Vietnam Vacation Part 2 - The Bus Fiasco and our Mekong Delta Homestay

After the last 5 days at our resort hotel, we were all ready for a different type of adventure.  We had intentionally tried to strike a balance between relaxing and exploring as well as the chance to "just be" in a new place rather than traveling from place to place.

The exploring and traveling was about to begin.  No more resort hotel and private car pick-ups from the airport.  This was a local bus to our homestay village.  And we got a healthy dose of the realities of independent travel on the first day, that's for sure.  Here begins the story of the Bus Fiasco.

After lots of deliberation and calls and trips to the bus booking office, we booked tickets on a bus to Saigon (approximately 5 hours, same amount of time as our car pick-up and about 1/5 of the cost) and then on to Can Tho (another 3 hours) which is the closest town to our homestay.  It all seemed legit.  I had a little ticket receipt with the date, time, bus company name.  I asked the hotel reception desk to confirm our bus reservation the day before and all seemed in order.

The bus was supposed to come to our hotel at 7:30am.  It arrived at 8:15.  OK, not too bad.  Our bus from Saigon to Can Tho was supposed to leave at 3 pm so we had a buffer built in.  This ain't my first third world rodeo, after all.  Nothing works out exactly as planned.  That said, this was my first time doing this kind of travel with Kevin and 2 kids in tow.

Anyway, the bus arrived.  The interior decor was fabulously green and purple with frilly curtains; there was even a large TV (as in 40") mounted above the driver's head, but it didn't seem to be working.  This was a DELUXE bus, it seemed.  It even had seatbelts.  But those seatbelts proved "dangerous" for me.  As Kevin and I were digging the seatbelts out from under the seats (it was pretty clear that no one else used them ever), my shorts got caught on a metal piece and ripped a GIGANTIC tear right across the booo-tay.  Lovely, just lovely.  Luckily, I had a sweatshirt I could tie around my waist to cover my now-overexposed arse.

Kids were great on the bus!  I had a raging ear infection and was just trying to stay ahead of the pain with my trusty bottle of ibuprofen.  Survived it, but t'wasn't pleasant.  We arrived in Saigon / Ho Chih Minh City at 2 pm - perfect timing!  We had just the right amount of time to grab a quick lunch before our 3 pm bus to Can Tho and our homestay.  Or so we thought...

Th fun begins.  As soon as we arrived, we went to the bus office to confirm our tickets and they told us to come back at 3 pm.  We did just that, and the nice bus company lady took us in a taxi to the "big bus" (which seemed a little weird but I knew there was supposed to be a shuttle from the office to the "big bus" so I was going with the flow).  We stop at the bus station, but there is no bus in sight.  Lots of people with luggage who appear to be waiting for something, and lots of staff people wearing bright yellow shirts, but no bus.  And then the lady disappears.  OK, we're on our own, I think, so I go to the counter and try to explain that we want to go to Can Tho and show her our bus ticket.  "5 pm" she says.  We were told it was a 5 hour trip, so arriving at 10 pm to the middle-of-nowhere-Can-Tho and then trying to find our way another 8 km in God-knows-what-direction to get to our village homestay was far less than ideal.... at just that moment, "the lady" reappears and said we were at the wrong bus station and this person at the counter didn't know the right information.  Ummm .... ok... you brought us here, lady... but we are at your mercy.  So, we trekked 10 minutes through the crowded, crazy streets of Saigon (not sidewalks, mind you) - 2 kids, 2 (useless) car seats, 2 roller bags in tow to another bus station - that looked remarkably like the first.  Lots of yellow shirts, lots of people waiting, but still no buses. Our supposed 3pm bus turned into a 4 pm bus which then became a 5 pm bus - just like the lady at the other bus station had said.  Go figure.

One of the "small buses" to get to the Big Bus

We briefly considered finding a hotel for the night and trying again in the morning, but decided to go ahead.  Somehow, "our lady" said she knew Mr. Hung of our homestay and she said she would call him and tell him what time we would arrive at the Can Tho bus station.  Of course, she also told us that there was a bus at 3 pm and 4 pm so I had little confidence, but again, what could I do?  We are guests, travelers at the mercy of others.

At one point, I saw "our lady" standing in the street reading the name on the bus station sign and telling someone on her cell phone.  That can't be good, I thought.  Was she calling a lifeline? Were we at the wrong bus station again?  Turns out, it seems that there were some problems at the office, so "our lady" had to go back to the office to sort it out and they sent someone else to babysit us at the bus station until we got on the small bus to get on the big bus.


 All I gotta say is ... thank goodness for Uno... and more Uno... as we waited.  And then a frenzied flurry of activity to get on the small bus.  Not another tourist in sight, not a soul who seemed to speak a word of English.  The small bus arrives at a very big bus station.  We pile off and are told with vigorous finger-pointing where to stand.  Se we do.

UNO game to save my sanity...

As we stand there, we see what we think is our "big bus" arriving at the station.  As it pulls towards us and starts backing in, it totally sideswipes a minibus parked right next to it.  The minibus has people on it, and is literally rocking side-to-side as it is now hitched to the big bus.  My thoughts...  1) "oh, this could take a while.  If this is our bus, it will take forever til the police come and this little accident gets sorted out, so that we can leave," and 2) "do I really want this guy to be our bus driver for the next 5 hours in the dark?"

About to board our bus at last...at least we hope so.

And again, I was wrong.  This was indeed our bus, but in record time, they "dis-connected" the bus from the minibus with a lot of animated advice from people standing in the bus parking lot and told everyone to board for Can Tho.  This was approximately 4.5 minutes after the little bus-minibus mishap - record time, I would say.  Unbeknownst to me at the time, there were assigned seats.  So, after we figured that out, we had to clamor over people to get back to our assigned seats in the first row.

Again, kids were phenomenal.  I was a little concerned when the bus driver kept answering his cell phone, but I crossed my fingers and hoped and prayed (my seatbelt was non-existent, but we had dug out the belts for Kevin and the kids).

It got dark soon after we started this bus journey, so there wasn't much to see; it did seem like we were dropping people off in the middle of nowhere, literally on the side of the road with nothing in sight.

At 8:30 pm, we pull into a bus station and everyone starts getting off.  What?  Where are we?  I thought this was a 5 hour trip?  Ummm... nope.  Destination reached.  And what to my wondering eyes should appear?  Someone saying "Hung Homestay."  Miracle of miracles.  Turns out he was Hung's nephew.

He put us in a taxi... on a small dirt path ... along a river ... then under an overpass ... homeless encampment style... in the pitch black.  This is the stuff of TV murders.  Honestly, as we drove under the overpass, that was my first thought - we might not make it out of here alive.  I exaggerate, but only slightly.

We finally arrived to our homestay - a bit late, but we made it.  And they saved dinner for us.  And it was delicious - grilled tilapia, fresh spring rolls with rice paper, lettuce, mint, tomatoes, cucumber, and fish with a sweet/spicy dipping sauce, tofu in a tomato sauce, green beans, meat-rice noodle fried concoction.  Was my favorite meal yet, or maybe I was just glad to be alive.





We had 2 rooms, little thatch cottages right on the river, with a bed and mosquito net.  Home sweet home, at least for the next 3 days.  It wasn't exactly a homestay as in staying with a family in their home, but it was very family-like and in the .middle of a village, so that's what I was really looking for.  And we got lots of authentic river activity - as in 4AM very loud boats starting their day on the river, which happened to be right outside our window.  

Our little thatch cottage block..

One afternoon, we walked through the village with Hung's nephew.  I was soooo in my element - dirt footpaths along the river, a crazy "bridge" across the river made of rather small branches, sitting on plastic chairs at a local family store sipping coconut juice, Hung's nephew creating elaborate toys and whistles out of reeds for the boys' all along the way.  The boys played soccer with kids they met along the path.  They taught some of the kids how to play Uno and Go Fish (with a whole lot of pointing and laughing and a mixture of English, Vietnamese, and some Japanese for good measure).  All was good.

Our village walk...

and the bridge across the river - that's Ryan on Hung's nephew's back...

Stopping for a drink at the village store...

The impressive helicopter made of reeds found along the path...

Our first day, we headed into the town of Can Tho in search of a pharmacy where I might hopefully buy some antibiotic ear drops for my increasingly painful ear infection.  Got some "prescription only" ear drops manufactured in India for $2.  Had no idea how legit (or not) they may be, but I was hoping at least for a placebo effect, as I felt better knowing that I was at least trying to do something about it.

Can Tho was more interesting, than I expected.  We went to the Can Tho museum, walked along the riverwalk, bought some stuff in the tourist market (Vietnamese boat hats, bamboo dragonflies, dragon t-shirts), explored the real market, posed in front of the HUGE Ho Chih Minh statue.  Not bad for an easy few hours of entertainment and exploration.

Ho Chih Minh Statue in Can Tho

Our all-time favorite part of the whole Vietnam trip was our boat journey with Hung.  We left at 6 AM, boarded his boat and headed into the wild blue yonder to see what life was like along the Mekong river.    Our first stop was the floating market, where the kids jumped on another boat and bought pineapples.  I'm still not exactly sure how the man carved up the pineapple so that the stem was a perfect handle, the skin was removed, and it was beautiful.  We each ate our "pineapple on a stick" while watching other parts of the market float by.  Fruits - pineapple, watermelon, dragonfruit.  Vegetables - cabbage, carrots, onions - HUGE piles on small boats.  Drinks, snacks, etc.  Hung bought a watermelon for Ethan from a woman in a small boat - he was in 7th heaven (remember, watermelon costs a fortune in Japan).

Our next stop along the river was at a rice noodle "factory."  And by factory, I mean about 5-6 people churning out tons of rice noodles every day under a thatch roof along the river.  It was actually quite fascinating.  They soak the rice, grind it, and mix with tapioca starch to get the "rice milk batter" which they they cook on large round frying skillets - looks like very large crepes.  They move them to a reed rack in preparation for drying them in the sun on reed tables for a day or 2 (we saw the village chickens try to peck at a few as well).  After the rice crepes are dry, they slide the disks through the cutter that turns each big rice milk crepe into a bundle of rice noodles.  Fascinating to watch.  There are 2 short videos below that explain far better than my words.

Making the rice noodle batter

Cooking on the skillet

Drying in the sun

Stacks of rice crepes waiting to be cut into noodles...

Another surprisingly interesting stop was the rice factory.  We learned all about the different types of rice, saw the machines that prepare and polish the rice for sale, and then the kids scrambled up a Mt. Fuji of rice bran from the factory (it gets turned into pig food, according to Hung).

The Mt. Fuji of Rice Bran

Other stops included a rice field and a seedling nursery.  Somewhere along the way, we also ended up at a place where there was a large fish in a tank that could "jump" up and eat food from chopsticks (video below).  The boys enjoyed that, too.  The ride along the river was a feast of sights and sounds and I took way too many pictures, but alas...

It was December 31, New Years' Eve, but the celebrations were quite minimal in our Vietnam village.  Apparently, Chinese New Year is when the real throwdown happens in Vietnam.  Plus, we were in bed by 10 PM anyway (and the kids were in bed by 8 PM).

The next day, we headed back to Saigon (again on the bus) for one night before catching our plane home the next morning.  I was very pleasantly surprised by Saigon - I am not usually a fan of cities in developing countries, but Saigon, I quite liked.  I actually wished we had planned to spend more time there - our little bit of time was spent just wandering around, a market here and there, and of utmost importance to the kids - a cotton candy bicycle vendor.  And the food in Saigon was particularly tasty!

January 2, 2013 found us back on a plane headed home to Tokyo.  We had a fun trip and we were excited to be going home.

A few more random commentaries:

• No one got sick (except for my ear infection and that doesn't really count) so there just might be more adventure travel in our family's future.
• We learned that Ryan has a previously undiscovered love of quail eggs - and we can get those in Japan fairly easily.
• Motorcycles have a place of honor in the living rooms of several Vietnamese homes we saw.  It reminded me of the Maasai cows sleeping in the middle, safest, part of the family compound.
• Vietnam is a country of hammocks - loved the bars we saw that had hammocks instead of chairs. During the hot season, most people sleep outside on hammocks, we were told.
• "Happy water" = rice wine
• The entire 10 days we were in Vietnam, there was not one person, adult or child, begging from us, asking us for money, kids saying "give me money, give me candy, etc."  The absence of it was noticeable.
• Our experience with Vietnamese people we met along the way was a mix of people going waaaay out of their way to help us to absolute indifference that we were even standing in there shop, clearly looking to buy something.  Seemed like an interesting manifestation of the interplay between capitalism and communism in modern-day Vietnam.
• Ethan and Ryan were trying to speak Japanese to everyone.  I'm not sure if this is now their go-to language or if they've fallen victim to the (very un-pc) idea that "all Asians look alike."  Just kidding!
• The rock star quality of "foreign kids."  Many, many people were very interested in our kids, and personal boundaries are definitely not the same.  As we walked along a road or through a market, it was VERY common for someone to reach out and touch their cheeks (especially Ryan) or their stomach.  Ethan, especially, was not comfortable with this, so we did our best to manage it.  Some Vietnamese tourists in Can Tho even asked us to take pictures of themselves with our kids (they did look particularly cute at the time, as they had just bought their Vietnamese hats)!

 We had a great trip, yet we were surprised by the fact that we didn't fall in love with Vietnam.  I fully expected to.  We had a great time, but as a country and culture, it didn't enter the heart and soul as much as I thought it would.  That said, we were in only 2 small areas of the country so who knows?  I've heard that northern Vietnam is fantastic, but we opted not to travel there because of the increased malaria risk in this part of the country.