My graduate trip : Day1.

Day1. Confusion.

At dawn of the first day of trip my steps leaving my house were very light even though I was backpacking a heavy bag. I finally was on my trip that I had wanted to take for such a long time. I was surfing the Internet while waiting for my departure of the airport. Since my head was already full of thoughts of Vietnam, I couldn’t concentrate on surfing. After I gave up surfing, I tried to picture what I wanted to do in Vietnam. I became happy in a short time.

My journey to Vietnam was not comfortable because the flight pilot treated the plane like the fighter plane. When he took a quick turn, I fastened my belt tightly in a hurry without any hesitation. Of course, other passengers were already making a noise. After the rough plane ride, I arrived at Ho Chi Minh. I took a deep breath in order to feel the hot air of the southern country. Hum? It is not hot? Yes. Vietnam was not as hot as I expected. It was a bit hotter than Korea. Singapore is still the hottest country I’ve ever been to.

Money changers were welcoming me and yelling in the front of the airport entrance. “Exchange!”, “Cheap!” Although I know that it is not cheap to exchange money in the airport, I decided to exchange five dollars anyway for transportation fee. They were buzzing with suspicious faces while they were exchanging money. I couldn't understand what they were talking about, but I think they were complaining to me about the small amount of money I wanted to exchange.

I went to a bus stop in order to get to Detham St., a place which is crowded with backpackers, who come from various countries. It was here where I encountered my first small problem in Vietnam. I had to take the bus no. 152, and there were three 152s at the bus stop. I saw other Koreans having the same problem as me. It didn't look that they would help so I just took the bus parked at the end of the line. I noticed that two or three more people were in that bus compared with other buses. Koreans also took that same bus before long. The bus answered my expectations by starting up the engine soon. I arrived at Detham St. with the help of some native Vietnamese.

When I got to Detham st, I knew what I wanted to do first; find “Shinh Café”. It is not a traditional café but rather a travel agency. I don’t know why, but they call travel agencies “Café”. Finding "Shinh Café" was not difficult. I saw a big signboard of Shin Café from where I got off the bus. Since the staff in "Shinh Cafe" is really good at English, I could book easily a sleeping bus to Nha Trang.

The departure time for Nha Trang was 8:30 pm. I still had four hours to kill. Actually, I didn’t have any plans for the four hours. The moment I started to think about what to do next, it started to rain suddenly. I regretted that I didn’t bring my umbrella. And I was shocked when I saw everyone walking on rainy streets without umbrellas. I thought that maybe there were only brief rainstorms in Vietnam so umbrellas were not necessary. I decided to walk around traveler’s street without an umbrella, like the others. Surprisingly, I soon found a store selling umbrellas. I bought an umbrella even though it was more expensive than in Korea. I didn’t want toget wet any more. The rain stopped like magic as soon as I paid for the umbrella.

I heard that there are many bikes in Vietnam. Yes. That is absolutely true. I saw more bikes in only seven days in Vietnam than in my 24 years in Korea. Everybody says it is really hard to cross the road in Vietnam because of a large number of bikes. At first, I was scared to cross the street, so I watched people crossing for a while in order to learn how to cross. I found three simple rules:

1. Cross slowly.

2. Make eye contact with the bike driver who is approaching you.

3. Cross when others cross.

If you follow these three rules, Crossing the street in Vietnam is not difficult.

Have you heard about culture shock? I experienced that on my first day. Streets look same and most signboards are written in Vietnamese. I learned how to read a map in the army but that skill was useless in Vietnam. The map was too complicated to read. It was kind of panic situation. Panic was actually an understatement. I was going crazy. In the end, I gave up reading the map and decided to just walk, and make my own map in my head.

After two hours of walking, I was totally exhausted. I needed a break, so I stopped at one restaurant which looks like a local restaurant and ordered a rice noodle and coke. It was my first time to order food in Vietnam. Of course I failed to order what I wanted. Suddenly, a waitress came to me and just asked, “Lai Coke?” so I replied, “来(lai) Coke” I thought she took me for Chinese because I know I look like Chinese. As she served what I ordered, I realized she said “Light Coke?” I blamed my listening skill at that time, but I later realized that the Vietnamese pronounce ‘t’ and ‘k’ sounds weakly. You know, rice noodle is famous all around world so I anticipated having original rice noodle in Vietnam. The scent of rice noodle was so strong for me, but I finished it anyway. ‘I feel like I was eating cosmetics’ – from travel notes.

I came back to Shinh café to take a sleeping bus. It usually takes nine hours from Ho Chi Minh to Nha Trang by bus, so I dropped by a convenience store and bought some snacks and drinks. When I saw the sleeping bus for the first time, I gave a shout of joy. Three Korean girls passed by the sleeping bus and were talking to each other. “Oh that is really nice! We should cancel the flight. I’d like to take that bus!” I met a French girl in the bus and we shared our plans in Nha Trang. I couldn’t believe that I was talking to a French person. I fell asleep after the talk.