A) "So in the Ice Hotel, do you sleep on ice?"
B) "yeah, but they give you these suits to wear when you go to sleep"
Me) "...so do they give newlyweds the special Honeymoon Suit?"
You see, the problem with that joke is it makes more punny sense written down versus being said. Suite...Suit...ah, you get it. And you probably think its not very funny, but as 90% of my stupid jokes goes, I don't really care. It must be said. It needed to be said. And yet, as I sat there around a table of strangers here in Mui Ne, Vietnam, I only muttered it. The girl next to me, from Holland, heard me and laughed. Ah, sweet redemption.
I'm in Vietnam. The place where I'm sure at least one of my Uncles was hoping he would never get sent to, I voluntarily went. And I love it. Its such a beautiful country...the mountains of Northern Thailand, the jade green countryside of Laos...all in one place. Saigon, a cacophany of motor horns, the city a gigantic circulatory system with scooters jetting around like tiny red blood cells. To cross the street, you can wait - as the Vietnamese jokes goes, a couple from the countryside came to Saigon to celebrate their honeymoon and were trying to cross the street. Nine months later they crossed with newborn in hand - or you put your faith (and life) into the hands of the locals and just step - slowly - onto the road and walk as slowly and carefully as if you are crossing a tightrope and hope you don't get slammed or run over or thrown about or any other type of calamitous happening. The first few times, it scares the heck out of you. The fifty times after, its like...well, crossing the street.
I stayed in Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City - for only a couple of days, then hopped a flight up to Nha Trang, a beach side resort a couple hours flight northeast of the city. After 3 months of NorthEast Thailand, I was due a little R&R. Did the typical beach side things...laid on the beach, took a nap on the beach, ate fruit on the beach, etc...then on the second day took a boat trip around the bay. Fun, beautiful, nothing really different about it though - except for the passengers. Tourism in Vietnam is different than anywhere else in SE Asia, as citizens are not allowed to leave the country without a passport and very few passports are given out. As a result, they are perhaps the most well travelled tourists within their own country that I have ever seen. Locals from as far away as Hanoi were present. One local told me that in 9 years of driving bike, he'd only given rides to 2 Americans. Its so great to see a country that is thriving - and make no mistake, this country is on the up and up - yet is not catering towards the Western tourist. You got that sense as the boat driver pulled up along a reef and hooked up an electric guitar to lead the group in some sing song Vietnamese songs.
It was all great...but I wanted something a bit different. I remembered that a friend of mine currently travelling through Thailand told me that she took a great trip through Vietnam on an Easy Rider...these are basically motorcycles with a driver who will take you all around the country. So after the beach, Sally and I decided to sign up for a three day motorcycle journey from Nha Trang down to Mui Ne, stopping at a small village by Lak Lake one night, and to the mountain city of Dalat the next night. Its been so much fun and you see so much of this beautiful country, but very hard to find ones' way to an internet terminal in a village where cows are still a common form of transportation.
There were six of us in our little motorcade, cutting up into the jungle-covered hills nearing the eastern border of Vietnam. We came very close to the Ho Chi Minh trail and even got to pass through desolate hills where Agent Orange was sprayed. The "American War" is only 30 years past and while the locals have all been very friendly - one assumes that is the case because they are young and just as easily mistake me for a European vs. an American. There are still those here who bear scars and grudges of course - but really, can you blame them?
Anyway, Mui Ne...its really a string of hotels along a beautiful beach - the kicker of this place is that the climate is arid, so you get sand dunes and cacti right up to the waves. And the winds kick up in the late afternoon, making this THE premier kite-sailing/surfing capital of SE Asia.
I have yet to decide if I'll give it a go. More on that later.
