Short Memories from My Trip (Part 2)

The last few days I’ve been up and out every single day, meeting up with old friends, and since April is my birth month, it’s also mainly meeting up with people that want to celebrate my special day (that may or may not have passed). Today is the first day in a while that I get to sit down and not leave the house. That being said, here is the rest of everything I can remember.

11. Most of the tours the family went on were really similar. It’s just some type of cool cave or old temples. One of the temples I went to had three praying chambers (? I don’t really know what it’s called in English) that were spread across the property. Each chamber would be located in a different spot and would have varying flights of stairs to reach the entrance. The last chamber had the most steps and was not recommended for those over the age of 60 or those with heart problems. As a fat bitch, I heeded that warning well and didn’t even bother visiting ANY of the chambers. My dad and aunt (not the one that gets seizures) were too old to go, so they sat out for the rest of the trip. I told the excuse to my mother that those two needed supervision so I could stay back. My dad, aunt, and I explored the normal temple grounds while the rest of the tour group went ahead. It was a small group but I guess the tour guide didn’t notice till later that I stayed back, because 2 hours later, everyone had arrived back at the starting point huffing and puffing and dripping with sweat. The 24 year old tour guide- that before was sweet and soft spoken- was now exhausted beyond belief and yelled out as he spotted me, “YOU! Why the heck weren’t you climbing with us?!” It was still friendly and I laughed it off as he downed a bottle of water.

12. I also stopped by Korea because we had an 18 hour layover on the way back. In Vietnam, all the Vietnamese people thought I was Korean, and in Korea, all the Koreans thought I was Chinese. No one thought I looked Vietnamese.

13. When I was in Korea, I arrived at night so the employees took us to the transfer lounge where there were mini beds for us to sleep. Disgusting fact but I drool when I sleep. In the middle of the night, if I feel something trickle out of the sides of my mouth, I just wipe the my face on the pillow, flip the pillow over to the clean side, and fall back asleep, and that process repeats through the night. On the mini bed in Korea, it was wrapped in faux leather, so there wouldn’t be any plush to “suck up” my drool. A few hours after sleeping on my stomach, there’s an oddly lukewarm sensation on the side of my face. I try to ignore it, but it keeps bothering me. I open my eyes, lift my head, and find that I was sleeping with my face in a pool of drool. It was so nasty. When I lifted my head, there were strings of spit/drool still sticking to my hair and the side of my face. And it’s not like drool is completely translucent either, so I was left staring at a nasty glob of aerated gray/white spit. In my delusional tired state of mind, I just wiped the puddle with sleeve and turned my face the other way as I go back to sleep.

14. At the tippet-y-top of Vietnam is town called Ha Giang. It’s 2 miles away from China. Even though it’s a Vietnamese town, it's run by Hmong people/tribes. My family booked a tour there and it took us around the mountains to visit the locals. It was odd. The Hmong people living there are really poor and outdated. In 1900s America, there is a specific style of caps that newspaper boys would wear. That is what was in style at the villages. Even compared to Vietnam, Hmong people were considered poor. At one of the Hmong tour stops, once everyone got off the bus, we were greeted with children sitting on top of a wall. On the left of the wall, little girls were holding hands and singing a song. On the right, little boys sat together playing their recorders to match the melody of the girls’ singing. Obviously this is very staged for the tourists, but it just felt uneasy to me. Also, there would be little Hmong girls walking around in their colorful cultural outfits with giant bouquets of mountain flowers for the sole purpose of taking photos with tourists and getting paid after. It felt so ethically wrong. The Vietnamese tourists would gather as many Hmong girls as possible to take a photo with them on their iPhones. I didn’t take any photos when I was there. It just felt so wrong. Even on the bus, our tour guide told everyone not give more than 10,000 dong (~0.40 dollars) per child because giving them too much will make them think, “I don’t want to go to school. I can get rich just by working and taking photos.”

15. On TikTok I saw a viral video of a girl going into a Korean convenience store, buying a cup filled with ice, and a pouch of blue lemonade. After paying, the girl poured the contents of the pouch into her cup and that was it. It was “aesthetic” and a lot of people in the comments said they wanted to try it. There was a convince store inside the Korean airport so I thought this was my opportunity. It tasted like ass. It just tasted like a the blue raspberry ICEEs but more sour. I couldn’t even finish it and just tossed it in the trash after a few sips.

16. Possibly political take, but I feel like Vietnam is slowly getting bought out by Korea. In the major cities, Korean restaurants could be found left and right. Maybe a good 30% of restaurants were Korean. “Numbers”-wise there are more Vietnamese places to eat since there’s an abundance of stalls, but a good chunk of the sit-down restaurants are Korean. Also, most malls are Korean. Even the top movie theater chains (like how America has AMC or Regal) in Vietnam is a Korean brand (CGV). Korea is richer than Vietnam and it seems that thanks to the Korean wave (the growing popularity in K-pop and K-dramas), it’s giving Korea an opportunity to slowly take over Vietnam’s cities. But what do I know? I’m a dumb American that knows nothing about the countries’ histories so don’t take my word for it.

17. I had to pee in squat toilet for the first time. On one of the tours, it had a rest stop in the middle of nowhere. The only types of toilets there were squat toilets. I urge you to specifically search up “Vietnamese rural bathrooms” to get a feel of what they look like, because there is no way I can express my horror. There ARE sanitary squat bathrooms, but the one I had to go in seemed to have never been cleaned ever. Each stall was like an old wooden box made exactly for the average Vietnamese height. Spoiler: everyone is short af and I’m like Godzilla to them. When I squat to pee, I don’t even know which way to face or how to do it. I completely take off my shorts and panties and just go for it. There is also no toilet paper. Just a tub of water on the side. Luckily, I always carry travel sized wet wipes with me. As I stand up to put my undies back on, I get the sense to look up to the ceiling. Because of how tall I am (5’7), the ceiling is so close to my face, and right in between me and the ceiling, was a gigantic spider in its web. With the already mixed emotions I was feeling, I couldn’t get myself to scream, and just slowly put on my pants, and got out.

18. There are so many prostitutes. Some looked botched, but others were very gorgeous. And they’re cheap.

19. Vietnam is a corrupt country. So many filthy officials. On the flight back to America, the Vietnamese security stopped my mom because one of her bags had a suspicious item. There were 3 tubs of shrimp paste. My mom tried explaining it to them, but the security told us we were only allowed 2 tubs of paste, not 3 (it’s 3, they’re just trying to be difficult). At that time, one of the ladies asks me, where I’m from and how old I am. I wasn’t aware of the underlying messages so I told her the truth that I was from America. She compliments my Vietnamese and tells me to step out of the room so the “adults” can handle this matter. It’s once my mom comes out later that she told me what was going on. The lady wanted me to leave because she was scared to show her “dirty” tricks in front of an American because they were scared I’d raise a fit. After I left, my mom was able to slide her a 100,000 dong bill (~4 USD) so the security would let her go. However, because I was dumb and told her we were Americans, she knew we were “rich”. She told my mom, “If you knew this was going to happen, why don’t you slip me some more?” and my mom slid her another bill. Not that much money to us Americans, but to her, 200,0000 dong could feed your family for the day.

There was a lot more I did but not as memorable. This is pretty much good list of my experience there. Slightly don’t want to go back because of the heat and mosquitoes but maybe if it’s a different season. Also I didn't proofread any of this so good luck.

The End :)