Vietnam

Good blogging intentions are the first things to go when you’ve got 4500 kilometers of New Zealand to drive with hundreds of hostels and dozens of towns and cities to visit and write about. The good news is, I’m finished with the book and the editor seems very pleased. The bad news–this applies to the guidebook industry in general–is that the pay=not so good, and the hours=not so good, either. I’m somehow much poorer than when I started this project over two months ago, even though I can barely remember the last time I had a day off from working on it.

But not to complain. It beats turning a giant crank in an oilfield somewhere, I would guess. New Zealand is an unreasonably beautiful country and I’m thankful I got to visit it. “Lots to gape at,” as one Kiwi I met–human, not bird–accurately put it. I did actually see a kiwi bird as well (I mention it here, on the guidebook’s blog.) I saw a lot of New Zealand, although almost all of it was at warp speed. Guidebook-writing is a very strange and compressed way to experience a place. I will upload more photos from NZ (and Sydney, where I spent one hectic day) and catch up with more of an overview of the whole experience.

For now, back, alive, well, in Ho Chi Minh City. I’ve starting doing some freelance copyediting/writing work here for a bank, of all places, and I’m beginning to do some travel podcasts for a small company—will announce the link for this soon.

Also, my friend Bady and I are going to start a magazine about underground culture in Ho Chi Minh City, and kittens. Time travel, as well. Does anyone want to write for it?

Last thing–I was discovered last week in a coffee shop, Lana Turner style, and plucked to be a high-fashion model for a stock photo shoot for Getty Images. Low-fashion model is more like it; I looked like a copy machine salesman. The concept was “westerners and vietnamese doing business while eating on the street, riding in cyclos, etc.” Very funny–will post photos whenever I get to see them. The best thing is, I can now put “Model-slash” in front of anything I ever do for the rest of my life.

I have been sucking at this lately, so my Year of the Rat resolution is as follows: be a better blogger. If it means anything to you, I am constantly chastising myself for not posting more and am often afflicted with a vague sense of dread and self-loathing for shirking my responsibility. It’s like a steady low-grade fever, which I believe is also a symptom of malaria.

Anyway–doings a-transpirin’. I’m using the free wifi in Singapore’s futuristical Changi Airport right now as I wait to catch a flight to Melbourne. I’m going to meet with my editor there before heading to New Zealand to write for this guidebook. I’ll be covering the entire North Island, which includes, among other things: the cities of Auckland and Wellington; geothermal oddities like geysers, exploding mud pools, and volcanic lakes; and an attraction called Sheepworld.

I left Vietnam ten days ago and have been in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and even Indonesia (for a half day) since. It’s been a fantastic, if wallet-destroying, time & I will write about it all in the next post.

Just one other thing to mention for now: it almost passed without my noticing it, but in the midst of all the Tet/Lunar New Year festivities, February 9th marked my own new year–one year since I left New York and started traveling. It’s not even a trip anymore; I don’t know what exactly to call it, but it’s been real interesting.

Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok, 2007

Where is the hate?

Everyone I talked to in Saigon–locals, expats, and passers-through alike—had something bad to say about Hanoi. The people were nasty and aggressive. The city was boring. The simplest transaction was an exercise in gougery. Yet somehow these tales of belligerent cab drivers and rapacious shopkeepers only served to fill me with a sense of anticipation. I mean, isn’t this why we travel? To go somewhere different? I was actually eager to visit this strange and exotic place, this city of assholes.

Sadly, Hanoi turned out to be a disappointment on the asshole front. Aside from a woman who stiff-armed me into a supermarket display and a hotel clerk who so transparently tried to overcharge me that we both started laughing, the people were . . . ordinary. Friendly even, if not as smiley and outgoing as their southern counterparts. What a letdown. Maybe your luck will be better.

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From Hanoi, where it is cold. If you’re reading this, I probably miss you.

“I’ve been manywheres in Vietnam,” said my friend Lan, a Vietnamese music journalist, over dinner last night at a sushi bar.

“You’ve been everywhere in Vietnam?” I asked, unsure of what I’d heard.

“No, not everywhere,” she said. “But manywheres.”

I was laid up earlier this week, all coughing and feverish like some 19th century tragic heroine. After months of traveling Southeast Asia almost illness-free, I find Saigon taking its toll on me lately. Vietnamese people tell me it’s probably because of the changing seasons– from hot and rainy to hot and less rainy.

Personally, I’ve identified a few other factors contributing to my recent lack of robustness & sanguinity:

1. The air I breathe. The air quality here absolutely sucks. This is no surprise in a city of more than seven million people, all of whom are on their motorbikes right this second. I go outside with a Cambodian krama scarf wrapped around my face half the time. You think I am exaggerating about the motorbike traffic, but I promise you, it is the first thing you will notice when you come to Ho Chi Minh City.

When are you coming, anyway?


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They’ve started playing Christmas songs here in Vietnam too. Right now, I’m listening to an eerie, theremin-sounding rendition of “Jingle Bells,” but I guess it beats the techno that most Vietnamese cafes start pumping first thing in the morning (usually accompanied by the television also playing at full volume.) Been busy, but things are going fine here. I have lots of photos to upload. Also wanted to mention that I touched the still-beating heart of a crocodile last week.

I had to stop short in heavy traffic yesterday and as I put my foot down to balance myself another bike ran over the heel of my flip-flop and pulled it clean off of my foot without otherwise touching me in any way. I still don’t understand how this was physically possible, but it’s a perfect illustration of what driving in HCMC is like.

A story in the English-language Vietnam News had me laughing into my ninth glass of tra da the other day. It seems a sweep by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism uncovered pirated software in use at a French-run architectural firm in Hanoi.

Who was leading the raid? Claude Rains? Vietnam’s piracy rates have topped 90 percent for the past several years, according to the killjoys at the Business Software Alliance. Having lived here for a little while now, the only thing that surprises me about this figure is that ten percent of people are actually using real, licensed versions. Where do they get them? As far as I can tell, it’s not possible to buy a legal CD, DVD, or piece of software here, even if you really, really wanted to. I wouldn’t know where to look. English-language books, shoes, clothes, electronics, almost the same thing.

But there is, as they say, more to the story. Apparently this crackdown is at least sorta for real. As Vietnam’s economy continues to grow, there’s mounting pressure to clean things up, especially considering a tech industry is starting to develop (Intel is currently building a $300 million semiconductor plant here in Ho Chi Minh City.) In fact, the Vietnam News article claims that in the past year Vietnam has fallen out of the top 12 pirate nations, after years as number one.

What’s next? A motorcycle helmet law?

Yes. One is going into effect in December in HCMC. Vietnam, I hardly recognize you anymore.