A terrifing day in Saigon

The beer factory

After a whole day hitchhiking with 2 Buddhism drivers from NhaTrang to Saigon, I had a chance to visit the biggest beer factory in the South of Vietnam and enjoy free coconut on the way to there.  

As I was remembered, I arrived in Saigon right after the sun rise, a huge city seemed to wake up after a deep dream, everything so close to me but seem so far. I walked along the high-way to go to the bus station in order to catch a bus then find the way to go to my host’s house, so tired but so excited because I knew I was going to go out of my country and the first time I went oversea. However, the more the city wake up, the more strange things I met.

Firstly, at the first day in Saigon, I hadn’t slept for almost 2 days, tried not falling asleep as possible as I could, but actually I had a quick nap in the park, around 30mins, but I didn’t feel safe when I take a rest here because Saigon’s a chaos, many people warned me about the thief and they’re very aggressive, even the local police don’t want to face to them. The first day in Saigon, I didn’t like as I expected.

Secondly, there are a lot of scams, when I was walking along the street, there is a man who tried to be nice and asked me if I want to find a job and he told he could help me find one but I refused immediately. After making friend with a guy when I had a lunch at the 23/9 Park, I told him about that man. He laughed at me then told:

“He’s a scam trying to find some naïve guys to find a homosexuality”

What was a surprise!

Also, he is one of the good guys that I’ve met in Saigon, even after a few hours, I realized he was gay, yet he took me around Saigon kindly and bought me some cakes to support me. I was very appreciated about his kindness and the way he expresses friendly to me, it was so open and elegant. He presented me a poet as a gift and he’s really good at poet, but unfortunately I lost contact.  How stupid I am!

Thirdly, I experienced a freaking disgusting moment, it turned out that Women are you the main target of sexual disturb. On the way to my host’s house, I bought a bottle of drinking water and tried to ask for a toilet but that f**king old man declined. After 30sec he changed his mind and told me that I can use his toilet, in fact it was not a toilet, when I was using the toilet that disgusting man try to touch my dick, it surprised me and I have nothing to say, running out of that f**king house. I was shocked, couldn’t believe that I was disturbed by an old man having the same age as my dad. At that time, I hated Saigon so much, I hate this city because the people there are not friendly, there are a lot of kind of people, I felt so alone, I need someone and I need my mom, my sister as well as my dear friends. I came up with a question that “Why did I leave everything behind to travel, to meet that kinds of people?”  And I could cry then. Last but not least, after calming down 20mins, I tried calling my host, she told me she could host me anymore and I had to find another host or find some cheap hostel.

“What’s the f**k was going on? Are that enough for today? I’ve been walking 2 hours and experiencing bad things, then finally my host says to me that she couldn’t host me any more instead of hosting her sister. A floor is enough for me to lie down, I just need a rest then I will immediately leave in the early morning but everyone refused me, refused a pathetic boy trying to have a place to stay because he’s so terrified and scared of staying in here.” I told myself.

In a flat where Hoang live with his friends

However, I still have another chance because of Vy, a cute Saigon girl having a lovely accent. We’ve known each other by chance and I couldn’t explain why, at first I made friend with her cousin accidently last year when I was wandering around the park next to the Ben Thanh Market. Her cousin misunderstood me and thought that I was a foreigner. Till then, we still keep in touch together. That night, I called Vy in despair and told her all the things happened to me. Moreover, that is the first time we met each other face to face after a long time exchanging mail with each other. She agreed to help me find a place to stay by asking her friend, Hoang – an interesting boy and super friendly, for arraigning a place for me to sleep.

After one day struggling in Saigon, bad things more than good things happened to me, anyway I still feel happy because at least I’m not alone, I still have friend in here and they are very good to me.

“Hey Saigon, You will never beat me again J” I told myself.

Pleiku of Ngan

After staying with my friends in Danang City, I keep going on hitchhiking to the South of Vietnam. However the distance is still very far, around 1000km more to reach Ho Chi Minh City (I prefer Saigon to Ho Chi Minh city), so I decided to find some hosts on the way to Saigon. My friend introduced me about a girl living in Pleiku, the south-west of Vietnam, I sent a couch-request to Ngan then she accepted it. The days before living with my dear friends in Danang, I tried to hitchhike to Pleiku, yet it was freaking hard, I only did successfully a half of the way to Pleiku (200km out of 350km). Being too tired of hitchhiking, I decided to take a local bus and it was quite cheap (around 4-5$) to go to Pleiku.

My first thought about Pleiku was that city is a politic city, there are almost police everywhere and someone told me about traveling there, the police can catch you and ask you for no reason. However, when I traveled there, no police or even nobody bothered me. Sometime, the local people stare curiously at me because I don’t look like the local here.  There is one thing that I don’t like which is almost the time they call me that “Are you Chinese?” even I spoke in Vietnamese but they still couldn’t understand because of different accent. How hilarious it was!

 Pleiku is a non-tourist, there are still some foreigners, but they just stay there one night for transit to go to Hanoi or Saigon. Also, Pleiku is a mountainous city so the road in there is very funny, it likes a bald hill, going up and going down.

Ngan is a strong girl that I’ve ever met, talking about her stories makes me feel excited and admire her. According to her Couchsurfing profile:

In her CS blog, she wrote:

"I was born in 1996, in a mountain city in Vietnam. My father said when I was born my family didn’t happy and didn’t welcome me. Because my family was very poor. One year later, my mom had left me. My father was sad and became drunk. He cursing, beating everyone, everything and everywhere. Two year later, he passed away, cause traffic accidents. I lived with my aunt. And the first fun story is a donkey has been born and she knew she was abandoned."

I like Ngan because of her confidence and her strength which I haven’t ever had. In the period of time I stayed with Ngan and her roommate in a little room, just as big as my room, I had many experience in Pleiku. At night, on the way come back to her house, we usually have a little naughty game which is honking the ring-bell then run as fast as possible, in the next morning we realized that the house that we made fun of the day before had to set up a camera outside the house. We laughed a lot as we could die about this.

Moreover, I consider her as my younger sister, inside her eyes I can feel her sorrow, almost every night, after telling me that I should go to bed first, she’s often standing outside on the pavement to drink beer. It touch me and I feel so useless when I left her outside drinking beer alone, just want to stand by her and tell her that she’s not alone.

I still remember the day when she was drunk, she made a joke of me and this thing drove me crazy because she told:

“You are just a boy who is always under your mother’s wings”

in front of a lot of people. I was freaking mad, I jumped down from the 2 meter high cliff and intend to take my backpack to leave. After having a second thought, I change my mind because she was so freaking drunk that I had to sit next to her to look after. In the next morning, she totally forgot what happened.

I stayed with her 2 more nights then go. At this time, I met a women from India named Jaya, she was very kind and help me tell her that she should come back high school to finish her education then do whatever she want, but 1 month later I knew that she quit her school and now she’s traveling and mainly by hitchhiking.

Last but not least, we had a good time that is going to tribal village (Bana village) to give candy to poor children. So far, once in a while I often keep candy with me to give every poor children that I met on the road.

Pleiku is Ngan and Ngan is Pleiku

The BEGINING!

In the past I'm not a special boy, everyone told me that I need to focus on my career, my education and my future because acording to Asian tradition and lifestyle, which is having a stable life with the family. Everyone all wants to have a high education, like they have an underground competion about the knowledge but for WHAT. To me, I decided to leave everything behind me, I made my own decision, I lived for me not for the others and I'm happy what I'm doing now.
On 18th Febuary 2014, I started my trip, after having a quick prepare, I still remember the day I leave Hanoi, I said goodbye to my parents in the very early morning then take a public bus to go straight ahead to the highway. After 30 minutes firguring out the direction, I was on the pavement next to the highway. However, at that time I was very shy, I had a conflict in my head "Should I come back to my beloved family or leave it then go straight to my destination?" Fortunately, there was a car pulling over then the driver asked me for a ride; however, he is a taxi-driver. I told to him I had no money and asked him for a lift, after 30 secs I convinced succesfully him. So, this is the begining of my journey, after traveling by hitchhiking in more than 2 months, I couldn't forget my beginning. I think this is my destiny, I have to go and I have to experience.
Live for you, not the others!

18th Febuary 2014