Culture Shock Mark and I had bragged before this journey that we had never experienced culture shock, and were almost hoping to, at this point. Well, that is no longer the case. I'm deep in the throes of culture shock and want to retreat home to my mommy.
Everything is dirty here (including the gritty keyboard that I'm currently using), and there's soooo much poverty and desperation everywhere. Every encounter with the people is laced with scepticism, are they talking to me just to try to sell me something later (usually this seems to be the case, sometimes people are just curious and/or want to try out their English). There is constant hassling and haggling "you come in, you buy now". No peace, unless one retreats to the safe tourist only enclaves such as expensive hotels and restaurants. In the more typical restaurants you are constantly harrassed by venders trying to sell postcards, shoe shines, tacky souvenirs.....the list goes on.
Tonight we are staying in Hoi An, at the Hoi An hotel, a blissfully westernish establishment complete with swimming pool and cable television, very nice, but not hardly how the locals live. And hard to justify the $45 a night, when the less nice establishment down the street charges $6. I'm still hoping we can make it to a nice beach, but I saw what appeared to be the beach from the bus ride here, and it looked pretty run down, construction and dug up earth everywhere.
We'd heard that Vietnam was one of the, if not the most difficult travel destinations in Asia. I hope this is the case because I'm still greatly looking forward to visiting many of the surrounding countries, but honestly, I'm not excited about ever coming back to Vietnam. That said, this experience is still important and worthwhile. I wanted to see how the other half lives, and now, to some extent, I have. I'm feeling extremely grateful to be from my half. I hope that doesn't sound arrogant. It's not meant to be. The trip has been enlightening in many ways, one of which is to maybe show me that I'm not as "enlightened" as I thought I was.
Mark and I will be in Hoi An for the next two days, then who knows. We now will spend the last two days of our trip in Ho Chi Minh City/Siagon. Maybe we'll see if we can leave a few days early.