"He's a cheat"

When we got to the border town of Piaxing, we quickly realized we wouldn't be able to change anything to Vietnamese currency -- even at the Bank of China. Ahhh, the Bank of China. Also, the touts were getting more aggressive. Each had written down in English, "He's a cheat" to discourage business with the competition. Others we talked to later said all of the touts had it written in their books. One even gave us the 'I'm watching you' hand-signal as we left with his competition. So we're in our motorized rickshaw (or tuk-tuk) for the last 20km to the border, leave the Chinese side without a hitch, well before our Visa expired, and enter the Vietnamese side (Dong Dang) at the "Freindship Border." Again, they looked two or three or five times at Andy's distressed passport (and picture beneath the laminate), but finally stamped us through with no 'fees' except for a 30 cent each medical clearance where we weren't even sure the 'doctor' looked at us as he took it.

Little choices for transport awaited us on the other side. We found a cab to what we thought was Long Sang, however it was just a gas station and our Vietnamese driver insisted it was the 'bus station' in Long Sang. Conveniently, there was a minibus with "Hanoi" written on the front. We were pretty tired and Sarah had not had any food (again a reminder to avoid travel on an empty stomach), so we decided to go with it. We negotiated a deal with him, then realized as he took off on his motorbike that this was a just a random, private minibus that would make a million stops to pick up everything on the way to Hanoi. We of course then saw the real Long Sang bus pass by our window.

We did make it to Hanoi, but 2 hours later than promised, found out we had not only been lied to about the bus station but also that they lied about taking us to our hotel. We had had tough negotiators in China before but no one there had ever LIED to us before. They dropped us outside a random hotel they are getting commission from and refuse to go any further because of 'city regulations.' Changing coutries and languages, etc. is never a cake walk but to top off this harrowing entry, as we're walking on the street, we are constantly accosted by a new form of parasite: violence-threatening touts, Andy finally said "Enough" to one of them and he starts yelling back at Andy and saying that HE's the rude one and that this isn't China or America or anything else and they were about to come to blows right there on the street! Cooler heads prevailed, but Andy saw him later and said, 'Oh good, I'm glad you're here. Now you listen to me, I don't care where in the world you are: China, America, or Vietnam, you don't accost people you want to do business with, say, F--- you, etc.' The guy said he was sorry and didn't remember if he said that and Andy said, "I'm reminding you then, and after we check into this hotel, I'm going over to your hotel and tell whoever's behind the desk, your boss or whatever to fire you because you're costing him business. You remember it now?" That was kind of the end of it and we collapsed in our hotel room. In the end, settled into Vietnam nicely and really enjoyed our time there, but our first impression was anything but a paradise.

We were also excited because Sarah's parents, Anne and Steve, were going to fly to Hanoi and travel the country with us for the next three weeks. They came in on schedule and it was great being with family once again. We were looking forward to sharing a bit of 'overland adventure' together. And we did.

Over the next few days, we discovered a lot of Hanoi through sheer walking, saw the embalmed corpse (Sarah and Andy's 3rd) of Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh in his masoleum, the Military History Museum, checked out a water puppet preformance, and had lots 'Bia Hoi.'

Our first leg south and east was an ill-conceived plan by Andy to forgo the tour bus and have a taste of 'adventure,' but didn't turn out to be the painless experience the guidebook promised. We first went to the wrong bus station then took a little rattletrap with the Vietnamese version of Burns and Gracie blaring on over the speakers. Thinking the guide book was right in saying you could organize once you got there, we arrived to find not only that the entire harbor had moved, but that we were being told everything had left for the day at 12pm. Plus, in Vietnam, you can never get a straight answer from anyone because anyone you talk to has some kind of stake in either a car, boat, moto, hotel or restaurant and will always try to steer you to their operation rather than give you any objective answer. -- We would only find out where the real harbor was by boarding our pre-paid boat the next morning.

That said, Halong Bay turned out to be magical. Amid surreal limestone peaks jutting up from the water as far as you can see, we had lunch, visited the giant cave and even swam next to a fishing village. We ended up overnighting on Cat Ba island, which had a beautiful secluded little beach we went to, then took another bus-ferry-bus combination to Haiphong the next day.



Haiphong, Vietnam's third largest city, was simply kinda strange. It was somewhat of an industrial wasteland on the outskirts combined with our first friendly reception in Vietnam, where kids and young people are used to shouting out 'hello!' to tourists, but we never saw any other Westerners there! It was also our first sighting of dog meat, which none of us tried.

That night, we needed transportation to the ATM, but upon realizing it was an all-motobike town with no cabs, Andy actually asked a city bus if they were going there. They said yes, negotiated a price and then surprisingly, everyone got off the bus as it turned out this was their last stop and they agreed to it for maybe a dollar. So the four of us are now the only ones on this huge city bus. We then pull in to get gas! 15 minutes later, we're dropped off at the ATM. It wasn't the fastest cab we took but it certainly was the roomiest.

The next day we boarded a local bus to Ninh Binh, complete with a rag-tag collection of riders and driver sporting huge, retro-gold shades, scary long fingernail on his right pinkie and a bad-ass attitude. Everyone seemed to smoke. The attraction of Ninh Binh wasn't so much the city itself, but rather the outskirts including Tam Coc (famous caves and river) and the ancient capital of Hoa Lou. We ended up taking bikes through it all with magnificent scenery of limestone karsts rising above electric green rice patties the whole way. Nevermind that Andy got confusing local direction, quickly adding 15K to an already tiring run --- but everyone made it in fine fashion and we celebrated on the hotel's beautiful roof terrace.



We also took a long boat to the floating village (a somewhat dubious description) of Ken Ga. There was an interesting cave there, but perhaps most fascinating was stumbling on another small town where the Catholic church service was in full swing. This church contained neatly and brightly-clad women on the left and men on the right, both chanting peaceful, low key, rythmic religious exhortations. Anne and Sarah were pleasantly surprised to be invited inside by the other ladies to sit which they did, while Steve and Andy seemed to draw quite a stir outside with the men, young and old, examining their cameras. The Jesus at the front of the altar was bathed in the light of a neon cross, as many Catholic churches across the country incorporate neon into their statues of the Virgin Mary, Angels, baby Jesus, etc.

The next evening, we would begin the second leg of our journey through North and Central Vietnam to Hue and Hoi An. So far it had been sensory overload for Anne and Steve and for us as well, with a heady concoction of shifting cultures (and values!), vibrant new colors, Nuoc Mam (fish sauce), coffee and bia hoi. Now throw an overnight train into the mix and you've really got something.

a doozy

We woke up to the rain pouring outside. Is this the day to go we thought? We believed it would lift eventually and set out in a torrential, but warm, downpour. Sarah was pulling luggage out the back of the cab in 2 foot-deep gullies only to find out they didn't have tickets for the train they said they would. Only the one the next hour. So we waitied in the dimly-lit station and even saw a man with a tumor hanging from his face that was half the size of his face. Wondered what the health insurace situation there was in the town.

When we boarded and left on our bus, it was a doozy. Rice Paddy levels stretching for miles above with a raging river below, we traveled for 4 hours, had lunch, and then it seemed the bus driver was starting to doze off. He almost hit a Semi on a mountain pass, then Andy gave him some candy in hopes that he might perk himself up. He also lit a cigarette which we think helped. Then, it seemed like there was one spectacular mountain and valley of rice paddy and village after another. A funny thing was that the older lady that had feigned being too elderly in the beginning, now not only wanted to drink out of Sarah's water bottle to take a pill (which Sarah refused and she got it from the girl in front of her). Resigned, she sat quitely munching on sunflower seeds and spitting the hulls directly into the aisles. A classy gesture but one which would win her no points.

We arrived in Conjiang. Found our hotel, and Andy checked out a local high school nearby whose students were still out playing soccer and basketball on their court. They invited Andy to join, but having no shoes but sandals, had to play barefoot, as many of the others were as were as well. The first quick, agile team beat his 3-on-3 team handily but the next ones got a routing as Andy passed to his quicker Chinese counterparts and even did a layup himself, which prompted a spontaneous burst of applause from sideline students because of the height he got. Yet, in reality it was just a normal layup and perhaps he was just taller than everyone else. Everyone shook hands afterwards and invited Andy to dinner, but we were exhausted and just wanted to crash at the hotel. Perhaps the most ironic thing was that the guy that invited him to play was wearing a Memphis Grizzlies jersey, and, when pressed, Andy found out that few of the Chinese felt any allegiance to Yao at all.


The next day, we took a bus to a little town, from where we hiked two hours with full packs along the road to our next destination along the border. We spent a day there, saw the indiginous indigo-dying tribes, mountains of rice paddies and saw how they harvested the rice in a simple gasoline powered thresher.

Up at 7 am the next morning, we left with a group of Chinese Art Students from Tianjin University -- where we stayed in Tianjin -- and took the 8 hour journey to Sanjiang. It didn't disappoint. Spectacular rice terraces seeming to stretch to heaven and the occasional scary washed out road. At one point, the attendant on the bus had to get out and place rocks on the shouler to ensure the bus didn't fall over the cliff!

A couple of towns later and we were in Cheng Yang Bridge just outside Sanjiang. But our mistake of not eating would catch up with us. Unlike the rest of China, there were no places to eat throughout the entire series of villages. Nothing except little village stores with stale chips. Everyone seemed to cook for themselves. Starving, we finally found a place with food, 10 hours later and pretty much gorged ourselves for the night.


The next morning we were up and at 'em at 7 taking a minibus to Sanjiang. Not making the same mistake the day before, Andy got three bowls of noodles at a nearby stand before the next bus was supposed to leave. The attendant woman actually found him and said he had to get on the bus (Sarah was already on it). Willing to risk the bus leaving and taking the next one at least with noodles in hand, he asked the woman to hurry the noodle person up and carry the rest to the bus, which she easily obliged. Apparently, the all important thing is to GET ON THE BUS.



We left for Nanning stopping in a way station where we had to change buses and buy tickets. Andy's broken Chinese allowed for the purchase of the tickets but not in time for the next departing bus. In the mass confusion, he was pushing in with the rest of the Chinese and never really knew what the grand total of the tickets was (He knew the first half of the number but not the last -- but enough to know that he got too little change from the attendant) -- and when he pressed back on her, got a sheepish delivery of more change from her (much to the approval of all the other Chinese in the line who had seen the whole thing and supported Andy wholeheartedly). We missed the bus we wanted but had no idea the next bus left in only five minutes. And since we were the first ones on the next bus to buy tickets, somehow she had given us seats #1 and 2, the best ones right behind the driver.

Made it comfortably to Nanning by 4pm, took the bus to the train station (as aided by an Israeli traveler who had the scoop), found a hotel, secured a hard-seat train ticket (relatively easily amazingly enough - the line was only 4 people deep as compared to 200 in X'ian) to the border, Piaxing, had dinner, got our first seductive taste of jackfruit and called Sprint to revise Andy's vacation plan to keep his mobile number.


In the morning, we boarded the 8am hard-seat (our first of the trip) and proceeded screaming through the limestone karsts all the way to the Vietnam border.

No, full.

We were up at 6am and went into the town of Yichang to figure out a way to get to the southwest. Turns out, there wasn't much leaving from there to where we wanted to go. You either had to take a bus to a city 3 hours away, then a train or a heady mix of trains and buses and even the travel guy didn't know the places we were going. Furthermore, the guy at the travel agency would keep saying there were seats on this train or that train and when we tried to book it, he would say, "No, full." What are we supposed to do? We finally pinned down a two leg plan, taking the night train (11hours later that night) to Hua Hua, then onto Kaali and figure out our exact route to the Vietnamese border from there.

Today was also our 1 year anniversary, September 5. We had a lot to be thankful for in the last year and it was hard to imagine this time last year that we'd be celebrating it looking for a place to do laundry in Yichang, China! We made the most of it and had an amazing dinner and Andy even got imported wine, from France (You don't even want to know about Chinese wine). Then a walk along the lovely river that we had just cruised down. We also didn't know we'd be spending the night on the train, but we had to get to where we were going when we needed to get there. It was scheduled to leave at 11pm.

At that hour, the Yichang train station was creepy at best. And we tried to read a little, but everyone seemed to keep staring at us as the only Westerners in the city, much less the station! Combined with the overall dinginess and the wafting of air from the open restroom inside, it was downright distracting. Then we learned the train was at least an hour late! It did give us a chance to try to communicate with the drunk locals though, one of whom was especially intrigued with Andy's copy of Bill Clinton's "My Life."

When we boarded, it was actually quite pleasant. We had an entire sleeping compartment to ourselves with no conductors knocking in the night. We got into Hua Hua an hour late, but had met a nice Chinese man, former military guy who was now a teacher of "Politics" at the University there (mostly the political philosophy of Mao Zedong and Karl Marx, he said). Luckily, he cut into the front of the line and bought his and our tickets (as he was on the same train) to Kaali, the 'small' city to the west.

His former military service, and now ID card, allowed him a discount on the ticket and to be let through to the platform before everyone else. Luckily, he took us with him! Although it didn't end up making any difference as the entire train was packed to the gills. He had said we'd be able to find a seat in the restaurant car, but that didn't happen as they said no one could sit in there. So we had to take our full gear inside the train, fighting for space in the aisles with people, while trying to upgrade our non-reserved "seat," to either a reserved seat or sleeper spot on the 'black market,' which we found out is just a way for conductors to make extra money -- and they make a lot of it. As if that wasn't enough, in the standing room only aisle with people constantly trying to jostle past us and our huge packs here comes a little restaurant cart trying to get through. We were thinking, are the boiled eggs THAT important at this moment in standing room only train with people fighting for black market tickets?!! We finally got ours, a hard sleeper, the only problem was it was 9 carriages ahead down the way. We fought our way, car after car with our stuff, and at this point Sarah was about to lose it. She was so upset at bumping every person's head we walked by she was forgetting the words for 'excuse me' and instead saying 'how much is it?'! We finally found our place in the middle of constant chatter, eating, and a TV blaring a dubbed version of "The Fifth Element" and still were able to fall asleep for an hour and a half. When we woke, all the same noises were going on, and the same family of girls were playing with each others hair, talking small talk, and picking at their noodles.

When we got to Kaali, we needed to get to the bank before it closed as we had heard there were no other banks or ATMs where we were going.
We needed to go to an actual bank branch because, unbelievably, we were still having ATM problems. For some reason, both of our cards were now being denied on "technical problems." We would later find out from Citibank that there were no more problems on their end. No more security flags. Nothing. This Chinese "glitch" would plague us for the rest of our time in the country. Luckily, we reached in and pulled out a last resort: Kathleen Ku had given us a wedding gift of American Express Travler's Cheques in time for our trip. We had to wait until the next business day for the Bank of China to cash them though, so we used the very last of our American cash just to make it through the night.


After cashing the cheques the next day, we planed our next steps and were a little exhausted so we decided to just stay in Kaali and not do any day trips. Andy got his jeans repaired. Amazingly, the woman refused to take the money (only 30 cents) because her sewing machine was acting up and she didn't feel she had been able to do a proper job, even though it was still a functional one. Sarah got some time on the Net and we figured out the plan: public busses over the mountains and passes through rice paddies traversing the back door between the provinces of Guizhou and Guangxi. We would leave at 7:30am the next day.

Thanks: to Kathleen Ku for a gift that couldn't have come at a better time. Also, thanks to those who have been giving to Teak Foundation, whose link is at the top right of this blog.