IT COULD ONLY HAPPEN TO ME...
Some may say stranger things have happened.. I can’t help but doubt it. Here I sit in the “business class lounge” of Korean Airlines in Hanoi, Vietnam, awaiting the first of my long series of flights home. This was my one and only upper class ticket among the 8-10 (too tired to count!) flights it took to get me to all the places I needed to go. I was actually ready to just REST for a change. Other than the occasional spa treatment and 5 minutes in a jacuzzi, that just hasn’t happened during this trip. I’ve been running non-stop since I touched down in this land of wondrous things, and I’ve done so well, considering the fact that I’m a serious germaphobe. I was feeling so proud of myself for actually looking straight at rats and smashing mosquitoes with my hands and not completely losing it when a bottle of liquid sugar covered with bugs was delivered to me with my coffee at a top restaurant in Cambodia , and when tiny ants attacked the buffet my friend and her family in Saigon invited me to. I’ve handled watching fish get their heads pounded off whilst their hearts were still beating and not looking away as the blood gushed out and seeing every animal’s body part exposed and fly-ridden and, oh, I don’t think I could ever really remember and name all the disgusting, frightening and gory things I’ve witnessed and experienced here. And yet I’ve handled it all remarkably well and just taken it all in stride. I’ve even been OK about the occasional gecko dropping landing on my otherwise squeaky clean (at least hopefully) bed sheets. But when it comes to possibly coming into contact with MOUSE DROPPINGS, I crawl into that germaphobic hole again. I could have been all fine and dandy. I’d entered the lounge and taken a seat -- but then the boy-girl conversation taking place beside me became too annoying to bear. It was going something like this: boy’s English accent: “Oh, we don’t have flashing yellow lights. Ours are orange. At times they flash and others they don’t. They mean blah blah blah this and that..” and on and on about .. traffic lights? Ugh. I couldn’t take it so I packed up my numerous bags and moved to a large area, started dropping my things on the chairs when suddenly I noticed a black thing that was that unmistakable shape – and then there was another and another and even the chair that I’d placed my scarf upon had one of them and as I looked in horror the Korean guys next to me noticed and started wondering what was up, so I motioned for them to come look and they joined me in a long UGH! There I was, not knowing which of my things had been contaminated and which hadn’t and here I still sit mad as hell that my precious all-too-seldom time in the special lounge was completely _ucked up by this, along with my fantastic record for not freaking out. Because there I was after that, using wipe after wipe to try to make myself feel better about my coat, and taking other layers off altogether. The staff here are completely ineffective and I’m MAD AS HELL! How could this possibly happen? Why me? I know that sounds pathetic but you’ve got to admit, after all I’ve gone through this is really not to be believed. Time for some ativan AND… a very stern talk with the manager which, thankfully, was extremely effective. BUT.. more on that later. Let’s start with a rant about packing. You may relate, you may find it funny, or you just may want to skip down to where I actually talk about the trip.
It’s a fact – an undisputed truth: I SUCK at packing. I am literally incapable of it. You’d think that all my travels would have given me enough practice – enough chances to hone my skills, but alas such is not the case. When people say, “pack light” for a month-long journey during which I’ll encounter temperatures ranging from 30 to 100 degrees, it’s as though they were speaking a foreign language to me. Huh? What on earth do you mean? How does one do it? Is there a Learning Annex class I can take on this because THAT would be amazing and I’m desperately in need so, please, sign me up!Sure, I like the concept of limiting oneself to one bag but I need a separate suitcase just for my toiletries – 5 kinds of skin lotion including the basic, the special one for those pesky bumps on my arms, the face one with spf, the nighttime one for firming the sagging face, the eye and let’s not forget the ever-present zit creams. It doesn’t take up much room but all this stuff adds up! Next we address the bug repellants -- without sunscreen (and I didn’t even pay attention to the numbers – that would have put me over the edge), bug repellant WITH sunscreen, sunscreen with and without repellant (just to cover my bases), repellant that sprays, that’s small enough for the purse, that has deet and that doesn’t, the herbal kind for the skin and the one to be sprayed on clothes and sheets with that name that starts with a “p” pyrethrium or some such thing.. And the after-bite stuff to stop the itch along with the other one to heal the bite. And then there are the mosquito coils (which didn’t even end up working). Sigh.I’ve got a bag of individually-wrapped wet-ones and tissues for those nasty public restrooms and countless bottles of antibacterial hand gel as I really couldn’t handle running out of it, plus cotton pads for make-up removal and Q-tips (little did I know that the upper-echelon hotels I treated myself to this time came equipped with all such sundries) . Sheesh, thank goodness I no longer get my period!But I DO have hair again and where there’s hair there’s shampoo (no, I didn’t trust the one in the pink bottle one hotel supplied, called, “Mai Hao” i.e. My Hair in “Vietican”) and conditioners of various sorts and razors and styling products, not to mention embellishments to help me with this awkward “growing-out” and it would be so horrible to run out of such things so what choice did I have but to include enough for a month, along with liquid laundry soap and first aid, oy, the first aid .. bandaids and peroxide and polysporin and hydrocortisone and eye and nose drops and Actifed and Sudafed and every prescription I now need and every one I might possibly in a blue moon and vitamins and homeopathics and, back to not getting my period, my blankety blank blank natural hormones which I definitely couldn’t live without. All this adds up to bottles and bottles of stuff I may or may not use, but it’s stuff I’ve just got to have with me and that’s that.Books are heavy and I know better but I just couldn’t figure out which guide was best and so I brought 3, yep, count’em 3! And that doesn’t include the 2 Travelogues about the area I also couldn’t pass up, plus various memoirs I’m sure I’ll get to so they needed to take up some place in my ridiculously-stuffed bags as well.Now let’s talk electronics. As I write on my new laptop (this is the life, baby!), I’m listening to iTunes through my new headphones that came with my new iPod (I swear the older one no longer held a charge), also included in my bag but unnecessary when the computer’s being used (or so I thought but later a wrench was thrown into that idea). I have a Canon XPI digital slr with a 28-300 stabilized lens and my regular 28-80 lens is along for the ride in case the mega-zoom becomes too unwieldy (but ended up sitting, unneeded, unloved). My point-and-shoot has a special place in my bag, as well, for those times when I don’t dare take the big guns out and just in case of problems that might arise.All of these gadgets have their own chargers and cards and bits and bobs that need to be stored and organized.
ARE YOU BORED YET?
I haven’t even touched on the clothes. Shoes, handbags, bathingsuits, hats, pants and skirts. I can’t get into the details (you’re welcome!) but suffice it to say that the more I tried to simplify the bigger the pile of “necessities” seemed to grow until it was like Jack’s beanstalk climbing to the heavens with the promise of golden eggs if I got it right. I’m deliriously tired so if I’m making no sense whatsoever, please cut me some slack. And of course, we know how I love to shop so one can only imagine how heavy the original exandable bulbous bags (note it STARTED OUT plural) eventually became.So if any of you have tips for traveling light in such situations as leaving for a month with any and every type of weather condition, please DO TELL!
BUT ENOUGH WITH PACKING... NOW TO THE ACTUAL TRIP!
As some of you may remember, my flight took me through Seoul (or however it’s spelled – I can’t seem to get a handle on it). I planned on taking a tour of the city and duly arranged it once I’d asked no less than 10 people how to find the darned place. It’d been hard enough just to get through immigration -- I seemed to constantly pick the wrong immigration line, the one that kept stopping, to the point that I stood in two at once and growled like a mangyTetanus ridden dog whenever anyone approached from either side. After 14 hours of non-stop extremely uncomfortable air travel, I wasn’t up for fooling around or concerned about being “nice”.Still, very happily, when I made it to the tour desk a smiling face greeted me and said, “are you on this tour? So am I – let’s go on it together” and I certainly couldn’t refuse. Her name is Shelley and it doesn’t suit her at all somehow (perhaps because I like her so much, which was not the way I felt about my Aunt of the same name who is no longer with us…RIP), but she’s a Chinese-American accountant who was on her way to visit her family and, fortunately, had a ridiculously long lay-over just as I had. We got along famously and had a great time on the tour, which very well might have been miserable without her. At one point, after we visited a palace and very accidentally lost our group, we found the bus and waited there for the rest of them. Some jackass screamed at us when they finally arrived, claiming he didn’t have time to wait around all day for idiots such as we were (ugh, WE were in the bus the whole time, mister..) and I wanted to tell him to re-visit his anger-management courses but held my tongue. Our tour-guide was rather laissez-faire and hadn’t told us what to do in the event some such thing happened and she looked at us as he continued his tirade, saying with her eyes that she was on our side – he was a creep, and we needn’t worry. We liked her.Next we continued on to a street filled with adorable antique, collectible and knick-knack shops and I could have spent all day there but we had.. 20 minutes. It was frustrating knowing we would have another 7 hours to wait in the airport but we couldn’t return to this spot. It was over an hour from the airport and we couldn’t risk it. Instead we were left to our own devices for entertainment, taking lurid photos of ourselves groping a statue of Colonel Sanders, meeting people from all over the globe, drinking coffee after coffee, chatting about traveling together in the future. Too soon the time was over and we parted. Shelley was awesome – a true gift to me at the start of my journey into the unknown. I know we’ll remain friends for years to come (we’re already planning a future trip).But I wasn’t in Vietnam yet…The kind man next to me called to the flight attendant as I sat there basically freaking out, or should I say hyper-ventilating while the plane from Seoul to Vietnam prepared for take-off. My hands were shaking – I was sure something was wrong. There was a very distinct gas smell yet no one seemed to notice it – no one other than me, it seemed, as the rest of the passengers sat listlessly, watching the screen as various random and unexpected images splashed across it. There was a performance by famed Transvestite (and transsexual?) Dame Edna, for example, followed by a short documentary about artist Jean-Pierre Braissard, a very strange Frenchman who does something weird and though I can’t remember exactly what it was, I KNOW it didn’t belong in this particular cabin in front of this particular audience. What the heck was going on? Was I in some sort of warped dream state? Middle-aged Vietnamese and Korean men watched in utter shock, awe, wonder and disbelief – unable to tear their eyes away and then there was me, watching them watching and trying to get a grip on why exactly the airline would be showing such things – coming to the only conclusion possible: Someone had royally fucked up. It all made for a bizarre scene which continued on as I continued fearing for my life and the staff continuously scurried about in take-off mode while the passengers continued to sit as though it didn’t smell suspiciously dangerous – as though there wasn’t a smoky mist in the air of the craft and as though the images before them were completely commonplace in their experience of “travel entertainment programs”. So, being the squeaky wheel in the group (for a change?), I had no choice but to bring it up and explain that my eyes were burning and my chest was hurting and it was basically very difficult to breath (I left the others to deal with the audio/visual aspect of the situation). Presently, the captain came to discuss things with “Miss Grey” as it were, along with various other and sundry aircraft “officials”, in order to convince me that a) I wasn’t really smelling anything and b) if I insisted that I was, it was all perfectly normal, happened all the time and everything was fine and safe. They were concerned about my fears (“I guarantee everything’s safe” said the captain), but what good would that do me when my name was reduced to a headline in the next day’s paper, I thought?! My fear was real – palpable and soul wrenching but though a couple of the majority passengers (i.e. Asians from either Vietnam or Korea) mentioned they felt strange, too, the flight continued on and we’re now suspended in the air and so far it seems so good (the gas smell having seemingly transformed into more of a fart smell) but my eyes are still hurting terribly and I can’t help but wonder..And so I survived yet another frightening foreign airline experience and arrived at the airport, thrilled to see someone holding a sign with MY NAME emblazoned across it! I’ll never pass up on that service. For me, it’s a necessity, especially when I’m traveling solo.HELLO VIETNAM!Arriving at my swanky hotel, disheveled and exhausted, I was disappointed to see the kind gentleman who’d been e-mailing me had not succeeded at finagling me a view, nor was he there to greet me. But the room was clean (well, my white glove did find a few dusty areas but this is ME so for most it would be considered perfect) and “well appointed” as the travel books say i.e. comfortably and tastefully furnished. I was happy to organize my ridiculous amount of belongings and tumble into bed.Next morning, after a restful but rather short sleep, my alarm woke me and I proceeded to shower, loving the pressure, the heat, never wanting it to stop, but suddenly I hear the “bang” of a hammer. I stop moving, paralyzed by the thought that I actually heard such a thing, then there it was again and again and then multiple “bang bang bangs” by multiple tools of building or destruction all chiming in simultaneously and then there were the electric drills and a rising crescendo of “instruments” exploded upon my otherwise restful morning of contentment. This would not do. I was paying far more than I customarily do for the luxury, comfort, peace and quiet this hotel stay had promised, and I use that word literally as I’d written several times, specifically requesting Quiet and yes the P word had been pronounced. To put it mildly, I was Furious. I threw on something to make myself “decent” and flew down the hall, not far at all to a door left ajar and opened it to find at least ten startled men staring at me, shocked to see me in the doorway, especially in my state of partial undress. And, I’ll admit, I screamed.. STOP THIS NOW. DO NOT MAKE ANY MORE NOISE” to these men who, of course, had no idea what my words meant but my tone couldn’t be mistaken. And I’d recently read in one of my guide books that getting angry would get you nowhere in this country. But, well, I just couldn’t help it. I should add that prior to taking this extreme approach I’d more calmly called the reception desk and informed them of the situation. They’d again “promised” to get right on it and take care of it but when a full half-hour later it had gotten worse and worse, then and only then did I, admittedly, fly off the frickin’ handle.So now let me speed this up a bit. If I continue at this rate with so many details, I’ll write a hundred page book before my first destination has been covered!:By the time a Manager arrived, I was crying. I was so exhausted, and this was the LAST thing I needed. He actually had the audacity to say there was no construction going on and I had to bring him to the room in question to show him. I opened the door, and there they were, the several startled men, all standing there, covered with plaster and wielding their tools of choice.He upgraded me to one of the river-view rooms which I’d wanted all along. He offered me a free dinner in the hotel restaurant of my choice. He tried to take care of me. Perhaps I wouldn’t have cried had I not been completely shattered from the stress of getting ready with things breaking one after another at home as the pressure of take-off time had weighed on me ever heavier: dryer, internet, other things I can’t remember, and so much else that had been going on at home with everyone from Terry my bother-in-law’s heart surgery to my friend’s kitty’s very sad death to getting sick during all of it while attempting to prepare for such a long trip after having been, well, that other kind of sick and really not up to travel the last time I’d attempted it. All of this, I believe, culminated in an eruption of emotion that the manager had to deal with and probably couldn’t understand in the slightest, though he did his best. And it would have been fine and well and good if only…Well, let’s go into the rest of that day, first. I experienced a glorious breakfast on the hotel’s large terrace, looking right out onto the Saigon river, a body of water which isn’t beautiful by any sense of the word, but which is fascinating. Boats go up and down, from regular-looking cruisers to Chinese-junk-esque wonders to tug-boats pulling huge tankers. On either side are docks for ferrys which travel the width of the river on a regular basis, taking on seemingly hundreds of motorcycles each time (transport of choice in Saigon and, it seems, all around Vietnam). I first saw the cycles loading up onto the ferry and could see the movement but couldn’t quite tell what was going on but with the help of my trusty new 28-300 lens, which doubles as my telescope, I saw what it was and was able to close in on much of the riverside activity.The breakfast itself, for which I’d set my alarm in the firstplace, was a gigantic buffet featuring edible fare from around the globe, from basic bacon, eggs and pancakes to croissants, salads and all sorts of pan-asian delights and frights. The fresh fruit was amazing – several varieties I’d never seen such as a whitish fruit with black seeds and a texture like a kiwi (now I know it’s dragon fruit). I didn’t like it much but the mango was the best I’ve ever tasted in my life and I spent every morning there eating quite a bit of it – it literally melted in my mouth. The fruit lady would smile and say, “more mango?” when she saw me. I must say the Majestic’s staff was so lovely – every one of them smiley and kind and I had a great time with several of them.One of them wanted to expand his language skills so I was teaching him the foods there that he didn’t know. The two main ones were “hicama” and “cornichon”, the latter of which was hilarious as he said it with such a French nasal accent and we’d giggle endlessly every time he said it. I think we have an American word for those little French pickle things but I honestly can’t think of what it is.. Anyone?Finally, I left the hotel premises, armed with a crappy little map and my ATM card, as I still didn’t have any Vietnamese money.I must interject here that no matter where I go there seems to be construction. As I write, I am at my “resort” destination in a small beach town called mui ne. I had specifically asked whether there’d be work being done there as I’d read something online that suggested as much, but again the ubiquitous “promise” came into play so here I am and the pounding going on behind me is alarming, yet I seem to be the only guest noticing it. I suppose I’ll just try to ignore it. I’m taking a new stance, a “go with the flow” attitude (ha ha, you think – Janet go with the flow?) but I will admit to at least giving it a try. I am also trying to focus on the palm trees and ocean in front of me, separated only by a few grass umbrellas and a swimming pool which could be screaming with kids but thankfully is not. I’m about to throw caution to the wind and actually drink “Vietnamese coffee” which does NOT come decaffeinated as I feel it’s safer than the “watermelon shake” that’s calling to me but will doubtless leave me heaving. This is simply black coffee with condensed milk so I should survive from it.Also, the girls here were staring at me and when I looked up, they said, “You are so beautiful” and, believe me, I just rolled out of bed with, I think, 10 mosquito bites on my face and no make-up on so I’m a) puzzled and b) touched.But where was I…The money in Vietnam is a bit crazy: $1 = 16,000 “dong” which is their currency. In all the research I did, I forgot to check this out and, more significantly, I didn’t bring a calculator, though the thought crossed my mind for a split-second. But no one ever mentioned the need for one despite the extensive research I did. Ergo, I’m still looking and looking and looking for one. It’s just crazy to try to work out the numbers. When my money came spitting out of the ATM, I was so frightened I’d cleaned out my entire bank account that I had to run back to the hotel and get them to give me an instant lesson. Now I think I’m getting the hack of it and it’s amazing how far $100 in dong can take you. Taxi rides are less than $1 and a meal is often less than 5. It’s easy and fun to tip very well.
Now, I'm off to experience my first day here. To be continued...
