Linh's Wedding

(PICTURE: The newlywed.)

First off, a big congratulations to my friend and former Vietnamese teacher Linh on getting married. Unfortunately, I wasn't there to celebrate with her and here's why:

At some point around the second week of our trip, I sent Linh a message saying, "I'm going to be in your hometown soon. Can I say hi to your family?" Linh wrote me back saying, "I'm getting married in my hometown on April 26th. Can you come?" I texted Linh asking where exactly her wedding was going to be and she wrote back "in my hometown." I was 99% sure that Linh's hometown was Buon Ma Tuot which we weren't planning on being in until about April 30th. However, I didn't want to miss Linh's wedding so we altered our plans, did a little more driving every day and got to Buon Me Tuot on April 22nd. Great, right?! Yeah, not so much. When we were in Pleiku, the city before Buon Me Tuot, Linh sent me an email with the exact address of the wedding....which was in Pleiku, her real hometown.

I'm an absolute moron because I mixed up my two first Vietnamese friends, Linh and Hien's hometowns. This meant we were in Linh's hometown five days before her wedding. The problem now was we had just done a whirlwind tour of Pleiku and there was basically nothing left to see which meant five days of sitting around waiting for the wedding. Furthermore, I learned of my geography mistake about four hours after my MOST BIZARRE DAY IN VIETNAM had come to a close. The details of that day will be the subject of the next few blog entries.

Sadly we weren't gonna be able to join Linh's wedding. Instead, we went to her father's shop and dropped of a present. So here's a tip people: Find out exactly where your friends' weddings are before you drive like a madman to get to them!

Three Years

(PICTURE: This is how we've been sitting for 4-8 hours ever day, for five weeks!)

The other day I was wearing my bar mitzvah t-shirt (yes, I still wear my bar mitzvah t-shirt) and Huyen said, "Your Bar Mitzvah was May 2nd? That's the day we met." I'm not sure if this ever occurred to me, but yes, Huyen and I met exactly 16 years after my bar mitzvah. Last week being the anniversary of when I became a man, meant a little something extra since it was also three years from the day that Huyen and I met -- clearly a lot of great things have happened since then.

While riding together on the motorbike, I had a thought: this trip is the ultimate relationship test. Over the past five weeks, 95% of the time, Huyen and I have been physically less than a foot apart from each other. Seriously less than a foot. I mean when we're not inches apart from each other on the motorbike we're either eating next to each other or sleeping together in bed. The only time we've been apart has been during a couple of mornings when I had to do some work and Huyen ran an errand or two. Now think about that for a second, do you know any couple -- excluding perhaps people who work together and share a small office space -- who have ever continuously spent that much time together? I'm not trying to one-up anyone but it occurred to me that I've never been in such close proximity to ANYONE, EVER. And somehow we've managed not to have any fights! Well, at least not anything more than small squabbles over directions!

Roadside Noodles

(PICTURE: Noodles drying on the side of the road.)

I always heard people in Vietnam saying how different the north, center and south are but you really get a sense of it when you're physically going through all the regions. One of the coolest things on our trip was seeing/eating all of the different food around Vietnam. Even something so simple as noodles varies in all of the different regions. For example, the cut and texture of pho isn't the same in every province. And don't even get me (or really Huyen) started on the broth!

The picture above was taken while driving through a small city in the center of Vietnam. As intersting as it was to see the noodles drying, it also turned my stomach a little since this was one of the dirtier roads we traveled on in that region. Ever time a truck went by and its fumes poured out of its tailpipe, I thought to myself, "eating that can't be that healthy."

Bin Laden

(PICTURE: HCMC newspaper the morning after OBL was killed.)

I know the whole world has been waiting with bated breath for Ahoy Hanoi's take on the recent killing of Bin Laden so here it is:

Regarding celebrations: When I saw the news the other night, I basically jumped out of my chair. I wished there were some Americans around so I could slap someone five. When I watched the news though I started getting mixed feelings about how people were celebrating. I loved all of the patriotic stuff of people coming together, singing "God Bless America", etc. Those things were awesome. However, the news was also showing some people who seemed to be using OBL's death as just a reason to party. There was one college jackass on TV who said, "I've got two finals tomorrow but I don't care. We got Osama!". The thing is, I'm 99% sure that anyone who lost a loved one on 9/11 wasn't out getting hammered.

The other thing that put me at unease was everyone who was saying "We won!". I'm sorry, but we didn't win anything. We got justice and for that I applaud and feel proud. However, there's sadly no winning the war against terrorism as this is something that we are going to have to deal with probably all of our lifetimes.


(PICTURE: The fake death picture printed in the newspaper. The caption says "OBL dead and OBL alive." )

Regarding not releasing the photo: I 100% agree with Obama's decision today. Yesterday it seemed as if the White House was gonna release the photo and it sort of upset me. Frankly, what's the point? You see, here in Vietnam, OBL's death photo is all over the cover of every newspaper. Yes of course it is the fake one but people here don't know that -- at least the one's who I asked. Huyen was reading the newspaper and I had to say to her that the photo was fake. She sort of just shrugged her shoulders because she still knew BIN LADEN IS DEAD which is the main point. Do we really need a photo to prove that? I just think there's a lot more negatives than positives to releasing the photo. But heck, based on polls I know I'm in the minority on this.

Other thoughts:
1. I pray that the information the SEALS took with them leads us to find/capture/kill every single terrorist prick who ever associated with OBL.
2. Thank goodness the SEALS killed OBL. It would have been a nightmare to see OBL put on trial where he could spew his poisonous ideology in front a worldwide audience.
3. How fucking cool are the SEALS? I'm pretty sure every man in the United States had a moment yesterday where they questioned their life choices. Personally, I've been thinking for two days now how I made some wrong choices to not end up a Navy Seal...but then I read about some of the stuff they have to do to become a SEAL and I'm 100% sure I would have dropped out in the first week because I'm not tough enough.
4. Is it just me, or is anyone else imagining any Iraqi people who were scratching their heads yesterday saying, "Okay, uh, so when do we get to kill the man whose ideology caused tens of thousands of our people to be killed?" Bush, like Osama, gets to sit pretty in his million dollar home while other people go to the battlefield and do his dirty work. Maybe it's because I've been living out of the country since Bush's term but I still consider him and his lackeys war criminals. These guys lied to cause us to go to war in Iraq where not only tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed but more Americans have died there than were killed on 9/11.

Final thought:

I applaud all of the people who worked tirelessly to get Osama Bin Laden. It was a long process but we never gave up and justice was served. However, there's still a lot of work to be done to make sure that another 9/11 never happens again.

Sometimes a man has to squat too...

(PICTURE: The bathroom at one of our non-star guest houses we stayed at.)

I got a few emails recently from friends and readers offering to pay for a nice hotel for Huyen and me. I just want to clarify something: Huyen and I don't say, "Hey, lets find the grossest guest house so it'll make a good blog." The thing is, we've been driving in the back country where places to stay are few and far between. We feel lucky when we pull up to a place that lets us crash for the night. Well, perhaps lucky isn't exactly the right word.

I'll have a few more guest house stories the next time I download pictures. However, the other night we stayed in one -- which was buggy but otherwise not too bad -- and the owner of the place said to us the next morning, "You aren't traveling with a tent? Many foreigners travel with a tent." It didn't even occur to me to travel with a tent although I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been legal...however, the idea is definitely intriguing if we ever do this again!

Anyway, people, I appreciate the hotel present offers but I promise that if we ever have a choice between a room with a used condom on the floor and one without, we'll take the one without.

Filthy

(PICTURE: I didn't take this picture but I did see FOUR tires on the beach!)

There's a Vietnamese saying: "To find a tourist spot, follow the trail of trash." With an idiom like that, it's almost like the Vietnamese take pride in littering. I'm gonna have another blog in the future about trash in Vietnam, so this one is only about the trash at Mui Ne beach.

Three years ago I came here and wrote that the water was pretty dirty. Well since I came, Mui Ne has turned into a multi billion dollar resort town. We talked with a tour guide here who told us that there are probably 80% more hotels, restaurants, shops, etc. then when I first came. Honestly, I could barely recognize the place when we pulled into town because of all the lights and resorts.

On our first two ventures out to the beach, Huyen and I saw a considerable amount of trash on the beach. It was significant enough that a little kid was walking the beach, filling a garbage bag with plastic bottles he could redeem for money; his bag was full. Despite this, Huyen and I still took a dip in the ocean. Yesterday though, was the tipping point. It's Indipendance weekend here which means there are A LOT of HCMC people in town. Every single hotel on the beach side is sold out. When we went to the beach yesterday it was covered in trash. We took a few steps into the ocean and had plastic bags wrap around our feet. Frankly, it was fucking vile.

The thing is though, the trashing isn't just from the tourists. The locals are just as guilty. Huyen and I went to a local seafood place next to the ocean and we literally saw restuarant patrons throw multiple pieces of trash into the ocean. And it's not just the public beaches, either. Yesterday we went to the beach behind two four star resorts. This beach was pretty empty compared to the others and it was still covered in trash.

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- if you are coming to Vietnam for the beaches change your plans! Sure, there's a couple beaches here and there that aren't garbage dumps but really, it's only a matter of time.

Red Light, Green Light, No Light...

(PICTURE: A roundabout in Da Lat. This is clearly an old picture I found online because there are A LOT more cars/bikes/buses these days.)

Right now we're in Da Lat, one of my favorite cities in Vietnam. This is my second time here but my first time noticing something -- there are NO TRAFFIC LIGHTS in the city. When I came here in 2008, I wasn't yet riding a motorbike so I guess I didn't pay attention to small things like traffic lights. Now that I'm on a bike, it's hard not to notice the lack of lights.

I did some quick googling and it turns out Da Lat is the 20th largest city in Vietnam. I had thought it was probably top 10 but apparently it's not. According to another google search I did, Boston is the 20th largest city in America (based on population). Can you imagine if Boston didn't have any traffic lights? Frankly, I can't even imagine if my hometown didn't have any traffic lights.

A local told us that since the city is very hilly, people used to not be able to stop when going downhill and thus there were no red lights. Instead, they have a ton of roundabouts at major intersections.

While I was thinking about this blog today, it occurred to me that I hadn't seen any accidents in Da Lat...but sure enough, a minute later there were two motorbikes at roundabout, fresh off a minor accident.