The South Korean Tourist
DAY: 20
LOCATION: Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City
I really didn’t want to leave Levi. Watching him get out of bed that morning, his naked silhouette crossing the room, I wished we could stay in this Hyatt cocoon indefinitely. Partly it was the sex, partly the fact Jay had cancelled on me last minute for a business trip and I was scared to be alone in Vietnam, but mostly it was because I just liked him.
I stayed in bed, hoping he would come back. I wasn’t ready to get up, to pack, to put on makeup. I wanted to feel his warmth a little longer, to feel that connection to the masculine. He returned.
We had breakfast in the hotel, a grand buffet with plenty of vegan options. We chatted about food and health (subjects I never seem to tire of), and then we were back in the room, my bags ready to go.
“Why don’t they have news stations like this in America?” Levi asked, the TV streaming BBC coverage of Trump.
“Because the US mainstream media is straight up propaganda,” I replied bluntly. Not that I thought the BBC was a beacon of journalistic integrity, but it certainly bested CNN and FoxNews. “One more reason for me to move abroad!”
The uber picked me up downstairs. “I’m sorry we didn’t really see Singapore,” Levi jokingly apologized.
“I saw exactly what I wanted,” I smiled.
He gave me one last kiss. “The adventure continues. See you soon,” he shut the door, and I was off.
It felt shittier than in Sydney. I didn’t cry, because I didn’t want to be melodramatic, but I certainly could’ve. The ambiguity of it, the sense of loss, however slight or imagined it might be. I had no idea how people did long distance. I thought of the couple I’d met last summer, living together in San Francisco. He was from Brazil, she was from the East Coast, they’d met in Europe, and dated from different continents for two years. It happened, but still – this thing with Levi was far more likely a travel romance. Why couldn’t I just let it be what it was going to be?
Yogananda helped put things back in perspective on the plane. His devotion to the spiritual path in his autobiography never ceased to inspire. Finding a partner was important to me, but finding my purpose was tantamount. I couldn’t lose sight of why I’d come on this trip – to figure out what I was doing on this planet. Australia had been great, with its myriad of guides and experiences, and Singapore sexy, but I knew Southeast Asia held something special in store.
Like unfettered chaos. From the moment I stepped into passport control, I knew I was in for one. Throngs of Vietnamese rushed by to fill the lines of the visa check. I scanned the room and saw the e-visa counter to the left. No instructions, no English, just a bunch of people sitting around like zombies at the DMV and a queue for the window.
I got in line, and pulled out the copy of my e-visa invitation, which I’d gotten from an online company called vietnamvisaprovider.com. The whole process had seemed sketchy AF, but I’d taken a risk in waiting until after the New Year to see if the US tourist policy would change, allowing one month visas again. It had, and I’d therefore saved $115, but now I had a bigger problem – my invitation declared my nationality as South Korean. Fuck.
Half an hour later I got to the front of the line and handed the officer my passport and invitation, praying he wouldn’t notice. He shoved a form at me.
“I’m sorry, I’m-“ he cut me off with a wave of his hand and directed me to move. Frustrated, I got back in line and started filling it out. There was the usual biographical information, and then a bunch of stuff I didn’t know. My brother’s last three residences? My parents’ social security numbers? I was never getting into this country. I filled out what I could and then turned it in. The officer said nothing, just handed all of it to someone else.
I waited for over an hour, hungrily finishing the remainder of the snacks in my back pack. The woman calling out names was impossible to understand, so I listened intently, afraid I’d miss mine. But I didn’t. I went to the counter, paid the $25, and got into the other line, thrilled I’d made it through.
By the time I got out to the baggage claim, two and a half hours had gone by, and my flight’s belt had long since stopped conveying. I asked the information desk, but they just shrugged and kept talking amongst themselves. Shit. I tried not to panic as I walked up and down the terminal. It’s gonna be here, it’s gonna be here. Seconds away from an Amy Anxiety Attack, I spotted it thrown in a desolate corner. Hurray!!
There was only one more thing standing in the way between me and a hot shower – a taxi mosh pit. I hung on by a thread as people bumped into me from every angle, shouting in unfamiliar languages, pushing there way to God knows where. I silently cursed Jay for his promises of an airport pick-up, massages, and post-accident pampering. Although I was incredibly grateful to him to be on my way to another luxury hotel. If only they had Uber…
They did! It took 20 minutes for a car to come, but it came, and I didn’t have to try and explain to the driver where to go. Sometimes that can be part of the fun, I guess, but right now I just wanted to be safely delivered to the Caravelle. I’d heard awesome things about Vietnam from other Americans, but transportation had never been one of them. One friend had been mugged, another even raped by her driver, so yeah, I was a little cautious.
Driving through Ho Chi Minh City, though, my nerves gave way to excitement. Motorbikes zoomed around carrying orange trees and families of five, laundry fluttered from densely packed complexes in varying stages of deterioration, blaring horns provided the city soundtrack. The culture shocked me into a state of awe – Good Afternoon Vietnam!
The hotel staff once again treated me like a movie star rather than a commercial background actor, and got me checked into my room. It wasn’t quite as nice as Singapore, but I sure as hell wasn’t complaining - I felt like a millionaire. In fact, I was a millionaire, at least in dong.
I took my stack of cash and hit the streets. I had two goals for the evening: a restaurant recommended by my friend Greg and a full-body massage. That left a lot of time to meander and attune to the vibration of the city. The neon signs of businesses clamoring to be heard above the constant din, the enticing aromas of street vendors mixed with the dankness of pollution, the bright pink Church with hymns being sung in Vietnamese, the terrifying traffic etiquette. Greg had warned me, but I still wasn’t prepared to “just go for it” into oncoming motorbikes. I had to though, otherwise I’d never have gotten to Cuc Gach Quan.
As promised, this restaurant was AMAZING. I got seated across the street in the overflow location for customers without reservations. “Same kitchen,” the waiter reassured me as he led me up a staircase into a funky building sided with corrugated tin, a sprinkling of random windows, and way more levels than its three story height should’ve allowed.
It sounds a bit hairy, but it was super hip, and the food was out of this world. Per my adorable waiter’s advice, I ordered the claypot mushrooms with tofu and some sort of sautéed flowers. The flavors were divine, and I found it hard to enjoy it alone.
“This is so good!” I told every staff member that passed by.
After dinner, I walked off my meal through the old town and the Ben Thanh night market. The stalls filled with designer knockoffs took me back to sweltering summer nights with my family in Bangkok. Only now it was Under Armor instead of Tommy Hilfiger, and I had zero interest in impressing my friends back home with fake or real goods.
I returned to my hotel neighborhood for the massage, as I’d seen plenty of decent looking parlors. You never know quite what you are going to get with a $10 rub down, but I felt pretty confident with the busy Golden Lotus Traditional Foot Massage Club and its stellar Trip Advisor reviews. I had to wait/meditate for 20 minutes before being led upstairs, but it was well worth it. I was such a gooey mess by the end of the hour I could barely make it the 100 meters to the Caravelle to collapse into bed.
