Entangled in Vietnam

What would Vietnam be like if I were Vietnamese?

This is what I kept wondering last week.

Sitting in a taxi at a light in Saigon, I glanced out the window and saw a line of scooter riders burst into laughter. Someone at the back of the lineup must have said something funny, and because they were all out there riding together, uninsulated from each others' conversations by sound-proof windows and doors, all the riders cracked up together. I wanted to be out there with them, it seemed so fun!

With my fair skin, blondish hair, and height (nearly 5'10"), my chances of blending into a lineup of scooter riders in Saigon -- where 99.6+% of the population is either Vietnamese or Chinese -- was exactly nil. Alongside my 6'1", bright-blue-eyed sweetheart E--, I was even more conspicuous. Conspicuously not belonging in Saigon was not fun.

Fifteen minutes after we set foot in the city, we found ourselves pulled over to the side of the road in a dirty, limping taxi reeking of cigarette smoke, with the driver forcibly renegotiating the price of the fare to the hotel. Boy, did he not know who he was dealing with! E-- dug in his damn heels and told the driver he was happy to sit there all night. The man finally relented and drove us back to the airport (with the supposedly non-functioning meter now running). When he left us in the back seat with our luggage locked in the trunk, E pulled the keys out of the ignition, liberated our suitcases, and promptly found us another (over-priced) ride into the city, while the frustrated driver circled us, complaining and nipping at his heels.

The front desk staff of the supposedly five-star Legend Hotel expressed their regret at our unfortunate taxi experience and promptly tried to rip us off on our hotel room. The river view room with king-size bed, for which we paid a premium, was no longer available, but they *could* sell us an executive suite or somesuch. I went and sat down somewhere else. Five minutes later E-- came back with the keys to the room we'd reserved. I didn't ask. His approach isn't always elegant ;-)

My Lonely Planet guide, after enumerating all of the nasty things that can happen to you in Vietnam -- including being handed a chloralhydrate-laced Coke on a long distance bus and waking up without your luggage -- advises, "Don't be overly paranoid," and "Don't assume that everyone's a thief -- most Vietnamese are honest." (Lonely Planet's Vietnam, p.482)

Righto.

So, should we have handed over our passports to the smiling, friendly owner of the Condao Seatravel Resort, who apparently "needed" to keep them to register us with the police? E-- who was not heeding Lonely Planet's advice against paranoia, thought not.

And actually, after our ride into the town of Con Son in a crappy little minivan, past abandoned, dirty-looking buildings, to the dismal little swamp of a resort (imagine a trailer park in NH) -- and after watching a group of teenagers swarm behind E-- as he ran over the dirty sand studded with paint cans, alongside the grayish water floating filthy fishing boats, to urgently haul my butt back to the airport -- we wondered if we ought not be more paranoid about taking Lonely Planet's advice about where to spend our vacation. These are the Con Dao Islands we were expecting to find:

"Isolated from the mainland, the Con Dao Islands are one of the star attractions in Vietnam.""Con Son, the largest of this chain of 15 islands and islets, is ringed with lovely beaches, coral reefs and scenic bays, and remains partially covered in thick forests."
"Con Dao is one of those rare places in Vietnam where there are virtually no structures over two storeys, and where the traveler's experience is almost hassle-free."
(Lonely Planet's Vietnam, pp. 407-408)

But actually, it wasn't just Lonely Planet that was full of s***. The NYTimes was completely misleading too. From their article "Finding a More Serene Vietnam":

"As the sun's last rays streaked the sky bubble-gum pink and tangerine, the residents of Con Dao Island were calling it a day..."
"Teenage boys pulled up on Honda scooters, kicking off their shoes and rolling up their jeans to play soccer on the white sand;"
"Con Dao is one of Southeast Asia's most untouched and breathtaking getaways."

"The azure waters are brimming with Vietnam's best coral reefs."

Where did this BS come from?

On the flight back from Con Dao, two hours after we landed, we met an expat dude in the travel business who also lives in Vietnam. Not a happy camper! As I was stewing in guilt over having chosen this dismal destination instead of the purportedly idyllic Phu Quoc Islands ("fringed with exquisite white-sand beaches lined with swaying palms and gently lapping turquoise waters," p. 464, Lonely Planet's Vietnam) -- he instantly laid my mind to rest. "It's pretty much like this, only bigger (the size of Singapore), and with fewer roads." This man travels to Hong Kong for his vacations. No joke!

Another visitor to Con Dao told us he'd tried to snorkel, but that the men who ran the boat felt the weather was too rough to go out. The weather seemed fine to him, but no go. He and his partner had taken their own snorkel gear out at low tide. "Did you see anything?" No.

Some people in Saigon were straight with us. One woman pointed us in the right direction after a taxi drove us around in circles for 20 minutes not finding the address he said he knew. We were amazed -- she actually helped us? And, there was Mr. Binh, who gave us a pedicab tour of the outlying districts of Saigon (Q. 5, 8, and 10), all for the very reasonable price he originally quoted us! E-- was grumpy and sunburnt after two hours sucking exhaust in Saigon traffic, but I saw some interesting things...
Two mattresses on a pedicab.

Fresh squash blossoms for sale.


A motorbike market.


People drying food leftovers to feed to their pig.

Young men peeling sugarcane for $3/day.

Ouch. Mr. Binh said that these young men probably lived in apartments with five other people, paying around $200/month in rent. So, let's see, that means roughly 4x6 days a week x $3 = $72/mo income, $33.33 of which (46%) going to rent. Some pretty mean economics.

Given this equation, it's easy to understand why so many Vietnamese we interacted with pushed for the very last 10,000 vnd (roughly $0.50) they could get out of us. On the advice of NYTimes again (while I never learn?), we went to Minh Duc Restaurant to try the carmelized pork belly which " was so tender it came apart in chunks when my chopsticks hit it." Yeah, right. The pork belly I tried was hard and dry. Anyway, when they tallied the bill for my little snack, three young men watched and laughed as we paid up 55,000 vnd ($2.82). When someone laughs at me for being a fool, I feel mean. "Oh yeah, buddy," I thought, "the joke's on you. If you only knew what we paid for dinner at Pierre in HK -- ha!"

Good lord, am I a jerk or what? I thought about it afterward...shouldn't I just chill out when someone rips me off for $1.25? When the ride from the airport costs $10 instead of $5? Even $25 instead of $5? I mean, I paid 30 Euros for a plug adapter in Spain, for God's sake! In Spain the streets are smooth, the air is clean, the buildings are well-preserved, and the price is on the package. That's worth a whole lot more to me than I realized.

When we first arrived in Saigon, I had an amazing meal at a food stall in Ben Thanh market: goi cuon with bright, fresh basil, savory pork and shrimp, accompanied by sweet and salty peanut sauce; roasty-wokky rice vermicelli with crab meat; a perfectly blended icy drink of coconut and lime. After those first bites, I looked up at E-- blissfully and said, "This is my cuisine!" (You'll notice there are no photos. Why? We endured so much heckling from the vendors and so much price-changing that E-- was on the edge of his tiny stool ready to bolt the second I let go of my chopsticks.)

Later, we had an excellent meal at Com Nieu Sai Gon restaurant, where the atmosphere was tranquil, the waiters were friendly and helpful, and we experienced one of the edible highlights of the trip: Deep-fried squash blossoms stuffed with pork, dipped in hot sauce.

This picture doesn't do it justice. The deep-frying left the blossoms delicately crispy with almost no trace of grease. The filling was juicy with mellow, well-integrated flavors. The hot sauce was tangy and biting. Yum, yum, and yum. Thank you, Anthony Bourdain, for this recommendation.

Another fabulous food experience: fresh watermelon and guava juice with homemade strawberry ice cream at Ngoc Suong. This is my kind of ice cream float -- fabulously refreshing! This one left a permanent imprint on my grastronomic memory. Yum, yum, yum, yum.

I keep wanting this story to roll up into some neat narrative: Vietnam's a hassle, but there are some very cool people there. Vietnam's a hassle, but that's understandable since the economic disparity between travelers and residents is so extreme. Vietnam's a hassle, but the food is phenomenal. Well, guess what, not all of the food is phenomenal! We had some outrageously bad food. I feel obligated to publicly shame these restaurants because they charged higher prices than any other places we patronized. We had offensively-flavorless food and ridiculous service at Nam Phan, named by the noodlepie food blog as "best high end Vietnamese." We paid one million dong for a shopping mall food court quality meal in the lounge area of Temple Club, where the staff allowed a pack of children to go wild, jumping on the couches near us. Again, thanks Lonely Planet and NYTimes for this fabulous tip!

We also had some decent, but unimpressive, food at The Refinery and Hoa Tuc.

Fleeing early from our so-called vacation, I was left with the impression that people in Vietnam are friendly, flexible, tough, and not-to-be-messed with. I am also certain that there is breathtaking food to be eaten there. I am also certain that I'd never attempt to travel in Vietnam again without a guide because every interaction I had left me feeling like Brer Fox with his paws stuck to the tar baby.

I don't know whether Guanxi exists in Vietnam, but my sense that one simply gets eaten alive there without connections, all of a sudden gave me a really clear understanding of why it is considered so essential in Asia.