Time out of mind

Wednesday, 07/11/2012 – 146 A.D.

Neither of us had much of a hangover from the previous evening, but we still started the day slowly. Again. A lot of my time that morning was spent reading up on China and all that we need to be aware of. Already we are about to enter another country! Two, if you count Hong Kong (which we do).

Come the afternoon we went down to the market just north east of the hotel. My mission was to by some more moody shades, and to see whatever else was on offer. It was an odd place, with 90% of the stalls over the three levels selling material and clothing. Not much room to walk between stalls either – maybe they like it that way so it’s easy for you to break something and buy it by default. The oddest thing of all was that not one person encouraged us to have a look at their wares. Normally we can’t move for the cries of, “Hello, buy something?” but at this place they just weren’t interested. Maybe it was a locals-only market and we’d brought ill fortune by setting our foreign feet inside? Don’t they know I’m the Good Luck Jimmy???

I bought some shades with ‘Porsche’ written in the corner of one of the lenses. The guy on the stall was a real piece of work and didn’t want to haggle with me…he didn’t want to look at me either, lest Bad Luck Jimmy cast the evil eye upon him! I managed to get a measly 10,000 dong off the price. We then went across town to book our tickets for the water puppet show that evening. Yes, after the disappointment in Saigon, we were finally getting to go!

There was an amusing moment across the road by the entrance to some kind of temple that sits out on the lake. A couple of Japanese tourists approached Tim with camera in hand. He assumed they wanted him to take a picture of them, but no, they wanted to have their picture taken with him! First the girl posed with him, giving it the thumbs-up to the camera, then the guy. Unfortunately I was staring off into space at that point, so I missed it. Our theory is that they thought he was some famous celebrity, but we can’t for the life of us think who!

Further down the road, behind the statue of someone called Ly Thaito, we found a flat, paved area where we could have a reasonably quiet game of licky-kicky. We managed about three minutes before a couple of young lads joined us for the craic. I’d say their skill level was a bit better than us, but a few metres away were some proper courts marked out and with nets where the real experts were playing. Honestly, these guys were good! Their rallies went on for ages and I finally realised that it’s all in the flick of the leg, none of this ridiculous all over body posturing that I do is needed to get it right. I contemplated this as I sat down knackered and sweaty afterwards.

On the way back alongside the lake, we heard sirens ringing out. The road was clear and policemen were everywhere. Along came motorbikes, security-style vans and long cars that rich folks get driven around in. Even an ambulance was tagging along, just in case. Whose motorcade was this?  Later that evening at the water puppet show, I found myself sitting next to a couple of Americans, who were keen to hear who had won the result of their election. They then told me that the motorcade was for Russian prime minister and ex-president, Dimitri Medvedev. Kind of ironic really, because we were at a puppet show, and it is often remarked that Medvedev was a puppet president for Putin.

So yes, at 20:00 that evening we went to take in the infamous water puppet show, which has been performed for generations upon generations and requires a minimum of three years training for each puppeteer. I was surprised to discover that you don’t actually get to see the puppeteers themselves, well not until the end when they come out for their round of applause. It was quite ingenious the way they operated them, though the themes of traditional courtship and rice cultivation, backed by some almost-Celtic sounding music was at times a little tough to stick with. Especially when it’s warm, dark and you’ve just had a large Tiger beer. But all in all it was a good little show and I’m glad I finally got to see it.

Thursday, 08/11/2012 – 147 A.D.

Fifth day in Hanoi, and I’ve run out of things to do! Sure, there are museums, but I can’t really be bothered at this point. Tim and I had agreed well in advance that this would be a What Carcass Day, but with him hanging out at the hotel if he fancied it and me going on my wanderings. But where to wander?

I was asked whether we were going to do some Couchsurfing in Asia and, while it’s still a possibility, it may be a bit difficult to arrange. That said, I figured I might be able to meet up with someone on the Couchsurfing website and just hang out with them for a while, buy them lunch or whatever, and get to see the bits of Hanoi that aren’t listed in the guidebooks. And so I sent a few emails out a couple of days ago and got some interest. I picked the first person who replied and thought the day was sorted. Then the night before she emailed to say she had the caught the flu, didn’t want to infect me, etc. Ha – you can’t kid a kidder! She probably bottled it, and who can blame her? Thing is, I’d had to blow out three other people because I’d decided to hook up with her and there was no time to arrange anything else. Cheers, luv! (And apologies if you really did have the flu!)

And so I spent the afternoon wandering and writing, taking the odd snap here and there. I walked around the whole of Truch Bach lake, said a little prayer at the Temple of Literature and went by the Red River which runs through the city (not the most picturesque body of water ever visited!) It was a shame there wasn’t much more to do, but even if there was, I probably wouldn’t have been up for it anyway. Maybe it’s because we’ve been here five days, or maybe it’s because we’ve been on the road nearly five months, but I think I’ve crossed a spiritual marker since we’ve been in the capital of Vietnam. When I first started this trip, the thought of returning home was alien to me – a million metaphorical miles away. But now…now we’re into November and, given what we’ve been through, lasting a month and a bit is nothing for us. Don’t get me wrong, there are things I’m looking forward to back home…some things that I am REALLY looking forward to…but now that the clock is properly ticking, I feel like I need to do more. But of what, I don’t know!

Maybe I just had a great time in Vietnam and I’m sad to leave? Before coming here it wasn’t at the top of my countries-to-visit list, but I’ve had a ball, despite cockroaches, bug spray, mini migraine and the odd power cut. The prices are great, the weather is decent, the communism isn’t a problem, the women are the prettiest I’ve encountered in all of Indochina and it’s easy to have fun and a laugh here. Cambodia was good, but Vietnam was even better, and I’m sure it’s got a fine future ahead of it. And what about my future? Nyeargh, I’ll be fine, just need to move on and keep myself focused on the present. The future can wait for a while! It is unwritten, after all.

And coming up we have two sleeper trains in a row as we cross the border into China and head for Hong Kong. Bring it on, baby! Let’s go Grayboys!

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Tuesday, 06/11/2012 – 145 A.D.

This young man turned 32 today.

In my mind he will always be about four years old, but then again he is looking pretty well for his age. It’s strange having your birthday in a far off land, I still recall how weird it was in Sydney. Would being in Hanoi be any weirder for Our Kid? I was able to get him the obligatory card, though it hadn’t been easy to locate during our What Carcass Day back in Phnom Penh. I don’t think they really do birthday cards in Cambodia, let alone with the words in English! Unfortunately the hat was not a present, it belonged to the cleaning lady.

I am fast getting used to the above views. Give me music, a beer and a balcony and I am happy as can be. Spent quite a lot of time up there last night, watching the Old Quarter quieten down. Come 23:00 it’s pretty much deserted down there, but they certainly rise early in this country. It took us a while to get going today, maybe we’re just taking things slowly because we know we’ve got three nights still to go in this city. But later on we’d have a go at painting it red….if we ever got going, that is!

Eventually we did, and we ended up at the mausoleum of that great Vietnamese hero, Ho Chi Minh. Saigon in the south may have his name, but in Hanoi they still have the man himself, permanently laid out in state, Lenin-style. There are lots of visitors who come here from all over Vietnam and many rules that must be obeyed, such as no folding your arms when inside the mausoleum. However, we knew beforehand that we weren’t going to get inside to see HCM because during October and November every year he is taken away somewhere for “maintenance”. Quite what that involves kept us guessing over breakfast – they change the formaldehyde? Check the oil? Straighten his alloys? It was a shame really, because in a slightly macabre way I was quite keen to see a corpse, simply because I’ve never seen one before. If there comes a time in my life when I simply must see someone in a cadaverous state, I’d prefer to have forewarning, rather than it be a grisly surprise. Umm, sorry for the dark tone so early on in the post!

Above is the nearby One Pillar Pagoda, so named because… This is actually a reconstruction of the original - another building knocked over by the `orrible French as they moved on out of the Nam. The guidebook says you either love or hate the One Pillar Pagoda. I thought it was okay. And it was around this time that I realised I had broken my second pair of sunglasses on this trip. Oh well, they were only ever meant to be a cheap replacement, though I’ve only had them since Siem Reap. And despite what was written on the lens in gold writing, I don’t think they were genuine D & G shades.

This is West Lake, quite a large body of water, the far side of which is either shrouded in mist or smog. We were quite a way from the regular tourist haunts and it showed when we tried to find somewhere for lunch. Hardly any English was spoken and I regret that my attempts to learn get-by-in-Vietnamese have somewhat stalled. At one place when we asked to see the menu the waitress (with a face like a smacked arse) simply threw it onto the table behind her, expecting us to go fetch – needlessly to say, we kept moving. In fact, most of the places only did drinks, no food, so by the time we found somewhere even a quarter decent, we took our seats. After ordering a rice-based dish each, the waitress communicated to us that rice was currently off the menu – she wrote down “the end” on her notepad and thrust it under my nose. Therefore we played it safe and ordered a ham and pineapple pizza between us. Now, let me take you back to September of 1996…

[James is in his university halls and has grown sick of pot noodles. Therefore he phones the local pizza delivery place.]

PIZZA PERSON: Hello, Lucky’s Pizza?

JAMES: Hi, can I get a ham and pineapple pizza please. No onions.

PIZZA PERSON: Ham and pineapple don’t come with onions, mate.

…and ever since that day I have found that person’s words to be true. Until now. What was brought before my brother and I may have had pineapple, it may have had cheese, it did not have tomato, it didn’t appear to contain any ham, but my goodness was it stuffed FULL with bloody onions! It was like the chef had an obsession with sneaking them into every nook, crack and crevice within the dough! Obviously the Birthday Boy had no problem with this, but instead of enjoying a heavy lunch I ended up with a light snack. And stinky onion breath! Yuck!

We had wanted to have a game of Shuttlecock at some point, now re-christened by us as “licky-kicky” (don’t ask, long story), but we couldn’t find anywhere private enough. Not surprising really, given that we’re in the middle of a capital city! Besides, we had to be heading back to skype our parents at 4 p.m. our time (9 a.m. UK time). There was just time for Tim to approach a woman with a conical hat and ask if he could buy one, before turning away and running off in embarrassment upon being told only women wear them.

Not really. That said, we have seen some men wearing them – Western tourists who know no better. In those cases I rechristened them “comical hats” – geddit??? We got home, spoke to mum and dad, then prepared to go out for a few drinks….or rather a few more drinks than normal. We’d done our research online as to the best places to go in the city, but first we had to pose for the traditional pre-going-out-and-poncing-about photo.

As it was Tim’s birthday, it was Tim’s choice where we ate, drank…and whatever else we got up to. He’d picked out a small restaurant called Gecko a few buildings down from our hotel for an evening meal. I’m afraid that once I saw the menu I committed the cardinal sin and ordered a hot cheese, chicken and bacon baguette, i.e. Western food. But Ho Chi Minh did it taste GOOOOOOOD!!! Once it was down we headed for the corner of Loung Ngoc Quyen and Ta Hien in the heart of the Old Quarter. At first we didn’t find it so, with the twin pressures of bladder and thirst on the attack, we ducked into a nearby Irish bar. In fact, the only vaguely Irish thing in it was a tiny beermat behind the bar in the design of the Irish flag. Apart from that it could have been any other kind of bar in south east Asia. And, as you can see from the picture below, I was really firing up for a big night at this point:

We eventually found the road with all of Hanoi’s supposedly best bars on, or maybe just the most popular. Or maybe just those mostly frequented by tourists like us. The ones we visited were okay, but nothing fancy. Then again, this was no Khao San Road like in good old Bangkok. Things seemed a tad more civilised and there was no chance of being invited to a ping pong show, which was kind of a relief. By the time we reached the final bar at the end of this strip (we didn’t go in `em all!) we were feeling pretty merry and lost in 1,001 conversations about everything and nothing. Suddenly we heard a siren in the alley, followed by a loudspeaker. Glancing over our shoulders, we saw the police striding sternly into the establishment. Uh-oh! What is this – some kind of raid? Our passports are currently at the Indian embassy! How much are we going to have to bride them with? And what are we doing wrong in the first place? Play it cool, Grayboy, just be polite and give them no trouble. Suddenly the barmaid comes over and clarifies the situation – it’s simply gone midnight and all the bars in the Old Quarter have to close up at this time. Seems they’re quite strict at enforcing this rule. I worryingly grip the top of my bottle of barely touched Biere Larue and ask, “I can take this outside with me, can I?” She says I can (with the concealed subtext of “Just get going, English Boy!”)

[Danger lurks in dark shop doorways...]

I'd done my research and knew that there was one place in Hanoi that stays open past midnight - Bar Phuc Tan in the area known as...errr, Phuc Tan. Okay, so this place had a bit of a trashy reputation, but at this point I wasn't bothered by that, just fancied a nightcap. And I guess curiosity killed the cat (if only it would kill the rat as well!) We knew where the Phuc Tan area was on the map and had a semi-vague idea of where the bar was, and it wasn't too much of a walk. However, we had to cross a large flyover which acted like an unofficial divider between the Old Quarter and Phuc Tan. There were no footbridges across, so initially we were a bit stumped. Then we noticed a couple of shady characters, picking their way through various holes in the walls, so we did exactly the same, keeping our distance behind them.

I have no idea what Phuc Tan is like by day, but by night it was pretty damn grim. Gone was the warmth and charm of the Old Quarter, this place looked like it was still recovering from the war, make that a series of wars. The first streets were virtually deserted and eerily quiet, but also badly lit, so it was difficult to see what (if anything was lurking in the shadows). Obviously I’d had a few cheeky beers by this point, but it’s times like this that you suddenly find what alcoholics refer to as “a moment of clarity”. This was not a place for two foreigners to be wandering blindly around. The guidebook had described Hanoi as “a dangerous city by eastern and western standards”, but during the three days we’d been in town I hadn’t felt threatened at any moment. To be honest, since I’ve been travelling there have only been a few moments when I have been slightly concerned for my safety and all of those were way, way back in the USA. But Phuc Tan was different and I found myself striding more confidently than a drill sergeant, with shoulders held as high and wide as was physically possible, and my “come near me and I’ll smash your face in eyes” fixed firmly forward. After a few minutes of aimless wandering, people started taking an interest in our presence, calling out, “Hello!”, which they normally do, but now we would rather they didn’t. A dishevelled old woman sitting on the floor asked us where we were going and I replied, “Phuc Tan Club.” She turned and pointed down the alleyway beside her, intimating it was just down there. We both craned our necks around the corner and realised we couldn’t see the end of the alley, nor could we hear any music. “Yeah, cheers,” I said with big smile, not caring if she understood me or not, “we’re gonna walk around for a bit more and then we’ll go down there.”

We never went down there. Instead we decided to knock the nightcap on the head and went back across the flyover to the Old Quarter. Sense of adventure is one thing, but I believe the reason we’ve got so far on this trip without being too badly scathed is because we do know when it’s time strap on the old sensible head. The hard partying until dawn would have to wait until another time. Besides, Tim had enjoyed his birthday sufficiently, even though it wasn’t technically his birthday anymore so it didn’t matter what he thought - normal service resumed!

Phuc tan? Phuc that!

Manic Monday

Monday, 05/11/2012 – 144 A.D.

Bonfire night in Vietnam!!!!! They don’t tend to celebrate it.

Guess what was the first thing we saw this morning as we left the room? Rattus norvegicus! Or it could have been rattus rattus. Either way, Tim stopped dead in his tracks at the top of the stairs and pointed it out before it scurried away into a hole in the wall. Is that a good thing to witness within the walls of a hotel? So much for the excellent reviews on Booking.com!

[Stock photo.]

[Pointing out the hole it scurried into.]

We had a couple of jobs to sort out this morning, the first of which was booking our train passage out of Vietnam and into China. This had to be done before we got our India visa because in order to get the tickets we had to show the China visas in our passports. Obviously to get our India visas we will have to surrender our passports for several working days. Man I am sooo getting sick of visas and will get down on my knees and thank The Road once they’re all sorted!

We arrived at the main Hanoi train station at 08:45 and were told to proceed to counter number 7 to book tickets for trains to China. Counter number 7 was the only one of the ten counters that was not staffed. We took a seat to wait, presuming that someone would be along at 09:00. At 08:59 I realised that I had rather stupidly forgotten to bring my passport photos with me, so I had to leggit to the hotel and back, which took a good half an hour. Prior to this the weather had been perfect temperature – neither warm nor cool,  but now I was sweating cobs and normal service was resumed.

By the time I got back to the station, Tim told me that a woman at counter number 7 had been, then gone. Rather than sit around like plebs, we decided to stand at the counter in the hope that someone would see us lingering. It was another fifteen minutes before a woman arrived, though she then asked us to wait five minutes while she went and fed the cat that was hanging around. By the time she got to the other side of the glass, I was envisioning the Indian embassy closing its doors just as we rushed up to them.

[We're thinking of hiring the station's cat to deal with the rat infestation at the hotel.]

The woman was obviously the international train specialist and her English was reasonable, though I had to ask her to repeat everything for clarification, as well as having to bend down a couple of feet to shove my ear through the hole in the glass. There is only one daily train out of Hanoi to Nanning, so there was no confusion with that, we just had to tell her which day we wanted it and whether we wanted top or bottom bunks. Then she asked for payment of $40 each – I quickly did a calculation in my head – 21,000 dong to the dollar, so 21,000 x 40  =  840,000 VND. Yet the website I had been looking on suggested the price was 740,000 VND. Once again we were being diddled and not by a market trader, by someone in a uniform who worked for a nationalised industry! I wrote down what I thought should be the price and asked her to provide it in dong. Probably realising that I wasn’t a foreigner to be messed around, she quoted a price of 705,000 VND. Great – even cheaper than the website said! She didn’t half have a face on her as she wrote out the tickets though.

The Indian embassy was relatively plain sailing after that. We showed our completed forms and were told to take a seat. There were only a couple of people in the queue before us, but unfortunately one of them had about thirty applications with her! She explained later they were for employees of her company – not sure if they were heading over to India on business or for one big jolly. Anyway, she didn’t hold us up for too long and soon we had surrendered our passports, along with $63 each - $20 penalty for not applying for them in our own country. Well how could we? An India visa gives you six months from the date of issue, but we’re travelling for over six months and flying out of India! Do the maths, dude!

After all of that rushing around in the morning, we took it fairly easy in the afternoon. The Old Citadel has, as its name suggests, been around for a long, long time. Built about a thousand years ago and acting as the seat of various kings, the nasty French needlessly destroyed a lot of it shortly before being booted out of the country in the 1950s. Up until 2009 what remained of it was used as an army base and off limits to visitors. Today the majority of it seemed to be used for a Miss Hanoi shoot and everywhere we walked, especially on the higher levels, we were unable to get out of shots as camera lenses pointed our way. Wouldn’t it be funny if Vietnam’s latest edition of Vogue featured a gorgeous woman in traditional dress on the front, with a dopey-looking English bloke slightly out of focus in the background, desperately trying to hide behind an ancient archway? It could happen.

And nothing much more happened today. But then again, no news is good news, so they say. Not sure who "they" are, but I'm sure they're very wise.

See you tomorrow!

Hit the north

Sunday, 04/11/2012 – 143 A.D.

By the time I had finished watching the second half of Apocalypse Now on the night train, I’d had to eject three cockroaches from our sleeping berth. Or maybe it was the same one that kept finding its way back in. Mercifully, it/they were only half the size of the adults, but they have a knack of crawling halfway up your leg before you realise they are there. When it came to lights out time, I gave up worrying about who I was sharing the sleeping quarters with. Double mercifully we had not been joined by any people in the top bunks, but down on the bottom it was pretty hot and to begin with it was too warm even to get into my sleep sheet. And, as I went to switch out the light, I saw some kind of beetle making its way up the other side of the curtain, a little crawling silhouette just a few inches from where my head would lie against the pillow. But like I said, I’d given up worrying which kind of insects crawled across my naked upper torso as I slept, so I give the little blighter free rite of passage.

Sleep came here and there, but only in brief bursts to begin with. At one point the door to the berth was opened and someone looked inside – couldn’t be sure if it was a railway employee checking who was inside, or a member of the public gone to the wrong berth. Or the right one, if you know what I mean. It suddenly occurred to me that probably anything goes on this train at night, such as light-fingered people sneaking into berths to lift what goods they can from the deeper sleepers. Therefore I placed a plastic bottle of water on top of the door handle, so every time the door was pulled back, the bottle would fall, make a noise, and wake us if we were in slumbers. Thing is, I didn’t really need the bottle there, as no matter how quietly that door was slid open, my eyes were suddenly open as well. In fact, after a while it became extremely annoying having to pick up the bottle each time and place it back on the handle. At one point we stopped at a station for about 15 minutes and there was all kinds of noise in the corridor. The door to our berth must have been opened at least four times, in almost every case by a railway employee. On the final occasion I actually shouted out, “Will you stop opening the f***ing door!”

After that it was alright `til morning. At about 09:00 we both spluttered awake as yet another railway employee slid open the door with a couple of locals behind him. Guess he was trying to get them to fill up the berth, but they took one look at us and walked away – can’t blame `em really. A couple of hours later and we were pulling into Hanoi, capital city of Vietnam. In my mind I’d imagined it wouldn’t be much different to Saigon, i.e. large urban sprawl of motorbikes, small plastic chairs on the street and dodgy-looking fruit sold on every corner. The dialect in the north is very different to that of the south, but that wasn’t something that would trouble us any more than usual!

We’re staying at the Hanoi Eclipse Hotel. As we’re here for five nights we figured we’d go for a deluxe room, though it’s not the best we’ve had by any standards, but you have to make exceptions when you’re in the bigger cities. It has a small balcony, and Tim is already concerned about the tweeting birds in the cages on the next balcony along. Surely he likes the sounds of birds tweeting first thing in the morning? “Yeah,” he replied, “but it’s at all other hours of the day and night that I’m worried about.”

It could be because we had slept on a night train, or could be long-term travellers’ fatigue catching up with us, but after a pretty unmemorable lunch at the café on the corner, we camped out for the latter part of the afternoon in the hotel, supposedly researching where to go in Hanoi, but really just sitting still for a bit. The hotel’s location is excellent – right in the centre of the Old Quarter area of the city - and most of the things to see are easily walkable from our base. But even without going anywhere, I have always been a fan of leaning over the edge of balconies and watching the world pass by beneath me. As night came down, I went out and stuck my neck over the edge to take in the sights and sounds and before I knew it 20 minutes had flashed by. Tim was pleased to know that the bird cages next door have been covered over to keep their occupants quiet.

Hoan Kiem Lake is a short walk and it’s the type of place where people go to stroll on a pleasant evening. It was a pleasant evening, not warm enough to build up a walking glow, but a few degrees lower and the word “chilly” may enter the vocabulary…the first time since Melbourne. Sorry to speak like that when I know the readers from the UK are currently reaching for the electric blankets of an evening!

By the time we’d walked around for a bit, our appetites arrived, and we found a small place with quite a range of dishes on offer. It’s good to try new things, but even with healthy appetites, there are some dishes that will never, ever be sampled...

Dedicated follower of fashion

Friday, 02/11/2012 – 141 A.D.

A quiet day in Hoi An today, dear readers, with very little to report. Tim went down to the tailors’ to check that his new suit fitted alright and I later met up with him at an eatery close to the hotel, a little like “doing lunch”. Over this lunch he told me how the suit fitted fine and it was already packed-up and ready to be sent back home at a very reasonable rate, actually arriving back in the UK in three weeks, not three months as was previously thought. And then I cracked – why wasn’t I getting a made-to-measure suit for myself??? Well now I was, and I gobbled down my lunch and bombed down to the tailor's with the hope of getting the same deal before it was too late. And I almost managed it. Because I’m taller than my Bro, I had to pay an extra 10 dollars to cover the extra material needed and the owner was not budging on that one. Oh well, it’s a small price to pay for being six foot three! And so I got myself measured up in all of the right (and possibly a couple of the wrong) places and we shook on the deal. I go back and see “Kim” tomorrow at 11:00 for the (hopefully) final fit-up. Our train leaves Da Nang at 16:50 so there won’t be much time to take things in or let them out, as the case may be.

By the time I’d got back to the hotel, Tim had hired a bicycle to go to the beach. I had considered going with him, but got the impression that it was time for a bit of a What Carcass Moment, which was fine by me. And how did I productively use this extra time to myself in which I could accomplish 101 different things? Had a bath. Second one in three days. It was okay, but you know when it’s warm, but not quite as hot as you would have liked it? Yeah, you’ve been there. Everyone has.

Our evening was dominated by completing the dreaded India Visa application. It’s not quite as probing as the Chinese one, but there’s more than enough questions to keep you guessing. Plus you have to take a picture of your passport photo and upload it onto the form, but with perfectly square dimensions to the photo and, as you know, they come rectangular as standard. But now we think we’ve got it done, printed out, and we just have to take the documentation down to the embassy in Hanoi. Tune in for that one, I’m sure it’ll be a belter of a post.

[Bloody awful, isn't it??? Must have had some bad pizza the night before.]

This evening in Hoi An was unique in that it did not rain once. The Old Town is a fantastic place to hang out when it’s dry, serene and coloured by Chinese lanterns all around. I had no need of the umbrella I’d borrowed from the hotel, but it worked reasonably well as a posing prop. Just wish I could have done it while wearing the new whistle-and-flute to really complete the picture postcard from sleepy old Hoi An. 

Saturday, 03/11/2012 – 142 A.D.

The day started badly when I knocked my morning’s anti-malarial onto the floor, then went to wash it in the sink and dropped it down the plughole. Lucky I’ve got a few spare.

After three days of grey skies, cool air and rain, the sun decided to shine down on Hoi An once more. This would be the day upon which we would be leaving town. After getting soaked through on his bicycle ride to the beach yesterday, Tim was not impressed by the clear blue skies. And I wasn’t exactly enamoured with the increased temperature as come 11:00 I was on my way down to Hoang Kim tailors to try on my suit, which is never as much fun when you’re sweating cobs.

It wasn’t much fun either when I put it on. Sure, the material was great and the colour was fine, but I took one look at myself in the mirror and realised just how thin I am! Bending down would not be possible in these pants! Nor was there so much as a centimetre of give around the derriere, which never makes me feel comfortable. The jacket was too tight as well, so overall I wasn’t exactly contented. However, Kim said that she would get it all sorted for me and told me to come back for 13:00.

The rest of today’s agenda was as follows – check out of hotel, get lunch, buy supplies, get from Hoi An to Da Nang, board overnight train to Hanoi. The train left Da Nang at 16:50, so this setback with the tailoring wasn’t a huge problem, given it was a maximum of 45 minutes drive to Da Nang. You may remember us coming in to Hoi An from Da Nang on the nightmare local bus that charged us extra on account of us being foreign. To avoid any more tense situations on this leg, we decided to cut our losses and see if we could find a taxi who would take us to Da Nang for 200,000 dong. We’d read on internet forums that this was possible.

I got back to the hotel at about 11:15 and Tim told me the power had been off since 11:00. Oh well, so we can’t watch TV for the last few minutes before check out, no big deal, we’ll have a game of cards. The power was still off when we took our bags down to reception and due to them having no credit card facilities working from the lack of power, we had to pay for our stay in cash, which we don’t usually do. But again, this was no big deal.

About halfway between our hotel and the Old Town (where all the tailors are) is a small place we had lunch at yesterday, called Treats. It’s nothing fancy, and never busy, but in an ideal spot for us to make camp while I go back to Kim’s to get the suit sorted. So we sat down to order lunch (carbonara – no onions, no mushrooms, just lots of yum-yum!) Figuring that she’d be grateful for getting two days business out of us, we asked the owner if she could arrange for a taxi to take us to Da Nang train station for 200,000 dong. She had no problem with this and was happy to call it for 14:00 as we requested. Everything going smoothly at this point.

After eating, I left Tim at the table with the bags and went back to Kim’s. There wasn’t much going on when I arrived, apart from all the staff sitting down on the floor eating lunch. “No power!” Kim told me and it suddenly hit me that the whole town must have been affected by the power cut. How can my suit be altered if the sewing machine doesn’t work? Now I was starting to get a little nervous. “When will it come back on?” I asked. “They say maybe two,” she replied. I glanced at my watch. “Who says this?” I got no answer, instead she just said something to one of the staff. I explained the situation, i.e. that I will be leaving at 14:00 and the suit needs to be sorted before then. “It’s okay,” she says confidently, “I make changes and send suit.” Unfortunately this does not fill me with confidence – we raced through the whole trying-on this morning and despite the woman being a professional tailor (a fact that she reminds me of several times during this discussion), I’m not prepared to chance it that she can work her magic from seeing me for two minutes this morning. It is supposed to be made-to-measure, not stitch-and-hope! Because if come December I open that package back in Southport, put on the suit and it makes me look like a beanpole who’s been around the world, then this deal sooo wasn’t worth doing. How the hell can there be a power cut in the whole town the only time I’ll ever buy a suit while abroad???

Things become a little tense in the tailors and I find myself having to think on my feet. I agree to come back at 14:00, with the hope that the power will be back on and we can make the alterations, but I’m sceptical. Fifteen minutes later and I’m still fuming as I get back to the café and Tim is patiently reading his book. I gruffly tell him the situation and he runs through the options with me:

1.      The power comes back on by 14:00, the suit gets altered accordingly and posted to the UK and everyone lives happily ever after. The ideal solution.

2.      The power doesn’t come back on and I leave the suit to the mercy of Kim’s alterations, praying that it fits fine when I try it on in the UK. The risky solution

3.      The power doesn’t come back on and I take the suit from Kim as is and try to get it sorted in Hanoi, then posted back to the UK. The more expensive and hassle-filled solution.

Whichever solution came to fruition, I would have to rearrange the taxi for 15:00, which should still give us plenty of time to get to Da Nang, but any later and we’d be cutting it fine. If we don’t get on that train we can’t simply board the next one that comes along, not without paying for another ticket. No refunds – harrumph.

I called the café owner and asked if she knew when the power would be coming back on. In response she picked up her phone and called someone, which seemed a bit strange. As Tim correctly surmised, she was in fact calling the taxi to get it to arrive earlier (she hadn’t a clue what I’d meant when I said “electricity” and pointed to the fan on the wall, then made a brrrrrr noise.). I had to go, and I left Tim to rearrange things with the taxi.

Back in Old Town, the clock approached 14:00 as I made my way down the narrow, winding streets – the third time I made that hot, sweaty walk today. Oh and it would have been extremely helpful if Tim had told me that the bicycles were provided by our hotel free of charge - could have saved me a few litres of perspiration there, not to mention time! Cheers, Our Kid! But my mood was good when I saw that some of the shops had lights on and fans whirring away. One café owner was very pleased that I entered his establishment, then his smile faded as he realised I really did only want to check that the lights had come on. Was my luck changing and the sewing machine would finally be able to work again?

Nope, no change of luck. The power was still out at Kim’s. WHY?????? I guess I was lying to myself when I sat down and decided to wait in case it did return in the next half an hour, but every minute that ticked by was less and less time to get things sorted. Resigned to some kind of unlucky fate, I stopped being edgy and tetchy and just accepted with a half-smile that Lady Luck had shafted me today. At least Kim and I were able rebuild bridges after the tension of earlier and I could tell that she did genuinely want to fix the suit for me. She sympathised with my ill fortune, saying that the power goes down in the area where the hotel is all the time, but never in Old Town.

Suddenly a man on a motorbike brought my suit pants into the shop and Kim suggested I try them on again. They felt exactly the same, but at least now, in the quiet of the afternoon, I was able to properly assess what was wrong with the dimensions and what needed doing. Kim duly took notes and agreed with everything I said, e.g. “I know I am a thin person, but I don’t necessarily want to look like a thin person.” I then asked if I could try the jacket on again. Kim said it was at “home” having the lining fitted, but after a bit more persuasion she sent a minion off to bring it and ten minutes later we repeated the same process we’d been through with the pants. Now I at least felt sure in my mind that I had properly communicated my wishes. Okay, so I wasn’t going to get those changes made while I was still in Hoi An, but sometimes you just have to realise that you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes…you just might find…you get what you need. And yes, that line is from a song!

And so I left Kim’s and headed back to the café…again! I’d told her that if she did the business with these suits that chances are we would want to get some more made further down the line and shipped to the UK so she should hang onto our specific dimensions. She said that she did that all the time for people. I was sincere in my request, but it also seemed like a good way to ensure that the goods turned up – professional reputation and all that. Tim was still at the café, as was the taxi driver who’d turned up at 14:00 as per the original request. Tim told me the guy had tried to get 300,000 dong, but Grayboy #2 kept it at a cool 220,000. And as we got into the car, I realised that this wasn’t a taxi driver at all, simply the brother of the café owner giving us a lift to the station for some extra cash on the side. But who cares? It beats riding on the Xenophobic Bus Service!

Da Nang is not the prettiest of towns, more a place to pass through. And they have no supermarkets or mini-marts, but I won’t bore you with the crap snack food Tim and I had to buy for our evening meal and breakfast on the train. Speaking of the train, we entered our four berth sleeper to find the two bunks above us to be empty. And they are still empty at time of writing, two hours into the journey. Do we think we’ll get away with having the whole berth to ourselves for the entire 16 hour trip? Ha! We learnt a long time ago never to get so optimistic! Anyway, after looking at the collection of creepy-crawlies scuttling about under the table that sits between our pillows, you could argue that we’re already not alone.

Sharp dressed man

Thursday, 01/11/2012 – 140 A.D.

Hoi An: the difference a decent hotel room makes…I woke up feeling like a million dong. That’s about 30 quid, but it’ll do. Breakfast was fine – nothing too great to report there – and we filled up our laundry bags for collection later that evening. So far, so normal.

In fact, it was on the whole a very normal day. The main threat was more rain. I’m not sure if it’s the tail end of that storm from the Phillippines, or whether Hoi An is going through a rainy patch, but the clouds were grey and the air was a little chilly. That said, I noticed that every other bloke at breakfast was wearing shorts, I was the only one in trousers. Is there some unwritten law that because you’re a western male in south east Asia you simply must wear shorts or you’ll spontaneously combust, even if the temperature is tickling ten degrees? Don’t get me wrong, you’ve seen me in shorts in enough pictures to complete several photo albums, but I’ll dress to the weather, maaaan. And so what did I decide to hit the town in? Shorts. It had warmed up a couple of degrees, so what the hell. Who wants individualism anyway? This is a socialist republic, after all...and it feels more liberal than most democracies!

As mentioned yesterday, Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is an excellent example of an old fashioned port along the Vietnamese coast, with history stretching back 2,000 years. It was made great by the Cham people, who I hadn’t heard of either, but there are also very strong Chinese influences in the streets that make up Old Town, i.e. the part near the river that is protected by UNESCO against any ker-azy new eyesores being built. Unfortunately Old Town is now a great big tourist trap, full of the kind of souvenir shops that you get all over the country, but at least the classic architecture remains untouched. It is also the tailoring capital of Vietnam, but more on that later.

The morning was spent walking around the quaint little streets of Old Town and politely telling the souvenir stall owners that we did not want to buy anything. Nor did we want to hire a motorbike. Nor a boat. But the hawkers here are smarter than in Saigon – here they walk up to you and say things along the lines of, “Hi, where are you from?” We naturally get talking and they walk along with us for a while, before revealing that they know an excellent tailors shop that can fit us out with a fantastic suit. But more on that later. For now we’re just dismayed that they don’t want to say hello and practice their English with us like our followers back in the park. In fact, it becomes particularly annoying over lunch where several young girls come to our table (with products for sale carefully concealed) and ask us where we are from. When they hear the word, “England,” they robotically say, “Lovely jublee!” Gawd knows what they come out with if you say you’re from Wales!

The morning and early afternoon were constantly interrupted by scattered showers, which unfortunately put a bit of a dampener on the whole Hoi An effect. At one point we stopped for a game of Shuttlecock, but without any disturbances from passers-by wanting to play. This helped us to realise just how appallingly bad we are at the game! Still, like most things in life, there are three things one must do to get better at Shuttlecock – 1. Practice, 2. Practice, and 3. Practice. It was lucky the rains came again to move us along, but at least the droplets cooled us down.

Now, back to tailoring. Tim has made noises ever since we arrived in Asia about getting a suit made-to-measure, so as we’re in Hoi An (the tailoring capital of the country), he decided to scope out a few shops. Well, it’s not that easy, is it? As soon as they get you inside, they think they’ve got a sale in the bag, so when Our Kid gives it the old, “Thanks – I’ll have a walk around the block and think about it,” the smiles on their little tailoring faces quickly fade. However, it was only so long before he caved in and decided to go for the full-on barter and get the best price for a top quality whistle-and-flute that an Englishman had ever achieved this side of Cambodia. It was a pure joy to watch.

[Tim conducts his clandestine haggling by the entrance so he can make a run for it if he offends by suggesting an extremely low price.]

["And suck it in..."]

["No thanks, luv, I don't go in for impromptu massages."]

[And a thousand and one potential captions beckoned...]

I’m sure Tim loved getting measured up for his suit, and while he was getting felt in all places by the assistant, I went for a quick wander to see if I could get another of those 100% cotton tops that I’m fast becoming the poster boy for, but this time in my own colour of navy blue. I failed – they either didn’t have the colour, didn’t have them in long sleeved, or didn’t understand what the Ho Chi Minh I was saying. One guy ignored my request and gave it the old, “Where are you from?” England. Liverpool. He seemed very impressed by this, then said something about how he was writing English literature and wanted me to have a look at it and make corrections where necessary. Are you serious, mate? Yes, he was, apparently. Now, this could be one of two things: 1. A similar scenario to the students in the park who are genuinely keen to learn and I may get a coffee or something stronger out of it and the chance to hang out in a traditional Vietnamese household. Or it could be 2. The classic Vietnamese scam where they get you inside, invite you to a game of cards, which is rigged, make you lose lots of money and then demand you pay up pronto. Either that or they suddenly come on wth tales of sorrow of family members needing operations and can you help them out with some cash. I may sound cynical, maybe even cruel in my words, but the guidebooks are littered with warnings for scams of this kind. So I just walked on by and wondered if Timbo had had his crotch measured yet.

Tim’s crotch was fine, as I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear. The younger Gray Brother even stopped to get a haircut on the way home – a bit too early for me right now (even though I’m getting a little shaggy at the back) so I walked on back to the hotel. Today is the 1^st November, tomorrow is naturally the 2^nd. On the 2^nd January I return to work and was required to give two months notice in writing (as per career break policy) to say I would indeed be returning on said day. This essentially constituted sending an email to my line manager. Should I do it? Should I return to work as planned? It wasn’t too late to just disappear off into the sunset and never return to an office environment ever again for as long as I lived…

…as if! Of course I sent the email! But it was difficult to put my request into “office speak” after so long writing in a free and easy style in this blog. Anyway, it’s done now – signed, sealed, delivered – I’ll be back in Smedley Hydro come 2^nd January. And the skies won’t blacken, and the Earth won’t tremble, but if the next two months are as good as the previous four have been, I’ll arrive in that office totally fulfilled.

It was a pretty quiet night after making that monumental decision. I borrowed an oversized golf umbrella from the hotel, but didn’t end up needing it. We did end up eating in a small place called Café 43 which was recommended by the website wikitravel, which is a valuable Godsend for us right now. However, when places are recommended by wikitravel (and guidebooks) it’s usually a licence for them to hike up the prices, but not in this case. Very good food at a very reasonable price (even by Vietnamese standards), and you see the beers we're about to drink in the photo below? They were down on the menu as “fresh beer” and came straight from a tap on the premises. Price? Ten pence each.

Slight taste of gravel, but didn’t have to pick any solids from between my teeth. We even stayed for a second. However, my only concern was the W.C. provided for the customers was essentially the family bathroom used by the people who ran the place…

…note the toothbrushes! What a gross invasion of privacy!