OK … weekly update time … let’s go!
I mentioned last week that Thuy, my Vietnamese teacher, and I were planning to go to Tay Ninh, about a couple of hours outside of HCMC to see the Cao Dai Holy See (don’t you love the alliteration there? I am so self-indulgent when it comes to alliteration … especially of the homonym sort). She also mentioned going to a famous mountain, but I explained that I really wanted to go to the Cao Dai temple to see the noon service. So, we decided to meet at the Ben Thanh bus station at 7 a.m., which we did. Thuy’s 11-year-old niece, Diep, came with us. We waited about half an hour for the bus, just at the regular bus station. Thuy did all the talking so I just followed along and did what she told me to do. We started off with about 6 or 8 passengers on the bus, but by the time we left the city, it was packed. I assumed everyone was going to the Cao Dai temple, but I was wrong …
After driving through a lot of urban sprawl and by the Cu Chi tunnels, we passed some rice fields and lots of water buffalo. The land was very flat and we could see lots of tarps out with brown rice drying in the sunshine, while some fields were still being harvested and others burned and others flooded and planted. It reminded me a bit of Yunnan province in China, where I saw the same sequence of activities … and we are not so far away from there, when you think of it. Eventually we came to a bus depot and it was absolute pandemonium as we got off the bus. I thought there was a particularly irreverent tone to the discourse, with all sorts of xe om drivers vying for our business … most of them were waving fistfuls of coupons of one sort or another. Shouting and gesticulating. It turns out the majority of people were either crossing the border to Cambodia to the casino (gambling is illegal in Vietnam) or going to a large Costco–style supermarket advertising wholesale prices. I just followed Thuy.
It turned out Thuy didn’t know what to do either, but she started talking to four ladies, who were also going to the mountain and the Holy See, so we trailed along with them. We eventually found another bus to get onto. We waited a few minutes before pulling out of the depot. So many people buying Heineken … cases and cases of it, along with bags, and boxes, and cartons of other goods, but really, a lot of Heineken.
Off we started on the next leg of the journey. We soon left the main road and travelled quite some way on a secondary road, which was also primarily rice fields, with lots of coconut, banana, papaya, and mango trees along the road. It reminded me a lot of rural Mexico, with houses and stores being so close to the road and hammocks strung up and people and traffic and dogs and roosters all coexisting. Soon, however, it became evident that the bus driver was upset about something. He started shouting from the front and people called back to him in a fairly good-humoured fashion. He kept shouting and people kept replying and then I noticed that people were looking out the windows, behind us. I looked too, but couldn’t see anything untoward … as if I even knew what to look for^_^.
Anyway, it all became evident when we got to the next little village and a checkpoint stopped us. Everybody got off the bus … well, we started to (The Four Ladies plus Thuy, Diep, and me) but we were told to sit down. So we did. Then everyone piled back on the bus and took their purchases from the wholesale store off the bus. Then they came back on and took more purchases. Then the patrol people inspected the bus … and confiscated all the Heineken, noodles, fish sauce, and all the other groceries that the passengers had with them. The passengers and the bus driver and fare collector were most upset and hurled insults at the checkpoint people (as well as at some of the townspeople who just loaded their newly-confiscated Heineken onto their motorbikes and drove off). The patrol men just went utterly impassive and let the diatribe roll right off their backs. I thought that in Canada, people would open the beer and just pour it out onto the dirt. The folks here probably did the right thing … most of them just got back on the bus and continued their journey. Well, the next section was short. We had just gone down the road a kilometer or so, when the bus stopped at a little restaurant, and the fare collector and a couple of passengers started hauling boxes of tomato sauce and Lord knows what else off the bus and into the store. Where had they hidden it all in plain sight? The guards had come on and inspected the bus! Another kilometer or so, they stopped the bus again and the driver and fare collector and a couple of passengers got off and unloaded the luggage compartment underneath the bus… more Heineken, and more boxes of food. This was all very smart, because another kilometer or so, there was another checkpoint and this time they checked the bus more thoroughly, including the luggage compartment. I just took pics of the ducks in the stream across the road and the rice fields and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. I was still minding my own business a few kilometers down the road when we came to the town of Tay Ninh and it was time to get off our eventful bus.
I mentioned last week that Thuy, my Vietnamese teacher, and I were planning to go to Tay Ninh, about a couple of hours outside of HCMC to see the Cao Dai Holy See (don’t you love the alliteration there? I am so self-indulgent when it comes to alliteration … especially of the homonym sort). She also mentioned going to a famous mountain, but I explained that I really wanted to go to the Cao Dai temple to see the noon service. So, we decided to meet at the Ben Thanh bus station at 7 a.m., which we did. Thuy’s 11-year-old niece, Diep, came with us. We waited about half an hour for the bus, just at the regular bus station. Thuy did all the talking so I just followed along and did what she told me to do. We started off with about 6 or 8 passengers on the bus, but by the time we left the city, it was packed. I assumed everyone was going to the Cao Dai temple, but I was wrong …
After driving through a lot of urban sprawl and by the Cu Chi tunnels, we passed some rice fields and lots of water buffalo. The land was very flat and we could see lots of tarps out with brown rice drying in the sunshine, while some fields were still being harvested and others burned and others flooded and planted. It reminded me a bit of Yunnan province in China, where I saw the same sequence of activities … and we are not so far away from there, when you think of it. Eventually we came to a bus depot and it was absolute pandemonium as we got off the bus. I thought there was a particularly irreverent tone to the discourse, with all sorts of xe om drivers vying for our business … most of them were waving fistfuls of coupons of one sort or another. Shouting and gesticulating. It turns out the majority of people were either crossing the border to Cambodia to the casino (gambling is illegal in Vietnam) or going to a large Costco–style supermarket advertising wholesale prices. I just followed Thuy.
It turned out Thuy didn’t know what to do either, but she started talking to four ladies, who were also going to the mountain and the Holy See, so we trailed along with them. We eventually found another bus to get onto. We waited a few minutes before pulling out of the depot. So many people buying Heineken … cases and cases of it, along with bags, and boxes, and cartons of other goods, but really, a lot of Heineken.
Off we started on the next leg of the journey. We soon left the main road and travelled quite some way on a secondary road, which was also primarily rice fields, with lots of coconut, banana, papaya, and mango trees along the road. It reminded me a lot of rural Mexico, with houses and stores being so close to the road and hammocks strung up and people and traffic and dogs and roosters all coexisting. Soon, however, it became evident that the bus driver was upset about something. He started shouting from the front and people called back to him in a fairly good-humoured fashion. He kept shouting and people kept replying and then I noticed that people were looking out the windows, behind us. I looked too, but couldn’t see anything untoward … as if I even knew what to look for^_^.Anyway, it all became evident when we got to the next little village and a checkpoint stopped us. Everybody got off the bus … well, we started to (The Four Ladies plus Thuy, Diep, and me) but we were told to sit down. So we did. Then everyone piled back on the bus and took their purchases from the wholesale store off the bus. Then they came back on and took more purchases. Then the patrol people inspected the bus … and confiscated all the Heineken, noodles, fish sauce, and all the other groceries that the passengers had with them. The passengers and the bus driver and fare collector were most upset and hurled insults at the checkpoint people (as well as at some of the townspeople who just loaded their newly-confiscated Heineken onto their motorbikes and drove off). The patrol men just went utterly impassive and let the diatribe roll right off their backs. I thought that in Canada, people would open the beer and just pour it out onto the dirt. The folks here probably did the right thing … most of them just got back on the bus and continued their journey. Well, the next section was short. We had just gone down the road a kilometer or so, when the bus stopped at a little restaurant, and the fare collector and a couple of passengers started hauling boxes of tomato sauce and Lord knows what else off the bus and into the store. Where had they hidden it all in plain sight? The guards had come on and inspected the bus! Another kilometer or so, they stopped the bus again and the driver and fare collector and a couple of passengers got off and unloaded the luggage compartment underneath the bus… more Heineken, and more boxes of food. This was all very smart, because another kilometer or so, there was another checkpoint and this time they checked the bus more thoroughly, including the luggage compartment. I just took pics of the ducks in the stream across the road and the rice fields and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. I was still minding my own business a few kilometers down the road when we came to the town of Tay Ninh and it was time to get off our eventful bus.
1 comment:
But why did they take all of the groceries? Is this legal? What if people had spent all of their wages on food to feed their families, and the "inspectors" just took it all? This does not seem good.
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