Vietcong 3: Tunnels

 Day 3 - Tunnels

There is a day where authentically local becomes too authentically local, and that day was this morning.  We started off the day with a breakfast of Pho around the corner, which sounds good, but "authentic" pho means they're throwing tripe (stomach? check if those are the same thing) in there even if you order "Shrimp" (a term which can be disappointingly singular).  Actually, lets back up. We started by falling asleep at 3 or 4 in the morning, because living three deep in a one room apartment means the lights and noise don't stop until the last person goes to bed, and getting up at 6.30 because the lights and noise start when the first person rises... Hopefully that puts the rest of today's post in context.

The next flaw in authentically local is deciding to take the bus (and by the bus, I mean three busses) to save 90% over a taxi. 90% which is also known as $35. And this journey (along with the rest of the day) is undertaken with 3 bags full of food and water. Not backpacks or purses, bags you have to carry in your hands the whole time. An entire day's worth of groceries, because groceries are cheap, restuaraunts are expensive, and the price-gougers at the gift shop will charge you $0.35 for a bottle of water. 

Now we add the neighbor kid deciding to tag along. /Tai/ is 9 and was super excited, and his mom figured it was fine to send him off with Lou, Mom, and I. This was actually adorable and a great example of the close-knit community they have, so we can strike that from the "too-authentic" list.  Unfortunately, his teacher was unwilling to let him skip class today despite the educational outing, so we got a panicked call on the bus and hopped off the bus a few stops down the line to wait for his dad to pick him up on a scooter. Anyways, the feel-good reprieve is over, back to the rant:

I know what you're thinking - there's an easy solution to all this! Sleep on the bus! That imminently reasonable suggest is complicated by sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, the quality of the pavement (or lack thereof), the quality of the suspension (or lack thereof), and the propensity to use the horn as a greeting, threat, warning, or - and I swear I'm not exaggerating - at least once on a deserted stretch of road, just for the fuck of it. In case that wasn't enough, **the turn signal is hooked into a siren**. It's a polite siren, not as loud or as piercing as an emergency siren, but there's no other word for it, and apart from a few random and sporadic reprieves it spent the whole trip singing it's heart out. So I saw an interesting slice of life across the city followed by some great views of the farmland around saigon. Rice patties, of course, but also a lot of oxen and rubber plantations. 

Finally (after another hike), we arrived at our destination: The tunnels of the Viet Cong! My first priorities were to find the gift shop, buy a coke, and pound it. The caffienne worked a treat, but it's worn off by now, so I wrote this back in the 3-hours-of-sleep temperment. You know, for authenticity.

The plan is to rewrite the rest of this when I'm not sleep deprived (or the deprivation is masked with caffiene, you know, for authenticity) so it's just a dump:

put some background on operation hammer and anvil or whatever here.  100km of tunnels, they destoyed 10, etc etc

1st was a diorama show. Massive diorama. All in vietnamese obviously. Probably propaganda. But huge and it had smoke machines, airplanes and helicopters on wires, tanks driving around, super fun even if I didn't understand a word.

2nd was a short film, in terrible CGI, showing the tunnels. Definitely propaganda, but at least it had subtitles.

3rd was the walking tour

         Started off showing a replica village

         pungee pits

         really like showing off replica villages

         single tunnel

             slightly enlarged for tourists. You can duck over and walk

         stop for lunch where we saved at least $2 by carrying everything all day

         whatever at least the bags are slightly lighter now

         maybe mention the stupid hats coming in clutch?

         landscape is still pont du hoc with all the craters

Then we had a reinactment, basically diorama write large, field of broken tanks, smoke machines, no real explosions, and 2 VN actors

                 two US actors show up 

                 I bet they die

                 They die

                 Everyone cheers

         I thought we really only got 1 tunnel out of this whole thing, but turns out

4th was the tunnel tour

         Different ticket altogether

         starts with a propaganda film

               Like legit propaganda film. Period footage of men smiling and planting rice with rifles on their back. Some small girl with a sniper rifle being awarded the "Status of Hero for Killing Americans" no lie that's what it's called. We got assigned to the english pavilion for this showing but they didn't dial back the propaganda at all. Note too self: look up if they really contaminated the spears because they repeatedly didn't mention it despite explaining how they weren't designed for instant death, word that better

         Finally, tunnel tour

         Starts off on easy tunnel, 

         Then we get to tunnel with authentic opening size: rifle goes first, feet go second, arms go last for shoulder size requirements as well as to replace lid, and don't be fat or kitted out

         medic tunnel goes somewhere, it's boring

         tunnel with meeting room - spikes in corner to trap flanking maneuvers

              This has the long tunnel going out from it. 

              mostly duckwalkable, but parts are easier bear crawling. Certain points do force you to hands and knees. write about how suicidal it would be to attack these 

         finally, commanders tunnel and then snack break

         cassava is the local delicacy but cleverly, it also makes you thirsty. Along with crawling through tunnels.  But we saved that $0.50 AGAIN.

         Mom stole the extra cassava. Smoke tunnel/chimney

That's it. Walk back to bus.

bus home. Lou shows locals really can sleep through all that shit. Rush hour traffic, magnified by NYE.

visit local friends parents, coconut jelly.

see boy from earlier, he's sad.

shower, dinner, didn't say a word since they were on a call in VN the whole time.

packing for tomorrow where we fly across the country to do tourist shit. Probably heading out to the airport around 5am so skipping NYE celebrations downtown tonight. But lets be honest, probably gonna be up till midnight anyways.

Vietnam 2: Slightly less chaos

 

Day 2

A quick breakfast a pho, a stop to exchange some money, and visit to the mobile shop for a cheap esim ($8/month, 4gb/day, unlimited calls and texts!) and then back into the city on scooters, this time for some governmental paperwork. Yesterdays sandal shenanagains left me with a blister, so today I wore boots - and between the acclimitization, sunconciously learning to adjust my body position to the traffic and the feel of the engine, and not worrying about losing a VN SLANG FOR SANDAL on the freeway, the ride was way more chill. I do have a new favorite part of the <emergent swarming behaviour, word>: Traffic circles. The bigger and more complicated the better. Thousands of animals <word?> reacting to hundreds of stimuli multiple times a second, and all being fed back into the system in an infinitely iterative loop.  Anyways, enough bioinformatics nerd shit, on to government paperwork!

I wasn't allowed in the embassy, or consulate, or whatever it was, so I found a park attached to a nearby bank and posted up with my kindle, enjoying the shade and rubbing fountain water on my arms to stay cool. After a few chapters, Lou emerged from the beaurocracy with a form directing her to another branch of the beaurocracy. We made our way over, and then I settled in with a book for what was sure to be hours of good reading... However I was only a few pages in when she emerged! Apparently you can pay people to deal with the paperwork for you, and they deal with the lines and the forms - and just like that a few hours opened up!

So we went to the old presidential manor! An iconic structure straight out of vietnamese history and featuring prominently in the War, it's now open for tours and taking selfies at! Apart from the inspired architecture (the house forms several vietnamese characters from certain angles, in addition to catching the breezes and sunlight from every side), the first thing we noticed was the quantity of tiktoks and instagrams being captured in the front yard, most in full ceremonial dress. As an outsider, it's an odd perspective to see this stark reminder of "defeat" being treated as a stunning symbol of victory and perserverance.... but I'm probably reading too much into this. The important part is it's a good excuse and an aesthetic backdrop. 

After checking out the soviet tanks (known for barreling into the yard) and the US fighter jet (known for being stolen from an airbase by a brave hero of the revolution and bombing the palace) we headed inside to check out the staterooms, meeting rooms, living quarters, etc of the palace. (CHECK WORD). While the history was cool, it's a stunning example of 1960s/70s architecture on the inside was well as the outside, adorned with fantastic design work, especially in the furniture. Classic examples of mid-century modern woodwork abound, (LOOK UP ARCHITECTURE TERM) and I was more into them then the history.  We wound our way up to the roof, where they have a huey parked on the roof, next to two red circles denoting the bombing run of the aforementioned F4 fighter. Technically the last chopper out of Saigon was at the US Embassy (FACT CHECK), but the evocation is powerful and hard to miss. 

On the way down we exited through the bunkers, a set of radio-chambers, armories, shooting ranges, and bedrooms staggered beneath 1m and 2.5m of cement, all well preserved. The classic mercedes alongside was a good reminder that this is as much flaunting the spoils of war as a museum, but there's an aspect of that in most museums if you think too hard about it.

After the palace, the tickets also got us into a side-house (WORD) which had an exhibition about the history of the palace, as a lens to review the history of the country from french colony to dictatorship, assassination, to civil war. To be honest, there was little architecture and no furniture so we kinda skimmed it all and moved on.

Having experienced this amazing "touristy" site, Lou wanted to hit more touristy things she'd never seen. The iconic post office is now a tourist trap, and we tried to book a tour-bus around the city but that was a bust due to the timetables. So we went to the Cathedral! Which is closed for renovations. So we went to the famous opera house! Which won't let you in if you don't have a ticket for a show....   Having exhausted the major "Tourist" things in this part of town, we now did the "touristy" thing all the locals are doing: Riding the metro.

The very first metro line opened last week, and the second stop is at the opera house! Since it's free for the first month to drum up interest and sell the idea to the masses - everyone is riding it, posting about it (and the need for deodorant) on social media, etc etc.  So we took it out to the end and back! Growing up outside DC, I've been riding the metro since I was in a stroller... which made it cute to see all the first-timers form orderly lines, grab one handle apiece, and face forward. Luckily it also means they didn't know the best seat in the house: Very back of the train, so you can look out in all three directions. The line starts off underground, so check out this sweet video: 

Is this an idea I stole from some random guy in an airport last year? Absolutely. But look how cool it turns out:

<hyperlapse video>

After the first three underground stops, the train switches to elevated rails and soars across the city. We took it out all 10 stops to the end, hitting a max of 89.9kph between stations (we could see the cockpit display), and getting a great overview of how city fades from metropolis to industrial to housing and education as you head out of the city. Honestly, better than the bus-tour, and more fun. And 80% of the people who made it to the last stop stayed on as the train switched directions to head back into the city.

On the way back we got off at the water-park, mostly because it had an artificial mountain with a giant face on it, and because why not. Metro is free! We have to get off somewhere. The park was closed for the season, but that didn't stop us from taking dozens of pictures for Instagram, just like the locals. What I said before about the symbology of victory as a backdrop and the depth of instagram... nah. Totally wrong. Every time the train rolled into a station, there were at least a dozen camera-phones clicking. There were tiktoks being filmed on the platforms, with or without the train there for context. One family got on the train just to take some instagram shots holding the handles and got off at the next station. Turns out any excuse is a an excellent reason, the Vietnamese love taking pictures. [I ran this by my local cultural consultant who said "Don't worry it's not racist, it's true"  Update: She's getting a manicure from her sister, while both she and a neighbor are filming]

As we headed back into the city the train filled to the brim. Not quite as bad as Japan, but very nearly reaching those levels, and we exited the train at the first station (with this cool roof!) in a surge? tide? of humanity.  From there, it was scooters and back home.

The dinner plans were 1) family style at home, and 2) later, go out with friends for food.  For family dinner one of Lou's school friends came by, and we all ate at her mom's apartment (in the same block). Mom cooked chicken (one of "her chickens"), served with rice and vegetables. As always, they piled food into my bowl, and I did my best to politely eat it all, though I did graciously decline the butt and feet. After some fruit for dessert, another of Lou's friends came by and we all jumped back on the scooters. Quick trip, but at one point my driver asked "do you trust me" before executing a 3-point turn and heading into oncoming traffic - apparently we'd missed our turn by a block. And just like that, bam, second dinner. 

I was still stuffed, but tried it all anyways. Prawns and clams are still delicious, snails are still gross. Plus one octopus dish that I swear I had constantly in Thailand, but this was made with Mango, not Papaya, which makes it definitely a vietnamese dish and not at all Thai. I spent most of the dinner following the conversation through snatched loan-words and gestures, but it was still a fun time hanging out with friends / experiencing the more traditional night life. 

One post-script: I grabbed a shower (in the closet), and mid shower the whole family came to our room to hang out... they passed me my clothes over the wall, laughing something about traditional vietnamese experiences.

Vietnam - The chaos begins

 As is the new tradition, I'm gonna be posting very draft versions and editing / adding pictures.... eventually. 

day 0-

Flights (16h + 6h, middle seat purgatory, time makes no sense, very fast layover)

Immigration takes forever

Lou directed me to suitcases

Initial impressions:

Similar to China or Thailand, past midnight but still people chilling outside

Dark alley, super sketch

Get to Lou's place, a classic vietnamese single-room apartment. Probably 100sqft (10'x10'), consisting of a bed, a closet that is the toliet and shower, a sink, a washing machine, a loft, and a desk.  For a poor family, this is home for all 4 of them.  In my experience, this is a I've only experienced in cyperpunk literature, no windows, the bolthole apartment barely big enough to live, where the door is locked by a padlock when your out and a deadbolt when you're in. 

Took a quick shower squatting on the floor and passed out.

Day 1 - 

After some broken dreams where I had to make sure to employ superposition to perfectly align everythign to fit, I finally settled into real sleep and woke up rested at 8am. Maybe. I really don't know what time it is.  Today is the day of the deathaversarry so we got a car and (after a good interval sitting on the street gossiping with the local women running their shops, having breakfast, meeting my future mother-in-law if [Lou has anything to say about it]) set off to the countryside. 

I wrote previsouly about how China has lost it's authenticity and isn't the china it was 10 years ago... Vietnam may be that China. I think there are even more scooters here, now, then there were there, then, and none of them follow any traffic laws. They're more akin to birds flocking or fish schooling. I feel like I could survive among them, being one of the fluid whole. I could not drive here, our driver knowing the local unspoken rules of the road, letting people merge, honking vociferously, and flashing his four-ways or brights at various times. In contrary to the US where a quick flash means "go for it, I see you", in VN it seems to mean "don't think about it, I'll hit you".

After escaping the city, the countryside reminded me more of Thailand's industrial district than China. It's definitely unique from either of them, but my mind can't help but to draw comparisons and attempt to triangulate.

I thought we'd arrived at the house, but after getting out of the car we instead headed off down a narrow gravel trail, sized for a single moped, cutting between a swamp and a lemon-plantation (which is really just an organized and replanted swamp).  About an eight of a mile in we cut across a canal to an artificial island (or an artificially less swampy section surrounded by a more-liquid section?) to the house itself.  Open to the elements, lots of shade surrounding it, it makes a lot of sense for the climate it's in.  Around the house were animals (two dogs and a bunch of chickens), and fruit trees (papaya, kumquat, and banana).  I was immediately roped into picking some kumquats because I could reach further than they could, and we paid our respects to Lou's grandfather - a memorial was set up with paper goods, foods, incense, and photos of him and his ancestors.   Then we settled in to wait for the incense to burn out, giving the spirits enough time to eat.... at least, that's the idea. In practice, we waited a bit and then relocated the incense and feasted. egg rolls, chicken so fresh it was running around under that same table yesterday, noodles with shrimp, it was delicious.  I played the traditional game of not eating first so I could see how it was done, and they played the traditional game of making sure my bowl was never empty, and my cup was always full.

Mostly lou's aunts and uncles, and a few neighbors from both the city property and the countryside, one of which the english teacher. Tamarins were ok but weirdly squishy and sticky inside. A chili pepper, the first bite was acceptably hot, the second nibble made me want to cry. 

Lou's aunt chose me as her drinking partner, which mostly consisted of yelling do^ (prounounced YO!), or counting 1-2-3 and then yelling YO. It was fun. The whole experience was bizarre but charming and an amazing window into another culture. 

After the meal we wandered over to the local temple / community center / maybe someone's house? and then to the gravesite to see where grandpa was laid to rest. Finally, after a last round of drinks, it was time to head out. I turned around a few scooters for some of the aunties and then we headed back to the car.  In contrary to the trip to the countryside and my first exposure to VN proper, the trip back can be summarized as thus: "I hope we're close. I need to pee. This seems way longer. I need to pee soooo bad. I'm pretty sure I can't damage anythign by holding my pee, just push through the suffering..."  When I was about to give up I finally woke lou and asked for a status.... and luckily we were only two blocks away.  Anyways, I feel much better now.  

Day1 part2

Lou made me download an app on my phone and started giggling. She wouldn't tell me why, just "we're doing local shit".  I told her I didn't want to see only touristy things and I think she took that as a personal challenge.  Anyways, apparently local shit means "put on your flipflops, we're taking scooter taxis.  All in all, pretty casual. There was a moment where her scooter lost us in a crowd, so I just had to assume that our driver had the address in GPS or something.... which he did! To my surprise, it was a massage parlor.

We ended up getting the couples massage. Are lou and I a couple? Nope. Was it a couples massage? Also nope. After a quick bout of suffering in our seperate saunas, we passed each other in the hallway to the massage room.  The massage was actually great, I've never done a proper massage, and my back is all knotted up. Then we once again passed each other in the hallways on the way to our seperate hair-massage / shampooing / whatever.   That was less great. Overall not that objectionable, but it felt like a massage interspersed with going to the dentist. The worst part by far was when the massuese worked up a good lather in my hair and then BAM, two handfuls straight into the ears. So yeah, wouldn't recommend really. But it was definitely an interesting experience. Finally, lou and i met up in the blow-drying room to finish off with a couples blowdry. 

After that unexpected adventure, Lou once again started texting and not telling me what was happening. In for a penny in for a pound though, and I'm a few thousand in at this point so far too late to start second guessing. We got back on scooter taxis, but this time our drivers were Lou's sister Ut (prounounced Oat!) and neighbor-english-teacher, Giang (pronounced Zainnng).  They took us on a scooter tour of Saigon, and it was awesome. Definitely my favorite part so far. Giang is a much more aggressive rider, which made it that much more fun. As I said before, I think I could survive this on a bike. I definitely could not survive this with a pillion and she made it look easy, while pointing out the sights (various famous buildings, national bank, the super photogenic bridge). No pictures for this part, at least not from me, as I was holding on for dear life. There were some festivals happening downtown that really ramped up the traffic/chaos. All the things I love most in life. 

Eventually, we parked and headed past the festivals. The first one we stopped to take in was a practice session for the NYE celebrations. Martial-arts dance crews, banging techno, huge soundstage... it's gonna be a great production. Then we wandered through civic center (the iconic post-office, opera-house, and a statue of Uncle Ho), and made our way to random parkinglots where people self-sorted into various hobbies. There was the dog lot, the RC car lot, rollerbladers... just a fun night culture / street culture overall. Finally, we hit Bui Vien, one of the majore "Walking Streets" of Ho Chi Min City, which is essentially pattaya packed into 4 blocks. TBH I've never been there, maybe pattaya is only 4 blocks too...

Ridiculously loud music, as clubs competed with their rivals across the street, and the bars showing the soccer game competed with them. Dancers in skimpy outfits (mostly female, but a few dudes up there too), looking sexy and bored. Buskers trying to push you into their club or bar, almost phyiscally at some points. And a few ladies of the night stalking the crowd and grabbing the hand of any lone man, especially if they're foreign.  That was the other strange point: after seeing no foriengers for days, and few even in the airport, this street was full of them. One of the buskers I totally ignored even offered me drink prices in euros (to be precise, 1e per beer).  Loud, obnoxious, crowded, but great people-watching.

Finally having survived the street, the four of us ducked into an indian restuarant on the far end. The food was cheap but good, and getting off the street and away from the noise for a chance to sit down was a welcome relief. Afterwards, it was time to take the whole journey in reverse. Bui Vien was even louder and more crowded, but the magic of completely refusing to acknowledge buskers still worked so still not that bad. Emerging from the walking blocks, we ran into a crowd of police. Strange, but whatever. As we walked past they all mounted their motorcycles, flipped on their lights, and tore off down the street.  And a block later, we saw why.

All the scooters in Saigon had descended on the surrounding blocks, and were doing loops while blaring their horns, waving flags, and just generally celebrating their win.  Imagine a dude standing on the back of a moped, twerking and blasting his vuvuzela, as his bro slowly rolls down the street in a pack of literally a thousand mopeds.  Anywhere they stopped rolling, the police were on them to get them on their way. Apparently this is a thing every time VN wins, and it was chaos incarnate. Again, I love this shit. Not nearly as much as Lou does, and we had to almost phyiscally drag her away.  Thankfully, the maurading was limited to the city-center, which meant we didn't have to drive home through it, and we could get away.

That left only another scooter ride across the city, a bit more relaxing as traffic wasn't as bad now that it was passing midnight. Even so, schooling (flocking? Make this metaphor / callback more obvious) across a strange city with great people is definitely one my happy places, and a great finish to the day.