Vietnam Day 4 (6/11/09)

I feel I must apologize in advance if this is written in even worse form than my usual postings. You see, I'm currently writing from a rather uncomfortable reclining seat on a night bus (but more on that later).

This morning we got up and since I was the only one who was hungry, we just went to the indoor cafe (called the Canteen) next to the guest house, which we'd never tried before. Our first big problem came early in the program - there were no menus, excluding our favored system of ordering by pointing at our selections and smiling (occassionally throwing in our limited Vietnamese vocabulary by indicating a number or saying thank you). Everone else just wanted cafe sua da (which I can't spell but can pronounce reasonably well), but of course I had to complicate things by demanding a hot drip coffee which none of us knew how to say. Van sometimes has trouble communicating with people here because he speaks the northern dialect of Vietnamese, but he did his best and after a few almost mishaps, everything worked out perfectly and we all got exactly what we ordered. Despite Van's triumph, it came at some expense to his blood pressure, so we decided to stick with our much beloved outdoor cafe from now on.

After coffee, we headed to Vietnamese language survival class. It turned out to be vastly entertaining, though I'm glad I at least learned basic numbers before leaving the states. Our instructor taught us the process for saying all the numbers up through the millions. He went around the room making us translate bigger and bigger numbers, finally reaching 555,175,682 which at this point in time takes us about fifteen minutes to say (forgive the hyperbole, but it really did take a long time for just a number). I'm getting a little better at the pronunciation though I still need some more work. At the very least the classes are providing the ladies at the desk (who give us our room keys every day) with some extra entertainment as we practice our numbers by telling them which room we're each in. For lunch we went to Pho 24, a chain listed in the guide books as the best pho in the city. It was bland and disappointing to say the least. We soon came to the conclusion that the writers of the guide books only said that because it's too hard to bick the best little street pho (my favorite so far is the little place down the side-street near the guest house where we ate with Rylan the first day). Afterwards we went to the Ben Thanh Market, one of the biggest and most famous in the city, but also the most touristy and expensive. It was completely overwhelming. It was essentially an open-air market but with a roof topped with a large clock tower. There were tiny corridors lined with booths seperated by fabric partitions. Each one has multiple tables packed with little artistic pieces, jewelry, or electronics, racks lined with cloths ranging from soccer jerseys to sequined dresses, not to mention the glass cases filled with tiaras and headbands. In the middle of the mass was the food, with fruit vendors on the floor with their baskets surrounding an eating bar serving pho and other soups. The vendors didn't speak much English, but the words I heard most often were "beautiful" and "buy." One of the women was especially pushy, tapping each of us on the arm with her paper fan as we passed, beckoning us to her stand. We'd planned not to buy anything at this market because it was so touristy, but I needed a good backpack for hiking in Africa next fall and they were just so much cheaper than they are in the U.S. that I couldn't pass it up. At the first stand we tried, the woman said the price was fixed, despite our best efforts to bargain. Our next strategy was to pretend to walk away in the hope that she would call us back and agree to deal. However, we found ourselves walking on to the next stand without protest. There we were able to bargain for a very nice Northface bag (which I think might actually be real, but is in good shape either way) down from 260,000 dong to 250,000 dong (that's about $12 U.S. for a pack that would normally cost over $100). Our Vietnamese roommates were rather disappointed with me for paying so much, but I don't think anyone was ever going to give foreigners a better deal. We walked out fo the main market to some truly open-air booths on side streets. Here we found the most persistent sailsmen in the world - the vendors selling sunglasses. Their product is so mobile that they can literally follow you down the street with racks of sunglasses hanging from their necks. We tried everything to wave them off until finally giving up and accepting them as our new Vietnamese walking buddies. By this time, the girls had their cameras out and the boys were up ahead, trying to avoid looking touristy by association. I found it hard to take out my camera for very long. I didn't want to be so busy recording memories that I didn't make any. However, I love pictures and still want to take a lot, but I have trouble determining waht and who it's appropriate to photograph. I guess that judgement will come with time. After we were done with the market, we decided to find an ice cream parlor called Fanny's. After some precarious street crossings, our map reading skills prevailed and led us to a rather Westernized little bistro. It had pink light fixtures, Parisian style patio chairs inside, a bookcase full of French police thrillers for patrons to read, waitresses wearing pink 60's-like sodashop dresses as uniforms, and U2 was playing in the background. Among these Western items however, we found some unique ice cream flavors: ginger, rice, coconut, and of course durian. Now, I still haven't tried real durian, but this ice cream was a step in the right direction. I really did like it. I didn't love it, but I liked it, which is more than I can say for anyone else. Kendra, as we already knew, loves it, but everyone else tried in in succession, the reactions getting progressively worse. Everone except me nearly gagged on it (while I amused myself by photographing their disgust). On the way out, we saw a Hindu temple across the street and I wanted to go in but some people felt uncomfortable with it, so Molly and I made plans to go back later. It was fascinating to look at - the roof had statues of Hindu gods while cow statues and intensely colorful strings of lights adorned the inside.

Tonight, Van Anh and I left for Ninh Thuan by overnight bus. The bus is something of a sleeper-car with reclining seats and a headrest elevated by the little cubby hole mean for the feet of the passenger behind you. I've only just discovered that this could be problematic since I may be too tal to fit the "bed" - now I know how my 6'4'' Dad feels all the time (I have no idea what he'd do here). I've never been gawked at so much in my life as I have on this bus. I don't think tourists ride this bus because people keep turning around to see what I'm doing. The guy in front of me blatantly turned around in his seat and did nothing but stare at me for ten to fifteen minutes. Seriously, he hardly took his eyes off me. If everone on the bus wasn't too tired to stay awake any longer, I'd probably still be in the fishbowl.