sarah. on the run.

Beach Livin' in the Nam

The road from Da Lat to Nha Trang was long and winding, but interesting. The scenery went from lush to desert-like to salty before we ever saw the ocean. But once we did, I was so grateful to be out of the mountains and back in the tropics.

Nha Trang is a breath of fresh air coming from Vietnam's south. It's a major coastal town and has that bright, lofty, pastel air about it. In fact, the city reminds me a lot of Santa Monica, Calfornia, which is weird. It's not like I didn't try to get as far away as possible or anything.

Nha Trang's beach is slightly dirty and you'll never have it to yourself, but the water is warm and calm, you can rent a couple of chairs under a thatched roof for a couple bucks, and the fruit lady never wanders too far off. I was wondering how the whole beach culture vibe was going to work, given the obvious aversion Vietnamese people have to the sun. But it's all good, they just flock to the beach when the sun goes down.

Lay on the beach, read, rinse, repeat. That's all we did for a few days. It rocked.

But then we got bored. Brendan had a bright idea to rent a motorbike, which really did seem like a good idea at the time. Once he was driving and I was hanging off the back for dear life, my change of heart was remarkable.

About five minutes into the ride from hell (it wasn't really hell but I'm deathly afraid of motorcycles, and then there I am riding on the back of one sans helmet like some floozy who doesn't know any better), the bike stalled out. In the middle of an intersection, mind you. We walked it to safety on the side of the road, where as luck would have it, a very nice man took pity on us and went to work trying to fix the engine.

The final verdict was that we ran out of gas. Five minutes after renting the motorcycle we ran out of gas. The fuel gauge said full. That's Vietnam for you.

Eventually, we managed to fill up the tank and continue on our way. We rode up to Nha Trang's Cham towers, visited a monastery, and worshipped our first giant Buddha. It turned out to be a pretty good day!

Our Vietnam Rough Guide suggested a place about an hour north of Nha Trang called Jungle Beach Resort, promising a better coastline with less traffic. After several days of being completely spoiled by surf and sun, looking for perfection was really the only logical choice we had left. So we packed up and headed up to Jungle Beach.

Perfection achieved.

Even though it's called a resort, Jungle Beach is more like a tropical campsite. Guests sleep in open-air bamboo huts without electricity and share bathrooms. The place has the potential to be a five-star joint, but there's an allure to its modesty. For $15 per person per night, you have your run of the place and three delicious meals prepared by the owners and their staff. Hands down the best food we've had in all of Asia. I was torn between thanking my lucky stars that I was temporarily living in utopia (that little speck out in the water is me) and wishing our hut had A/C. I know that sounds selfish, but I must stress how hot it was. Like an oven at 7 am. A wet oven.

The owner, Sylvio, recently spotted a group (pack? tribe? gaggle?) of monkeys living in the mountains nearby, and now primate researchers from all over the world are coming to Jungle Beach to study them. Apparently there aren't monkeys like these monkeys anywhere else on Earth and experts are sort of freaking out about the discovery. At dusk, Sylvio would spot a monkey or two with binoculars and yell for anybody who wasn't still out swimming to come take a look. One evening I saw baby monkeys and almost cried.

Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to Jungle Beach after five days of bliss. Even though we're traveling for a year, the world is a big place full of many more utopias. Though the rickety old bus we tried to sleep on during the twelve-hour journey north to Hoi An was definitely not one of them.

Hoi An itself, however, is fabulous. Can you believe I'm actually caught up and writing this blog while still technically inside Hoi An? Hooray! Anyway, the town is cute, dusty, and awfully charming. It's known mostly for its local art galleries and tailor shops which line the streets to the point of redundancy, though somehow the place manages not to feel too tacky. We took the bait and bought a framed painting to ship back home, Brendan got a suit made, and I walked away with a silk jacket or three.   

Many of the hotels here are cheap and dumpy, but we splurged ($25/night) on a moderately luxurious one with a pool. B can usually be found in or near the pool between breakfast and dinner. I, on the other hand, am usually hanging out in the lobby enjoying free wifi. The hotel staff must think I'm the most boring person alive. It's kind of embarrassing.

Being completely flat and without a lot of motorized traffic, Hoi An's the perfect place to ride a bicycle. Today we rented two bikes and rode about 5 miles out to Cua Dai beach, which was nice but not spectacular after Jungle Beach (though we did have the whole thing to ourselves). Afterwards, we pedaled back into town and killed a few hours taking pictures and drinking lassis. Today was technically our last day of leisure in Vietnam, since tomorrow morning we head into Laos! I'm so excited. The bus leaves at 7 am and 30 hours later we should roll safe and sound into Savannakhet. Here's hoping.

Your Friend,
Sarah

PS- There's a "Huff" marathon on HBO in our hotel room right now. Best show ever. Who's with me?

Good Morning, Vietnam

We keep meeting travelers who've already been to destinations we have yet to visit, and everybody's got an opinion on the best restaurant, cheapest hotel, or biggest scam we should keep our eyes out for. It's usually quite helpful. But mention Vietnam and you never know what you're gonna hear. Travelers either really love or really hate the place, and it's hard to know who to trust without having been there yourself. Since Brendan and I were determined to get some use out of our Vietnamese visas (the second most complicated paperwork hassle behind Russia), we simply hoped for the best.

We flew from Beijing into Ho Chi Minh City on August 7th and caught a cab toward our hotel, at which point I almost had a heart attack as an angry mob of motobikes threatened to turn us into mush. The traffic! My god! The traffic! It just didn't seem safe... or smart...or legal. Turns out there are no actual rules of the road in the sprawling southern city formerly known as Saigon. You just drive, pedal, or walk in whichever direction you choose, and assume that everyone else will 1) see you, and 2) spare your life by narrowly avoiding you. To my utter amazement, the system sort of works. Although at one point a local guy told me that every day about 20 people die in traffic-related accidents here, so there's that. Plus, Vietnamese women are even more paranoid about getting tans than Chinese women, and many wear head coverings and long gloves when they're out and about. You'd swear you were in the middle of a plague outbreak (knock on wood..er.. bamboo).

Our hotel was $15 per night (including breakfast) and totally decent. You can score accommodation for about half that price if you don't mind something a little grubbier, but we liked our view and the best pho restaurant in the universe was right around the corner. Sure, the soup gave me stomach cramps... but it tasted good going down for $0.60!

Saigon (as the locals still call it) is more like a psycho acid trip than a charming city you can stroll through at a leisurely pace, but once you get your bearings and fall into the groove, it grows on you. I think what tourists find most off-putting are the street hawkers who hassle you at all hours of the day, trying to get you to buy cigarettes or photocopied paperback books or pieces of string, and won't give up unless you yell at them. It's definitely annoying, but there's really nothing you can do besides try not to let it get to you. There isn't an abundance of things to "do" in the way of sightseeing, but B and I managed to entertain ourselves for a few days, mostly from the comfort of a pedal rickshaw since walking is a lot like playing Frogger with your life.

At one point we wandered into some sort of museum that used to be the governor's palace, although it was less of a museum and more like an abandoned mansion filled with decor that once upon a time my grandma would have found very agreeable. I took a ton of photos here just to annoy B, who didn't really get it.

The War Remnants Museum is a must-see for Saigon tourists, and since both of our dads fought in Vietnam, B and I have a certain interest in understanding more about their experiences in this country. Though as Americans, I wouldn't say it was the most enjoyable way to spend a few hours. Endless photo galleries illustrating the disfiguring effects of the war, particularly from chemical weapons like Agent Orange and napalm on civilians and their offspring, were hard to stomach. Even more jarring for me was encountering three Agent Orange victims on the street the following day. Because of what I'd learned at the museum I knew what I was looking at, and it was a million times more heartbreaking than photographs hanging on a wall.

A few days into Saigon we were ready to get out of the city on a side trip, so we chose a 2-day Mekong Delta tour. The delta is at the southernmost trip of the Mekong River and supports countless communities along its narrow waterways and inlets. Since the water is so muddy and silty, it looks a lot like chocolate milk, or at least that's what we told ourselves.

The tour itself was a little nerdy, though I can't deny that I enjoyed watching factory workers make rice paper and coconut candy (these chicks can wrap like nobody's business).  But the big Mekong Delta attractions are the "floating markets", where merchants get up at the crack of dawn to trade goods with each other over the water. Since the delta is so easily navigable by boat, there's really no need for anyone to step onto land. You'd have to see it to believe it... entire families living and working out there every single day.

Back in Saigon after our delta tour, we checked back into our hotel for one more night and booked "open bus" tickets to cover the rest of Vietnam and our border crossing into Laos. Open bus companies are notoriously shoddy operations, but convenient because they allow you to pick your destinations first, and then stay as long as you like in each place before continuing along your chosen route.

So, we decided on:

Saigon --> Da Lat
Da Lat --> Nha Trang
Nha Trang --> Hoi An
Hoi An --> Hue
Hue --> Savannaket (Laos).

The whole thing cost $45 per person, which seemed like a pretty good deal to us, so first thing in the morning we were on a bus bound for the mountains of Da Lat. Well, actually we were on a bus bound for Cambodia and had gotten about ten blocks before one of the open bus operators realized his mistake and transferred us at the last minute. Whew.

Six hours later and we were in Da Lat, which looked like this for two days. Because of its high elevation, it was not only wet and muddy, but cold. There's something disconcerting about freezing your ass off in Vietnam. I have no doubt that in better weather B and I would have enjoyed ourselves more, but we didn't feel like sticking around to wait for the storm to clear. Instead, we set off for Nha Trang to put our weary feet up on the Vietnamese coast.

Tales from the beach... next time! If you want to read ahead, visit my husband's blog.

Cute overload bonus pic: Pigs play hide-and-seek!

Hot Time, Summer in Beijing

At long last, my overdue tales from China have arrived! Beijing, to be more specific. Thanks for your patience.

Brendan and I had heard that the Chinese capital was ridiculously expensive, so we tried to find some sort of online bargain ahead of time. Luckily, people are actually using Craigslist in China (come on, rest of world!) and we found a post for a short-term rental situation that seemed promising. So we emailed the guy, he responded to us right away, and we had ourselves a deal.

The guy turned out to be an New Yorker named Tony who rents out a spare bedroom to international travelers in his hutong apartment. In Chinese, "hutong" literally means "alleyway", but people know "the hutong" as an actual series of rambling neighborhoods within the city where thousands of people live. Hutongs have an unmistakable worse-for-the-wear-but-undeniably-charming quality to their layout and architecture, and upon seeing our new pad, B and I knew we were in the right place. And not just because little Max, the former stray street dog, was our new frightfully cute housemate.

After arriving from the train station on our first day (and enjoying the longest, hottest shower of my life), Tony took us on a little hutong tour, pointing out his favorite barber shop, restaurant, market, etc. so we'd at least have some good references for the next week. He works in Beijing teaching English, and over the last couple years has managed to get an impressive grip on the Mandarin Chinese language and culture. We quickly realized that having him as a resource was beyond valuable. For example, as tourists we'd have never known that this neon symbol means "kebab stand".

The hutong reminds me of a big 24/7 block party. It can be hard to differentiate between private dwellings and merchants' shops. People are just straight up chilling out in the street, all day and night. Compared with the majority of Beijing, which is a sprawling cosmopolitan city, it's a true oasis.

Turns out that Tony's favorite neighborhood restaurant serves quite possibly the best Chinese food in the entire world, where you can eat and drink yourself to discomfort for under $5. Seriously. We ate dinner there almost every night.

No trip to China would be complete without a visit to the Great Wall, so one morning B and I were up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus out to the ruins at Simatai. We chose Simatai over over Great Wall destinations that were closer to the city because we'd heard it had less foot traffic and more adventurous climbing. We certainly weren't alone up there, but the stairs were as strenuous as advertised. You want a great workout in an unreal atmosphere? Go climb the Great Wall. I really can't describe how lucky I felt to be there.

Back in Beijing we did some touristy things, like visit Tienaman Square, stroll through Beijing's Forbidden City, and hang out for an afternoon at the old Summer Palace in the northwest part of town. Covering the obvious sights in a new place always feels a little forced to me, although I can now honestly say that I've seen Chairman Mao's eerily glowing embalmed body on display in his mausoleum with my own eyes (free admission, but the lines are fierce and no cameras allowed).

By the way, Chinese people love umbrellas, rain or shine. Not only do umbrellas provide some shade from the unbearable summer sun, but apparently white skin is considered beautiful so avoiding a tan is of the utmost importance. If only I had grown up in China, I wouldn't be the skin cancer candidate I am today from endless summers spent slathered in baby oil.

The best parts of Beijing are off the tourist map, guaranteed.

Tony took us to a foot massage parlor where 80 indulgent minutes of reflexology set us back about $10.

We browsed through a enormously gigantic market stuffed with goods that gave new meaning to the term "Made in China", where Brendan found himself a new hat, and I picked up some cute shoes ($3 and $4, respectively).

I attempted to get a trim at a trendy salon and had to actually get up out of the chair after the trendy stylist cut off five unsolicited inches of my hair and appeared to have no intention of stopping there (I know he was going for a trendy look, but the language barrier was just too much).

And naturally, we made friends with the local drinkers at the neighborhood kebab stand and imbibed ourselves silly on more than one occasion. Alcohol: the universal language. The aforementioned local drinkers even convinced me to eat mutton off a stick, followed by chicken tendon. Brendan ate sheep's testicles (but you didn't hear that from me).

Like I said in a previous post, if B and I would have known how much fun Beijing was going to be, we'd have planned for two weeks instead of just one. Thanks for being a great host, Tony, and I promise not to drink twelve vodka/Red Bulls next time.

Exactly a week after arriving in Beijing, Brendan and I loaded up the backpacks, dragged ourselves to the airport, and boarded a plane in route to Saigon, Vietnam, by way of Guangzhou. Obviously we made it, and we'll be here until 7:30 tomorrow morning when we push northeast toward Da Lat. I'll catch you up on the insanity that is Vietnam in the next post. Seriously. This place is a madhouse.

Toodles!
-sarah