India, iced - Thailand
Best public transportation: Thailand
Worst public transportation: Vietnam
Hardest stares: India
Easiest smiles: Cambodia
Hardest stares that you can turn into smiles: Vietnam
Cleanest city: Luang Prabang, Laos
Dirtiest city: Varanasi, India
Best market: Chiang Mai, Thailand
Best islands: Thailand
Best temple: Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Cutest kids: All of them
Cheapest place to travel: India
Most expensive place to travel: Thailand
Places I didn’t go, but wished I had: Pai, Thailand, the south of India, and Nepal
Number of vaccinations I got before the trip: 6
Number of times I got sick from something I ate or drank: 3
Number of strange diseases I worried about getting: multiple
Number of strange diseases I actually got: none, that I know of
Benefit of worry: none
The one thing I didn’t pack but wished I had: pocket knife
Strangest currency: Vietnamese, which has two plastic cutouts. Also called the dong.
Easiest language to learn: Hindi
Hardest language to learn: Vietnamese
Language that most resembles choking when spoken: Khmer
Highlights of the trip: seeing the Dalai Lama in India and hanging out with elephants in Thailand

It's certainly been an adventure!

Walk, walk, walk, walk, walk

I'm not sure how many miles my feet have clocked today, but they are sore and I am exhausted. I read about this great sounding Lebanese restaurant in my guidebook so I decided to hoof it over to the neighborhood where it's located. I checked out the map and thought, OK, so it's a little far, but I can do it. Well, a little far turned out to be quite far in reality and then when I finally got there, the place wasn't even open! The other place listed in the area that sounded interesting as well didn't seem to exist. Thanks, Lonely Planet, thanks a lot. Fortunately there are a couple of gourmet markets in the same vicinity so, starving at this point, I bought supplies to make myself a nice little European picnic - bread, olives, and cheese. Mmm. I'm currently in the other gourmet market across the street enjoying a latte before I figure out how to get back to my hotel. I'm thinking taxi.

I visited the Temple of Literature today. It was packed, mostly with Asian tourists on holiday for the new year. I had a few India flashbacks as a couple of tourists wanted to take their picture with me, exotic white girl that I am. Lots of people were buying Chinese art, either sayings or their names written in Chinese characters, I'm not sure. I walked by the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, which I've heard is cool, but I'm not sure I'll be going in. I've been to Lenin's in Moscow and really, once you've seen one embalmed communist leader haven't you seen them all?

This gourmet market is co-owned by a guy from Chicago, with whom I just chatted briefly. It's always interesting the people you meet while traveling, either ex-pats or fellow travelers themselves. There are lots of folks like me who quit their jobs to travel, others on vacation, others living and working abroad. Yesterday I met a couple of guys in the post office, one British, one American. I had a chance to talk to the American as he had to put a series of three stamps on each of his sixteen cards, so having time I decided to help out. This guy definitely ranks as one of the most interesting travel stories I've heard on this trip. He's 30 years old, lives in Chicago, and is an ER doctor. But not in Chicago... in North Dakota. He spends two weeks straight working in ND and then gets six weeks off back in Chicago, except he doesn't stay in Chicago. He travels. If anyone's got it figured out, it would have to be this guy, at least in terms of working the least amount of time for the most amount of money. Nice.


An artist puts the finishing touches on his piece.


They weren't kidding about the traffic in Hanoi. You could literally grow old waiting for a good time to cross, so you just take a deep breath, step out into the road and make your way across, slowly and carefully. If you're lucky, a Vietnamese person will also be crossing and you just walk next to them!

Brrr!

I just got to Hanoi this morning and it is chilly... and I love it! I would much rather put on extra clothes than walk around sweating all day. The overnight bus arrived around 5:30 a.m. when it was still pitch-black out and very few things were open. The bus ride itself was an adventure, as most travel in Vietnam has been. I'd taken sleeper buses before, but on this one I got stuck in the way back, which instead of individual bunks is a row of five, and I somehow ended up in the middle. I had two Poles to my left and two Brits to my right, all lovely people to be sure, but there are very few people in the world I enjoy sleeping next to, let alone limbs touching. My only solace was that this was the last bus ride of my long and winding journey. I've decided to stay in Hanoi until Tuesday, rather than overnight it to Sapa or bus it to Halong Bay. I'm sure they're both worth seeing, I've just totally run out of steam.

I'd heard from fellow travelers that two days in Hanoi was enough. They may be right, but so far I'm feelin' like this city was made for me, or at least made for my favorite pastime, which is wandering through narrow and charming backstreets. The Old Quarter seems like an endless maze of these. I think traffic in Hanoi can be pretty bad as well, but it's still rather sleepy here due to Tet. Perfect. All I plan to do over these next few days is wander, eat, maybe catch a movie or two, get a haircut (if I can find a hairdresser who speaks adequate English or French), and get a facial.


I'm still amazed by how much food business is conducted at ground-level. Southeast Asia has a ways to go in terms of food and just general sanitation.


Fish for sale.

Sweet relief

I arrived in Hue around noon today and learned that the weather here is notoriously bad compared to the rest of Vietnam. Bad is relative, however, as I am totally relishing the cooler temps. It was actually misty today and the sun was hidden behind the clouds as I walked around town. There's a big citadel here and various buildings around it to check out. There's also a supermarket that I'm looking forward to exploring... only I would include a supermarket on the list of must-sees. It was a pretty slow day here as a lot of businesses are still closed for Tet, but one of my favorite sights of the day was these two novice monks on a bicycle. Cute.

Chúc mừng năm mới!

In other words, Happy New Year! Or if you're anywhere other than Asia, Happy Valentine's Day. Tomorrow I head out of Hoi An for Hue, about 4 hours north, where I'll probably spend a couple days before heading to Hanoi. The weather in Hanoi looks to be cooler, in the 60s, and rainy, which is fine by me. Bring it on!


A woman buys goodies for Tet.

Taking it easy

The trick to not completely sweating to death here seems to be to wait until the late afternoon to do anything outdoors. My approach has been to emerge from the hotel only for breakfast and lunch and then wait until dinner to do any extensive amount of walking. I don't know how anybody lives in this kind of climate, and the funny thing is I think this weather is still pretty mild compared to other times of the year. The crazy thing is some of the locals dress in a way that would suggest it's actually cool here - long pants, long-sleeve shirts, sweaters even! Some women in particular attempt to cover up completely, having nothing to do with the weather but rather in an effort to keep their skin as shielded from the sun as possible. I saw a girl on a motorbike the other day with a helmet, face mask, gloves, full-length clothing, and sandals with socks. She was serious! Apparently lighter skin is highly prized here. In fact, it's nearly impossible to buy any kind of skin cream that doesn't have a whitening agent in it, which is pretty funny considering most of us Westerners come to places like this specifically for the sun.

Pics from Hoi An

Tet is also the time in Vietnam when everything gets cleaned from top to bottom, kind of like our spring cleaning. One shop had put all its furniture out on the sidewalk while they cleaned, including their mirror. In the reflection is the tree above and some of the holiday street decorations.


Dragon fruit, probably the coolest looking fruit around. The inside is white, similar in texture to watermelon, and full of little black seeds. It's kind of flavorless, but definitely visually appealing.

Lamps for sale.

A step up

I'm now in Hoi An, about halfway up the coast of Vietnam, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and therefore a very put together town. This place is by far the most charming little place I've seen yet in Vietnam, so I think I'll be riding out Tet here. Unfortunately I think all of the tailor shops close down tomorrow for at least four days, which means I likely won't be able to get any clothes made, which isn't necessarily a bad thing as it means I won't be spending the money. And frankly the deals aren't that fantastic. It's incredible how many tailors there are here, though. Much like the malls in Bangkok, I have no idea how all of these places stay in business.

I'm now rooming with another American, Lizz, whom I met in Dalat. She's from "the other Portland," Oregon, and is a university student who's been studying international development and Vietnamese. We're staying at what is probably the cheapest place in Hoi An, technically part of the hosteling network, paying $12 a night for a room with a fan and cable TV. Not bad. The weather here is pretty darn hot and humid, which is a change from the much cooler Dalat. As they say, "It isn't the heat, it's the humidity," and Hoi An has plenty of that, meaning that you're pretty much sweating as soon as you step out of the shower. I think when I get home I'm gonna do some sort of detox and spa treatment to try and wash away all the ill effects of this trip.

Speaking of which, I had plenty of time during the 20-hour bus journey from Dalat to Hoi An to think about the things I'm most looking forward to when I return. The countdown has begun. In no particular order, here they are:

1- Whole grains. White rice and white bread reign supreme over here. Utterly lacking in nutritional value and just not good for your system.

2 - Grocery stores. I get the whole argument of specialized shops over the big box stores, but there's no matching the convenience, abundance, and quality of products available at American grocery stores.

3 - Toilet paper. No longer will I have to carry around a roll of TP or a package of tissues with me everywhere I go. That's always the great mystery when traveling through Asia - what kind of toilet will it be (usually a squat toilet) and will there be toilet paper (usually no).

4 - Going to the movies. I'm kind of a movie junkie and I've totally missed watching movies. I haven't been to one since I saw New Moon in Bangkok. On the bus to Dalat the other day they showed the movie 2012. For a moment I was completely transported and almost forgot where I was. Unforunately the movie was dubbed in Vietnamese. Dubbing itself is bad enough, but this one was dubbed entirely by one woman. Oddly enough they also didn't completely record over the original soundtrack, so I was able to strain to hear the English. Just not the same, though.

There's more, of course, but those are the big ones. :)


On the bus ride from Dalat to Nha Trang.


One of the shops in Hoi An.


I love all the mannequins and mannequin parts everywhere here.

Standards of cleanliness

A little tale about food hygiene, or how much do I miss America right now? I came to this little café this morning before leaving on my epic journey to Hoi An and ordered a white coffee and an omlette. The omlette was lookin' might fine, until I started cutting it and noticed a hair in it. Ironically I had just been discussing food hygiene with some fellow travelers the other day and they said their standards have really lowered on this trip; on more than one occasion they've eaten food even if they found a hair in it. Sometimes I can let it go, but for some reason I just couldn't this time. Do I say anything? Do I not say anything? I decided to flag down the manager and pointed it out to her. She smiled apologetically, removed the hair, and said, "sorry," and then walked away. I guess I was supposed to eat the omlette anyway, but I just couldn't do it. A small crowd of employees started gathering near the bar and assessing the situation from afar. When they realized I wasn't going to eat the thing, they actually brought me a new one. So nice! But... this one was undercooked. I tell you, if it's not one thing it's another here. Haha. Well, I ate around the uncooked parts, and that was the best I could do. I do think that sometimes America is an oversanitized culture, but I'll take that over this anyday.

Tet is coming

So this will be interesting, being in Vietnam during Tet, which is the New Year holiday. Prices for just about everything increase, as I just discovered when buying my bus ticket from here to Hoi An. So it may be that I find someplace I like and hunker down, as apparently some hotels even close around this time. (Again, different approach to customer service.) I keep waiting to find that place here that I really like. So far I've been pretty underwhelmed. To be fair, this is also likely due to the fact that I'm pretty much over the whole travel thing, which I guess is good; get it out of my system. Not that I never want to travel again, just not for such an extended period of time without a home base. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but I think I'm ready for some routine. A regular eating schedule, exercise, etc. I guess this is the ideal situation, really. I would hate to be going home feeling sad about it and like I "missed" something over here. I'm definitely ready... now I just need to get through two more weeks!

Dalat isn't a bad place to kill some time. It's a quirky town and it's got a lively market. It's a huge market, actually, where you can buy clothes, shoes, toiletries, produce, meat, dried fruit (I've never seen such an enormous collection of dried fruit), fabric, flowers, and currently a wide selection of gifts to celebrate the new year. I learned from a fellow traveler that everybody celebrates their birthday on Tet as well, which is an interesting way to do it. Gifts for this holiday seem to be mostly candy, cards, and flowers. On the bus ride here they were showing some Vietnamese variety show in celebration of the holiday. It was... entertaining.


Flowers galore.


Watermelon art. Chuc Mung Nam Moi = Happy New Year. It's going to be the Year of the Tiger.

Happy BIrthday, Paris!!!

Today Paris turns 5! So in honor of that I'm posting a picture of her from last winter. I can't wait to see her in a couple weeks and get caught up on big, wet, slobbery kisses. :D

Where am I?

I left my hotel yesterday morning around 8 a.m. with some bad info from a French woman who told me the bus station was about a 5-10 minute walk from there. 30-40 minutes later, with all my gear on and sweating like a sow, I got there. Begin the chaos. When you get to bus stations in Vietnam, the touts swarm, each one trying to figure out where you're going and get you to use their bus service. I was hoping to go to Ben Tre, the little town where they make the coconut candy, but had a hard time finding a bus that went directly there, so I bought a ticket to My Tho, a town about 30 kilometers from Ben Tre. Well... I ended up in Ho Chi Minh City. I had sort of imagined this scenario in my head and told myself if this happened I would just continue on to Dalat. Well, there were no obvious signs saying where I was and I couldn't find anyone who spoke enough English, or understood my sign language of pointing to my map, my feet, and the surrounding city with a look of question on my face. They all knew I wanted to go to Ben Tre, but the ticket cost the same as the price I had just paid, which didn't seem right. So finally one of the guards came up and said, "Vous parlez français, oui?" Oui, fortunately, but it turned out he also spoke pretty good English. In any case, we established that I was in HCMC and that now I wanted to get to Dalat. But buses to Dalat leave from the south station, and I was at the north station. He told me which bus I needed to catch and I was on my way. It was about a 40-minute ride to the other station, during which I met an Australian-Vietnamese guy who spoke perfect English.

There are a lot of French-speaking tourists traveling through Asia. I'm not sure what it is, but I've been mistaken for one on several occasions. Maybe it's the short hair. I guess I don't look like a typical American tourist, which is fine by me. And I guess I should start trying to use French first as opposed to English because I haven't really had much luck finding many Vietnamese people who speak English. In any case, I'm here, having arrived close to midnight last night. I found a great hotel room and I'm hoping to park it here for a few days, until I'm ready for the next leg of the journey, which promises to be even longer.

River livin'

One of the biggest draws for tourists to the Mekong Delta is a visit to the floating markets. Having visited some in Thailand that turned out to be geared solely for tourists, I was hesitant to do another such tour here. However, I’m so glad I did! The markets here are about as authentic as you can get. There were very few tourists floating about and it really felt like you were getting a peek into the daily lives of the locals. Laundry hanging out to dry, produce exchanging hands, all as the sun was rising.

We spent about 8 hours on the river, setting out at 5:30 a.m., with a few stops to check out some rice paddies and have lunch. Our boat driver was kind enough to offer us plenty of fresh fruit along the way - pineapple, papaya, and pomelo. I shared the ride with a Dutch couple who are three months into their trip. Like me, they bought a one-way ticket and aren't quite sure when they'll return home. We also met a woman from England who's been traveling for 9 1/2 months... solo. Impressive. Traveling alone is cool, but I don't think I could do it for that long. I wasn't sure if I'd feel sad about ending my trip, but as the end nears I'm definitely getting more and more excited to go home. It's time.




Our boat driver multi-tasks - steering the boat and making art out of palm fronds.


This is how people advertise what they're selling - they hang one of each of the fruits and vegetables they have from a pole on their boat.

Recovery

After a good night’s sleep I woke up feeling quite a bit better. I finally emerged from my room around 10 a.m. and made my way to the riverfront, where there are many hotels and restaurants. I wandered for a bit, taking some photos, and ended up at Cappuccino, a little restaurant that caters to tourists. Sometimes I like the local restaurants, but not feeling 100% I really appreciate more familiar foods. I think I’ll be returning there for dinner… pasta! The last time I had pasta was at the ashram in India, made by my Italian friends there.

Feeling under the weather was definitely affecting my outlook on Vietnam. I even explored the option of flying home sooner, but the ticket prices are now out of control. Apparently I got the last good deal. Anyway, I have about 2 ½ weeks to go and I think that’ll be just about right. There’s a lot of ground to cover; Vietnam's a pretty big country if you travel south to north. I think I have my itinerary more or less mapped out. From here I’ll go to Dalat, Hoi An, Hue, Sapa, and Hanoi. This is subject to change if I get any hot tips from fellow travelers along the way. I’m hoping to only pass through Ho Chi Minh City. It sounds like a crazy place and I don’t think I’ll be missing anything particularly charming by skipping it.

Vietnam’s a really interesting place. In some ways it’s the quintessential Asia, at least what I think of when I think of Asia. There’s no shortage of people walking around in those cone-shaped hats, which seem really well designed in terms of sun protection, and the place just feels authentic. There’s a seamless blend of ancient and modern, people going about their daily business as usual while signs of modernity appear as well. Today I was struck by the rap lyrics I heard coming out of one of the cafés downtown (and I quote, "Shake that ass, girl") while folks were buying their flowers and bonsai trees at the market.

As I've mentioned before, the parallels between Vietnam and India are many, so it seems appropriate that I'm ending my trip here. Both places are culturally fascinating, but in general they don't try too hard to impress the tourists. If they could speak, these countries might say, "Yeah, I'm awesome, and if you can get past the rough exterior you might find that you love me." Thailand on the other hand has the whole tourism thing down, Laos isn't far behind, and Cambodia clearly relies on it for its livelihood, almost bending over backwards to please. I think maybe that's why tourists who've been to these other places are a little turned off by Vietnam; there just isn't quite the same level of customer service. On a couple of occasions, in fact, I'm pretty sure that some of the locals have laughed at me when I've tried to ask for help. That probably sounds paranoid, but if you were there I think you would have agreed. It's a good thing I was a teacher for so many years as it gave me a pretty thick skin.


Even though I won't be going to Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon, there's really no escaping the man. Here's a statue of him downtown in Can Tho.

And the award for Worst Public Transportation goes to…

… Vietnam! I have no photos today, but I think I can paint you a pretty good picture of the nightmare/farce that was my trip from Phu Quoc island to Rach Gia and then on to Can Tho. We were picked up (we being myself and two Aussie girls staying at the same place) at 6:45 this morning and taken to the Superdong (it‘s okay to laugh), the boat that would take us back to the mainland in 2 ½ hours. The ride was a little rough, but not bad really. We got free water again and I was highly entertained by a group of Vietnamese kids sitting near me who kept saying, “Hello! What’s your name?” or, “Hello! Sit down,” repeating what they must hear in school. Very cute. Once we got off the boat is when the nightmare began. We were swarmed by motorbike taxi drivers (“Where you go?”) claiming to be able to take us to the bus station for 150,000 dong, which is like $8. I almost fell for it, but then spotted what looked like an official building and it turns out this was where they sold tickets for the bus, and transported you to the bus station at no extra cost. The price of the ticket? 60,000 dong. Big difference. The Aussie girls went for the motorbike scam and were basically driven around the block and dropped off nowhere near the bus station. Hmm… they got away with just paying a small fee for this “service”.

So after we’re shuttled to the bus station we get onto the “bus,” again another mini-van, where we’re packed in nice and tight. Well, I wasn’t feeling that great to begin with (having Googled sandflies I’m a little paranoid currently that I may have contracted some horrible parasitic infection) and so for the first five minutes I’m sweating buckets in the backseat, trying to hold it together when I spot a little black bag in the seatback pocket. I reach over to get it as nonchalantly as possible and moments later it’s full of the contents of my stomach, which fortunately wasn’t much. Anyway, I feel better immediately, of course, and this feeling lasts for most of the rest of the three-hour journey. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the only one to fall victim to the ridiculously bumpy back-and-forth of the mini-van. A woman in the seat in front of me starting throwing up just minutes later… and continued to throw up the entire ride. When I threw up I didn’t make a sound. This poor woman was literally retching, which leads me to believe that maybe she didn’t just have motion sickness. Lovely. I felt bad for her, but at the same time I couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation - stuck in a van with nowhere to go, forced to listen to this for hours. (My counterfeit iPod from Bangkok also died, by the way, so I had no way to drown it out.) And if that weren’t bad enough, dude in the backseat with me decides that now would be a good time to smoke a cigarette. Hello?!? We’re in a VAN, man, small enclosed space? Three people are sick (a small child had joined the ranks at that point), airflow is limited, and this guy decides to light up. Awesome. I started coughing, partially because it made me cough, and partially to let him know I was not happy about his decision. He looked over at me and said, “Sorry, ma’am,” which really I’m not sure what the point of that was. Sorry but I’m going to keep smoking this cigarette, and in fact smoke another one shortly after it, despite the fact that you’re looking a little yellowish right now? Um, OK. One of the Aussie girls gave him a nice death look when he lit up a second time, but to no avail.

Now I'm in a hotel room in Can Tho, one that has AC and cable TV. My Aussie companions were kind enough to go out and get some crackers for me, so I just ate a bunch of those and drank some water. We'll see how that goes. I could be feeling sick because of the sandflies, because I got too much sun, because the heat is getting to me, or maybe even because of something I ate. Who knows? Regardless, this day ranks as one of the lowlights of the trip, for sure. Not every day can be wonderful, of course, and if nothing else, at least it makes for an interesting story.

Deceptively calm

Yesterday was so nice, lying on the beach, swimming in the Gulf of Thailand... so peaceful. Even more peaceful because I walked a little ways away from where all the resorts are to find my own little quiet patch of sand. I threw down my beach towel and sunbathed for about an hour. It was so perfect until later that day when I realized I hadn't been alone after all... nope, I had many visitors in fact, in the form of sand fleas. "What are those bumps on the back of my arm?" I thought as I toweled off from my shower... "and my legs?" Basically every part of my body that didn't fit on the little beach towel now has a nice collection of bites, some big, some small. I guess there’s a reason all the resorts provide beach chairs here!

Not because of this, but I'm done with Phu Quoc island. There's a limit to how tan I can get and frankly lying in the sun is kind of boring. I know this sounds so ungrateful to all my friends and family freezing their butts off back in Maine, but I'm sorry, it's just too hot here. You don't even have to move and you're sweating. Tomorrow I'll head back to the mainland and work my way north until I find some cooler temps.


I have a really high tolerance for pain and bug bites, but it sure would be nice to scratch like this dog is doing!

Another strenuous day

Today was tough. After waking up and taking a shower, I decided to catch a motorbike taxi into town. Having sat on my sunglasses in Cambodia, I decided I really needed another pair. They're indispensable for travel, not just for the sun, but even more so to protect your eyes while you're riding around on said motorbike taxis. After a much more pleasant ride back to my hotel, I slathered on the sunscreen and went out to fortify my tan for an hour. Today was not tough, obviously. Today was dreamy. I am filing away this day, and the many others I've had like it on this trip, under "happy place" so that I can return to it in my mind when I'm cursing the Maine winter a month from now.

I stocked up on some fresh fruit at the local market - mini bananas, oranges, and rambutan. Yummy. The market here is bustling, with loads of produce, meat, and clothing for sale. And like the rest of Vietnam, at least what I've seen so far, this place seems to be hovering somewhere between falling apart at the seams and on the verge of serious development. It's a strange contrast and there's a fair amount of rubble almost everywhere you look. More than other markets I've seen in Asia as well, Vietnam seems to have an inordinate number of fish products. Phu Quoc island, in fact, is the country's biggest producer of fish sauce. You can even visit the factory, although I think I'll pass on that one. In any case, because of all the fish there's a distinct aroma as you roam around the market. On my trip to Ha Tien the other day, when we stopped to switch vans again, the air smelled like coffee, leading me to believe that I was in one of the coffee-growing regions. I suppose you can get used to the smell of fish, but I'd much rather live where they grow coffee.


A very crowded harbor.

A Vietnamese woman prepares fish for sale. Pretty much all food prep is done on the ground here, at least in the markets.