Travels with Andy

Happy Lunar New Year

Chuc munh nam moi!

That's Happy New Year for the Lunar New Year which falls on the 28th of January.

I've been in Vietnam for about a month now. My sister and I traveled through Vietnam over the last few weeks, starting out in Saigon where we got a serious bought of food poisoning from "fresh" sugar cane juice, and ending up in the village of Sapa near where the borders of Vietnam, Laos and China in the NW of the country.

Here are the bigs. My sister and I got pulled over by the police near China Beach. We rented a motor bike (scooter) to go to China Beach and Marble mountain. Two policemen pulled us over and here is a synopsis of what happened. They wanted to see my driver license. I told them that I left my driver license back at the hotel. Well, that of course meant that we had to be fined to the tune of 150 000 VND (about US$12). We told them that we just had lunch and so we spent all of our money. We were just out having an afternoon drive to digest our lunch. In actuality, I had my money belt with me but we did not want to show them that we had any money. In our pockets, we had only 13 000 VND (US$1). Upon hearing our Vietnamese, they decided that we were definitely locals and when they asked if we were Viet kieu (overseas Vietnamese), the fine miraculously went up to 200 000 VND (about US$15). Anh tried again in vain to tell them that we did not have any money and when she pulled out what money we did have, they immediately told us to put the money away. There was more yammering, then the fine went down to 50 00 VND and then when we really got nowhere, they asked us how much we wanted to pay. Literally, they asked us, "If you don't have it (how much we've asked for), then how much do you want to pay?" Thankfully, eventually they just gave up since they saw another victim behind us who seemed to be a better catch. They let us go "this time" but told us on leaving that Vietnamese laws should always be obeyed (sic).

None of the above was at all legal since the law is that if you're fined, they write you a ticket and then you go back into town to pay the fine.

This is just one of the police corruption we ran into with others including the taxi driver who pretended to pay the toll but actually slipped the toll taker a 5000 VND bill (instead of the 12 000 VND toll) and a policeman tearing down a streetside vendor's stall because he had refused to "donate."

This is all quite disheartening because while the police can afford to have Courvoisier shots valued at 50 000 VND per shot, the average salary of a waitress per day is 6000 VND, the salary of a hatmaker (the famous Vietnamese straw hats) is 24 000 VND per MONTH, a C/C++ programmer makes 1-3 million VND per month and the official salary of a dentist is only US$40 (US$1=13000 VND). So it's the poor stealing from the even poorer. One wonders how long this police state can last.

What else...universally, everyone thinks I'm either Amerasian or French. All are amazed when I open my mouth and speak Vietnamese. In fact, since the tips of my hair are still platinum, which is an even stronger indicator to them that I'm European, they talk about me and my hair behind my back. Thankfully, all of the comments have been especially positive and if they happen to come from a group of young Vietnamese women, then I usually turn around and say thanks followed by a quick retort such as "If you want, I can teach you how to do this over some tea" which almost always gets me at least a few hours of conversation with them. It's been great! Yep, I'm milking it big time to the batting eyelashes of my sister.

I'm going to spend the next week in Saigon during the Tet holiday and then after my sister leaves, I will continue to travel for about 2 more weeks to visit the minority tribes on Khmer, and Hmong in the central highlands.

There are just too many stories to tell from Vietnam but I think I told you the better ones. Oh yeah, forgot, after the conversations with the Vietnamese women, they always ask me why I'm 27 and not yet married and since I'm not married, why not come back to Vietnam to find myself a Vietnamese wife and hey that girl over there is single...no worries, I won't leave here married, I think.

I hope things are going well. Please let me know what's going on at home and please no jokes about Bill Clinton and Monica Lepinsky or Lewinsky or whatever it is. That's the big story on CNN International.

Cheers,

Andy

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Last updated: 22 February 98