New Place

Last week I moved into an apartment. I've now been here for 8 days. When I walked in, I was taken away by the amount of space, location, view, balcony, and the size of the kitchen. Previously I looked at about 6 or 7 places. Most were in the Phu My Hung area which is basically a suburb for rich people/foreigners. It was not what I was looking for, and nor was the price. The location of my place is great, I'm in District 1 which is still near many restaurants, cafes, bars, and a river. I am the only foreigner in the building, all the other residents are Vietnamese. So far the neighbors have been extremely helpful and friendly, today I bought one of those large 5 gallon water dispensers for $13,000 VND, yep that's right, .62 U.S. cents for that much water. I couldn't believe it to say the least. I'm sure the guy would have charged me more, but one of the neighbors initiated this for me, she must have seen me buying gallon jugs of water. Last night the moto security guy wanted me to drink with him and his buddies, but I had work to do. My first night here, I accidently left my keys in the doorknob and a neighbor knocked on my door and handed them to me. Have to say I've been blessed thus far regarding my neighbors. The building has 9 floors, but only about 4 floors are used for housing, the rest are used for government meetings and businesses. I live on the 9th floor. When I walk into the apartment to the left is the large bathroom which includes a washing machine (wasn't expecting that, added bonus) straight ahead is the living room and entrance to the balcony. If I turn right into the living room, the kitchen is on the right which has two burners and a lot of space for cooking. My refrigerator is placed between the doors to the bathroom and bedroom. The bedroom which is on the left side after entering the living room is large and has a lot of closet space, a large dresser, air conditioning and access to the balcony as well. Now to the balcony, it is about 25-30 feet long. It has a great view of the river which has a distant bridge and highway running along it. At night the lights zig zag with the road and during sunset it is a nice relaxing view. Unfortunately the sun is blocked by a building across from this one, but I can still see the change of color in the sky. Now that I have glorified my apartment, let's get to some of the parts I wasn't aware of before signing my contract.

Last Wednesday I saw the place and decided this was it, it had everything I wanted and then some. Thursday night I moved in and signed the contract right after work. I had to pay 2 months rent for a safety deposit, and then pay 1 month of rent (1 month is equal to $350 USD). So in total 3 months worth of rent on the spot. I will get the safety deposit back as long as I stay for the full 8 months of the contract which is until June 20th. So Thursday night, I sign the contract, pay the money and later leave to grab dinner. I walk to the elevator and wait for an exhorbitant amount of time. I call my realtor and he talks with the owners. It turns out, the elevator shuts down at 7pm every day. All I can do is laugh, though I am frustrated at the same time. But what's the point of getting angry, it won't make anything better, I'll just be pissed off. So I descend 9 flights of stairs to go grab dinner. I get my food, return, and walk up the 9 floors again. It's not too tiring, but I do wonder how much it will take its toll on me in the long run. I do admit I am annoyed at the fact the owners did not mention this rather LARGE detail when signing the contract. Since I found out this information, I've done my best to plan my outings directly after work and to return by 7pm. This week I was successful with that. We will see how much more of this will bother me, but I've been thinking of it as a more positive thing. I can get exercise if I really want to, and it may serve as a deterrant for me from going out at night which means I should save more money. So it may turn out to be a better thing for my wallet at least.
This is the only downside I've encountered so far about this place, except the neighbor to my left also has access to my balcony. The owners told me only I had access to it, but sure enough, yesterday morning I saw a guy doing push-ups with the railing, and open this seemingly wooden barricade that turns out to be a door. So the owners lied to me about that, whether it's grounds to receive my safety deposit back and find a new place, I'm unsure. Right now I'm still testing the place out, I like it, I don't mind the sharing of the balcony so much since the neighbor appears to only use it around 5:30am and the elevator thing is the only major downside.

Returning to last week. As I said, I moved in on Thursday. Sophea ended up coming over the next day. Friday after work I had to rush to buy some basic necessities before she arrived. These included water, food, soap, drinks, toilet paper, a blanket, and pillows. I purchased the groceries and headed to the bus station, the worker told me the bus wouldn't arrive for another hour. I hitched a cab and the driver was extremely helpful, after some misunderstandings he helped me find a place with blankets, pillows, and pillow cases. He took me back to my place where I carried all of this up the 9 floors and dropped it off. The driver took me back to the bus station where I waited for about another 20 minutes until Sophea showed up. I assumed she would have a decent sized bag so I took a cab rather than my moto. Unfortunately I was wrong as her bag was small enough and light enough to easily carry on the moto. But we hitched a cab and made it to my place. Earlier in the week Sophea told me she injured her leg, but didn't give me any details of how bad it was or how it happened. I didn't notice anything at first and I regretfully informed her about the 9 floors we would have to climb to get to my place. I offered to carry her, but she declined. We walked up to my apartment and she didn't complain once the whole way up. We sit down and I notice a small cut on her leg, she quickly hides it from me. After some convincing, she reveals the rest of her foot, she has a large gash on her left leg. She also has large black and blue bruises on both knees. She now tells me she was driving her moto when some guy was speeding and cut her off, she slammed on her brakes, lost her balance, and fell. She informs me she didn't tell me during the week on the phone because she didn't want me to worry. Now I feel like a real jackass for having her walk up the 9 floors.

Due to her leg and the closed elevator, we order pizza delivery. First time I've ordered pizza on my own here. The driver was too lazy to come up the 9 floors so I had to go down there to pick it up, there goes his tip. Not that tipping is a common thing to do here, but if someone walks up 9 floors to bring me food, I'll be happy to give them compensation for it. We have pizza and enjoy a quiet night together at my new place. Saturday we get up early and head over to Diamond Plaza. It's a mall with 4 floors. We check out each floor and at the 4th floor we play fooseball, air hockey, a racing game, basketball, and we consider bowling, but instead grab some fruit shakes and អង្គុយលេង​ (angkewy leng) or sit and relax. We decide it's time to return to my place because the owner would be coming to install the internet and ensure the washing machine is working as I had trouble with it earlier. We begin watching a movie as the owner and his son show up. They get everything working and take off. We get ready for the night and grab dinner at Pacharan, a Spanish style restaurant/bar with 4 floors. We eat at the 4th floor which has a view of the downtown buildings. The view is alright, nothing spectacular, but this place was suggested by a friend. The food is decent, but nothing I found to be worth trying a second time. I take Sophea to Lily's Bar on De Tham street, where my friend Dung works. He's been wanting to meet her and I wanted him to meet her as well. We have a drink there and have a good time, then head over to 17 club as Sophea wants to see what the nightlife is like in Saigon. The 17 club is a really cool place, I went there the previous week with Dung and some friends. It's a western style saloon type of place. It has 3 floors and they provide live music on the 1st and 3rd floors. The 1st floor is primarily rock and the 3rd floor is pop, country, and hip hop, pretty well varied. We go to the 3rd floor, grab a table and some drinks. Tonight we are lucky because when the band takes a break, we catch a flamed bottle juggling show. All of the male bartenders juggle bottles they light on fire. One balances a bottle that is lit on top of his head and juggles three lit bottles. It was a really cool sight to see. The music was decent and the English of the singers was impressive. Sophea was even surprised, but she didn't want to dance due to her foot. We stay until a little past midnight and decided it's time to go back.

Sunday we leisurely decide we want to go to a museum. We spontaneously find out the Fine Arts museum is 2 blocks away from my place. We go there and look at the art. One of the artists is there and tries to tell us about his paintings but he only knows Vietnamese, French, and a little bit of English. My Vietnamese is minimal and so we are only able to get a few points across. Sophea's leg is bothering her so we don't spend much time here and we go to the Chinese market since one of my sandals broke on Friday. We each had only been there once and with some minimal directions we were able to find it fairly quickly. This time around, the people aren't very helpful. We ask for a sized 43 sandal, but nobody appears to have it and does not want to attempt to search for one. I settle for a size 42 which is a bit smaller, but it works. We then go to another mall called Lotte Mart in District 7. It's a bit of a drive for where we were at the Chinese market. While there we go to the grocery store and buy a bunch of groceries for my place and so I can cook more things and have more tea. As we are leaving Lotte Mart Sophea realizes she doesn't have her sunglasses, I head back into Lotte Mart. I ask Person A who refers me to Person B, Person B directs me to a place where I can buy sunglasses, I ask the Cart Person who directs me to a security guard, the security guard directs me to a lost and found person who was at the same place as Person A. The lady brings out Sophea's sunglasses. I'm very grateful and surprised, I imagined they would have already been stolen at that point. I go back to Sophea who is pleasantly surprised. We return home and put the groceries away. We venture over ideas for what to do with our night. We consider a boat ride, but we went to the dock area the previous night and none of the boats seemed that nice or that it would be that great of a trip. Instead we cook at home, and relax.

Monday morning I wake up, get ready for work and eat breakfast. Sophea gets up as I'm finishing breakfast. I'm surprised she's already up as I assumed she'd want to sleep as long as possible since I wouldn't be home from work till 5pm. But she gets up and I take a Xe om (moto taxi) to work so she can use my moto. This time I make sure I tell the security guys Sophea is going to be driving my moto for the day. I go to work, have a usual day at work, and get home around 5:30pm. Sophea opens the door and slowly walks back to the living room. Earlier I did my laundry on Sunday and hung it up. She has already folded and put away my laundry. That was a pleasant surprise, but unfortunately she's walking with a limp, her leg is obviously in pain. We enjoy the sunset from the balcony and take pictures together. We ponder over ideas for what to do. I look up other boat rides and find one that looks pretty nice, it's a 2 hour ride that includes dinner. I call them, but they are booked for the night and ask if I can go tomorrow, but I decline as Tuesday morning Sophea will return to Phnom Penh. We decide to stay in for the night, we look at our pictures from previous times together, watch the movie I created, and discuss what to do about her injury. We end up watching some of the movie Heat and both doze off.

Tuesday morning I drop her off at the bus station and she catches the bus. I go to work feeling elevated. I had a great weekend with Sophea and I can tell things are progressing. That night I call her and find out she had an okay bus ride, it wasn't too bad. We discuss the next time we'll see each other. I'll be going to Hanoi and Halong Bay November 4th-6th which is in two weeks. Sophea says she'll see me next year, I say, "WHAT?!" Then she explains how she doesn't know how she can explain to her mother about why she has to go to Saigon so frequently. It no longer appears to be a question of whether she wants to go :)

I know last time I said I would make a posting about moto driving, it's written already but I've yet to take the pictures, so once the pictures are taken, that posting will be published. Here are some pictures of the view from the balcony, I'll take pictures of the inside this weekend and add them.

(View from my balcony)

(At Pacharan)

(View from Pacharan)

(Bottle juggling at 17 Club)

(Sunset from the balcony)

(Entrance to the living room)

(Looking down from the balcony)

(Washing machine on the left)

(View from the door to the balcony in my room)

Vacation Continued

We awoke at 6:00am. Hopped in the shower, grabbed some spicy noodle soup with pork 20 feet away from my guesthouse. 20,000 VND or the equivalent of .96 cents for one soup. We get to the bus station a few minutes early, they rush us to the bus as if we're late. We are surprised when we get to the bus as it's a sleeper bus which I did not pay the extra one or two dollars for. There did not seem to be much choice, so we get on the bus and wait for other passengers to show up. This bus has three rows of beds. They are miniature beds that are able to recline. There is a bottom level and top level. Sophea is placed on the left upper level, and I'm in the middle upper level. For the next five hours we would daze in and out of sleep. Unfortunately, Sophea got sick from the bus ride. I'll just say it was not any fun for her, and it was not much better seeing her in the sickness she was going through. The scenery along the way wasn't anything spectacular, many developed buildings all along the way. Saw a little bit of the countryside, but it does not pale in comparison to the Cambodian rice fields and palm trees. Yes, I'm sure I'm biased. I have yet to see northern Vietnam, which I really want to see by bus. So, hopefully in the future I can see the beauty of the land. Returning to the trip.

We arrive at our destination, Nam Chau resort. It's north of all the shopping areas and main touristy spots. We are the only foreigners at this place. Everyone else is Vietnamese. I booked this place the previous week and asked the people numerous times if there were fishing boats at the beach. They dodged my question and said no. However, I should have followed my intuition because sure enough the fishing boats were there at the beach. We get into the room and it's a beach bungalow, which I anticipated. Of course not as nice as the pictures made it look, but we decided to stick it out for the night since I already paid the dues for three nights and cannot foresee the staff reimbursing my money. We drop our bags and go straight to the beach. I brought my football with me, ready to bring some San Diego beach style to Mui Ne. Sophea has never thrown a football before, and I thought we would simply play catch. Knowing Sophea, I should have guessed she would create it into a competition. We get into the water and decide that if one of us drops the ball, the other player gets the point. To give her an opportunity to win, I agree to only catch with my left hand. Sophea surprises me with her accuracy as she purposefully tries to make throws on my right side and throw them to outstretched locations. We went back and forth for a while, but in the end San Diego came up on top.

Taking it easy due to Sophea's difficult ride up. We relax a lot the first night. We walk to a close restaurant, Vinh Hung, and eat barbacued squid and a seafood soup. This restaurant is really large, but they only have Sophea, me, and one family. There are tanks along the north end of the wall holding the fresh caught seafood. The front doors are wide open and we get the occasional visit from the local bugs, but there are fans to keep us cool. We are both tired from our first day traveling from Saigon and simply enjoy our time at Vinh Hung and make friends with the staff. They are helpful and teach us some Vietnamese words. We thank our new friends and walk back to our bungalow to sit below the stars. The crashing of the waves slam against the turf, the fishing boats are at work, lights glimmering across the expanse of the ocean. Above us, stars shine and we are taking it all in. Enjoying this peaceful bliss we have together.

The next day we eat our free breakfast of pho, beef noodle soup. It's a mediocre tasting one, but can't argue with its price. We get ready to go to the beach and begin another football game. After being in the water for a while, we decide it's time for another competition. A sand sculpture one, our comparative sculptures are to be of Angkor Wat. I make my three towers tall and give them a good amount of space between each one. Sophea's are smaller, but they are closer together and resemble that of Angkor Wat much better than mine. She takes this trophy. It's time to relax on the beach. I choose to lay down on the sand and take in the heat of the sun. Sophea heads over to lay down under a canopy. After some time I join her and we play a game with some plants. You take a root of a plant, detach part of it and put it back together as if you never detached it. The other person has to guess where you detached it. Needless to say, I'm destroyed at this game, though I did manage to get a few of them right. Then we take some weeds and have to knock away the leaves and flowers of our opponent's weed. Once again Sophea wins as she has the grandmother weed, it's very strong and has incredible longevity. It's impossible for me to break it as I use 4 different ones which all wither to the grandmother weed. We return to the bungalow and decide it's time to go get lunch. The local moto driver lets us borrow his moto. We grab lunch and return to the resort. Our moto man tells us to go to the sand dunes and Ta Cu mtn. We agree that we want to go to Ta Cu mtn the following day. We are told it's 50km roundtrip. We eat dinner at Vinh Hung again with different seafood, grilled prawns and salad.

The next day we awake early and meet with moto man and his friend Hieu who speaks great English. Some of the best English I've heard in Vietnam. Hieu has the long wavy hair of a beach bum and reminds me of home instantly. He and moto man drive us to the moto renter. Sophea decides we should go with an automatic moto and negotiates a price for $5 less than they were looking for. I'm sure if it were up to me I wouldn't have been able to get the price down so easily. Hieu gives us directions by drawing a map for us. A few left turns, straight at some roundabouts, and then there are going to be signs of Ta Cu mountain all along the way. Together we begin our day's journey to Ta Cu. We reach Phan Thiet, about 20 km south of Mui Ne. We make some turns and get lost. We ask for directions, get back on track and leave Phan Thiet, we are in the countryside where all along the way there are numerous truck stops. The numerous signs we were promised are nowhere to be found. We have now gone a total of 40 km, when we were told it was 50km roundtrip. We pass 3 or 4 mountains already, but no sign of Ta Cu. We are getting a little worried, but continue on. I see a mountain on the left and I thought I saw a large object. As we get closer, it turns out to only be trees. As we make our way along the right edge of the mountain, a sign finally appears, it's the entrance to Ta Cu mtn. Excitedly, we turn left and head into the base. There are admission tickets, monorail tickets, and gondola tickets we have to purchase. We agree to buy one way tickets as we want to hike our way back down. This would later turn out to be a regrettable decision.

We take the monorail to the gondola. The gondola provides an expansive view of the countryside and we make it over one of the lower hills. Our destination is met and we begin our short hike toward the largest reclining Buddha in Vietnam. We take pictures, rest and enjoy the view. The temple area is in the process of renovation, no clear signs tell us how to get to the Buddha. We find a guy who leads us to it. We reach it and I'm struck by the size of it, 49 meters. Roughly half a football field. But it's also really tall. It's impossible for my camera to get the whole thing in one shot unless I do a three part, panoramic picture. We find some incense, borrow a lighter and make our prayers. There's a photographer there who wants to take our picture. At first we decline, but the more I think about it, it's likely to be the only time we'll be here again, so why not. His camera is much more high tech than mine and he is able to get us in the photo along with the entire Buddha. We descend down the mountain, grab some ice cream and do not see the way to walk down. The gondola operator tells us we need to buy another ticket to ride the gondola which is an extra $6 more than the roundtrip ticket we could have purchased. We buy the tickets and regret not having the foresight. Later, I find out it would have been a two hour trek to get back, so in the end it was worth the extra $6. Our pictures the photographer took look great and we relax in the garden area near the entrance. It's 2pm and we decide it's time to head back as we want to sled down the sand dunes near our resort.

The way back is much easier and we reach the resort around 3:30pm. We play cards to kill the time before the sun sets over the sand dunes. We lose track of time and head to the dunes right as the sun is going down. We find some kids who sell us rides using their plastic sleds. I slide down after Sophea and my phone falls out of my pocket along the way, I quickly grab it and put it back in my pocket. The second time we both go at the same time, but my phone falls out again and I did not see where it went. We dig through the sand to find it. No luck. I tell the kids I'll give them $500,000VND if they find it, roughly $25 USD. Some of the kids begin a pathetic attempt to search. After a while, we ask a foreigner to call my phone. I hear it ring once and then stop. The foreigner tells us about how some other boys stole some guy's sunglasses earlier. Beginning to get suspicious, we check the pockets of a few of the boys, but not all of them are there at the bottom with us. I then offer $1,000,000VND. ($50 USD) and the kids actually start to look. After a few minutes, one of them magically appears with the phone. He holds it close to him and puts it into his pocket and tries to walk away from me. They want me to pay them now, but my money is at the resort. Eventually, they agree to walk with us to the resort. Now, I'm not concerned with the material value of my phone, the issue is simply the contacts of friends and coworkers. The other thing that concerns me is how bad it looks to have about six young Vietnamese boys walking along with a White man and a Cambodian woman. Luckily Sophea is there, if she was not there, it would have looked really bad. One moto driver stops as we all walk, I tell him they have my phone and we make it to the resort. I run to the room, grab the money and make the exchange. There's a security guard and an older Vietnamese man who witness the situation. The old man asks me how much I paid the kids and how much I bought the phone for. I tell him I believe I bought the phone for $90, and I paid the kids $50.

Relieved, Sophea and I return to the bungalow to discuss what just happened. We both realized along the way that the boys stole my phone. We are both mad/frustrated that they did this. Yes, we both acknowledge that these kids need money, but the way of going about it is wrong. We know they're kids and kids have to make mistakes to learn. This whole thing then led to the question of why these kids are trying to make money at night, rather than spending time with family or playing games with friends. Yes, it could be much worse, they could be working in a dangerous factory, or be begging on the street. We've seen the same kids selling books on the streets at night infested with intoxicated foreigners and know these kids have it a little bit better because they do get to work with their friends and they don't work for too long since nobody wants to be at the sand dunes during the heat of the day. The whole situation leads to a multitude of emotions: anger, frustration, appreciation, empathy, and contempt. We try to forget about this part of the trip, but this I know, will stay with me for a long time.

With it being our last night and all, we want to go out to a different restaurant, closer to the main touristy area of Mui Ne. We borrow the motorbike and head south. We go to three restaurants. At the first one we are told they don't have any cocktails, no fresh seafood, and so we decide to order one drink each and find somewhere else to go. We go to a nearby restaurant, they want to sell us crab by the kilo. We wanted to order seafood where they at least cooked it into a meal. Strike two. After looking for more restaurants in the area, we agree to had back to Vinh Hung because we know they at least have fresh seafood. We arrive there and they're closed. We both laugh at the plight of our night. Turning around, we find a restaurant fairly close by that has a family and a group of Vietnamese guys drinking the night away. The owners speak a few words of English, but we are able to get barbacued octopus and barbacued prawns with rice. The food turns out to be really good and we're happy we finally found a place that had what we were looking for. We go back to the resort and decide not to stargaze as the clouds have come in. We also want to wake up early to see the sunrise over the Pacific.

5:30am. Walking out to the beach, the sky is a light pink. In the distance, the sun is beginning to rise. We sit at the same spot as we did for stargazing. The sun rises quickly, the color turns more red as it ascends, the sky becomes clearer. Eventually the sun hides behind some clouds and we run down to the beach to enjoy one more morning with the Pacific coast. We write our names in Khmer and take many photos. Later, we pack and head over to catch the bus. This bus ride would be much better than the first, a normal bus and Sophea is able to make it the whole way without getting sick. We arrive in Saigon at 1:30pm. Earlier than anticipated, we go to Ben Thanh market and to the Chinese market so Sophea can finish buying gifts for family and friends. Sophea negotiates shirt prices down from $20 to $5. Ever the negotiator, one seller calls Sophea, "Mafia." Sophea also wanted to buy some sandals for her sister. The seller wants $15 and Sophea says $6. After some back and forth, we begin to walk away. The seller tells us to come back and we return. When it comes time to pay, the seller asks for $150VND, roughly $7.50 USD. We bring this up and the seller claims she will not make a profit if she sells it to us for $6. We argue that she told us to come back, and the seller becomes angry. Sophea and I are frustrated now, we offer her $125,000VND (about $6 USD). The seller gives us a hard time about her lack of a profit. Sophea is trying to speak but the seller talks so much she cannot even get a word in. Eventually the seller takes our stated price and we walk away, leaving Ben Thanh market behind us. We both discuss the rudeness of the seller and how it makes no sense for the seller to give us the sandals if she truly did not make a profit. We walk into the park and on our way back we compare bargaining here in comparison to that in Phnom Penh. We agree that he/she can at least have a conversation with a seller that does not end in a one-sided mouthing off session in Phnom Penh. We go home, shower our frustrations away and get ready for dinner at Cuc Gach Quan.

Cuc Gach Quan is located in an old style Vietnamese home. After you walk through the entrance there are some planks to cross a pond to access other rooms or to go upstairs. We head upstairs to find our table. Along with our table is one with bench seats and then a bed. Some of the dishware are chipped, highlighting the vintage china. The waiter is very helpful as the menu is expansive. We order four dishes as we're told the portions are small. We discuss the beauty of the sunrise that morning, the great time we had at Ta Cu mountain, and laugh about all of our odd situations throughout the trip. The food is ngon lam (very tasty) and we are content with this dinner. We had eggplant, clams, salad, and a beef dish similar to lok lak. We catch a taxi home and when we reach the alleyway to the guesthouse, the rain is pounding the street. I tell Sophea to wait while I grab the raincoat in my room. But she wants to run for it. We run through the alleyway and reach the guesthouse, splashing in puddles all along the way. I am drenched, somehow Sophea made it through without getting that wet.

The next morning we take a taxi to the bus station. I walk Sophea to her bus and thank her for coming to Vietnam. Two days before I asked her if she would come visit again, her reply was "Goodbye Vietnam, I won't be back." This day I asked her and she said she didn't know if she would or if she wouldn't. Now, she's thinking about it, which is better news than before. Standing there that morning at the bus, I don't want to see her go and she does not seem to want to go either. I have to go to work and so I tell her I'll see her two weekends from now, in Phnom Penh. I turn and walk over to my xe om, I look back and see a smile on her face, I carry it with me as I go to work.

Below I have a video of our trip. It's the slideshow.  Originally I made one large video that was 14 minutes long, but it was impossible to upload it. So here is a shorter version, I'll make two more videos to complete the trifecta. This video is about 4 mins long. Next blogpost will be about moto driving. Yep, no more xe om for me, I can finally drive a moto.