Vietnam

The high and low points of the last few days.....

Nha Trang

We spent the rest of the time scuba diving, snorkeling, getting foot massages on the beach and eating some of the best sea food ever; lobster, clams, muscles, oysters, prawns, all fresh and fantastic! Second to the cheese plate at Ooh la in San Francisco, the oysters cooked with a quail egg was one of the best food combinations I have ever had.

Hoi An

Hoi An is a cute little colonial town on the coast of Vietnam. There is one tailor shop per person living there. If you are looking for an affordable wardrobe and/or closet full of new shoes, Hoi An is your place.

Walking through the fishing village, we met Sung and his father who demonstrated fishing with a giant net they would raise from the water with a large wheel. It was fascinating to watch them work and talk with their family.

We had one of the best Indian meals I've had, but it let to severe food poisoning. Combined with sleeping on a rock bed, the overall experience was not the best. It has taken 4 days to be able to think about eating anything besides french fries. Why are they so good?

Hanoi

We chose Hanoi as a launch point for Halong Bay. Due to the Typhoon, we were unable to reach Halong Bay, but enjoyed the diversity of the City and the comfy beds we used for our recovery. Hanoi is a large city with affluent homes surrounding a deteriorated and congested core. There is cat on the menu for breakfast (I know it's sick to say, but, finally someone found a good use for them) and Dog for dinner. 'Dog Meat Restaurant Area' is a 1-kilometer stretch of road with over 60 restaurants that serve up man's best friend as the main course. This is sad. To avoid bad luck, the Vietnamese avoid eating dog in the first half of the lunar month. I've got to believe that eating dog in the first place is bad luck.

The traffic in Hanoi rivals Ho Chi Minh City. The unwritten rule of driving is, the bigger vehicle gets the right of way and pedestrians better run. Lonely Planet compares crossing the street in Hanoi to parting the Red Sea. I have not attempted the later, but feel I may be ready based on this experience. Since the horror stories of near death traffic conditions never get old (right?), I would like to introduce a new, exceptionally psychotic, breed of taxi driver discovered in Hanoi: the driver who's horn honks continuously with one tap. I am not referring to the wussie drivers who play a tune with their horn, I mean actual honking, non stop. One tap. Twenty plus honks. This driver has his own set of road rules and is a raving lunatic. This driver....

- will not stop the horn, even when no one else is around.

- will not stop for red lights. Instead, goes around the law abiding drivers and through the intersection like there is no one else on the road.

- has no respect for larger vehicles. He will take a bus head on, traveling on the wrong side of the road.

- will probably hit you if you are in a car and will definitely it you on a motorbike or bicycle if you don't get the hell out of the way.

Colleen couldn't watch. I had to. It was awesome.

We are alive!!!

What a day. We woke up to the sound of hundreds of horns honking, at nothing, this morning at 6am. Thank goodness for earplugs. Those suckers really work. We headed to the coconut-lined beach and rented a couple of chairs and relaxed. For lunch, a Vietnamese lady cooked us lobster and prawns on the beach and it was fantastic. Then Colleen had the brilliant idea to rent scooters and take them to the Phat Ba Mud Baths.

We rented the scooters from our hotel. I had never ridden one, so when they handed it to me with no instruction, I was quite shocked. I found out it's not that hard once you get it started. Give it some gas and hope for the best. We were off. With no gas. We were served up with empty tanks and pointed in the direction of what we supposed for quite sometime to be a phantom gas station. On fumes, we found it. Of course, this was my first stop, so I cruised in dragging my flip-flops like they were the added traction I needed to navigate myself to a complete stop. They guys at the gas station laughed at me for a good two or three minutes. The traffic in Nha Trang is extremely mild compared to Ho Chi Minh City, but it's still Vietnam and no traffic laws apply. We started our journey going straight and that was pretty good. I didn't even need my horn for the first few kilometers. Until the traffic light. The traffic lights have a countdown, so when the number gets to 3-2......we're off. Everyone is in a big group and starts motoring. This was my first cut off; a guy to my immediate right decided to turn left in front of me. I cleared him and made my first honk of a true Asian staple, the horn. We kept missing the turn to the mud baths so we were going back and forth down a pretty big road. Of course to turn around we had to do a u-turn in the middle of the road. It's pretty scary, but there is some organized chaos, unwritten rules and polite courtesies that apply: as previously mentioned, he who honks the loudest, longest and does not flinch usually gets the right of way; he who is on a track that cannot be changed usually gets the right of way; and you had better hold on for dear life. After clearing the street a few times going back and forth, we hired someone to show us the road. I was relieved for a short period of time when we headed down a small dirt road with little traffic. My bliss was short-lived when I found myself battling potholes and dogs. At this point I succumbed to the Asian philosophy of honking at everything; the pedestrians, the dogs, the potholes. It's survival. If you honk, they know you are there and you are determined to keep going. I headed on like Red McCormick from the tractor scene in Footloose, if I wouldn't have been tied to that scooter, I would have jumped. I prevailed and took the right-of-way from those damn dogs. We got there in one piece.

The mud baths were ok. I'm not convinced it isn't a scam as the mud bath seemed a little like dirty water with some silt in it. But it was a nice mental break from scootering. I did not enjoy that tubs filled with Asians in nude color speedos. Which brings me to a topic I had started writing about previously, but never finished: why the speedo should be banned, everywhere. There are many obvious reasons, it shows everything, it is embarrassing for one's significant other and it is down right ugly. However, there are some more subtle reasons I have discovered on my trip, most specifically with the help of one European Gentleman in Krabi:

- There is no reason to be reminded that leg hair does not actually end

- When in a boat, there are often areas where you have to duck down to clear obstacles. If the subject wearing the speedo is standing in those areas it is uncomfortable for everyone.

- If someone is wearing a speedo, they are clearly oblivious to the thoughts of others both in and out of the water. The self-centered speedo wearer is more likely to snorkel around with no concern for the location of others, which makes it highly likely you may run into the subject's speedo while swimming along minding your own business and checking out the fish. Again, uncomfortable for everyone.

- When the subject puts on a t-shirt, he gives the appearance of being a flasher with nothing on but the t-shirt.

- The speedo wedgie.

On the way back from the mud bath we successfully navigated 3-4 roundabouts and/or intersections with 4-way traffic, uninhibited by stop signs, yields signs or streetlights. Each time we cleared one, Colleen would check for me in her rear view mirror and give the thumbs up sign. Yes, we made it!

Living through an Asian motorbike ride: check!