Vietnam: Land of the...huh?

Well, I'm back in the land of beautiful woman, perfect hair and girly men. After a six day vacation to Vietnam and Cambodia, I'm wonderfully exhausted. A big part of me keeps thinking, "Was I really in Cambodia? Did I really eat pho in Vietnam?" It went by so fast that it feels like I didn't even go. If I didn't have the visas in my passport (taking up TWO ENTIRE PAGES), I would easily swear on Pookie's life that I didn't go. No joke.
Okay. Vietnam.
I'm so glad that I finally made it to Vietnam. Ever since college I've had this strange obsession with going to Vietnam. I didn't care about Japan or China or even Korea...no, I wanted to go to Vietnam. For one, one of my favorite foods was invented in that country: pho. Oh my gosh, pho. I could eat it every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's heaven in a bowl; it's perfection in a bowl; it's happiness in a bowl...it's everything good about life in a simple, white bowl. What's not to like? The noodles? The cinnamon? The meat? The ginger? The ox-bone broth? Nothing! There's nothing to not like. Okay, I'll stop. Pho is of course not the only reason why I wanted to go to Vietnam. At UT, I took a Vietnam War class, which required me to read American and Vietnamese literature about the war. The class was completely unbiased. One of my favorite books turned out to be the Ugly American, which was a satire on how bad America screwed up during the war. I also took Cultural History of Drugs and Alcohol and wrote about heroin abuse among the soldiers during the Vietnam War for my term paper. I've read a lot about the history of Vietnam...and I have loved everything I've read.
I'll preface my trip to Vietnam with the details of the tour that I took. It was a six day Korean tour (that was all in Korean, yes). I went with my colleague Eunhye, or June, who is a Korean native speaker, but is also fluent in English so she explained everything that our tour guide said. I have to admit that it was a bit frustrating having to wait for June to interpret everything for me. In fact, I ended up buying a pirated copy of a Vietnam/Cambodia Lonely Planet while I was in Vietnam. I didn't even know they had those. The tour was all-inclusive so this meant I had meals, hotels, flights and transportation already paid for. Yippee! Another thing was that I was really sick before the trip. We left on Wednesday night, and I missed work on Monday, which is unheard of in Korea. You don't have sick days in Korea unless you're near death in the hospital. Serioulsy. I didn't even technically miss work since I had to work for three hours before I could go home. I still had a fever and a really bad cough the day we left. It was awful. I wasn't even excited about going on the trip, about finally going to Vietnam. All I wanted to do was lay in bed and sleep. So I gave myself a swift kick in the butt and told myself that if I was going to feel like crap, I might as well feel like crap in Vietnam. So that's what I did.
I woke up Wednesday morning feeling less than enthusiastic about the trip. I hurriedly packed and hurriedly ran out of my apartment after I hurriedly yelled "bye!" to my cat. Everything was "hurriedly" which did nothing to improve my mood. I left my apartment in a state of disaster: clothes all over the floor, dishes in the sink, bed unmade, floor dirty...it was disgusting. But I didn't care. I was going to freaking Vietnam!

After watching Step Up 3D and Cairo Time (UGH) on the plane, we landed safely in Hanoi, Vietnam. The airport in Hanoi could only be described as...shabby. It was old, small and...well, shabby. It also had a funny smell. What can I say? Incheon Airport spoiled me. But I digress! I was so excited to be in Vietnam despite the shabby airport, my hacking cough and runny nose. After we got off the plane and made it through customs (and Dad, I was VERY careful not to cough as I was going through customs), we met our tour guide who was decked out in a very pink shirt and tie and VERY tight pants. He was Korean, so I really wasn't that surprised, but it still made me giggle. I knew the weather in Vietnam would be significantly warmer than in Korea, so I was prepared when I walked out of the airport into the humidity. It wasn't hot or anything, just muggy and cool...much like Houston or Corpus in the winter. We got on the bus and were off to our hotel. The picture above is June and I on the bus. See how happy I was?
By this time it was almost 11:00 PM, so when the tour guide told us we'd have to get up at 6:00 AM the next morning, I wanted to beat him repeatedly with his microphone. I mean, I anticipated not getting much sleep on the tour, but I at least wanted to start out with a good eight hours of sleep under my belt. But no. Anyway, we were in the bus for about 30 minutes before we arrived at our hotel. The whole time I was just staring out the window because I couldn't understand anything that the tour guide was saying. The thing that struck me the most was how DARK it was. There were houses and buildings every where, but all of the lights were turned off. I guess compared to Daejeon, which has lights on at all hours of the night, Hanoi was like a ghost town. Another thing that was shocking was how many motorbikes there were. Even at the airport, people were getting picked up by people driving motorbikes of all kinds. On the bus ride over, I saw so many women riding on the backs of mopeds trying not to smash their bouquets of flowers that their lovers had given them. See all the motorcycles? It was insane.
Another thing to note is how much US passports are worth in foreign countries. Our Korean tour guide said a bunch of stuff in Korean, while holding my passport, which made everyone look at me. So, I was like, "Um, June, what did he just say?" And she said that US passports were worth a lot of money. I'm pretty sure my face was like, "Um, what?" so she continued to explain that if someone were to steal my passport, they could get up to 10,000 dollars for it, whereas if someone stole her Korean passport, they'd only get approximately 500 dollars. I only mention this because most of my time in Vietnam was spent WITHOUT my passport. The tour guide had all our passports somewhere. At our first hotel in Hanoi, the hotel required all the tourists to give the hotel our passports. So we gave them to the front desk and I looked over and SAW the guy opening my passport to look at it, which was completely unnecessary since he didn't look at anyone else's but mine. Needless to say, I'm pretty sure there's a Trisha Mae Fuller walking around Vietnam with my passport number stamped in their book.
The first hotel was...not a five star hotel. Or even a one star hotel. I'm not usually one to judge hotels based on how many stars the hotels have been given, but this hotel was...how can I say...shabby. It seemed like it hadn't been cleaned in maybe 12 years. June and and I got into our room and I immediately wished I had some lysol and antibacterial wipes. The slippers were used, the sink had ants climbing out of the drain and the floor was probably breeding some sort of plague-like disease that is going to end the world in 2012.

The next day we went to Halong Bay, which is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been to in my entire life. Everything about that day was perfect. The weather was idyllic, the scenery was spectacular and the company was the best (thanks, June!). We started our three hour bus ride at 7:30 AM and arrived in Halong Bay around 10:30. We got on our little tug boat and set off on a six hour tour of Halong Bay. I feel at home on the water, in the water, under the water, just anywhere NEAR water. My mother can attest to that, especially since I almost drowned when I jumped into the swimming pool without knowing how to swim, at the ripe age of three years old. I'm alive today because my loving sister yanked me out by the hair. Thanks, sis :D Interestingly enough, my greatest fear is drowning.

Due to my love of water, I was up on the deck of our boat, sitting on the floor and staring at everything that I could feast my eyes on for the majority of the six hours. On the boat, we had an authentic Vietnamese lunch which consisted of grilled fish, Vietnamese egg rolls, some fish cakes, potatoes, rice and shrimp.  Now, I know what you're thinking. "What? Trisha actually likes fish now?" The answer is still no. I'd much rather have had a bleeding steak, cooked medium rare. But the fish wasn't so bad, and the egg rolls were to die for. Ah, another interesting thing to note. Koreans are crazy about their kimchi. Okay, we all know that. Korea = kimchi, right? Well, I had no idea how obsessed they were with their kimchi until lunch time rolled around and our fellow tourists pulled out tupperware filled with kimchi. They couldn't last FIVE DAYS without kimchi. In fact, every day of the tour we had Korean food for at least one meal. I was actually pretty upset about that since we were obviously in a different country, so we should at least, I don't know, try their food! I've always felt that an important part of a country's culture was represented in their food, so I was also aggrieved that I didn't get to eat any pho until the second day we were in Hanoi. Because, let's face it: Vietnam = pho...at least in my world.

While we were in Halong Bay, we went to an amazing cave. It was enormous; I didn't have to duck or anything. The cave was ten times cooler than the one I went to in Guatemala, and it didn't provoke any cold sweat or nervous breakdowns. So the cave in Halong Bay was a 10 in my book! I can't emphasize enough how big the cave was. It was massive. It was like a big, underground house. There were even little lakes (which we weren't allowed to go near). June and I took a lot of fun pictures, and there's one photo in particular that I can't post on my blog because it's...phallic. After the cave, we went to the highest point in Halong Bay. We had to climb a billion stairs, which was no sweat since climbing stairs is all I do now. And seriously, after Seoraksan, any staircase I climb has NOTHING on the billions and billions I climbed that day in Seoraksan. Anyway, the peak gave us an aerial view of Halong Bay in all it's stunning glory.

The rest of the day was just as perfect as the beginning of the day. Yeah, I was coughing a lot, but how can you be anything but content when you're surrounded by Halong Bay? June and I spent the rest of the tour on the deck talking and taking pictures/videos. The sun was going down, the weather was getting cooler and the scenery was getting more, if possible, magnificent. What's that quote? "We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting." Is that cheesy? If it is, I really don't care because I believe it's true. Beauty is one of the most sought after things here in Korea. Women get breast implants, bleach their skin and get eye surgery to look more like Western women. Beauty often doesn't make sense, but that doesn't matter either. Why do you think so many people go to Halong Bay? Duh. Because it's beautiful. 

Our hotel that night was, thankfully, a different hotel than the one we stayed in for the first night. This hotel was much better than the first. There were no ants climbing out of the sinks, the slippers were in a plastic case and the floor was wooden so I was very confident that it wasn't breeding some catastrophic disease. The tour guide told us that he would take us to an all-night shopping area after we dropped our stuff off at the hotel so we could buy souvenirs or whatever. But what was the only thing on my mind? That's right: pho. So as the other tourists went shopping for their souvenirs, June and I went searching for some pho. And we found it!

How can I describe my first taste of authentic pho? It was different than what I'm used to eating. The noodles were different, more skinny and flat than thin and round. The broth had a lot more fish oil which left a funny taste in my mouth. The meat was already cooked rather than raw. I felt like my first "authentic" bowl of pho wasn't even authentic! Despite all these differences, however, it was still delicious and I practically inhaled it since we only had 15 minutes to eat. Needless to say, I was very happy after I ate my soup and practically floated back to the bus because I was on Cloud 9. 

My memory of Day Three in Vietnam is clouded with a lot of pain because, well, there was a point during the day where I had to use the restroom REALLY bad and there was no toilet in sight. I. Was. Miserable. We stopped at a rest area (more like an area where they want tourists to buy lots of worthless crap) where I drank a can of coffee very fast. After I drank it, I immediately regretted it because I have a terrible history of not being able to hold my bladder. I can't do it. I don't really care if this is too much information, but I'm that girl that ALWAYS has to use the restroom, like, every hour. Okay, not always every hour, but it's happened. My friends can vouch for me. So I tried to keep positive after I drank the coffee, hoping, HOPING that I wouldn't have to use the bathroom in 20 minutes. My hope was for naught because as was to be expected (even though I was in denial) I had to use the restroom maybe 15 minutes into the drive. We had about two hours left. I was in so much pain at the 30 minute mark that I was fully prepared to get a bottle and go to the back of the bus and do what had to be done. I hated everything about women at that point in my life. I hated being a woman. I hated sitting next to a woman (sorry June). I HATED that the bus couldn't pull over for TWO MINUTES so I could whip it out and go on the side of the road. In fact, I hated men, too. Thinking back to it, I'm surprised that June didn't slap me across the face. I was being extremely whiny (more so than usual) and snappish. I apologized! Calm down. The tour guide finally walked me to a KFC where I almost peed in my pants as soon as I started to pull my pants down. Crisis Number 1: Averted.

Anyway, Day Three was mostly tour-around-Hanoi-day. We went to the first university in Hanoi, which was pretty neat. I also almost lost the tour group. As the tour guide was doing his Korean thing, I wandered off to this souvenir shop and found the Vietnam/Cambodia Lonely Planet. After I came out of the store, the tour group was no where in sight. So I thought to myself, "Okay, they have to be around here somewhere." Even though my heart was beating significantly faster than it was ten minutes before, I forced myself to be calm and walk around the university so I could maybe find them. I walked all the way to the entrance of the school, but I couldn't find them. So I pulled out my phone so I could call June (long distance charge be damned!) but it was dead! So I wandered back into the school, where I was stopped by the guard at the front because I didn't have a ticket. I kept saying "tour" and pointing until I think he finally got the gist of what I was saying, or he was tired of trying to figure out what I was saying, so he just let me pass. As I was walking back in, I finally saw June from a far distance (her purple sweater was very noticeable) and ran to her. Truth be told, I didn't wander away from the tour group for the remainder of the trip. Crisis Number 2: Averted. 

After the school and KFC, the tour guide took us to Ho Chi Minh's tomb, which, as you can see, is gigantic. My pirated copy of Lonely Planet says that Ho Chi Minh's will stated that he wanted to be cremated and have his ashes scattered in northern, central and southern Vietnam. He felt that cremation was cleaner than burial and would help to preserve the lands of Vietnam. The people of Vietnam said "screw that!" and built this mausoleum instead. His body is preserved in the tomb and you can actually visit the body if you follow the dress code that the guards strictly enforce. Our tour guide didn't deem it necessary for us to see Ho Chi Minh's body, and for that I was really disappointed. I thought it would have been amazing to see that, but our tour guide obviously thought different. The mausoleum is still magnificent even though I didn't get to go inside. 

We were in downtown Hanoi for an hour or so where I got we got to wander. I had promised gifts for my friends, so I immediately went into some souvenir shops but couldn't find anything that suited them. So I bought myself something instead. :D It's actually this small picture in which the artist sewed a Vietnamese woman floating down a river. The colors are very simple, but still beautiful. Another thing that fascinated me about Vietnam was the buildings. The buildings are extremely narrow and tall, which is something that I've never seen before. I actually noticed it as soon as I arrived in Vietnam because it's so strange. I asked June to ask the tour guide why all the buildings were like that, and she told me that buying property is so outrageously expensive that people can only afford to buy small plots of land. So rather than building OUT, they build up. These buildings are famously known as "Tube Houses"

One final thing to add: the men. Because I'm a healthy, young woman (which I'm okay with now that I have used the restroom), I took a good look at the men. The general consensus? They're the tiniest men I have ever seen in my life. I'm not kidding. After being in Korea, which has the tallest (but still skinny) male population in all of Asia, the men in Vietnam looked like midgets. We had a local guy loading and unloading our luggage and I really had to force myself not to offer my assistance. I was maybe five times bigger than he was. I know I'm a large gal, but...oh my, they were small. Also, because I'm a healthy, young, SINGLE woman, I couldn't help but be disappointed. June also told me that in Vietnam, if a couple divorces, the WOMAN gets everything. The woman also beat the men, which is interesting.  And what a change! It was refreshing, but also understandable considering how small the men are. Okay, that was mean. 

So. What did I really think of Vietnam? The culture, the people, the city, the food, the architecture? I have to remember that I've only seen northern Vietnam, which, according to all my research, says it's drastically different than the south. Much like Korea, the south is a burgeoning metropolis whereas the north is a depressing time machine into the 1960's. And it's true: Hanoi WAS depressing. From the clothes the people wore, to the stray dogs in the streets, to the broken, dirty toys the kids played with, Hanoi was very much a working class city struggling to stay afloat in a fast-paced, advanced world. Several times during the trip, I said to June, "Vietnam is like Mexico...and Korea is like America." It's absolutely true. Crossing the border into Mexico is like traveling to a different world. The streets are lined with beggars BEGGING you to buy gum, newspapers or to let them wash your windshield for 50 cents. The filthy crippled sit in the streets and you force yourself to avert your eyes because if you stare at them too long, you know you'll cave and give them some money. And why not? Why is it bad to give money to people who obviously need it? You don't see that in Korea. At all. There are no beggars; there are hardly any homeless people. I'm not naive enough to think that there aren't any at all. I think Korea just hides it better. 

Since France took control of Vietnam in 1888, the architecture has a lot of French influence. It isn't like the architecture in France, though. While still beautiful, the buildings are run-down, dirty and broken. I felt like Hanoi was obviously magnificent 50 years ago, but today you have to search for beauty in the people squatting in the streets, in the women carrying pounds upon pounds of sellable goods, in the family that's crammed onto one moped, in the children playing with a broken bike, in the families bending over in the fields...in everything. And I did find beauty in all these things. I stand by what I said earlier: beauty often doesn't make sense. In this case, it doesn't make sense, but that doesn't change anything. I plan on going back to Vietnam, but to the southern part. I want to see for myself the vast differences that everyone on google is writing about. Perhaps the pho will be even better in Ho Chi Minh city. 

Until next time, my friends, adieu!