Vietnam 1/3: First Impressions

Money? Check, all nine million of it. Bag? Check, and it's not as heavy as I thought it would be. Passport? Got that, but which pocket did I put it in again? Ok, time to find a bus.

Pulling out of the Ho Chi Minh airport, I finally felt like a traveler. Living in Taiwan has been a great experience, but having someone meet you at the airport and help you find a place that you know you're going to live in for the next year takes the edge off of what you feel as you truly explore a country. Getting on a bus downtown to a city that, until now, has only been a faint name scrawled on the corner of a map was like being driven to the dark side of nowhere. My first views were of low buildings, barely higher than the trees that stood in front of them and a street lined with draped flags of either red with a gold star, Vietnam's national flag, or the far more ominous red with gold sickle and hammer.

My visa said "Socialist Republic of Vietnam" but it doesn't really hit you that you're in a communist country until you see your first sickle and hammer dangling from a lamp post and a motorcade of black Mercedes drives past you with a small army of green suited and pith helmeted police officers. Or peace keepers, or militia men. I'm not sure what they call themselves here.

As the bus wound around I started to wonder how I would know when it was my turn to get off. All I had for directions was a hand drawn map that I'd printed off the internet which showed no more than a few blocks of space with street names I couldn't pronounce if I'd had a year's training. I sat back in my chair and decided to get off when everyone else did, just as I'd do back home.

We pulled into a bus station where the choking diesel exhaust outweighed the heavy humidity. The sky was filled with gray and it looked like rain was on it's way at any moment as I headed across one of the most dangerous roundabouts I've ever seen. Reaching the other side, I noticed an area where more than a few people my age were scouting around with backpacks and figured this would be as good a place as any to start my hunt.

Immediately I was pounced upon by a street vendor. She smiled sweetly and asked me if I'd like to buy a copy of Lonely Planet: Vietnam. I would, I said, but I didn't care to buy one at the moment. No matter, thought she, would you like these post cards? This map? A Vietnamese phrase book? Some finger nail clippers? She had it all and she wasn't budging. I could have walked five blocks and she'd be on my tail the whole way with a new gadget for sale. I told her that I'd like a map and she threw the postcards in to sweeten the deal. Unfortunately, I had absolutely no concept of the currency and all I could think about was "You have nine million dong, this lady looks like she hasn't got a bench to lay down on." She began the hustle at $400,000 for the map and postcards. I decided that I'd try my hand at haggling, which I'd never done and have subsequently learned that I am just no good at, and countered with 300,000. Smooth I thought to myself, low-ball her. "I buy for $300,000. You buy for 350." You couldn't even detect a flicker of life in those smiling eyes, the flicker that should have told me that she saw me for a fat fish and was set to deal a weeks pay out of my pocket at this moment. I firmly stuck to my $300,000, feeling like a man who needed to make a stand. She lamented some more and asked, with all the pity of someone on their death bed, "you give me $50,000? 20,000?" I rejected her and stuck with my offer. She agreed and I handed over the money, she had already placed the map and postcards in my hand at the start. Smart woman.

I walked away feeling good about my first haggling experience and grabbed my rain jacket out of my pack, as it was beginning to pour down big fat tropical drops. The moment I got around the corner a sickening thought came over me and I flashed back to the currency exchange counter, remembering that $1 US was $19,500 dong. I'd just paid $15 US dollars for a map of Ho Chi Minh city and a couple of postcards, which I hadn't even checked to see were decent or not. "Goddamnit." I said to myself. "Damnit-damnit-shit."

I took a moment to allow myself to calm down and closed my eyes to listen to the drops splashing off the hood of my jacket. Within seconds it was back again, "Goddamnit!"

I repeated this about every three minutes as I walked around the city trying to find the hostel that I'd picked out online. Even pulling out the map, which harbored so many ill feelings that I was shaking as I unfolded it despite the 80 degree weather, and found it to be completely worthless to me as I couldn't understand where anything was. I stuffed it back in my bag and said to hell with it and pulled out my little hand drawn map, asking anyone on the street who would look my way if they knew where the market on the map was.

In this way I was able to make it to the backpackers district. Eventually I did find the hostel I was looking for, after about an hour and a half of tracing back and forth along the same few streets, finally finding the three foot wide alleyway that led back to the hostel's entrance. When I walked past it however, it looked more like someone's home and there was a family sitting on a couch watching television. I decided that I didn't like the look of it and headed back out to the main road to try my luck at a place called "The Canadian Hotel" which had a five foot wide maple leaf on the front doors.

This proved to be much more suitable and I quickly booked a private room, as they had no other choices. Here I was able to take a hot shower, trying hard to wash my bruised ego. I put on some fresh clothes and felt like a new man, ready to hit the streets and try out some of the Vietnamese that a friend back home had taught to me so I could order some food. This proved comical as the first place I sat down at to order Pho (noodle soup) either didn't understand me, or was not serving that at the moment and instead brought me a glass of the most potent coffee I've ever set my lips to.

Now, I'm no coffee drinker. In fact the only coffee I really like is in Taiwan and it comes in a small can with a Latino caricature on the front with the name "Mr. Brown." It's sickly sweet and is the color of soft brown clay. This drink, on the other hand, was jet black and poured over ice. I couldn't even tell from the smell what it was and ventured a tiny sip because I figured, if I'm expected to pay for this, whatever it is, I'm going to damn well drink it. At first I thought it was spiked with vodka, the kick was so strong. Then as I pressed the liquid with my tongue to the roof of my mouth I was able to get a better reading on it. I don't know coffee, this is true, but I did work as a barista for a month so I can recognize some things. From what I could gather, it was about 6 shots of espresso on ice, with no sugar or milk. You could pour this stuff in your scooter, in a pinch, and be home with half a tank left. I struggled my way through most of it and left a small portion at the end, defeated. Fortunately it only cost $5,000 dong, or roughly one quarter US.

With a stomach clinched tight around nothing but espresso flavored gasoline, I searched with renewed vigor for some food. I plodded through the open air market and down a few streets with plenty of western looking restaurants, but I wanted something Vietnamese for my first meal, and soon found myself in front of a shop no more than a stone's throw from my hostel. I ordered chicken curry and a beer, not worried about getting a look, as it was only 11:30 in the morning; this is a country where any cold drink is welcome at any hour of the day. I gave myself over to the saucy meat and steamed rice, bowed down to the healing power of protein and carbohydrates, I satisfied my most basic of needs in an extravagant caloric splurge. It was good.

Finally satisfied and feeling truly happy, I walked back to the hostel to knock around on the computer a bit to find a place to stay in Hanoi, which I was planning on flying to the next morning. When I walked in there was another foreigner at the counter fumbling with his passport and looking somewhat frazzled. I walked up and asked if he needed some help, I was, after all, practically a native to the city by this point. He turned out to be from Austria and I would later learn that he was working as a civil engineer in Singapore with an Austrian firm. He explained that he worked with and socialized with almost exclusively Austrian coworkers and didn't have much chance to get any culture under his fingernails. Tired of the sterile world of Singapore, he booked a weekend trip to Vietnam to feel what a living, breathing city felt like. We spent the day walking around the city and laughing at things or pointing out peculiarities to each other. When night fell we posted up at the corners of intersections and watched the thirty second Indy-500 that occurred at every major light. Finally we hatched a plan to have one beer at as many bars as we could find and began our tour in the westernized backpackers section, where a bottle of Tiger was $1. From here we made our way out and around, looking specifically for places that didn't have a white face in the crowd so we could feel what it was like to drink like a local.

After making a broad loop around our small area of Saigon, as it was formerly named, we found ourselves back in the backpackers district, sitting down at a table with a couple of obvious Americans who invited us to their table. "So what are you doing in Vietnam?" The man asked, clutching a Miller. "Oh, well I teach in Taiwan and I just took a vacation here, wanted to get out of the country and I decided Vietnam was a good place to begin." "Oh? We were just teaching in Korea, great place to teach if you want to make money but the life there is shit." "Oh yeah? I have some friends that were teaching up there, what'd you say your name was?" "I'm Kenny, you?" "Brian..." "Oh my God Brian Buckley?" I shit you not, I ran into someone I knew from High School in a small bar in Vietnam. "Yeah! Kenny Brill?" It went on like that for a moment while we oo'd and ahh'd over what a strange coincidence this was before I leaned over to my Austrian friend and filled him in on what was going on. He agreed that it was a strange circumstance to find ourselves in and we decided to order our beer. We chatted for over an hour about teaching in Korea versus teaching in Taiwan with the obvious upside to Korea being that he'd saved around $11,000 US in one year. I haven't saved nearly as much, but we both agreed that life in Taiwan has been far more enjoyable and I wouldn't change my location for anything, not even $11,000 in the bank.

Maybe next year?

After our obligatory beer my Austrian friend and I decided to shove off and hit the sack. I had to be up to catch my taxi to the airport by 5:00 and needed some sleep after the two hours I'd received the night before. When we got back to the hostel, I said goodbye to him as he got off on his floor from the elevator and we shared a quick smile, knowing that we'd never see each other again.