Vietnam was without a doubt my favourite country in SouthEast Asia. It was neither the easiest nor the least touristy, but I found it’s particular brand of chaos absolutely intoxicating. Vietnam somehow managed to blend all the comforts of western living- good food, recognizable stores, effective transport routes- with far more traditional styles of living in a way that seemed to enhance both backgrounds yet detract from neither one.
I could write hours of text about my adventures in Vietnam, but I will stick to my usual format and just jump haphazardly from fantastic event to event in almost chronological (though certainly not geographical) order. You see apart from my chronic sleep issues, I also have a pathological inability to recall locations or directions with any accuracy whatsoever, so you’ll just have to deal with the confused but hopefully entertaining ravings of a mad travelling kiwi.
Let's begin our tour halfway through my tour (because reasons) which began with a tour (are you sick of the word tour yet?) along the Mekong river.
This massive flowing river is a uniform caramel colour, filled with silt and almost a silken texture, leaving it in appearance not dissimilar to an 'apocalypse level event' of post chicken tikka masala curry. It is bordered by beautiful green reeds and dotted with the occasional fishing villages that rest quietly alongside.
Like many Asian countries, a raft of human communities have simply moved from land to living on the surface of the water for the sake of convenience. While on the Mekong is not uncommon to have a BBQ man or coffee lady drive their little boats up to you to serve your needs. It's a lesson in convenience we really need to learn to take on boar. Although I worry that in the west we are almost at a Wall-E level of laziness as it is, so perhaps it is best we have to walk that 6 minutes to the coffee cart down the road rather than just lean out the window of our house boat...
Anyway, the coffee here is unbelievable- strong, dark, and sweetened with about half a can of condensed milk. It was addictive for me, but being lactose intolerant, sensitive to caffeine and also lacking any self control whatsoever, by midmorning I would be shaking, speaking at hummingbird-level frequencies, and also coughing up the rather unpleasant results of my intolerance. But oh my goodness, they were good. They even do something called an egg coffee, where they fluff and mix egg yolk into the drink- it is really rather nice if you can switch off your knowledge of what you are attempting to drink and ignore the slimy texture.
Caffeined up and raring to go, Jana and I were headed on one of our rarely chosen group tours. We normally preferred to find our own way around to experience a country- hiring a scooter and trundling around independently, but sometimes the ease and convenience means taking a tour is just the simpler choice. Besides, we were both social butterflies and loved the opportunity to connect with other backpackers. As we chose the tours that as were the cheapest- but best rated- option, there were guaranteed to be other backpackers scraping by on the tour we could connect with.
After chugging up the river, we stopped where we would be taken by local guides up the smaller tributaries for the next section of the tour, we were split into pairs to be trundled (there really is no better word to describe it) off in the strangest little boats I had ever seen. Boat may be a slightly generous descriptor though, as these were the approximate shape and colour of upturned, giant coconut shells, woven from the reeds of the river to make a watertight, but not particularly stable, craft.
I paired with a lovely Taiwanese girl (who insisted on waxing lyrical about how amazing Taiwan was- I should have kept in touch with her so I could yell at her once I finally made it there- I found it really rather boring!), and Jana went off with some random (hey, my memory is only so good ok?) as we had made the agreement to split up our travel buddyship whenever the opportunity presented itself. This not only provided a little time away from one another (my haphazard “she’ll be right style of travel infuriated Jana’s more clinical nature no end), but it also gave us the opportunity to build some new relationships. When you travel as a boy/girl team, people always assume you are together and therefore want to only stay together, which was a massive cockblock for me and Jana was none too happy about it either.
Being as I swim with the approximate skill of a deceased tortoise, I am always nervous going into any water based activity, and jumping into one half of a giant coconut bra was not helping my confidence. But in I jumped, promptly naming our sturdy craft the "bootle bum trinket", and we were splooged (again, I promise this is the best adjective possible) away from the ferry by our jovial and ‘excited for tips’ guide.
He performed a few exciting but unpleasant tricks with the boat (unsurprisingly, a perfectly round boat spins like a top on the water rather effectively). Failing to sink us, he instead started to collect a few reeds from the side of the river and wove them expertly into a variety of surprising creations, such as a grasshopper headband, and a giant leafy phallis. I gave the phallis to the Taiwanese girl, who was naively pleased to get it. Tee tee hee.
Paddling along we eventually arrived at a little village, where we were all excited to be taking part in a cooking class. The food in Vietnam is of another class. You can have anything you want- western style or traditional, and it is all fresh and beautiful and usually even pretty clean. My favourite experience was to wander in one of the cities until I found one of the 'soup ladies'. These were old women who sat on the corner of a street all day every day, surrounded by small plastic stools and an enormous cauldron filled with a simple soup which she would sell for about 50c a bowl. Now that old lady had sat there since before she was an old lady, and over the years had been tweaking and refining her soup to utter perfection, so when you were ungraciously ladled a bowl of Pho Bo or something similar, you knew you were in for a treat, sitting on your little plastic seat as the scooters belched smoke screaming past, adding a little carbon to your meal.
It was one of these soups I was hoping to learn to make, and Jana wanted to try the funny little salads and coconut rice they do (that absolutely melts in your mouth). We had all seen and tried the spring rolls that were ubiquitous in Vietnam and had seen classes on cooking them every which way, but this one promised us something different so we were very excited. Also, the cooking classroom took place on a kind of wharf, so you could chop a few veges, pause to examine exactly how much damage you had done to your fingers, and also look out into the murky depths of a Mekong tributary at the fishies and things swimming around. Fascinating.
I have always enjoyed cooking, though unfortunately for Jana’s patience, this mostly involved chopping vegetables at random and seeing what other items I could have a go at deep frying (I tried deep frying an egg once- which doesn’t sound too bad until I tell you I forgot to remove the shell- NEVER DO THIS). Fortunately (and the main reason she hadn't murdered me in my sleep yet) my antics almost always brought a smile, as she had a silly streak I simply adored awakening, and we would sometimes get into competition to see who could be the most foolish. I am proud to say I won these most times.
Fortunately my german friend's germaness was also still present, and she was able to reign in my shenanigans long enough to produce some fairly passable (yes, you guessed it- spring rolls) but we were looking forward to the next course which we were told was a beautiful shrimp curry.
We gathered around the head chef like eager chicks around mother hen, and watched with growing anticipation as she took us through the steps and processes of making the curry. She was very thorough, and I began to lose track of which thing you cut off and what was shoved into where but she suddenly stopped, held up her bowl as a perfect example, and told us that was the end of the session. We never even got to try to cook it for ourselves! Feeling completely jipped, I consoled myself that at least on this trip we were promised the opportunity to eat river rat and snake, which I had never tried and was really rather excited about.
Having eaten our rather delicious spring rolls, we wandered off to explore this semi-aquatic village. The adaptations to living on the water were numerous and inventive, from boats acting like scooters and cars, to rainwater capture devices, aquatic vegetable farms- everything.
When lunchtime proper came, I was treated to a juicy helping of river rat, which was fatty and delicious, and remarkably tender. The snake, I was horrified to see, was cooked in front of me on live coals after a quick rap against the bench to stun it. It was not tasty meat, being bony and fishy, though was perhaps tainted by my unpleasant witness of its fiery death. Jana had given one look at my intended lunch and wandered off to find some more respectable fare, buying some of the coconut candies she found the village making, which were delicious and murder for cavities.
We travelled fairly quickly through many sections of Vietnam, taking those glorious (please not the use of heavy sarcasm) plastic coffins you slide inside on the night bus and which I actually, after 2 sleeping pills, managed to extract 3 hours of sleep from. Trying to piece together exactly where and when we did what, and match this all with the pictures I have to remind me of our travels is rather challenging. What I do have is a tapestry of wonderful highlights that stand out- many little adventures we took that were completely unexpected but fantastic nonetheless.
For example, Vietnam, unbeknownst to me, had some incredible beaches, and many was the opportunity to go and explore these, as well as a little snorkelling amidst the fairly well populated reefs and islands they have dotted about the place. One such trip was another tour (forgive us, we were very touristy sometimes it must be admitted) that would take you to visit a series of 4 different islands. We booked ahead, Jana very conscientiously asking specifically who would join us on the tour, as we knew there was a competing market to the backpacker dollar in Vietnam which was the 'grey brigade'. These over 50-somethings were too cheap to do a proper cruise but still wanted everything with tea and crumpets. They would take a boat ride such as this without ever letting their leathery wrinkled behinds depart from the leathery wrinkled seat of the boat. We had been avoiding these like the plague, and so were confident the next day would be full of fun people at least close to our age. Well, close to Jana's age anyway (I know I look young and feisty but that grey hair was earned through ten hard years of teaching abominable children, so I was often one of the older backpackers on the circuit).
Bright and early, we wandered towards our boat, pleasantly surprised at the other passengers we saw on the boats nearby, who looked young and drunk enough to be a lot of fun. Getting closer to ours, I noticed a lovely Asian family boarding it, and thought it would be neat to have a little diversity, though decided to rein in my drinking lest I upset mum and dad. Walking up the gangplank, I noticed things were very quiet on our boat, which was not an encouraging sign, and cresting the sides I saw only a sea of black heads. Good news- we had missed the grey brigade. Interesting news- we had somehow been booked on an all-chinese tour, and stood out worse than Merkle at a thrash metal concert.
Being raised in New Zealand meant that a large population of Asian people was not a foreign experience to me- I understood many of the cultural differences and mannerisms that accompany Korean, Chinese or Japanese people, but I was secretly rather excited to see what my very reserved and straightforward German friend would make of the situation. I have lived in Germany for years, and if there is one thing I’ve noticed it's that Germans like the way Germans like things. When you put them in a situation that is really rather un-German-like, just a little poke will sometimes get the fireworks to come out- grinning, I once again began to feel I would have made a rather effective super-villain if I could just pull off wearing a cape.
Jana is actually remarkably relaxed for one of Deutsche descent, but as we had travelled more than 6 months together, I knew her buttons to push to elicit laughter or make her tear her hair out in frustration- and don’t judge, because she knew exactly how to do this to me too. So seeing my opportunity for a little chaos, I tried to stop rubbing my hands together in glee and set about pointing out in a not so subtle way the interesting mannerisms of our boat mates. I am proud to say that when things started to heat up and the plastic bags came out for the old ladies to hoick into as they coughed up some chunky phlegm, I did get a lovely gag response from my tall friend.
However, I did realise that the crowd in general was fairly reserved, and we were on a party cruise baby, so I did my best to be loud and obnoxious- singing whatever I could think of in my loudest voice and cheering all the drinking games to lift the atmosphere a little. This did, of course, mean that I was somewhat inebriated early on in the piece, and after taking my 3rd snorkel full of beer (you had to hold your breath and drink it while wearing a mask... beer up your nose hurts….).
Jana, unfortunately, had that characteristic ability of all Germans to hold her beer rather well, despite being willowy of limb and (yes, I'm going to be sexist here) a girl. She could normally out drink me, while still maintaining normal bodily function, which was darned useful as one of us had to remember the way home and be able to walk there. We passed the rest of the cruise in a happy bliss of beer goggled blurriness, even getting some wonderful snorkelling in (I, as the aforementioned deceased tortoise swimmer, was always confident when I had Jana nearby, as she was a surfer and swam like an otter- I was confident she could, and probably would if I hadn't bothered her too much that day, rescue me).
We took part in a number of these sea cruises to beautiful Islands, and you will probably hear about them if you stick with me on my journeys through this blog, but possibly the most spectacular was our cruise through Halong bay.
You will have undoubtedly seen pictures of this stunning piece of geography on travel shows or in movies, and it certainly deserves the hype it has received over the years. This gorgeous bay is tantalizing from the first moment you can see it. As you come around the hills through the ubiquitous rice paddies and buffalo strewn fields, the horizon opens up and the sea stretches out before you, with majestic columns of rocks bursting forth from the water in a very Avatar-esk way. Having booked our tour carefully we were now on a rowdy bus headed to our boat, all buoyed up and most of us a little tipsy already (don’t judge, this is how you do in Halong Bay!). We had carefully wandered from vendor to vendor to find this particular boat, as we had heard that if you book in the wrong spot, you could be looking at more of a lazy couples excursion- complete with lovely food, relaxing vibes and absolutely zero fun. When, as we each stood up to introduce ourselves and one of the blond’s described herself as a hockey player but definitely not a lesbian, I knew we had made the right choice for the group tour. The group also took the chance to nominate nicknames for each other, and in the interests of propriety I won’t record them here, save for the most conservative which was “Spicy Sausage” for an indian boy. My own involved illicit actions with an animal - and things got progressively worse from there. Suffice to say this will be an edited version of the trip!
On our boat- which was remarkably large and even had a few cabins for those who booked the extras- food was free but the alcohol was extra- a very clever idea with a captive and very, ah, thirsty audience. We began early of course, a round of beers and a game of pool starting off the trip.
I wandered about getting to know everyone, and was immediately pulled into miss “not a lesbian”’s cabin. She closed the door behind her and began asking lots of questions about the outfits she thought she should wear and what looked best with her skin. Now I am sadly sometimes incredibly clueless, and combined with the fact that I insist on treating girls (attractive and single though they may be) as just people, I gave her my best advice about what colour combos would work, smiled, and left for another beer. When I mentioned this to Jana, she gave me a frustrated sigh and a big roll of her eyes as she sat me down and explained the concept of flirtation and in this case, an invitation about as subtle as a blunt axe to the forehead. We had both taken the role of councillor and adviser in regards to relationship advice for one another at different times, finding equal patience and frustration at the others antics. It's always good to have someone on your side though.
A little surprised (both at blondie’s forwardness and my stupidity) I chalked it up to a learning experience, and when I found out she had hooked up with another Australian boy within the hour, I counted myself as having accidentally dodged a bullet.
As more beer flowed and little adventures began to happen, we drew together as travel groups are wont to do. We took a BEAUTIFUL kayak tour through a tunnel that existed in one of the thousands of Islands dotted about us, and were able to stop and investigate a little floating fish farm as we did so. The water was a kind of dark green- murky and with a slightly slimy texture, but tepid and glorious- and being seawater, even this pathetically incapable swimmer was able to doggy paddle his way about without too much trouble (I sink like a stone in fresh water).
Soon, diving off the boat became the main attraction, and with music blaring from our onboard DJ, we would leap off of different sections of the boat, trying to out do one another with flips or the biggest splash. During these antics, Jana sparked up a conversation with 2 German boys. Travel with any German, and they will immediately tell you there are Germans everywhere, and they are sick of only talking German with Germans. Yet they always manage to congregate, drawn together like men around the inevitable BBQ. These boys were from Hamburg, and were full of fun- big and tall (though to a hobbit like me, this description applies to everyone but thumbelina) and had easy open smiles that were full of mischief. I could see Jana’s eyes sparkle a little at the more handsome of the two, Sandro, and I could see the other boy, Hen Drik, light up when he saw her. Hmm, hopefully this wasn’t going to be anything too dramatic, though the boys seemed like best friends so I hoped they knew how to deal with complications like these. I laughed a little as I watched Jana, who had always seemed so stoic and settled, act flighty and flirty, even giggling with her silly laugh (and the occasional unintended snort) and she listened to the boys tell what I can only assume were funny and almost certainly lascivious stories.
We all got on rather well though and I enjoyed having some testosterone-enriched company for a while, acting stupid and manly (those are synonyms I guess) with reckless abandon is not always the same when traveling in predominantly female company. We spent the majority of the cruise with these boys and agreed to meet up after the tour to hang out once again, which I knew Jana would enjoy and Hen Drink might find a little difficult.
The boat even found a cliff jump that was 15m high- it was an incredible feeling but hurt like a bitch on the landing!
We were to spend one of our evenings on a beach- it must have been the tiniest private island in the world, yet boasted 2 beaches, a large hostel style cabin and several doggos to chat too while you were swinging merrily in a hammock strung up between the coconut trees.
As the evening drew on, I made sure to wander away from Jana and the boys to give her time and space to work her slightly clumsy magic on Sandro, and instead went to join in the various other activities, where games of beer pong were played and cigars enjoyed (guess who is in the pic!).
Conversation drifted along merrily, flitting about like a fantail that had been huffing petrol, when we drew to the topic of former travel. Here my ears perked up, as I love to hear about exciting adventures people have and add them to my mental list of possible places to visit (I have a rule that if I hear about a certain place 3 times in isolation, I will visit it- it’s what sent me to Pai in the first place, but that is, once again, a story for another time).
This time it was Cambodia, where we had been previously, and I mentioned how fantastic I had found the bioluminescent algae that you can swim with there.
The Australian boy that blondie had ended up with seemed somewhat aggrieved with me (possibly as I was choice number one with her and he won out only by default), and though I did not antagonize him, he did drop the occasional barb or passive-aggressive comment directed at me. Here, again, in order not to be outdone and display some superiority of knowledge, he mentioned that the algae was also famous in Halong Bay and would undoubtedly be in the sea right now. Unfortunately for him, rather than be subdued by his subtle hint that I was completely uninformed about the area (which was absolutely true) I was overjoyed. A huge smile spread over my face, I grabbed his shoulders and shook them excitedly, exclaiming at this amazing bit of news. I looked out to the nearest water (which was at least a good 20 feet away) and announced that I was headed out to go and see for myself.
Now, just as a little context, you need to understand that I was more than a little drunk at this point, so the idea of swimming out to sea in the pitch black of the night, being unable to swim more than a few feet comfortably and having zero to no directional sense at all would be reasons for any sensible, well adjusted mind that this may not be such a wonderful idea. Unfortunately, not possessing a sensible, well adjusted mind, with reckless abandon I kicked off my Jandals and ran helter skelter into the water (I say ran but in my inebriated state it may have been more of a shuffling stumble- but I didn’t fall over so, winning!) straight into the sea. To my surprise, several people decided to follow me (some perhaps to ensure I actually made it back) and with all the confidence and ignorance of sloshed youth, we swam out into the deep dark.
The water was black, inky and seemed somehow more tangible than normal. It was an otherworldly experience, we seemed to float not in water but in space- the stars were out and the lights of passing container ships reflected dimly on the surface as if mirroring the stars. We hovered in a giant sphere of dark space, and as we swam further, I noticed the tell tale trails of shimmering light tracing around my fingers, illuminating them. Encouraged, I swum out further, until it felt as though we were in the middle of the ocean, untold depths below and above, and then, the water exploded.
Everywhere legs paddled or arms swept, the water glowed with life. It was a bright slightly yellow colour, very much like fairy lights. You could see the swirls of movements and currents in the water as the algae shone when disturbed, and it was, once again, one of the most magical experiences of my life.
Unfortunately, common sense slowly wormed its way back into my befuddled brain as my limbs grew tired, and I eventually remembered with some clarity, that I couldn’t actually swim. Someone then started humming the Jaws theme song and that was enough to tip us all over the edge to begin haphazardly making our way back to shore. I climbed slowly and thankfully into bed, not bothering to dry off or even wipe my feet, and fell gratefully and blissfully asleep.
The next morning, a little hazy, I blinked a few times, fondly remembering last night, then something caught my eye and I looked downwards. My sheets were covered in blood at my feet. With a shock, I tore back the cloth to reveal my poor little tootsies, which had been torn to ribbons. Being ever so slightly tozzled (absolutely hammered), I had failed to notice the thousands of razor sharp oyster shells that lined the shore of the sea, and as I had torn into the water I had also torn holes in my feet- both going into and coming back out of the water. I groaned- there was nothing to do about it, and apart from having a tender walk for the next few days, I didn’t regret a single thing about the trip.
Jana, patient and indulgent as a mother hen, pulled her handy-dandy bag of medical supplies out (God bless the preparedness of Germans!) and began to minister to my injuries. Thankfully receiving my ministrations, I knew things really couldn’t get any better, and that this was the absolute highlight of the Vietnam journey. I savoured the feeling but little did I know that Sapa still awaited us, and this would prove to be an even more wonderful adventure, albeit for vastly different reasons. However, for that story, you will need to wait for the next blog entry about Vietnam!
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