Day 1 at Halong Bay - Kayaking

Cuong picks me up at 7:30am to take me to the Ocean Tour office where I will embark on a 3 day 2 night 'adventure' tour of Halong Bay. This particular tour package seemed like the most fun, and is the only one offering two days accomodation on one of the small beaches. I really didn't want to sleep on a boat, no matter how deluxe the photos look. The cabinas on the beach are not air conditioned, but there's a fan so I don't mind. Sweet. I've been dying to do something more active. It will also be a chance to get some space from the intensity of the last two days. As good as it has been meeting my dad and members his family, it's still a bit weird. Some distance right now is welcomed.

Halong Bay is a UNESCO world heritage site and is supposed to be really beautiful. The Bay contains thousands of limestone karsts and islands of different shapes and sizes each topped with thick jungle vegetation. Some have monkeys on them. A number of the islands have beaches. One of these beaches is where I’m going to stay for the next two nights.

On the 3 hour minibus ride with my tour group there are two French guys and a family from Holland visiting a friend who is a Dutch expat living in Saigon. The expat has been living there for two years, and has been living abroad for many more. She says she can never go back to Holland because it's too organized, boring and the climate is depressing. She likes Asia because she likes how flexible and energetic it is. At this, the father from Holland vigorously defends his beloved homeland.

We reach the harbour of Halong Bay City, and it is teeming. The high season for Vietnamese tourists has just ended and the high season for foreign tourists has just begun; essentially Halong Bay doesn't ever have a low season.

We board our boat. Here are some scenes along the way.

An Aside: I Have been Ugly for 7 Weeks!

While everyone is sunbathing on the top deck, I speak to our Vietnamese tour guide, Thanh, on the bottom deck about the politics in Vietnam. He begins to get friendly and talks candidly about it in a way that he was unwilling to in front of the other Westerners. His candor extends to views on skin colour. I had heard two Italian guys ask him earlier about it. They had wondered why everyone was so adverse to the sun, and Thanh had said that though there was a preference for white skin in Asia, he didn’t suffer from that and thought that dark was beautiful as well. When I overheard that, I thought it was a load of crap. Now Thanh is willing to express himself truthfully to me. He tells me that if a Vietnamese girl allowed herself to get as dark as I was, no man would come near her, and that he was really lucky that his girlfriend was so white. Essentially, I’m really ugly here and have been for the last 7 weeks. As far as I can tell, being really dark in Asia is akin to being obese in North America. Just as people in North America will starve themselves and go on crazy diets, take crazy pills and undergo elective surgeries to slim down, People in Asia will likewise go to extremes to stay white, like cover themselves from head to toe even in 40 degree weather, put whitening products in every product imaginable, and go to salons to bleach themselves.

I had a similar conversation with Cuong. When he studied for two years in Thailand, he made friends with a lot of Westerners, and he was really perplexed as to why they always went for the dark Asian girls. He said there were so many light skinned beautiful ones but the preference was for tanned.

There is a saying in Chinese that roughly translated as “One white makes up for three bads.” Meaning that if you’ve got light skin, it makes up for three physical or character flaws…that’s just how prized white skin is.

The prejudice against dark skin doesn’t make me feel bad about myself, just a bit self-conscious when I realize that everyone over here thinks I’m really ugly. Part of me is responding to all of this darkphobia by seeking out situations to get darker, though I think I’m pretty much nearing my dark limit. I feel this weird need to stick it to the man and represent for all the darkies.

Today will be our kayaking day. I end up splitting up two Italian friends from their two person kayak because the guide wants one of them to kayak with me since I've never done it before. I provide the raw mindless power, and Stephano provides the direction in the back.

His friend is left in a one person kayak which he maneuvers with ease.

Seeing Halong Bay by kayak is absolutely beautiful. We get a chance to kayak into a few small caves, some of which have really low ceilings due to high tide.

This one tiny cave was really tight and the ceiling was so low at one point that we had to bend backwards at an almost 90 degree angle at the waist and hug the kayak in order to progress forward with our hands. Stephano said we couldn't do it, but we both prooved him wrong.

Here's some more photos.

We go swimming after, and I decide not to wear a life jacket. For the last month of teaching, I have been going to the school pool twice a week during lunch to get more comfortable with swimming. Maybe it's paid off, because I stay in the water for at least 20 minutes without any support or need to hold onto the side of the boat. Awesome! I dry off in the sun and fall asleep on the deck.

We then arrive at the Ocean Tour beach and three German sheppards great us! This is a big change to all those small dogs I've seen In Asia so far. Turns out that the German Sheppard is standard issue in Halong Bay as gaurd dogs for against thieves trying to steal fish or stuff from houseboats.

The beach itself is very small but quaint. My cabina is not conveniently situated beachside like the majority of the cabinas, it is instead higher up on the side of the mountain. This turns out to be a prime location as the view is fantastic and there's a garden of flowers in front and dozens of lazy butterflies bobbing about. It's worth the rocky climb at the end of the day to get to my room.

In my room, the mosquito net almost makes the bed look like a princess' bed.

I write eleven postcards!

We end up having a barbeque on the beach, which is quite nice with the ocean breeze and sound of the surf.

Next to me is an Austrian couple. The woman is a high school teacher and the man is an engineer. We engage in friendly conversation, and the woman finds out that I am a teacher too. She then looks at me in a funny shy way and says "Can I ask you a question?" I respond with "I know what you're going to ask me. You want to know how much money I make." They both burst out laughing and begin talking in German and smiling. The woman then says, "How did you know I was going to ask you that question?" I explain to her that every time I travel in the summer and meet European teachers on vacation, they always ask me the same question once they find out that I am a teacher too. It seems that almost all European teachers (barring the Swiss) get paid diddly and don't get much respect in their profession to boot. They always complain about this. She adds that the prevailing idea from the public is that teachers are a lazy bunch that don't work much and get too much vacation so they should stop complaining. The animosity towards teachers is fairly high in Europe. Though teachers in Canada get some of that criticism, it seems to be an on-going and pervasive sentiment in Europe. She says she constantly has to justify her profession. I have never had to really do that before.

I then proceed to ask the Italians and the French at our table about the situation for teachers in their countries; they concur with the Austrian woman. She was very curious about the situation for teachers in Canada. I can only speak for Toronto, but I told her in general that I and most of my colleagues feel that we are adequately paid, that we are lucky to be in our professions, and that we feel generally quite respected (my mom is so proud that I'm a teacher). Am I deluded? After more talk, I realized that only in Canada do teachers provide voluntary unpaid extracurricular activities, like coaching and supervising clubs and committees. It is unheard of in Europe for a teacher to come to school before the start of classes or remain after school to coach or supervise clubs without being paid. She said that the mentality in Europe is completely different. The French guys completely agree. If you suggest extracurriculars to an Austrian or French teacher, (or perhaps any teacher in European) the teacher would think you're mad. As well, in Austria and France every teacher is assigned to a school randomly. They have no choice where they end up. They may be placed at a school very very far away from where they live. The Austrian woman says because European teachers get paid so little in Europe and have so little respect, this leads to low teacher morale and an unwillingness to devote more time to the job then necessary. She said only in a country like Canada, where the teachers feel valued and get paid well, will they offer voluntary services to enhance the school community. I never knew this before, but it was quite an eye opening conversation. I've always loved being a teacher, and now I have a greater sense of pride in being a Canadian teacher.

I am beginning to read “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” by Daniel C. Dennett. I remember when I was first introduced to the idea of evolution and its mechanisms in first year biology at UofT. A weird paradigm shift happened in my brain during one lecture and I never saw the world the same again. I felt not just small in physical size, but inconsequential in time as well. I “sensed” that humans and all species were in this temporal flux of continual change and impermanence that was like a lovely mindless dance. Constant design without mind. I remember my imagination be gripped so intensely by this beautiful idea, and it made absolute sense to me. It still does. Reading this book brings back the rush of feelings and provides new provocative insights on one of my favourite topics.

The sound of the waves constantly lapping the shores is hypnotic. I sleep very well in my princess tent.

The Subplot Reaches a Climax: Meeting My Father and Brother

Minh comes for me on time and I don’t recognize her from pictures. She was in her twenties in the photos and now she's 66 years old. She speaks a bit of English! She says that she wants to take me out for breakfast – pho (noodle soup) of course. She then says that she will take me to see a couple of buildings that my grandparents used to own before the communists branded them capitalist swine and took away their holdings. She will drive us around Hanoi by motorbike….whaa? Hanoi traffic…there are hardly any street signals here, just like Siem Riep, except that Hanoi is WAY more trafficked. I’m scared to cross the street let alone ride bike or moto here.

Bad Asian Drivers: Something I’ve realized here…this reputation in Canada of Asians being bad drivers isn't really true. They're just used to coming from places where there aren't any real rules for driving (except stay alive), and you make quick decisions and veer quickly and react fast. They have to take more risks and be more aggressive in order to navigate streets that don't have signals or signs. I think this mentality is brought over to Canada, and it makes Asian drivers seem reckless, when I'm sure they just think that drivers in Canada are uptight and not bold enough. I don't know...that's my impression so far of Asian driving (from Bangkok, to Laos, to Siem Riep to Hanoi). That being said, there are a lot of traffic accidents because of the nature of road use here. The good thing is that the congestion is so bad that no car, bike, or motorbike can go over 12 km/hour in the Old Quarter. About a year ago, there was a law passed that made helmet wearing mandatory, and compliance seems to be about 97% so far as I can tell. The police enforce this quite rigorously. However children under 6 years old don’t have to wear helmets because they just don’t make helmets that small yet. I’m sure that will change shortly.

After a yummy chicken pho breakfast, I hop onto the back of Minh’s moto and put on a helmet with chin guard.

Minh says she’s a good driver when I show some hesitation. Man…so many motos and road users going every which way. Navigating the intersections make me tense up. I feel like we’re in a video game like ”Crazy Taxi”. All you fixed gear bike junkies out there would love the challenge of riding Hanoi. There are no street lights, and the traffic never comes to a stop so any pedestrians have to just wade into the fray. They seem to have no problem doing so.

I we drive around, I notice that most of the Vietnamese are actually quite light-skinned. I am surprised because I am much darker than my mom or her Chinese side of the family, so I assumed my dark skin came from the Vietnamese side…but they turn out to be lighter than the Asians I saw in Thailand, Laos or Cambodia. Right now I am several shades darker than anyone else around me. I am a pair of floating teeth.

You’ll also find lots of people (the vast majority women) in Hanoi with their faces covered with masks as they ride their moto or walk around. It’s not because of H1N1, it’s because of the road dust and pollution combined with tan prevention to stay as white as possible. It's a bit weird to see normal people wearing what looks like biohazard gear on their faces, especially when some of the masks have printed teddy bears on them. On top of that many women also wear long sleeved gloves to prevent their arms from getting darker. Minh has both face mask and long gloves on.

Old Hanoi meets New Hanoi.

Random funniness. I think this child is confused about whether to take off his pants or put on his rain poncho.

This place used to be my grandparent’s family home. Ironic.

These buildings in the photo (along with a few others) were owned by my grandparents before the communists took everything away.

These are some friends of my mom who were tenants of my grandparents decades ago. I really like old people. They give me this sweet herbal tea to drink that I really like. It’s naturally sweetened by a type of flower in the tea.

We head off to Minh’s place and on the way she stops at this store and buys something. It turns out to be that exact same type of tea. Fantastic. Tea party at my house when I get back!

At Minh’s place we call my mother to let her know that “the Tang has Landed”.

On her bookshelf. A bit'o girl power, translated into Vietnamese.

My mom and Minh know each other because my mom used to play the piano for the ballet school that Minh attended. Minh used to be a ballerina in her hayday. She looks beautiful in this old photo.

Minh’s daughter, is a violin teacher for the conservatory in Singapore. She’s forty years old with two boys. Can you believe she’s forty? Asian genes I guess.

This is a picture of (from left to right) my uncle, Minh, Minh’s daugher, my mom and me when I was about two years old in Vietnam. I swear I look older.

Minh offers for me to stay at her place for the rest of my stay in Hanoi. I accept and we taxi back to the hotel to get my stuff. She aggressively won’t let me pay for the taxi (nor my breakfast this morning for that matter). I have a feeling that this trend will continue unless I can find a way to trump her aggression. I feel a small worrisome knot loosen in my stomach; I’ve transitioned from being at the mercy of hustlers in the tourist trade to being in the good hands of trustworthy family friends. Phew.

Minh has a woman work for her named Phum. Minh tells me that Phum helps her with the cooking and cleaning and lives right next door.

In Laos, I made a freshwater pearl necklace to give to my mom, and with the left-over pearls I made another one. This gift for Minh seems appropriate and I think she likes it.

She then drops the news that she’s contacted my father and half-brother and they’ll be over in a few hours. I feel a bit nervous, and kind of just want to get it over with so that the tension can go away.

They show up and my father bursts into tears when he sees me. He hugs me and I can feel his tears soak through my shirt and onto my shoulder. I feel a bit awkward that I can’t return his overwhelmed feelings. I smile at him instead and lead him to a chair. He doesn’t speak any English and I don’t speak any Vietnamese. Luckily, my half-bro speaks quite good English and I communicate to my father through him.

My father’s name is Van Tu and he hasn’t seen me since I was 2 years old. He said that I was always a smart child and he would tell me lots of stories and that my Vietnamese was good then. I remember none of this.

Van Tu is 70 years old, and is now retired. He was a college teacher of history and literature. He is a lifelong chain smoker and his teeth show it. He still has all his own hair. He is shorter than I am by an inch or so. He has skin like mine (without the tan). He does not look like me.

My half-brother’s name is Quoc Cuong (meaning strong country) and everyone calls him Cuong (strong). Cuong is 26 years old and is quite tall for a Vietnamese man – 5’9”, and he’s quite light skinned. He doesn’t look like me either. He got married last year and has a newborn girl, named Tam Anh (pure spirit) who was born the day I left for my summer vacation. I guess I didn’t escape my fate of being an aunty Anh-Thi after all. Cuong has a Masters degree in civil engineering and has studied in the Netherlands on a scholarship as well as lived in Germany. He left the civil engineering path in favour of the insurance company path because of the lack of good paying jobs in civ eng in Vietnam. He is now working for AIG, a big American firm.

They both say I look a lot like Van Tu’s sister when she was young. It’s cheesy curious of me, but of course I can’t wait to see the photos of her.

Cuong and I talk for a couple of hours. He’s a bit surprised to find out that I don’t own a cell phone or t.v., combined with not driving any motorized vehicle. He smiles and says he understands my “style” and desire for this type of “freedom”. At times, he wishes he could throw away his cell phone. He’s gotten the travel bug and would like to visit Egypt….a dream he calls it. I am a bit astonished that we can talk so easily and have some common ground.

We talk about crazy Hanoi traffic, the Vietnamese psyche, lazy-gentle Lao people (his description), the European lifestyle, individuality and family responsibilities, traveling, teaching, married life, his newborn etc.

Tomorrow is Sunday and Cuong suggests that we spend it together as he takes me around the sights of Hanoi…of course by moto. His moto is different from the others, it’s a vintage 1970 something or other and is extra long compared to modern day motos. He loves the bike and says he can take four adults and one child on it.

I am a bit afraid of Hanoi traffic, especially after Cuong told me about the horrible reckless teen motobikers and of this Western traffic expert who came to Vietnam this year to consult on how to make Vietnam’s road use more safe, and got hit by a car and died. Cuong says “Don’t worry. I am very confident in my skill.” Okay…we’ll do it.

We say our goodbyes. I will see them all again tomorrow.

I am also looking forward to seeing my niece. What a weird idea…I have a niece.

Phum makes us a delicious dinner, and all three of us sit down to enjoy it. I have the best fried Vietnamese spring rolls I can ever remember eating. The food is very simple, but very savoury and reminds me of some of my mom’s cooking. There’s something about it that tastes distinctly different from Lao or Cambodian food. I then turn to Minh and ask her “Do you guys use MSG?” She shakes her head vigorously and says “Don’t like”. So that’s what’s missing – mega doses of MSG. I can actually taste the natural ingredients in the food – it’s less chemically accentuated.

For those of you who’ve been to a Chinese or Vietnamese dinner, you will know that as a guest you can’t get away with being comfortably full. You’ll be stuffed. The moment you let your guard down to pick up your beverage, someone will put a piece of food in your bowl. When you protest that you can’t fit any more in, they will scoff and insist that you can. Minh kept on saying “finit all” – finish all? And Phum kept on stealthily placing spring rolls into my bowl of sauce. I’m surprised not more Asians are obese.

There are lots of mosquitoes, at least 3 or 4 flying around me at any given time, and so I am sleeping be-bugnetted. Not that a few extra bug bites will be noticeable in and amongst the 40 or so I already have.

A Little About Vietnam

Vietnam is known most famously for the US-Vietnamese war (and perhaps for eating dog). But before they were fighting off the Americans, the Vietnamese had to beat off successive waves of would-be colonizers and conquerors like the Chinese, Khmers, Chams, Mongols and French. Vietnam has remained a proud nation even though foreign hands have influenced their language, writing, food, and culture.

These days Vietnam is a quickly developing nation. It was welcomed into the WTO in 2006 and its bad relations with China have begun to improve.

CURRENTLY

Capitol: Hanoi
Government: Communist, with distinctly free market leanings.
Population: 86 million
Borders: China to the north, Loas to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, entire east coast is next to the South China Sea.
Religion: Combination of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism fused with Animism and Ancestor worship. It all works. There are also a growing number of atheists among the new generation.
Peoples: 84% ethnic Vietnamese, 2% ethnic Chinese and the rest is Khmers, Chams and members of more than 50 ethnolinguistic groups.
Currency: The Dong, 17500 Dong = 1 USD

(All images from the web.)

Reference: Wikipedia and Lonely Planet Guide

Back to the Motherland!

I’m flying on Vietnam Airlines to Hanoi at 6pm today. Nick stays behind in Cambodia before going to Thailand for the last couple of days of his vacation. My ride over to the airport is uneventful, but here's a kid that has a sweet red bike which I want.

The flight over Vietnam is full of beautiful clouds. I can watch clouds like these for hours (preferably on a picnic blanket on the side of a hill). I even saw a rainbow. As you can see, some small patch of Vietnam is getting rain.

Less than two hours later I am in Hanoi.

My guide book makes Hanoi seem like a place where tourists can easily get scammed. I have my radar on paranoid setting, but I guess it’s not high enough, because I still get taken for a ride – literally. A taxi scam. At one point during the taxi ride to a hotel, my taxi veers off to this little building next to a toll both, some woman comes out in uniform and hands my driver a ticket. The driver tells me that I have to pay a $18 USD tourist fee to enter Hanoi and he’ll have to show that I paid my fee at the toll. I don’t notice the other airport taxis coming over here and I refuse to pay. I didn’t hear anything about this fee from anyone nor did I read it in my lonely planet guide. As I am causing a delay, he seems exasperated and says “okay, I pay for you now and you pay me when we get to the hotel.” I’m not sure what to do. My senses tell me that this seems like a scam, but there’s a part of me that wonders if I’m wrong and just being an asshole tourist. At one point he says “relax, I a good guy.” Paro radar on overload! At the hotel he shows me this very official, and laminated ticket saying that there’s a ($18) tourist fee. I reluctantly give it to him, but then withhold the entirety of my cab fare as I decide to talk to the hotel manager to see if this tourist fee thing was legit. The taxi driver shouts at me to pay but I insist on talking to the manager first. The driver eventually realizes that I’m not going to pay him and quickly drives off.

The hotel manager also sets off my scam radar, but the room is clean and affordable. I ask the other tourists what they’re paying, and I’m not getting charged any different. He tries to hard sell me a package tour to Halong Bay and pretends he doesn’t understand my English when I tell him I don’t want one. I even suspect he might have been a part of the taxi scam somehow since the taxi driver took me to this hotel first (often taxis get commissions from hotels if they can get a tourist to use that hotel).

Bah…see…this is how racism can start. Even though I’m half Viet, I’m getting a distaste in my mouth for the Vietnamese. I know these scams exist everywhere in developing nations, and they specifically target tourists (especially traveling on their own) but bah, I’m just in a bad mood now…I'll get over it.

The manager asks me what I’m doing in Hanoi and I tell him. I ask him to help me make a phone call to Minh, my mother’s friend in Hanoi. Minh has been given the task of tracking down my father and getting me in contact with him. My mom and Minh were best friends in Vietnam. The manager talks to her in Vietnamese and then gives me an abrupt and irritated response. “She will be here at 9am to meet you tomorrow.” Whaa? This rapid progression in the subplot makes me a bit nervous.

My hotel is in Hanoi's old quarter. That's in the orange section of this map near Hoan Kiem Lake. Evidently, even though the taxi guy scammed me, he also took me to a hotel that is less than five minutes away from Minh's house. What are the chances?

As I wait for an internet terminal, two Italian guys traveling through Vietnam begin talking to me. One knows English and the other doesn’t but he speaks some Spanish. I feel my mood lift as I am able to recount my scam and get some fellow tourist sympathy. They also got caught in a taxi scam as well – but going to a restaurant. I am also buoyed to know that the Spanish speaker can understand me and that I can still speak some Spanish. They tell me that Italy is also full of scams like these so I should be careful if I ever visit there. The Spanish speaker begins trying to romance me a bit and his friend gives him a signal to cut it out and go back to their room – they have to get up really early tomorrow. Ciao!

I sleep like the dead.