Crap I Lost My Passport

WE NEVER LOST OUR PASSPORTS!

California

I’ve been in Huntington Beach for a little over a week now. My first 4 days home I did not leave the house or see any friends/family other then my parents for fear that once I start to make contact with “the outside” the trip will slowly start fading away and it will just become a distant memory. 

I allowed my father to drive me to Best Buy (I needed to buy an external hard drive as my poor macbook could not contain the 8,000+ photos I tried to upload to it). We made a stop at Trader Joe’s where he openly suggested I consider also getting a brick of goat cheese after I had already loaded the cart with blue cheese, feta cheese, and brie cheese. He also surprised me when we hit the wine section and he stocked the cart full of 2buck chuck and of course a bottle of BV Coastal Merlot for my mother.

The only other contact I had with the outside world was when taking my dog, who now more resembles a short overstuffed polish sausage then a beagle, for runs in the morning and a few beach runs with my dad; thank god he decided to stay home with me for the entire week or else I would have ended up talking to my dog all week! I now have a new cell phone and a new number (thanks dad!) but don’t have many people’s contacts so facebook and email has been my main communication portal.

I drove a car for the first time in 6 months last Thursday to meet up with Mariusz and Michal, and realized that it was ok to leave my little bubble consisting of my dad, mother, dog, and Macbook. I guess I just don’t want to become that person who starts every sentence with “When I was in Bali… or India… or Thailand…” and it’s really hard since I just spent the last 6 months of my life with fellow travelers or people who I would have to talk very sloooowlyyyy to so they would understand that I am looking for a restroom not a restaurant. 

This week will be different. I will figure out next steps and ways of getting back to New York by mid November, it’s insane how much one person (me) can miss that wonderful city! And it’s Halloween weekend, so I have to figure out what my costume will be! I have to find the nearest Asian market and start putting my cooking classes to work! I have already found an amazing little Thai market in Long Beach and made yummy massaman curry! But most importantly Aggie, my dearest friend, is back in town and is taking me to Disneyland! :)

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) AGAIN

Since my flight was canceled and I did not want to have to reschedule or miss my flight to Los Angeles from Saigon I booked a last minute flight to Ho Chi Minh and arrived at midnight the night before my flight. Making sure that the taxi driver wouldn’t rip me off I was adamant to make him understand that I have been here three weeks ago and know exactly where the hotel is and exactly how much it would cost to get there. 

I checked into the same hostel that I stayed at before and was placed in a dorm room. The lady said it would cost $6, funny…. cause it was $5 a few weeks ago. I made this clear and then saw that she did recognize me (sans my Irish and French friends) and gave me the $1 off…. thats 20,000 dong! equivalent to a beer or a delicious bowl of Pho! And also this is the same lady that tried to rip us off last time we were staying there so it was fun to call her out on it.

The Irish lasses and I made 3 unsuccessful attempts to see the palace a few weeks ago. I decided to go try one more time. I was successful! But there wasn’t that much to see there. Just big conference rooms and old map rooms that seemed a bit too staged, and had as much of historic feel as did my history report on the year 1776 that I stained in tea and burned the edges with the gas stove in my kitchen in 8th grade. But I was happy I went and got to finally see it.

It was so nice to come back to a city I had been to before. Navigating around was much easier and way more efficient. Since it was Sunday I figured it would be nice to stop by the Notre Dame Cathedral and stop in for mass or say a prayer especially since I would be flying 20 hours and a huge storm was quickly approaching from the Philippines. When I arrived the church’s gates were locked and there must have been 10 different weddings going on as they were all taking turns doing photo shoots in front and the side of the church.

It was an eerie feeling, walking thru the noisy honking motorbike infested streets, knowing that soon I would be in a suburban neighborhood in California where all the houses on my street look the same and I would have to be driven around everywhere and I can’t go to the corner and buy a noodle soup from a sweaty old man that has been brewing it to perfection all day, or smelling the odd questionable smells of random animal meat and exotic fruits/veggies that the old ladies are trying to sell to you on the streets. Or having just about every person walk up to up to you asking, “where are you from?” “Where do you want to go? i take you on my motorbike” “what is your name?” “just look. you buy something from me?”

I think I will be spending a lot of time in chinatown when I get back to New York! 

Dear Vietnam Airlines,

Thank you so much for being there for me in a time of desperation and need. Thank you for not taking advantage of my situation and keeping your prices low even for a flight booked 5 hours before take off. I appreciate your great customer service and understanding. I will recommend you to anyone flying within Vietnam and tell them its worth paying the extra $20 especially since you do not charge extra for checked baggage.

Thank you for helping me get home,

Asia

Dear JetStar Pacific,

Thank you for canceling my flight the morning of the day I am to fly to Ho Chi Minh. I chose your services because you advertised cheap and frequent flights within Vietnam and also because you were the only airline that would fly into Saigon Airport from Danang 6 hours before my China Southern Flight to Los Angeles, so I wouldn’t have to spend $$ on a taxi and hotel room and a taxi back. Now, I would fully understand if the reason for your cancelation was due to hazardous weather or plane malfunction, but canceling a flight simply because it wasn’t “full” enough is inexcusable. You apparently do not fly unless your planes are at near or full capacity leaving many travelers stranded in places and screwing up their plans. Word of advice: don’t advertise 3 flights a day that you know you won’t make; pick one time that is guaranteed and fly. Also when I press the #2 for English when calling your hotline it would be nice if the person on the other line spoke, well, English! Thank you for the added stress you gave me on my last day in Hoi An and the near panic attack that caused me to run to a pharmacy asking for Valium. Just wanted to let you know that I will never use your services again.

Suck it!  

Asia

Hoi An, Vietnam

While waiting for my overnight bus I met Nic from South Africa. He was traveling with only a slightly oversized school bag and a guitar and offered me a beer, I like his style! He was also waiting for the same bus and decided that we should probably take a beer for the road. After the last overnight bus experience, a couple of beers might actually help me fall asleep quicker. Not the case, I was sandwiched between an AC vent and a Ukrainian lady who insisted to stick her butt into my personal space, oh, and the toilet on the bus wasn’t working. So I spent the whole night watching the thunderstorm through the window whilst freezing my ass off, trying not to urinate on myself and nudging the lady off me. 

I had arranged to meet up with Nic and another guy from the bus, Jordy from Holland, for drinks and dinner later that evening. We met in a bar for a couple of “Saigon” beers, the boys were recommended a place that served 3,000 dong beer (THATS 15 CENTS!!!) and apparently had good food too. The boys rented bicycles for the day so I hoped on the back of Jordy’s bike and we were off to “Cafe 43.” The restaurant had AMAZING local cuisine and as promised the beers were 15 cents! We ended up closing the place down, partly because the conversations were great, it was pouring rain, and the fresh beer kept on coming! “Cafe 43” is a family ran place, it wasn’t until the father came out in his PJ’s and told us that it was time to go. Being the nice gentlemen that they are, the boys offered to ride me home on the back of their bicycles so I wouldn’t have to walk back to the hotel alone. 

Hoi An is well known for its tailor shops. Everywhere you turn around someone is trying to make something for you, whether its a dress, coat, suit, and even shoes! I met a nice lady, Ling, who recommended a shop to me and she directed me how to get there. Once I got to the shop I was sat down, given a bottled water, and had an industrial sized fan directed at me, they must have wanted to dry me off as by the time I walked there I was drenched in sweat (I think Vietnam was the most humid place of this trip yet, didn’t help that it was nearing the end of the monsoon season and poured a few times a day). I was handed 10 huge clothing catalogues and marked what I wanted. 2 hours later I ended up choosing 4 dresses, 2 skirts, 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of shorts, a casual jacket, and a coat! I would then have to come back everyday for fittings and adjustments until all the garments were ready. Next to the tailor shop was a shoe shop, naturally, being a female, i was intrigued, and ended up getting 6 pairs of shoes made! It then dawned on me that I will need to purchase a new bag to take all this home as there was no way all this could fit in my backpack. 

It’s a very small town and you can walk pretty much anywhere. Some days I would rent a bicycle for a $1/day, especially on the days that I had to do the fittings or any other shopping so I wouldn’t have to walk back with bags. Yann and Ben, the French guys I met in Saigon and again in Nha Trang, joined me in Hoi An. I had read great reviews about “Bale Well” on trip advisor and also on Chrissy’s and Wojtek’s blog from their Southeast Asia travels (http://candwinsea.tumblr.com) so I suggested the restaurant to the guys. The second we sat down the lady exclaimed “You are so handsome!” to the boys and in about 1 minute she brought out mounds of food and started to hand feed the boys the “make your self” (though she would just make them for us) spring rolls. It was hilarious! We couldn’t even talk for the first 10 minutes because she and her side kick were stuffing spring rolls down our mouths. Finally we had to tell the lady politely to lay off and once she did we were in such a shock of what just happened that all we did was laugh. When looking around at the other tables we noticed that no one else was getting this type of “special” treatment. The food was delicious and plentiful and there was no menu. It was just a “sit down and we will give you what we got and you will roll your own spring rolls made from delicious sesame bbq pork and some other mystery meat on a stick” type of a place. 

The Frenchies and I rented motorbikes and headed towards the coast. We rode north to China Beach, one of the beaches that the US Troops landed on during the War. It was beautiful! The sand was white and super soft. We rented a volleyball from a “babcia” (polish for granny) on the beach, swam in the sea to cool off, and laid out. This all lasted about 1 hour as the sky turned dark and the rain started to pour down on us. We seeked shelter in a little run down cafe overlooking the beach hoping the rain would stop soon so we could explore “Marble Mountain” which was a couple kms inland. In this time I learned a new card game, ate some lemongrass and chili chicken, and just chit chatted with the guys. The rain didn’t let up for the 3 hours we were sitting there and it was starting to get late. We decided to ride the bikes back in the rain, fine if you had a poncho (which the guys did) but I left mine back at the hotel and was driving in shorts and a tank top. It was a bit scary at first because the rain was really coming down hard but once I got the hang of it the boys and I were racing each other down the wet coastal high way. It was a lot of fun!