We peddled through the chilly January morning to the public pool, small raindrops hitting our faces. After our time in the sauna last week, I was eager to hear a new story today. I was ready to drift off into the steam with a cast of strange characters telling strange tales.
When we arrived, the sauna was empty. I took my usual place on the bench adjacent the doorway and I waited. After twenty minutes or so, an older man had arrived. He was stout, with a facial redness of either sunburn or rosacea that gave him a permanent angry appearance.
"How long did that tattoo take there?" he asked my boyfriend, @AustinHopper. From there they talked about the military and their time in the service, both being veterans.
"Yeah, I was stationed during the Vietnam war. I was in Saigon," the man said quietly.
My boyfriend replied, "We were just there in September, Vietnam. We went for vacation." The older man replied that it must have been nice. Then, silence fell for awhile.
Before my vacation to Vietnam, I had only known about or pictured the country in the context of war. The stories and history I had learned in school were about the grit and resilience of both fighting sides, and of the horrible casualties--the overall terribleness of war itself. We looked through the lens of Tim O'Brien's, The Things They Carried
. We spoke to veterans who had fought and survived the depths of the offensives.
So when my boyfriend had first suggested Vietnam to me for a vacation destination, it took me a number of Google searches to think of the country outside of a war context. Beaches. Palm trees. Rice Paddies. Temples. Waterfalls. I was persuaded.
Another man had entered the sauna whom I recognized from last week and had caught the conversation of Vietnam.
"Really humid there?" he asked. I pictured the coastline of Mui Ne, where we had backpacked in the heat of the midday after a long train ride from Saigon. Sweat pooling through our clothes.
Climbing around the Red Dunes, Mui Ne, Vietnam.
"It wasn't too bad," my boyfriend replied, smiling at me.
"Was it very modern, in the cities?" the man asked. My boyfriend and I exchanged looks, before I answered.
Navigating Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, on day 1 of our trip.
"Yes and no," I said. "It's developed in places like Ho Chi Minh City, but transportation is... insane."
Trying to cross the street in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
"It was really awesome getting our own motorbike though," my boyfriend said. "The beach town of Mui Ne was a great place to try them out."
I closed my eyes and listened as he continued on describing our trip. I could still feel the moment of glee when we first hopped onto our motorbike rental, sweat drying as the costal air whipped around us.
My mind wandered down to the beach area, where our jetlag had us at 4 am one morning, watching the group of men and women work in their nets tug by tug.
A woman bringing in nets, Mui Ne, Vietnam.
The hissing of the sauna stones fell away to the memory of the waves crashing around our feet as we walked on, palm trees overhead.
Steps to a resort, Mui Ne, Vietnam.
When I came back to myself in the sauna, the discussion between the men had drifted on to different varieties of snow tires. I didn't get to ask the war veteran if he could ever see Vietnam as a vacation place. I didn't get to ask him if he would ever go back now, after all these years.
I wonder if most American's still have the perspective of Vietnam that I did before I went myself. I hope this post shows you a different viewpoint, if you've only known it by war stories.