Finally, a long overdue post.
So much has happened in the past two weeks! But the last thing I wanted to do when Sam was here was sit in front of my computer screen, and since he’s left I’ve been busier than ever. But today, with my morning class canceled and the electricity off for the day (luckily I have some battery power in my laptop!), I’m at last finding myself with the opportunity to write a little.
I probably don’t even need to say it, but Sam’s visit was wonderful. Beyond wonderful. It had been three months since we’d seen each other, and even though we’ve been doing this long distance thing for four years, it was the longest stretch we’d done. And with his his busy tour schedule, the 12-hour time difference and our common lack of reliable internet, it was our most challenging stretch, as well. We needed some time together!
from our balcony on the first morning.
And for me, it was such a relief to just have my best friend here. Someone who really knows me, someone I’m so close to, someone who finishes my sentences or understands what I’m thinking without my saying a single word. I have many friends here, yes, and some that I’m getting quite close to, but really developing a deep friendship like I have with Sam takes lots of time (four years, in fact!) and lots of in-depth conversation.
On top of that, it was good to have someone here who really loves me. :)
Our first couple of days in Nha Trang were quite busy, with a wedding, retrieving his suitcase that arrived a day late, showing him some of my usual haunts and introducing him to my new friends. We really only had Wednesday and Thursday here before we left for Da Lat. It was so interesting for me to see and hear his reactions to everything. His first evening—he arrived around dinner time on Tuesday—I took him to a little pho/noodle joint down the street from my building. The place is really just the front half of someone’s house, which is a common business arrangement here, and the seating is just little plastic stools. It’s not very clean and you drink your tea out of communal cups (which aren’t very clean, either). All of this is totally standard for me at this point, but Sam’s eyes were wide during the entire meal. Of course, he had been traveling for an entire day so any situation would have seemed surreal to him, but I think he was definitely experiencing a little culture shock! Luckily he enjoyed his meal—round noodles (like spaghetti made from rice, called bun)—and he was equally shocked by the price. 12,000 dong, or 72 cents, for two big bowls of noodles and a demi-baguette.
Hopefully Sam will still be able to make a guest appearance at my blog, so I won’t talk too much more about his thoughts and reflections…
I wanted Sam to see at least one other city in Viet Nam on his first visit, so we planned a trip. After considering a few options, we decided to go to Da Lat. I’d never heard a bad thing about the city—it’s where the French built all their vacation villas, so I knew it couldn’t be too bad. We left on Friday morning around 6:30, but when we got to the bus station there were a few problems with our tickets. After finally getting all of that worked out, we encountered a much more serious problem. We had both forgotten our passports. I couldn’t believe it. We were already sitting in the mini-bus, ready to pull out of the bus station. After a few tense moments of heatedly trying to figure out what to do (during which I was little rude to poor Sam, very sorry dear!), we decided to get off the bus and go back for our passports. Actually, I thought we should just go on without our passports, but Sam insisted that we needed them. Of course, he was right in the end. We couldn’t go without our passports! What was I thinking?! But that made us even for a similar tense situation we had a couple of years ago at the train station in La Spezia when I insisted we needed to buy our tickets before we got on the train, and he thought we could buy them on the train, and we had to decide instantly because the train was leaving—and I was right. :)
But I digress. We decided to get off the bus. Luckily one of the bus drivers spoke pretty good English. He had helped us with the ticket problem and I recruited his assistance again for this crisis. I’m sure he thought I was a total idiot—a fair assumption since I had made such a stupid mistake—but he helped me nonetheless. Another bus was leaving in half an hour, and the guy threw me on the back of his friend’s motorbike, snapped his own helmet on my head, and instructed his friend to race across town so I could pick up our passports. All of this happened in about 45 seconds, and before I knew it I was speeding off on a motorbike with a stranger who spoke no English, leaving Sam behind at the bus station and yelling to him as I drove away, “Where’s the keyyyyy?!”
We literally had to get all the way across town and back, during rush hour, in half an hour. And we had to make two stops—one at the hotel to get Sam’s passport, and one at the university (just down the street from the hotel) to get mine. But at the hotel, the receptionist didn’t have the key to the safe where the passports were kept and had to call to get someone to bring her the keys, which took about ten minutes. I couldn’t believe it. Soon it was clear we would be late getting back to the bus station, but my impromptu chauffer had been making calls on his mobile so I assumed he was telling my bus to wait 5 extra minutes. When Sam’s passport was finally liberated from the GMC hotel safe, it was back on the motorbike for another speed-demon trip across the city….
But when we pulled into the bus station, a guy yelled something at my motorbike driver and we pulled out of the station again without even stopping. Basically just did a u-turn! I had no idea if Sam was still at the bus station, waiting in the lobby, or if the bus had left already and I was going to meet it somewhere. I figured everything was ok, though. The men at the bus station knew that Sam and I were traveling together and they had helped us out so much already. I trusted them. As expected, five minutes later we pulled up to the bus, stopped on the side of the rode. Sam was standing on the sidewalk looking distressed, trying to talk to the driver who spoke no English but was gesturing for Sam to get back into the bus. He was visibly relieved when he saw me. I had assumed what was going on and trusted the bus drivers to reconnect us—I’ve had plenty of experience with such magic of Vietnam—but Sam, having only been here for two days, was panicked to be on a bus, on the way to Da Lat, without any idea where I was. He seemed like he was about to cry. But after a few minutes were settled into our seats on the mini-bus (think fancy 15 passenger van), snug between an emotional 20-something girl and a monk. Ok, so maybe we won’t win the Amazing Race anytime soon, but if nothing else we solved our passport problem with creativity and speed, and started out trip only 30 minutes late but with lots of energy!
the monk at the window
About 30 minutes into the drive, the girl beside us yelled to the driver to stop. She climbed out of the bus—we were in the middle of the countryside at this point—and just walked away, down the barely paved road. The other passengers were visibly concerned, and we waited a while to make sure she was ok. But it looked like she was crying. Eventually we drove off, leaving the girl behind. There were plenty of houses around, and she had a cell phone she had been talking on, so I assumed she would be ok, but I thought about her a lot during the trip and hoped everything worked out for her.
The drive to Da Lat, which is in the mountains, was breathtaking, if at times a little scary. We took the “new road”, which only takes 3 hours, instead of six hours on the old road, and with the unfortunate departure of my young female seatmate, we actually had enough room to be comfortable and look out the window. Despite the bumpy ride, I even fell asleep on Sam’s shoulder for 20 minutes or so, during what Sam said was actually the bumpiest part of the entire trip. It was a perfect power nap, and by the time I woke up, we were already driving in Da Lat city, past the flower farms that the town is known for.
a favorite photo I snapped during the drive, a boy walking on piles of bricks
The city is amazing, a blend of European charm, with its French villas, winding streets, and even a couple cathedrals, and Asian flare, with its bonsai trees, Vietnamese aesthetic and school children wearing red sashes and high school girls in white ao dai. Absolutely lovely, and the weather is fabulous! We checked into our hotel, Dreams, which has two locations on the same street and is run by very maternal woman named Ms. Dung (pronounced “yung”) who speaks great English and treats all her guests like family. In fact, there’s a family style breakfast every morning, with eggs to order, fresh coffee, home-made passionfruit juice, piles of fruit, fresh bread, cheese, Da Lat strawberry preserves and even crunchy peanut butter. And all this is included in the price! Our room, which itself was very nice, even had a Jacuzzi tub. All of this for 20 dollars a night.
After a delicious lunch at one of two veg restaurant conveniently located down the street from the hotel (another plus), we started our sight seeing. A pagoda nearby to start, followed by a pretty epic journey to a still-active convent where all the nuns reportedly spoke French. It took us a while, but we found it eventually—and it was well worth the time and effort. The place was beautiful, with a combination of French and Vietnamese influences, a surprisingly pleasant pink color and flowers everywhere on the well-groomed premises. As we arrived, it started raining heavily, so we sat on a bench near the courtyard, which was also full of flowers, and watched the rain. I felt like I was in Europe!
buying a rosary from a sweet old nun
evening in Da Lat, where hot soymilk is popular and delicious!
We poked around for a bit before I stopped in a little room where an old Vietnamese nun, in her 60s or 70s, was overseeing a small cabinet of pins, postcards and rosaries to sell. As predicted, she spoke French, and as I was looking at the rosaries to buy (I kind of collect them, strangely enough since I’m not religious), I asked her in my increasingly broken French if she had lived at the convent her whole life. She explained that, no, she had come only 30 or so years ago and had joined the convent because she loved to serve the poor. She was so sweet and gentle. I wanted to talk to her more, but I’m realizing how quickly I’m losing my French. It’s all just coming out in Spanish! I paid the woman for the rosary, necklace, pin and card (all together, less than 2 dollars), and then we went to buy some of the rumored ginger candy that the nuns make…
After exploring more, it was time for dinner, but all the electricity was out in our area of the city. We eventually wandered into to one of several restaurants called Peace Café, and we were seated at a table lit by two red candled in empty 333 beer cans. A man, wearing the jacket of the local motorbike tour guides who always approach tourists, came up to his. We quickly explained that we had already talked to someone about a tour (which was true, and we had even planned to take a motorbike tour of the countryside the next day), but the man responded that he just wanted to talk, not sell us a tour. I felt like an ass. We invited him to sit down, but I was even reluctant to do that as I was looking forward to a quiet dinner conversation with Sam, and not an effortful conversation with a stranger. But by the end of dinner, I felt like an ass for that sentiment, too. We ended up having one of the best conversations I’ve had since coming to Vietnam, as Thai, our new friend, waxed philosophic about the meaning of life and how different cultures need to share with each other because “people everywhere not the same each other, except for circle of life”. Sam and I wished we could take the motorbike tour with him, but we’d already committed to other people.
leaving our room at 6am for our day-tour of the countryside around Da Lat
The next morning, though, different drivers showed up at our hotel. One was the father of the young driver we’d met and committed to the day before, and the second was a friend of the father. We agreed to go anyway, feeling a little disappointed. But I think we ended up with a better deal than we had originally. The men, who work with a group called Easy Rider, had been giving tours of the area around Da Lat, and in fact the entire country, for well over 20 years combined. We spent an incredible day visiting pagodas, coffee plantations, silk warm farms and a traditional silk factory (where I ate a boiled silk worm—eek!) flower farms, mushroom farms, waterfalls. At one point, early in the day, the men stopped their bikes (Sam and I were each on one), and told us to get off the bikes. One driver, Peter (he’s Catholic), said pointed to a very large hill/small mountain beside us. “Go up to the top, and then turn left and come back down so that you make a treetangle. We’ll meet you.”. And they drove away. Sam and I looked at each other, a little confused—there was nothing to do but climb to the top, turn left and make a treetangle. So we climbed. And climbed. At one point I just stopped and laughed our situation, hiking up this seemingly 90 degree hillside, in the middle of Vietnam, with no other instruction than to “turn left” at the top.
But when we got to the top, all the climbing proved well worth it. Standing on this mountain, with hardly any sound but the wind, looking out over the mountains and valleys and houses and farms and all the people, who we couldn’t see, living their lives as best they could….Everything seemed in balance. Sometimes I have these moments where I’m so happy, and at peace, and satisfied, and everything seems to make so much sense that I feel like I could just melt into my surroundings, morph into whatever grass or trees or stones or water or buildings are around and become part of it all. Not die, just…melt. All the atoms of my body would just rearrange and merge with the atoms of everything around me. And on top of that mountain, in the cool silence, I had one of those moments.
(I told my friend Jess about these “moments” once, and she said that if I turned into a palm tree she would keep me in her room and water me every day. What a friend ☺ )
We lingered on the mountain for a while before “turning left” and making a “treetangle” to walk back down the mountain, return to our motorbikes and continue our adventure….
Sam, throughout the day’s adventure, kept telling me that this was the most incredible thing he had ever done. He was a rather easy sell, then, when Peter started talking about the possibility of us ditching our bus home and taking a three-day trip by motorcycle into the central highlands and then back down to Nha Trang. I wasn’t fond of the idea at first. It was expensive and time-consuming. But the more Peter talked about it—what we would see and do and eat—the more interested I became. And if Sam is good at nothing else, he’s exceptionally good at encouraging me to take once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. (He was the one that got me to eat the silk worm, in fact.) He reminded me that I would most likely never again have the chance to take a three-day motorcycle trip with him through the mountains and minority villages of Viet Nam. The outcome of the story is probably pretty clear: I agreed to the trip. The day tour with Peter
and Tam (the other driver) had been absolutely fantastic—majestic waterfalls, coffee trees, a snack of silk worms and a delicious lunch (sans insects). I had some money put aside for travel and, as Sam had said, I would never have this opportunity again, to take such a trip with him.
And, as with the passports, Sam was exactly right about the trip. It was the journey of a lifetime. (At least so far!) This post is exceedingly long already, so I’ll save the details of our epic adventure for the next post…
elephant falls 
at a flower farm
Back in Nha Trang, though, we had a few more days together. The weather wasn’t great most of the time, so we spent a lot of time just relaxing and talking and catching up, going to the market, eating delicious food. We even rescued a kitten. We found him screaming under some souvenir stands near the Po Nagar towers, and we brought him back to my building where we left him outside with some fish and rice before going to get dinner for ourselves. It was hard to just to leave him out in the “wild”—he was pretty tiny, and I was already pretty attached, but I just can’t have a cat right now as much as I love them. When we came back from dinner, it was raining and I wanted to check to see if the kitten was still in the garden. When I went to see, I could hear it meowing, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I stayed out in the rain for 20 minutes or so looking for the kitten. Eventually, with the help of an onlooker, I found the cat perched at the top of a jasmine tree, stuck, and soaking wet. The kitten thus secured itself a dry home for the night as there was no way I could leave it out in the rains of monsoon season. I brought it in, washed it off with warm water, dried it, played with it, and eventually got it to go to sleep. I put it in the bathroom for the night, but I slept lightly as I seemed to be constantly listening to see if the kitten was crying. I felt like I had a baby or something, hoping to god it would sleep through the night. Around 6:15 am, though, the cat woke up and started screaming again. I went out to buy it some tune and frantically started texting anyone in my phonebook who I thought might want a cat. Luckily, an English teacher agreed to take it—everyone else said they didn’t like cats. She said she’d come get it at 11:30. Around 10:30, though, the kitten fell asleep in my lap, and since it was sleeping I decided I should sleep too. As I said, it was like I had a kid! So the three of us took a nap. But we were startled awake by the arrival of the English teacher, who took the cat away in what seemed like a very sudden, swift retrieval. After the cat was gone, Sam and I really missed it. I’m just happy it has a dry, safe home, though.
Sam and I even had one day of sunshine, which we spent lounging on the beach at the Louisiane Brewhouse. It was his last day here and was a perfect way to spend it.
Of course, I was a big teary mess when he left (much like I was when he arrived, in fact). But I snapped back into my routine pretty quickly. His being here, though, made me miss things more than I had missed them. I’m still sorting through all the effects of his visit…
More news about my 3-day motorbike adventure, and pictures, coming soon. I’m busier than ever—more classes, more social activities, and I’ve just agreed to help a student who’s getting his PhD in Tromso edit his thesis—and the internet has been poor lately (in addition to the fact that we’ve been without electricity and running water for 3 days this week) but I’m determined to document all of this! I've had to start a new picasa account for my pictures, because I'm out of space on the other one. New photos can be found at picasaweb.google.com/malloryimler2 . It's a work in progress, though.
And, last but definitely not least, OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Another instance in the past two weeks when I was a big teary mess (out of joy, of course!). More on that soon, too. ☺
Currently listening: Missiles, by The Dears
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