How I went for a trip to Vung Tau part. 2

This part won´t be so exciting as previous part so if you expect more ladyboys sorry ma frend, but you will find a lot of cultural information here. Because yes I have come here to explore the culture.

After our rush night we decided to take it slowly and start in a beautiful french style cafe where they served panini and mexican chicken sandwich, but whatever Europe/Central America is not Asia. After this moment of awesomeness and hot chocolate we took a cable car to an amusement park.

There was everything you can imagine in an amusement park. Big budha, 5D cinema, carousels, swam boats, budhist temple, swimming pool, ostrich, slides, goats.... Basically everything that fitted in that hill. So we got stuck in that 5D cinema because of heavy rain, we saw alcohol (uncle Ho) park, we didn´t have time for swam boat ride, we saw a lot of chubby kids, we prayed in a budhist temple and we danced on old love songs in the rain (Vietnamese are obsessed with 80s/90s/00s love songs that nobody listen anymore, sometimes they even have a vietnamese version).

After this experience and cable car in rain somewhere in Asia (I felt very safe in that moment seriously) and a lot of pictures of us taken by random people, we ate another non-asian lunch and were ready to go home. 

The day before we asked a receptionist to book a bus for us. At 16:45 as she told us we were waiting for another overpacked bus to come. The driver (pretty nervous guy) opened the door and we saw completelly luxurious place, not million of Vietnamese, AC on the fullest, place for your legs (not normal in Asia and my height is 160cm). This man pushed us to get in, please one more time Vietnamese people, it is not necessary to touch each other when we are sweating and in general you don´t need to touch me, ok?! We completelly freaked out! This receptionist apparently recognized a well-off tourists in us (because we chose a 8 dollars hotel of course) and booked this piece of luxury. We were trying to talk with the driver and planning what we will do if he asks for millions dong, half of kingdom and kidney included for a ride. In the end a nice Vietnamese lady who spoke english told us the price, we calmed down and arrived happily in HCMC! 

And one interesting information: I was completely surprised to see nazi symbol on the buildings. So after some clarification and research I found out that originally swastika (that is the name of the cross) has been a symbol of eternity, destiny, prosperity, protection againts devil in hinduism, budhism and jainaism. Then the nazi party took it as a symbol for their flag and the cross completelly changed the meaning for most of the western culture countries. How sad !!! They took this positive symbol and changed it in one of the most negative symbol in the history. (if I made any mistake while explaining this issue pls correct me) 

Druhý deň výletu nebol taký prudko vzrušujúci ako prvý, tak keď očakávate ďalších ladyboyov sorry, ale nejaké tie kultúrne pikošky tu spomeniem, však preto som sem vlastne aj prišla, že?!

Tak sme ráno začali pekne pomaličky v kaviarničke vo francúzskom štýle, kde predávali panini a sendvič s mexickým kuraťom. Tak ale Európa/Stredná Amerika nie je Ázia. Po tomto úžasnom momente a horúcej čokoláde sme šli lanovkou do zábavného parku. 

V tomto zábavnom parku bolo asi všetko čo si viete predstaviť. Veľký Budha, 5D kino, kolotoče, labutie lodičky, budhistický chrám, bazén, pštrosy, tobogány, kozy,....asi všetko čo sa pomestilo na tento kopec. A tak sme zostali uviaznutý v 5D kine lebo začalo pršať, videli sme alkohol (uncle Ho) park,nemali sme čas na labutie lodičky, videli sme veľa tučnučkých vietnamských detičiek, pomodlili sme sa v budhistickom chráme a zatancovali sme si v daždi na staré love songy (vietnamci sú dosť posadnutí ľúbosnými pesničkami z 80tych/90tych rokov, ktoré nikto už nepočúva a často majú aj vietnamskú verziu).

Po zážitku z lanovky v daždi niekde v Ázii (veľmi bezpečný pocit ináč), milión našich fotiek, ktoré si urobili cudzí ľudia a ďalšom ne-ázijskom obede sme teda išli domov.

Večer predtým sme pani recepčnú poprosili, či by nám neobjednala autobus. O 16:45 sme pekne nastúpené čakali ako príde ďalší preplnený autobus. Autobus pristal, vodič otvoril dvere a my sme zrazu videli úplne luxusný interiér, klimatikácia na plné pecky, miesto na nohy (dosť velký problém tu a to mám len 160 cm). Vodič nás zase pobúchal aby sme sa išli dnu, ako fakt by s tým mohli prestať, nie je normálne chytať ľudí keď sú úplne spotení a tak! Totálne sme spanikárili, lebo pánko nevedel po anglicky, my sme nevedeli sumu. Už som si predstavovala ako mu dám celý môj majetok a polovicu kráľovstva a obličku. pani recepčná si asi myslela, že cestujeme luxusne, áno kamka preto sme bývali v hotely za 8 dollárov za noc že?! Našťastie nastúpila vietnamská slečna, ktorá vedela po anglicky, pekne nám všetko vysvetlila a my sme šťastne dorazili do HCMC!

Ešte mála pikoška nakoniec: bola som veľmi šokovaná keď som videla budovách hákový kríž. Po malom vysvetlení a výskume som zistila, že pôvodne je to symbol prosperity, večnosti, ochrany pred diablom a osudu v hinduisme, budhisme a janisme. Nacistická strana si ho neskôr zobrala za svoj a premenila ho na jeden z najhorších symbolov pre západnú kultúru. Akože dosť smutné keď niekto z takého pozitívneho symbolu urobí jeden z najnegatívnejších. (ak som niečo poplietla prosím opravte ma!)

Yours

Veronika 

     

How I went for a trip to Vung Tau part. 1

Last week I decided that I had enough of the noisy City of Ho Chi Minh so my lovely friend Alejandra and I went for a trip to the nearest beach Vung Tao. My colleagues planned everything for us and we left with all our beachy mood. I know it sounds very strange but when I mentioned my trip plans to them literally WHOLE office started to plan my trip, from bus through hotel reservation to activities you can do there. They even called me on friday about the reservations as I was not at work and they were affraid about my trip.

Bus ride was pretty vietnamese style. Small bus overpacked with Vietnamese, weird man almost sleeping on my shoulder, woman in leopard sweatshirt and sweatpants in almost 35 degrees. Then recently the bus stopped in the middle of the road and the driver started to bumb into poor sleeping Ale (We think he did it on purpose just to touch her overwhite skin) and asked us to give him money (for the ride of course). So we gave money to this man and took the risk of being kicked out or sold for meat. 

Then the magic moment happened and we arrived in Vung Tao. Our first stop was a beautiful restaurant with love birds taking their slushy wedding pictures there. Awesome saturday ahead! We decided to go to the only hotel my colleague found for us and hoping to find a free and cheap room. We took a taxi and this as*hole f*cking id*iot driver gave us ride around whole city where in the end we arrived like 200 meters from the place we had taken the taxi. Not good man! I started to argue with him but he didn´t speak english and was looking at us with that oo-you-are-not-stupid-as-I-was-suspecting-you-to-be-and-not-to-recognize-the-place face. It didn´t discourage us, they had that free and cheap room. Totally happy we changed into bikiny, because hell yes we are near beach (in Vietnam but whatever it is million degree).

We took another this time nice taxi and we got into beach! The beach was huge, dirty and overcrowded. If you think you know what overcrowded means you don´t (unless you live in some similar place as Vietnam where the density of population is more than twice higher than your homeland). There were people everywhere greating us, staring at us, taking pictures of us. Then we found out that wearing bikiny at the beach is not a good idea and we should have rather kept wearing jeans (YES wearing jeans while swimming in the sea is the vietnamese style) or space suit maybe. 

In the evening we decided to go out and have fun. After delicious dinner (burger with french fries to be precise) we started to look for a DECENT place to have fun. After some minutes of wandering we saw a big red sign "Tequila Sunrise". Heaven? Maybe...NO. We entered the bar and like ten women faces were staring at us. It looked weird for a bar but whatever. Suddenly one woman approached us with this completely not vietnamese woman kind of style (basically no woman would act like that) to ask what we needed. And that was the moment when I saw a ladyboy for the first time in my life (maybe I have seen her/him before but I didn´t know so this is concidered as my first time). ...and after that like fifty other times during following hours. The thought of good night was still in our minds so we were trying another and another and another places meeting lot of ladyboys accompanied with middle-aged white men (am I rasist here? but they call us like that in Pocahontas so I don´t think so), entering completelly weird night club where there was maybe ten people around us to offer something (you should stop doing that vietnamese people because I will never ever buy anything here if you won´t stop staring at me while checking your offer!).

In the end we gave up while drinking vodka in some weird place where we asked if we could go up to the dancefloor, it looked like there was a dancefloor, and the waitress informed us that they only slept upstairs. 

To be continued... (that was quite enough for one day anyways!)     

Tak som sa minulý víkend rozhodla, že už naozaj potrebujem opustiť toto hlučné mesto pána Ho Chi Minha a s mojou milou kamoškou Alejandrou sme sa vybrali na najbližšiu pláž. Moji kolegovia nám všetko naplánovali, ja viem znie to fakt čudne, ale keď som spomenula, že chceme ísť na pláž CELÁ kancelária začala plánovať náš výlet, hladať hotely and autobusy. Ešte mi aj v piatok zavolali, keď som nebola v práci, že čo teda budeme robiť s tými rezerváciami.

Cesta autobusom bola taký vietnamský štýl. Milión ľudí v tom malom autobusíku, taký čudný muž si skoro pospinkal na mojom ramene, čudná žena v tigrovanej teplákovej súprave. Zrazu v strede cesty pán vodič zastal, buchol do spiacej Alejandry (my si myslíme, že len chcel chytiť jej bielu pokožku) a vypýtal si od nás peniaze (za cestu samozrejme). Tak sme mu tie peniaze dali a podstúpili sme risk že nás tam niekde vyhodí alevo predá na mäso.

Nakoniec sme prešťastne dorazili na miesto činu. Hneď sme sa šli osviežiť do peknej reštaurácie pri mori kde si zaľúbené páriky fotili svoje gýčové svadobné fotky. No krásna sobota pred nami. Zobrali sme si taxík do jediného hotela, ktorého adresu sme mali od mojich kolegoval. Ten blbec nám urobili celú okružnú cestu po Vung Tao aby nás nakoniec zaviezol asi 200 metrov odtiaľ ako nás nasadil. On si naozaj myslel, že sme také hlúpe a toto nezistíme, ale keďže je to blbec a nevedel ani po anglicky tak sme to vzdali a radšej sme sa ďalej radovali. Našťastie mali peknú a lacnú izbu a tak sme sa prezliekli do bikín lebo hej sme pri mori (áno viem vo Vietname pri mori) a vyrazili sme.

Vzali sme si taxík, ktorý nás zobral na veľkú, špivanú a preplnenú pláž. Ak si myslíte, že viete čo je to preplnený priestor, tak vás upezpečujem, že to neviete! (teda ak nežijete na podobnom mieste kde hustota obyvateľstva je viac jak dvojnásobná nech vo vašej rodnej krajine). Ľudia na nás celý čas zdravili, civeli na nás a fotili si nás. Tak sme zistili, že sme si radšej mali obliecť rifle (áno kúpať sa v rifliach v mori je také vietnamské) alebo možno skafander....

Večer sme sa chceli zabaviť a tak sme šli do mesta. Po úúžasnej večeri (hamburger s hranolkami) sme šli na prechádzku, že nájdeme nejaký super podnik. Zrazu pred nami veľký nápis, že Tequila Sunrise tak sme vstúpili. Zrazu na nás pozerá asi desať čudných žien, že čo tam teda chceme. Tak sme sa pekne opýtali a zrazu k nám pristúpila taká zvláštne na vietnamku vyzerajúca žena. A vtedy som prvýkrát stretla ladyboya (muža čo vyzerá ako žena), teda akože prvýkrát čo som o tom vedela, že som ho stretla (alebo ju?)... no a potom som ich videla asi ďalších päťdesiat v ten večer. No ale my sme sa stále nezvdávali a pokračovali sme v hľadaní vysneného miesta. Navštívili sme veľa potencionálnych miesto, ó áno, bar kde nás hneď pri príchode obkľúčilo asi desať ľudí ponúkajúc neskutočne drahé nápoje (ako títo vietnamci by mali prestať s tým ponúkaním a obkľucovaním lebo ja si tu asi fakt nič nekúpim!). Popritom sme stretávali pekné páriky bielych (to nie je rasistické, že?) mužov v sprievode ladyboyov.

Nakoniec sme večer ukončili v podniku, kde keď sme sa opýtali či môžme ísť hore tancovať (fakt to vyzeralo, že tam je parket) nám povedali, že nie lebo hore iba spávajú.

Ďalšiu časť ságy my na výlete očakávajte skoro...

Yours

Veronika