Whenever I ask anyone about their absolute favorite thing that they did in Vietnam, they always say Hoi An. Obviously Sarah and I put this on our list from the get-go and coerced Zac and Nathalie (yes, the Canadians from the last post, if you haven't read it yet - GO. NOW.) to fly there with us.
Upon arrival in Hoi An, it was raining. The rain did not stop, even for a second, for the next TWO DAYS. Did we experience the quaint, picturesque Vietnamese town that travelers before us had praised? HELL NO. But did we have, well, an experience?
That'd be a yes. VBH (our favorite Vietnamese hostel chain) did it again. This location was a five-star hotel that had been converted into a hostel. Not only was its decor epic, but these guys also knew how to give amazing recommendations on food: enter what is most likely my favorite meal of the trip - Cao lầu. Describing food is not my forte, so look it up and be sure to try it in Hoi An.
Did this location also have a bar where you paid for the drinks using only the cult-like bracelet on your wrist? DUH. After a quick splash in the new pond, we caught some Z's, giving a definite "maybe" on the way up to the tour-guide who was trying to convince us to sign up for the bike tour in the am.
Woke up to pouring rain. Went downstairs to find that the bike tour was in full swing. As the tour guide was to point out later, not a single person had signed up the night before, but twenty of us signed up knowing full well that the rain would be up to our knees. We could all learn a thing or two from the sales expertise of the VBH employees.
We began pedaling, our feet baptized with each rotation. With the wrong crowd of people, this would have been a hellish experience, but with OUR crew? It was one of my favorite memories from the whole trip. Come to find out, it was our tour guide Joe's very first tour. He got us to the ATM (about a five minute bike ride), and announced that it was the end of the tour. Apparently it was too unsafe or something? Now that I think about it, surely this was his plan all along. The only ATM in the area was the one that he led us to, and as I had stated earlier, VBH only deals in cash sooooo it was definitely all a ruse to fill our pockets so they could bleed them dry. Well, the plan worked. We cashed up, played in the water (yes, we looked like idiots, and yes, the Vietnamese people were standing at their doorways staring at us in horror), and then saddled back up for the journey home. We got a full refund on the tour, but I would not have complained even a little bit if we hadn't.
Upon arrival at our five-star hostel, we did the only thing that makes sense when you're soaking wet from head to toe: grabbed a beer and jumped in the pool. Determined to see Hoi An despite the army of rain that was attacking us at every front, we grabbed a Grab (Vietnamese Uber, our number one mode of transportation - it's like 20 cents a trip), and headed into town.
First item on the agenda? Custom suits and jumpsuits. This was not on my radar at all, but apparently it's a huge thing in Vietnam, especially Hoi An: affordable(ish) tailored stuff. Such a fun experience, these women were truly talented - check them out if you end up in Hoi An: BeBe 2. I made sure Sarah documented the exciting experience.
We hit up some sites that my guidebook recommended and just had the best time wading through the streets... I am kind of surprised Zac and I didn't have to get our feet amputated. We both had semi-severe gashes in our feet (from the beaches of Castaways, of course) and were sloshing around from street to street in bare feet in the murkiest water I have ever seen. Thank god for vaccines and modern medicine, eh? ALTHOUGH a certain travel companion of mine (goes by the name Fowler) got ZERO of the recommended vaccines which stressed me out like crazy but just made her feel like she was living on the edge 🙄.
Back at the hostel, it became very apparent that everyone else had not left the pool or bar. So we joined right back in. The hostel put on an extravagant family meal for us that night, and it was truly one of the cutest things I have ever experienced. They set up ten tables around the room and this was the deal: pay $15 (which in the current context seemed very expensive) and you received a very nice Sunday roast and unlimited alcohol for two hours. Looking back, it was indeed a very very good deal.
The meal ended, as did the free drinks, but this was just the beginning. They cleared away the tables (well, not all of them - they left one for me to dance on, obviously) and set up all the games.
Meanwhile, Zac was off on a bit of an adventure. He grabbed a Grab (never gets old) and head into town for a second fitting for his suit. I think it goes without saying that the rain was still flooding the streets. He could not get a Grab back, and there were no taxis to be found. Soooo guess who got to go for a little two-mile run in the rain? Suffice to say, Zac showed up for the dancing and games with some water weight.
Morning two in Hoi An: still raining. Time to shop! Hoi An is known for not only its tailoring (which we went to pick up - they are quite quick), but also for its plethora of shops. From all things knock off (granted, that is all of Asia), to leather shops, handicrafts and THAI pants (currently wearing 'em). We had the best time haggling with the store-owners and yes, running through the disgusting, flooded street in bare feet.
Sang some tunes, climbed some trees, bought some clothes, drank some brews and really and truly just had the best time. What do people even do there when it's not raining??
Back to the hostel to do our best to clean up a little? Not sure how well it worked... Off to the airport. Next stop? Saigon (Ho Chi Min City).
Get this. Upon arrival in Saigon, IT WASN'T RAINING. But there was a catch... cockroaches. Everywhere. I am sure that there are so many people that have the best of things to say about Saigon, but I am not one of those people. Although, we did run into our friend Julian from, you guessed it, CASTAWAYS. Hung out with him all night, running from cockroaches.
Spent pretty much the whole night searching for Banh Mi (the quintessential Vietnamese sandwich), sitting down at several places and either leaving without ordering or just getting beer after being unimpressed by the menu. Was this a direct result of our complete lack of sleep and utter lack of planning? Oh, 1000%, BUT WHY was it so hard to find Banh Mi in Saigon, the capital of Vietnam?
When we finally found some, Nathalie actually almost died because it was so spicy, so we ran home, grabbed some beer at the hostel and called it a night.
On the agenda for the next morning? Sleeper bus @ 8:30 am. Destination: Mũi Né. Had some breakfast with Julian on the roof - great view, and then entered what may have been our worst moment on the trip to date.
We kept reading these HORRIBLE reviews for several bus companies. Literally to the effect of: "If you are a white person, they make you sleep on the floor." Due to such warnings, we did our best to secure a company where this was not the case. Did we find a company that made us sleep on the floor? No (yay)! Did they treat us with any semblance of respect? Hell nahhh. Bus was supposed to leave at 8:30am. We tried so many times to figure out when the bus would arrive, but to no avail. The staff kept telling us it was coming in five minutes and then would start cracking up to each other... for an hour. Never had there been so many moments of silence between the three Canadians and I. We were SURE that we had bought some bogus tickets and that this "bus" was never going to arrive.
But at 9:30, the bus showed up: disco lights and all. And let me tell you - I had my best sleep to date on this thing.
There may have been about an hour pause for technical difficulties? Granted, zero announcements were made regarding why we were stopped, but I was so lucky as to be on the window where all the fun was happening, so I filled our crew in. Everyone else on the bus? Unfazed.
Upon arrival in Mũi Né, we threw our backpacks on and chose to walk to the hostel cause the sun was shining and our spirits were soaring. Halfway to the hostel, I realized I had left my raincoat on the bus. Upon this realization, I just smiled. It was a sign. The rain was behind us. Did this VBH also have a pool? You know it.
Was the pool our first stop though? Yes. Actually, no. Just checked with the fam, and our first stop was actually food. Equally understandable though, right? This "food" ended up being one of my worst memories from the trip. We took a walk down the strip - honestly don't really know how to describe the Mũi Né strip; not ghetto? Just... Weird. We saw a happy hour sign, and not wanting to walk further, and liking the idea of BOGO, we stopped. Drinks were OK. It was definitely one of those moments where we were just so happy to be in the sun, that nothing could bring us down. Or so we thought.
I took one bite of my food and thought, "Huh, this reminds me of something." Five bites later I realized what it reminded me of. Dog food. Granted, I have never eaten dog food, but dammit I have owned enough dogs to know that smell. Nathalie had the same food and immediately agreed with my summation of the situation. We had already ordered another round of drinks, which we devoured so that we could get the hell out of there, head to the pool and snag some stand up VBH burgers (or something to that effect?), which we should have done all along. Sometimes it is just not worth it to venture out and get the "real" experience of the destination. Sun. Pool. Beer. All we truly needed. The rest of the day was gold.
The night consisted of soccer, karaoke, new friends and late night bikinis (on my part at least) BECAUSE IT WAS WARM. Two days in the rain does something to you for sure.
Slept in a little the next morning. As in woke up at 8:30 or so? When you are sleeping right next to a pool, you can only sleep in so much. Pool. Then beach.
Did we get kicked off of several resorts as we attempted to reach the beach? Duh. But we made it. The main item on the agenda for the day was this sick tour we had booked, which is a must do for anyone that ventures to Mũi Né. We hopped in these army jeeps and zoomed off to the fairy stream which we knew absolutely nothing about before our arrival, but it ended up being quite striking.
Stop two still makes no sense to me. It was this lookout over the beach, but naturally we climbed straight down to the beach itself and were just met with thousands upon thousands of washed up dead sea creatures. Like, "Wow, thanks so much for showing us where our lunch from yesterday came from! Makes sense now." Just look:
Stop three was the white sand dunes. Upon arrival, we hopped on the back of ATVs and were jetted up to the top of the dunes where more adventures awaited. Sarah and Zac were allll about sledding down the dunes. This was not part of my plan; I was gonna take some pics, cheer them on and just enjoy the sun (if I get even a spec of sand in my eye, it waters for hours). Well, this Vietnamese lady ended up bullying me into sledding down the dune. I mean really and truly bullied me. Watch this video of her pushing me.
By the time I finally climbed to the top of the dune after wiping out, I was miserable. Between the sand, tears and mascara, there was not a clear spot on my face - truly a delightful sight. Nathalie and I watched with some concern while Zac and Sarah tried to get more and more speed with each trip down the dune (poor Sarah, I think I may have gone way faster than she was ever able to; I wish this was not the case). Snapped a few pics and then back to the ATVs for the wild ride back to our jeep.
Final stop was sunset on the red sand dunes. I had the marvelous idea of grabbing some brews for this magical experience. I should have learned from the wind at the white sand dunes that the red sand dunes would ALSO be windy; I did not learn said lesson. The second we all opened our beers, they were immediately devoured by sand. Did we still drink them? Well, ya. Was it the magical experience that I had envisioned? Eh. Wicked pretty though.
Everyone else LOVED the sand, so I documented them frolicking and burying Zac. They're so cute.
Back to the jeeps. After all the fun in the sun, we were super ready for pool and food ASAP. That was not entirely what was in store for us. As soon as we got back to the hostel, it soon became clear that Sarah's phone was nowhere to be found. We had set down my backpack with my camera, our wallets and Sarah's phone in it. It was within sight, but not within reach. As it turns out, there are these little pickpockets that scrounge around the dunes and steal all kinds of things. One of these things just so happened to be Sarah's phone out of my bag, which after five minutes of us leaving it within sight, but unattended, Sarah had dutifully grabbed and put at our feet. Five minutes too late.
By the time we realized the phone was gone, it was dark and we had zero chance of being able to find the phone, on the off chance that it had fallen out at some point. On top of that, we had a sleeper bus back to Saigon in just a few hours. After a quick dip in the pool, Sarah recovered quickly and off we went to the local bar, had some local cuisine (much better than the dog food), some cocktails and talked memories with Nathalie and Zac since it was our last night together. We had met ten days earlier and had what seemed like a lifetime of favorite memories to go over.
It's funny how cheap of a person you become while backpacking in Vietnam. The hostels we stayed at would charge us a dollar for beer. At first we thought this was such a good deal UNTIL we noticed that the corner shop at the entrance to the hostel sold beer for 50 cents. Was there a sign in front of our hostel that said "no outside alcohol allowed?" Well, yes. But did getting beer at half price seem like the perfect time to break this rule? Duh. Our final night in Vietnam consisted of contraband beer, knock-off cigarettes and an ethereal glow from pollution. I wouldn't have had it any other way.
At about 3 am, our sleeper bus showed up with bumpin tunes and glowin lights. I was asleep within minutes. Sarah, on the other hand? Did not sleep a wink. I awoke in Saigon feeling refreshed and ready for the day. After hitting up a cafe to figure out some phone stuff, we were off to the airport. Destination: Siem Reap, Cambodia.
We grabbed a tuk tuk from the airport to our new hostel, Mad Monkey, and all we could talk about was how much we like this country already, but all we really wanted to do was relax by the pool and get some much needed rest. This was not in the cards; not even a little bit.
Before we even reached the check-in desk, we were attacked by the sunset cruise crew. They started cheering and chanting for us to join them. Sarah and I stared at everyone, dumbfounded. I mean it was a no-brainer; we looked at each other, shrugged, and said, "we're in"! We had 3 minutes to get ready for what would be an unforgettable experience. We didn't have time to check in. We had to get out cash and pay now. We had to lock our bags away. We had to change. We had no time to talk, and before we knew it, we were ushered to the tuk tuks, put in the same one, but then the group leader, Ollie, grabbed my arm, pulled me out of the tuk tuk and said I was going with him. This is the moment we truly fell in love with Mad Monkey and in turn, Cambodia.
After a thirty minute ride guarding the beer and discussing life with Ollie, we arrived at the Mekong River. Ollie had really talked this cruise up, so I was expecting A LOT, and I know it's gonna sound cliche, but we got everything he promised and so much more. When they said "sunset cruise", any energy we had thought we were lacking, came rushing to the surface. We made all of the friends, from the three New York girls who live in the same neighborhood as us to all the new Brits, Aussies and Brit-Aussies. Jumped in the water, ate some fruit, drank some beer, soaked in the sunset.
We arrived on land, and it was every man for his tuk tuk. We teamed up with Shri (sp?) and Moses. Had we even met them while on the cruise? Don't think so. We were having a glorious ride back, the wind was blowing, beginning to dry us off, when we passed what looked like an epic party, and Sarah said the famous last words of, "What is that?" Shri said, "Let's go find out." We were the last tuk tuk in line, so nobody noticed as we did a U-turn and parked in front of what just so happened to be a wedding. "OK! You can just let us off here," Shri said to the tuk tuk driver. He complied, no questions asked.
Again, Sarah and I just shrugged and went with the flow. We walked with confidence into the wedding. We were in our swimsuits, with shorts and tank tops over top, but nonetheless, soaked. We were greeted with unsurpassed enthusiasm and immediately shown to our seats, given drinks and introduced to our fellow guests. The hospitality that we were given, at this wedding that we were so unmistakably out of place at, was far above that which I have received at weddings that I HAVE been invited to.
The lovely guest to my left (I forget his name) did not let me get halfway through a beer without immediately replenishing it. The food came, and we of course said that we couldn't possible eat any of the food! But then they put food on our plates sooo eat we did. Then we needed a restroom, and for some reason there was not one on the premises? My dear friend to my left led Sarah and me across the street to yet another sketchy loo (don't think we encountered anything even close to what I would consider a hygienic washroom the entire time that we were in Cambodia). Then back to the wedding where Shri and Moses were doing a very good job of making our crew look like the obnoxious Westerners that we unequivocally were.
As we considered joining the dancing, Sarah grabbed me and pointed. Outside of the wedding tent stood Ollie. Actually not stood, paced. Ollie was searching like a madman for us while we gave Americans, Canadians, and... (I can't remember where Moses was from!) a bad name. Sarah ran out and grabbed him while the rest of us stayed in the tent. He marched right in, scolded us like insubordinate school children, and turned on his heel with us scrambling obediently after him. Turns out Ollie hadn't realized we were missing until our tuk tuk driver turned up at the hostel without his passengers. The driver had said something about a wedding so Ollie rode his motorbike until he saw something that resembled a wedding.
Upon arrival at Mad Monkey, Sarah and I said we had to go to bed, but Ollie said that since we had gotten him in trouble, we had to go to karaoke on the roof. Not wanting to upset him anymore, we obliged. As soon as we got to the rooftop bar, I was immediately immersed in a beer pong game, so I handed Sarah two dollars (they use USD in Cambodia) and told her to grab us each a beer. She looked at me like I was a maniac insisting that surely she would need more for each of us to get a drink; I told her to give it a go. Now that we were no longer doing the 23 to 1 conversions that we had to do with the Vietnamese Dong, life immediately made so much more sense. 30 seconds later Sarah turned away from the bar with a triumphant look on her face and, yes, two beers.
At about 10pm we realized that we still had not checked in, so we ran down to get that over with. While checking in we realized that we had also not planned out the next day yet; that was supposed to happen while we were "relaxing at the pool". We then confidently booked the sunset tour of the temples, insisting that a 4:30am call time would be no problem.
We ran back up for some fun with our new friends, and then "responsibly" went to bed at midnight or so. I awoke with a start at 4:30 to Sarah shaking me. They had put us in separate rooms due to us checking in so late. Sarah had no idea which room I was in, and after waiting in the lobby for me for several minutes, took it upon herself to try every room until she found me. The poor girl had to climb up so many top bunks to check faces to even find where I was. TALK ABOUT SAVING THE DAY.
I followed Sarah in a dream-like state to our tuk tuk driver who was waiting patiently for us at the entrance to the hostel. He took us to get our day passes to the temples. This was the number one reason that we had come to Siem Reap: alllll the temples. But. Please. Just look at my day pass photo. There has (and hopefully I will never surpass this) never been such a terrible photo of me.
Our tuk tuk driver then dropped us off and told us to go enjoy the sunrise. Now realize that this meant that it was still pitch black out, and Sarah and I had no idea where to actually go. As it turns out, watching the sun rise at Angkor Wat is a bit of a thing, so we had plenty of people to follow. Granted I was still half asleep, but it felt like a dream walking through monuments that are nigh a millennium old, without seeing them, and then perching on another random monument to watch the sun appear. Was this experience a mixture of magic and longing (for coffee)? 100%.
Following the sunrise, we wandered into the temple and were truly blown away - or as blown away as one can be running on just a couple hours of sleep and no coffee. Angor Wat is extremely large and very easy to get lost at, which we of course kept doing. After a couple hours of meandering, we decided it was food and coffee time. It was all very confusing because since we had been up since 4am, we wanted lunch, but it wasn't even 8am yet.
After receiving sustenance, we figured we should go back into the temple to see if we missed anything. After walking around a bit more, we realized that we were both sick from the food (so much for sustenance), and that we should actually probably figure out where our tuk tuk driver was.
We walked back to the parking lot only to realize that we had no way of finding our driver (we had hired him for the day). We didn't know his name. We didn't have his phone number. We didn't even know what he or the tuk tuk looked like because it had been so dark! There were hundreds of tuk tuks and drivers; I must've said, "Wait, is THAT him?" about 100 times. Sarah's memory was a bit better than mine, and could at least respond with confidence that none of these guys were our driver. We spent (at minimum) thirty minutes wandering around this parking lot - and by "wandering", I mean that Sarah was fervently looking while I followed her along like a lost puppy, incapable of a single helpful thought. I even wandered into a roped off area where they were felling a tree. Not my best moment.
Finally, one of the many tuk tuk drivers that tried to help us mentioned that there was another parking lot. Although Sarah and I were quite confident that we were in the correct one, we figured checking it out was better than walking in the same wobbly circle that we had been following. Upon arrival at the next parking lot (less than a five minute walk away), we were greeted by a huge smiling, waving dude, who Sarah immediately recognized as our driver.
We then received a very welcome lecture from our driver about how there are many other temples for us to see and that we can't be spending that much time at each one. Sarah and I nodded along with huge smiles on our faces, just happy to be in the tuk tuk. We secretly hoped that the next temple was hours away.
The rest of our temple tour was wonderful, captivating, but in the eyes of the reader pretty uneventful, so just take a look...
Back to Mad Monkey for some much-awaited pool time. Most people that we had been out with the night before were just now waking up. It was about 2 pm. Found our New York girls and talked all things Lower East Side while soaking in the sunshine and chlorine. Next was a stroll through the city, which we had not seen yet, and some amazing markets. Stocked up on bracelets, rings, earrings, gelato... (Ok, it's not Italy, but gelato is magical anywhere).
Fun fact about the temple pass that we had bought at 4 that morning: it included a free beer at the Hard Rock Cafe. Now, usually I am fully against all chain restaurants while abroad, but say the word "free" and I immediately change my mind.
Next up? Bar crawl! Was a good night. Had to send Sarah home early in a tuk tuk cause homegirl was exhausted. At midnight. I think she was running on about 4 hours of sleep in the last 40something hours, sooo I couldn't be mad, and also should have gone home with her because we had booked a tour for 7 the next morning :)
I got home at who knows what hour and climbed right into bed. With another person WHAT. They had given my bed away. I stormed down to the night guard, and they did not understand how this had happened blah blah blah and assigned me a new room.
Of course I went straight to sleep and did not text Sarah that I had been moved yet again, so she did the exact same thing the next morning when I failed to show up to breakfast. Ya gotta feel bad for whoever they gave that bed to - two strangers within four hours climbing into bed with you.
BUT THIS TOUR. Worth every second of missed sleep. We followed a dirt road (I slept, Sarah did not) until we got to the Mekong River, where we once again boarded a boat. We knew we were going to see a floating village, but we were not prepared for these views...
We made a stop at one of the villages, hung out with some of the kids...
Part of their school lesson each day is to practice their English on all of the tourists that come through their village; we happily obliged. Sarah gave away like half of our money to them. Reasons why I was in charge of our money the whole time ;)
On to the floating village. One of the most exquisite things I have ever experienced. Sarah and I just laid back in the boat while our guide maneuvered her way through the forest - which is only a floating forest in the rainy season; it's just your run-of-the-mill forest in the dry season. As we neared the dock, I looked up at Sarah with a perplexed look on my face. My phone was gone. I wasn't panicking or anything... surely it was in the boat somewhere, but we could not for the life of us find it. We had to enlist the help of several tour guides to lift up the bottom boards of the boat to find it engulfed in water at the base of the boat. Thank god for those "water resistant" iPhones, eh? Losing one phone was all we could handle.
Back to Mad Monkey for the pool party! Once again, our dear friends from the evening before were just waking up. Perfect timing.
We had hired our lovely tuk tuk driver from the day before to be our driver to the airport; it was time to get back to Hong Kong to catch our flight home. Except when he showed up, we were still in the pool. He had to come over and tell us it was time to go. We threw on some clothes (showers were a thing of the past) and hopped into the tuk tuk one last time.
THE END.
