Nha Trang & Ho Chi Minh City

So many things to see, so many things to do, so little time to write a blog post. Many things combined into one this time...

Nha Trang:
Another long bus ride from Hoi An to get me to Nha Trang, where I wanted to spend one night as a lay-over on my way to Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon). On getting out of the bus I bumped into a German lady with whom I spent the two days I was in Nha Trang. It's safe to say that this was my least favorite place so far. If you're into fat Russans, this will be your paradise, but since I'm not interested in this type of whale, being surrounded by them constantly sort of gets annoying. So did my travel companion to be honest. I know I can be a complainer, but this woman made me seem the most laid back non-complainer in the world. Not to say that she wasn't nice, because she really was, but she just had such a negative attitude about things that it started to get on my nerves, and I didn't mind that I would be travelling on to HCMC by myself after those two days.

Before Nha Trang sounds like a total shit-hole, I have to mention the spa we went to on our second day there. They had natural mudbaths and hot springs and I enjoyed my first ever professional massage. 45 min of heaven, though the lady did start walking on me, and at one point she cracked my neck so unexpectedly that I hoped she wouldn't paralyse me :P.

Another reason to get out of Nha Trang was one of my dormmates. So far every dorm I've been in has been totally fine, but this guy was just a complete and utter weirdo. When we came into the room the first time he was sitting on his bed with his laptop. When we came back at the end of the day, he was sitting on his bed with his laptop. When we came back from breakfast the next morning, he was sitting on his bed, with you guessed it, his laptop. In all this time he had not spoken a word to us or replied to any of our questions; from a simple hello or what's your name...nothing. I asked around and apparently he had been in the hostel for a month doing...well who knows what on that laptop of his. But he was actuallly capable of speaking...I found this out when I went up to the room and left the door open while I was looking for something in my locker. All of a sudden I hear: "Can you close the door please?". The fact that this meant he had been rudely ignoring us the whole time angered me so much I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine and did not reply to his question. He repeated the question so this time I turned to him and said: "So you do speak English"...He then got up to close the door himself and told me that this was not necessary. That got me from angry to fuming, so I told him that this is not how the world works. You can't be the personification of rudeness but expect people to do things for you. Secretly I'm glad I checked out that day, because with a weirdo like that you never know...maybe he would have killed me in my sleep :P.

HCMC:
The sleeper bus to HCMC was pretty smooth, but when I arrived there I experienced my first scam. Because I was so incredibly tired I decided to take a cab to the hostel. Within minutes of getting in, however, I realized the meter was riggged and I told the guy the amount was already too much and I wasn't going to pay more than that. He just nodded his head and told me the destination was only 2 minutes farther. When we got there, however, he pretended not to know any more English and he wanted me to pay the full ridiculous amount on the meter. I tried to argue with him for a good 10 minutes, but realized he had locked me into the cab. Basically it came down to me having to pay or being locked in the taxi. I wasn't exactly scared, but I did realize this was not the safest situation to be in, so I paid the amount, told him he was a bad man, and got the hell out of there. Not the best way to start out my time in HCMC. It was actually my first low point. I was so upset that for the first time I felt a little bit alone. I allowed myself to wallow in self-pity for a while, but finally dragged myself out of my hostel and met up with my friends from Ole Miss who live here. It was only for an hour, because they were leaving that day for Malaysia, but it was something and it made me feel a little better. The rest of the day I took it slow, had a drink and booked a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels for the next day.

Had to get up early the following morning for the tunnel trip. It was very interesting to see the Vietnamese war tactics. And especially the tunnels of course, which they just walked through bent over in a 90 degree angle, but in which I had to crouch and crawl just to be able to get through...certainly not built for tall Dutch people. After the Cu Chi tunnel trip they dropped us off at the War Remnants Museum, which was quite overwhelming. Some of the pictures shown were horrific to say the least. Of course the whole building was one big source of propaganda, but that didn't make the attrocities committed by the Americans any less ridiculous. I have to admit that I know very little about this war. Being here has certainly sparked my interest. I didn't know, for example, the extent to which the Americans used Orange and Dioxin gas and how it is still having an effect on people here today. The museum had multiple rooms filled with pictures of deformed men, women and children. It was heartbreaking to see.

In the evening I was feeling a little down; all my dormmates had checked out and I thought it was going to be a lonely X-mas Eve for me. Luckily I ran into Bryden, a New Zealander, in the lobby and he invited me along with him and his friends. We had a great time and lo and behold, as we were sitting at one of the road-side bars, Roger, the Dutch guy I met on my Halong Bay tour walked by. He joined us, it was his birthday, we ended up in some Asian danceclub, we were all having a good time, and in the morning I wasn't so fit as I usually am... ;)

The day after that I went for a walk to the Reunification Palace and at night met up with Roger for some beers. Of course I had too little sleep again that night, so the next day Roger and I met up again and all we did the whole day was move from restaurant to restaurant, eat, drink, and play cards. At night I had to ditch him to meet up with my friend Andrea, also from Rotterdam, who turned out be in HCMC with her family. They took me out for dinner, for which I'm very grateful.

The past two days I spent on the Mekong Delta. But more about that later...