Nha Trang: Christmas spring rolls

My taxi dropped me off in the backpacker area of Nha Trang and the fare was legitimate.  Not a lot was open at 5:30AM, but I finally found a small hotel just off the main street and was able to check in.  I got cleaned up, had some breakfast at a bamboo interiored joint that serves museli with bananas and pineapple mixed in, and visited a few travel places to get the next train ticket.  The journey to Hanoi is a 3 night train ordeal, but given how comfortable the tourist trains are, I figured it would be a lot of fun.  Well no fun for the 2nd leg, as all they had were 2nd class tickets--I was trying to get a ticket for Xmas day, on Xmas Eve day after all, so I couldn't complain.  After breakfast I snuck down the road to the Spa shop to surprise my friends there.  Only Phuong was there, but she was surprised.

A few minutes later Kieu showed up--also surprised.  Kieu gave me a ride to the oceanography museum, where I spent the afternoon looking around what seemed to be a cross between Sea World and Ripleys Believe it or Not.  There really didn't seem to be anyone working there, except a guy in the lab that looked like Captain Nemo.  It was one of those places that Neil Gaiman talked about in American Gods--places that don't completely make sense as a tourist attraction but strangely draw lots of visitors.  Modern Temples.

I hung out at the Bia Hoi place next to where my Spa friends work for Xmas eve.  I met a pair from London, cousins, of Vietnamese descent--one spoke Mandarin, one Vietnamese, and both, of course, Brittish accented English.  There were some local children dressed in Santa Claus outfits too playing on the street. I couldn't stay awake very late because of the 5 AM train arrival, though.

I had just half of Xmas day in Nha Trang, then I had to catch the train to continue my Northwards escape.  I  hung out for the day and contemplated what I would do once I got to Hanoi--would I keep my original plan (or original adjusted plan) and head to Laos for the new year to meet Luke and Jo, or do I head home, defeated by my allergies, or do I do something else, like go back to Shanghai to see John and perhaps have another interview with that company?  Then Japan popped into my head--I had talked to Roh about possibly meeting there, and I really want to see Japan, despite how terrible the Yen is beating the dollar, which already compounds the expensiveness of the country.  Either way, I was enjoying myself and the free wifi at Lousiane Brewhouse and failed to make a decision.  It was this Brewery that had so much beach property you couldnt walk by it from the beach without going through it, in other words.

  I said my goodbyes and got my arranged ride to the train station with the ticketing company I got my ticket through.  The ride, however, turned out to be a ride on the motorbike of one of the girls who worked there without a helmet.  Vietnam is not the place to ride a motorbike without a helmet.  The lady who took me to the train station was nice though, and she sat in the waiting room with me to make sure I got on the right train.  When I got to the platform I noticed that there was a crowd of people around a young red headed lady on the ground.  It looked like she had fallen down and hurt her ankle.  She also had a lot of white powder all over her legs.  Our train arrived and her friends helped her into it.  She ended up in my cabin and I took pity on her pain and offered her a beer.  This was before I realized she was probably 15 or 16.  I was in a 6 bed cabin with 4 other people from the same group--a school group from New Zealand--a high school group rather.  At first I just assumed that if you are a foreigner backpacking around Vietnam you are probably at least in college.  These kids were going through Vietnam doing some community service of sorts.  The girl had tripped on the train tracks and because she was carrying a backpack that was easily 50 percent of her own weight, she fell in an awkward way and hurt her ankle.  They said some local Vietnamese lady sprinkled the white stuff over her cuts on her legs, which the suspected to be salt or flour. I still think she deserved a beer though.  I played some cards with them and then we all went to bed.  Our train was due to arrive in Danang at 7 AM.

Saigon: Just finishing up

12-23
Got back to Saigon on the evening of the 23rd and followed a pair from Australia to a hostel they said was a good deal.  And it was;  10 dollars a night for a single room that was as nice as I felt worthy of.  We joined another American and Canadian for dinner.  I ordered 2 dishes, which confused the person taking my order.  I tried to explain that the portions weren't enough for my Herculaean appetite.  My mistake at assuming they teach Greek Mythology here.  I bailed to my room after dinner instead of risk letting alcohol worsen my sinus condition.

My original plan was to go to Cambodia next and then Laos, but I was trying to meet Joe and Luke in Laos for New Years and didn't think I could make it through in time without being rushed into dislike of the place, so I thought I could just hang out in Saigon through Christmas and then fly to Laos.  But there were no direct flights from Saigon and I wondered if maybe the weather up North would be better for my allergies, so I got a night train to Nha Trang, the beginning of a retreat back into the Communist lands.
My train didn't leave until the evening, and I checked my email later that morning and found my friend Roh from France that I met in Busan, South Korea was in Saigon too.  We met up at a cafe in the morning and went to breakfast togethor.  Then we met back up later in the afternoon at the War Remnants museum.  This place did not make me proud to be an American.  They only allowed pictures outside.  Inside they had a terrible exhibit about Agent Orange and a nice hall explaining all the historical aggression waged on Vietnam, with heavy emphasis on how bad France and America treate them.  I remember seeing a chart comparing all the major wars with various statistics.  The one statistic that stuck out at me was that they Vietnam war was listed as lasting 14 years, which is not what our books list.

I took a taxi to the train station in the evening and the driver had a magic button that would increase the price on the meter whenever he clicked it.  He kept trying to point things out to me in the city so that I would look away and he could increase the fare.  I caught him doing it and had to stare at the meter for the rest of the trip so he would stop.  I gave him half of what his meter said, which was easily twice as much as it should have cost and he didn't seem to object.  Not very cool, especially from a cab company that is listed as the most trustworthy in guide books.
I got on a nice tourist train--the same kind I had taken from Hanoi.  My compartment had 3 other Vietnamese guys in it though and their English wasn't happening, so I kept to myelf reading and watching Supernatural on my laptop.  The train arrive in Nha Trang at 5 AM. Vietnam has some of the worst train arrival times.  I found a taxi and took it to the city center, this time watching the meter the entire time.

Saigon: King Kong Delta

Mekong Delta tour day.  The previous night I walked into a pharmacy, pointed to my nose, and attempted a sniff to show the lady my predicament.  She gave me a nose spray and some zyrtec.  These were to no avail.  The nose spray felt like a burst of caffeine and zyrtec usually makes me tired.  Its like vodka and redbull in pharmaceutical form.  I was hopeful that I would feel a little better in the morning but not really.  I was still determined to go on my tour, however.
I picked up some street baked goods and water on the way.  The tourist company was cool with me leaving my big bag there.  Lauren and Martin showed up with some friends of theirs from Canada.  One of the Canadian girls looked like Evilynn from He-man; pale, midnight black hair, and obsidian sharp features.  Our group was large enough to fill a regulation sized bus.  We got on, the bus departed, and our guide got up for an hour long introduction speech that was difficult to hear between the accent and the vehicular noises.  It sounded like her name was Wyatt, but it seemed unlikely.  I still called her Wyatt whenever I could.  She was short and had a very round head with very obvious picket fence dental landmarks.

We got to the delta and trasnferred to a small ferry boat.  Lauren suggested I Tiger Balm my nose.  I dunno, they say it helps with swelling.  I was desperate.  The ferry arrived at Candy Island and the Candy Island factory.  Not really a factory in the industrialized sense, as most of the work was still done by hand.   They made some coconut taffy; I guess you could call it that.  I was especially impressed at how the reused the coconut shells to fuel their fires.  They also sold a bunch of other sweet snacks that they weren't making there.  And then there were the jars of whiskey with snakes and aliens inside of them.

We left Candy Island in our boat, but reparked like 20 feet away at another dock that seemed like it would have been less effort to walk to.  We got off and were split into 2 gruops.  One to eat lunch and another to ride bikes.  I got on the biking group. The bikes were terrible.  Not only were they incredibly short but most of them hardly had working brakes.  Mine had a seat that was more metal than foam.  In the confusion of choosing our bikes, I never heard our guide tell us where to bike to, so I followed the group, but then the group managed to fracture into smaller groups, of which I as in one with about 6 total.  Someone had heard our guide say to turn left and then bike to a river.  We biked for about 45 minutes but never found a river so we turned back.  The Tiger Balm started running into my eyes and I nearly wrecked multiple times.  Our guide was waiting for us as we returned, arms crossed, toe tapping, steam rising, pissed.  We were like 15 minutes late and were ruining the trip for everyone else!  Nobody heard that we had a time limit.  We laughed it off, but realized it was probably going to be a long trip.
After a lunch we got back on the boat and stopped again in short time.  Then we boarded some canoes that were manned by some local women.  They took us on an abreviated tour through the heart of darkness, then demaned generous tips.  After this our group split up (some people were on a 1 day trip and had to go home).  Our bus continued South to a small town.  I never got the name.  We got put in a cheap hotel.  I shared a room with an older man from Czech Republic who now lives in florida.  I think his name was Zeke or Zang or Zander.  Something with a Z.  He was pretty cool and had shared some stories of life as a Soviet
I went to dinner with Z-man, Martin, and Lauren at a local cafe then we walked around to look for a beer.  We had a hard time but settled on a cafe that was showing some Martial Arts movies that were badly dubbed in Vietnamese (Probably from Hong Kong or China).  For the local folk, they followed the movement of the fists like spectators at Wimbledon.

We were meant to meet up with our group by 7AM the next morning.  Our guide called every room, at least 4 times, to make sure they were up.  We had breakfast, got on the bus, and headed to the floating market.  This was the part of the trip I was excited to see--a bunch of people on speed boats selling coffee and tea, and a bunch of people on slower boats selling fruit and veggies.  So the speedboat guys were like pirates--they would zoom right up to our boat and latch on, then dole out the drinks.  Very efficient.  The fruit and veggie boats were more stationary and our boat would latch on to them.

After the market we visited a bamboo bridge that I think the Monkey King used.  It was hard to understand the story, but it had to do with looking like a monkey when you crossed it.  Our guide was being a bit less mean to us now.  I guess she was realizing that in the grand scheme of things, 15 minutes isn't much of a setback.  Next we walked around a garden, I guess.  They had a lot of fruit growing, and then they tried to sell us fruit as we exited.  But I thought I could eat off the land for free!

Our last stop in the delta was a rice paper, uh, factory.  Again though, not a lot of machinery.  Also again, I was impressed that they used the husks of the rice to fuel their fires.  There were some ultra cute dogs taking naps here.

We went back to the hotel for lunch and attempted to get on our bus back.  Our group was split up again, as some people were there for another day, but it seemed like most people were doing the 2 day trip.  Martin and Lauren were also leaving the trip, but instead of going back to Saigon, they were going to take a boat to another Island to spend Christmas.  Our bus seemed to be broken down, as there was a guy, covered in oil and tattoos, spelunking inside of it.  Our guide kind of disappeared so we had to sit there, unsure of what was going on, as the people working on the bus didn't speak English.  Finally a new guide showed up.  Eventually the bus got fixed, and thankfully we were on our way back.  I wouldn't say it was the greatest adventure, but it was only 99 bucks, so it was well worth it.