Cambodia (Part 2): "Sidenotes" from Day One

In most of my blog posts, I include "side notes": parts of the story that help you get a better feeling about my experience in Vietnam, but probably aren't worthy of a paragraph of their own.  This post will be nothing but "side notes."

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Spend a day in Ho Chi Minh City, and you're sure to see some remnant from the Vietnam War.  It could be an older amputee, or simply a really dated propaganda poster.  If you fly into or out of the Ho Chi Minh City Airport during the day, you'll see probably the most interesting artifact from the war: American military hangars.  

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The flight to Phnom Penh is short.  The flight is only 35 minutes, and if everyone gets to the gate before the departure time, they board you early and send you on your merry way.  They also don't give a hoot about turning off your cell phone or other electronic equipment.  That's lucky for you, because I was able to take some pretty cool pictures of the Mekong.

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Landing in Phnom Penh is hilarious.  You fill out your visa application on the plane, and hand it in when you arrive.  No one in my group had a passport sized photo, so we each had to pay $1 "to get our picture taken to complete the visa application."  Of course, that means they don't take your picture - I literally saw my Customs and Immigration officer pocket my buck.  You then pay $20 for them to complete your visa application.  The process takes about 10 minutes, but they don't even look at your passport.  They merely put a visa stamp in the first blank page they see.  

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Outside the airport there are hundreds of "tuk-tuk" drivers, waiting for your business.  Mark, Wes, Eric (AIM's new Ho Chi Minh City Manager) and I took one to our hotel.  

Phnom Penh is significantly hotter than Vietnam.  I love the heat (and humidity!) so I was in heaven.  

Cambodia is also a lot "dirtier" than Vietnam.  Whereas everything in Vietnam is either flora or mud, everything in Cambodia is either flora or dust/dirt.  Cambodia is so hot that the ground doesn't stay muddy for long.  It almost instantly becomes dirt.  This picture shows what I mean pretty well.

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Phnom Penh is totally unlike Saigon.  In fact, all of Cambodia is totally unlike all of Vietnam.  Perhaps I've grown accustomed to living in Saigon, but I really don't consider it to be third world.  The eel beatings and fish beheadings in the middle of the street in Saigon aren't really spectacles to behold anymore.  Phnom Penh is a different story.

First off, there are monkeys.  I thought monkeys would be cool.  They aren't.  All they do is throw trash at people.  I thought it was funny until one threw a banana peel at me.  

Second, elephants are considered a legitimate form of transportation.  There are a few jungle elephants near Da Lat, Vietnam, but none near Saigon.  Elephants can easily be seen on the streets of Phnom Penh.

Third, you see sights commonly associated with the third world: an overloaded truck with people hanging on the roof, or a political advertisement car with guys inside them, driving through the city.  

Cambodia (Part 1): Let's Go!

The phone rang.

Of course it did - I had literally just gotten home from work, and decided to take a nap. I had been exploring Saigon until 2AM the night before and I was exhausted.  I considered not answering the phone, and just sleeping.  I checked the caller ID and it was my boss, Mark.

I picked up the phone.

"Erik! What are you up to tonight? Wes and I want to know if you want to come out to dinner."

Wes is one of our firm's partners, and he was in town during the week, to review some investments.  His easy-going and disarming demeanor instantly put you at ease as he would probably rather talk to you about a good movie or a good band than a good investment.  Though he may be a partner of the firm, he listened and cared about my opinions (an intern's opinions!) on the Vietnamese and Cambodian economies.  And Mark, of course, is the type of boss that can inspire you to stay late at work just for him.  He also happens to be the only foreigner to win the Vietnamese Medal of Honor for saving scores of lives in a brutal fire in Hanoi, about 12 years ago... and these two guys wanted me to come out to dinner?

As tired as I was, I almost cried tears of joy.  I met up with both of them at a restaurant in the Dong Khoi area - a swank ex-pat section of the city, known for its good food.

We instantly hit it off.  Mark regaled us with stories about Vietnam from the 1990's, while Wes and I discussed everything from sports to my weekend plans.  I told them both I was planning on traveling to Mui Ne for the weekend, to catch some sun and see a part of Vietnam that I hadn't seen before.

They looked at each other, and turned back to me.

"Why don't you come to Cambodia with us?"

At first, I thought it was a joke.  I knew that both of them were heading to Cambodia to check out some investments in Phnom Penh (the capital of Cambodia), but why would they want an intern to come along?

"If you can have your bags packed and ready to go to the airport by 11:00am tomorrow, we'll have the plane ticket for you."

I don't remember much of the rest of the night, really.  I was on cloud nine and grateful for everything: for having the best bosses you can imagine, for my wonderful company... and perhaps more importantly, for having picked up my phone.

(This dinner occurred Thursday, July 10th.  Over the next few days, I will post an update each day, with stories from my weekend in Cambodia.)

Fruit Markets Galore

Tell any Vietnamese person you're going to Vietnam, and the first thing they'll tell you is: "You must eat the fruits."

It's actually somewhat funny how obsessed Vietnamese nationals are with their native fruits.  Whenever I become good friends with a local, they insist on taking me to a fruit market.  In my month here, I've become good friends with complete strangers (another blog post about that later in the week), and they will send me e-mails with links to the different fruits found in Vietnam.  Some even call me, hoping to show me their favorite fruit market.  

And on one such occasion, I obliged.

Ruby (my co-worker and "adopted sister") called me on Sunday, hoping to take me to her favorite fresh fruit market.  She picked me up on her motorcycle and we drove for about 15 minutes until we reached her favorite market.  

The market had just about every fruit you can imagine, plus some you probably can't.   There were piles of fruits inside the store and out, in every size, shape and color known to man.  I was told that the fruits at this market are 100% natural, grown in Vietnam and about 6 times more expensive than at any other market in the city.  So in other words, this market was the Vietnamese version of "Whole Foods."

I purchased every single fruit that I didn't recognize, or hadn't yet tried (including: rambutans, durians, jackfruit, green mangos, longans, custard apple, yellow watermelons, dragon fruit and others.)  We dropped the fruits off at Ruby's house - where we would return later in the evening - so that Ruby could show me some different areas of Ho Chi Minh City.

Our first stop - and my personal favorite - was Ho Chi Minh City University.  With 20,000 students, just one academic building held more classrooms than each of the 5C schools combined.  (Side note: the classrooms were really old-fashioned and looked terribly uncomfortable.  Every class is taught in the Ho Chi Minh Method - pure memorization of facts, formulas, etc. - so most of the learning goes on outside of the classroom.)  There are two class periods everyday - from 7:00am to 11:30 am and 1:00pm to 5:30pm - and class sizes are typically no smaller than 50.  And if you thought that wasn't bad enough - check out student housing.  That place makes Phillips look like The Four Seasons.  

But not all is bad at Ho Chi Minh City University.  HCMC University did have a nicer student center than CMC (so do most pre-schools) and most students get good jobs (by Vietnamese standards) upon graduation.  

From HCMCU, Ruby took me to HCMC's sporting facilities, complete with soccer fields, swimming pools, and badminton/basketball courts.  More on the sports facility in another blog post.  

After our day's travel, Ruby took me back to her house where we enjoyed the fresh fruits with her family.  (Side note: Vietnamese people put salt, pepper, salt and pepper and salt with jalapeños on their fruit.  They also have stories passed down from generation to generation about each fruit... most stories are either about how the fruit was made, or how the fruit will help you grow strong.) 

Ruby's family was extraordinarily hospitable - they had a cup of iced coffee ready for me when we returned because Ruby had told them I like iced coffee - and they were eager to answer any questions I had about Vietnamese life.  With Ruby and her sister serving as translators, I learned about Mr. & Mrs. Lai's childhood, their opinions about the world, and their religion - Buddhism.  

But of course, if I learned anything from the day, I learned that if you come to Vietnam, you must try the fruits.

The Cao Dai Temples and Cu Chi Tunnels

"Our bus have technical difficulty," our tour guide, Diui explained, in broken English.

That may have been partially true, but that wasn't the whole story.  Let me start from the beginning.  

I woke up on Saturday morning, ready to go on another one of my weekend adventures.  I decided to go on the Cao Dai Temples and Cu Chi Tunnels day trip - it came highly recommended by my Lonely Planet tour book.  I bought the trip - only $7 - from the same tour company that I used when I went on my fantastic Mekong Delta Trip.

Our bus arrived an hour late, and after we got into the Vietnamese country side, (read: middle of no where)  our bus engine died.  Along with all the tourists, I got off the bus and found a restaurant to sit in and wait until our bus started back up.  The bus was fixed within 15 minutes, and soon we were on our way again.

But not for long.  

After about 10 minutes of driving, our bus pulled over and I heard a loud (and I mean loud) banging on our bus front door.  All of a sudden, some Vietnamese guys jumped into the bus, and started screaming his head off at our driver.  Our bus driver got out of the bus, and the action continued by the side of the road.  Our tour group had no idea what was going on.

The person that pulled us over was absolutely livid.  He was screaming uncontrollably and pointing at our driver.  Cars, motorcycles and busses that were passing by stopped to watch the ensuing scene.  (Side note: rubbernecking is practically the Vietnamese national pastime.  I was once on a bus and we saw an accident - the bus driver stopped in the middle of the road so that the passengers could see the wreckage themselves.)  In the meantime, I became friendly with a Vietnamese girl named Lucy, who explained to me what the heck was going on.

Apparently, soon after our pit stop to fix up our bus, the bus driver hit the enraged man's sister, wrecking her bike, and leaving her with some fairly serious injuries.  Our bus driver drove away from the accident.

Lucy explained to me that this kind of stuff happens all the time in Vietnam - but usually more often in the North.  The driver who causes the accident usually pays off the other driver so that they don't call the cops and then the two drivers go their separate ways.  Our driver - from the North - was clearly doing his best to pay-off the enraged man.

As if we were blind, deaf and dumb, our tour guide got on the bus' microphone system and explained, "Our bus have technical difficulty... please be patient."  While it was true that our bus had been having engine problems (it ended up breaking down 5 more times that day), it certainly wasn't true that the engine was causing the delay this time.

But our beloved tour guide was resourceful.  He flagged down a small van and told us to gather our belongings - were were going in a "newer, better bus" to the Cao Dai Temples.

The "newer, better" bus had 15 seats - we had 29 passengers.  This, of course, meant that I had some complete stranger sit on my lap.  Diui, our tour guide, wasn't so lucky - he rode on the roof of the van.

We all got to the Temples in one piece, and just in time to catch the end of mass.  Diui stayed outside of the Temple on his cell phone, which meant that we learned nothing about the Temples, or Cao Daiism.  The temples were quite colorful and surprisingly modern, though I have to admit, they seemed to be a bit of a tourist trap.

Diui soon called our group over, and we were reunited with our original bus driver.  It was 1:00pm, and Diui told us that it would be an hour and a half to the Cu Chi Tunnels.  I pulled out a small pack of Oreo's and enjoyed the countryside.

But after two hours on the bus, I couldn't help but think that our bus driver was lost: we kept pulling U-turns and I started to recognize the huts and shacks that were by the road.  After another hour and a half, Diui admitted to the bus: the driver had no clue where the tunnels were... he was illiterate, and he couldn't read the signs that led us to the Cu Chi tunnels.

This fact didn't help our opinion of the bus driver - but it did help our group unite against him.  The Australians booed (loudly), the Brits tried to organize a mutiny (it failed) and the Frenchies hissed (and no, I'm not kidding).  Our bus tour had gone from bad to worse, so Lucy got out and asked for directions.  

As it turned out, we were never more than 25 minutes from the Tunnels.  We did come close to the Cambodian border though - which would have added a new level of excitement to the trip.

The Cu Chi Tunnels were actually quite interesting.  Diui warned us to follow him closely because there were booby traps and live artillery shells off the path.  He showed us the entrances to the tunnels and we got to go into the tunnels to see how the Viet Cong lived during the war.  The tunnels themselves were horribly small - about 2 feet or less from the roof to floor - which meant that I had to crawl through them on my stomach.  A few of the tourists had panic attacks while were were trying to go through the tunnels.

After we got through the tunnel network (which took us a good half hour) Diui told us that of the 16,600 Viet Cong soldiers stationed there during the war, only 800 survived.  Most died horrible deaths - the B-52 bombs that pummeled the area caused the tunnels to collapse, which buried most Viet Cong alive.

Our tour now over, my group got back onto the bus and headed home for Saigon.  Almost every family complained on the bus home, and rightfully so: our tour had been completely mismanaged from start to finish.  But even though we had our missteps along the way, and believe me, we had more "technical difficulties" than I've shared in this blog post - I believe our tour also showed us a side of Vietnam that few of us had seen before.  However unfortunate our accidents were, they certainly told us more about the Vietnamese way of life than any museum, temple or park ever could... and for that, this tour may have been one of the better ones in my life.  

What I Do

"So, what do you do?"

It's a simple question and one usually accompanied by a simple answer, such as: "I'm a student," or, "I'm a lawyer."  But my answer this summer is not so straightforward.  So here I go: "I'm a business analyst working for a private-equity firm that specializes in economic development in Vietnam."

Huh?

Yeah... even I'm not exactly sure what that means, so let me tell you what my company does, and how I help them.

My company has a fund worth $20M (which is virtually nothing in the investment world) and we buy a minority stake in other companies (the companies must operate in Vietnam for us to consider funding them).  For example, we became a partial owner of Cafe Fresca, Cambodia's version of Starbucks, and with our funding, we enabled Cafe Fresca to move into Vietnam (where it has done quite well).  Our funding gives Cafe Fresca the money they need to expand, and then they give us a part of their profits from the expansion.  Everybody wins!

Or at least, we hope everyone wins.

Not every investment can be as good as Cafe Fresca.  Our fund, like any other, will undoubtedly make mistakes.

So where do I fit in?

I research every element of the Vietnamese economy.  You want to know the amount of foreign direct investment that comes into Vietnam every year?  I'm your man.  You want to know the trade deficit?  That's me, too.  You want to know which sectors of the economy are growing at the fastest rate?  Count on me.  

From all this information that I gather, I predict what sectors of the Vietnamese economy will do well over the next five years.  (Side note: the answer is tourism!)  I present my predictions to the CEO of our company.  If he agrees with my findings, I then meet with the CEOs of a few companies within that sector to look into investment opportunities.

But we don't find every company - some companies find us.

No fewer than fifteen companies have contacted us within the last three weeks, hoping to set up an investment meeting.  This should not come as a surprise: in each of the last six years, the Vietnamese economy's growth rate has been above 6%, which means that most companies are eager to expand.  

In a future blog post, I'll share a story about one particular firm - but for now, I hope you understand what I do Monday through Friday, 8:00AM to 6:00PM.  The projects I work on change quite frequently, so I'll be sure to keep you posted if my answer to the question, "So, what do you do?" changes.  

The Mighty Mekong

Ten dollars in the developed world might get you a stick of gum - if you're lucky.  But ten dollars in Vietnam?  That can buy you a tour of the Mekong Delta.

And that's exactly how I decided to spend ten bucks this past weekend.

I booked my tour at Sinh Cafe, one of the three billion tour companies on my street, and woke up the next morning to catch my bus at 8:30AM.  The bus ride to the Mekong Delta (more specifically, My Tho and Ben Tre) was quite interesting: I saw cattle in the middle of the road, rice paddies, coconut huts, and of course, propaganda.  Our hilarious tour guide, Duc, smoked no fewer than 20 cigarettes on the two hour ride to the river.  Just to give you a picture of how much this guy smoked, he lit one up while he was filling our bus with gas at a gas station.  

We landed at the Mekong Delta (My Tho) shortly before 11:00AM, and took a tour boat that showed us the sights along the Mekong River, including a floating fish market, and a floating village.  (Side note: I was later told that the fishermen who live on the Mekong make a very good living: most own mansions in the more rural parts of Vietnam.)

After having shown us those sights, Duc led us onto Con Phung Island, where we took rowboats down an alligator infested estuary.  The rowboat tour was phenomenal: the tropical flora was so thick that you could barely see three feet into the jungle.

From Con Phung Island, we took our rowboats to Tortoise Island.  On Tortoise Island, we were fed a traditional Vietnamese villager meal (rice and pork).  This village on Tortoise Island made everything out of coconuts, or parts of coconut trees... and when I say everything, I mean everything.  Literally, their houses (huts), hammocks, cooking utensils, tools and clothing were made from coconuts or parts of the coconut tree.  

From the "Coconut Village," we took a boat to a honeybee village.  You could smell the village's honey from across the river - which was a good thing, because the Mekong itself smells terrible.  One of the locals offered me a taste from one of the honeycombs - you can see that picture here.

From the honeybee village, we rode donkey-carts to some remote village that was rejoicing from having caught a Boa Constrictor that was responsible for the deaths of a few villagers.  And while the villagers were living a primitive lifestyle (don't forget: they were rejoicing from having caught a boa constrictor), the village had one distinct modern feature: loudspeakers.  While we were there, the loudspeakers started spewing pro-Communist Party propaganda: a reminder of the government's control, even in the heart of the jungle.

From this remote village, we made one last stop at a Coconut Candy making village.  We learned how to make coconut candy - a popular treat in Southeast Asia.  This village also treated us to some snake wine - a drink made from fermented tropical fruits, snake bile and snake venom.  They also put a dead cobra in the bottle, just for good measure.  

After the Coconut candy village, we journeyed out of the jungle and back home.  This trip was exactly what I needed: a break from city life and an adventure into the jungle.  And it was without a doubt, the best ten dollars I've ever spent.  

(These events occurred the weekend of June 21st.)