Da Nang, Hoi An, HCMC

 “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

Does a weekend away after two months in Vietnam make me a tourist or a traveler? Or something else? I think I know Vietnam well enough to know where I am, not just in name or on a map, but in meaning and culture, at least more than a casual tourist.
I'm not sure how to tell the story of this weekend. I suppose the best way would be to tell it in order.

The excitement of leaving Ben Tre for the first time since I got here and the fact that the first phase of my travel was done solo filled me with butterflies. Trang got me a bus to HCMC and I was expecting the stereotypical developing country bus ride: one involving sweat, smells, chickens, and someone practically in my lap. Instead, I found myself on a cushy, pleather, air conditioned bus with assigned seating. The two hours were good to me. Outside of Ben Tre, physically and mentally, I was able to reflect on my experiences and my progress. I never feel quite like a local, but feeling like a traveler -- one with improved language skills -- gave me a new energy. I was filled with the breath of adventure.

I arrived in HCMC and took a harrowing xe om (motorcycle taxi, literally 'hugging taxi') to the airport. I have ridden on a motorcycle countless times by now, but HCMC traffic is a creature unto itself. When my driver's need to check his text messages while in motion combined with the perfectly natural tendency to drive head on towards oncoming traffic, I questioned whether it would be worth the $10 or $12 dollars I was saving. I'm alive and I have a story, so I guess it was. I met Kelly (another ETA) at the airport and we waited for our flight. We had both given ourselves an extremely cushioned transportation schedule, so we had about three hours to kill. After having spent the last month being the only foreigners in our towns, it was odd to see so many westerners around us.

Arriving in Da Nang

Our first stop was Da Nang, in central Vietnam. Maria, one of the ETAs teaches in this mountainous, beachy paradise, which also happens to be fifth-most populated city in Vietnam. Three other ETAs had already arrived, and Kelly and I headed to Maria's university to join them. After a few hours of hanging out, though, it was time for them to go to Hoi An, a nearby historic city. We would be headed there the next morning. This eight-hour offset was to recur throughout the trip. So, Lam and Kelly and I stayed in Da Nang. We went to the highly recommended Bread of Life, a restaurant that serves excellent western food, gives all profits to support education for the deaf in central Vietnam, and is entirely staffed by deaf people. When we departed from the hotel there was a light drizzle underway. We debated going back up to our rooms to get ponchos but it wasn't really raining, and it seemed like it would be a fairly short walk. Bad choice. The precipitation gradually escalated to rain; the walk was much longer than expected, and by the time we arrived we were drenched. After trying to towel off with toilet paper and wringing out my clothes in the bathroom, I reemerged, soggy but at least no longer dripping. I indulged in a baked pasta dish, french fries, and a brownie. Hey, I was eating for a good cause, wasn't I? While we were eating, Violet's flight landed, and she joined us at Bread of Life. That night, the four of us shared a spacious room at a nearby hotel, and I reveled in having a mattress and pillows whose shapes actually change when pressure is applied.

Saturday morning we went to the Cham Museum, showcasing sculptures of the Cham people. Since I knew nothing about their existence, let alone their history, it was a fascinating and surprising experience to see intricately carved Hindu gods in central Vietnam.

Ancient coin jar

After lunch and relaxing in a café, we caught a bus to Hoi An. We opted out of the cushy tourist bus, which would have been similar to the one I took to get to HCMC, and instead took a "people's bus." The seats were a little stiffer and the airflow came from the windows, but it was practically as nice. It was a gorgeous, cool, sunny day, and with karsts and blue sky zipping by it felt like the beginning of a great adventure.

On the bus to Hoi An

An hour or so later, we arrived in Hoi An around 130 in the afternoon. My first reaction upon seeing the old town was that we had arrived at a movie set. After five minutes of sightseeing, all of us were ill at ease. We spent a good while trying to figure out what exactly was so off. It could have been the smoothly paved streets, the sidewalks, the fact that there was no trash in sight, the absence of buzzing and honking motorbikes, the presence of more foreigners than locals, the fact that all of the locals spoke better English than at least half of our students, the complete absence of street food, the stereotypically 'Asian' street lamps. I started calling it Disney Vietnam, because that was exactly how it felt. I didn't take many pictures.

Japanese covered bridge

Disney street lamp

Freshly painted ancient temple, Westerners out front

We found a few alleyways to wander that made us feel a little better, and a little before sunset we ended up at a café overlooking the river.

For dinner we met up with the rest of the group and went to our next sanitized stop. I tried to order something that I couldn't compare with food in Ben Tre. This restaurant claimed to offer traditional street food, but it declined to mention that you would be paying quadruple the price and getting half of the flavor. It mostly just made me realize that I'll probably have a hard time enjoying Vietnamese restaurants when I get back to the US, though what I've had there was actually better than what I had at this restaurant. I had a funny moment when I was paralyzed by the prospect of eating this food with silverware. Luckily, chopsticks were also available.

Basic pork and vermicelli

What really struck me about Hoi An was that, for all intents and purposes, our group was taking a vacation from Vietnam while still in Vietnam, but everyone around us was vacationing to Vietnam, or what they thought Vietnam was. A Kiwi couple who sat next to us at dinner told me that Hoi An was their favorite among those they had visited in Vietnam because it "had so much character." I wanted to shake them and cry that this 'character' was a construct for tourists. I later learned that Hoi An's history included a lot of Chinese and Japanese influence, which partially legitimized why so much of it looked like a generically Asian theme park, but still didn't make me rush to embrace it.

Sunday morning, Kelly and Violet and I, who weren't already heading back to our posts, were planning on going to the beach. Unfortunately, the weather had other plans, and it rained grayly all day. We did a few last wanderings in town and ended up getting lunch at that terrace café again, even though the terrace itself was closed due to the rain. We tried some traditional Hoi An cuisine: white rose and Hoi An rice chicken. White rose is, from what I understand, a dumpling-esque dish made with ground shrimp. I have no idea what is in Hoi An rice chicken. My first mouthful tasted like popcorn, but I discovered more subtle flavors of lemon and herbs. Both were quite delicious.

White Rose

Hoi An chicken rice

We walked to a nearby covered market and I got some earrings I had eyed the night before. The saleswoman thought I looked Vietnamese, and when I told her I was American she was still very insistent that I was in fact Vietnamese. I don't know how to talk about more than one person at a time, so when I started to explain my parents' heritage, one parent at a time, she interjected a guess/assertion of 'Vietnamese!' every time I made it through 'My mother is...' and 'My father is...'.

Since we couldn't go to the beach we decided to go back to Da Nang early and hang out there until our 7pm flight back to HCMC. We went to another market to get gifts for our coworkers back at school and did some shopping for ourselves while we were at it.

Just one corner of one floor of this mega-market

The rain was still at it, and my poncho was becoming less and less useful. After a warming meal of pho gà (chicken) we decided to go to the airport early just to not have to trudge around in the rain anymore.

We arrived in HCMC around 830. Our hotel was in the backpacker's district, essentially cheap hotel central, which was lined with bars and restaurants and blaring with American music that was popular about 10-15 years ago. We had planned on having a calm night in, but the lights and music lured us out. After surprisingly good pizza we found a sports bar. To my astonished delight, about 15 minutes after we arrived, they started showing two NFL games. It made my night.

View from our hotel window

All in all, it was a good, bustling escape. I was disappointed that I was so close to the ocean but never got to see it, but that was secondary. The best part of the trip was being with people who are having similar lives as me. We can commiserate about cultural confusion, seek or give advice for personal or professional difficulties; we get it. During orientation we were repeatedly told that our fellow ETAs would be invaluable resources, and this weekend really showed me the extent to which that is true.

This morning I bused back to Ben Tre and it was nice to feel like I was coming home. And home felt pretty good until the mosquito welcoming committee made home feel itchy. Tonight I got bánh bao chiên, aka fried goodness, from the usual vendor on my street. I have visited him many times and my Vietnamese is getting better, so for a while now I have been hoping to have a chat with him. Usually he has many customers so it doesn't happen, but tonight I finally got to introduce myself and explain why I'm here. I'm hoping to get to chat even more in the future as my language skills continue to develop and my appetite for his masterpieces persists.