Ahhhh.... the memories.
Hanoi, VN
May 11, 1997To all those GROOOOV-EH chicks at North Country Insurance...
Vietnam is amazing... actually, everything I�ve seen so far in SE Asia is amazing. Beaches? Cities? Shopping? Temples/Pagodas/Mosques? Creepy Asian men? They�ve got it all here, baby... and at a cheap price too (...yes, even those creepy Asian men are cheap... FREE, actually).
Bangkok is a total shithole. But, I think I already discussed that in the 1st postcard I sent you (hope you got it ok). A dirty, filthy city. LOTS of creeps there... Blech! And of course, the only English they speak is "Hey Baby!" & "What�s your name?" & "YOU! YOU!", so when you turn to them to say "Piss-off you disgusting little shit or I�ll kick your ass", they don�t understand. It�s really very frustrating, you know? At least at home when a guy is a creep you get a bit of satisfaction in putting him in his place... not here.
The men in Malaysia were as bad as those in Thailand, although there seemed to be fewer of them. Here in Vietnam, creeps are scarce. Instead of creeps, we�ve encountered the infamous Vietnamese 'staring squads'. Literally a group of people � young & old � will sit and just stare at you like you�re the strangest, most interesting thing they�ve ever seen. One guy even came up and scratched Sarah�s forehead when we were on the train! Mostly though, it�s the women who do it � touching us, I mean � and they usually hold our hands or more often grab our forearms to show how big we are. We are goddamned AMAZONS over here... people always comment and laugh at us � the two crazy, fat-assed Farangs (Farang (pronc. faah-Rang) n. 1. Foreigner of European descent. 2. Crazy, over-sized whities who invade South-East Asia. ~ a Thai slang ~). It really helps with that preexisting complex/obsession of mine re: weight, you know.
We do provide so much entertainment to Asians, though � it�s hilarious; even if we aren�t doing anything. We spent 36 consecutive hours of sheer HELL on the Vietnamese train 2 days ago � the worst travel experience of my life; the train averages 25 ROCKING kilometers per hour!!! Insanity. Anyway, about 16 hours into the trip, a monsoon breaks outside and lo & behold � there�s a leak in our car... only one, of course... and "miraculously", it�s right above the two crazy Farangs (the only whities on the train) who have already provided such entertainment to the other passengers. The water is just pouring in on our heads, we�re scrambling around trying to arrange our rain ponchos over our bags so that they don�t get drenched and meanwhile the entire car looks on and laughs. "HAPPY TO ENTERTAIN YOU!" We finally got moved to sleeping berths for only $5 USD more each. Those berths are the only thing that saved us too!
So... there is not and won�t be any sort of organization or coherence to this letter � I�m just gonna babble for a while, see where it gets me, and hopefully I�ll relate something remotely interesting to you. Ok? Just a warning.
Here we go! After our HELL week in Bangkok, we made our way to Koh Samui � an island on the east coast of Thailand. When we booked our trip, we were under the impression we would be traveling on a special V.I.P. bus with aircon, reclining seats, videos, leg-room... you know, V.I.P. style!
Well! Our $15 got us over 16 hours of chaos & hell. First off, our seats were at the very back of the bus right next to the toilets. Not only is that bad, but the back of the bus � much like a car or plane � is where you will get most motion sick. No leg room, FREEZING aircon, the smell of piss & shit wafting over us every couple of minutes, the seats in front of us reclined so we couldn�t even move, and one crazy mother of a bus driver. I shit you not when I tell you that we must have been going at least 150 � 180 km/hr in the dark, on pot-hole infested, windy roads where no one can drive worth a shit. I�ve never been so afraid for my life as I was that night. And every time that Mario Andretti took a 2 wheel corner, the already overflowing toilet would spill over and Sarah and I would nearly toss our cookies. Sarah started telling people on their way to the loo that it was busted, which wasn�t true, but we couldn�t handle any more piss! It�s a long trip though, and backpackers would rather shit in plain view of an entire village than be uncomfortable on a midnight express bus from hell for 16 hours.
But enough bitching! Once we finally arrived on Koh Samui, it was all worth it. Total Paradise. Do you remember those pictures I showed you of thatched huts right on the beach?? Well, I found them. White sand stretching for miles (clean, too), turquoise water, deserted, green palm trees and jungle behind us. And best of all... food vendors who come by every so often with spring rolls, BBQ corn on the cob, just about everything! We moved around a bit until we found a small but wicked hut right on the beach for $3.50 USD each per night. It was amazing. The breeze off the ocean was so nice and cool... ahhh! When we first got there, the ocean was as calm as a lake � not even a ripple! We feasted like royalty three times a day for $5 - 10 USD (with beer). (*NB. In Vietnam, local 'Saigon' beer � kick ass � costs less than a coke at 35 - 75 cents!!! My kind of country...)
We were only on Samui for one week and then we made our way south to Malaysia over the period of a week staying in crappy towns of no interest just to break-up the trip. In Malaysia � where we were for one week � we stayed on Penang Island on the west coast for a couple days. Ok city, but totally disorganized with only a couple interesting mosques and one cool mountain which we went up in a tram-type thing. Actually, we got to go inside one mosque � Sarah wasn�t supposed to go in according go the sign outside which forbids menstruating women to enter... but I snuck her in!! Anyway, being the evil, seductive female creatures that we are, we had to cover-up in these white robes and wrap white scarves over our heads � all provided � before we were allowed in.
Mosques are beautiful from the outside, but pretty boring inside. They aren�t like Catholic churches with all the Christian paraphernalia, stained-glass windows, etc. They�re open with pillars and tiled floors � that�s it. Inside, two Muslim men tried to convert us to Islam... Hilarious. If only they knew what heathens we are... Sar kept asking them provocative questions about women in Islam and all the sexist rules/roles regarding them, but they just dodged them. It was interesting to listen to them, though.
From Penang we went up to the Cameron Highlands � sort of the northern interior of Malaysia. Beautiful. It was so nice and cool up there, we actually got cold at night. Unfortunately, it rained both days we were there, but with breaks of sunshine. We went on two wicked hikes � the first one almost killed us - straight up for 1.5 hours, straight down for 1 hour. Seriously � VERTICAL. Not an incline, but vertical. What a feeling when you�re finished! The second hike we got lost on up in the jungle � not good. There were no signs, so we followed the trails and wound up getting back no problem... we were just completely disoriented and confused.
From there we went to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia and stayed there for two days before heading to Vietnam. We stayed in a shit-hole dorm there... but there was compensation � two beautiful Brit boys! The second day we were there, right before the four of us went to check out a kick-ass 'Indiana Jones' style cave temple, Holly had a bit of an accident. You see, over here in SE Asia they have sidewalks above their drainage systems. However, unlike our sidewalks which are made out of cement and are generally sturdy, theirs will often have chunks of stone or brick missing, so essentially what you get are open holes � sometimes huge pits � in the middle of the sidewalks. So you can see then that, being me, it�s only a matter of time until the inevitable happens � I fell into one of these pits. Not my whole body � only my right leg up to the hip. We were walking along, not looking at the ground... I was actually really lucky because I came out of it with some nasty scratches and a badly-twisted knee but otherwise ok. There were two rusty spikes sticking out of the cement which barely nicked the back of my leg, but which had the full potential of impaling my leg. Luckily, I�ve got the ol� tetanus shot so I should be ok.
From K.L. we flew to Ho Chi Mihn city (Saigon), where we stayed for four days. Kick Ass City. The people are amazing. They all want to say "hello" to you and help you out... they always smile at you... they�re gorgeous. The men are polite, not creepy, and the women (especially girls) adore us � they think we�re beautiful (shit... what am I doing in Canada? Over here I�m hot stuff!!) and always tell us as much. The girls and some women wear these beautiful outfits call 'aeo dais' and are so stunningly beautiful and feminine.
Once we left Saigon, we went north to Nga Tran � only 411 km north, but TEN hours on the train. Great town � only 200,000 people. We checked out some pagodas and shit, saw some traditional Vietnamese dancing and "opera", and also went to these wicked ruins called "Cham Towers" that date back to 700 � 1200 AD and were built on a 200 AD site of Hindu worship. Very trippy. We only spent two days in Nga Tran before we decided to 'bomb' up to Hanoi without any stops for 36 hours on the train. We did this because we may run out of cash. We figure that if we start north and work our way down, we�ll know exactly how much cash we need to finish up the trip.
So! We�ve already been in Vietnam nine days (AH!) and only have another 10 to make our way down to Saigon before we have to leave. Sarah�s starting to freak-out because we have so little time. I�m indifferent. What I don�t see on this trip, I get to see next time... and there will be a next time because I think this is probably the most amazing place on earth. Tomorrow we head north-east to Cat Ba Island... rat-infested, but supposedly gorgeous jungle. We haven�t seen much jungle here like we expected. Evidently it was all destroyed by the Americans and their damned Agent Orange during the war. The crops still don�t harvest as much as pre-war and the jungles haven�t grown back to their original state � they look like clear-cuts with fairly new regrowth. Sad. Anyway, Cat Ba is supposed to be dense jungle, so it should be interesting. We�ll see how many snakes and rats we meet.
We�ve met some really cool people, as well as some real dorks. I kinda wish we could hook-up with some other travelers because Sarah and I are beginning to feel the tension. We�ve bumped into some cool people and kinda hooked-up with them for a couple days twice now and it�s perfect because it gives us just a bit of space from each other. I�m sure we�ll come out of this as friends, but we�ll definitely know each other better, and that�s not always such a good thing (for her, that is!).
I�m sick! And incredibly PO�d about the whole thing. I think it�s a recurrence of that damned strep that I couldn�t kick before I left. One month left to go and I guarantee I�ll be sick the whole time. I�m on penicillin right now, but if it didn�t work last time, why would it this time? I can hardly swallow � maybe that�s good news! � but at least the flu part of it�s over. We were scared for a couple days that I had malaria because good ol� Dr. Brodie put me on Chloroquine � a drug completely useless in Vietnam because of the resistance in the mosquitoes here. Goody!
Oh, by the way, the black dye is not washing out of my hair. It�s definitely not as dark as it was, but I actually have blonde roots. It�s been almost two months now, and there isn�t a hope in hell that I�ll have my natural colour back. Blonde isn�t a problem here either � somebody lied to me. I seriously doubt blondes run into more problems with creeps than we do... and there are shitloads of them here (blondes, that is)... mostly Swedes.
Oh, and I haven�t quite lost the weight I�d hoped for over here. In fact, probably none. The food is so damned good here, you wouldn�t believe it! And it�s so cheap that you just can�t pass it up! Damn shame though, because I really wanted (and everyone expects me) to be thin when I came home. Oh well! I�ve got a tan anyway...
I�ve also got a frigin� heat rash all over my ass and thighs. Nummy! Real attractive. It�s just so damned hot over here! When we were in Thailand, we thought nothing could be that hot, but we were just na�ve. We�re so stupid. When we first planned this trip, we thought we were being smart by going in April � May because we�d avoid the hottest weather. Pshaw! Little did we realize, we�re on the frigin� equator! April is the hottest month of the year here. DUH! Still don�t think we�ve acclimatized because we still continually bitch to each other about how hot we are. Deodorant is USELESS because no matter how much or how often you put it on, you always stink! Sarah actually told me yesterday when we got off the train that I reeked like a man�s BO. You know it�s bad when...!
Anyway, time for me to go... I think I�m just babbling now and boring the shit out of you! Besides, if I write anymore, I won�t have stories to tell when I come home!
** Be happy � I miss you all!
Love, Holly