Vietnam is remarkably diverse- the South I found to be overly populated, touristy, and, ironically, capitally driven. But as you head further North, the traffic lightens up, the pace slows down, and you begin to see what this country can do without the meddling influence of the Western dollar.
We had survived our Halong bay trip mostly in one piece (my feet notwithstanding) and had paid a little extra to have the privilege of being dropped off on Catba Island, a large, populated area within Halong Bay. Catba was famous for its hilly surface and quiet natural attractions, and having had a little water taxi drop us off at a wharf, we found our hotel accommodations. I always snigger a little saying the word ‘hotel’ when referencing anything in South East Asia. If you are backpacking, you will often stay in hotels, and although the grandiose 5-star resorts are certainly there, the term hotel is still applied to any accommodations of more than 1 story and made out of concrete.
As such, our barely double bed and sit down toilet were actually pushing this room into the upper echelons of rooms we had been in before. I never told Jana, but at one stage on our travels I had seen a very large rat (I dearly hope it was a rat anyway, this thing was a monster) happily scurrying about between a hole in the wall and our bathroom in one of the $5 shared rooms in Myanmar. I did not sleep well that night, as the bed was uncomfortably close to the ground, but my omnipresent earplugs blocked out any scurrying sounds that occurred. Jana loves reading these memories and will undoubtedly want to bonk me on the head for not telling her about it, but I figure it’s way better than telling her about waking up to large cockroaches nibbling my eyelashes in Northern Thailand… Ah- better make that 2 bonks on the head.
The first evening we spent making the most of the sunset, casting a beautiful rose hue over the velvet waters of the bay, bringing with it a calm, gentle breeze and moment of pause to the hectic life that is the norm in SEA. Multiple and shameless selfies later, we had had our fill of duck faces for the evening and retired to try to find a restaurant (again, I can’t help but stifle a chuckle at that term) that looked clean enough to not leave us playing duck duck goose on the toilet all night and also met our budget for food, which I liked to refer to as ‘almost nothing’.
I had noticed that poor Jana, as the more refined of the two of us, had the gentler tummy, and therefore although she was far less a fussy eater than me (and had a higher spice tolerance) I could get away with eating pink chicken and bug-strewn noodles, whereas she could not. This meant that she was left struggling with tummy troubles, and coming on the back of a fairly full-on booze cruise, she was not as hearty as I would have hoped she would be. Nonetheless, one trait we shared was stubbornness, and she never let illness slow her down at all. You might think I would be grateful about this but it was painfully obvious that my tendency to drift towards the nana side of partying it up, she definitely did not, and it was part of my challenge to keep pace with her far more youthful nature (and actual) age. I made up for it by being massively immature- that surely balances it out right?
The next day, we promptly hired a scooter to do a self-guided tour of the Island. This began well- I love riding anything with a motor (pedaling is just way too much effort) and had a lot of confidence. With Jana hanging off the back and taking selfies with her go pro, we were having a ball on the winding, bumpy dirt roads of Catba.
Our travels were destined for a wet end though (and not the good kind) as the ominous, ubiquitous rain clouds that had been present all day chose our hour-long ride back to douse us with every drop they held pent up in their fluffy behinds.
As we were traveling in SEA and the average temperature hovered in the 30’s with near 100% humidity, we had left with nothing more than the obligatory shorts and activewear t-shirts. Speeding through the heavy rain made visibility near impossible as the thick, heavy drops smashed into my face and blurred the flooded road and the oncoming headlights of the cars passing us. Amidst the rivers on the roads, splashes from passing cars, and cool wind of the evening, we got back to our homely accommodation freezing cold and shivering. However, it was one of those crazy adventures that, even though you suffer through physical and mental discomfort, you are left exhilarated and with a stupid grin plastered over your face.
I skipped a whole bunch of the day though, and as you can see from the pics, we did make it on to the beautiful mountainous region of the Island. It was a wee bit of a hike (especially for poor Jana who was flagging a wee bit due to a not very well received chicken fried rice from the day before) but it was one of those views that stole away any remembrance of the pains it took to get there.
I, being me and true to brand as ever, whipped off my shirt and clambered all over the warning barriers and handrails to get a decent view of the valleys before us. I have a strange addiction to sitting perched on a rock overhanging a massive drop and observing the world as it must look to birds and those of us with the resources to build exceedingly tall buildings. I swear this feeling is where the superiority complex that dictators develop comes from. Not that I have one mind, I’m not like those dictators that seem to think they are better than everyone else- I know that I’m better than everyone else… narcissism is a totally different mental issue.
Staring out over the verdant, dense forest, oppressively covered as far as the eye could see with the heavy cloud, it was almost like being stuck in an enormous snow-globe (without the glitter) and the strange cries of birds and animals unseen in the jungle added to the mystery. It was a fitting end to our short stint on Halong.
Anyway, after warming up and drying off, we planned our next step- into the alpine regions of the North, where we would be staying with a family in one of the remote villages of Sapa.
I cannot for the life of me remember the bus journey to Sapa- it was almost certainly blocked out to protect my fragile mind from remembering what it feels like to be stuck in a plastic coffin for 14 hours, unable to turn, aside from being buffeted into the plastic sides as the bus roughly navigated the windy roads. I proudly recall sleeping just once on one of these journeys, after taking 2 sleeping pills. Usually though, I sat with my laptop or Kindle open, vainly trying to distract myself from the claustrophobia and occasional retching sounds from those who suffered motion sickness.
Arriving at what was probably 5am or so, Jana- the organisational genius that she was- had arranged for our guide to meet us there at the bus stop.
However, true to form in the haphazard world of Asia, there was no sight or sound of her anywhere, and we wondered what to do, both somewhat sleep-deprived and not thinking particularly clearly. Through the sleep haze, I did notice this place seemed different. The town we were in barely qualified to wear that moniker, as it was nothing more than a few ramshackle buildings, the ubiquitous scooters zooming past, and perhaps one eatery nearby.
Jana, always more clever than I was but far more so in the mornings, noticed another couple were speaking to a flamboyantly dressed local, hooking packs onto their backs and looking ready to hike. Figuring they had organized a similar experience to ourselves, she wandered over and asked the guide if she knew our host, the joyously named ‘Mrs Patty’. Turns out the villagers in this area all know one another, and she assured us our host and guide would be along shortly, probably mixing up which bus we were on.
Sure enough, wandering back to the bus stop we saw another highlighter trimmed guide speaking to the passengers, obviously looking to find someone specific. Fingers crossed we had found our lady, a few broken English sentences later confirmed it- Mrs Patty broke into a huge smile and told us to stop dallying as she had breakfast prepared at home for us and we should get a move on so we didn’t miss out.
Mrs patty was a tiny, dark-skinned and sturdy woman, with an almost circular face and enough wrinkles that meant she could be anywhere from 22 to 60. She wore mostly black clothing which looked of very high quality but seemed homemade, all trimmed in fantastic highlighter cloth- pinks, greens (she seemed to have a particular affinity for pink) and oranges, with the bags that you could see in every store in Vietnam- multi-patterned low slung jobs with puff balls at the edges that I had taken to have about as much cultural significance as the musical refrain ‘chopsticks’ had to the Chinese, but I was pleased to see them in use by practically every local in eyesight.
Packs on our back, loins girded, we began by simply stepping from the side of the road into the dense jungle. By now you should realise how debilitating poor my sense of direction really is, and this was completely disorientating for me. The jungle was dense, heavy and muggy, covered in a thick mist which, when you conceded that the cloud cover was ubiquitous, ground and sky seemed to merge into one, and the only anchor to ground me were the trunks of smooth bowled trees that rose out of the miasma. The smell was incredible and one I struggle to describe, seeming to combine a plant glasshouse, water, earth, and a strange sweet tang that I could never quite place but encompassed all of vietnam when you got away from the smog of the cities.
Needless to say, walking through a fog machine, tired and disoriented, I knew my likelihood of joining Peter Pan’s crew was high so I was very thankful for the bright pink streaks of our guide who led us unerringly through the foliage.
This first hike turned out to be a kind of sequence of tableau’s depicting the life of the local Vietnamese farmers. At first, we hiked quite steeply through the jungle, marveling at simple things that our guide gave us funny looks for, such as the enormous yellow and black spiders that would hang carelessly inches from your face- often with a leg span the size of your face.
I loved the air of mystery that accompanied hikes like this- they gave you the impression of being the first conscious beings to ever traverse their wild interiors.
However, this was obviously not the case, and after having a mild panic at hearing the sounds of large animals moving through the jungle towards us, we spotted a couple of travellers like ourselves being led by another highlighted guide, this one bedecked in yellow highlighter.
Our guides obviously knew one another and asked politely if we would mind travelling together. While this would negate the sense of being lonely explorers, I am also a social butterfly, and so I lept at the chance to share a portion of our hike with fellow backpackers.
The couple were a tall, thin haired man and a stocky woman with a ready smile and curly blond hair. They were slightly older than us, perhaps a little more mature, but we broke into easy conversation quickly. I started chatting to the guy, and I could see at our first handshake he assumed Jana and I were together. I did not dissuade him from this idea as I love seeing the look on guys faces when they think “how did you manage that you lucky bugger”. Jana being attractive, confident and a good inch taller than me made us an unexpected couple (heightist attitudes are prevalent no matter where you go, us poor hobbits are always discriminated against!).
Nonetheless, we chatted happily and soon came across a small village in the middle of the jungle. I say village but that might be too generous a term- a ramshackle collection of 5 or 6 tin roofed homes, replete with a gaggle of children, chickens, dogs and the associated mud that they kicked up running around. Stone walls lined the fields of rice, with the straight lines of rice plants disappearing into the mist or dropping off the steep hills.
Beautiful big buffalo were everywhere, so much so that I began to lose my fear of any large animals moving out of sight and just began to assume they were buffalo. This breed were large as cows, but seemed far more docile, quite content to ignore you, even if you decided to give them a sneaky scratch on their bristly behinds. In the village, it was the little details that drew our attention- the small but glaring differences from what you might find in a western farm house. One such example was a long trough, obviously used to feed the cattle and perhaps chickens, but one hewn roughly out of stone. Both Jana and I quickly fell in love with a little puppy that had decided the stone trough was now his bed, and had snuggled in with just his blond little head poking out.
We never met an aggressive dog in Vietnam, despite the rough conditions many of them were in. In fact the breed here was so calm and pretty that I desperately wanted to take one home with me- the mix of breeding often produced tiger stripes on their shaggy coats and any any number of colours. They seemed small, about the size and shape of the Australian Kelpie, and were hardy little creatures. Strangely, they had been trained or knew instinctively that their job was not to guard against the ‘white people’- the dogs would stand to attention and bark warningly if strangers to their families came by, but not at any of the tourists. They seemed to treat us like we were a kind of strange-smelling furniture- interesting and good for a scratch but not any threat.
We kept on, wandering through the unseen paths our guides knew by instinct, and eventually our friends took their leave at another small hamlet, looking excited to see what their host had prepared for them during their stay.
Jana and I continued on with Mrs Patty, reaching a ridgeline that seemed to meet the clouds, and would eventually break to give us stunning views out into the valleys below us, filled with wildland and dotted about with dirt roads and brown or green rice paddies.
As I walked I spotted a brown lump partially concealed by the ferns and the mist. Having a suspicion, I whispered to Jana to stop and carefully moved forward, crouching down to be non-threatening. Pulling aside a few fern branches, I saw the huge brown eyes of a Buffalo calf staring calmly up at me. Jana let out a small squeal- half startled and half endeared to this gorgeous little one. Both of us were cautious about the buffalo, respectful of their size and huge horns, but I was the more confident when it came to animals, and after a quick look to Mrs Patty to see if she was giving me the ‘Don’t flipping move because you could die’ glare (which she wasn’t) I slowly and gently reached out my hand so the calf could give it a sniff.
Her nose was warm and wet, and she blew a little snot onto my knuckles as she snuffled at me. Then, not particularly interested, she turned her head away and ignored me. Buoyed on by this success, I stretched out further to give her a little scratch on her neck. I also kept a watchful eye out for momma buffalo, as I wasn’t sure what she might do if I seemed to threaten her baby, but after a careless glance in my direction she went back to munching on a few plants.
Enraptured, I called Jana over to get in on the action- I could sense she was desperate to get closer to the wee one but was also nervous around these big animals.
With cajoling and making up lots of facts about my prowess in judging animals intentions, she slowly approached to crouch next to me. Jana never failed to surprise me with her bravery. What’s the old saying, that courage is not the absence of fear but feeling it and doing it anyway- that summed her up well. By contrast, I wouldn’t call myself brave, just stupidly foolish enough to ignore or be ignorant of the potential consequences and just bowl on in there- for the most part this strategy has served me well over the years- I’ve only been stabbed twice and remarkably, never bitten by any of the snakes I tried to grab the tails of.
We got our fill of baby buffalo cuddles, and later on I even convinced Jana to gently approach a group of buffalo we met by ourselves- again, I was impressed by her courage.
But our hike was due to end soon, and as we crested another rise, we came to the wonderful vista that was Mrs Patty’s village, and a little further on, her own home.
The first thing I noticed as we got close was the smell. Forgive me if this seems insensitive, but there was a huge pig sty (literally) with some very generously proportioned piggies living within it, including a few piglets. Now normally anything that meets the vague description of ‘animal’ immediately gains my rapt attention, but the wall of stench- poop, rotten vegetables, dog farts- it all seemed to be mixed in there, and we paused for barely a moment to see them before quickly shuffling on, Jana trying and failing to hide the abject disgust she felt. Germans are notorious for having high expectations and she was no exception- a handy trait when I sent her into battle with a shop owner or hotelier to get us a better deal, but difficult to deal with when we stayed with humble families who saw no problems with their conditions that weren’t quite up to the ultrapreraredness level of German etiquette.
Nonetheless, we swallowed our disgust (and a little bit of bile) and carried on to the homestead. In the vietnamese style, there were no doors, just an opening into the main area (lounge) and a few different sections like the kitchen and a family room off to the sides. The floor was dirt, but there were raised sections for sleeping, kind of like a loft in a barn. It looked authentic, rustic and very homely. Plus we were far enough away from the pigs that we couldn’t smell them, our noses instead wooed by the scents of hay (which was strewn liberally around, perhaps to stop the dirt from spreading), fried foods, and animals, not in any way unpleasant.
As soon as we arrived, Mrs Patty told us to sit in the plastic chairs on the porch, and rest up while she took care of brunch. We did so gladly, spoiled with a view over a rice paddy that reached right up to our feet, and a stunning vista made up of mountains reaching out in front of us.
Jana and I chatted happily, mostly finding different ways to try to describe (and fail at describing) just how beautiful this place was. Despite having our moments of frustrations and arguments, we had reached that place of ease and comfort that comes from knowing somebody and sharing hardships and pleasures alike, kind of like slipping on a favourite pair of shoes that will always and forever be more comfortable than any new pair could ever manage. This moment was almost 4 years ago, and she and I are still very close, even if separated by a few thousand miles, chatting at least once a week and sharing our wins and losses in a friendship of support and love I deeply treasure.
I don’t remember the specifics of what we ate, except that I, as always, took a buffet as a personal challenge, and though I tried my best with every meal Mrs Patty put in front us, I could never come close to finishing, despite her encouragement that as a big boy I should eat more. She took obvious delight in cooking, and all I am left with is an impression of savoury flavors that always filled the spot to overflowing.
She had a husband and 3 children- none of which spoke any english, but were polite, deferential, and in the case of the children, endearingly naughty. Jana can probably tell you their names and approximate ages- she was always better than me at remembering names. Well, also place names. And I suppose, prices and directions and people and foods and details… ahem.
There were also a number of family dogs, which patiently allowed the children to use them as furniture, but whom I could never get enough of, despite the likelihood of getting fleas. Jana was less obsessive about animals that I was, but appreciated them enough to scratch an ear occasionally, provided it was a relatively clean ear.
The children amazed me. In many Asian cultures I have noticed that up to a certain point children are given incredible leeway- doted upon and cared for by all, but at some indeterminate point are simply expected to act like adults- helping with the chores, deferential to their parents and also taking caregiver roles for their younger siblings.
In this village, I loved (and was terrified by) the apparent lack of parental supervision of these younger ones. I lost count of the number of times I called them feral children, who were quite content to run around with the dog pack (sometimes on all fours as well) often without a shirt or pants or any scrap of clothing at all, smudged and dirty and smiling for all they were worth. These little ones would rush up, touch and jump on you and pull your hair in a friendly way, then at some unknown signal dash off again with the dogs in pursuit of some other form of entertainment.
Jana, despite her love of cleanliness, endured these children with endless patience, finding as much joy in them as I did in their dog companions. That may sound rather strange of me, particularly as I am a teacher of ten years plus experience, but I will be honest and say I was uncomfortable around the little ones. Not because of their actions, but because what I had witnessed in Thailand by some of the foreigners. These sights had jaded and changed me, and also made me hugely determined to never let any action I took to scare one of these little ones. When you have witnessed child prostitution (indeed, I volunteered in Thailand at an orphanage designed to prevent this exact thing) you have a horrible habit of thinking about what some broken, awful man might do with an unprotected child like this running about, and I sadly kept my distance. I know you don’t want to read this, and I don’t want to write it, but if I can in some small way get the message across that modern day sex slavery still exists I will take it.
Anyway, feral children and doggoes aside, we had few plans for our stay here, and were content to eat, rest, and wander about the village, eating up the sights and sounds of so different a lifestyle. I will forever believe that anyone from a first world country would benefit from spending extended time in the 3rd world, learning that the simple things- family, a good meal, companionship and hard work- are what really matter in life.
One of our wanderings brought us to a small school- as a teacher I have a sixth sense about these things- you feel a growing sense of terror and dread within about 50m of one- it's a learned sense of self preservation.
But this wee little school was complete with wooden benches, a blackboard and the usual accoutrement of extras like books and toys- surprisingly well equipped considering half the kids seemed to be running around with bare bottoms.
As we came close, we heard the sound of children playing, and came across a small group of 5-8 year old children playing a strange version of knucklebones with an assortment of knicknacks.
We watched for a moment, and then, children being children, they invited us to try. I am pleased to admit that my months of knucklebone playing to beat my sister paid off, and I was able to suitably impress a bunch of 5 year olds (this, by the way, is the secret to being a teacher- not the knucklebones thing, the ‘learning something the kids think is cool’ thing).
Jana came into her own, and she brought smiles to all the kids faces, talking to them, failing miserably at knucklebones to their high amusement, and taking them onto her knee as they felt her long hair and smooth, strangely coloured skin.
I am a bit of a clucky person I’ll admit, and though we had decided not to cross that boundary between friends and friends with awesome benefits, I was very drawn to her in that moment- seems I’m destined (or cursed) to be a daddy one day.
We took a lot of selfies and fun shots with the kids, who loved seeing themselves on our phones. It was an innocent, gentle afternoon, and I loved it.
As the sun began to drop in the sky, we grudgingly said goodbye to the wee ones and wandered slowly back, stopping (Jana’s unending patience for my tangents notwithstanding) to watch and photograph a group of chickens that to me, looked majestic with the background of a gorgeous rice paddy mountain in the background. The cock was huge, massive head and deep throated, strong and wide as my handspan… sorry, couldn’t resist.
Back at the home, and after a huge dinner, we settled in for the night, after scrounging about for a charger for Jana’s phone and making sure she had enough extra blankets to stay warm. I will never understand how I can sweat my ass off climbing a hill while a girl stays cool and dry, yet when it comes to night time I’m a veritable boiler of heat while the ladies freeze- life is weird.
Settled comfortably and trying our best to ignore the mosquitos trying desperately to join us for a late night drink (I had valiantly hunted down and killed any stragglers that had made it inside our safety net) we slowly drifted off, whispering softly of silly things and filled with the happy glow of an evening spent in good company in paradise.
Breakfast the next day was a massive stack of pancakes (I LOVE pancakes, dairy intolerance be damned- Jana already knew I was gassy, she could deal) and a short dialogue with Mrs Patty about where we would need to go to wander back to civilization.
Bags packed, bellies full, we sadly said goodbye to our family, promising a wonderful review (which Jana meticulously handled- I was too lazy to get things like that done) and started down the pathway towards the nearest transport hub.
Jana, as always, was a little worried (translation: interminably paranoid) about us making our bus and getting the schedule right, so as we passed a home that looked large and well equipped, we would check for wifi. An interesting fact is that almost every wifi code in Vietnam is some combination of 0-9, with some crazy mavericks thinking outside the box and going for the elusive 0-8 passcode instead. Needles to say, we managed to find several useful wifi spots and confirmed we were on the right path and timetable.
I love walking, it is slow enough to really see the world as it rolls by, and we were blessed with the sights of ordinary Vietnamese farming life- buffalo drawn carts gradually giving way to scooters and the eventual rise of traffic like cars and the gloriously bedecked trucks.
As we wandered, Jana asked me to sing, and being born blessed without the restrictions of any kind of shame or decorum, I happily obliged. We sung through my favourite playlist, her favourites (which included rapping panda’s for some reason) and I was happy to see that my complete abandon of care about who saw or heard us encouraged her to sing occasionally too. As always is the case, she had a decent voice but was too ashamed to use it. I love that my silliness will encourage others to drop some walls and boundaries, and it has only once got me arrested by police, so I think it is well worth the effort (that by the way, happened in Thailand, and is another story for another time- not nearly as exciting as it sounds).
We ended our tour of Sapa far sooner than we would have wished, but the tiny snippet of life in the hills left us both wanting more, and agreed that one day we would return, perhaps even t Mrs Patty's piggy front doorstep, and spend real time up there in them thar hills.
I love Vietnam- the colours, sights, sounds and smells are unlike anywhere else, and you can find whatever yearnings your heart may have appeased by it’s simple but flavourful nature. Go, enjoy, and should you tour Sapa, definitely treat yourself to the breakfast pancakes Mrs Patty puts on.
Comments