Hydroelectric Dam

(PICTURE: Huyen and our tour guide/ticket seller inside the hydroelectric dam.)

Huyen had heard about a hydroelectric dam 30K outside of Pleiku that was open to tourists. When we finished at the army base, we threw our bags (and laundry) into a room at a Nha Tro (cheaper than a Nha Nghi!) and drove out to the dam. When we arrived, something was slightly amiss -- we were the only tourists there! We strolled up to the front gate where there were four people. Two of the people were security guards and two were apparently ticket sellers. One of the ticket sellers asked me for my passport and then examined it for a solid five minutes. The guys told us that if we wanted to see the dam, we had to pay an entrance fee ($2) and also hire a taxi ($12.50) to take us out to the dam since we weren't allowed to drive our motorbike there. We agreed and the ticket guy called up a taxi. When the taxi arrived, the ticket seller jumped in the car and said he was gonna personally give us a tour since he wasn't too busy.

The car pulled through the front gate and immediately drove across the giant dam. The ticket seller sat shotgun and told us that we could ask him any questions about the place. My first question was, "How many people work here?" The answer was, "That's a secret." So much for any question!

The taxi drove about 6km to the entrance of a tunnel into the mountain. We got dropped off and began to walk through the tunnel:


(PICTURE: Huyen and I in the middle of the tunnel.)

As we neared the end of the tunnel, I saw a very unusual sign in Vietnam -- a no smoking sign. The ticket seller told us not to smoke...and less than ten seconds later, we saw the only worker in the tunnel smoking! The guy seemed equally surprised to see us in the tunnel as we did to see him puffing on a cigarette.

The tour guide then showed us the turbines and told us a lot about the dam:

(PICTURE: Huyen and me in front of the first turbine.)

This dam is the second largest hydroelectric dam in Vietnam. However, there's another under construction that will put this one at #3 in the near future. He showed us the pipes and explained the process of how hydroelectricity works. Just like in high school science, I was lost.

At the end of the tour, having seen nobody else, I asked the ticket seller how many tourists come every year. He thought to himself for a few seconds and said, "About 40,000." I'm not sure if this was a little bit of an exaggeration or if the weekends are super busy!

Being inside of a dam was very very cool. The whole time I got the feeling that I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be. Although I also had a feeling I was like James Bond, discovering some sinister plot inside of a mountain.

Right when we were about to leave, the tour guide told us to go visit an ethnic village not far from the dam. We took him up on his suggestion...and that's when the day really got weird...

Army Base

(PICTURE: Vietnamese soldiers.)

After seeing a family recover a loved one's body in Dien Bien Phu, Huyen and I were inspired to do more to find her uncle. Huyen started working the phone and calling office after office. After many many many calls -- which usually went like this: "I'm sorry, that section of Cambodia isn't this office" or "We don't have that information in this office" -- we finally had a lead. Coincidentally, the person Huyen talked with was in Pleiku, the next city we were planning on stopping in. The man on the phone told us to come to his office the next day to talk with him. He gave Huyen his address and we said we'd be there.

This call happened on a Thursday when we were in Kon Tum. Originally we had planned to do a trek and a homestay here but we canceled that to be able to meet the officer. We figured we would do a trek and a homestay instead in Buon Me Tuot since it now looked like we would be arriving early for Linh's wedding (see yesterday's post).

So the next morning we woke up at 6AM and did the short drive to the man's office. Well, it turned out his "office" was a Vietnamese army base just outside of Pleiku. We pulled up to the main gate and the armed guard look surprised to see us. Actually surprised isn't the right word. I'd go with startled. The guy took a firm grasp of his MACHINE GUN and said in Vietnamese, "Turn off your bike and take off your mask." As you might have noticed over the years, my Vietnamese blows. Huyen translated this for me and I quickly followed orders.

The guard's startled look soon turned to one of confusion as Huyen explained why we were there. Clearly, this was not a normal thing. The guy was bumbling around for answers when a large SUV pulled up. Inside was the bases general who wanted answers ASAP. The guard told him we were here to talk to someone about recovering Huyen's uncle's body and the general told him to let us in.

At this point, Huyen took the motorbike and drove it about 100 yards to a small office. I was on foot and not sure what exactly to do. I started walking towards Huyen -- I should mention I'm carrying a large backpack at this point which makes me look extra conspicuous -- but quickly got glances from the guard (yes, the one with the machine gun) who didn't seem to be happy that I was walking away from him. I sort of stopped in my tracks because in the distance I saw Huyen enter an office (we need to work on our communication sometimes). I was now standing on a path between a row of TANKS and ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUNS. One thought began to run through my mind: "We're probably not supposed to be here."

After another minute, Huyen came out of the office and fetched me. I walked towards her and right pass a small group of soldiers practicing marching. Now if you're like me, you imagine that all marching soldiers keep a stern, focused look on their faces at all times when they're marching. Well, not these guys. As soon as they saw me, their marching because completely out of synch and their faces said everything. To a man, they must have been thinking, "What the fuck is this guy doing here?"

Huyen and I ended up sitting in a room for twenty minutes talking to officer after officer until the guy who told us to come there showed up. One dude looked at my passport for ten minutes and then asked me, "Where are you from?" I wanted to say, "Dude, what the fuck have you been looking at in my passport for ten minutes if you haven't figured out where I'm from yet?" Instead I just said, "America." Nothing like telling a bunch of Vietnam war-aged army guys that you're an American.

Anyway, after talking with the officer from the phone we seemed to make a little progress. We gave him a very rough map that the army sent Huyen's family after her uncle was killed. The officer took it and said he would call the man in charge of recovering bodies in the part of Cambodia where Huyen's uncle died. Thus far we haven't heard anything back. However, we've got the guy's number so we're gonna call him soon.

Machine gun nearly to the face, interrupting marching soldiers...this was all before 9AM...and the bizarre day was just getting started...

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.