Room with a View.
I received an email from an old family friend living in Vietnam asking how I would feel about a southeastern Asian vacation. I liked the idea! The great Bulgarian adventure gave me all the confidence I needed. Also, I knew Tom since I was a little boy. He was a three tour Vietnam Veteran. He had always wanted to revisit Vietnam and in 2004 he went back. He decided to stay. Tom invited me to come see him in July, 2005. A few weeks later I Arrived in Saigon, now officially renamed Ho Chi Minh City. I learned a lot more about barriers in Vietnam. It is not what we would call “handicapped accessible”. The people however made the difference. Whatever help I needed bystanders gave me, and many times they did so without even being asked. I have always heard about how Asian people shunned the handicapped. My experience was the complete opposite. I don't think what I heard was completely untrue. I know a large part of how I was treated was because they perceived me as a rich Westerner. During this first trip, I received at least three marriage proposals. Two of the ladies were pretty cute and the third I think was old enough to be my grandmother. No thanks. Vietnam turned out to be more challenging than Bulgaria.
Getting Our Food On.
The trip getting
to Vietnam is much longer than going to Bulgaria. From when I left my house here in Greensboro, to the small
hotel in Ho Chi Minh City took about 28 hours. By the time I got there, I wasn't quite sure of my name or
even what day it really was. If
Bulgaria was a different culture, Vietnam may as well have been another world
altogether. I sure was glad to see
Tom and his entourage of Montyards and Vietnamese at the airport. We squeezed into a taxi and headed to the
hotel. Even traffic is different
there. Most people get around on
bikes and scooters, rain or shine.
There are thousands of them mixed in among cars, buses and trucks. All the way to the hotel I kept
thinking we were going to hit one of the scooter riders. The other big
difference is the use of horns. Here, we use horns to sometimes help avoid
accidents but more often when someone pisses us off. The horn is usually
followed by gestures ad shouts to make the other aware of our displeasure. The
horn has an all together different role in Vietnam. There it serves much the
same purpose as a sonar. The horn lets others know where you are. Honking the
horn every minute or so lets the slower riding scooters and bikes to move over.
It also alerts drivers to others in their blind spot. It is loud and busy. One
nice thing is there are no worries about winding up in a shoot out over being
cut off. The whole mentality is different. It is not an all out free for all
competition. People are simply trying to get where they are going. Owning a gun
there and getting caught means a nice long prison sentence. I don’t think they
have any interest in owning guns. The streets seem bust and chaotic but
completely lack the fear factor we have grown accustomed to here in America. I
had the added advantage of having a local guide who had local friends.
Jungle.
*** Tom had
already scouted for a good hotel that I could get in and out of pretty
easy. When we got there we had a
few Heineken's and talked for an hour or two. It was midnight there but my body was saying it is noon. It
had a surreal dreamlike quality to it. It took me a few days to get my sleep
right and know for sure the day of the week. The time difference from where I
live is 12 hours and that take some time to adjust to. The diet is also very
different but not as much as one might think. I usually ate eggs and toast for
breakfast and similar food to what we eat here for lunch and dinner, assuming a
healthy diet. I cannot use chopsticks and brought my own silver. It turned out
I did not need to bring my own. Every place I went had silverware just for the
asking. The hotel was easy to adapt to. On this trip, I got many more
opportunities to learn how to get by in new places.
Meeting Uncle Ho.
No comments:
Post a Comment