Vietnam

I visited Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon last weekend. For another good synopsis see here. I will try to expound.

I arrived in the airport and to my relief the company who took all of my personal and sensitive information was legit. There was a Vietnamese guy waiting for me to give me a visa and a nice welcome to Nam that had nothing to do with stealing my anal virginity.

On the way into Pham Ngu Lao, the backpackers area of Saigon, I got my first taste of Saigon traffic. Bangkok and Manila are possibly the two worst congested cities I have seen in the world, but HCM definitely has the craziest system of driving. I believe I saw 3 traffic lights total in the entire city. There are a decent amount of cars and trucks but millions of motorbikes all over the roads and the general rule of thumb is that large sized vehicles run shit and small get dominated.

Basically Vietnamese people drive by a system that is more sonar than sight. Please insert asian driver jokes here. People do not look anywhere but straight ahead and there is always a rousing game of chicken to be enjoyed around every corner. Beeping is constant from everyone (possibly mandatory) and quite annoying when it is 8am and you are incredibly hungover sitting on a two hour bus ride going to the Mekong Delta. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Summing it up: Vietnamese traffic = school of mindless swimming fish.

After finding a hotel deep in the heart of enemy territory we decided the right thing to do would be to go out and get sloshed. So we headed to the local backpacker hangout where we found many dirty hippy white kids to drink with. This seemed very stale and boring (I actually found out later from my coworker who lived in Saigon that they do not allow Vietnamese people in this bar) so we decided to spice things up and go to "Apocalypse Now," Saigon's Spicy. Again, see what I did there?

That turned out to be a pretty large mistake as we quickly found out that the figurative Saigon whores we were looking for were not to be found here and that Apocalypse Now was actually filled with literal whores. Needless to say these ladies of the night enjoyed our company and banter but that was all we gave them. We retired for the night after going back to the backpacker hangout for many more rounds of drinks.

The next day was a hell on earth journey to the Mekong Delta (see bus ride mentioned above) where we were ushered around on no less than four forms of transportation in four hours. There was a bus, then a boat, then a paddle boat, then a horse and buggy...There might have been more. I can't remember. Anyway the tour was basically a Vietnamese tour guide bringing us around to show us what the "local people" do for a living. From the looks of it they make wooden spoons and handicrafts to sell to pliable tourists. I'm convinced this was a South Park "Pioneer Village" type setup where these "local people" drove home in their Honda Accords laughing at the silly "vanilla faces" who bought their stupid shit.

Local girl happy to be making wooden spoons for a living

Anyway, we met some French Canadian girls on this tour who were actually cool so it wasn't a total bust. Who would have thought, combining two of the worst nationalities in the world would produce anything remotely cool? Sometimes two wrongs DO make a right.

That night we went out as a group and enjoyed drinks at the local saloon. Literally. They have a saloon where all the staff dress up like cowboys. It was one of the few clubs we found with Vietnamese people so we decided to stay and we ended up getting bombed and hanging out with crazy Vietnamese dudes who got so drunk they were swinging their shirts around their heads and falling off of bar stools.

The next day was by far the coolest portion of the trip. We visited the Cu Chi tunnels where Charlie used to hang out underground during the Nam war and set booby traps for American soldiers. According to the video they showed us before seeing the tunnels, Americans were a "crazy batch of devils" who came and tried to "steal the Cu Chi land from peaceful Vietnam people." Also "Many Vietnamese heros were awarded the award for #1 American killer" by killing over 100 Americans. It's good to see the true story of the Vietnam war without the American devil spin.

After that portion of the tour we were ready to explore some tunnels. I'll just get this out of the way upfront and say I left a decent part of both my dignity and manhood somewhere in tunnels of Cu Chi.

This is a picture of me going into the tunnel. This is the picture most people take and then jump right back out since the guides warn that the tunnel is very small and dark and not suitable for tourists. The "tourist tunnel" comes later in the trip and it is cemented and lit for the greater portion.

For a funnier rendition of me getting into the tunnel, here's a video of your average douche hippy backpacker going into the tunnel:


His dreads are so non conformist

Out of 40 some odd people in our tour, Shane and I were two of the three people who decided to actually crawl through this "real tunnel"...bad move. The other exit was about 20 meters away but once underground I found out that the tunnel did not go straight but curved in a different direction every two feet. To make matters worse it was absolutely pitch black and eerily silent. It was exactly what I imagine being buried alive would be like.

After crawling back to the light of day and being scared shitless, I proceeded to go to the other portions of the tour where I got to shoot an AK-47 and look at bomb craters the size of the foundation of a house. Badass. All in all a good ending to the trip.

One note to make. I met with this guy from the Thai Chamber of Commerce early on in the Bangkok project and asked him what his two favorite places in the world are to visit. Without batting an eyelash he goes: "Easy. Russia because the women there are absolutely beautiful, and Vietnam, because the ladies there are like Thai lady but have big boobs," illustrating large mammories on himself for extra emphasis. After visiting I can say this man is 100% accurate in his assessment and must be an amateur anthropologist in his spare time.

Fin.