[Writer's Note: I began this post two days ago in Dalat but grew restless and abandoned it. I'm fleshing it out now, but the post will only cover events that occurred through Christmas Eve.]
Fear not my noble and intelligent readers! This intrepid explorer is alive and well, reporting to you from Dalat. (The positive responses to my last post have inflated my ego to monstrous proportions. You may call me Bill Bryson version 2.0). But why have I taken so long to report my many varied adventures you may ask? I was all set to type up a post describing everything I'd seen when I thought to myself, 'A picture is worth a thousand words' (it's true – I think only in clichés). Not one to pass up an opportunity to forgo thousands of words of descriptive textual effort, I embarked on an epic photographic project, amassing travel photos and mentally stockpiling hilarious captions. But when I went to transmit these five megapixel moments to you, horror of all horrors, I discovered something terrible. The camera cord was in Toronto…. The camera cord was in Toronto. Devastated by the premature death of my career in photojournalism, I decided that time was needed before I once again touched pen to paper. I needed time to grieve.
Anyways, I'm writing to you now.
During my second (and last full day) in Ho Chi Minh City (or HCMC) we traveled 45mins north to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. Apparently a center of nationalist resistance during the wars (all three of them – this country has gotten a shitty deal from France, Japan and the USA), the peasants there doubled as militia and had built hundreds of kilometers of tunnels and bunkers to operate out of. Arriving there the first thing they have you do it watch a cheery Viet Cong propaganda video from 1967 (oddly narrated in broken English). Talk about surreal, "And little Lue won the metal of honor when she was only 12 for killing many Americans! She killed 20 Americans and three tank! [Break to a shot of 'little Lue' with a rocket launcher shooting at a tank]. She farm during the day and at night work to kill many American!" The woman narrating couldn't be prouder. Inside the park they also prominently displayed the various traps used to impale the GIs (which our guide enthusiastically demonstrated) against a painted backdrop depicting American soldiers in various stages of impalement. Not really what western tourists are used to (though I have to admit – some of the traps were pretty ingenious).
The guide also talked a lot about Vietnam during the drive up and back. The country was only opened to trade and transferred to a market economy in 1994 and so up until then it was completely poor and undeveloped. It was amazing listening to him talk about his allotment of food (14kg of rice a month and that was it) and the attitudes of the workers. He didn’t even know what shampoo was until he was in college – and now, after 13 years of 7-8% growth the country is full of scooters (the helmet law was passed only 3 days before we arrived), a new international airport had just been finished (which we arrived in 5 days after the dedication ceremony) and signs of construction are everywhere.
Back in HCMC Dennis Nguyen and I managed to hook up in at the 'Rosy Café' for a few Tiger brand beers – I still haven't tried the Vietnamese beer, "333". The place was fairly packed with Vietnamese having a good time drinking, smoking (There was smoke. Lots of smoke. I think my eyes are still stinging), and listening intently to the live music. While some of it was in Vietnamese, there were several English songs which were: 1) universally Christmas themed, and 2) intense. You got the impression that the singers didn't actually know or understand English but took the songs with a deadly seriousness, and had to get every word just right. I've never seen a woman so concentrated while singing “Have a very merry Christmas” – every word clearly took serious effort.
Speaking Christmas music – it’s everywhere! They love everything Christmas here; there's a giant gingerbread chapel in the lobby of the hotel in Dalat (with a rooster topping it off instead of a cross) and fake snow, Christmas trees, and lights all over HCMC. Apparently it's the one part of American culture that won the Vietnam War.
The next day we met our companions. We had plenty of time to get to know them as our flight was seriously delayed – something apparently not uncommon. Anyways, about our co-travelers – I'd just like to say a few words about these people. They're ridiculous. Seriously. I was chatting with the guy sitting next to me at (a delicious) lunch and asked him why his family had recently moved from Boston to California:
Him - "Oh, we bought a baseball team."
Me - "Keeping in mind I know nothing about baseball, would it be anyone I'd heard of?"
Him - "The Dodgers"
Me - "Oh… oh… well… yes. I've heard of them."
Seriously. Ridiculous.
(I also learned about the changing business models in television from the former executive producer of the Rosie O’Donnell show. He does the Ellen DeGenerris show now, among other things. Want to know why you never see sitcoms these days? It’s actually pretty interesting.)
Dalat was temporarily the French capital of Vietnam, and sits on the plateaus at 1600m (about the same as Denver/Boulder – shout out to Ms. Roessler). The city didn't exist until the French built it to escape the coastal heat, and because the volcanic soil was so good for growing veggies. And that's all you really need to know about it – French veggies. The whole city is just fields of veggies growing behind houses built in the French colonial style. Of course those are just the new homes; if the homes are a little older, they're sagging structures made out of sheet and scrap metal. While the obvious poverty of the older homes is sad, they're clearly being rapidly replaced by these beautiful mini French villas done up in bright pastels. (One of the pictures I wanted to put up here was a scene I'd see everywhere – the shack next to the beautiful three story home – these homes were clearly not just for the rich either). This whole country is amazing in how fast it's transitioning from abject poverty (in 1994) to comparative wealth. Very cool.
(A lot of this also comes from my biking in and around the town. I got to see a lot of the rural areas and the terraced farms. I also got to bike up lots of fun hills. I’m in terrible shape.)
Our hotel was (unsurprisingly) French. It’s based out of is a three story hotel built in 1913, one of the first three buildings in the whole city. It apparently runs a pageant every Christmas Eve where they bring in orphans from the surrounding area to sing and receive presents. Now I’m all for supporting orphans, and the kids were obviously excited about Christmas which was awesome, but the scene was more sad than heartwarming. Picture about 30 kids wearing jeans and T-Shirts singing in a central lobby to a bunch of dressed up rich Westerners lining the lobby and looking down at them from the levels above. I left in disgust after the Santa that arrived spoke English – imagine ‘meeting Santa’, only to find out that he, like the rich folks around you, is white and speaks English. Imagine sitting on Santa’s lap to tell him what you want through an interpreter. Oh well… the kids still seemed happy.
Merry Christmas from Dalat
Fear not my noble and intelligent readers! This intrepid explorer is alive and well, reporting to you from Dalat. (The positive responses to my last post have inflated my ego to monstrous proportions. You may call me Bill Bryson version 2.0). But why have I taken so long to report my many varied adventures you may ask? I was all set to type up a post describing everything I'd seen when I thought to myself, 'A picture is worth a thousand words' (it's true – I think only in clichés). Not one to pass up an opportunity to forgo thousands of words of descriptive textual effort, I embarked on an epic photographic project, amassing travel photos and mentally stockpiling hilarious captions. But when I went to transmit these five megapixel moments to you, horror of all horrors, I discovered something terrible. The camera cord was in Toronto…. The camera cord was in Toronto. Devastated by the premature death of my career in photojournalism, I decided that time was needed before I once again touched pen to paper. I needed time to grieve.
Anyways, I'm writing to you now.
During my second (and last full day) in Ho Chi Minh City (or HCMC) we traveled 45mins north to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. Apparently a center of nationalist resistance during the wars (all three of them – this country has gotten a shitty deal from France, Japan and the USA), the peasants there doubled as militia and had built hundreds of kilometers of tunnels and bunkers to operate out of. Arriving there the first thing they have you do it watch a cheery Viet Cong propaganda video from 1967 (oddly narrated in broken English). Talk about surreal, "And little Lue won the metal of honor when she was only 12 for killing many Americans! She killed 20 Americans and three tank! [Break to a shot of 'little Lue' with a rocket launcher shooting at a tank]. She farm during the day and at night work to kill many American!" The woman narrating couldn't be prouder. Inside the park they also prominently displayed the various traps used to impale the GIs (which our guide enthusiastically demonstrated) against a painted backdrop depicting American soldiers in various stages of impalement. Not really what western tourists are used to (though I have to admit – some of the traps were pretty ingenious).
The guide also talked a lot about Vietnam during the drive up and back. The country was only opened to trade and transferred to a market economy in 1994 and so up until then it was completely poor and undeveloped. It was amazing listening to him talk about his allotment of food (14kg of rice a month and that was it) and the attitudes of the workers. He didn’t even know what shampoo was until he was in college – and now, after 13 years of 7-8% growth the country is full of scooters (the helmet law was passed only 3 days before we arrived), a new international airport had just been finished (which we arrived in 5 days after the dedication ceremony) and signs of construction are everywhere.
Back in HCMC Dennis Nguyen and I managed to hook up in at the 'Rosy Café' for a few Tiger brand beers – I still haven't tried the Vietnamese beer, "333". The place was fairly packed with Vietnamese having a good time drinking, smoking (There was smoke. Lots of smoke. I think my eyes are still stinging), and listening intently to the live music. While some of it was in Vietnamese, there were several English songs which were: 1) universally Christmas themed, and 2) intense. You got the impression that the singers didn't actually know or understand English but took the songs with a deadly seriousness, and had to get every word just right. I've never seen a woman so concentrated while singing “Have a very merry Christmas” – every word clearly took serious effort.
Speaking Christmas music – it’s everywhere! They love everything Christmas here; there's a giant gingerbread chapel in the lobby of the hotel in Dalat (with a rooster topping it off instead of a cross) and fake snow, Christmas trees, and lights all over HCMC. Apparently it's the one part of American culture that won the Vietnam War.
The next day we met our companions. We had plenty of time to get to know them as our flight was seriously delayed – something apparently not uncommon. Anyways, about our co-travelers – I'd just like to say a few words about these people. They're ridiculous. Seriously. I was chatting with the guy sitting next to me at (a delicious) lunch and asked him why his family had recently moved from Boston to California:
Him - "Oh, we bought a baseball team."
Me - "Keeping in mind I know nothing about baseball, would it be anyone I'd heard of?"
Him - "The Dodgers"
Me - "Oh… oh… well… yes. I've heard of them."
Seriously. Ridiculous.
(I also learned about the changing business models in television from the former executive producer of the Rosie O’Donnell show. He does the Ellen DeGenerris show now, among other things. Want to know why you never see sitcoms these days? It’s actually pretty interesting.)
Dalat was temporarily the French capital of Vietnam, and sits on the plateaus at 1600m (about the same as Denver/Boulder – shout out to Ms. Roessler). The city didn't exist until the French built it to escape the coastal heat, and because the volcanic soil was so good for growing veggies. And that's all you really need to know about it – French veggies. The whole city is just fields of veggies growing behind houses built in the French colonial style. Of course those are just the new homes; if the homes are a little older, they're sagging structures made out of sheet and scrap metal. While the obvious poverty of the older homes is sad, they're clearly being rapidly replaced by these beautiful mini French villas done up in bright pastels. (One of the pictures I wanted to put up here was a scene I'd see everywhere – the shack next to the beautiful three story home – these homes were clearly not just for the rich either). This whole country is amazing in how fast it's transitioning from abject poverty (in 1994) to comparative wealth. Very cool.
(A lot of this also comes from my biking in and around the town. I got to see a lot of the rural areas and the terraced farms. I also got to bike up lots of fun hills. I’m in terrible shape.)
Our hotel was (unsurprisingly) French. It’s based out of is a three story hotel built in 1913, one of the first three buildings in the whole city. It apparently runs a pageant every Christmas Eve where they bring in orphans from the surrounding area to sing and receive presents. Now I’m all for supporting orphans, and the kids were obviously excited about Christmas which was awesome, but the scene was more sad than heartwarming. Picture about 30 kids wearing jeans and T-Shirts singing in a central lobby to a bunch of dressed up rich Westerners lining the lobby and looking down at them from the levels above. I left in disgust after the Santa that arrived spoke English – imagine ‘meeting Santa’, only to find out that he, like the rich folks around you, is white and speaks English. Imagine sitting on Santa’s lap to tell him what you want through an interpreter. Oh well… the kids still seemed happy.
Merry Christmas from Dalat
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