Drugged, Kidnapped & (almost) Sold into Slavery

Part 1: 24 and Alone

1991, Saigon. This is Part 1 of a three-part series: Drugged, Kidnapped & (almost) Sold into Slavery.

I mean, look at me, age 24 and ripe for the picking.

Part 1: 24 and Alone

It was my 24th birthday, and I waited all during dinner for some birthday wishes, maybe a bit of cake. About 10:00 pm, I figured out my boyfriend wasn’t waiting to surprise me. He had forgotten.

So with a few tears, I told him it was my birthday. To his credit, he was aghast at his forgetfulness and promised to send me on a trip. He’d send me to Vietnam!

Now, at the time, I was getting my Master of Philosophy degree in political science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. My thesis was on the disintegration of the Indochinese political system during the reign of the Khmer Rouge. (I know – I’m such a nerd!) So a trip to Vietnam to do some independent research was a (somewhat) thoughtful gift.

My Master of Philosophy degree from the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

I naturally assumed my boyfriend would be going with me on the trip. But he said, No, that he was busy but he would buy me a ticket and get me a hotel reservation. I was to handle the rest.

Side Note: This is the same guy whom I left lying in the dirt and puking from altitude sickness, literally stepping over his body as I climbed to the summit of Kota Kinabalu in Borneo. Thanks for the empowerment training, dude!

I then wrote to my parents to tell them of my impending trip. My mom’s manicurist, who was Vietnamese, insisted on giving me several letters of introduction to her family, her neighbor, and her former school teacher. This was perfect. Now I had local connections to look up when I got there.

So off I went on my 10-day trip. This was in 1991, before the U.S. had normalized relations with Vietnam, so I flew in through Bangkok on an old Soviet 15-seater aircraft. Frankly, I’m surprised that we made it in that tin can.

I was greeted at the airport with a downed Vietnam War-era U.S. helicopter, burned out and left rotting just off the runway. A clear reminder of who lost the war. Uh oh, I thought. I might be a little early.

Downed American helicopter off the runway of Ho Chi Minh City airport (1991).

It was the first time I truly traveled “alone” alone, and I’ll admit that I broke down crying when I arrived at the airport with all the touts surrounding me yelling for me to get in their cyclos. Thankfully, I pulled my shit together pretty quickly and got myself to the hotel.

Once there, I went to a café across the street to get a latte and the lay of the land. I was enjoying the French influences, especially juxtaposed with the jungle terrain of Southeast Asia. (Although I can appreciate how the Vietnamese may find the colonial influences not so charming.)

As I’m sitting in this café wondering what on earth I’m supposed to do, a guy walks up to me and asks if my name is Erin, and if I teach aerobics at a health club in Hong Kong. Yes...

Side note: I taught aerobics, up to 4 classes a day, to help pay for graduate school.

Apparently, he used to take my class and he recently relocated to Ho Chi Minh City from Hong Kong. He offered to show me around – So nice! (How weird, right? But, actually, not really. I had been living in Asia for several years by this time, and the expat community was really small. Stuff like this happened all the time.)

So my aerobic buddy and I palled around. He invited me along to business dinners (first time I had eaten boar), local museums, and sidewalk shopping.

Once we were walking along the Saigon River (I remember vividly because a dead, bloated dog floated right by us), deep in conversation. He was telling me how Vietnamese women don’t smoke, except for “ladies of the night.” It was considered extremely uncouth by local standards.

After a few days of hanging out, my friend had to go back to work, so I went off on my own. In fact, I was so confident in myself that I decided to leave the “luxury” hotel my boyfriend had put me up in.

Instead, I decided to take the extra money and move to much more economical lodging. Perhaps not one of my better decisions. Like I said, I was 24.

I moved to a hotel with a room on the second floor and massive floor-to-ceiling French doors leading to a big balcony. Admittedly, at one time, the hotel would’ve been beautiful. Like maybe in the 1950s when the French were there. Forty years on, the place had definitely seen better days.

In truth, I never really slept for the remainder of the trip since I kept imagining that someone would come at night by climbing in through the ragged balcony. I’d seen movies. I know how it happens.

This is Part 1 of the three-part series: Drugged, Kidnapped & (almost) Sold into Slavery. Read Part 2: The Brothel and Part 3: Drugged & Kidnapped.

Author note: I’m keenly aware that while I had a brush with sex trafficking, I was not sold into slavery like the women I saw in the brothel and the women in the backroom of the restaurant. Their faces and situation continue to haunt me.

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Christened “Wander Woman” by National Geographic, Erin Michelson is a professional speaker and author of the Nomad Life™ series of curated trips and travel guides, including the #1-ranked “Explore the World with Nomads.”

Want to read more about my adventures? Get the book “Adventures of a Nomad: 30 Inspirational Stories.”