Although we only spent 5 days in Vietnam, we have some stories to tell, so brace yourself for some giggles and shocks. In fact ‘giggles and shocks’ is a pretty good description of how we spent our time in Vietnam.
We flew from Hong Kong to Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon) in a very comfortable plane. It would have been a fantastic flight had I not been sitting next to a man who alternated between smelly belching and regurgitating phlegm for the whole journey. Before you ask, it wasn’t Christian. He was busy eating his four course meal next to me, while the man to my other side was regurgitating it.
In Ho Chi Minh we paid a taxi driver probably about a months wage for driving us around in what felt like a big circle, to get to our hotel. It was a great drive though as it gave us our first taste of Vietnamese traffic. We had never seen anything like it. Literally the whole road was bustling with tooting mopeds that wound in and out of each others way. In a car, we were very much second class road users and crawled around at a snails pace, whilst families of four raced past on the family moped.
At our hotel we were shown to a room which had not one working light (the romantic suite perhaps?), and after a couple of staff had tried the light switches and verified that yes, none of them worked, we managed to get a room which did have working lights. The hotel was actually really nice and on the way up in the lift we had spotted that a full body massage in their new spa cost only four pounds. Yes four pounds! Four pounds later and Christian had got more than he bargained for!
The “massage” experience
We should have been alerted to the fact that this was no ordinary spa when the man at the front desk took great lengths to explain the tipping system; “you pay tip to girl at end, tip depend how happy she make you feel. You understand? You understand? You tip because she make you feel good, yes?” Fine we thought, after all we were only paying four pounds for an hours full body massage, we were happy to give a tip and we nodded our agreement.
From that moment on we were taken to separate rooms and I didn’t see Christian again until I saw his slightly pale and confused face afterwards. So I can tell you first hand about my experience, and I will piece together Christian’s story from what his pale and confused face told me afterwards.
In the massage room there was a pair of loose silk shorts for me to put on. I lay there waiting for a nice relaxing massage and in walked my masseur. I lifted my head and was met by a pair of thighs in a very short and tight skirt. I lifted my head further to see that my masseur was a very young attractive girl wearing an awful lot of make up and not much else. She proceeded to give me a massage by climbing all over me. There was a lot of skin to skin contact which was not just with her hands and to be honest I felt a bit uncomfortable with it, especially with her in such a tiny outfit! From next door where Christian was I could hear a lot of slapping. At the end of my massage which was pretty poor (something told me she was not a professional, not of massage anyway), she asked how I was feeling. I said “good thank you very much” (very British) and swiftly put my clothes on.
Outside I waited for Christian who seemed to take about ten minutes longer. When he eventually emerged he was looking traumatised and seemed pretty intent on getting back to our room for a shower. Supposedly her massaging hands had been quite cavalier about sticking to boundaries and he had laid there with his eyes wide open the whole time. With about fifteen minutes left of his hour, she had asked whether he wanted anything extra. After he replied with a definitive “no” she seemed surprised and since she had ran out of massage tricks, she just went over the same bits again. I think what Christian was being offered was what they term “a happy ending”. For Christian however it was a very unhappy ending to the day and (I am writing this weeks after the event) he has not had a massage since!
Phu Quoc Island
The next morning after breakfast (where there appeared to be a lot of Western men with young Vietnamese girls who looked just like our masseurs… go figure), we headed to the airport for a flight to the small island of Phu Quoc. As our propeller plane left Saigon we saw rice paddy after rice paddy as far as the eye could see. The next land we saw was the island of Phu Quoc, our home for the next four days. We had decided that after weeks of city jumping, it was time to relax, unwind and have some beach time. And with that in mind Phu Quoc was the perfect destination.
Phu Quoc is an island off the Southern coast of Vietnam. It’s location would suggest it belongs to Cambodia, and the Cambodians would like it that way, but the Vietnamese have managed to keep ownership of it, and have put a large military base on it to ensure it stays that way. It is heralded as the “next Phuket” since it has long stretches of sandy beaches and is largely untouched by tourism. There is a short section of beach that has beach huts, a couple of hotels and restaurants on the sand, but that is the extent of the development. It was the perfect oasis for two weary travellers! Our days largely consisted of swimming in the warm sea and lying on the beach. We exerted ourselves by hiring a kayak one evening and by going snorkelling one day, but we largely took it easy.
Local fishermen
A sign on the beach for waxing…anyone have a bear that needs trinming?
One pound hair cut
On one afternoon when our bodies were saturated by sun and salt water we decided to hire a moped and go into town for Christian to get a hair cut. I sat on the back of the moped with one hand on Christian’s waist and one hand holding his helmet on (it was not the most secure of safety features). The town of Duong Duong is small and dusty with no tourist amenities at all. When we saw something that looked like a barbers we got Christian in the chair and Christian used international sign language to say he wanted it all cut off. And this is what he got for one pound – not bad hey!
Please note the hair on the floor was not all his
On the way back to our beach hut we got completely lost and ended up in muddy villages with Children shouting hello to us. Getting lost can be a lot of fun!
Island Karaoke with pirates
That evening we thought we would check out the local night life. We headed away from the beach and towards some loud music that we could hear. From the noise, it sounded as though we had found the only party in town and we were ready to join in. The music was coming from a bar underneath one of the hotels and as we walked down the stairs we could feel the base vibrating. Inside however… was completely empty! There was no-one inside barr a couple of staff and pictures of characters from Pirates of the Carribean on the walls. We had a drink and to our delight the staff put on a karaoke system! We grabbed the karaoke book as the bar staff started warbling songs in Vietnamese. To our dismay the whole song book was in Vietnamese, and if you can name and sing a Vietnamese song full credit to you! The characters are completely different from ours so we couldn’t even piece together some words.
Maybe the bar staff could tell we were disappointed because they then proceeded to try and find us a song in English and they succeeded! And that is how we ended up singing to Orlando Bloom, Jonnie Depp and a couple of Vietnamese bar staff the song “We wish you a Merry Christmas”, in mid November. It was a karaoke experience I will not be forgetting in a hurry.
Sadly the day came when we had to leave Phu Quoc. We had a flight destined for Rach Gia in the South of Vietnam, and from there we intended to get a bus to Cambodia, arriving in the evening to Phnomh Penh. It sounded like a sensible plan.
It’s true what they say about the best laid plans…. Read on
We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy ending (to the year)!
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