Goodbye Vietnam

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Good Bye, Vietnam!

Four weeks visiting you has flown by so quickly! It seems like only yesterday that we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (that’s what the rest of the world calls it, but you still refer to it as Saigon). I remember how we watched in amazement through the windows of the taxi as we drove to our hotel from the airport. We couldn’t believe the traffic – hundreds of motorcycles honking their way down the streets in a never ending stream. Pedestrians were hardly to be seen, and it’s no wonder, we thought. How would you ever be able to cross a street as a pedestrian here? Eventually we learned the trick – just inch yourself slowly through the flow of traffic, looking motorbike drivers in the eye, and sure enough, they steer to avoid hitting you. Before you know it, you have crossed half way through the stream, and then finally you arrive across the street. Amazing!

A few days touring from Saigon to the Mekong Delta and the Cu Chi Tunnels, and then we were off to start our journey of more than 1500 km up your coast to Hanoi. The Sinh Café provided us (and hundreds of other backpacker types) with incredible deals on tours and bus tickets up the coast. They were great value and the tours to the Mekong, Cu Chi Tunnels and the trip to Mui Ne were in comfortable, clean and modern buses. But just as we were starting to expect that type of service, you surprised us! An overnight train trip between Mui Ne and Hoi An that we don’t want to remember. Another overnight bus trip between Hue and Hanoi that now seems like a bad dream. A trip to Halong Bay that was below our expectations for the deluxe package that we purchased despite the beautiful scenery. What gives, Vietnam?

Ah, we started to understand – NO COPYRIGHT LAWS! One can buy photocopied Lonely Planet Guides for a quarter of the normal price on your streets. North Face backpacks are available for $12.00 (real or copies?). DVDs of any movie can be purchased for a dollar; a “real” copy couldn’t be found for love or money. This can be a shopping bonanza for tourists, but it can also become a buyer-beware situation for anyone trying to get a good quality trip from the Sinh Café. We began to realize that there is a Sinh Café on every block! But which one is the real one? It’s like finding Waldo. They all look alike, they are all called Sinh Café, but they aren’t all Sinh Cafe! And certainly not all provide the same service! Because of the popularity of this travel agent, hundreds of others have assumed the name just for the reputation, but with none of the benefits. That’s why some of our later trips didn’t quite match to the quality of the first.

We’ve even experienced the epitome of ‘copy freedom’ – a fake 50,000 Dong note! Maybe you wouldn’t quite condone this behaviour, dear Vietnam, but it was on your streets that for the first time in our lives we had the embarrassment of trying to pay for something and were told that “Sorry, that’s a fake bill.” Fortunately, 50,000 Dong is the equivalent of only $3.75 Canadian, and that fake bill is now glued in to my journal as a little souvenir. The price of a fancy sticker!

But we won’t let these annoyances spoil it for us. There are so many things we have come to appreciate about you. Firstly, your hard-working citizens. EVERYONE seems to be out there making money (yeah, we tourists are usually the first targets for this activity). Having read a book about the Vietnam War, it amazes us how much your country has recovered from that terrible time in history. We applaud the industriousness and work ethic of your people.

Second, there are dishes of the Vietnamese cuisine that will now forever be part of the Cheng family’s culinary habit. Beef pho for breakfast on a cold winter morning hits the spot! Summer rolls, Double Happiness, and ANYTHING cooked and served at the vegetarian Tamarind Café will try to be duplicated in the Cheng kitchen in Ladner. As your people say, your food is “not as spicy as Thai food and not as greasy as Chinese – just perfect”.

And thirdly, Hanoi, your capital, has won us over completely! What a charming city! Daily walks on the boulevard around Hoan Kiem Lake allowed us to witness exercise classes for ladies, badminton tournaments for seniors, romantic couples on benches, and cute little old men in berets absorbed in games of chess. Ladies pushing bikes laden with flowers for sale, others carrying baskets of fruit on yokes over their shoulders, cyclo drivers offering one hour tours of the Old Quarter, everyone’s friendly, relaxed and in a good mood. The wonderfully restored Metropole Sofitel and so much of Hanoi’s architecture gives us living illustration of the French colonial period. This mix of French and Vietnamese is a delightful fusion that doesn’t stop at the architecture but continues on to the gastronomy. Wonderful buffets we treated ourselves to at the Metropole and the Daewoo at a fraction of the price we’d pay in Canada had the best of Vietnam and the west. A week in Hanoi at the comfortable Morning Star allowed us to enjoy Hanoi at a leisurely pace and to rest and prepare ourselves mentally and physically for the onslaught of China. You’ve spoiled us with your cheap prices and affordability of a standard of living we haven’t often experienced as vagabonds on this journey. You’ve been gentle on us in many ways. Exotic but easy enough to adapt to especially as we could afford to duck into a western-style reprieve occasionally and as the need arose. We’ve been warned that Vietnam is only a ‘warm up’ for the culture shock one can expect in your big neighbor to the north. Can Chinese Opera be any better than the Water Puppets of Hanoi?

So, thank you, Vietnam, for all that you’ve taught us, for all that we’ve experienced, for all the wonderful people we’ve been able to meet on your soil (Vietnamese citizens and travelers from other countries alike), and for the opportunity to realize that Vietnam is much more than just a war!

Best wishes to you and yours!

The Chengs