Choose Your Own Adventure

In my opinion, there are two ways you can travel, you can plan everything out down to the last detail, or you can wing it.  As I write this, I’m sitting outside of our beautiful white villa, tucked away in the middle of a vietnamese jungle.  It’s new, modern, clean, has wifi, and is attached to three others in a small victorian styled complex complete with large marble pillars and an inviting peanut shaped pool in the middle.  Neither of us knew we were coming here until the night before we got here.  I’ve said it before, but we live in amazing times.  Thanks to the internet you can book flights, hotels and even tours from the comfort of the bed you are calling home for the night.

As you can maybe tell, I fall into the latter category of travellers.  I’ve never been much of a planner, much to my demise in other situations.  But here, so far from home, I find it greatly beneficial.  For months, Natashya would try to get me to nail down where we were going, when we were going there and where we would be staying once we landed in a land too strange for her to even imagine.  Before we left, I did my best to iron out a skeleton of a plan, knowing that at best, it would only serve as a guideline that would rest her worries and calm the anxiety that anyone would have on their first travels outside of North America.

Toronto – Istanbul – Ho Chi Minh City – De Nang – Hanoi – Siem Reap – Singapore – Bali – Thailand and somehow, we’d find a way back around the planet to winter again.  If you’re thinking that sounds like a hell of a lot of moving around, you are right.  

This being my third trip to the region, I wanted to show Natashya all the places I’ve been, and visit a few that would be new to both of us.  That skeletal plan changed the moment we touched down in Saigon, and it happened without me even knowing it at the time.  Standing in one of a few lines we’d have to lug our backpacks through, I overheard a couple saying that they were connecting to another flight (something that made my 30+ hours of travel body shudder) heading to the island of Phu Quoc.  Never heard of the island?  Me neither.  It’s oddly located south west of Vietnam, right underneath my beloved Cambodia.

The only concrete plans we had were a two night stay in Saigon at the strangely named hotel Zoolut Stay 271.  Hotel names over here always give me a bit of a chuckle.  Best Peace Hotel, White Hotel, Friends For Friends Hostel, etc …  For $40 a night including breakfast, we couldn’t complain.  It was simple, clean, had hot water and amazingly cold air-conditioning, it was also quite noisy, if I wanted to find something to complain about.  When travelling, or going on vacation for that matter, you can always find something to complain about.  It was directly on a major city street, right in the thick of it all, just down from the Ben Thanh Market, but we knew this and brought much needed yellow foam earplugs.

After a day and a night, or a night and a day, with this body clock who the hell knows, we decided to get out of the city and head somewhere a bit more beachy!  Ho Chi Minh is quite the City.  They have more motor scooters per square inch of road than I have ever seen in my life.  Crossing the street is EXACTLY like Frogger, with slightly more dire consequences than getting restarted back to the beginning again.  I have to say, neither of us are city people.  Although I will admit, I love them in the early, early mornings, especially in South East Asia.  

When everything is just starting to wake up, street stalls getting setup to serve the locals their breakfast or morning beverage, the old men and women with their bread bikes riding around looking for customers for their warm, freshly baked baguettes, the sky slowly brightening, as if by some master dimmer switch.  Once you hit 9:00am, all hell breaks loose and doesn’t stop until about 1:00am.  Like the sky, you can almost sense a rise in volume and action slowly and steadily up until this point and then it’s just constant all day long.

We decided to google this Phu Quoc we overheard, and man am I glad we did.  This place is AMAZING.  More reminiscent to me of Cambodia than Vietnam, in pace and stylings of it all.  It’s basically Vietnam’s resort island, where locals and tourists alike come for some rest and relaxation.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with De Nang, what made us look for somewhere else to go was the weather!  I travel like the books I use to read as a kid.

It’s raining in De Nang, going there will get you closer to Hanoi, and prove to be beautiful and exciting when the rain subsides.  TURN TO PAGE 162

You research the resort island of Phu Quoc, it’s full of jungles, sandy beaches and sunshine, this will cause you to skip going to Hanoi in the north.  TURN TO PAGE 27

Turning to page 27 in real life only requires a couple of clicks of the mouse and in a matter of minutes we had our flights booked ($50 each!) and our aforementioned villa locked in for four days and three nights.  We were picked up at the airport by the hotel’s driver, holding a sign that read Mr. Mike.  When we casually asked for his name we were told his english name is Jerry, like Tom and Jerry, we didn’t press further for his actual name.  After a brief 15 minute drive in his brand new white Hyundai SUV, Jerry turned down a side road that you’d question fitment if you were riding a scooter.  We pulled up to a white bricked complex that wouldn’t be out of place in Santorini Greece.  Met by another friendly staff member at the open air reception, Nai quickly checked us in and proceeded to pickup Natashya’s backpack, even though we protested that she shouldn’t.  The poor girl was essentially now a walking backpack, as the bag was as big as she was!

Now here, our adventure turns mildly sour.  The room we booked online was a 700 Sq. Ft. suite, with a balcony almost as expansive, complete with loungers and a table and chairs that wouldn’t be out of place on the decks and backyards of most homes in Canada.  It had a full kitchen, living room and a bed sized for a king (and queen).  Essentially a home away from home to fully relax in while these two Canadians Abroad weren’t oot and aboot exploring the island.

What was delivered, thanks to the complications that can arise through online booking, was their most basic room, with a “garage” view, a small un-private veranda and a bathroom that smelled so bad they had put lemon grass defuser right outside of it, in hopes that we wouldn’t notice.  No such luck, all it managed to do was add a hint of Lemon Pledge to the vomit inducing sewage scent.  Jerry explained to us that the room we booked was already occupied by someone who was in the first category of traveller, who payed for it 10 months ago.  The new receptionist had not gone into Agoda.com’s website and blocked off any of the rooms on the days that were already filled.  I must say, this grey-water scented room, poop aside, was still quite a nice room.  But we paid almost double the price for the suite and had looked forward to the extra space and the private terrace.  Jerry offered to move us to a slightly upgraded room on our second day and said he would give us our first night free.  A quick glance to Natashya was all I needed to confirm with Tom’s mousey adversary that his offer was more than generous.

Unfortunately, much later in the evening after we had an afternoon nap that turned into a full 8 hour sleep, Jerry informed us that he had spoken to the owner and was told that they do not do refunds.  He was more genuinely apologetic than anyone I’ve encountered in a customer service role at home, siding with us and explaining that we will try to work something out tomorrow.  He asked if we had something to eat yet, which we had not, and after showing us a menu on his phone, hopped on his moped at 12:00 at night and went into town to pick us up some noodles and a piece of chocolate cake each!  He wouldn’t even accept payment for it.  We chatted for a bit, his english better than most we have met in Viet Nam so far, before he retired to his room on the property with his exceedingly fluffy 6 month old kitty Nam.

It was in this moment that I had a small revelation.

Had we got to this place, and everything was as described, we wouldn’t have been blessed with this encounter that exuded kindness from every angle.  I find it hard to describe the moment in which we found ourselves at the hands of someone who wanted us to be as happy with our experience than even we ourselves did.  It is after all these moments, the ones that aren’t perfect, that we tend to remember most.

In life, and in travel, we all choose our own adventure, and on this one, we definitely flipped to the right page.