Hot hot heat.
Trip Start
Jan 06, 2005
1
11
20
Trip End
Apr 13, 2005
Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City),
Vietnam
Sunday, February 27, 2005
last entry, i complained of the cold, but this time around, i will complain of the heat. it is hot here. very hot and humid. soon, it will get even hotter as we head further south and even closer to the equator, and as the hotter season approaches.
after sa pa, we headed back to hanoi for a day, then hopped onboard a flight to nha trang. it was/is our only flight on this trip, aside from the ones to and from canada (and japan earlier, after our stopover) since flights completely blow our budgets (especially mine since i have far less money for this trip than jess)! we opted to fly though since travelling by bus or train to nha trang would have likely taken us 20+ or so hours (while flying took us only 1 hour).
our time in nha trang was spent lazing about, eating food at the central market (and making friends with the friendly vendor of jessica's favourite bun thit nuong stall), and cycling via rented bikes over to a hot springs centre/spa where jess jumped into a mineral mud bath, followed by a mineral hot springs soak, all for about $5. i opted out of the mud bath but indulged in the springs for about $1.50 less. nha trang also has a long stretch of beach that we walked along, and a bunch of islands that we missed out on since we were only there for a day and a half.
we then hopped on the backs of motorcycles belonging to our new uncles (they treated us like nieces anyway!) dan and tien. in da lat, there is a group of about 60 independent motorcycle tour guides (all men, i think) that call themselves the 'easy riders'. they often approach tourists on the streets with their guestbooks (containing positive feedback from customers) and try to solicit new customers. we had heard about these guys before our trip began and got a recommendation for one particular guide from jonah (whom we had met on our trek in northern lao) so we called him (dan - pronounced 'zun') when we were in sa pa and told him we were coming to town and wanted to go for a tour. he and his friend and fellow easy rider tien met with us in nha trang and on the following morning, we departed for our 2-day trip, with our backpacks strapped to the back of the bikes, and sped through the central highlands.
the trip was definitely one of the highlights of my travels so far so it was well worth the money we paid (each day cost about 3-4x our daily budget! seeing as i will be going into debt at the end of my trip, this was definitely a big expense..). dan and tien proved to be funny, nice, considerate and informative guides, as well as very safe drivers. they took us to spots off the tourist trail, up and down mountains, to mainly rural parts of the central highlands and told us about many things, including their own histories. interestingly, dan had spent 6 (or was it 7?) years in the south vietnamese army during the american war, and then another 3 years (or was it 2?) in a re-education camp after saigon was liberated. anyone who knows me knows i'm all about the north, but it was really interesting and important to hear his tale. we drove through many scenic parts, and visited lots of workplaces (silkworm farm and factory, coffee plantations, brick factory, bamboo chopstick factory, etc.. the word 'factory' makes the places seem big but they were actually very small facilities, some even outdoors, and all were in villages) and dan and tien explained how things were made. it was a rather sobering experience to see how some of the things we consume are made, particularly coffee, from the very bottom of the production chain where the wages are minimal. according to our guides, vietnam is now the 3rd biggest producer of coffee in the world. we stood by the side of the road, watching as 3 workers dumped raw coffee beans from the farm behind them into one big, old machine that shucked the beans from their shells. we watched as 2 men about my age broke pieces of big rock by the side of the road into smaller blocks with a hammer and chisel in the hot sun. we sought permission from a village family to check out the silkworms on their farm. the worms (or just their larvae with the silk?) would later be sent to a small factory like the one we visited, and then the silk strands would be shipped to china for further manufacturing... etc. etc.
dan and tien told us that many of the factories we saw were owned by wealthier viets living in places like saigon. they also told us of northerners migrating to the south (and some relocated by the government to the south after 1975) in search of a better life (better soil or farming, etc.).
like with lao, jess and i continuously wonder what is so 'communist' about vietnam since the government gives the people very little and corruption is very high. essentially, the country is now a capitalist dictatorship (following in china's footsteps). for most people, the government is a big joke (but one that can toss their asses in jail for expressing such sentiments publicly - instead, i hear it behind closed doors). after the war, land was seized by the government and kept by them, with the people as the farmers (but not getting enough to survive off of back, resulting in a lot of slacking and disenchantment by the workers, according to dan and tien). in the early 90s, the government privatized the land and implemented other capitalist policies, including allowing in lots of foreign investment. i see ads all the time in the papers for jobs for viet nationals with foreign-owned companies. there are more billboards and ads everywhere now than there were on my visit 4 years ago. i can see that the effect of this new vietnam is a lot more wealth flowing into the country, but also that the classes are getting more distinguished, with the gaps sure to widen in the next while. most of the wealth is concentrated in the bigger cities, while the rural areas remain impoverished. dan and tien said they thought communism was good in theory but the vietnamese state was certainly not delivering. any mention of the word 'politics' in their presence bring bouts of giggling.
also remaining impoverished are vietnam's many 'minorities', such as those in the villages we also visited on our motorcycle trip. i didn't like this part of the trip since the visits were done in a shitty way - we would stop by the side of the road where the village was, and dan would stick his head into someone's home and speak to them in vietnamese, then give candy to the kids. it would have been nice if the families got paid for having tourists drop in to their villages unannounced (much less getting actual permission by those who live there!), especially since dan and tien were making a lot per day (by vietnam standards) for the trip - they were making per day what my aunt makes in 2-3 weeks (something like that anyway). we also made a stop at a jun village near lak lake that is now officially sanctioned by the government as a permissible tourist destination. however, we learned that all of the cafes, shops and restaurants in the village (there are only a few of them) are owned by viet kinh, and that the 'minority' villagers get nothing at all for having their village opened up as a tourist spot, aside from streams of gawking tourists that give nothing back!
another sobering thing we passed often were defoliated mountains which we learned were pretty much dead, even 30 years after agent orange was dropped on them by the US (please read about the ongoing problem of agent orange in vietnam here). we did not stop there as the land is poisoned and therefore, dangerous. anything planted on them will still not grow (failed attempts have been made by the government to plant trees again), and i'm certain that people living near these areas (many of whom are minority peoples) suffer many health problems. as we head further south in vietnam, we see reminders of the war in the disfigured limbs of agent orange-affected people (who were not even born yet during the war) begging near tourist spots.
anyway, after 2 fun days, we were dropped off in the cool mountain city of da lat (actually established by french colonizers, but what tien refers to proudly as 'petit paris') and the next morning (i.e. this morning), dan and tien came to pick us up bright and early (which so nice of them!), fed us delicious vietnamese coffee, gave us some snacks for the road, and drove us to the spot where we took a 7-hour bus ride to bask in bustling saigon's hot hot heat.
(photos to be posted another day as i'm too lazy to do it right now, what with this slow internet connection and all.. stay tuned!)
