Golden Girl and the Urban Slums

When the ambassador learned that I would be working in Nha Trang, he called me "golden girl." And he's proving to be prophetic. I'm already quite sunkissed (er, pink in some places) and my hair is already getting lighter.

Have I mentioned yet that I love this place?

For example, here's what I did today. I slept until 8:30 and did some Skyping (although unfortunately I missed my little sister). I caught up with Sam, who has been in NYC visiting friends and hasn't really heard anything about my new home. After borrowing some SPF 50 from Katherine (I burned my neck walking around yesterday), I left around 10:30 am to walk through campus and down what we call the "donkey path", a little dirt trail that leads from campus to the main road. I was wearing a tank top, since I was headed to the beach, and I felt uber scandalous making the 2 minute walk through campus in such naughty attire. I was just hoping my boss wouldn't see as I walked by the administration building (called "G1"). Of course, though, as I was walking by she leaned out the window and called my name. I thought she was going to scold me for my outfit, but she actually just wanted to reschedule our meeting for Thursday morning. Phew!

After leaving her office I continued on, down the donkey path, and then along the main road to the bus stop. I jumped on the 5, which heads into the city centre/"tourist area". I can walk to a beach from my building, but I wanted to see the main city beach and some other beaches in the centre. Nha Trang is one of the more popular resort and tourist destinations in Viet Nam, but I've been surprised at how quiet and slow the town is, even in the touristy area. Yes, there are lots of hotels, including some expensive 5-star resorts, and a concentration of western restaurants along a handful of streets, but I would still describe Nha Trang as a sleepy resort town. It's no Miami. And thank god for that.

I wasn't sure exactly where to get off the bus, so I just hopped off when I thought I was getting close to where I wanted to be. I actually several blocks off, but I was more than happy to walk and explore a part of the city I don't know. My ultimate destination was the Lousianne Brewhouse and it's 25,000 VND ($1.50) day rental beach chairs that rest in the shade of individual tiki umbrellas. Before getting there, I wanted explore the city centre, try to scout out some places mentioned in my Lonely Planet Guidebook, and possibly find a bathing suit. For some reason, I thought bringing one bathing suit would be enough for a year in a city like Nha Trang. What a lack of foresight!

In the couple of hours that I walked around, I found many of the places in my guidebook. They're actually all concentrated within just a few streets--the heart of the tourist area. Like I said though, it's a really quiet tourist area. Especially during the heat of midday, when I was walking around. There was hardly anyone out! I noticed later in the evening, though, as I was going home, that the are became more populated around dinner time.

One place I found was the A-Mart, where Lonely Planet recommended I could get a Western fix of items from home. I found Barilla pasta, Kraft mac-n-cheese (which I hate), peanut butter (!), lots of good cheese (gouda, brie, camembert, emmental), M&Ms, oreos, Ritz crackers, Haribo candies, several good jams and preserves. The place seemed to mainly cater to the French ex-pat community here, it was pretty expensive, and I'm really trying to let go of some western luxuries, but it's good to know that I'm never too far away from brie cheese.

I also found many of the restaurants and bars in my book. They're all inexpensive by Western standards--vegetable korma for less than $3, for example.

I eventually found a bathing suit I liked in a store, clearly catered to Westerners, called Sun Sport. Although it was a one-piece, it wasn't the most conservative one-piece around. And it was $33, a steep price for an already-cheap American who's grown used to Vietnamese prices. But I really loved it, and it fit really well, and it was interesting looking. I had the woman hold it for me until this evening, just in case I found something better or changed my mind. (In the States I would have just bought it and returned it if I changed my mind, but that won't work here.) I continued on with the bathing suit hunt, but decided to call it quits when I was thumbing through a rack of suits in a different store and a cockroach crawled out of one.

I also needed to find to find some sunscreen. I didn't bring any normal sunscreen with me--just nice facial sunscreen--because I thought I would find it in abundance here. Boy, was I wrong! Sunblock is not only hard to find, but it's crazy expensive. I'm sure the two circumstances are related, but I also assume there's very little demand for the stuff among locals who cover themselves from head to toe whenever they're outside. I'm not kidding--socks with sandals or flipflops, long pants, long-sleeved shirts or hoodies over their normal clothes, or gloves that go all the way up the arm, scarfs, face masks, and hats. Vietnamese people don't want to be tan. The inverse problem of the lack of sunscreen is an oversupply of "whitening" lotions and beauty products that basically speed up how quickly your skin regenerates and ultimately leaves you totally unable to tan. I finally found some Hawaiian Tropic SPF 30, but paid about $7 for a small bottle. I found it for about $6 a block or two down the street, so I'll know where to go next time, but $6 is still high.

With all of my other objectives met--explore, find some restaurants, the A-Mart, sunscreen and a bathing suit--I decided it was time to go lie on the beach. I strolled into the Lousiane Brewhouse, and discovered a posh restaurant and bar, a gorgeous pool, and a stretch of white sand dotted with tiki umbrellas. Of course, the patrons were entirely Western. It felt strange for me to be surrounded by all Westerners instead of all Vietnamese. For me to be back in the majority, I guess. And it felt strange to be in such a high-class place, especially all by myself.

Nevertheless, I wandered around the pool and onto the beach, found an unoccupied umbrella and chair, and paid 25,000 VND when the attendant came to collect the rental fee. Really, $1.50 USD isn't bad for an extremely comfy chair (actually better than my bed!) and a private umbrella, but the idea is that while you're there you buy food and drinks from the brewhouse. You're not supposed to bring your own food or drink in. I managed, though, to smuggle in some chum chum fruit, a few mandarin oranges, and a bottle of water, and no one seemed to mind. Plus, there are constantly Vietnamese women walking up and down the beach with their shoulder baskets offering a variety of food and drinks, from bottled water and potato chips to fresh crabs and lobster. They cook them right there on the beach--one of the shoulder baskets is often a make-shift grill. The brewhouse doesn't seem to mind this. I even saw waiters serving beer and smoothies to groups of people who were eating entire meals they'd bought from the little ladies.

After reading in the shade for a while, I decided it was time to take my first swim in Pacific Ocean. The water here is, as imagined, gorgeous. And warm. Not too warm, but just warm enough to be comfortable while still cool enough to be refreshing. And it's so clear! Even when the water was much deeper than I am tall, I could still see the bottom. I swam for about half an hour. I haven't been really swimming in the ocean in years. I was out there, in the water, with no one really around me, swimming at a breath-taking beach in Vietnam after lounging under a tiki umbrella and eating chum chum....and I just started laughing to myself. Laughing out of shock, awe, gratefulness. Laughing because I was so overwhelmed with joy and happiness. How is this my life? How am I so fortunate?

Finally I pulled myself out of the water and back onto my chair. I read some more of Dumb Luck, a translated Vietnamese novel I bought in Ha Noi. Apparently it's a "modern classic" now, but was actually banned for a time. While I was reading, Katherine showed up. I had invited her to come and take up the chair beside me, as my treat. She's volunteer teaching here and is on a pretty tight budget. We chatted for a while as evening set in. Soon, though, I realized how hungry I was. I'd only eaten a cup of yogurt, a few cashews and a few chum chums all day, with all that walking and swimming and just being in the tropical heat. Additionally, it was 5pm, and the bus stops at 6:30 or so. I still had one last errand to make, to we decided to take care of that and then get back across the bridge for dinner.

The final errand was going to buy the bathing suit. After swimming in my current bathing suit, I realized one problem with it: whenever I extend my arms to make a stroke, the top rides down. It's a one-piece with bandeau-style top, and it just doesn't stay put when I'm swimming. Luckily I was swimming alone today, so it wasn't a problem, but I could see how it could be in the future. The nice lady still had the suit on hold for me. I calmed my possibly buyer's remorse by reminding myself that I really do need a second suit if I'm swimming every day, and that the same suit in the US would cost three times that much. And I'm putting myself on a tighter budget for the next few days.

We hopped back on the 5 bus and rode back across the bridge to our side of the city. While in transit we found a street with several bubble tea places. Not only is Katherine a fellow vegetarian, but she also loves bubble tea like I do. What kindred spirits!

Back on our side of town, Katherine and I finally managed to get a meal from this vegetarian sandwich stall she's been telling me about since I got here. Every time we've gone before tonight, it's been closed. But, boy, was this one amazing sandwhich. A fresh, warm baguette, some chili sauce, fresh herbs and cucumber, marinated tofu and several kinds of "mock meat" products, probably made from wheat gluten. All of this for 6000 VND, or about 36 cents. We took our sandwiches and found an amazing little fresh fruit and smoothie place. By this I mean a woman with a table of fresh fruit/veggies, a blender and juicer in her living room, which was open to the street. (It's really common here for people to be running businesses basically out of their living rooms, which are almost all open entirely to the street.) For 10,000 VND, Katherine and I split a smoothie made from ice, fresh papaya and coconut milk. We also got some of the best iced tea I've ever had with it, for free. After she and I finished about half the smoothie, the little Vietnamese woman came and poured the leftovers from the blender into our cup, which was really quite generous of her. So there I sat, with Katherine, on little plastic stools on the sidewalk outside of someone's store/living room, eating vegetarian vietnamese sandwiches and fresh papaya smoothies which cost us about a dollar each, in total. It was, hands down, one of the five best meals of my life.


A wonderful day, no doubt about it. But today I've also found myself reflecting a lot on the severe discrepancies of wealth and standard of living even with a two-mile stretch of road. This city has two parts, each on either side of the bridge. One side is the touristy part, the city centre with lots of hotels and even a few 5-star luxury resorts that cost a few hundred dollars a night. Where tourists spend in one meal three times the amount that the average vietnamese person has to live for an entire day. The other side of the bridge, though, is the "real" Vietnam. This is where I live. Yes, my room is plenty comfortable, especially by Western standards. But outside I find dirt roads, poor plumbing and sewage, and student dorms that sleep 14 to a room with no running water, AC, or mattresses. And at the bridge itself is perhaps the most clear vision of poverty in the city--a settlement of true urban slums. Lean-to's made of sticks and plastic tarps or patchwork walls of peices of corrugated tin. In my sheltered middle-class life, I've never seen anything like it. I saw a young boy today, he was probably 12 or so, pulling a big cart of potted plants to sell. He was pulling this cart as if he were an animal. He was alone, just laboring along with his heavy cart of plants, hoping someone would buy one.

I see these things--they're hard for me to see, especially in contrast to how fortunate I feel about my own life--and I don't know what to do. Just give him money? Buy a plant? Smile and walk away? At the moment I didn't want to buy a plant--even though I want one in my room--because I knew I'd be walking around a lot and didn't want to carry it around. Now, though, writing about this experience, I find myself thinking, "Mallory! That little boy is pulling around a huge cart full of plants for god knows how many hours a day. Can't you manage to carry a small one with you for a couple hours?!" and I feel like I should have bought a plant. But I can't go around buying something from every person that seems disadvantaged, or struggling. I could quickly spend my month's salary in a day or two. So what do I do, then? How do I help? Or can I? Is there anything to be done in the short term for that little boy, or does he just have to wait until his country develops (and enacts some child labor laws) to have a better life? And where do I fit into all of this?

I might add that the slums are slated to be destroyed soon so that another resort can be built. To add to the obvious misfortune of the slums, they happen to be located on a beautiful piece of land around an inlet of water (over which the bridge crosses).

One thing is for sure. I'm going to tone down my lifestyle and spending habits. In Hanoi I ate well, ate Western a lot of the time, and didn't think too much about money. But I'm not a tourist. I'm living here, and working here, and trying to leave something positive behind. I feel almost disrespectful lounging on the beach like I did today. Katherine has already been a good influence on me--she's making barely more than Vietnamese salary and she has to live on it. I'm trying to sync myself with her habits, then.

On the other hand though, does not spending do more harm than good? Cutting back, living more simply (as do the Vietnamese) might ease some of my own guilt, but does it help ease the struggle of anyone else? If I spend money, a local person gets it, for the most part. And that helps them to some degree, I assume....

Of course, this isn't just about spending. It's about consumption, attitude, mindset, expectations. But I'm just not sure what to do, how to reconcile my good fortunate with the poverty and struggle around me; not sure how to help, if I can help at all. Even in the slightest way. Like the story of the little child throwing stranded starfish back into the water, and when his grandfather says it won't make any difference, the child replies "It makes a difference to the starfish that lives." If anyone has any helpful hints about this existential crisis of mine, please send them along....