So Vietnam is where my trip took a slight turn. Whilst New Zealand, Australia and Bali were all relatively unconfronting with lots of tourist-friendly provisions, ample gelaterias and little or no trouble to report, Vietnam is definitely where our eyes were opened and our spirits were tested and twisted in ways we did not expect. Vietnam was essentially a thorough yoga session for the soul (or maybe Bikram yoga, considering how hot it was at times).
There’s no doubt about it, this place is a shock to all the senses - especially when your first stop off is the intense nostril-smoker commonly known as Ho Chi Minh city. The moment we clambered out of the airport taxi my ears were filled with the roar of a zillion motorcycles and my entire being was positively engulfed with the meaty smoke that billowed out from a trillion surrounding street food vendors. As such, it’s no surprise that my first memories of Vietnam include choking wind pipes, frazzled nerves and the sudden desire to live on a diet of cream crackers, dry oats, and Febreese.
Right, so I’m going to go full "open kimono" on you here and admit that this is when I become a cultural Judas of sorts, because it was that first night in Vietnam that I succumbed to... Western food cravings. Oh I’m so ashamed! I remember walking and walking and walking, nodding my head enthusiastically as Hayley talked about how excited she was to experience all the culinary delights that Vietnam had to offer, all the while secretly pleading with the Universe to present us with somewhere that made the plainest, most MSG-free western food possible. I say this with shame because I was definitely that person who would have looked down on my fellow backpackers as they tucked into burgers, pizzas and spaghetti carbonara day after day, instead of tempting fate on the local, authentic cuisine (lest you forget I’m also the one who got food poisoning, twice… Go figure). But that particular night was an exception and although it did take about 2hours, we eventually managed to find a sterile & soulless restaurant that served plain spaghetti.
-Vive la France!!!
Speaking of France - did you know that Vietnam was once colonised by France? Si si señorita, it was. And as a result there are still loads of French influences to be seen all over the place. You could go to one area and it feels like you’re in the French Alps mid-summer (this is a reference to Da Lat, where tall, narrow buildings line the edgings of a bustling mountainous town). Venture out to Hoi An though, and you could easily question whether you might have been inadvertently teleported to some French Riviera/ Chinatown-hybrid without realising. What with its little canals, pagodas and enchanted lanterns dappled across the water at night time, it’s positively delightful.
But FYI, if you’re going to go exploring Vietnam, you’re much better to start at the top and work your way down. Vietnam is a long country - the “Gisele Bunchen of South East Asia" if you will - and the north and south are virtually unrecognisable weather-wise. With that in mind, it’s much nicer to have the sunny south to look forward to after doing the rounds up north, because the north is COLD. I distinctly remember struggling to stay warm, shivering in my flimsy shorts and a t-shirt that read “Feeling Hot Hot Hot” across the front, because I’m the kind of fun-loving gal who makes fun, geographically-oblivious wardrobe oversights like that, just for the heck of it.
I've never felt the need to be so mentally on the ball as I did whilst in Vietnam. The Leaving Cert seems like a walk in the park compared to walking across any given Vietnamese city street. Motorcycles are literally flying at you from every direction, and don’t go thinking you’re safe when walking along the path; the madness extends far beyond the contsraints of our western road etiquette and safety. What’s more, these motorcycles could be carrying anything from a fridge, to a bunch of 10-foot industrial rods, to entire families. I once saw a man driving along, not a care in the world as he transported his wife and 3 children on the back of his motorcycle whilst balancing his baby upon the handlebar, with said infant supported only by his own chest... Absolute lunatic.
For the innocent pedestrian the only way to tackle the stream of smoke and motor exhausts is to do it à la Mulan’s granny. Except in this case you don’t even have the reassurance of a lucky cricket as you march yourself into the mother of all death traps. We quickly learnt the art of successful road crossing though, as taught to us by a very, very old Vietnamese woman on our first day in Ho Chi Minh. Let’s call her Clarice.
So it was about 10 minutes after we had arrived at our first major road crossing and we had not made any progress in terms of figuring out how we were going to cross to the other side. Then, like a ray of southeast-asian sunshine, Clarice appeared and, without a second thought, she oh-so-daintily made her way onto the street. We gasped, clutched at each other and winced as we watched Clarice proceed. What happened next was truly amazing; Clarice simply outstretched her palm, extended her arm in a 90 degree angle to her body and eyeballed the oncoming roaring traffic in a way that clearly read “Don’t even think about running me down, motherfuckers”. No idiot was going to mess with that level of sass. And so Clarice marched her way forward across the road, just like that. And the hoards of motorcycles wove their way around her, just like that. Gosh it was glorious.
One thing I have to say though is this; after a few days in Vietnam I got the distinct impression that these people could be as hard as their protruding cheekbones and jawlines (Vietnamese people have bone structure that defies all physiological possibilities). Don’t get me wrong, we met lots of lovely, kind, helpful people during our time there, but if I’m being totally honest, I just didn’t feel the same warmth from locals that I felt in Bali. At first I kind of brushed the feeling off and told myself I was just being a Bali-is-the-best-place-in-the-world-and-nowhere-else-will-ever-compare snob, but then after visiting the “American War” Memorial Museum, it suddenly became so clear. What the Vietnamese people were put through during that war still haunts my memory; the hardship and horrors that they suffered at the hands of Western people served as a pretty valid explanation for why some locals might have been a bit hostile towards us or why we frequently found ourselves being openly, outrageously ripped-off in markets (and that’s to be expected to a certain extent, but I’m talking about being charged more than 20 times the going rate for a freekin’ pear). Vietnam is an absolutely incredible place but I want to be honest and that’s just the overall impression I came away with by the end of our trip.
Another reason for my slight hesitation when it comes to Vietnam? My wallet got stolen out of my bag one night. I mean, I have to applaud the tiny bandit who did it because the thievery happened as I was squatting at a street stall table (it’s all about the squat here btw, but not the ghetto-booty-creator squat as we know it, more like the “Help! I tried to squat but then I fell on my honkers and now I can’t get myself back up!!” kind of squat). My handbag was nestled in between my feet, and my feet were not very far from my face, and they still managed to open my bag and retrieve my without my noticing a thing. This left me without any debit or credit card, so thank Croiyst my good comrade Hayley was with me as it meant I was able to transfer money to her, which meant she could fulfil her non existent life-long dream of being my “sugar daddy”. It was pretty annoying that I had to go running to her every time I needed more cash though, and eventually this became the source of our only bit of tension throughout the entire trip. I like to think that this actually shows how well we got along, considering how we were essentially living the life of two conjoined twins bound by the bonds of celibacy for 3 months...
But let’s focus on some of the highlights & points of interest from my little Vietnamese adventure!..
The 6 Hour “Easy Rider” Motorcycle Journey
The 6hr motorcycle journey across Vietnam’s countryside was a definite highlight. I knew poor Hayley "The-Safety-Vibes-Queen” Maher was initially anxious about the prospect of a 6 hour journey across the sparse Vietnamese countryside on the back of a stranger’s motor vehhickle which had no proof of ever passing any sort of safety examination… But we lived to tell the tale and irrespective of our very burnt arms and very,very stiff bottoms (which only subsided after about an hour of vigorous self-massage) we ended up having a total blast and would definitely recommend it.
Unfortunately I can’t actually remember our lovely drivers’ respective names, but for the sake of this story let’s go ahead and call them Brucey and Juan Diego. Brucey was my driver and we ended up stopping in his hometown along the way. For whatever reason (the +30 degree heat, maybe?) we all decided to jump into the town lake, fully clothed, as soon as we arrived! That’s all there is to that individual story, but gosh it was very exhilarating altogether!
As this was a kind-of tour, Brucey and Juan Diego stopped a few times along the way to show us coffee plantations, tapioca farms and peanut farms. My favourite stop-off was the peanut farm because the ladies farming there let us join them; they showed us how to pull out the peanut plants and then encouraged us to hit each other with the roots to get rid of the dirt which revealed the little nuts. After a while of pummelling Hayley’s arm I noticed none of the other women seemed to be hitting each other with their muddy plants... Nevertheless I continued on with vigour and increased my force, eager to impress the women and show them that we weren’t just a pair of bimbo travellers - that we too knew a thing or two about farming. By the time we finished we were covered in dirt and sweat, and although the women were howling with slightly disconcerting laughter, I felt confident that we had represented our country well.
Coffee in Vietnam
The vietnamese coffee was a beverage that we embraced with much affection whilst in Vietnam. For those who don’t know it, this is a very strong cold drip coffee mixed with ice cubes and condensed milk. After our two weeks séjour I’d say I'd say I had consumed in-and-around 4 gallons of condensed milk, which is kind of a big deal.
So the condensed milk I could handle (clearly), but did you know that there is also a thing called "egg yolk coffee”?? No word of a lie, this is a thing. Consider it a goopy, coffee/ raw-cake-batter variation; it’s thick, it’s creamy, it’s decadently sweet, and actually surprisingly palatable! Gow’on and give it a whack if you ever get the chance. Your arteries won’t thank you but your instagram account definitely will, no-one can resist to double-tap a video of one of these bad boys.
The Christina Noble Foundation
Now this is another thing that I’m so delighted we did. I had just seen Noble the movie a few months ago so the scenes of the street children of Vietnam were still fresh in mind. What we found in the centre was far more impressive than I could have ever anticipated, though. Here is a pristine clean building filled with all the love and care that any child could need to prosper and achieve their fullest potential. If you weren’t already familiar, The Christina Noble Foundation opens its doors to any child who needs education but cannot afford it, the same goes for medical attention and aftercare support. It was incredible to see how far her vision has gone and how many children it has helped. After taking a tour of the vicinity myself and Hayley felt like total monsters, seeing as we had just been bickering about whose turn it was to sleep on the top bunk in our uber trendy hostel before we arrived. Perspective was very much in need that day, and there was definitely bucket-loads for the taking here.
First Night Syndrome
Sure we might have had fun, but we’d spend the following day cursing and damning the new friends we'd just made, declaring their reckless influence to be to blame for our unquenchable thirst that night. By far the worst encounter of this affliction was in Hoi An, when I experienced what I’ve come to describe as The Worst Hangover of My Entire Life. There are a number of ways you could have described me that following day; a beached whale, a semi-trampled earth worm, a couch-potato… All I know is that I was worse than comatosed, neither able to express my pain and distress, nor attain that which I craved so very badly; pity and grilled haloumi cheese. In the same way Will Farrell so famously grumbled “milk was a bad choice”, I now know that buckets on a night out are also always a bad choice. You wouldn’t eat a giant portion of ground beef just because it was served in a children’s bucket, so why drink a giant portion of alcohol just because it’s served in a children's bucket?? And that is all the wisdom I have to share on the matter.
One last thing about Vietnam (I want to finish on a positive note): You should know that there are these outdoor “gyms” around all the big city parks, only they don’t look like gyms at all, they’re more akin to adult play areas
And the best thing about them? They’re used almost exclusively by OLD PEOPLE! Old people working out. Old people who look like they’re having the time of their lives, smiling away as they use these leg-swing things that don’t seem to be providing much benefit, but who cares when the old people are this happy?! Old people checking each other out as they'd saunter past, only to nonchalantly hop on another equally ineffectual hip-twisty thing nearby... Oh it’s just such a great sight to see! Interestingly, the preference here seems to be to do one's exercise in normal everyday attire - I remember all these old women going for a quick session on the cross-trainer in their floral capri pants and matching peter pan shirts, not a scrimp of illuminous lycra in sight. If this scene delights you as much as it did me, you should know that it usually only happens early-morning, so you gotta set your alarm to catch ‘em. #insidescoop