May 26 , 2007
If this is Vietnam, why doesn’t anyone here speak Vietnamese?? My plane arrived on time, getting through customs was a breeze, and sure enough there was a Vietnamese guy holding a sign with my name on it.
If this is Vietnam, why doesn’t anyone here speak Vietnamese?? My plane arrived on time, getting through customs was a breeze, and sure enough there was a Vietnamese guy holding a sign with my name on it.
When
I travel I try to learn a few words in the native language. I walk up to the
guy and introduce myself in Vietnamese.
With a blank look on his face he points to the sign – I nod and try
again. No matter what I say to him in perfectly
good book learned Vietnamese he looks at me as if I am talking
Swahili. (Of course when I was in Africa and tried to speak Swahili
they looked at me as if I was speaking Vietnamese!) Then it hits me - I must be
speaking South Vietnamese, and I’m in North.
The
trip from the airport to the old part of Hanoi is uneventful until I
realize my guide has absolutely no idea where my hotel is. We went in
circles for the better part of half an hour until I finally show him my
map, and a couple of minutes later he dumps me at a small hotel
and takes off. I drag my bags inside to discover the hotel has never
heard of me.
One
benefit of booking your trip through a Vietnamese travel agency online is that
the office is only a couple of blocks from my hotel. Several frantic
calls to my travel agent later and I discover my guide dropped me off at the
wrong hotel. I was supposed to be in the Ngoc III, but due to a
clerical error I was now in Ngoc IV – just around the corner. Good
thing I wasn't booked into the Ngoc MMXIV! I drag my bags around the corner and am shown
to my room. As soon as I open the door I know there’s a problem. I
turn to the bell boy and point to the room.
“Did
the Buddhist monk staying here check out?”
“Pardon?”
“Did
he find the room too small? Perhaps he is used to a bigger
cell? What time is lock down around here?”
The "before" room |
The
room consisted of a bed with six inches of clearance between it and the walls
on three sides, and a very small bathroom attached. There are bare
electrical wires hanging everywhere. The only tiny window looked inwards to the stairwell. I tell
him in Canada if we put prisoners in such conditions they would be set free
because of “cruel and unusual punishment.”
I have a day to myself to look around Hanoi before I catch the night train
up north to Sapa. I decide to take my own walking
tour. I take ten steps out of the hotel, turn the
corner and am hopelessly lost. The problem here is there are no
sidewalks! Well actually there are but they are totally filled with
parked motor bikes, so you have to walk on the road which is filled with
traffic. I try several strategies for staying alive. I have some
success with what I call the “Human Shield” method used and loved by terrorists
everywhere. I find some poor Vietnamese person and walk right behind
them. This works for a few feet until they turn off from where I want
to go and I’m once again left exposed.
I
sort of get the knack of crossing the streets, and am rather proud of myself
till I come to a major thoroughfare. Now there are traffic lights and
crosswalks, but no one pays the slightest attention to them. I have six
lanes of traffic going across. Every time I decide to try and cross I find
myself racing back to curb. It’s sort of a human game of Frogger –with me
as the frog. Finally I come up with a brilliant solution.
On board a Hanoi taxi |
You
can take a motorbike taxi anywhere in the old quarter for about a
quarter! There are several of them waiting for customers on the
corner in front of me. I go up to one of them.
“I’ll give you five thousand dong (50 cents) to
drive me across the street.”
“Yes,
but where you want to go?”
“Across
the street.”
“Yes
but where across the street?”
“Just
across the street – anywhere - five thousand dong!”
“You
go away. Stop bothering me.”
Obviously
the guy had been a cabbie in Vancouver. Not only would he not take me,
but none of his buddies would either. So I did what you do in
Montreal. I closed my eyes and walked across the street.
After
that I decided the best thing was to go back to my hotel and have a nap except
I was hopelessly lost. I went back to the motorbike guy and handed him a
card with the hotel’s address on it.
“How
much to go here?” I asked.
“Five
thousand dong.”
I
climbed on the back of the motorbike. He drove around the block and
dropped me off at my hotel.
The prices in Vietnam are ridiculous. In Hanoi I take the tour operator, his wife, and his wife's partner to one of the most chic restaurants in Vietnam. How swank is it you ask? They have valet parking for motorbikes! Drinks, a very nice full lunch for 4 people cost me all of $20.00
The prices in Vietnam are ridiculous. In Hanoi I take the tour operator, his wife, and his wife's partner to one of the most chic restaurants in Vietnam. How swank is it you ask? They have valet parking for motorbikes! Drinks, a very nice full lunch for 4 people cost me all of $20.00
Sapa
is in the extreme north of Vietnam. Just a spit away from China.
But don't spit - the Chinese don't like it. I’m booked for an overnight train trip from Hanoi to Sapa in a
"soft sleeper" car. My last trip in a sleeper was on the CPR in
1961 and it wasn't soft and I didn't sleep. My travel agent drives me to
the station and points out the train I’m to get on. I’m so concerned with not getting killed
crossing the street I lose sight of the train and end up getting on a train to
Cambodia. Luckily the conductor looked
at my ticket before it was too late and got me on the correct train.
My "sleeping" partner |
Luckily once the train starts going the air conditioning kicks in with a vengeance. An hour later we’re all wrapped in blankets. I actually manage to fall asleep until the older Vietnamese woman starts having screaming nightmares.
Sapa |
Jeff "the tall guy" |
A $30.00 deluxe suite |
My little suite on the top floor of Sapa tops out at about $20.00 a night. If you were staying in something similar in Whistler start adding a lot of zeros.
Next: Ha Long Bay and No Boom Boom for Jeff
Next: Ha Long Bay and No Boom Boom for Jeff
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