Moonin' Round Asia: July 2011

Allow me to preface this by saying that I’m currently sitting on the deck of what’s called a junk boat. A junk boat is hardly as the name would imply, quite the contrary. It’s about a 50 foot, 2 level, wooden ship with 3 cabins that’s currently sailing us around Halong Bay and providing scenery I never thought I’d experience. This isn’t the beginning of my story, but partly explains why I say that Vietnam is unreal.

To start from the beginning, in our last entry I mentioned that brother Dave had gifted us a week long trip in northern Vietnam. When we arrived on the plane, we really weren’t too sure what to expect. We put our lives in Dave’s hands for a week which to some of you may sound alarming. He hooked us up with a tour group called Handspan that’s run out of Australia. Upon arrival we checked in to our hotel and were very impressed with both the staff and facilities. We had a great little room with a nice bed, great shower and a flat screen tv with at least 5 English channels! Night one was a free night for us so we met up with Jeff and Mike (who happened to be waiting at our hotel for us when we arrived) and went out for a few beers. Molly called the night early because she was exhausted but was nice enough to sign my permission slip to hang out with the monkeys.

Mike, Jeff and I hit our favorite little shop, the “Nice 9 Nine” to grab our beers for our stroll around town on our way to find a seat at “beer corner.” Beer corner is really just a busy corner frequented by scooters where people sit in plastic kindergarten chairs and just watch the madness. There are more scooters here than I’ve ever seen in my life, in an extremely organized mess. There are no stop signs, no more than a handful of stop lights and people just FLY everywhere on these things. At any given point, there could be 10 scooters entering an intersection, all at full speed and all honking their horns as if to say, “I’m coming and could possibly ram you, but don’t know what I can do to avoid it!” We sat for a while until we met a woman that seemed to take a liking to Mike. She never disclosed her age, but I’d guess her to have been between fifty and fifty-five and wearing a skin tight, shiny, purple dress. Her name was… well, I’m not sure what it was because she was hard to understand and talked a lot. She did, however, convince us to follow her to a local bar that she promised to be cheap and right around the corner. After following her for roughly 6 blocks it became clear she didn’t know where she was going and that we should start making some decisions. We eventually stumbled upon a bar that she swore she knew and demanded we go in. We entered to a pretty strange scene – 4 locals sitting at a table and a very large, very drunk looking British man. After a quick exchange, we were told that this ogre was a very good friend of our scantily clad local’s ex boyfriend. He explained to us that it was his birthday and pointed to the cake on the lone table in this tiny hole in the wall. Jeff, Mike and I all wished him a happy birthday and offered to buy him a beer. He declined and instead insisted on buying us one. The problem was, the 4 locals running the joint had closed the bar and it became glaringly obvious that it wasn’t the ogre’s birthday, rather the birthday of one of the locals. They explained that the bar was closed and they were no longer serving, but Shrek wasn’t having this. He demanded over and over and louder each time that they pour us 5 beers. When it became obvious that they were ignoring us, he decided it best to walk behind the bar, grab 5 mugs and make his way to the taps. A Vietnamese fella roughly a third this guy’s size sprung to his feet and ran behind the bar to tell him no. Our ogre pushed right past him and opened the tap and began to fill the first mug. The clever little guy then turned off the valve on the keg which in turn turned off the tap. Ogre wasn’t drunk enough (though he looked it) to be tricked by this tomfoolery. He slammed a mug on the counter and loudly shouted, while a few inches from this little guy, “TURN IT ON!” After a few inaudible threats, the little guy figured it best to just allow 5 more beers rather than deal with the consequences. Mike, during this whole exchange, had inched closer and closer to the front door and had unlocked it in the event we had to run when the shiv got pulled (please see reference http://www.kk.org/streetuse/shiv7.jpg). That and none of us particularly wanted to go to Vietnamese prison, or Hanoi Hilton. The night at the bar came to an end with us cheersing this guy, wishing him a fake happy birthday and escaping with our lives.

We walked the streets for a few more minutes trying to decide what to do. We were offered a plethora of drugs while deciding and chose to just call it a night, Mike and Jeff walking in one direction and myself in another. On the way home, I was stopped 4 times and offered numerous sexual favors (all by guys), a ride to the prostitution district and countless illegal substances. I seem to attract a lot of this attention.

The next day was our water puppet show, the first real day of adventuring through Handspan. We arrived at the theatre and packed in. The stage consisted of a small stage on the left that housed the band. The center of the stage had what seemed to be a shallow, green pool and a large castle constructed behind it. The show began mostly with the band playing music. There was one band member that was particularly intriguing. She had a single string instrument that was attached on one side to a long board that sat flat on a table. It was attached on the other side to about a 10 inch stick that was stuck vertically into the board on the table. She’d pluck the string and then move the stick back and forth like a whammy bar on a guitar to change the pitch. It was pretty cool. Then, from underneath the castle came the puppets dancing on the water and seemingly controlled by sticks under the water. The show was alright, but certainly an experience and we had a good time. Jeff found the auditorium to be the perfect place for an hour long nap – I don’t think he made it further than ten minutes into the show. Afterwards Jeff and Mike decided to go to the Mausoleum even though it was closed, but at least they got to visit the outside. Molly’s knee was really bothering her, so we opted out of this one and instead went home to relax for a bit.

After dinner and a couple of drinks we called it an early night, as the following day we had scheduled 2 separate excursions to trek through the jungle and do what’s called a “home stay.” Basically this means that for a short time, you live the life of a minority mountain tribesman. We needed to be up and in the van at 8am, so there was no sense in pushing things.

Molly and I arrived at the Handspan office bright and early and realized we’d been misinformed. We didn’t need to walk to the office. In fact, our tour guide had been waiting in the lobby of our hotel for us and we’d somehow missed one another. We caught up and hopped in the back of the Vietnamese equivalent of a Ford Explorer for a 4 hour trip through the countryside and mountains. As usual, some astonishing scenery, plus our guide Hua spoke excellent English and was very giving with information. We arrived at the nature reserve around noon and got a quick explanation of what our trek would look like. We piled back into the Explorer and took a dirt road to our first home stay to share a traditional Vietnamese lunch with our host family. The food was amazing – tofu, rice, deep fried leaf-wrapped pork rolls, roasted chicken, green unidentifiable vegetables, etc. After we finished, we organized all of our belongings and started our 6 mile hike. It was very long and sometimes kind of difficult (not to mention VERY hot) and Molly’s knee was bothering her, but we learned a ton about the countryside and the people who lived in these tribes. Hua and the Vietnamese park ranger took us to an unbelievably beautiful waterfall as well. It was a treacherous walk down a very narrow and steep flight of stairs to get to the bottom, but was well worth every step. It was serene and seemed to be completely untouched by humans.

We arrived at our final destination for the evening and met our host family who didn’t speak a word of English. Hua translated for us and introduced us to everyone. They offered us a shower because we were obviously disgusting at this point. I was first to go and quickly realized that the “shower” was no more than a bamboo shack with a large bucket of water being fed by a hose that was siphoning river water. In the bucket sat a large measuring cup used to wash. After dancing around like a little sissy from pouring the first chilly bucket on my head, I finished showering and waited for Molly to finish. It seemed like the longest 15 minutes of my life as I sat there with Hua, the park ranger and the mother of the house, none of whom were speaking a word of English or explaining anything to me. I’ve learned to make out a few words of Vietnamese and I think Hua was offering to sell us to the village for slave labor or food. I think there was a hang up and they had agreed on a price for Molly, but the mother of the house was concerned that I wasn’t as good of a worker as Hua promised (too sweaty and tired all the time) and my meat would be too tough to be tasty.

After Molly finished her shower, we had some time to kill before dinner. Hua told us that if we’d like to walk around the town, now was the time. We grabbed a bag of candy and goodies we’d brought for the village children and headed out. We quickly realized that the “town” meant that there were more than 2 houses within a mile of one another – there were 4. It was a very strange feeling walking through the dirt street. It was quiet except for the waterfall, and entire families were standing together in their windows staring out at us. We would wave to them, they’d wave back and smile and then we’d go about our business of exploring. We finally found a few children to hand the goodies we brought with us to – Oreos, Snickers, Choco Cakes, etc. They seemed ecstatic over this and ran away laughing and screaming “HELLO!” Our guide later explained to us that the village home stay we were on was very new to Handspan Tours, and that we were the 15^th and 16^th foreigners that these village people had ever seen.

Dinner back at the home stay was great. First, it’s customary for women to take care of everything. Men in this area are expected to do nothing other than the “hard labor.” I asked the tour guide to translate to the mother of the house that Molly REALLY wanted to learn this way of life and to please take her under their wing. I think they thought I was kidding.

Dinner was brought out to the main living area where we all sat on large bamboo mats in a circle, Indian style on the floor. We all had our own individual rice bowls and a large tray held the rest of the dishes, family style. Of them was a baked/fried free range chicken (which I imagine was running around the house with the other roosters hours before our arrival), morning glory greens with garlic, tofu, another unidentifiable green vegetable and pork. We ate, spoke through our translator and learned a lot about their culture and way of life. The one take-away was that their lives are very simple, but people are genuinely happy.

After dinner and having the women clean and clear everything, it was time for some rice wine. Our guide explained to us that this was a celebratory ritual and by refusing to partake, it’s a big insult. Not being the insulting types, Molly and I complied and watched as the mother grabbed a large, ceramic urn filled with rice that had been fermenting for about 10 days. She packed the rice down as much as possible and then added boiling water and filled the urn. After this, she put the urn in a large, metal bucket filled with cold water and brought it out to the main living area. They grabbed 2 large bamboo straws and a water buffalo horn with a hole drilled near the bottom. The game was pretty simple: 2 people grab the straws and start drinking from the urn as fast as possible while one other person dips the water buffalo horn in the cold water, holds it over the top of the urn and then releases their finger from the hole in the bottom of the horn, thus releasing the water in the horn into the urn slowly. If the water entering the urn overflows the urn, you lose and are forced to go again. We played this game as long as we could trying not to insult the homeowner, but the game ends customarily when all you can taste is cold water. We did probably 10 total rounds and still hadn’t gotten there – the rice wine tasted something like a combo of sake and hot trash juice. They could tell we were done and took the urn away. It was now song time. Let me explain something – when traveling overseas in a pack of 2 or more Americans, make sure you have a song prepared. This may sound strange, but similar to hooligans in a soccer game breaking out into song in the stands, southeastern Asians expect foreigners to have a song prepared and on hand. They sang their song and it was then our turn. It’s a lot more difficult than you think to come up with a song on the spot, that we both knew the words to, that said something about our culture that we weren’t embarrassed about (no Brittany Spears, Eminem songs). After 3 minutes of suggestions, and clear anxiety on their end, we finally settled on Molly singing Amazing Grace to them. After completion they applauded her and said that it’s clear she sings from the heart. It’s clear we avoided embarrassment by coming up with that as my only other suggestions were – “Life is a Highway”, “Tub Thumping” by Chumbawamba, “I’m too Sexy” and “MmmBop” by Hanson. I’m really glad we didn’t settle on those.

We went to bed and slept on a 2 small mats on the wooden floor covered by a mosquito net. When we awoke in the morning and ate our pancake breakfast, which our guide explained was NOT traditional as they typically eat the leftovers from the night before, we said our goodbyes and were off to start hiking again.

We walked through the mountains, valleys and rice paddies and again saw some spectacular countryside. At lunch we stopped at another home stay to enjoy a homemade lunch with the Chief of the tribe. Again, no one spoke English, so we used our translator to help us. We sat down in his home and the first thing I noticed was a number of certificates and awards hanging on the wall. I asked our guide what they were for and he explained that they were from his brother who had fought and died in the Vietnam (what they call American) War. He explained that we shouldn’t feel uncomfortable by this though, that this is merely a piece of their history and what they view to be an unfortunate event that took place not because our people had a quarrel that needed to be resolved, rather that our governments forced us to fight one another. We started a lunch very similar to that of the night before, except this time, the Chief decided to test my cojones and challenge me to a moonshine drinking contest. At this point, I thought I’d be driving the scooter from the house back to the start of our trip and told him thank you for the honor of drinking with him but we’d have to pass. We were then informed that we were merely passengers on the back of the motorcycles back to the start of the reserve and Molly and I then cheersed the Chief with our first shots. We ate, drank and after about our 8^th drink, Molly bowed out and the Chief told me that of the 14 other foreigners that had ever passed through, he’d only ever really received a challenge from 1 – an American who had done 30 shots with him. I told him that I’d accepted his challenge and would give Americans a name he’d discuss for years to come. Unfortunately after roughly 18, our guide got nervous about time and told us we needed to go because our motorbike chauffeurs had arrived and we had to leave in order to keep on schedule.

The motorbike ride was crazy. These guys knew the area very well and flew up and around these dirt, pothole filled roads. I would have been frightened beyond belief as I was having constant flashbacks from our crash, but the moonshine oddly put that fear to rest. We arrived back – safe and sound at the start. Only later did I find out that Molly’s bike had to stop 3 times so she could get off and walk around because her knee was bothering her.

We arrived back in Hanoi, met Jeff and Mike for dinner and to discuss their almost identical trip and then retired early because we were leaving the next morning at 7:30am for our cruise around Halong Bay.

We boarded the minibus heading out there at about 7:45am and arrived roughly 4 hours later. After a short briefing, us and 3 others – a nice couple from Oregon and their niece, boarded a dingy that took us out to the Prince IV. They call these boats “junk boats” which really doesn’t make any sense because they’re beautiful. The boat was about 50 feet long and had 3 cabins, a kitchen, a living room in the hull, an outside sun deck and a dining area. After a briefing and explanation of our intended route, we began to head out in the bay. There are over 900 limestone islands in Halong Bay, all equally beautiful. We got to the place we intended to stay for the night and were asked if we’d like to kayak for a bit. We all accepted and hopped into tour 2 man kayaks. While we’re typically very good at kayaking, this was not one of our better performances. We would have come in dead last in the Special Olympics. We could NOT stop turning left. I was in the back and literally only paddling on the left side (which should have pushed the nose right) while Molly paddled on both sides and yet still, we only turned left. It was infuriating but we finally made it back to the boat with sore left arms. We then went downstairs to get cleaned up in our cabin prior to dinner.

We came up and met the others that were assigned to the same boat – David and Claire, the Oregon couple along with their niece, Abigail. We had a spectacular dinner of some of the best and freshest seafood we’d had on our trip. They’d bring out one heaping plate of food –we’d all fill our plates, almost finish and then another plate of something else would come out. This went on for the better part of 45 minutes and we walked away stuffed and feeling like kings and queens. We decided to hit the sack early as it had been a long couple of days of lots of activity and early wake-ups, plus they were going to wake us the next morning at 7:30 to begin the day’s activities.

Thursday morning we awoke and were treated to another lovely meal on the deck on a beautiful, sunny morning. Shortly afterwards we were invited to take a 2 hour kayak around a number of limestone cliffs. While our three boat mates decided to take the guides up on it, Molly and I instead opted to spend the morning on a private beach without a person or boat in sight. We swam, laid on the beach, collected some shells and read for about 2 hours until the ship’s crew joined us to set up for the barbeque they had planned for us. Shortly thereafter the other three joined and we enjoyed a delicious fish barbeque on our own private island.

The next place they took us was a floating fishing village. There was a small community of a few hundred people that lived on literally, floating houses in the bay. Their homes were brightly colored and lined with fishing nets, all tethered to the surrounding limestone cliffs. We were greeted by their village leader, who also offered us an interesting local whisky - bee whisky. They dropped an entire honeycomb and bee nest (bees and all) into some sort of rice liquor and let it ferment. We felt their dead carcasses wiggle down our throats but were surprised with a deliciously sweet aftertaste. We visited the floating schoolrooms and observed the families relaxing in their hammocks after a full day of fishing. The guide told us that the area was quickly becoming dangerously overfished, and due the lack of fishing laws and/or enforcement, the area may have serious problems in the very near future.

That night we were told that the crew had something special planned for the honeymoon couple. They seated us for dinner on the deck and had us close our eyes while they brought out the appetizers. The first plate came with carvings – 2 doves made out of bean root and an even more impressive one, a full dragon made entirely out of carrots. The detail was unreal and we were amazed that the crew had taken what seemed to be hours and hours to do this for us. However, this wasn’t the end. Our next dish was prepared and brought to us and again we had to close our eyes. We opened them and found a perfect replication of the junk boat we were sailing on made entirely of melons and carrots cut very thinly for the sails of the boat. It was astonishing and showed the talent these guys had. We had a great time with a surprise honeymoon cake, roses for Molly, and again more song singing by the junk crew. When asked this time to sing AGAIN, we were a bit more prepared. I tossed up the idea of singing “Bye, Bye, Miss American Pie” and it really went over well. The Oregon family joined in and the Vietnamese crew was pleased. After indulging in some rice whisky that we bought for $2.50 from the fishing village that day, we retired to our room for some rest.

Friday was our final day with the crew. We spent the morning exploring a cave on an island very near Monkey Island and then swam for about an hour before having to board the boat to begin our trek back to the docks. We had a final lunch with the+ crew and bid adieu to David, Claire and Abigail before paying our liquor bill and getting on the bus back to Hanoi. The bus was kind enough to drop us off half way between Hanoi and the airport as we were flying out that night on our way to Hoi An. Thank you, brother Dave for the awesome hookup with Handspan and giving us a great way to experience northern Vietnam.

We grabbed a cab and took an hour long ride to the airport and got there at about 5:15pm for our 9:45 flight. 5 minutes after attempting to check in and being shot down (2 hours before takeoff was maximum check in time), Jeff and Mike found us again and we all went to a café to have some beers and food to kill time. Unfortunately due to faulty internet all over the airport, we were unable to book a room online, but as I told Molly, “Come on, how hard can it be to find a place?” We sadly said goodbye to Mike and Jeff and cannot tell you how great it was to see their friendly faces on the other side of the world.

We arrived in Hoi An at about 10:45pm and quickly found a cab and got to Hoi An town by 11:30pm. We had a list of hotels that we wanted to check out and our cab driver was happy to keep the meter running as he drove us around. We checked out 6 hotels, all of whom turned us away because they said they had no vacancies. In reality, I think the sleeping Vietnamese on the floor didn’t feel like going through the process of getting us checked in. Our cab driver finally flagged down another cab that drove us to a large hotel that was willing to take us.

More on Hoi An in the next post, one of our favorite towns so far – we’re a bit behind here and I apologize, but as a brief explanation of our plan for the last 3 weeks of our trip: we fly to Ho Chi Minh City tomorrow (Thursday, 7/28), take a bus to Phnom Penh (Cambodian capital) for a few days, take a boat to Siem Reap (Angkor Wat) and then 16 different transportation methods down to one last Thai island before heading back to Bangkok for our flight home. More to come soon!