Stop 29: The sun will melt-ya on the Mekong Delta -- Mekong Delta, Vietnam

To get from Vietnam to Cambodia you can be lame and take a bus or you can be really cool and spend three days meandering through the rivers that connect the two countries. We’re really cool so we chose the latter. Sadly, though, we did something so uncool: we booked a tour. First and last time we’d make such a stupid decision. For 72 hours, we were ushered on and off buses, in and out of hotels and to and from tourist attractions you normally couldn’t pay us to see.

Day 1 kicked off with a visit to yet another bridge and yet another pagoda. We were those jerks who sat in the bus and waited for everyone else to come back. Gotta do what you gotta do. In the afternoon, after attempting to stomach tour food, we took a boat ride on small canals running through the lush Vietnamese wilderness. Much to our dismay, we were stuck with two (you guessed it!) SCHNITZELS. One was large and in charge and the other was his subservient little lover. We prayed the boat would stay afloat until we reached the honey candy factory. When we did arrive we tasted candy that tasted JUST like plastic and watched on as a giant cobra was passed from one lame-ass tour participant to another. Our turn came soon enough, it was placed around our shoulders, and the second it looked back at us we screamed, lifted it off and threw it to the closest Vietnamese man. While everyone else took their one turn with the snake, the schnitzels felt entitled to three and even held the snake’s head in place for the perfect close-up picture. Oh how we wished it were venomous and hungry. You win some, you lose some. Back on a bigger, better and even more touristy boat, we jotted down the lyrics (yes, all eight minutes of them) of Don McLean’s American Pie for our over-eager guide. Sadly, he attempted to play it on his guitar after a terrible and physically painful Vietnamese musical performance.

Our super duper sucky tour group voted to leave the next morning at 5am to see the sunrise from our boat. Not only was the sunrise completely obscured by the clouds, but the floating villages we visited were nothing special and nothing worth waking up at 4:30 for. Bitter and particularly resentful at the herd of schnitzels, we brought up the rear en route to a rice noodle factory. Ok, for the first time, something revolving around food.  Now we’re talking. We watched as the original paste was made, dried out in the sun on bamboo sheets and shredded into fresh rice noodles. The puppies running around were an especially sanitary bonus. 

Before crossing the border into Cambodia we made one more oh-so-unnecessary tour stop: an alligator farm. Here thousands of alligators, in all shapes and sizes, are “farmed” to be “exported.” Translation: we breed alligators to kill them and sell their skin. Great. Glad we could support your noble business.

The Cambodian border was finally around the corner and we were so ready to exchange our last dong for some colorful riel. 

Stop 28: Let Saigons be Saigons – Saigon, Vietnam

Saigon was short but sweet. Well, not so sweet. Actually really douchey, come to think of it. We liked the little we actually saw of the city, but it was not so good to our health. We were there for three days and only spent a total of 8 hours outside of the room or the hospital. Nurse Jen was the ultimate caretaker, forcing Gatorade and Tylenol down Cam’s throat and escorting her to and from the hospital. Back at the room, Jen watched any and all movies she could find as Cam slept 14 to 16 hours a day.

By the last evening Jen officially had cabin fever and Cam had gained some strength so we embarked on the city in search of fine dining: Pizza Hut. Cam ate white rice as Jen feasted on stuffed crust pizza. Cam cried with envy, Jen with happiness. By three in the afternoon the entire city was dark and quiet asides from the constant lightning and sounds of rain and thunder. We hid out in the mall for some time, took further refuge in a Mexican restaurant for dinner and had dessert at Saigon’s most famous ice cream spot. After a day of shoving our faces with any and all food, we found Apocalypse Now, the alleged hotspot of the city’s nightlife. We left slightly confused as the only attributes this “club” had were middle-aged westerners, Vietnamese prostitutes and disturbingly low lighting. We zigzagged home through a maze of motorbikes and flooded streets and fell asleep happy to be feeling healthy and excited for our next, and last, stop in Vietnam.

Stop 27: Mui Nice -- Mui Ne, Vietnam

Mui Ne was our next stop. Just a few hours north of Saigon, we knew that this would be our last chance to soak up the sun. We started off our one and only day there at the Fairy Springs, trudging past cows and through a red dirt stream on our way to a tremendously high and tremendously hot lookout point. The setting was rather majestic, as you could see the point where the white sand dunes met the red sand dunes. We ran down them full speed ahead hoping not to fall and tumble all the way down.

After the springs, we headed a few kilometers inland to visit gigantic white sand dunes.  While sliding down them with the help of a small Vietnamese boy and his plastic sled was almost too much fun to handle, plowing up the dunes in an ATV was just a tad more exciting. Naturally Jen drove and Cam celebrated the fact that they never got stuck. Efforts to flip the ATV were unsuccessful. But we’re sneaky, we’ll try again (Shoutout to Jenna). The red dunes were next; same shape and form, just the white dunes on fire. The color of the sand seemed slightly burnt as the sun set in the distance. In the evening, desperate to avert the abnormal quantities of Russians, we peeked into a Russian-free massage zone and ate at a small seaside shack. The highlight of the meal was not the food but the four puppies that didn’t leave our feet. We got and received some tender love and care and, for the second time in Vietnam, contemplated smuggling a live being back to the states. Considering we couldn’t get past the cash register (i.e. the lady sitting at the first table with a bucket of money) we knew our plot was a failure from the get-go. We weeped our way home and mentally prepared ourselves for Vietnam’s second largest city: Saigon.

Stop 26: A Lat of FUN on the easy riders in Dalat! – Dalat, Vietnam

The journey from Nha Trang to Dalat was short and picturesque; we were leaving the coast and heading inland. The hills were covered in endless flower fields and the air was crisp and clean. As beautiful as the town was, our first night was bittersweet. Dinner was delicious, maybe the best Vietnamese food we have had.  We sipped strawberry wine and munched on vegetarian spring rolls. Afterwards, we walked around the town center, which was hosting a small festival. The night began to take a weird turn, though, when an elderly Vietnamese woman suffered a seizure in one of the small market stalls. She was up and about in no time, but left the market slightly disheveled. In search of some headphones, we entered an electronics shop and happened to see a father being overly aggressive with his small son. Feeling helpless, we immediately left, only to witness a motorcycle accident outside. Dalat emanated a strange vibe and we were surrounded by peculiarities. We had higher hopes for the morning so we went to bed early after booking a motorcycle tour for the following day.

The next morning we awoke bright and early to hop onto the back of our two Vietnamese tour guides’ motorbikes.  We whisked through Dalat’s countryside, mountains and wild sunflower fields. We stopped at an old French railway station, an architectural nightmare called the Crazy House, a family run flower farm, an incredibly powerful waterfall, a surprisingly peaceful pagoda and a pretty interesting silk factory.  We really loved this inland paradise as the people were so nice, the food so good, and the atmosphere so great. 

Stop 25: Nha Man, we’re chill.. we don’t want to leave. -- Nha Trang, Vietnam

We took our second night bus from Hoi An to Nha Trang, a beachside resort town where we would spend a few days. We both fell asleep in the bus and awoke to a missing ipod. We began frantically searching in every corner of the bus and were shocked to find one of the bus attendants helping us. He began searching under the bed cushions and when Jen went to lift the driver’s cushion he immediately yelled “no, no, no!” This was a dead giveaway as to the ipod’s location. Sure enough, when we looked under the driver’s seat the ipod was there, turned off and upside down. The driver laughed, realizing that he had been caught red-handed, yet was unbothered by our outrage.  Frustrated but relieved, we began searching for hotels. We eventually settled on a seaside location, joining up with our new Dutch friend, Eva. We napped the rest of the day away and indulged in some serious sushi for dinner (we know, our life is rough).  Thirteen, count ‘em, THIRTEEN rolls… between the three of us, mind you. At night we met up with our other Dutch comrades for drinking and dancing at the Sailing Club. We were officially and entirely surrounded by Dutch people. For some reason (or many reasons) Dutch people seem to love us. Maybe it’s our witty blog writing that captures their hearts or our fantastic asses, we just don’t know.

The next day we visited the long awaited mud baths. This experience involved warm saltwater showers, baths of cool, thin mud, manmade waterfalls and huge warm saltwater swimming pools. Apparently this mud had some life changing skin effects, but we discovered none of them. Instead, we painted each others faces, made dirty jokes (obviously) and bathed in pools of nasty brown sh!t water. We spent the evening with Eat, Pray, Love after chasing it around Southeast Asia for months and watched as Julia Roberts, our fugly counterpart, played out our lives on the big screen.

We met all the Dutch people (did we mention they were Dutch?) in our lives the following morning at Cablecar 12 (haha hop hop idiot). We rode in a cablecar across some rando Asian ocean until we finally arrived at Vin Pearl Island, an uber touristy and creepy Vietnamese water/amusement park like the kind you see in scary movies. Add this to the fact that there were only eight people in this entire complex, and six of them were us, and you have yourself the perfect setting for a C-rated scary flick (Fatty you would have loved it!). We spent the day on the world’s jankiest and least safe waterslides, playing makeshift arcade games and pretending to enjoy the alleged amusement park rides that moved at a snail’s pace. Given the second rate nature of Vin Pearl, we weren’t expecting much from the aquarium. Much to our surprise, though, it housed a tunneled conveyor belt completely surrounding the viewer with sharks, fish and other sea creatures. We watched on as massive chody eels slithered by and Vince, uh we mean turtles, swam above us.

As any good day at the water park should, this one ended with a Mexican feast. Sad news for our Cali readers, though.  Sit down for this one. The “guac” was made from cucumbers, bell peppers and cilantro. What the CUSS?!! The nachos, burritos and quesadillas weren’t much better, but we kept our mouths shut as the Dutchies reveled in their so-called fajitas. Yes, we’ll admit it, we are such food snobs and sorry that we are not sorry. ‘Til next time our little babushkas. 

Stop 24: A Hoi Matey, sail through the flooded streets.. Full speed ahead! -- Hoi An, Vietnam

We know… corny… but you know you love us. And plus, its getting harder and harder as we go.

We had been excited for Hoi An for some time, as it was alleged to have beautiful buildings, a peaceful riverfront and, most importantly, DANK food. It lived up to our expectations on all three fronts. The streets were lined with romantic overarching trees and the buildings had subtle French influences. The river overflowed at night, pouring water into the streets and raising the boats to the level of the bridge.

When we arrived, we mounted our ponchos, rolled up our leggings and hit the knee-high flood waters in search of life’s greatest pleasure: strawberry tarts. Cargo, our restaurant of choice, delivered again and again and again. In fact, it delivered every day for a week. We fattened our already FAT A$$ES with seared ahi tuna, Chilean sea bass, mashed potatoes, quesadillas, fried camembert cheese, chocolate croissants, cheesecake, ice cream, greek salad…you get the picture. You name it, we ate it. By the end of our week our only friends were the resident baker and our favorite Vietnamese waitress (and we’re still trying to figure out a way to smuggle her back to the states, come to think of it, she could probably fit in a suitcase… hmm. Interesting…).

When we weren’t eating we were shopping, but not for ourselves. The trade of the town was custom made clothing, and given that Cam and Coco are returning to the east coast in the fall (WAHOO!), it was only necessary that we design Coco two custom made doggie coats (barf). The Vietnamese lady at the clothing shop became our second best friend.

When we weren’t shopping or eating we were visiting Hoi An’s beaches and temples. Mae Son, an ancient site with ruins and few tourists, provided a nice day trip rife with more rain and Dutch freaks. We also spent time at the beach, playing soccer with local kids and dodging waves that were just a little too large for comfort. We had seen nicer beaches, but were glad to be back on the sand.

To commemorate our last day in one of our favorite towns, we bought tiny doughnut-sized (yes, everything revolves around food) conical bamboo hats and fastened them to our fat heads with purple and blue ribbons. Some thought we were a funny tourist attraction, but we were merely celebrating Vietnamese culture. Some laughed with us, while some laughed at us. And some just laughed. Jen fit right in on her home continent and Cam vowed to keep searching for her inner Asian self (which wasn’t very far away). 

Stop 23: Hue too much raucous!! -- Hue/DMZ, Vietnam

To get from Ninh Binh to Hue involved losing our virginity… we mean night bus virginity, sickos. These busses house 30+ westerners in cubby like pods that are so uncomfortable we are sure they are actually meant to house midgets, (cough) sorry, we mean little people. Making it through the night required massive amounts of sleeping pills or massive amounts of liquor. Duh, we obviously chose the former. After 17 days of torture (11 hours total) we arrived at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), the area that separated North and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Completely untrue to its name, this zone was one of the most militantly active spots in Vietnam and remains riddled with history to this day. The first spot we visited was a war history museum, clearly erected (hah) by the victors. The captions on the photos told of terrified, outnumbered, and defeated Americans and the Vietnamese soldiers were glorified as indisputable heroes. The guest book told a different story. People from all over the world, including many Vietnamese and American soldiers, wrote of personal experiences, different viewpoints and new perspectives. Comments praising Ho Chi Minh and communism were abound. Of course, we had our own thoughts on America’s intent, political misgivings and the final outcome, but we shared the opinion of many foreigners who were appalled by the museum’s disregard for the value of all human life. Regardless, this museum was an interesting physical manifestation of just how polarizing the Vietnam War was and remains today.

The Vin Moch Tunnels were our next stop. This underground network of passageways, family rooms, storage units, a hospital and a kitchen housed thousands of people during the war. At some points people would stay underground for periods of up to two weeks straight. The caretaker of the tunnels today, a small mute Vietnamese man, lived in the tunnels for over five years to evade the daily bombings the DMZ endured. We crawled around in near darkness as we explored this damp underground home.

Eventually, we reached Hue (pronounced Hway) and checked into the Backpackers Hostel. We shared a room with four British children and one American infant. They begged us to read them bedtime stories as they drank themselves into oblivion. Unfortunately for us, they never went to sleep and instead spent their nights pushing over giant metal bunk beds, ripping doors off of cupboards and dripping blood everywhere after punching all the walls in our room. Mind you, this was at 4. A. M. When the hostel authorities arrived they all pretended to be sleeping in Jen’s twin bed, piled up, as if the night guard would believe that five people would sleep in a twin bed with eight other empty beds in the same room. Idiots or British? We will never know.

While the nights found us restless yet amused, the days found us exploring the nearby citadel and royal tombs. Wonderfully ornate and picturesque, these structures were beacons of Vietnamese architecture and a sight for sore eyes. The incessant rain gave the stone carvings, thatched roofs and large ponds a rather mysterious quality. The farther south we got, the more and more we liked this country.

Stop 22: Binh wanting to do Karaoke! -- Ninh Binh, Vietnam

We spent one day and one night in Ninh Binh, a small town about four hours south of Hanoi. The hotel staff were just a tad less a$$holey then Hanoi, but still managed to make us hate them and their existence. Wow, we are BEEZIES. The restaurant staff wasn’t any better, serving our Dutch amigos everything they ordered and us… only French fries. We had ordered fish and rice, but apparently when you run out of an ingredient in Asia you don’t say anything and just hope the customer doesn’t notice… we noticed. In the evening we had our first taste of true Vietnamese Karaoke. This consists of entering someone’s home/lobby, being escorted up to the bedrooms/karaoke rooms and being told to keep it down when the clock struck midnight. We sang our hearts out to Ba Ba Black Sheep and other American classics.

The next morning we headed to Ninh Binh’s main tourist attraction: a girthy river dotted with countless Vietnamese tourists wearing conical hats as they floated into the distance. Huge limestone karsts and mountains surrounded us as we occasionally spotted the lone goat climbing the cliffs… idiot. We secretly wished he would fall off, and we not so secretly wished the Vietnamese life-jacket wearing bags of fun would accidentally fall out of their boats. We floated under cliffs and through narrow canals, powered by our Vietnamese rower’s feet as she pushed the oars to and fro. Baaaa. (goat’s cry)

Stop 21: Holy Shit, Hanoi. Hanoi/Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island, Vietnam

Jen’s nursing nature was called on for the first time post-burger meltdown. Cam’s sickly nature was called on as her body temperature could’ve cooked an egg. Unfortunately for Senor Cushie Tushie, Cam was passed out on the floor as Jen made the solo trek to fetch from the airport the darkest person to grace Vietnam in 46 years. Brighton’s first day was spent populating the waiting room at the local hospital and buying any and all illegal substances at the local pharmacy. For your future convenience, writing the name of a medication on a sheet of paper qualifies as an Rx. Possibly self destructive, but potentially profitable? Extremely entrepreneurial, yes we know.

Although usually far from the kitchen, Cam made a compromise and decided to partake in a Vietnamese cooking class with Bright Sun. Instead of her most famous dish, cold cereal, she assisted in the preparation of fried spring rolls amongst other Vietnamese specialties.  They even learned to send fire feet into the air, nearly singeing all the hairs on their heads. We don’t want no more Whoopi Goldbergs in this world, thank you very much.

That afternoon we attempted to visit the city’s mausoleum, which houses Ho Chi Minh’s preserved body. Unfortunately for us, his soul was on vacation in Hawaii, while his cold embalmed body was visiting Russia.  Every October he visits his communist counterparts while also receiving cadaver upkeep.  A guy’s gotta look good. We rolled up to the Temple of Literature, snapped some photos with Vietnamese calendar girls and stopped nearby for smoothies and burgers. The night found us at the most exciting display of Asian culture on our trip. Vietnamese water puppets are a huge reason why Jen is embarrassed to be of Asian lineage. Short rainboot-wearing “professionals” wave puppets attached to long wooden sticks in front of a janky stanky red curtain and parade them through questionably murky water.  Lets be real here, we all know that the murkiness is because little Asians have little Asian bladders. You get the picture(s). 

Halong Bay – Vietnam

We can sum up Halong Bay in two words: Ass. Hole. No, not the rectum, sickos, just the card game. Stuck on a boat for 3 days we played endless amounts of this game, featured ourselves in countless photoshoots and slept on a boat for the second time on our trip. As the sun set, we embarked on a kayaking adventure, but by the time it got dark, Brighton was lost in the night. We spotted his teeth in the distance and were relieved to know he had survived. Yet Cam and Brighton would soon experience another adventure from which they may never recover. Have you ever heard of a volcano ending? Have you ever seen a volcano ending? If your answer is “yes” to question one, you’re most likely a middle-aged white man wandering the streets of Vietnam in search of a subservient Asian mistress. If your answer is “yes” to question two, I'm so sorry. As consolation you can join Cam and Brighton in the very prestigious and elite club, “VWA”, aka Volcano Witnesses Anonymous. We provide monthly trauma support for those who have happened upon a small Asian woman playing Nintendo with a white man’s joystick. Lucky for Jen, a nap in the room prevented the unique opportunity that would have allowed her admission into this selective group.

Stop 20: See a New-a Country Soon -- Sam Neua, Laos

Where to begin? Just attempting to write this entry brings back a surge of emotions we never hoped to revisit. But for you, our four dear readers, we would go to the ends of the earth and back. Unfortunately, this experience was the worst of our lives… ok maybe not, but it’s more fun to exaggerate.

It began harmlessly enough as we got into a van around 8pm that would arrive at our next destination, Sam Neua, around 4am. We figured we would fall right asleep and wake up to arrive at our next hotel unharmed. Easier said than done. Ironically, the “driver” simply did not know how to drive. He drifted around cliff corners in the pitch black at forty or fifty miles an hour. Turning the wheel one millisecond too late would have been the end of the world as we know it (imagine the tune as you sing along). The other two locals were fast asleep as we began pleading with the “driver” to slow down. His reaction made us feel as sick as his driving: he laughed creepily and uncontrollably. We weren’t sure if he was a Laotian or some sick horror film actor sent to radiate chills up and down our spines. At around midnight, we made him pull over and begged a random minivan of locals who spoke NO English to take us ANYWHERE. Either they didn’t understand or they were in on this demented joke. Knowing we couldn’t sleep on the side of the road (which we would’ve paid to do) for safety’s sake, we had only two options left. Jen prayed for the first (and last) time in her life and Cam took a chill pill (not for the first or last time). We held hands, bawled and watched for the first signs of sunrise. We arrived in physically pristine condition, yet emotionally destroyed. The night ahead was plagued by nightmares and sleeplessness.

We had come to Sam Neua to see some allegedly spectacular caves but didn’t have the willpower to re-enter a moving vehicle for a couple of days. Knowing we had to meet B-Sun in Hanoi the next day, we had no option but to nourish ourselves with our first bowl of Pho, buy a ticket to Vietnam and be on our not-so-merry way.

After confirming that Cam’s lost wallet had (of course) not been turned in, we departed the bus station en route to Hanoi. About two hours from the Laos/Vietnam border, an hour from any form of civilization and completely engulfed by rice paddies, the bus came to a halt and the driver demanded that the two American girls sitting behind us pay an extra $10 US each or they would have to leave the bus. Acting on principle and already the victims of a scam earlier in the morn, they took their bags, disembarked, and attempted to hitch their way to Vietnam. Before we had even reached the border, this episode put a very bad taste for Vietnam in our mouths (and a probably worse taste for these two friends of ours). Unable to help, we wished them the best, quickly exchanged information and each went on our ways. We eventually made it to the border, crossed over with only slight passport trouble and felt the unforgettable and slightly orgasmic feeling of paved highway for the first time in two weeks.

Stop 19: Massive Jars and UXOs on a huge lawn in Phonsavan -- Phonsavan, Laos

We only had one purpose in visiting Phonsavan, a small town in Northwest Laos: to see the Plain of Jars. No shockers here… just a plain of jars. Int. (Jen: WHY THE EFF DID WE COME HERE??) These jars remain a mystery to archaeologists and historians alike, as their size and weight make it impossible to understand how they were constructed or transported. We contemplated this little perplexity, but were more absorbed in rating on a scale from one to ten how much we hated the French girls we were stuck with. Eleven. Cool. Bye.

Stop 18: Beginning of the End in Vang Vieng -- Vang Vieng, Laos

From day one of our travels, we had heard countless stories about the notorious Vang Vieng, the tubing capital of the world. Soon to become our 2nd favorite pastime (you must never discover our first hah), this activity involves hopping from bar to bar via a lively and unpredictable river at the hands of a 12th generation Laotian innertube. The name of the game was drinking, and for the first time on our trip we won every round.  Other than the occasional concussion or blood-drenched knees it was a haven of whisky buckets, giant swings, and all the free bee-infused liquor you could stomach. One blonde Brit apparently couldn’t stomach the amounts he consumed.  His night kicked off with stealing a motorbike, crashing a motorbike, running from the cops, punching a cop, running again, and ended in getting arrested and paying his last Laotian dollars to the authorities through metal bars.  He had lost his money and his dignity.  After two days and too many bad decisions, it was time to hit the road jack on to more sacred and sober places.