Thursday, June 30, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Bailey in Bucheon: Phu Quoc, Vietnam
Bailey in Bucheon: Phu Quoc, Vietnam:
The link above is the blog post from my friend Chris Bailey. She is a very talented blogger and her post on Phu Quoc is better than anything I could ever put together on it.
There are a few things I'd like to say about the place though. Starting with trying to leave HCMC. After getting into an argument (cough _ _ _ _ _- _ _ _ _ cough) with the Vietnam Airlines people at the airport for an hour because they bumped us to a later flight, we finally arrived on the tiny island of Phu Quoc. Our small beach resort was called Amigos and amigos we found. Justine, Scho, Chris, and B had gotten there the day earlier.
Backing up a bit. In the Phu Quoc airport, we met some Koreans who had taken the same flight as us. Friendly as hell (obviously), they also had something that just made us smile. The group was about 6 adults and 3-4 children and they had a bag of kimbap with them! For those of you who didn't just smile, kimbap is the fishless, Korean cousin of sushi rolls. It generally comes with spam (or canned tuna.....sorry, not entirely fishless then), egg, carrot, pickled radish, some sauce, and some other stuff. The point being, these Koreans (and Koreans in general) could not travel without Korean things. And it's not like they had JUST arrived from Korea. They had to at least spend the morning in HCMC because of a lack of direct flights to Phu Quoc. If you're still not smiling about this story, maybe I've just been in Korea too long and know Koreans a little too well (i.e. I'm pretentious). If you're still not convinced, we met a different group of Koreans in a restaurant one of the nights and "talked" (they didn't speak English and we don't speak Korean) to them a while saying things like "anyong haseyo!", "만나서 반갑습니다!", "Seoul!", "kimchi!" "Gyeonggi-do!", "LG Twins!", "mashaseyo!" and "soju!". When they heard "soju!" they busted out a bottle of soju THAT THEY BROUGHT WITH THEM TO PHU QUOC, VIETNAM and GAVE it to us. Koreans. Gotta love 'em. Every single one of 'em.
Anyhow, here are the photos I took while on Phu Quoc. All 5 of them (both my camera and I tried to relax). And enjoy Chris's post. I know I did!
The link above is the blog post from my friend Chris Bailey. She is a very talented blogger and her post on Phu Quoc is better than anything I could ever put together on it.
There are a few things I'd like to say about the place though. Starting with trying to leave HCMC. After getting into an argument (cough _ _ _ _ _- _ _ _ _ cough) with the Vietnam Airlines people at the airport for an hour because they bumped us to a later flight, we finally arrived on the tiny island of Phu Quoc. Our small beach resort was called Amigos and amigos we found. Justine, Scho, Chris, and B had gotten there the day earlier.
Backing up a bit. In the Phu Quoc airport, we met some Koreans who had taken the same flight as us. Friendly as hell (obviously), they also had something that just made us smile. The group was about 6 adults and 3-4 children and they had a bag of kimbap with them! For those of you who didn't just smile, kimbap is the fishless, Korean cousin of sushi rolls. It generally comes with spam (or canned tuna.....sorry, not entirely fishless then), egg, carrot, pickled radish, some sauce, and some other stuff. The point being, these Koreans (and Koreans in general) could not travel without Korean things. And it's not like they had JUST arrived from Korea. They had to at least spend the morning in HCMC because of a lack of direct flights to Phu Quoc. If you're still not smiling about this story, maybe I've just been in Korea too long and know Koreans a little too well (i.e. I'm pretentious). If you're still not convinced, we met a different group of Koreans in a restaurant one of the nights and "talked" (they didn't speak English and we don't speak Korean) to them a while saying things like "anyong haseyo!", "만나서 반갑습니다!", "Seoul!", "kimchi!" "Gyeonggi-do!", "LG Twins!", "mashaseyo!" and "soju!". When they heard "soju!" they busted out a bottle of soju THAT THEY BROUGHT WITH THEM TO PHU QUOC, VIETNAM and GAVE it to us. Koreans. Gotta love 'em. Every single one of 'em.
Anyhow, here are the photos I took while on Phu Quoc. All 5 of them (both my camera and I tried to relax). And enjoy Chris's post. I know I did!
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| Julie getting massaged |
 |
| Amigos' beach |
 |
| Amigos |
 |
| This is in the airport. EVERY single member of this obviously American family was tirelessly punching away at a different electronic device. Starting with the girl with the laptop I think it goes, laptop, iPod Touch, Nintendo DS, Nintendo DS, iPad, laptop, Blackberry. 7 people in all. Not a single word spoken for at least 2 hours. Dead to the world. Yet very alive cyberly. Call me old-fashioned but yikes. |
 |
| Getting ready to leave ;( |
Saigon (the city not the rapper)
Disclaimer: If you came to this blog looking for info on Brian Daniel Carenard, better known as Saigon, or details on his much-anticipated album "The Greatest Story Never Told", please keep searching. For I won't go into any details about the 34-year old New Yorker who's made countless (4) appearances on hit shows like Entourage and Bring That Year Back 2006: Laugh Now, Cry Later. No I'm not going to talk about him at all. Although I WAS a fan of his 2007 mixtape Hookers and Success, but that's a Saigon bygone.
For those of you who came to this blog post to read about Saigon the city, or Ho Chi Minh City as it's been called since 1976, then you're in the right place.
Jules and I got to muggy Ho Chi Minh after yet another red-eye (when booking these flights months in advance it seemed like a good idea to always go with the cheapest, middle-of-the-night flights....so much easier to decide this when, months in advance, sitting comfortably on a couch sipping coffee...). Tired, groggy, and smelly, we dropped off the backpacks at our hostel and hit the streets. We only had a day there before continuing on to the hidden gem known as Phu Quoc so we wanted to see as much as possible....or before we collapsed in exhaustion.
We started by going to......uh......who am I kidding it's been 6 months. Let's try that again, that day we saw many Vietnam War historical sites like the Reunification Palace
and the War Remnants Museum.
I've been told that in the subsequent years after the Vietnam War ended, US tourists were required to go to this museum before being able to do anything else in the country. There's a good reason for that. The place is heavy. Real heavy. Extremely biased, but when it comes to something as delicate as the Vietnam War (or American War as it's called in Vietnam......wrap your head around that), I think it's imperative you get both sides to the story. And the Vietnamese side is, obviously, very anti-American. Not to say what we did wasn't necessary but....in fact, I'll try to steer clear of any "right", "wrong", "necessary", and "unnecessary" talk, and just say that the museum was intense.
As can be expected, we needed some time to recover a bit after witnessing some of the photos. Especially in the Agent Orange room. And to hear that amounts of dioxin are still in Vietnamese soil and tap water that are STILL affecting babies born today, makes you sick to the stomach. If you want to ruin an appetite, I recommend googling agent orange aftermath and check out some of the photos. Truly appalling stuff.
I can't remember what we did after that because I just remembered some of the stuff we saw. Ummmmm, I think we walked around the city a bit more after that, which was fine because HCMC is a pretty cool city. A lot of places were closed because of our old friend Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar Year.
We retired early that night because of our pleasantly-early morning flight to the land of motorbikes, deserted beaches, and really bad sunburn (cough B cough).
For those of you who came to this blog post to read about Saigon the city, or Ho Chi Minh City as it's been called since 1976, then you're in the right place.
Jules and I got to muggy Ho Chi Minh after yet another red-eye (when booking these flights months in advance it seemed like a good idea to always go with the cheapest, middle-of-the-night flights....so much easier to decide this when, months in advance, sitting comfortably on a couch sipping coffee...). Tired, groggy, and smelly, we dropped off the backpacks at our hostel and hit the streets. We only had a day there before continuing on to the hidden gem known as Phu Quoc so we wanted to see as much as possible....or before we collapsed in exhaustion.
We started by going to......uh......who am I kidding it's been 6 months. Let's try that again, that day we saw many Vietnam War historical sites like the Reunification Palace
and the War Remnants Museum.
I've been told that in the subsequent years after the Vietnam War ended, US tourists were required to go to this museum before being able to do anything else in the country. There's a good reason for that. The place is heavy. Real heavy. Extremely biased, but when it comes to something as delicate as the Vietnam War (or American War as it's called in Vietnam......wrap your head around that), I think it's imperative you get both sides to the story. And the Vietnamese side is, obviously, very anti-American. Not to say what we did wasn't necessary but....in fact, I'll try to steer clear of any "right", "wrong", "necessary", and "unnecessary" talk, and just say that the museum was intense.
As can be expected, we needed some time to recover a bit after witnessing some of the photos. Especially in the Agent Orange room. And to hear that amounts of dioxin are still in Vietnamese soil and tap water that are STILL affecting babies born today, makes you sick to the stomach. If you want to ruin an appetite, I recommend googling agent orange aftermath and check out some of the photos. Truly appalling stuff.
I can't remember what we did after that because I just remembered some of the stuff we saw. Ummmmm, I think we walked around the city a bit more after that, which was fine because HCMC is a pretty cool city. A lot of places were closed because of our old friend Tết, the Vietnamese Lunar Year.
 |
| Fo Me? |
We retired early that night because of our pleasantly-early morning flight to the land of motorbikes, deserted beaches, and really bad sunburn (cough B cough).
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Nothing funny about Ha Long Bay
I've blogged more today than I have the past 4 months. It's amazing what a clear mind, cancelled classes (i.e. finals!), and a hot Americano can accomplish. The blog train rolls on...
Since words simply don't do Ha Long Bay justice, I'll try to keep this post heavy on photos and light on the text. So pretty much just like the majority of the books I own...
Since we couldn't get enough long, grueling van rides in Thailand, we decided to jump in our old friend and head to Ha Long Bay. Departing before the sun woke up, we got to Ha Long plenty before noon. Little did we (or I for that matter) know but the van ride accomplices would be making it to the finish line with us. Our boat consisted of an American couple from Boston, a German couple, 2 very French girls, a Vietnamese mother and daughter, and some crew. The scary thing about this was that a few months later a boat sunk in Ha Long Bay in the middle of the night and the 12 casualties read just like the demographics of our boat.
Ok speeding up. Explored Ha Long. Chit-chatted the other guests. Took too many photos. Got cornered by a very talkative female guest. And again. Escaped to my room. Discussed aforementioned character with Jules. Cornered again. Escaped to the top deck for more photos. More talking. Can't a guy enjoy this beautiful scenery in peace! Just kidding though, they were nice...
At one point we went into a cool cave, listened to some cheesy jokes by our Vietnamese guide Jeremy, headed back out, and kayaked around for an hour or so. Very good time.
That night, we talked more with the guests (and some talked more than others) and learned everyone's story for better or worse. Then the crew invited the willing out to the bow (or hull?) for some Vietnamese gasoline shots. They said it was alcohol but they literally served it out of a gasoline tank. And these Vietnamese dudes would just grab the jug, take a huge pull, and pass it to the next guy. Soooo it was awesome. I ended up staying out there far too long. Not as long as the chef though (as evidenced in the next photo).
The next morning we started heading back to the port. Not before one more excursion though. We jumped into row boats and rowed through a floating town. It was super cool. Can't imagine it's an easy lifestyle though. Nor can you complain about the views I guess.
This reminds me of a video my buddy EG sent me. It's quite an inspirational story of a bunch of kids who grew up in a floating town much like this one (in Thailand though). They loved soccer but didn't have anywhere to play. They devised a way to play some games which lead to a pretty fantastic, feel-good ending. It's 5-minutes long but highly-recommended.
And finally, special thanks to my cousin's boyfriend Mike. He'd spent some time in Vietnam and gave me some great recommendations about what to do, including Ha Long Bay which "was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life." I agree Mike. I don't know if I ever thanked him for it, and this is a pretty indirect and crappy way of doing so, but thanks Mike. Greatly appreciated. Mike and my cousin Aubre are currently on a 3.5 week backpacking trip from Prague to Rome and have a great blog which can be found here.
Since words simply don't do Ha Long Bay justice, I'll try to keep this post heavy on photos and light on the text. So pretty much just like the majority of the books I own...
Since we couldn't get enough long, grueling van rides in Thailand, we decided to jump in our old friend and head to Ha Long Bay. Departing before the sun woke up, we got to Ha Long plenty before noon. Little did we (or I for that matter) know but the van ride accomplices would be making it to the finish line with us. Our boat consisted of an American couple from Boston, a German couple, 2 very French girls, a Vietnamese mother and daughter, and some crew. The scary thing about this was that a few months later a boat sunk in Ha Long Bay in the middle of the night and the 12 casualties read just like the demographics of our boat.
Ok speeding up. Explored Ha Long. Chit-chatted the other guests. Took too many photos. Got cornered by a very talkative female guest. And again. Escaped to my room. Discussed aforementioned character with Jules. Cornered again. Escaped to the top deck for more photos. More talking. Can't a guy enjoy this beautiful scenery in peace! Just kidding though, they were nice...
At one point we went into a cool cave, listened to some cheesy jokes by our Vietnamese guide Jeremy, headed back out, and kayaked around for an hour or so. Very good time.
That night, we talked more with the guests (and some talked more than others) and learned everyone's story for better or worse. Then the crew invited the willing out to the bow (or hull?) for some Vietnamese gasoline shots. They said it was alcohol but they literally served it out of a gasoline tank. And these Vietnamese dudes would just grab the jug, take a huge pull, and pass it to the next guy. Soooo it was awesome. I ended up staying out there far too long. Not as long as the chef though (as evidenced in the next photo).
Then some of the crew started singing karaoke and things got crazy so we went to bed. And by crazy I mean 11pm.
This reminds me of a video my buddy EG sent me. It's quite an inspirational story of a bunch of kids who grew up in a floating town much like this one (in Thailand though). They loved soccer but didn't have anywhere to play. They devised a way to play some games which lead to a pretty fantastic, feel-good ending. It's 5-minutes long but highly-recommended.
And finally, special thanks to my cousin's boyfriend Mike. He'd spent some time in Vietnam and gave me some great recommendations about what to do, including Ha Long Bay which "was one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen in my life." I agree Mike. I don't know if I ever thanked him for it, and this is a pretty indirect and crappy way of doing so, but thanks Mike. Greatly appreciated. Mike and my cousin Aubre are currently on a 3.5 week backpacking trip from Prague to Rome and have a great blog which can be found here.
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