DUCK or you'll bump your head

Wednesday, June 9, 1999

I found that out real quick, after bumping my head about eight times the first day. Most houses aren't designed for people that are six feet tall in Vietnam, you see.

I learned a lot more about Vietnam on the trip to my aunt Tuyet's house, though. First off, there's a trick to keeping the customs officers off your back - one I'm not going to get into - that a lot of other Americans didn't seem to understand.

Second - families rock. About twelve or so of my relatives were there to meet us at the airport - this was the first time I'd ever gotten to see any of them, so it was quite a task remembering who was who! I still don't know who all was there, though I do have a general idea; it was all so confusing!

There was a van rented to pick us up. You can't rent a vehicle in Vietnam without renting the driver as well (no, NOT like that you sick monkeys) so there was some guy who wasn't related to me there as well. (Not to mention the hundreds of other Vietnamese waiting for other people) Surprisingly, the fourteen or so of us crowded into the van fairly well, and started the hour-long drive to Binh Duong.

Third - drivers in America are spoiled rotten. I say this because in America, there are little yellow and white lines drawn on the road which indicated where cars are supposed to go. One car per lane, and occasionally two motorcycles. Not too hard to follow. There's lines on the roads in Vietnam too, but no one sticks to them - drive wherever you like. If you've got a big enough vehicle, people WILL get out of your way. Some poor girl didn't get out of the way of our van, though, and ended up getting sideswiped. Oops.

Fourth - rivers are not all clean. The Saigon River is a perfect example, considering people have a tendency to use it as a garbage can. But... it's still pretty neat. Uncle Minh lives on a boat, which for the duration of our visit was docked at Aunt Tuyet's house, except for the trip we made that night up and down the river and the later trip to the zoo. (I'm actually writing these journals a month after the fact, because computers are fairly difficult to find in Vietnam, not like I went to Vietnam to use computers anyways...)

Fifth - it's hard to start a conversation when you can't speak their language. My cousins took me downtown to a little cafe. They sold pepsi there for 2000 dong (at the time, 14 cents in US currency) a bottle, which was fairly standard for Vietnam. I didn't know that at the time because I didn't pay for anything over there. They'll charge Americans a dollar for a bottle, you see, or at least that's what my dad told me afterwards. So whenever I needed to buy something someone else would pay with money we gave them earlier. In any case, I didn't understand any Vietnamese, and my cousins didn't speak much English, so they took me back home after hanging out for about an hour. But I was pretty tired anyways. ^^

Sixth - there's only so much you can do in one day, especially with jetlag from a 13-hour timezone shift. So sleeping is considered a good thing, which I subsequently did after the boat ride and dinner. Tomorrow is another day, though...