Stolen in Saigon

As a self proclaimed veteran traveler, blogging about my wisdom and knowledge, this post is a tough one. We are never to old to learn. It is in failure that we learn the most.

So the day in Saigon started out like most days in SEA, lots of walking, sightseeing and a grand finale to the day, a cultural acrobatics show at the Opera House.

Now, for those who also travel in this manner, leaving early can present challenges to your GI routine. Imagine how pleased we were to find a Starbucks when we needed it the most. We took full advantage of the familiarity of the place, the free wifi and the washrooms. We left and had a full day exploring the Cu Chi tunnels and came back to the Opera area with just enough time to have a bite to eat and then to enjoy our show. We were drawn to Starbucks, again, for all those reasons previously mentioned. This time, I let my guard down a bit. In hindsight, I recall subtly counting my money. I remember the sound of the velcro wallet and I remember not putting it back in my front pocket,like usual, because we were about to be sitting for a few hours. I put it in my day bag. A far away place, zipped in. I did not take the time to lock my zippers together. We left to go to the Opera and within minutes of leaving Starbucks my daughter says that my bag is unzipped. I am obsessive about the closing of bags and so she knew something was up, sure enough, my wallet was taken from deep inside my bag.

Problem solving on the steps of the Opera, after some difficulties getting my phone to work, I got ahold of Master Card. They asked a series of questions to ascertain the veracity and urgency iof the situation. Note to all: Please update your phone number from when you first got your credit card ( I was 18) also know your card number, credit limit and a bunch of other things you are too stressed to remember. (I have a picture of most all of this) Once this is done you get transferred to active investigations and you will need all that info again. It happened 10 minutes from the time I started calling, it has now been 25 min. Did I last spend $3.15 at Papaya Hotel in Saigon? Nope but it is in this very area. A freeze is put on the card. I can go to the Opera!

Although I clearly made some mistakes here, there are a few things that I did that mitigated the negative impact. 1) I had only my “daily money” less than $200 worth in Canadian. 2) only 1 credit card, no ID. ( I had just pulled our Opera Show tickets out). 3) the thief only got $3.15 on my credit card! 4) I had made copies ( phone and email) of all my important info. 5) I chaullked it up to experience and put it behind me right away. Ok maybe not right away as I wanted to go to the Papaya Hotel and be upset at them. By the time the show started, it was all in the past. 

I was hyper vigilant for the next few days, then went back to normal cautious mode. In places of comfort and familiarity, people let their guard down and theives know this. This was the only incident I had in 1 month of travel all over SEA. We never felt unsafe or uneasy. Ironic really how and where this happened.

Lesson learned!

Let the Adventure Begin

A free* stay in a world class hotel (Windsor Casino) and a free* supper, with the love of my life. What a great way to start a trip. Having someone drive you to the airport and then using the ‘Kiss and Fly’ saves on parking fees. Careful who drives you, remember it is a ‘Kiss and Fly’. In my case it all worked out well as the ‘goodbye’ brought me back to a time, long ago, when I said goodbye to my heart, at the same airport, and sent it to Belgium.

*not technically free as we had to feed the one armed bandits downstairs on the gaming floor. 

When you travel as a minimalist your ‘little bag’ is your everything. You will have researched weight and size restrictions for each airline you are flying with. You will also find the loopholes around ‘carry on’ and a ‘second bag allowance. All this having been met and my bag having passed the watchful eye of the gate attendant, I was confident I had pulled it off until, once on the plane (seat 1A at the entrance), I attempted to ram, cram and slam my bag into the overhead compartment.  I ignored my seat mate, who was an undercover flight attendant ( they live among us ). As it turned out my bag missed fitting by ‘this much’. Then I heard those dreaded words from Kate, our actual flight attendant: “I can place that in our sky cot for you sir”. I dug deep and found my most charming, helpless and appreciative smile and said that I would prefer to hang on to it. The main reason is that I didn’t want her to take it was because whenever I hear them say ‘sky cot’ I picture them chucking it out the window onto a cloud. ‘Sky cot’ my butt.

She sensed my reluctance and offered option number 2, she could keep it ‘on board’ and place it under another person’s seat ‘inside the cabin’. Although this wasn’t really what I was planning for, I removed my mini day bag, preloaded with my extra critical stuff, and surrendered my bag while still holding that smile. I had held up the boarding of the other passengers onto the plane long enough.

In these delicate ‘high level’  negotiations you have to know when to retreat. It was time. I was traveling alone after all and with my extreme motion sickness I might still need Kate as I fill barf bag after barf bag later on. I thought that Kate might be a fellow minimalist, by the nature of her job. I sensed a positive offer coming my way as I still held that smile. Sure enough the angel spoke these words “if you would like to move to the ‘wing seat’ there will be room there for your bag under the seat in front of you and no one else will be next to you either”. I didn't know I could move that fast. It was like I was in a transportal and found myself at seat 4B before I could thank her or change my smile to one of gratitude, appreciation and relief.

So here is the travel tip. Don’t pay for upgraded seats just remember that the ‘wing seats’ are usually the last assigned and if you give them a reason to offer this to you then there is a great chance you will get it. Avoid the temptation to ask for it and worse yet say ‘I know that there are seats...bla bla bla’ if you are kind, patient and hopeful sometimes good things happen. The added bonus was that I am now trained as an ‘emergency door opener’. I agreed to single handedly take responsibility for the entire crew and passengers in the event of an emergency. I was that guy, the silent, trained but eager hero. Fortunately, my services were not needed. 

Lucky, unlucky, I don’t know... ;)

After checking my gmail and printed eticket multiple times to ensure we would arrive in time for our 8:30 am departure, our morning began.

We were so sure of the timings for the day that we leisurely lounged and gorged ourselves on a plentiful breakfast buffet. We sauntered to the bus station, strategically located 3 minutes from the hotel. (By and large, the time spent researching and planning exact locations of hotels and spots we needed to be had paid off.)

We arrived without issues, as planned, at 8:07 am, theoretically with time to spare. A pleasant ticket man asked cheerful “To Cambodia?”, we smiled and thought to ourselves “What a smooth start to a relaxing day on the bus”. How wrong we were...

The first sign of trouble occurred when he confirmed that we were there for the 9:45am bus.

“Um... nope. Have printed tickets for a bus to Cambodia departing at 8:30am?”

“Oh....you need to see my colleague in the back.”

Colleague in back was the only unpleasant person in all of Vietnam. She insisted repeatedly that they had sent me the notice of the time change from 8:30am to 8:00am. She continued to assureme that her company had sent me an email 6 months ago about the time change. After cycling through this dialogue 3 times I shifted us into problem solving mode with this query: “When is thenext bus to Cambodia?”. She couldn’t resist mentioning one more time that they had notified me. I took the high road and sat patiently while she changed our booking to the 9:45am bus. Only after she was delivered breakfast (soup) and a reasonableamount of time did I ask if there would be room on that bus. She confirmed and we went for a walk. 

This was a little hiccup, we will arrive a couple hours later, no harm no foul.

At 9:25 we boarded and were told firmly to sit in our “assigned seat » probably a sold out bus, we were lucky to get spots. Not! By the time we left there were only 12 people in a 45 passenger bus. Anyway, we are off and enjoying the journey...A/C... wifi... perfection. Until...

On the bus we were required to surrender our passports and $35 USD each to a non customs person who left the bus, requiring us to attempt to cross sans passport and sans visa. He did come through in the end and took care of everything for us. When we got back on the bus our bus driver said: “I have some news, lucky, unlucky, I don’t know”. He was referring to the fact that our bus’ paperwork was not in order and could not drive in Cambodia. So we waited in some kind of “no man’s land” without passports and we were ordered to wait for “another bus-20 minutes”. We eventually boarded a different bus with a different driver, but this bus was legally permitted to drive. Legal driver, legal bus and all paperwork was in order now. A smooth continuation of our journey was assured.

This “new bus” was a step down in the echelon of luxury bus travel. There were many broken seats and other people’s garbage. (We later figured out that our group coming from Vietnam into Cambodia had waited 30 minutes for the next bus with our company coming from Cambodia and heading to Vietnam, in order for us to swap vehicles.)

Awoken by a piercing beeping alarm on the bus we continued to drive for a few minutes before finally pulling over to check it out. Yes, we were overheating and this drive and stop the engine to “cool down bus, heat up passengers” continued 4 times before we were given options.

Pulled off to the side of the road, our bus driver proceeded to flag down and coordinate rides for all passengers n a variety of modes of transportation. We opted for the seemingly empty and presumptuously spacious mini van. We were a group of 4 travelers with luggage. After intense roadside negotiations we bid farewell to our driver opened the door to the mini van to find a small family already living inside the van. We squished in the back row making for a total of 4 tourists, a mom with a baby, a random guy and a driver. Away we went. This is about the same time that we lost the pavement on the road. We were really missing the shock absorbers and wifi on the bus.

The driver stopped often, sometimes for food, other times for gas or washrooms but only ever forthe driver. He also stopped to pick up more people. There were 2 other people we picked up en route, bringing the total number of passengers to 10 people, including a sick baby.Everyone had a cell and was in a video conference with others throughout most of the journey. There was a lot of talking very loudly as each person was trying to hear and be heard. The crying baby did not help.

We eventually made it into Phnom Penh about 6 hours late. We figured out that our driver wasn’t just a good samaritain, driving the “highways of Cambodia” rescuing stranded tourists, he was a Grab driver (like Uber) and this was his job. That would also explain his confidence playing fast and lose with the gas pedal and our lives. Our original bus driver paid him well to “continue us on our journey”. Unfortunately the price did not include a drop at our hotel but rather some random spot that was good for him. We walked and walked late at night in Phnom Penh and finally found our hotel.

To answer our bus driver’s question about lucky or unlucky, I am going with lucky! What a day!

Night Travel

We found a good way to save on the cost of a hotel. When covering large geographic areas taking night trains and buses are great. We had 2 great night train experiences (Hanoi-DaNang-Saigon) and one good night bus (Phnom Penh-Siem Reap). The prices are about the same as a hotel.You get a semi private space (a cot/bed) no seat. There is always free water and snacks sometimes even free fruit, wifi and wet wipes. The toilets can be rough as well as the ride itself. Taking slightly more extra strength gravol than recommend is very helpful. Buses don’t usually have toilets so purposeful dehydration is required but not recommended in high temperatures! (A bit of a gamble / knowing your body’s functions well helps.)

On the down side the « station » is not always awesome and can be in a not great part of town. Gathering food prior to boarding is critical. Freshening up is challenging and having s busy morning is critical because your hotel room will not beready until afternoon. You will have your luggag with you all morning (6-8 hours) backpack required.

Buy tickets ahead online to be assured a spot and check in at least 30 min prior to departure time. Also double check to see if departure times have changed. For example if you think you are leaving at 8:30 am and you arrive just past 8:00 am... you may discover the departure time has changed. The ticket lady will assure you that they sent you an email 6 months ago, not! - roll with it and see when there are spots on the next bus. Bonus extra 2 hours to explore the city! Attitude iseverything when traveling on the cheap as a minimalist.

Volunteering in Vietnam

Through some early friendships forged by my parents and some incredible friends from France we were able to teach English in an orphanage in rural Vietnam. As a result, we met some great people and new friendships have been formed for future generations.

Although it costs us nothing and we didn’t use many supplies to teach, our hearts have been filled with the joyfulness and yearning to learn that this group of 28 students (aged 5-21 years old) can give. We have both been able too plan and deliver approximately 25 hours each of lessons within the week. 

Our hosts have been incredible, sharing what little they have,  freely and lovingly. Although some have had a few opportunities to learn English before, most are brand new to it. Not being able to rely on a common language to teach from was an added challenge. I relied on my daughter and her recent experiences to guide me.

The opportunity to live within a community  as we have,  has been incredibly educational from an  ethnographical perspective. The teacher becomes the student again. My best moments in life are when this happens!

If ever you can create this type of opportunity foryourself, do it. You will be swept away by appreciation that they give you and then again appreciation of what you have so effortlessly at home.

Dining in DaNang

If you happen to be vacationing with a vegetarian you would do well to seek out a few scrumptious spots in DaNang. We have found that there are some great economical and plentiful options, such as AN’s Vegetarian Cuisine (review) and MauDich 1986 (review)!

Buying fruit from street vendors is a treat in and of itself. Although we are convinced we are supposed to haggle we just couldn’t do it. A kilo of fresh lychee for $2.50 seems pretty good to us. 

Hydration in 51C is important and so is finding cheap water. Look around for the cheapest in 1.5 litres and buy, drink, repeat.

Hangin’ in Hanoi

Hustle and bustle mixed with coordinated chaos and slight bit of delirious delight, you must be inHanoi. This place is like no other I have experienced before. Is it the high pitched engine of the ubequitious scooters or the piter pater of sweet little old street vendors with their shoulder scales for carrying fruit, I am not sure,  but Hanoi presents itself to the world in a very transparent and unpretentious way. There are sights and smells that my eyes and nose will prefer to forget but the overall sensations of being in Hanoi are fantastic. If you book a 3 star hotel for about $75 CND a night you will get all you can eat breakfast buffet and à la carte ordering included. You will get free welcome drinks and free wine and fresh fruits in your room daily. You will get a lot of bang for your buck. 

Hop on and off buses are not always a good thing. We forwent this in Hanoi and were glad. Research the sights and see if you ‘need’ to take the bus. 

Taking the night train can save you a night in a hotel and the berths (beds) were comfy and clean. They also provided fruit snacks. 

Using the free wifi to plot your course using Google Maps is great. So long as you ‘start’ the route in wifi the satellites take over and will continue to navigate you for free, no data, no wifi.