No Mountain Too High, No Valley Too Low

WE'RE GOING TO THE BEACH!!!

That was my overexuberant sentiment as we boarded the bus to take us to Phan Thiet beach near Mui Ne. We were a good 20-kids strong, a bus crowded with American and Vietnamese students all searching for sunblock and more legroom.

We found other things in common on our 4-hour bus trip, too: outdated songs from N*Sync, All-4-One, and other pop groups. Singing in what can only be termed a cacophanous, loose unison, we made the hours that much more noisy, if not musical.

We arrived at Phan Thiet late one evening and dragged out stuff into a colorful little guesthouse right on the beach. However, when in regards to Vietnamese beachhouses at night, looks can and often are deceiving.

Due to lack of accommodation, my roommate and I opted for one of the rooms in which there was one bed. Not only in our room was there a single bed, but also a thin sheaf of fabric some would call a blanket that was maybe 4 X 4 ft in area. The air conditioning only existed in its presence on the wall, and the lightswitch for the room was on the outside by the door. Very easy for practical jokers.

We weren't uncomfortable, though. We scampered back to the bus, clamoring for dinner. We found dinner at the late-night Golden Sand Restaurant, a veritable bamboo treehouse with waitresses clad in the traditional ao dai garments. The food was a delicious multiple course selection of squid, rice, pork, morning glory, and chicken.

When returning to the guesthouse, the sky opened up and decided we ought to be a little more than 65% water. Energized by dinner, some of us opted for a quick run to the beach. Illuminated only by the moonlight, we stepped timorously through the palm trees holding each other's rainslicked hands and finally raced to the waves when we hit sand. The beach was utterly dark, as if one had lost the ability to see color and now viewed the world in grayscale. We jumped in the chilly waves, feeling salt water with our toes and freshwater dripping down our nose. Suddenly, thunder boomed over our heads and lightning followed later after, like a giant camera flash catching us in our minorly adventurous beach visit.

We shrieked and stayed out a while longer until the lightning decided to do a closer photo-shoot. Back at the guesthouse, we slapped high-fives and then separated to the showers, to take a nice hot---

Oh, no.

No hot water. Not a single drop of water, in fact. Apparently the guesthouse tried to conserve what freshwater it had available by turning off the water power in the evenings. We were soaked to the bone in brackish water with clods of sand clinging to our ankles, unable to get clean and sleep.

We stood for a while in the road in front of the guesthouse, begging the skies to give us some fatter droplets somewhat akin to a shower. The Vietnamese kids really liked my rendition of "If all the raindrops were lemon drops and gumdrops," and we all gave a goofy perfomance of "Singin' in the Rain." That night was absolutely terrific.

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The next day we went next door to a resort for a feast of pineapple, coffee, squid, omelettes and sticky rice, and then we were given a task.

While we are here in Mui Ne, a well-known tourist town, we were going to study tourism's effects on the locals and environment. (Just the kind of thing a program director interested in anthropology would assign, right?)

We split into groups for our ethnographic research, and my 6-person team chose to investigate Labor and Gender Issues. We stopped by four businesses: a hotel, spa, travel agency, and restaurant. Chatting with employees and managers, we gleaned that most of the higher-level jobs were held by men, usually from some of the more northern tourist towns in Viet Nam. The lowel-tier employees weren't usually locals, either--typically ladies from nearby provinces. Wages have risen significantly in recent years, as Viet Nam has marketed itself with increasing success as a tourist destination both to domestic and international tourists.

Our hard efforts finished, we spent the rest of the day switching over to a lovely resort nearby. We played water-basketball and Marco Polo in their pool, then ran down to the beach. There were cool clams that buried themselves sideways in the sand following every wave, and a gigantic makeshift rope swing hanging off fallen palm trees laying across a breaker wall. The wall was maybe 12-13 ft high, and Kevin, Matt, Phat and I had a glorious time swinging off the breaker wall, screaming like wet cats and landing in the salty waves. I did catch some beach with my leg, making an impressive but superficial mark on my right leg. Everyone's jealous, yep.

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The next day at Phan Thiet we awoke early to drive to the Fairy Stream. That's right, you read me right. Fairy Stream.

The Fairy Stream is a cool, muddy and shallow stream that runs alongside reddish sand dunes. You've really got to look at these photos to understand a bit. We took off our shoes and the sand was firm enough to walk on and cooling to our feet. Gaggles of kids came up to us and made it clear they were stickin' with us.

Dressed in a variety of clothing, usually bright tanktops, capris and caps for the girls and t-shirts and shorts for the boys, these little Vietnamese kids held our hands, splashed in the water with us, and exhibited an amazing amount of English. Honestly they had better accents than many of the university students and adults I've spoken with in Ho Chi Minh City.

The kids showed us the best spots on the Fairy Stream, acting as amateur but knowledgeable mini tour guides.

"The water stays on the leaf!" "Careful, deep water here." "Climb up here, you'll like it!" "These berries taste good." "Race me!"

We encountered a buffalo along the way, casually munching on some foliage. We observed a nearby rice paddy. We climbed up the dunes to witness a Jurassic scene including the ocean, palm trees and undulating sandhills.

It was truly magical, although the only fairies I saw were 11-15 years old dragging me by hand up the dunes.

When we neared the end of the stream, however, retracing our steps through the wide and shallow stream, the kids' eager amicability changed abruptly into unsmiling beggary.

"You give me money now. 40,000 dong each," stated my new friends, a pair of sisters long-acquainted with the Fairy Stream.

Nam, a little 11-year-old with a penchant for doing flips and asking to be girls' boyfriend, asked for money as well. The little 6-year-old with rotten front teeth and a gold earring held up his grimy hand and asked with his eyes.

It was a painful scene. Naive as we were, some of us hadn't realized these kids were tour guides. Just local unsupervised kids curious about foreigners, right? Naive, naive.

Some of us doled out dong, others resisted. It was torturous to me. All-in-all, the fairy children got what they wanted. Isn't it true that in English fairytales the fairies always give a gift and then take something more precious? Someone can look it up for me, but I really don't need to know. The Vietnamese fairies showed me plenty by selling their practiced joy and then holding open their hands.

Afterwards we returned to the hotel for a fine dinner and more beachtime. I couldn't help but think of the kids, however, as we sucked on sweet crabmeat and shelled shrimp. They sell a service and were great tour guides; they were personally interested in us to a certain degree; we were just duped into thinking we'd made friends.

Still getting over that. Still getting over the fact that fairytales have a little bit of reality in them, but not enough.