Expectations can be a terrible thing. You'd think I'd have learned after Peace Corps to expect nothing from a new experience, that way you can never be disappointed. But it's hard not to have expectations when everyone you meet tells you the same thing. "Vietnam is amazing!" "Vietnamese food is the best I've had in Southeast Asia." "Vietnam is so cheap and the scenery is breathtaking." After hearing this and more for over a year, I was almost expecting to find Jesus himself laying out on one of the beaches here with a coconut in one hand a bowl of Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup) in the other.
And so we arrived in Ho Chi Minh with not a little bit of excitement. Ho Chi Minh is indeed a beautiful city, bustling with life and energy. Motorbikes, people, and buses clog the streets, all rushing off to go somewhere. Beautiful parks and slow moving riverways can be found easily, and trees line most of the streets. At night, the city is aglow with colorful neons signs all advertising their wares and succulent aromas waft down the street from flashy restaurants and simple stalls alike. Beer flowed faster than the water, and was often cheaper than it too.
After the initial excitement, my enthusiasm for Vietnam quickly began to fade. While the local food was good, it wasn't that much better than any of the other countries we've been to. There was little to do in the city itself and it was only marginally cheaper. Having just come from a country where everyone smiled at you, it was difficult to find myself in a city where people rarely smiled and were often quite rude. I tried to tell myself that it was probably just cultural differences, but I found it difficult anyway.
To top it all off, we spent our first few days revisiting the Vietnam War by exploring the Cu Chi Tunnels, War Remnants museum, and the Handicapped Handicraft Shops. Once again I found myself confronted with the grievous atrocities our country has committed on others in the name of democracy... People living without limbs, horrific photographic evidence of lives destroyed, babies still being born over 40 years later heavily deformed (due to pollution from Agent Orange), and the mind boggling realization that once again the US did absolutely NOTHING to rebuild a country it helped destroy. Foreign policy is complicated, the Vietnamese weren't blameless, blah blah blah. I know this. But it's a sad day when someone asks you where you're from and you seriously consider telling them you're Canadian, so thta you can feel a little bit less guilty about the deformed, young woman sitting next to you that was robbed of a proper future before she was ever born...
That's when I made my second mistake: I made a first impression. I took my experience in Ho Chi Minh and applied it to the rest of Vietnam. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like this country at all. Not one bit. I disliked the people that never smiled. I wanted more from a cuisine that had promised everything. And I wanted to stop feeling as if I stuck out.
So I came to Nha Trang. And it destroyed everything I knew. Here, the people smiled at me. Here, I ate delicious Vietnamese food like nothing I'd had. Here, the beaches were perfect and the scenery even more so. As I relaxed and shook off the bustle of Ho Chi Minh (which I still enjoyed despite my pouty attitude), I found myself happy again and feeling incredibly foolish. I really, really like Vietnam.
Note to self: great expectations can be a terrible thing, Bernard, so remember to try and never have them again.
And so we arrived in Ho Chi Minh with not a little bit of excitement. Ho Chi Minh is indeed a beautiful city, bustling with life and energy. Motorbikes, people, and buses clog the streets, all rushing off to go somewhere. Beautiful parks and slow moving riverways can be found easily, and trees line most of the streets. At night, the city is aglow with colorful neons signs all advertising their wares and succulent aromas waft down the street from flashy restaurants and simple stalls alike. Beer flowed faster than the water, and was often cheaper than it too.
After the initial excitement, my enthusiasm for Vietnam quickly began to fade. While the local food was good, it wasn't that much better than any of the other countries we've been to. There was little to do in the city itself and it was only marginally cheaper. Having just come from a country where everyone smiled at you, it was difficult to find myself in a city where people rarely smiled and were often quite rude. I tried to tell myself that it was probably just cultural differences, but I found it difficult anyway.
To top it all off, we spent our first few days revisiting the Vietnam War by exploring the Cu Chi Tunnels, War Remnants museum, and the Handicapped Handicraft Shops. Once again I found myself confronted with the grievous atrocities our country has committed on others in the name of democracy... People living without limbs, horrific photographic evidence of lives destroyed, babies still being born over 40 years later heavily deformed (due to pollution from Agent Orange), and the mind boggling realization that once again the US did absolutely NOTHING to rebuild a country it helped destroy. Foreign policy is complicated, the Vietnamese weren't blameless, blah blah blah. I know this. But it's a sad day when someone asks you where you're from and you seriously consider telling them you're Canadian, so thta you can feel a little bit less guilty about the deformed, young woman sitting next to you that was robbed of a proper future before she was ever born...
That's when I made my second mistake: I made a first impression. I took my experience in Ho Chi Minh and applied it to the rest of Vietnam. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like this country at all. Not one bit. I disliked the people that never smiled. I wanted more from a cuisine that had promised everything. And I wanted to stop feeling as if I stuck out.
So I came to Nha Trang. And it destroyed everything I knew. Here, the people smiled at me. Here, I ate delicious Vietnamese food like nothing I'd had. Here, the beaches were perfect and the scenery even more so. As I relaxed and shook off the bustle of Ho Chi Minh (which I still enjoyed despite my pouty attitude), I found myself happy again and feeling incredibly foolish. I really, really like Vietnam.
Note to self: great expectations can be a terrible thing, Bernard, so remember to try and never have them again.
