To me Vietnam is a very cool and yet crazy place full of contradictions. For one, it is still a communist country, but very much driven, economically, by capitalism. It’s economy has been growing at like 7% a year for the last few years (Not sure how many exactly). You can get pretty much anything and everything here, but people still can’t really speak their mind or be critical of the government (no freedom of speech or of press or any of that stuff.) And yet the internet is everywhere and is available to more and more and like I said, you a free to buy and sell just about anything (including endangered animals ect…) and it just seems weird to me that those two things can coexist and that the people seem to be ok with it all. I honestly have no idea if the people are ok with it or not. What’s also weird is that their communist government actually seems to be doing a pretty good job. (I’m totally ignorant to Vietnam’s recent political history and I don’t know if they, like China, have been accused of human rights violations and all that, so I don’t really know if they are doing a good job or if they are totally scary or what). But they’ve got a bunch of money from their growing economy and they seem to be using it to build their infrastructure, roads, bridges, schools ect. (I read that maybe this is just an attempt to appease the people and keep them from raising questions about all money and corruption and the legitimacy of the government), but no matter the motive, they seem to be getting things done. (Although their passport control offices at both borders were totally filthy and in way worse conditions than China’s).
What was also crazy to me, was that I was watching a local Vietnamese news program the other day, and it was just after things had started to settle down after this typhoon that had rolled through central Vietnam, which I think we caught the tail end of on that drive that one day. Anyway, during that typhoon a bridge collapsed and like 20 or so people died. And this government man came on the news and said that the government was taking full responsibility for the bridge collapse and that is was totally unacceptable and they were looking into making sure whatever happened never happened again, and they were giving scholarships to all the children of the people who had died so that they could stay in school. Basically, the government was saying, hey that accident was our fault and we’re really sorry and we’re trying not to make sure it happens again and here’s something to help you through this tragedy. And I thought man, that’s so much further than our government has ever seemed willing to go. Now granted it was only 20 people, or whatever, not nearly on par with Katrina or anything, but to hear a government official on live television say that he was accepting full responsibility for something, was like an amazing to hear. In the US nobody is willing to accept responsibility for anything or admit to their mistakes. (especially Bush). No matter how big the blunder and how obvious it is, US politicians will just stand up there pretending nothing is wrong, that the problem doesn’t exist, or make some kind of excuse for their inaction or just pretend they are doing all that can be done when they’re not. (And when all else fails, just check yourself into rehab and then declare yourself cured in 30 days). Like even after that bridge collapsed in the US and I’m pretty sure people died, right? But nobody stood up and took responsibility, cal trans or whatever they have in that state, or the engineers, or the local government. That would just never happen. And I guess the reason it would never happen is because as soon as someone admitted fault, they’d be sued for millions or billions of dollars. That’s why nobody in the US and ever take responsibility or can admit liability for anything. Because as soon as you do, you’ve just opened yourself up to getting sued. It’s such bull shit. It’s created a society of people who can’t take responsibility for their actions, and instead just claim temporary insanity and check themselves into rehab. Give me a break! Our country is just and weird and crazy as any other place I’ve ever been, just in our own messed up way.
Anyway, back to Vietnam… I like it here. I definitely want to come back and visit Ho Chi Minh in the south. I bought a lot of cool little things here and it is definitely a good place to shop. The food isn’t as good as in Thailand, but it’s ok. And it is easier to deal (for me, at least) than it was in Laos. The people here seem really nice and there is quite a lot to see. So all in all, a good place for a vacation.
Cat Ba Island is the biggest island in Halong Bay (I think) and that is where we stayed for a couple nights. Wait, I think I blogged about it already. It’s a cute sleepy places with some nice beaches and good places to swim. There’s one good restaurant, from what I can tell (The Green Mango). And I can’t really see why anyone would spend more than a couple days here, even if you did all the optional trekking and kayaking and stuff, but it was good for a bit.
Today is our last night here. We had a long day that started out cruising around Halong Bay. We went to this really big cave where there were tons of huge stalagtites and stalagmites. It must have been really old and it was touristy, like they had it all lit up with colored lights and there was a walkway all the way through it, but it was still cool. Then we went to this weird little beach to swim on one of the random rock islands. I didn’t want to get all the way wet cause it was kind of windy and I didn’t want to deal, so I was just walking barefoot along the beach. Due to prior experience on the dirty beaches in Panama, I’m always super careful about where I’m walking, cause you wouldn’t want to get a foot full of glass or anything, so I’m watching carefully and right there in front of me is a hypodermic needle, with the needle part just sticking out. I freaked out! How freakin’ uncool is that! I don’t know if it just washed up on shore, or if junkie boat people camped on this beach at night to do their drugs or something. Anyway, not cool! And Anne was in the water so instead of coming up the beach she swam around to where the boat was and came up some steps. But then the steps were covered with broken shells and she ended up cutting her foot and her hand. Doh! I knew my instinct to stay out of the water was a good one. After that we had to go to he super busy touristy dock where all the Halong Bay cruises leave from to catch our bus. To get off our boat, we had to cross over 2 other boats with all our stuff. (Remember I have a huge bag that is super heavy and a big pain in the ass unless I can roll it). There was definitely no rolling it. And the walkway on the side of the boat we had to go down was so narrow, I couldn’t even put one foot in front of the other. I had to shuffle along, carrying my bag in front of me. It was such a pain in the ass, but it only lasted maybe 5 minutes.
Then we got on a bus and drove for about 5 hours, maybe less, stopping once at this handicraft place where most the people are disabled to do some shopping for a good cause. (I’m all for that!) Along the way I saw lots of agricultural stuff including fields of marijuana plants. I don’t know if they were just using them for the hemp or for the sticky green buds. Probably just hemp, I’m guessing. But it still looked crazy to see that growing in fields on the side of the road. Hanoi and the cities seem as modern as any, but the countryside seems to be stuck in time. There are still horse drawn trailer things, and today it looked like they were cutting hay or straw or something and piling it in big like hay stacks and bundling it up, all by hand. There were people out using a hoe in the field and all bent over picking things or chopping things. I mean I haven’t seen one tractor or anything like that. They do it all the old school way and it looks like so much hard work! And tons of people really do wear those straw cone shaped hats (even in the city). The other thing that seems crazy to me is that all the women are so afraid of the sun and they try to stay covered up all the time. They all wear hats. Lots of them wear these cloth masks that cover their chin, mouth, nose and cheeks. At first I thought it was like to not breath the pollution or something, but no, it’s to keep the sun off their skin. They mostly wear long sleeved shirts, and some of the girls driving motor scooters even had long sleeve shirts with these mitten things at the end of the sleeves that covered their hands, so that the sun didn’t hit their hands when they were holding onto the handle bars. It’s so crazy, how they really want to be pale, and we spend our time out soaking up the sun trying to work on our tans. They buy creams to bleach their skin and we buy self tanning lotion. What gives?! I guess you always want what you don’t have. (And the cosmetics industry is great at figuring out how to make us feel like we need to spend a bunch of money on some kind of cream or another to achieve that desired look.)
So yeah, Vietnam was great and I hope to be back someday to see the rest of it and if you get a chance you should come here. Although, I was thinking about it, and if you have food allergies, especially the peanut thing, you would have a hard time here. They cook with peanut oil a lot of the time you don’t really ever know what is in your food, and it would be really hard/impossible to try to make sure you food came without peanuts or soy or something like that. (So dad, I think you better say out of South East Asia, sorry). Today I ate tofu, cause it was that or the shrimps that are like still whole with all their legs and their little eyes looking at you and there was no freaking way I was eating that. But tofu is super icky and spongy and rubbery and gross even though I guess it tasted fine, I still only ate one piece and wished I hadn’t. Spring rolls and French fries were mainly my lunch. Sucks that the only things I can eat half the time are the fried, super bad for you foods. I did eat some green vegetable stuff that I’m not sure what it was. Maybe bamboo shoots… I don’t know, and rice. I’m kind of excited to try the different food when we get to China. There are a few little towns we stay in where there aren’t even menus in English and you just have to point at what you want or they just bring out whatever they’ve made for you. That should be interesting. I guess I’ll let you know how it goes.
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