Hello Vietnam

Hello from Da Nang Vietnam!

And Merry Christmas!  Yes, I’m a little late but it is still the holiday season.

We have been in Da Nang for almost two weeks now.   It will be two weeks tomorrow. We leave here Friday January 16 and fly to Hanoi, Vietnam where we will also be for one month.

Arrival in Da Nang

We arrived at the Da Nang airport around 9:30 PM on Monday, December 15.  It took a while to clear customs - it was one of the longest customs lines we have seen in a while.

To visit Vietnam as a U.S. citizen, you have to apply and get approved for a visa.  We did this about 3 weeks before we were to arrive in Da Nang.  It is all done online.  Along with answering a bunch of questions, you have to upload a picture of your passport AND a passport type picture with a white background.  We just took pictures with our phones in the bathroom in Chiang Mai against the white wall.  It worked.  The form is very particular in that you have to apply for the visa on the same device from which you take the pictures.  I found that out the hard way.  The request costs $25.00 and it can take up to two weeks to find out if your visa is approved.  After literally hours of trying to get it right, it took about 2 days for us each to get approved.  I filled my application out first.  Blaise started his after mine but since I had learned so much doing mine, I just went ahead and filled his out for him to save time and effort.

After we were both approved, we both started reading and seeing YouTube videos of the nightmare some people were having with the process.

But, I digress.

We took a Grab from the airport to our AirBnB and met our host.  I have concluded I do not like arriving at a new place in the dark.  The neighborhood looked ominous and not so great in the dark.  I had doubts about feeling safe here.  Those doubts were dispelled the next day after the sun came up. It’s just a working class neighborhood.

Our Home for the Month

Our AirBnB is fine.  For a studio apartment, it is big.  It has a long balcony but not much of a view really.  All we can see is the other side of the street and the Dao Tien hotel.  The sign for this hotel has a heart at the end of it so one wonders exactly what kind of hotel it is.  Is it a “love” hotel?  We don’t know but we never see any odd activity there, other than people pushing their motorcycles out of the lobby.  That is not uncommon here.

Our Neighborhood for the Month

The neighborhood is a fairly working class neighborhood.  Nothing fancy but nothing seedy, despite the “love” hotel. Lots of children in the neighborhood going to school in the mornings. Lots of families.

Families here not only live together, but they also ride their motorcycle together.  Yes, motorcycle, singular.  It is VERY common to see the whole famn damily on the motorcycle - both parents and child or children.  We haven’t seen 5 on a motorcycle yet, but we have seen four, multiple times.

It appears that many people own a business on the ground floor and either live above or behind the business. I am not sure how one short block can have 6 or 7 coffee shops and they all survive, but it appears to be the case.  We have a coffee shop on the ground floor of our building but I rarely see anyone buying coffee.  Maybe once?  The guy that runs it seems more concerned with the fish he has in the tanks than selling coffee.  He seems to be growing or cultivating (or whatever you would call it) fish for fish tanks.  Some of the fish are huge while others are small in a big bin that looks like what we would see someone use to bus tables in a restaurant.  Only the bin has water, small fish, and a hose hanging over the top and into the water blowing bubbles in it. 

We are a less than 5 minute walk to the river and about a 25 minute walk to be able to place our toes in the surf on the beach. Da Nang is on the coast of the South China Sea (yes, I had to look that up).

The Temple in our neighborhood

The Cost of Things

If you thought the cost of things in Thailand was reasonable, you will think they are downright dirt cheap here.

Their currency is the dong and there are approximately 26,000 dong to one dollar.

The most expensive meal here was last night.  We ate a place called Motor City, known for its Detroit style pizza.  We got 1 pizza and a hard cider for a little less than $15.00.

We can eat down the street from our AirBnB for about $5.00 total.  We can both get a coffee drink down the street at “Heaven Coffee” for $2.43 and it is tasty.  I am becoming a coffee drinker on this trip.

I got a facial for about $52.00 that is comparable to what I get at home and pay over $200 for. I haven’t gotten my nails done yet, but that will be tomorrow.

While we do have a washer, since we have no dryer and would have to hang up the laundry either in our studio apartment or on the communal roof of the apartment building to dry, we take our laundry to a lady down the street.  She charges 9,000 dong per kilo.  Last week our laundry cost 50,000 dong to clean; that’s $1.90.  I am not sure how someone makes a living that way but things are certainly much cheaper here than at home, so maybe that’s it.  

Cheese is expensive here.  They don’t really eat it in their food so it is pretty expensive in the grocery store.

The Food

I do like the food here better than Thailand.  There are more non-soup-like choices here.  I am not a big fan of soupy foods.  The banh mi’s are delicious.  They have these bau bun things that are yummy and I like their rice choices.

We have a stove-top here in the apartment so I have been cooking more here. It is Western food that we are used to so I don’t miss the food at home as much as I did in Thailand.

They do an unusual thing here with coffee that we haven’t seen elsewhere.  I call it a coffee chaser.  Oftentimes when you order coffee, you get an extra drink.  At Heaven, our morning coffee place, they weren’t giving it to us at first, but now they are.  I guess we are local now. We have seen this extra cup of beverage everywhere so I had to Google it.  It is a tea that serves as a palate cleanser between drinks of coffee.  Blaise and both agree it is a type of tea we had at the house at home but we can’t quite place what kind of tea it is.

The People

The Vietnamese people we have come across have been amazing!  Every place we have been on this trip, the people have been lovely.

The Vietnamese are a bit different though.  We are clearly not Vietnamese.  In non-tourist areas, we tend to stick out.  And when we do, there seems to be a curiosity with them when they look at us.  Their gaze lingers a bit longer.  Their smiles are big and genuine though.

We have been asked more here than anywhere thus far, where we are from.

The children seem the most curious.  We have walked past a school several times and all the kids say “Hello!”  They seem so eager to try out their English.  Yesterday we were waiting at a bus stop (for the bus, clearly) and two boys (preteenish) walked by and asked where we are from.

The Scout Meeting

Last Sunday, we were at the restaurant down the street and across from the river eating lunch. We had been there once before and it was good so we went back.  It was about 1:30/2:00 PM.  There was a large group of men at a bunch of tables placed together to make one long table.  There were about 15-20 of them.  To picture this properly, you have to keep in mind that all the tables and chairs were half the size of what we are used to.  It’s a cultural thing that my 6 foot frame is not a fan of.  Also, this is outside, as are most restaurants here, with a covered area.

When we walked up and sat down, several of the men smiled and enthusiastically said “Hello” to us.  They had been there a while and they all had had a few beers.  There were coolers around them with plenty of beer at the ready.  This was a festive group having a great time.

I was facing their table while Blaise had his back to them.  The men kept looking over at us.  It wasn’t a glaring thing.  It didn’t feel rude in any way.  More curiosity.  After we had been there for 15 minutes or so, one of the men came up and set down a plate of food for us.  He had taken food from their platter and gave it to us.  We thanked him and he went back to the table.  Some of it was chicken and some of it was some weird sea creature that Blaise took a bite of, said it was awful and so we hid the rest under some rice.

As I was struggling using the chopsticks on the chicken they gave us (I’m still not good with them - never have been), another man brought us some forks.

The next thing you know, some other guy is talking to Blaise in Vietnamese, broken English, and using Google translate.  He tells Blaise through Google translate, that they are “scouts” having a meeting. It was no scout meeting I have ever seen!

One thing leads to another and they are handing us beers, teaching us their version of “Cheers!”  Then I am not sure how it happened but we are at their table right in the middle of things, drinking beer and getting hugged.  We had already paid and were ready to leave but it was difficult to extricate ourselves from the celebration - they did not want us to go.  It was a fun experience, one we were not expecting.  Until Blaise got sick from the beer.  He is not supposed to drink carbonated beverages but felt obligated to have a few sips.  Also, they were not going to let that go until he drank.

The Cultural Nuances

It is always interesting to see how other cultures have evolved and what things are unique.

Here are a few we have noticed:

1. The little tables and chairs have to be number one.  Ugh!  I googled this one too and google says it is done for a couple of reasons - 1) the smaller tables and chairs create an intimate environment for people to visit with each other; and 2) it makes it easier to move them out of the way when it is time to close up.  I guess so they can take them inside at the end of the day.

2. There is LOTS of honking of car and motorcycle horns.  Honking and beeping all the time.  I don’t need to google this one to know why that is.  They have traffic lights at the major intersections but there are absolutely zero stop signs.  So people honk as they are approaching an intersection to warn those coming from other directions.  It seems to work.  The traffic flows well and people rarely have to stop at an intersection with no traffic light.

3. We have been asked no less than half a dozen times if we want tempered glass for our phones - sitting at the beach, sitting at a restaurant - just about everywhere.  It took us a few times to figure out what this was for.  They all have a laminated sign situated landscape with prices.  It says “Tempered Glass” at the top of it and we originally wondered why would someone want to sell an obvious foreigner tempered glass.  It took a while to figure out it was for cell phones.  But still.  I guess breaking your glass on your cell phone is a serious problem here.

4. Lots of bonsai trees all over the place here.

5. Lots of places to play pool here.  And they are serious about their billiards.  You look in these places and you have to hunt for the bar.  Pool is not just a thing you do to kill time while you are drinking beer.

6. They have many tall skinny buildings.  We kind of live in one.  It is 5 stories with a rooftop area on the 6th.  The building is so skinny, there are only 2 apartments on each floor; one in the front and one in the back.  Some of these buildings stand all by themselves while others are right next to each other.

7. They work 6 days a week here and the children go to school 6 days a week but only for ½ day each day.

8. Sundays appear to be family day.  We see multiple families with several generations out and about on Sundays.  I think it is wonderful!

9. Whenever we visit a new country, I like to see what their religious makeup is.  I find it interesting but it also affects their culture.  Vietnam is 74% non-religious or they worship their ancestors; 15% is Buddhist; 7% is Roman Catholic; while the rest is a mix of other religions including Protestant, Islam, Caodaism, and Hinduism.

This has nothing to do with anything I wrote but this is before a major intersection telling you what vehicles are allowed in which lane.  It works well.

The Hospital Experience

We were originally going to take care of some preventative medicine while we were in Osaka.  We were both going to get colonoscopies and I was going to get a breast MRI.

But that did not happen because our time in Osaka was shortened because our cruise was extended due to a typhoon.  Then when we got to Osaka, one of our 5 days left there was a national holiday.  If you have ever had a colonoscopy, you know you have that one night of God-awful preparation.  If you don’t know, I will let you Google that shit (pun intended).  The prep is definitely worse than the actual colonoscopy.

Anyway, we still had to get those things done.

So no one worries, I was getting a breast MRI at the recommendation of my gynecologist at home.  After genetic testing and really, my family history of breast cancer, the doctor recommended alternating every six months a 3D mammogram and breast MRI.  It is just a diagnostic thing.

Blaise did the research and found a place here called Vin Mec International Hospital, a JCI accredited hospital.

Last Monday we went over there to see about getting these things done.  They asked if we could come back Thursday at 8 AM for a doctor consultation.  So we scheduled it only to remember right after we did it, that Thursday was Christmas Day.  By then, it was easier just to keep the appointment than reschedule.  It’s not like we were visiting family or unwrapping gifts anyway.

We showed up Thursday morning.  Our colonoscopies were scheduled for the next morning (we still had to do the prep) and I did my breast MRI right then and there Christmas Day.  I also got an X Ray of my left heel as well as an ultrasound of the same since I had been struggling with pain for over a year.

The two colonoscopies, breast MRI, X Ray, and ultrasound cost $914.00.  We paid at their payment counter and we were good to go.

The MRI, X Ray, and ultrasound were all done within a couple of hours and by around lunchtime, I found out I have a bone spur, calcification, and plantar fasciitis which I Google-diagnosed myself with a year ago. I got some medication from their pharmacy, was told to buy a sleeve that went around the heel, and given some exercises to do.

That's my heel!

They told me they would give me my MRI results the next day after the colonoscopies.

We did our colonoscopy prep hell that night and returned the next day for the deed.  When we got there, the doctor told me they needed to do an MRI with contrast and that could be done right after the colonoscopies.

We got the colonoscopies done.  I got my second MRI and the very sweet technician was asking me all kinds of questions afterwards about why I was there to do a breast MRI instead of a mammogram, family history, etc.  She was very kind about it but all that did was hike up my anxiety.

We went in to see the doctor for the results of everything.  Colonoscopy results were great.  No issues, zero polyps for the both of us.  But they wanted to send the MRI results out for reading by an expert and we would have to come back the next day for the results.  This new MRI cost $40 and we paid right then.

The next morning, we got there and they said a doctor wanted to do an ultrasound and to go back to imaging.  No charge. Free!  An actual free medical procedure. The actual doctor did the ultrasound, not a technician.  Then, right there after we were done and I was dressed, the doctor showed me the pictures and explained what she saw.  There were some lesions but not cancerous.  She spent about 10 minutes explaining everything and said my doctor had a good plan, given my dense breast tissue and family history.  But she also told me to always get the MRI with contrast for diagnostic purposes.

I was blown away by this last part of the process.  I have had breast MRIs and ultrasounds in the past at home - all a part of the whole dense breast problem and family history - but no one has ever sat down and explained all the details with me, showing me the MRI pictures of my breasts.  All I have ever gotten is - “You’re OK” and “You have dense breasts so it’s hard to tell.”

I left the hospital with a CD of all the images and report to provide to the next health provider. 

That was a long 3 days, but I am glad we did it and it is done!

The Emotional Struggle

One last thing before I call it quits for the day. Even before I got here, I struggled a bit with coming to Vietnam.  This is the place that really screwed up my dad.  While I think it is quite possible he would have become an alcoholic without Vietnam, what happened here is what made it a certainty.   There were zero good memories here for him.  I have no doubt, had he lived past age 46, he would have never stepped foot in this part of the world, let alone Vietnam for any amount of money.

What happened here changed the trajectory of my life.  A chunk of my life was rough because of what happened here.  Then I lost my dad at age 19 (in part) because of the war.

Even the first week I was here, I was unsettled as a result of this.

But the people have won me over.  So kind. So friendly, full of smiles for you. So curious.  So eager to talk to us.

You have to separate governments from their people in many ways.  And I’ve had to keep in mind, the majority of the people in Vietnam were not alive during that time in their history and have absolutely nothing to do with what happened to my father or me.  And if they were alive during that time, they certainly don’t want to dwell on it, have moved on, and hold no animosity.  And so must I.