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Vietnam Revisited |
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TRAVELING, FOR ME, isn’t about seeing the famous stuff. It’s not about discovering in person how grand the Grand Canyon is or how leaning the Leaning Tower of Pisa is. Sure, I still enjoy the original articles, but the pleasure past travelers took in them has been eroded by a river of postcards, Travel Channel specials and 40-minute-wait-from-this-point signs.
I much prefer discovering things I can call my own: the quirky museum no one visits; the tiny café with 150 years of cycling history on its walls. Touring Vietnam, I had this feeling over and over again. The whole country was mine to explore.
There’s something pure about Vietnam. Ambling down the hot, narrow streets or beside the translucent, milky blue waters feels like a privilege. From the temples to the white silk–clad school-girls to the woman in the market snatching live frogs from a bucket and smashing their heads on the pavement, everything is fresh and alien. I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder for someone to comment to. “Did you see how many dead pigs that guy had strapped to his scooter?” I wanted to ask some imaginary companion. But Vietnam is a private show.
I visited three places in the country: the hornets’ nest called Ho Chi Minh City; the bustling beach town Nha Trang; and the secluded and exclusive Evason Hideaway. Each place had special secrets.
A Beginning
My journey began in Saigon, a.k.a. Ho Chi Minh City. While I feel a bit strange writing this, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit the cab ride from the airport was the single most exciting thing I did in Vietnam. The moment my van pulled out, we were surrounded by motorbikes swarming us like a halo of flies. Young people and old rode with the skill of motocross champions and executed hairpin turns on bikes laden with passengers, fruit, air conditioners, bundles of ducting, giant water tanks, doors, 5-foot-tall bales of children’s shoes, pets and even, in one extreme case, another motorbike.
Breathless, I alighted at the Caravelle, a well-appointed hotel in central Saigon that provided a perfect headquarters for forays into the city. Walk down any street in Saigon and you’ll find people greeting you warmly. One man sitting on a stool surrounded by model ships and drinking a beer raised his glass to me. I was halfway down the block before I raced back to take a picture of his T-shirt, which read: “I’M NOT 30, I’M 29.95!”
When the time came to leave Saigon, I was filled with regret. Yes, I would miss the bustle of activity and the wonderful food—especially the crab soup and crisp pork ribs I had at Yeebo, a Chinese restaurant near the hotel. But I think I was mostly just scared to get back in a taxi. I did survive the trip, however, and was soon jetting north to Nha Trang.
A Middle
Nha Trang is a “beach townier” beach town than you’d expect to find in Vietnam. It has the sun, the surf and even the rusting carnival rides. But somehow—perhaps it’s the backdrop of bobbing blue fishing boats—you’d never mistake Nha Trang for Atlantic City.
Even the most tourist-trappy elements of Nha Trang manage to elude that sense of impending ripoff that accompanies their counterparts around the world. The handicrafts and paintings are clearly not what you’d find in Vietnamese homes, but they’re beautiful. Even the T-shirts with marijuana leaves silk-screened over the Vietnamese flag seem somehow authentic.
One morning, my hotel, the sumptuous Ana Madara Resort & Spa, arranged for a cyclotaxi tour of Nha Trang’s main markets. My pedicab driver greeted me with a very American “Yo, yo, yo!” and we set off along Tran Phu Boulevard, where a huge crowd had already gathered at 5 a.m. to do calisthenics and play badminton.
“Yo, yo, yo!” I said to my driver. “Teach me some Vietnamese.” Although it was April, he taught me to say “Happy new year.” This quickly became my catch phrase.
“Happy new year!” I told the giggling vendor from whom I bought seven handbags for my wife.
“Happy new year!” I said to the waiter who showed me how to eat pho, a delicious beef soup.
“Happy new year!” I told the receptionist as I dropped off my room key.
“Happy new year,” she politely replied.
An End
After three days in Nha Trang, I shipped out to Ana Mandara’s super-secluded retreat, the Evason Hideaway. Cut into a wild coast, the Hideaway is accessible only by boat and has just 54 villas. Relaxation is the rule.
While hidden away, Hideaway guests are pampered, petted and massaged by linen-clad attendees. I got my first facial and even explored suction-cup massage. There isn’t a lot to do at the Hideaway, but that’s the point. You can snorkel, swim, get a manicure on the beach or catch your own lunch at a floating lobster farm, but time is best spent admiring the environs.
In this peaceful place, I had time to ponder how Vietnam stole my heart. Lying with my toes in the lapping waves, I spied my butler ambling up the beach with my bicycle. When, bowing, she leaned the bike against a palm and explained it was hot and I shouldn’t walk back to my villa, I realized Vietnam’s charm isn’t the food, sights or shopping. It’s the people.
One afternoon, touring the country around Nha Trang, I visited a family who make the conical hats the Vietnamese wear. I was perched on a small stool watching the weaving when the grandmother, her lips and teeth stained orange by betel nuts, leaned forward and presented me with a hat. I tried to pay her, but she wouldn’t accept any money, so I pulled off my own baseball cap and offered it in exchange. She looked the cap over with a practiced eye, then plopped it on her head and beamed at me with her cracked orange teeth.
This opened the floodgates, and suddenly a mass of children began pouring out of every hut and shack to shout “Hello! Hello!” and feel my hair. I looked down to find one determined boy elbowing his way through the throng.
“What’s up, little man?” I asked. He clearly had something important to say.
“I’m Spiderman!” he announced, then dashed away.
“That’s great, kid,” I thought. “Happy new year.”
Caravelle Hotel rooms (caravellehotel. com; 84-88-234-999) range from $230 to $1,090 . . . At The Hideaway and the Ana Mandara Resort & Six Senses Spa (sixsenses.com/hideaway-anamandara; 84-58-829-829), prices vary depending on packages and length of stay . . . The official Web site of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism is vietnamtourism.com.
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