Ha Long Bay, Sapa and Hoi An.

Post-modern irony.

My body is changing at a rate unparalleled since puberty. When you’re in a different climate zone, your body starts to rebel like the Confederate Army. If I am not suffering from Traveller’s Tummy and becoming well acquainted with the toilet bowl , then I am dealing with the copious amounts of ‘white stuff’ coming out of the pores on my nose. However, Anouska and I have both lost weight and toned up and our skin is looking great, but the means to this end is not worth it.

For the last week and a bit we have been travelling around Vietnam, which is my excuse for neglecting this blog. Our first stop was Hai Long Bay, which is a few hundred kilometres east of Hanoi. After a four hour bus ride with a less than enthusiastic tour guide, we boarded a very non-authentic Chinese junk and departed into the bay. The limestone rocks that tower over the bay are magnificent. If you sat on the deck and watched these colossus formations all day, it would be a day well spent. The thing I dislike most about tours, of course, is that tour companies are insistent on keeping to a detailed schedule. How I wish I could get the hour back I spent in that stupid cave. The tour guide, in broken English, told us that specific rock configurations represented certain animals like a turtle or a dragon. But you know what I saw? A bunch of shitty rocks, which pale in comparison to the ultra-wicked ones we have in Australia. And you know what else? A lot of stupid tourists lapped it up. I even heard one Canadian comment that one rock, “looks like a beaver’. Man, where is Freud when you need him? We slept on the junk that night and set off to Cat Ba Island the morning afterwards. Before checking in to a hotel on the Island, the tour ‘told us’ we have to cycle 14 kilometres and go for a hike. I’m supposed to be on holiday and I have to do all this exercise. NOT FAIR! Anouska was less impressed, especially considering she hasn’t ridden a bike since her mid-teens. After the arduous bike ride, a local guide, who was actually very good, despite the fact he did not speak any English, led us up part of Cat Ba Island, where he showed us, through a great game of charades, a cave used as a bomb shelter during the Vietnam-U.S.A war. The United States, the epitome of the free world, weren’t exactly into fair-play during this confrontation. They just bombed the Bejesus out of the entire country. And what did it achieve? Millions of civilian and military deaths and countless deformities and birth defects owning to Agent Orange and many other nasty weapons of human design. God Almighty, I love Democracy. Anyway, after the rigorous exercise we finally went to the hotel. Happy hour, like most places in Vietnam, goes from 6-10pm, and for three cocktails for $6, well, it’s not a very good place for someone suffering sunstroke. The proprietor of the bar, where we finally ended up, wanted me to get up and sing Karaoke with him, but even though it seemed like a fantastic idea at the time, Anouska persuaded me not to (bless her and her sensibility). Besides which, even though the lyrics were in English, I never remember ‘Rain on the Roof’ having such cryptic lyrics. The next day we headed back to the harbour and had another four hour bus ride back into Hanoi.

I think this one looks like the melting heads
of obnoxious tourists.

No rest for the wicked. Seize the day. Don’t put off what you can do now. You name it. One day after we arrived back from Ha Long Bay and I spent most of the evening squirming around in my bed sick from sun stroke, we boarded the train for Sapa, which is a small mountain town located at the very north tip of Vietnam’s boarder. Since the trip is roughly 10 hours long, we organised a sleeper train at night. And it’s not half bad. The bed was well suited for vertically challenged people like myself. However, the one thing we learnt and I think Anouska could testify to this is do not drink anything several hours before embarking. You do not what to use the squatting toilet which hasn’t seen a bleach-based cleaning product since the late 80’s. All I can say is, good thing I am a man. So after getting a fairly decent amount of sleep, the train pulled into the station. Once again a tour company herded us off the train like the bleary eyed sheep we were and drove us up the mountain to Sapa. You only go to Sapa for one thing really. The view. If you’re not impressed by this awe-inspiring scenery, you should probably hop back on the train and go back to Hanoi and then from there, organise a flight to whatever hole you crawled out of, because the view is spectacular. We were there for three days and not once did I think “Oh, there’s the mountains and the valley far below, holding an abundance of rice paddies and streams. How ordinary”. As part of the tour we had do a great quantity of, you guessed it, grueling exercise. Anouska sub-consciously defied the tour company by ‘accidentally’ slipping over on the road literally 20 minutes after arriving and spraining her ankle, which left me to toil on my own, while she relaxed in hotel comfort. On an interesting tangent. Anouska hobbled her way to town where she purchased a number of items and was even offered opium by this kind old woman, which she politely declined, not wanting opium at that point in time. But I am glad I got to spend five hours a day walking, really, I am, because I got to see a lot of the beautiful countryside and the quaint villages where the embroiderers live. And it is essential for someone who resides in such a developed country such as Australia to see how people live in different places and also in alternative economic states. The village people live off agriculture and a small amount of revenue from tourism. It’s a very basic existence for these people, but they all group to ensure no one goes without. When you see people live under these conditions it makes all your first-world worries suddenly disappear.

I swear I didn't ask her to

pose.

I know this look. It means,

"please take a photograph of me".

Man burning rice husks.

I’m writing this blog in every-so-often increments, feeling more guilty as the days pass, because several people have requested another entry. To those individuals, I profusely apologise – no wait – what I really mean is, BE PATIENT, I’M ON HOLIDAY! So, at this point in time, which is the evening of Sunday the 11th, we have just arrived back from Hoi An, the City of Tailors (also the city of the indulgent excess of food and drink). It’s called a city, but it’s more just like a small town with about 200 clothes shops and half as many cafes and restaurants. But nonetheless, it’s a very cute town and getting around is very easy, especially on a scooter, as I did with Anouska on the back. What can I say about the place? Is it historically significant? Ok, perhaps it is. Does it give you a more significant understanding of Vietnamese culture? Not particularly. But can you get a bunch of clothes hand made at the fraction of the cost it would in Australia and get drunk on cheap, yet interesting adaptations of Western cocktails (the Long Black Russian, for example) all while eating as much as you want and not worrying about what you spend? Heck yes. It’s a great place. We stayed at a nice little hotel on the outskirts of town, where the baths never quite filled up and the electricity had a problem doing what it’s supposed to. But despite that, it had a very cool pool, which was even cooler when it rained, which it seemed to 90 per cent of the time. In fact, why did we need a pool when it rained so much the river burst its banks and turned half the town into an aquatic wonderland? The onslaught of rain might have washed out some of the more land faring tourists, but for us it just added to the sense of adventure. It may sound like a boring place to go for holiday, but I could easily spend a gluttonous week at this Vietnamese getaway.