Your Fearless Travelers

Your Fearless Travelers
Your Fearless Travelers

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Confessions of a Travel Junkie: Sapa, Vietnam to Los Angeles, California



It all started out so innocently; an old copy of National Geographic, carelessly left out for my young fingers to thumb through; the frenzied buzzing in the air whenever my family headed out to the airport; the odd late night spent watching documentaries on Guam. When I was 10 my parents bought a wall sized map of the world. I whiled away hours in the basement looking at the outline of countries who’s names I could never pronounce. Nobody ever thought much of it.

I guess, like many people, I really started to experiment with travel in college. Gateway road trips up to New York City gave way to that first glorious plane ride to Paris (you always remember your first time… out of the country). I went into school with a bachelor’s degree in aimless rambling and came out P.H.D. in wanderlust.  By the time university ended I had a ravenous travel monkey on my back the size of King Kong and twice as loud. For years I fed the beast, living on the Mediterranean, taking weekend trips to Corsica or driving up to Amsterdam when the itch got unbearable. It was a beautiful dream but it could never last.  At my lowest point I even allowed myself to be photographed in a beret.

When I returned to New York I kept the monkey satiated with an endless stream of Chinese take-out, aboriginal art installations and foreign tourists. I could close my eyes on the streets in Curry Hill and, just for a moment, be transported far away to a bustling, Indian bazaar deep in the jungles of the sub-continent.  My neighborhood in Brooklyn was awash in the smells of rich marinara sauce, roasting coffee and too much cologne like the streets of Naples. New York is a convenience traveler’s fantasy because the whole world comes right to your doorstep.

I knew I needed to stop. Who could keep a traveling lifestyle up forever? Eventually everyone needs to hang up the spurs and put down some roots. I decided to end the habit but, like most addicts, I promised myself one big score before the end; a round the world trip. That was my ticket out…

Molly and I took the train from Hanoi up to Sapa, Vietnam, right next to the Chinese border. It was still dark when we arrived and a curtain of clouds rolled down the steep mountains offering only momentary glimpses of the spectacular vistas that lay beyond. We took a mini-bus up to the main town and quickly booked a hotel room for a much needed nap. We awoke just after noon to a blinding sun pouring through the huge window of our hotel room. The mist that had obscured our view earlier retreated leaving a spectacular panorama of the valley below. Jagged, green mountains rose thousands of feet into the air. On the lower slopes every inch of arable land was transformed into an endless staircase of terraced rice paddies.


H'mong girls walking in town
Northern Vietnam is where most of the ethnic minorities make their home.  The hills around Sapa are home to the H’mong, Red Dzao, White Dzao, Tay and many other tribes. The different tribes are easily identifiable by their clothes. The Red Dzao wear bright red turbans or scarves on their heads. The H’mong on the other hand are easy to spot by their embroidered indigo dresses over velvet legwarmers. Although the majority of these tribes are subsistence farmers, a large number of the young women have learned that foreign visitors have deep pockets and a low threshold for saying no. A tourist walking down the steep main street in Sapa often looks like a sweaty goose with eight or nine brightly colored, ethnic goslings following behind. Each of the honking, squawking flock holds up bracelets, necklaces and embroidery in a reverse force feeding of indigenous trinkets down their new mother’s throat. Tenacity is in their blood. Molly and I were followed through town for about two miles by a gaggle of four girls. They proceeded to stand outside in the rain for an hour and a half while we ate lunch before renewing the chase. We eventually broke down and bought some bracelets and an embroidered baby carrier for our friend. It’s hard to say “no” for three hours straight. Those girls are good.

Red Dzao girls
Molly and the H'mong



Deep in negotiations. Can you spot the Red Dzao?

Early the next morning we rented a motor bike and drove off into the hills around town. The mountain road twisted and turned like an epileptic snake slithering its way to the summit. Hairpin curves and precipitous drop offs forced me to concentrate heavily on the road. I did, however, manage to look up every once in a while to catch a glimpse of silvery waterfalls plunging down the hills or a few H’mong children leading a herd of water buffalo to graze on the slopes. 


Those dogs are not heading to a pet store...

Ridin' in style 

We wound our way over gravel roads up to the Red Dzao village of Ta Phin, northeast of Sapa. On the way we came across the ruins of an old monastery. Built during the colonial period in the early twentieth century the church was abandoned when the French pulled out of Vietnam. It was beautiful strolling among the crumbled archways and overgrown orchards. Something about ruined churches makes them feel more sacred to me. The strength embodied by the huge stone walls and buttresses is balanced by delicate flowers that grow out from cracks in the mortar. The ruins almost feel as if they grew up out of the earth, as natural and in tune with their surroundings as the trees that nestle in the spaces between their stones. Ghost of the past walk the disintegrating corridors reminding all who enter that the builders of this place have long ago gone to meet their own maker.  

We stopped for a bowl of Pho at an idyllic little restaurant right next to a small stream overlooking some rice paddies. We sat at the one table in the place and made goo-goo eyes at the owner’s toddler who wouldn’t stop staring at us from under his mother’s skirt. (Y’all act like you’ve never seen a white person before) After lunch we walked through the village and were immediately surrounded by a sea of red scarves. We haggled for twenty minutes and eventually left with a woven glasses case and a floor mat. I’m telling you those girls are good.

This girl has a bracelet for YOU!
We left Sapa in high fashion. Our friends Zak and Ali, who we met on our cruise in Halong bay, had booked a sleeper compartment on a train back to Hanoi. They had two extra beds and invited us to come along. We jumped at the chance to ride in style.  Now, it might have been the altitude or, more likely, the two bottles of Vietnamese vodka that we all split, but it was one of the best train rides of my life… and I don’t remember going to sleep.

(From left to right) Zak, Ali, Molly's chair, Mark, Katie and El
Back in Hanoi I felt that old monkey stirring again. He knew we were going home soon and he wasn’t about to go quietly. After a few hours of drinking bia hoi I finally I decided to screw my courage to the sticking place and go for the king of all traveler’s experiences… eating a beating snake heart. Hanoi’s snake district is just across the river from the old city so Molly and I jumped in a taxi along with Zak and Ali and two other friends El and Katie. We soon found ourselves face to face with a pit full of hissing cobras, something that El was none too keen on. 

We picked out a nice, juicy three pound cobra that was about 5 feet long. After haggling a little we agreed on the price and the meal began. First the blood is drained into a glass and the heart is removed to be eaten later. A snake heart will beat for up to thirty minutes after it is removed from the body. They then remove the skin. All through this ordeal the snake is wiggling and moving around. I prefer to think that the snake is dead and, like the heart, the snake’s muscles are just convulsing with residual electrical impulses, otherwise this would this would be incredibly cruel.

Beating snake heart with shot glasses
One thing that is nice about the snake restaurants is that they use every piece of the snake. That night we had snakeskin cracklings, stir fried snake meat with lemongrass, deep fried spine (yes, spine), snake offal with garlic and peppers as well as shots of snake bile, blood and heart. Here’s a tip. Drink the snake blood early in the meal, otherwise it starts to congeal. Drinking the heart in a shot of vodka was something I will never forget. The heart continues beating for a few minutes after you swallow it and you can feel it in your throat. It is said to impart strength and virility to whomever eats it. I’m just happy I didn’t puke.

Snake meat stirfried with lemmongrass


Deep fried spine and skin
As the end of our trip drew nigh, Molly and I found ourselves with a lot of ground to cover to get back to Saigon for our return flight. We decided we might as well bite the bullet. We booked a twenty-eight hour train ride from Hanoi to Nha Trang, bought some Ritz crackers, Hanoi Beer and some Coke Zero for sustenance, and prepared for our nightmare.

Because we had very little money we opted to buy a seat in the economy class car. All the other tourists arrived and went into their air-conditioned cabins with beds and fresh linens. Molly and were the only to foreigners in the budget car. It was literally crawling with roaches. Children and adults curled up on straw mats on the floor trying to sleep away the endless journey. Every few hours conductors pushed a cart full of soda, beer and hột vịt lộn, partially formed duck fetuses boiled in their shell. YUMMY!  Glad we brought those Ritz. The train ride was so long I actually started to feel like I was in the Jean Paul Sartre play “No Exit”. Hell is other people… who won’t shut up during a long train ride.

We finally arrived in Nha Trang and hopped in a taxi to our hotel by the beach. The next few days were spent in blissful ignorance, turning a blind eye to the impending wave of reality that would shortly come crashing down around us. We rented beach chairs at the Louisiane Brewery for sunbathing, schooled a bunch of Russians in eight-ball, and ate some of the greatest Vietnamese BBQ in the world at Lac Cahn Restaurant. Every table has a smoking ceramic BBQ and waiters bring out huge plates of beef, pork, squid, shrimp and vegetables to be seared to your liking. For people who like to play with their food, this place is like heaven.

A few days later we caught our last night bus of the trip back to Saigon. Aside from an epic shopping spree at the Ben Thanh market, the only thing left to do was the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels were originally build to fight the French but were greatly expanded in the war against the Americans. Cu Chi has hard red, clay soil that is perfect for digging tunnels. During the war the VC dug hundreds of miles of these tunnels to help supply troops, aid in surprise attacks, and serve as living quarters for thousands of soldiers. Molly and I crawled through the steamy, bat infested, 40 inch high tunnels and looked at the vicious home-made traps that were used against american troops. All I can say is that I have the utmost respect for anyone who made it out of there alive.







And that was that. Suddenly the trip was all over. Molly and I boarded a plane bound for Los Angeles the next morning. I watched the Far East retreat in my window and prepared to return to a normal life… whatever that means. When we landed in California both Molly and I got incredibly ill. It seems that like any other addiction, travel withdrawal is a bitch. We spent the next week in bed, too weak to move, both running temperatures of 103⁰. I’ll spare you the grim details but suffice it to say that things got really ugly.

Going cold turkey is one of the hardest things I had to do but, thank God, it’s over. This past year traveling was the greatest experience of my life but to do it I had to leave almost everything I love behind. I would take up at the drop of a hat and jaunt off to sunny Thailand or disappear into the Chilean Andes for months at a time. But, that’s all gonna change-I’m going to change. Like others before me, now I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life. It’s all about the straight and narrow path now; houses in suburbia and early morning jogging in the neighborhood. I can’t wait to start tomorrow…

although,

I have always heard that Dublin is nice this time of year.



5 comments:

  1. I'm so proud of you two!! Keep livin the dream.

    Mark- your spirit animal is now the mighty cobra. Act accordingly.

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  2. The straight and narrow path? What the heck are you talking about?? :)

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