Sunday, December 29, 2013

Mui Ne

I wish I had more to report about the last few days, but we really found the beach. A couple of hundred kilometers east of Ho Chi Minh City, the sleepy fishing village of Mui Ne happens to be adjacent to about 15 km of powdery white beach.

So we spent most of the time sitting on the beach.

I'm not afraid to admit, I slept more in the last week than I did in the entire month of November. I mean 12-hour sleeps interspersed with snoozy beach time and meals. Beer served in 450ml bottles for 50 cents. It seems we needed the break.

Seriously. Three days of this...

We did manage to make a trip out to Mui Ne proper, which is a small fishing village. The bay at the head of the long beach (have I mentioned the long powdery-white-sand beach?) is where the regional fishing fleet moors. There is a bit of a market at the entrance to town where the fresh catch comes in and is sold off, but we spent a bit of time watering the village away from the market, including the waterfront areas where boats are maintained and the fishing families live, and dusty back streets.

Something we have noticed across Vietnam was prevalent here: the bane that is plastic film. In vast stretches of Vietnam, it is everywhere.

But I don't want to complain about that here, because we are at the beach. A beach whose afternoon winds are popular amongst the kite-surfing set.

...however, we are staying at a nice spot, where there is a pool for when the ocean gets too rough. So we swim in the warm South China Sea in the morning, and in the sun-warmed pool in the afternoon.

And we suntan. And we sleep.

At this point, I would love to report more, but all that is happening is the recharging of batteries, and thinking about how lucky we are.

 

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Nhe Trang 2

So, it turns out "construction zone next door" was a bit more of a problem than we thought. We were a little concerned when we went out to dinner, and a fresh concrete truck was showing up as the guy revved the rattly old pumper truck. We were doubly concerned when we got back from dinner and a walk, and yet another concrete truck showed up, and the pumper was apparently not quite up to the task, so hammering on the pipes was required to keep it flowing.

Our concern reached a peak around midnight, when it became apparent that the construction was not going to end early evening as suggested by our hotel staff, but was going to go on all... freaking...night. "Next door" was also a bit of an understatement, as we had adjoining walls and the installation of rebar is not generally a quiet process. We changed hotels early the next morning.

Nhe Trang being a beach town, we didn't do much but sit on the beach. the weather was just warm enough, and just sunny enough to sit on the beach and make up for lost sleep. But you had to dedicate a certain amount of willpower to the process.

One day we decided to hit the water and see a bit of the offshore islands. The largest of these is Vinpearl, which has been developed in to a "resort" of the approximate scope and quality of the one at Tsawwassen - waterslides, go carts, small aquarium. The most remarkable feature being the access, which is in the form of 3.5km-long areal tramway 300 feet over the ocean.

Anyway, we gave Vinpearl a pass, and instead shared a small boat with three Aussie medical students, and a studly Kiwi PE Teacher and his t'ween son. We bobbled around the sometimes-swelling ocean to a few more protected coves to do a bit of low-visability snorkelling and general warm-water hijinks, had a big spread for lunch, and generally touristed the hell out of the day.

Then, after a little streetfood, we returned to our new hotel, far from construction, and had a peaceful sleep, calling it a (Christmas) day.

 

Friday, December 27, 2013

Nha Trang

We finally found the sun.

Three weeks in, but we are only now getting past halfway down the astonishingly long coast of Vietnam.

Nha Trang is a real beach town - if the stretch of China Beach had (the beginnings of, at least) resorts like Cabo and Kona, the white sand of Nha Trang invokes Waikiki - bound to the shore by high-rise resorts and a bustling, hustling tourism.

We found a nice (not great) hotel a few steps back from the beachfront, and were at first lamenting the adjacent construction site and its potential for noise. Then we started to walk around town and wondered where we could stay that would not be adjacent to a construction site! it seemed every block of Nhe Trang featured a new concrete high-rise resort being built - they covered the land like Starbucks on Vancouver.

30-story towers replacing the older 7- to 10-story hotels. Sheraton, Melia, Best Western, you name it, they are all here. There is a serious boom going on in Nhe Trang. Even the (very rare) appearance of American Fast Food is here, as the Colonel's benevolent gaze offered us "Ga Ran Kentucky".

...we chose instead a street-stand baguette sub sandwich that, for 50 cents, put all Subway "sandwich artists" to shame.

The second thing we noticed about Nhe Trang is that, for the first time in our travels in Vietnam, English is the third language. Cyrillic text dominates, as Nhe Trang is a popular resort for Russian tourists. As we learned in Langkawi a few years ago, Russians make their mark on a tourist town, from the volume of conversation to the drinks offered, not to mention the glut of critically-strained speedo fabric on the beach (I'll spare you the photos of the latter).

But at least we found a beach, and the sun came out for some more-than-brief appearances, and there is brewpub that makes flavourful beers, and the rooftop lounge at our hotel makes lychee mojitos and Tig'n'Pat are set up for a happy Christmas.

Even if the construction next door might go on a little later than we hoped...

 

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

Danang

We split on Hoi An after three fun, interesting days. All the passive negativity of my last post has not taken away from our impression it is a nice town! its just us learning how to operate in a culture different than ours - not better or worse. But it's still cold out, and we are running out of time, so we are headed south yet again to get some more sun. it would be a shame to get back to Canada without a tan, and to not be able to spend Christmas on a beach or swimming in the ocean! to get south, we first need to head north up to Danang to get a connection to Nha Trang.
Danang is at the north end of (currently very stormy) China Beach, 30km from Hoi An. This is a regional capital for the north-central part of Vietnam, and a moderately large port town. From first impressions, it is so exciting and growing so fast that no-one notices it is falling apart.
The ride up from Hoi An took us along a ~30km stretch of coast highway that paralleled China beach the entire way. A relatively recent 4-lane boulevard, at places bereft of traffic, connected seemingly unconnected resort developments and golf courses. These are indications that things are changing in Vietnam, and there are visions for keeping that change flowing.
As the highway is located about a kilometre from the actual beachfront, there is a 30-square-kilometre strip of sand that was seaside for the resorts of the future. There are already a couple of golf courses that look very nice (what the hell do I know? They are green and there are people in carts wearing pastels - that's very nice, isn't it?), and a handful of very posh looking gated resort complexes that would not be out of place in Cabo or Kona.
Then, between these, kilometres of vast empty sandy space. Creepier are the resorts that are not yet, or may not be, as someone spent some money building a concrete and brick wall around a square kilometre of sand, started building some structures, then apparently walked away, as the wall and structures are crumbling. One wonders if the pace of speculation outstripped demand, or if there is a political aspect to what is going on here that we have no idea about.
Pulling into Danang, the first thing you notice is the bridges and stadia and glossy new high-rises. This is an electric city, with LEDs instead of neon. There is a kilometers-long waterfront walkway that connects the 5 bridges across the Han River, and where new waterfront hotels and street front pubs and cafes buzz with life. The bright advertising billboards on the other side of the river compete with three brightly-lit bridges.
There are two rather dull bridges: the northernmost an older steel suspension span, and the southernmost a wide, squat concrete causeway of no note. However in the 5km between, the light show is on. One is a newer cable-stayed bridge with a unique canted single tower is lit up from lights around the base, often contrasting the spire an the cables. A second is a cable-stayed swing bridge (!) that has been bedazzled with LEDs and puts on a multi-color show all night.
In the centre is a through-arch bridge where the arches have been formed into a dragon motif, complete with fire-breathing at 9:00 every night.

The funny part about Danang, however, is the juxtaposition of gleaming new high-rises that make it look like the Shanghai of Vietnam as other buildings seem to be falling apart. This is not too unusual, I guess, except that there are signs some of the landmark buildings have been "under construction" for a very long time, and at the same time some of the hotels that are rated as new highlights in a three-year-old guidebook are prematurely falling apart on the outside, and moldy on the inside.
It reinforces an impression we have had in various places in Vietnam, but no more than along China Beach: there is ample money for speculative development - for big dreams about the future - but no money for day-to-day maintenance and operation. It is almost like the growth is so fast, so exciting, that there is little interest in what is already here. Or maybe land is still so cheap that real estate can be effectively abandoned. Why fix what's broken when it's easier to just move on?

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Face

We had our first cultural stop-gap moment of the trip. After staying in three incredibly good and affordable hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Hue, and being pretty much pampered on the boat, our place in Hoi An was just OK. We have stayed in much, much worse places in southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America (and for that matter, in Indiana). It wasn't by most accounts a bad place considering what we paid, but it was just a little grubbier, and a little more threadbare, that we were becoming accustomed to, entitled jerks that we are.

Example? The computer in the room (hey, a nice bonus!) needed two plug-ins, one for CPU, one for the monitor. Only one plug in the wall worked. This came a surprise to the staff, although in every outlet in the room, only the bottom spot worked. The air conditioner also didn't work - again, not a big deal, as it was cool and comfy enough without it, except that the fan in the AC was the best white noise to block out the noise of the lobby activity a floor below and the dog outside barking through the night. It also provided enough positive pressure to push the second-hand hallway smoke away. Much like everything else, the functioning of the bikes for rent was at about 50%. The coffee here was remarkably bad, perhaps the worst coffee I have had in my life (and I have been to trucks stops in Arkansas and the little booth at the Mayne Island ferry terminal - so this is no light statement!), which is very unusual for Vietnam - they know how to make coffee in this country.

These are all little complaints, some outside of the control of the hotel, and in their defense, the Hotel addressed the issues when we raised them as best they could. However, there was enough frustration on our part after three days, that we decided to just check out a day early, take a car to Da Nang, and spend a night there prior to our very early flight to Nha Trang. We let them know a day in advance about our change of plans, and even had them arrange the car.

The counter staff were very concerned about this turn of events, though. They were very curious about where we were going next, and why. Being polite Canadians not interested in making a fuss, we basically say it is time for us to move on, and we were just wanting to make the airport run easier and all... we did not want to tell them we were not particularly attracted to spending another night at their place, we just wanted to move on.

When it came time to pay the bill in the morning, we found that the bill did not reflect the rates we agreed to when we checked in. The difference was minor in real dollars, but about a 20% premium on our last two nights. When Tig asked about this, they tried, kind of, to explain it away, but it never really made much sense. At some point, We just agreed to pay the extra, but we made it clear we were not happy about it. That might have been our mistake.

It's not like we made a scene, they just asked if we were ok, and Tig said, in a bit of an exasperated voice, "No, but I just don't want to argue about it. I just want to pay and go." It immediately became very important to the staff that we were happy with the result. It seemed clear that it was not about the money (although, they were not about to fix the bill), but it was about not letting us leave with an unhappy experience.

We paid and sat in the front lobby waiting for our car to arrive. We saw a car there, but (wary of driver scams - not those trying to scam us, but trying to scam drivers of each others' fares, as we had already paid for our ride) we were not sure if it was for us. Eventually, the hotel staff came up and told us that was our car, but they would like us to wait 5 more minutes so they could clear up the issue with the bill. We had already paid the full bill, so it was this point when I realized (perhaps later than a smarter person would have) that we were in a bit of a cultural conflict here. The east Asian concept of "face" was at play here. The way we expressed our displeasure with the bill, after several small issues with the room and us checking out a day early, was causing them some existential grief. They really wanted us to be happy, to the extent that they were not going to let us get into that waiting car until we admitted to some level of happiness.

Once this occurred to us, it was easy to smile, say thank you, and get the hell out of Dodge (and into the Hyundai).

Customer service in Vietnam is almost always exceptional, in the Stepford Wives over-the-top anythin-to-make-you-happy sense. This sometimes has unintentionally comedic results, as in long, super friendly but slightly aggressive conversations between a guest and a porter if the guest suggests he might choose to carry his own bag the 50 feet to his room.

In touristic areas, this expresses itself differently. Any eye contact with a host/hostess in front of a store, restaurant, bar or coffee shop will result in an invitation for you to enter. The staff wants to make sure you do not walk by without at least a cursory glance at their menu, and if you are enticed to enter, they will make sure you are seated and comfortable and have a drink ordered. Then, as often as not, they will ignore you for the rest of your visit. Ordering a second drink and paying your bill can sometimes be paradoxically difficult.

The overall impression is that people genuinely want you to be happy as a customer, even if they are sometimes a little too aggressive about it. Our cynical North American impression is that they just want to hustle more money from you, or are too much "in your space", but that may say more about us than about them...

All cultural apprehensions aside, we hope all of our family and friends reason this have a nice next couple of days, doing what makes them happiest and fills them with joy. Merry Christmas!

Monday, December 23, 2013

Hoi An

What a remarkable town.

Hoi An is an old harbour town at the south end of a 50-km-long stretch of white sand that extends south from De Nang and became known by a recent group of imperialists as China Beach. We are still a little too far north for it to be considered beach weather, but the aforementioned 50km stretch clearly has it's season and there are clearly plans for future seasons as well, but more on that later.

For now, we are in Hoi An - a harbor town that apparently had the stunning good luck to lose it's harbour to situation before in industrialization. It therefore avoided the worst ravages of the various wars that we have already cover to too much depth here. Because of this, there is a human scale to the old harbour front, and with tourists the main source of import income, there is a feeling here not unlike Victoria or any "fisherman's wharf" development you might visit in any reclaimed harbour town...

...except with a kick-ass market.

This feeling is vastly improved by the closure of much of the harbour area to motorized vehicles during most of the day. Pedestrians and cyclists rule the area, and there are countless small restaurant fronts where you can have a coffee (yeah, the Vietnamese know their coffee, and it is really good more often than it is really bad) or a beer and watch the world go by.

At night, the rivers and walkways and pedestrian bridges light up with lanterns and LEDs, and the scent of street food fills the air.

The sights in Hoi An are historic, and UNESCO protected sites include many family homes that have become shrines to the ancestors or benevolent societies that built them, sometimes more than 300 years ago.

It seems the frequency of floodwater has increased in recent years, but the homes built a few meters from the river seem to survive, with their relics intact.

Hoi An also gave us a chance to rent a couple of local bikes and head out to the nearby beach - the far southern end of a long stretch of white sand. This involved a leisurely ride through the countryside, small villages, and ubiquitous rice paddies (Vietnam is the world's second largest rice producer - so you are never far from a paddy).

At the beach, the weather was cloudy, and the sea was rough, which might have been good for the local fisherman, but not so good for a hopeful beach bunny.