Bicycling the sights in Nha Trang, Vietnam

I have found a way to escape the incessant "motor-bike, madam? Hello? Cyclo?"--rent a bicycle! Walking seems to be against some unpublicized Vietnamese law, but on a rented bicycle, I am free!

I looked at the post cards almost every Vietnamese person is selling on the streets here in Nha Trang and asked one of them to show me where each place is on my map. One motorbike driver wanted me to pay him $10 to take me around--"oh, very far, madam." No it's not...10-15km round-trip, tops! "But the streets are complicated--you could get lost." I have a map and I know how to read it and ask directions. One way streets are mere suggestions in this country, anyway. No thanks. I'll pay 50 cents for a bicycle.

(Caution for traveling in Vietnam: people will tell you pretty much anything to get you to buy from them, go to their hotel, or take their motorbike/cyclo tour...be prepared for blatant lies, especially from the open-tour hotel providers. I am increasingly convinced the open tour is a shit-way to see Vietnam and will go my own way next time, if I come back (I have only used half my bus-ticket anyway, and tomorrow I will go my own way again--motorbike tour through the central highlands to Da Lat). If you approach them with a sense of humor, it helps. I met a teen-age boy selling postcards on the beach today. He said it was "Post card happy hour." I ask him what this means..."Only 30,000 Dong for a set of 10!" lol! That's triple the fair market price. 5,000 is the most I want to pay, so we do not strike a deal, but I liked the sales pitch and the fact that they took a polite and funny approach instead of an aggressive in-your-face approach. I digress...)

My first sight-seeing stop was a Catholic cathedral near a traffic circle. The architecture was pretty simple: very new-looking white plaster over a modern frame. Not even worth a space on my digital camera. Turns out this structure was unimpressive because it was another church near another traffic circle...The actual cathedral was a very beautiful aged grey stone structure in gothic style with gorgeous stained glass up on a hill (took some trial and error and direction from some locals napping in their cyclos to get up there). I sang a few bars of latin from my high school choir days and discovered there were decent accoustics (nothing compared to downstairs in the Catholic cathedral on my motor-bike tour of Hue), but the most impressive thing to me were the stenciled "window" decorations. They were open so the church could always breathe and swallows could freely fly in and out. Birdsong was nice background music to my reflections and prayers there.

Next was the pagoda of the white buddha. I arrived and parked my bicycle and a man with a leather briefcase under his arm approached me. He asked me where I'm from and told me many Vietnamese people live in California (which I have heard more times than I can count at this point). He walks with me into the pagoda grounds and explains that he is an orphan and was raised in the monastary. His english is very good and he says he is studying English at the university. I ask how his parents were killed and he says a big accident. He asks me what I think of his country and I am honest: There are many beautiful sights and I have met some very kind people, but there is an undercurrent of desperation and I do not appreciate the confrontational way many people approach selling.

He takes me past the main pagoda (which is like a temple: in Vietnamese buddhism, apparently temples are where your spirit goes to live when you die (every family that can afford it has a family temple near their house) and pagodas are houses only for the buddha) where rows of women in grey robes meditate. Upstairs, there is a reclining buddha built only 3 years ago, complete with the buddhist swastika emblazoned on his chest. My uninvited but welcome guide explains it is the mirror image of the Nazi symbol and stands for long-life in buddhism. We walk back towards the rest of the stairs up to the white buddha at the top of the hill and he opens his portfolio. His tone becomes a bit more somber and he asks me to buy a silk painting to help support him in school because school is very expensive you understand and he needs to sell paintings to pay for school so you buy from me and help me today, lucky for you, good for me you understand. He repeats himself so many times while I am flipping through the paintings I begin to wonder if he really understands what he is saying. He asks 30,000 Dong, but I don't really want one. I find one I like ok, but decide to think about it and tell him so. He asks one more time that I buy from him now to help him with school you understand, but I say not now...maybe on the way back down.

I leave his mutterings behind and climb the rest of the 152 stairs to the white buddha, passing a brown-robed monk periodically ringing a 6' tall bell. A couple climbs up and prostrates before the monk, climbs in underneath the bell and takes a seat. He rings the bell with them inside it and sings a song. I watch, curious and enchanted by this apparently deafening form of blessing someone and their union (my assumption).

At the top of the stairs, I am met with women offering something to drink? Water? Pepsi? Coconut? No thanks, I brought my own. Across the hill top slumps a row of corrigated steel shacks, rusted and tarped in various places. Several children from 2-16 run around the huge buddha statue, selling incense, begging, bicycling, and playing chinese jumprope. It is a sad juxtaposition: towering, gleaming image of the enlightened buddha seated on a 14m lotus flower pedestal, looking out placidly over the suffering families at his feet. The children's clothes are clean, but riddled with holes. Even the plastic of their sandals is worn through at the balls of the feet. I guess Nha Trang's poor need a place to stay, and I am glad the pagoda is providing for them.

Returning down the steps, an old woman offers me her empty hat, hoping for something to help fill her empty belly, but I have nothing I'm willing to give right now. I descend the stairs and return to the pagoda. I watch the women listen to the wisdom of their saffron-robed teacher. Will I ever sit in his shoes?

The silk-selling buddhist orphan English student is gone. His urgency to sell me a painting earlier and his subsequent disappearance leads me to suspect he was a fake, but I have no proof. I wish him good luck from afar either way.

I return to my bike, pay 1000 Dong, and ride on through some of the poorer outlying areas of Nha Trang. Very different feel from the upscale tourist areas near the beach. I sense this area does not see a lot of foreigners, but they know tourists as I am viewed mostly with casual dis-interest rather than the usual surprise and giggles that greet me where locals rarely see foreigners.

The next stop on my tour is the Tham Quan ruins, a set of 4 Hindu temples similar to those at My Son, built in 817 with bricks and no mortar. Experts today still do not know how the feat was accomplished. The view over Nha Trang, the ocean, the island across the bay, and the fishing boats on the river was stunning.

I finished my tour of the city by biking 2.5 km to the hot springs which I decided not to soak in (no bathing suit with me and a high cost of 50,000 Dong) today, returning along the beach to check in with my An Phu bus ticket office for the times to Da Lat to decide whether to leave tomorrow and try to get to Phu Quoc Island before my visa runs out, or hang out an extra day in Nha Trang, swim in the ocean, soak in the hot springs, and enjoy the last $2 dormitory room I will probably be able to find in Vietnam.

Turns out, Eddie Murphy has other plans for me (that's the name of my motor-bike guide). I decide to use almost a third of my remaining funds to hire him as a guide to the central highlands of Vietnam on the way to Da Lat. It is a tremendous splurge for me at this point in my journey, but I trust that since it feels right it is right. My time in the country on this journey has meant so much more to me and generated so many more stories than my time in the cities, I feel it will be best to go for it. The universe will take care of me.