Current Location: Mui Ne, Viet Nam
I’m not so sure that Viet Nam can honestly call itself a communist country anymore. I find it to be more of a totalitarian government that tries to control information more than anything else. Doesn’t the fact that people are allowed to own property and businesses discount some of the fundamental basis for communism? Control of information is evident to most travellers in the form that getting access to Facebook is difficult to impossible depending on what city you are in. I also know you get into trouble for badmouthing the government so most people are careful what the say, but occasionally you run into someone who gives you an interesting slice of what they see.
Honestly didn’t care for Hanoi very much, the people seem unfriendly as compared to the rest of Viet Nam. I did the musem thing and walked around the old quarter which does give it a ceartain amount of charm. Any charm this place had was squashed by a taxi driver that threatened to ‘kill me’ if we didn’t pay 200,000dong after we had already come to a deal that was 50,000dong. Fortunately for me this was just before I was catching the train south to Nah Trang.
Mui Ne is the kite surfing capital of Viet Nam if not all of SE Asia. Other than that it’s a peculiar place with lots of Russians roaming around. I’m not exactly sure how this came to be but most places advertise in English and Cryllic which is somewhat strange to see here. After that it’s just a typical beach resort town, I can look outside and pretend it’s Kihei (if it wasn’t raining.)
Had another dinner paid for by random Vietnamese people again last night. I do enjoy the drinking culture here in Vietnam, the only problem is they drink incredibly fast. I’ve learned the rules to drinking here and I’ll share them. On the first drink it’s always bottoms up, every time you cheers ‘YO’ after that it’s half the glass. And they tend to cheers quite often. When you clink glasses where you clink matters, below the other guy if you’re younger or less important and even with the other guy if you are same age or about the same importance. Suffice to say I was throughly pissed after 2 hours of drinking.
One last bus ride to Saigon in time for a wedding, should be really rad I hope.