IKEA SPONGY FURNITURE COMPANY

We flew from Hoi An (well, Danang) to Saigon on the 4th. Good old Pacific Air (or Specific Air, as we renamed it) was delayed again. I don't know why we thought it would be any different this time. The funny thing that we noticed about this airport (and I'm sure this is true of public places in general it was just illuminated here) is that in a nearly empty section of seats someone will sit directly next to you. For me and Jessica it was reminiscent of going to a movie in Florida where, in an empty cinema, a senior citizen will sit in the seat right next to you. First someone sat down next to Kip's mom when there were literally a hundred places she could have sat and not been near ANYONE.

Notice the seats all around this individual. Even right in front of her is a row of empty chairs...

Our two nights and one day in Saigon were functional. We booked bus tickets to Phnom Penh and spent the majority of the afternoon in Bobby Brewer's watching one terrible movie (Game Plan) and one exceptional one (Things We Lost in the Fire).

Bright and early we boarded the bus for the Mochbai/Bavet border crossing. Prepared for the worst we were nothing but pleased. It took all of half an hour. At no time did we even have to wait in the sun, which is unheard of. Also, Jessica received a lovely marriage proposal from the visa issuing agent.

In the morning we said our goodbyes to Kip and Rosemarie. They were on to the majesty of Angkor. We were heading south to the beaches of Sihanoukville. In the bus on the way here we passed the IKEA SPONGY FURNITURE COMPANY. And just the day before Jessica had assured Kip's Mum that there were no IKEAs in Cambodia.

Sihanoukville has really blossomed since I was here last. There are about five times the restaurant shacks lining the Ochheuteal beach and at night the sands shake with the beats of a hundred stereos. It is still a beautiful place and I'm finding it relaxing if not peaceful. Planning to be here for a few days more...

Please explain this item to me.

Da Lat was a bust. Heralded as the Paris of Vietnam, it was like a cheap Disney version of a generic European city. There was a distinctly European feel through the hilly and tree-shaded streets, along the stone stacked walls, the open markets, the terraced buildings but the details were not there. Aside the river is a radio tower made to look a small version of the Eiffel tower. Cheesy.

We stayed two nights but started planning our escape rather quickly. Kip was arriving into Hoi An and to meet her there we needed to take two buses over the course of 24 hours. The first bus was from Da Lat to Nha Trang and carried only four passengers. In Nha Trang it was drizzling so our plans to spend the day by the ocean were drowned. We ate lunch at a place called Cheers Cafe and went back to the hotel to watch Jurassic Park while waiting for the bus.

I knew it was going to be an unhappy event, this overnight bus, so I was glad to have two seats to myself. The rain started late in the evening and continued to alternate between a light mist and a torrential downpour all night. Water poured in through cracks around the window, making it difficult to find a dry place to sit. As the morning began to brighten the surroundings the amount of accumulated water was astounding. Fields were flooded enough to make them look like wide coves. Homes were flooded several feet high in places. The water rushed over the road and turned it into a river, causing us to swerve occasionally. A sixteen wheeler was overturned in our path and caused a brief delay.

The rain continued until the MOMENT we got off the bus in Hoi An. Then the sun broke through the clouds as we set off to find a hotel. There have been several more serious storms since we arrived. Sometimes at night the sounds of wind and water seem to be bringing the building down. The ceiling in our bathroom is constantly dripping like a cave.

It is fantastic to see Kip in Asia again. It's wonderful that she's here, because it saves me from having to buy insane things (which are appropriate gifts only for her) like this:

(will resist urge to enter willy nelson lyrics here)

It is nearly impossible for my body to accept that it is sitting in an internet cafe in Saigon. The humid air is heavy on my skin.

We left New York smoothly, though the ticketing agent at JFK was hesitant to print our boarding passes due to our lack of itinerary or return ticket. Because of the one way ticket we were chosen for what she called "super duper security screening". Basically this meant that we skipped ahead of everyone waiting to pass security to go to a private line where our bags were merely scanned (not unpacked and dissected) while our bodies were given a brief and unobtrusive pat down. It took about two minutes. I have a new found adoration for JFK.

The flight to Tokyo was 14 hours. After three hours of examining various airport convenience store treats we were on to Saigon. A quiet boy waved a sign with my name on it as we exited the terminal and drove us silently through the still heavily trafficked streets to our dark hotel. Though we had been travelling for more than a day it was hard to drift to sleep and MTV pulsed in the background as I finally managed to fall.

We are leaving the city as soon as possible. I need tranquility and hopefully will find it in Da Lat, where we head tomorrow.

that palm tree is in a "no parking" zone

I can't believe we spent ten days in Hoi An. It has to be the most comfortable town in the country. On the river it is possible to be mesmerized and caressed by the cooling breeze for hours. Beware! The restaurants are some of the best in the country and most are sinfully cheap. I have lots of fantastic recipes brewing in my mind, like daydreams of our idyllic stay.

My Son was average. (I'm so spoiled by Angkor!) We were disheartened by the dishonest tour guide who stole thousands of dong from our bus by insisting that no one could buy their own tickets, buying an insufficient amount of them and pocketing the remaining funds. The guards counted the tickets and the people frantically as the guide hurried us through the entrance. When the guard pointed out that the ticket/person ratio was off the guide insisted some of us weren't even in his tour! C'est la Vietnam! The complex was destroyed by the Americans during the war and while I'm sure it was once magnificent, now it is literally just a pile of red bricks which makes the whole scene look like a collection of colonial buildings fell down.

We returned down the Hoi An river by boat while enjoying a bizarre lunch of cold, sticky rice covered in fat sugar crystals and peanuts.

On the 10th we woke up at 5:30 and rode bikes to Cao Dai beach (part of China beach). We splashed around in the temperate ocean and laid on the bleached sand for hours. The experience was everything you could want from a day at the beach. Long fishing boats trolled the waters a short distance out, the waves teased and tossed us, the air was dry and hot, the only sound was the strong pull of the tide's retreat. It was blissful and we were only approached once by a woman selling fruit. We packed up and rode off when a girl told us we couldn't leave our bikes padlocked to a palm tree on the sand any longer.

Even after such a long stay it was hard to leave.

Our flight last night was a half hour late arriving from Hanoi and an hour late departing for Saigon. As we waited for a boarding call feisty rats scurried around the displays of Pringles and Oreos. Though it was a mostly empty plane they had seated every passenger in a large clump, three to a row in the center of the aircraft. When the service cart came down the aisle our row was totally ignored. Pacific Airlines: Just so you know, you're in Vietnam.

We arrived at the hotel around midnight. The walls in our room were completely covered in ants this morning, which was awesome. Also, the bathroom door fell off and hit Jessica in the head. And the TV doesn't have any sound. So we kindly suggested that we should move rooms and headed out to pick up our plane tickets.

Monday we fly to Tokyo, where our layover is ten hours. Narita is one of my favourite airports and I am seriously looking forward to being "stuck" there. The airline is providing us with a hotel because of the long delay. I have promised Jessica that we can have sushi at the airport because otherwise she will make me eat sushi in Saigon, which does not appeal. Then we are on to New York. My despair is only mollified when I remember who will be waiting for us there...

DO NOT EVER TAKE A LUXURY BUS IN VIETNAM!

You have been warned and I wash my hands of any harm or horror that befalls you for thinking you can handle it.

By the time our "luxury bus" arrived in Ninh Binh it had been filled to capacity with people who boarded in Hanoi. Only 1.5 hours into their trip they all looked ready to smash out the plexi-glass windows and hurl themselves from the moving vehicle. Jessica got a seat next to a Vietnamese man who thought she would make a good elbow rest. I was lucky enough to secure a choice seat in the back row, which did not recline. It did allow me the honour of cradling in my lap for ten hours the head of the man in front of me who felt he needed to recline fully.

Probably the most frustrating part of the whole journey was that the Vietnamese folks on board (the ones with perfectly good seats that reclined and offered access to the small stream of air from the vents) left their seats empty to take up residence in the aisles! But if anyone tried to sit in their seat it would suddenly be "occupied" by the feet of a neighbour.

To add salt to the wound when we arrived in Hue we were told the bus was terminating and we would have to wait in a travel agent's office until the onward bus showed up. So we sat in the darkened office with signs boasting that they "OGRANIZED ROMATIC KAYARKING" trips for almost two hours waiting for the bus. It was bound for Hoi An, but we were stopping in Lang Co to enjoy a few days on the beach.

Well, the bus didn't even stop in Lang Co. It stopped 3km from any part of Lang Co. A guy with a motorbike said he would bring us to a hotel of his choosing and that we could call him when we wanted to rebook the bus to Hoi An. We decided to be done with this Trekking Travel bus company sooner rather than later. I tossed our bags back under the bus and we rode on to Hoi An.

It's been five days now and I am really glad we came straight to Hoi An. We bargained our hotel down so low that they give us evil stares when we go up for the free breakfast, or to use the free pool, or to get on the free computers. Soon we plan to make use of their free bicycles, BWAHAHAHAHAHA! We emptied our backpacks completely (NOW THAT'S LUXURY) and have been extremely lackadaisical about our daily activities. They consist of strolling by the river, exploring the old town streets, visiting cloth shops to arrange for tailor made clothes and eating local delicacies.

Tomorrow we are doing something that can actually be considered cultural, visiting the My Son temples nearby.

There's One in Every Country

Okay. We grabbed our gear early in the morning and headed out to catch a bus to somewhere. When we checked out of our strange guesthouse they charged us $2 a night LESS than we were originally told. Very Un-Vietnam.

We wandered the misty streets heading for a random street corner where we had been told (by the Vietnamese Tony Soprano the night before) the bus for Lai Chau picked up passengers. When we got there a bus waited with a sign for Son La. As I remembered it our itinerary should have gone:

Lai Chau for one night,
Dien Bien Phu for one night,
Son La for one night
and then on to Hanoi.

This route was necessary because of the distance and condition of the roads between all these towns. But seeing the possibility of a bus straight to Son La was kind of intriguing. After seeing a bus for Dien Bien Phu pull up, bursting with passengers, rice bags and chickens, we decided to take a chance and hop of the bus marked "Son La". No one on that bus spoke English so we couldn't really verify where we were going or how long it would take but we felt energized and ready for an adventure. The one thing we could ascertain, via Jessica's calculator, was that it would cost us significantly less than our hotelier wanted to charge for half the distance.

After about fifteen minutes up a winding, dirt road we came to a stop behind twenty other cars and buses. There was a landslide up ahead. Two bulldozers and a backhoe were trying to push some red earth around so we could pass. But in the meantime a small celebration had begun. People poured out of their minibuses and cars to chat. Women had set up small grills where they roasted sweet potatoes, eggs, water chestnuts and bamboo. Jessica made a few friends, had some tea, had her photo taken with a dozen guys and got a present. I went up ahead to take photos of the "construction".


About an hour later we were off. It was a truly spectacular ride. Limestone mountains, waterfalls, misting valleys, rice terraces, banana trees stretching out for miles, thai stilt houses, temples on distant hills. Our passengers changed frequently. The driver would honk wildly as we passed anyone on the side of the road. Sometimes they would grab a bag and jump on with the bus still moving, sometimes they would wave us past. Children would shout "hello!" and run up to the window to wave. Water buffalo, dogs and ducks would wander into our path and the swerving and honking would increase. Sometimes the sky would darken and open up to pelt us with heavy rain drops and our backseat would flood.

It was an awesome ride.

It started to get dark as we crossed into Son La. Everyone kept asking us "which hotel?" but we just wanted to go to the bus station to look up schedules to Hanoi. The bus slowed just before we reached the station and a woman and man jumped on shouting "hotels? sleep? hanoi?". We rolled to a stop inside the station walls and I spotted a sign in a bus for Ninh Binh. That had been our next destination and we had assumed there would be a grueling journey through Hanoi, but there it was in eight gorgeous letters! I checked the schedule inside as the woman determinedly grabbed my pack and called "hotel, hotel" repeatedly. I ran to catch up and she showed us across the street.

Our guidebook had mentioned that many of the hotels in Son La doubled as brothels, but with night falling and the bus station so conveniently close (for our 5am departure) we couldn't really argue or go searching for alternatives. The sweetest woman led us up past the rooms with curtains instead of doors to what must have been her nicest suite (with a wooden door: BONUS). It had a balcony and lacey canopies plus a Spice Girls nightstand. We went out for a quick dinner at a local Com Pho and crashed.


I set the alarm for 4:30 and we were up and motivated. Jessica showered first, but we kept the lights off in the main room because we feared you could see in through the tinted glass windows which lacked curtains. I guess this made the prositute left in charge of us think we were still asleep and she tried to wake us up several times by banging and shouting at the door. When we were dressed we opened the door to her. She came in and got excited about us missing the bus, standing there as we finished packing. Then we were escorted to the bus station in darkness, where someone else took over escorting us to the ticket window, where someone else took over escorting us to the bus, where someone else took over showing us to our seats.

I guess they don't get a lot of tourists in Son La...

We've spent our two days in Ninh Binh well. It was mercifully good weather. Yesterday we took a local bus to Phat Diem to visit the town's cathedral. It's strange how many catholics there are in Vietnam. The Vietnamese Buddhists just do not get it and come to gawk. In the cathedral in Phat Diem (a working church, with daily service) some guy jumped the gate and climbed into the pulpit shouting excitedly for someone to take a photo!

Today we rode on the back of motorbikes to the Cuc Phuong National Park. They have a rescue center there and care for many endangered species of primate. We also did a 7km loop walk completely uphill (or so it felt)! Absolutely beautiful jungle and worth the hike. On the way back to Ninh Binh we took back roads which were stunning. Our drivers stopped to show us the gear of the local fisherman. They had two long poles that I thought were regular fishing poles until they touched them together. An electric shock spit sparks into the street. They shock the fish in the water and then just collect the startled creatures into wooden baskets! Keeps them fresh I guess...

Now we are exhausted and about to hop on a "luxury bus" (God, help us) to Lang Co Beach.

Road to Nowhere

Sa Pa is truly like heaven. Our room has a tremendous view which is lucky, because when I first saw the balcony I could barely see my hand in front of my face through the thick fog. Yesterday the mist rolled back as though the mountains were taking a breath. The low clouds are inhaled and exhaled all day long. Walking down a clear road you can see the mist sneak in from side streets or descend from rooftops.

We have explored the small streets, long stone steps, colourful markets, ruined churches. The H'mong village women follow us wherever we walk and try to sell us painfully beautiful and intricately embroidered blankets, pillow cases and clothing. We walked the 3km down to the Black Thai village of Cat Cat. The road allows views of the valley; a lace work of rice terraces and farm land. Entering the village we stepped down hundreds of rocky steps to a rickety wooden bridge and a waterfall.

It's hard to think about leaving but this is the start of a five day national holiday and we need to plan our escape. We asked our hotelier, a really bizarre guy, to find out about a bus to Lai Chau or Dien Bien Phu. We had a wealth of vague information about our options, but would have paid a bit extra for some confirmation and guidance. After he made some calls he came to our room, let himself in and creepily closed the door behind him. In hushed tones, he explained that the bus to Lai Chau is normally 105,000 dong but because of the holiday it would be 135,000 plus a 10,000 dong commission for his services. The bus to Lai Chau should cost 50,000 dong so we smiled and encouraged him with negativity to leave.

SO, tomorrow we are catching a bus somewhere. We have information that some buses leave from in front of a petrol station we were unable to find going to an undetermined location for an undisclosed price leaving at an hour between 7:30 and 16:30.

Why Are You So Late?

After a series of non eventful bus rides we reached the Friendship Pass border between China and Vietnam. It was dark and empty as we had arrived there at closing time. A guard asked "Why are you so late?" but still, mercifully, stamped us out of China. We walked in complete darkness (could they not spring for ONE streetlamp?) across the Friendship Pass to the Vietnamese border. This guard was not pleased to see us but took the time to call a buddy with a "taxi". We were driven from the border to Lang Son, where it was too late to catch a minibus to Hanoi but also where I did not want to spend any extended period. Border towns have bad reputations... The driver called someone who spoke better English and I negotiated with him on a fare to drive us all the way to Hanoi. It was a clear, dark night and as we navigated the narrow roads we passed hundreds of young people dressed in brilliant white tops seemingly just hanging out on the treacherous highway.

Our driver had apparently never been to Hanoi and had to call someone to meet us when we crossed the city limits. He pulled over on a road choking with motorbikes to look for his guides. (He's looking for two Vietnamese guys in dress shirts on a motorbike. Can you say needle in a haystack?) They arrived about 30 minutes later and we set off to find the Old Quarter. About two minutes into the trip we lost them at a busy intersection. That's when the screaming started. He drove down a deserted street, made a U-turn, called them back and let them have it. He pulled over and jumped out into the street, yelling at no one. They found us and we set off again, snaking our way through clogged roadways until we hit the lake.

Hanoi at 23:00 on a weekend is not a great time to find accommodation. Some streets were full of speeding motorbikes and minibuses, honking wildly at each other. Others were pedestrianized and set up with market stalls selling everything from playing cards to chicken feet. Most hotels were full, but we were led to one with an opening and crashed.

We spent two days and a night cruising around Halong Bay on a junk. It was very much like Ang Thong in Thailand; limestone mountains rising out of the sea, caves to explore, a multitude of birds scavenging, fisherman nestled in coves pulling nets. There were small bedrooms on the bottom deck, complete with bathroom which felt quite a luxury on a two star boat!

When we got back to Hanoi the rain began and steadily fell as we made our way to the train station. We were taking an overnight train to Lao Cai, heading for Sa Pa. We studied our tickets as best we could in the downpour and hopped on the first carriage. Our cabin was number 11, but we planned to walk the length of the train inside rather than risk falling on the slippery walkway outside. Several times we came to a locked door and were ushered back outside. By the time we found our cabin we were completely soaked. Our hard sleeper berths had no blankets so we pulled off the wet clothes we could discreetly part with and tried to bundle up for a chilly night.

In Lao Cai we hopped on a minibus bound for Sa Pa and enjoyed what must be one of the most gorgeous rides in the world. Sa Pa is a dream.