Forsaking February’s frigidity and fancying freedom from the frustrating frost finds us focused on a friendly fix of foreign frolic from a fourth foray to Vietnam, followed by a fourteenth fling in Bali, to find some ‘effing’ sunshine.
Obviously this trip isn’t about collecting new stamps in our well bruised passports, it’s simply about enjoying the wonders of wandering in a couple of endearing countries, which after so many intriguing adventures, are hardwired into our DNA. The timing of our departure is impeccable as it coincides with the coldest day in Victoria since 1948, the year I joined the planet!
With the fatiguing flights finally finished we deploy in Hanoi and queue up for an ‘On Arrival Visa’. Dressed in scowls, immigration officials are such a pain in the ass that I reckon it would be helpful for the airport to provide a resident proctologist! Finally clearing that hurtle we hail a taxi and brace ourselves for the dreaded driving ahead which is kind of like a sneeze; you know it’s coming, but can’t do anything about it.
Sure enough, driving the car like he stole it, our doofus driver perilously sails right through a red light with a cell phone tethered to his ear. Upgrading himself to professional moron, having just given up his amateur status, we have named him Mr. Pid – first name Stu!
Arriving at the Serene Hotel in Old Town it’s immediately clear the name did not come from its location. Wedged between a vegetable stand and a grisly fish shop on an alleyway only slightly wider than a piece of string, perpetual precaution is required for the snarling motorbikes zooming through it as a shortcut. However, super cheerful hotel staffs have romantically decorated our room with towels folded into swans, balloons, red rose petals, rambutan, and dragon fruit. Also there is a bottle of wine, presumably to help soothe the transportation trauma involved in getting here. Their clairvoyance is much appreciated!
Jetlagged and unable to sleep, I decide to go out for a walk, even though it’s only 5 o’clock in the morning. Roaming in the darkness without a map, I overestimate my navigational skills and become lost in an edgy area near the train station. My sense of direction is legendary; sadly the legends are about how poor it is!
My predicament flushes out the thrill gene and catapults me into a heightened state of alert and constantly ‘checking my six’. But as the sun comes up my anxiety goes down, and I find my way back to the hotel where Christine is now awake. Afflicted with a condition diagnosed as ‘smarter-than-me’, she simply shakes her head, no doubt wondering if one day while out on my errant wanderings I might actually run into my mind!
Sauntering about the hodgepodge of Hanoi we notice an excess of shops flogging ‘Kopi Luak’, or ‘Weasel Coffee’. Now I may be on ‘dangerous grounds’ here, but as a tea drinker I find this coffee sounds disgusting. Partially digested coffee beans, eaten by mammal called the Asian palm civet, are fermented as they pass through the cat’s intestines, and after defecated with other fecal matter, are collected by farmers who wash them off and continue the roasting process. Sound appealing? Thought so!
Hanoi is an evil orchestra of horns, and the habitual honkers are driving us bonkers! Let’s just say thatthis ‘Honkie’s’ suggestion would be to rename the cacophonous city to “Hornoi”, or “Honkoi”. Hell, maybe even ‘Hanoise’; as any would be a far more appropriate handle!
Vietnamese traffic is a constant soup of chaos, with fender to fender motorbikes swarming the streets like angry hornets with a busted nest. The roaring river of rubber requires a Medal of Valor mindset for those wanting to cross the street, and stepping off the curb in front of the impatient oncoming traffic we just hope our action doesn’t put us in traction!
Certain-death encounters are avoided by a Moses-like parting of traffic miraculously flowing around us like water around a rock. In some countries people still pray in the streets – and in this country they are called pedestrians!
With TET just ending we are puzzled by an abundance of motorbikes that seem to have sprouted peach and cumquat trees. Some sleuthing reveals that peach blossoms are meant to ward off evil, and orange cumquats symbolize the hopes for a family’s prosperity in the upcoming New Year. Since most families have no room to permanently keep the celebratory potted trees, once TET is over they are returned on motorbikes to garden shops to be cared for until the next trip around the sun.
Dawdling about the streets of the Old Quarter where locals go to buy everything from bamboo to buttons, we notice people feeding paper items into a burning metal barrel. The traditional Vietnamese belief is that death does not mean the end, the deceased simply move on to an afterlife where things are the same as in the living world, and therefore require their home comforts as much as the living.
Relatives buy paper effigies of needed items and set them on fire to be transferred through the smoke. The fascinating paper offerings being incinerated include rice cookers, washing machines, cars, motorbikes, US dollars, cigarettes, dentures, and even iPhones. Cell-service in the here-after – who knew?
Tantalizing aromas nest in our nostrils from various meats on the streets being grilled over open fires intensified by the use of an electric fan. Nabbing electricity seems a popular pastime here, and power poles look to be an electrician’s nightmare with titanic tangles of wires looking like a giant mass of black spaghetti.
Vietnamese are also sensational ‘squatters’; hanging out on sidewalks in preposterous tendon-snapping squats that would make even a gymnast proud. If we attempted to mimic their action, I swear you’d hear the twang of our hamstrings snapping all the way back in Canada!
One of Vietnam’s most pleasing sights is the mobile flower markets. The streets team with bicycles, but some owners don’t pedal their bikes, they petal them! Merchants push bicycles buried beneath a colossal cloud of cheerful and colourful cargo. The beautiful bouquets of fragrant fresh-cut flowers vary according to the season, and include everything from daisies to dahlias and lilies to lotus.
Mingling with traffic are three wheel cyclos, pedaled about by men in pea-green pith helmets and looking not dissimilar to soldiers. Joining them are rail-thin but deceptively strong ‘yolk-ladies’, who stop for neither man nor motorbike as they shuffle through the clogged veins of the city with bamboo shoulder-poles groaning under the weight of their burdens.
We hook up with a couple of female university students from a company called Hanoi Kids who want to hone their English. Acting as tour guides, they take us to the iron-trussed Long Bien Bridge spanning a river named Red, then just for the smell of it lead us to the Botanical Gardens and a vast flower market so ambrosial it makes us want to grow a couple more noses!
During the fun outing we learn the girl’s unpronounceable nicknames translate to ‘Butter’ and ‘Sheep’! Asking why, they are unable to explain in English and simply giggle off the question. So with the mystery unsolved, we decide to simplify things by referring to them as ‘Marge’ and ‘Mary’. Asking M&M to take us to a place serving the tasty Vietnamese staple called Pho, we follow them down an alley to a lady hunched over a ginormous steel cauldron.
Our pho-nomenal meal is accompanied by bamboo chop sticks, but devoid of dexterity, I’d likely have better luck teaching an emu how to knit. What I really want is to trade in the mega toothpicks for a set of salad tongs. The best I can do is to balance the oodles of noodles over the flimsy twigs and inhale, but unbecomingly, the renegade strands either trying finding their way up a nose hole or slap at an ear lobe on their way to being sucked into the vortex!
Stopping at Bia Hoi Junction for a pint of beer, I join the locals on the street and watch them smoking from long whistling bongs, stroking chins, and carpeting curbs with spit-out sunflower seeds shells. The décor is akin to the children’s section of Ikea, and with my backside spilling over the edge of a silly stool and knees up around my ears, I feel like a giant who’s lost his bean stock. Fee-fi-fo-fum, my bum is getting numb!
Ever the fanatic follower of fashion, Christine fancies some fresh threads today, so exercising due diligence, I trail along to try and provide damage control and to help negotiate. Shopping in Vietnam can be extremely fatiguing when dealing with verbally-incontinent merchants who use the hypothesis that persistence beats resistance. I swear most sellers do not know ‘no’, and could talk the fleas off a dog!
While I’m looking at an item of interest, one of the wizened ‘lookey lookey’ ladies shouts ‘Sochi Sochi’. At first I think she’s just over enthusiastic about the Russian Olympics currently on TV, but then realize there IS no TV. The dentally challenged one is simply ‘p-less’ and trying to convey ‘so cheap’!
Taking a page from her book I use atrocious enunciation to say her price is ‘expen-expen’, causing her brow to crumple as her head does the old RCA dog head tilt. Suddenly her face melts into a smile, having just realized she’s dealing with a worthy adversary rather than simply an ATM with legs.
With ground rules now established, Ms. P-less and I engage in the customary haggling dance; toing and froing before settling on a good-for-you-good-for-me price. Many moons ago I learned the shortest distance between a successful sale in any linguistically cumbersome conversation is sharing a good laugh.
As Christine stops in a lingerie store to make a few cheeky little purchases, I realize that while I started out today with the intent of simply buying a pair of sandals, I too have succumbed to the perils of wandering. In addition to the floppy footwear, I have accumulated a diverse gathering of blue jeans, a bag of beer, eight pairs of racy underwear, and a fruit called mothers milk!
Our time in Hanoi quickly rolls by, and on our last night our old friend Smiley invites us out to dinner. Gathering us at our hotel, he makes a stop at a revolting street stall selling ‘thit cay’ (dog meat). Clearly it’s a man eat dog world here, but fortunately for us this is not dinner, it’s only a photo op. Vietnam is a definite country of quirks; where birds are taken out for a daily morning walk and dogs are eaten for dinner!
Smiley and family take us to the largest buffet restaurant in Vietnam with an incredible variety of over 200 offerings. Some of Sen Tay Ho’s gastronomical delights require an open mind as well as an open mouth; including whole cooked baby birds, fried larvae, turtles, crunchy crabs, chewy octopus, snails, and a slew of other oddities formerly unknown to our intestines.
With our flight to Danang delayed because the plane is ‘broken’ we twiddle our thumbs for six long hours until it is ‘mended’. Eventually we make it to Danang and taxi to the magical little town of Hoi An. Now, while Hanoi and Hoi An may be a perfect anagram with their letters all the same, the two cities could not differ more! The historic river town of Hoi An translates to ‘peaceful meeting place’, but chances of Hanoi laying any kind of claim to that description are exactly the square root of bupkis!
Recharging our mental batteries during a week at Betel Garden Homestay we often spot interesting sightings on our walks into town. Paddy-hatted ladies balance their burdens like a human scale from a flexible bamboo pole over a shoulder, and flip-flopped locals transport discombobulated ducks tethered upside down to bicycle handlebars. And with a buttery ball of sun splaying its rays across the town and flotilla of boats anchored in the river, it presents the quintessential picture of an old Vietnamese town.
Ordering a 12 ounce glass of Bia Hoi beer at lunch today costs a mere 3,000 dong, or 14 cents US! Giddy with delight, what else can I do but order another. That was a waste of a line wasn’t it? I’m sure most will have already made that leap. In fact, I unabashedly order a third beer, bringing my total bar bill to a whopping 42 cents. All-righty then, all I need to do now is work out how to acquire my immigration papers!
Tonight happens to be Hoi An’s full moon lantern festival, a time when the town gives modern life the night off; with all motorbikes all outlawed as well as lights from television, houses, street lamps, and neon signs. Once the sun goes down the only lighting is from the swollen mango moon, beautiful silk lanterns, or the flickering candle lanterns bobbing along in the river. The gentle illumination makes it impossible not to enjoy the ambience of a night done right!
Hoi An is truly a ‘Garden of Eatin’, and fantastic flawlessly fused flavors of salads with green mango, banana flower, lotus stems, pomelo, and crispy shallots are like a spa for the taste buds! It is also a ‘so-so’ kind of town, with streets bursting at the seams with over 200 tailor shops displaying clutters of cloth and armies of aloof mannequins. With the town perfectly tailored for Christine’s passion for fashion, I have to believe that several lucky shop owners are well on the way to early retirement!
Clearly, joining her on this spendathon turns out to be a tactical error, as she is not satisfied until talking me into ordering a sports jacket. Ultimately I succumb and whip out my dong (you do of course realize that ‘dong’ is the local currency in Vietnam, right)? Whew, glad we sorted that out! With my million dong deal leaving me cashstrated, we’re off to find a bank! Damn, shopping with that woman is downright dangerous!
Partaking in a photography class we bike and boat to where the Thu Bon River empties into the South China Sea. Fish boats moored off shore have eyes painted on their bows to keep fishermen safe at sea and lead them back to land. Massive traditional fish nets splashing with life are pedaled up by foot-powered winches and suspended above the sea, and fishermen that depend on this ‘net income’ paddle underneath and use long bamboo sticks to spill the bounty of the sea into tiny round basket boats.
In Vietnam, bamboo is said to represent the resilience and bravery of the Vietnamese people, and they have a saying: ‘A man is born in a bamboo cradle and goes away in a bamboo coffin. Everything in between is possible with bamboo’.
With over 30 years kicking around Asia we are well aware of its enormous affinity to bamboo. The fastest growing plant on Earth is used for everything from its edible shoots to construction. Cycling about we spot a bamboo bicycle leaning up against a shop, where coincidentally, I purchase a lovely shirt made from the very same versatile vegetation!
River banks around Hoi An are dotted with small circular basket boats called ‘thung chai’, set upside down in the sun to dry. Looking like a troop of mushrooms after rain, they’re made of plaited bamboo strips covered with tar and tree sap, then lined with cow dung to help make them as watertight as a frog’s rectum.
Biking about we spot a few of these boats tethered together in a channel of the Thu Bon River and stop to negotiate renting one from the family. We’re surprised to learn the boat will come with a ‘driver’, as the owner has commandeered his elderly mother to be our paddler!
Her face is crinkled like a walnut and she doesn’t speak a lick of English, but her merry eyes and great betel-stained smile instantly endear her to us. Asking the family to keep an eye on our bikes, we warily we step into a boat looking like a floating flower basket on growth hormones. Bonneted in a paddy hat secured by an orange ribbon under her chin, our grandma ‘chauffeur’ ejects a red-brown plug of betel from her mouth into the river and we are on our way.
After a few bends in the river the old dear deftly paddles our water chariot into a remote water-coconut grove and pulls out a machete. Oh-oh, are we about to be chopped up and fed to the fishes? Of course not! In a lovely gesture, the wrinkled wizard begins whacking at some palm fronds with her machete and creates two ‘leaf hats’ to help keep the scorching sun at bay! She then hands her paddle to me, happily clapping her work-hardened hands whenever we show her the photos we’re taking.
The trick is to row the round boat without spinning round in circles, but with only a single oar it’s like trying to type with boxing gloves on, and the elderly paddling phenom cannot contain her cackling as I row us around in circles like a one-flippered seal. Now we understand why our vessel came with a driver!
During the entire outing the tiny Vietnamese grandmother has never stopped smiling, and neither have we! The spur of the moment river joyride has proven a Hoi An highlight, and a lovely ending to another set of travels in the wonderful land of wows that is Vietnam.
It’s time now to reacquaint ourselves with Bali, as our relationship with this island of head-scratching contradictions continues. Wonderful magic makes its home here, but so too does a much darker side lurking just below the surface. A constant battle is waged between ‘ying and yang’, and as with their Gods and demons, there’s pristine and polluted, sincerity and scams, prim and primal, kindness and crime, calm and chaos, and paradise and purgatory; all forming the enigma that is Bali.
Watching the Denpasar Airport carousel get picked bare we notice that once again our luggage has not accompanied us. Told it should be on the next plane in about ninety minutes, we exhale a gale-force sigh and decide to wait.
Chatting with the guys in the lost luggage department they tell us ‘new airport no good.’ Apparently corruption and bribery helped India to get the contract, and they cheaped-out big-time on the construction. These fellows may indeed have a valid concern, as recently a sizeable portion of the roof collapsed. Hardly the kind of air conditioning one would expect in a new airport!
A couple of hours later, with luggage in hand, we arrive at Yulia Bungalows in the village of Ubud; delighted to chill out under the spell of Bali’s Zen again, immersed in the captivating soundscape of gently clonking bamboo wind chimes, croaking kodocks, exotic birdsong, giggling geckos, and of course the tinkling of ice in our glass.
These days it’s harder to find the declining rewards, but once off the tourist grid they still lay in wait. Haunting and hypnotic sounds of a gamelan, elegantly dressed women wearing tall fruit offerings like headdresses, village ducks herded in pretty little processions, Ganeshas in cloth skirts pimped out with hibiscus flowers behind the ear, fiercely green rice paddies, lotus flowers reflecting on still ponds, and the eye-rolling dances of beautifully costumed women performing in centuries-old moss-cloaked temples. Yes, this is where the real magic of Bali shines.
Cycling a trail along Champuahn Ridge above the Ayung River we stop for water and Christine spots a carved picture frame she fancies. After some haggling and my wallet whittled down, I end up dutifully wearing it like a large wooden necklace; the all too familiar yoke-like beast of burden look with the shameless shopping of you-know-who! The only thought ricocheting around in my frontal lobe is that if I survive the thirsty ride back to the bungalow, I plan on going for a nice romantic walk – to the fridge!
The term ‘Not my monkey not my problem’ is not appropriate in Ubud’s Monkey Forest with simian bandits notorious for pilfering! Keeping this in mind we stow away any ‘grabables’ and cross a moss-matted bridge with a snake racing us to the other side! As the sun battles to penetrate the gloomy forest’s canopy of giant Banyan trees, we’re surrounded by a miniscule enemy in a mood for feasting and having no gender bias! The ‘swat team’ trade mosquito bites for gigabytes, and head off to an internet café to check our email.
In town we’re quite accustomed to hustlers watching us like a lioness eyeing an impala on the limp, and attempting to flog everything from watches to women and perfume to pot. Tonight however, I’m approached by a pill-peddler flogging Viagra, and wonder if he pulled a groin muscle jumping to that conclusion. With no need of ‘Grandpa’s Little Helper’ I quickly advise him to engage in an anatomical impossibility, as after all, the cocky little prick is just not a stand-up kind of guy!
While plumping up to an edible size Bali’s ducks are herded into the rice paddies to fatten up on the algae, insects, and weeds; and waddling in the mud creates a symbiotic relationship by providing oxygenation needed for the growth of rice roots. Sunning ourselves on our balcony, the merry chortling of ducks in the rice field next door falls soothingly on our ears and leaves us feeling as calm as a Hindu cow.
Few societies in the world exist where religion plays a role such as it does in Bali. Their Gods are presented with daily offerings called ‘Canang Sari’, meant to express gratitude to good spirits and placate mischievous demons. Not much bigger than a deck of cards, the woven baskets contain goodies like flowers, rice, betel leaf, and always a smoldering stick of pungent incense. The latter is because no one knows exactly where the Gods might be at any given time, and the belief is that the smoke’s aroma will be sure to reach a divine nostril or two.
Deities and are treated as honored guests by the superstitious Balinese and seem to require copious coddling. Being respectful of local customs we stay vigilant in trying to avoid ‘sidewalk surfing’ on the extensive proliferation of godly offerings!
With our holidays ebbing away we move south to Seminyak to be closer to the airport for an early flight. It also happens to be a great spot for last minute shopping without selling a kidney to pay the tab. Stores in Bali, like stores everywhere, try to entice buyers in with a four letter word that Ms. Shopalot simply cannot resist; S-A-L-E! Personally, I have difficulty with the concept that buying at a reduced price can save money, but in a rare moment of tact I remain tight-lipped, as a closed mouth gathers no feet.
With her wallet rapidly shedding weight, Christine has an overkill of schmoozing salespeople following her around the store like a little posse of personal stalkers, and my main concern at the moment is whether or not our departing aircraft will be able to achieve liftoff.
Tri Hita Karana is a traditional philosophy for life on the island of Bali. Roughly translated, it means achieving happiness by establishing and maintaining; harmony with God, harmony among people, and harmony with nature and environment. Bali appears to be doing very well with the first two, but the latter is facing challenges with the island’s mass tourism taking its toll.
The onslaught of foreign visitors each year in Bali has exploded from less than 300,000 when we first visited in 1986, to over 3,000,000 today! This has many worried that the staggering increase of camera-clutching tourists is starting to result in the beloved island being ‘loved to death’. As a local once said to me, ‘Bali is like a bowl of sweets and the ants come from everywhere.’
Hopefully Bali will manage to hang on, like its sticky-toed geckos, to its wonderful cultural smorgasbord. The secret to the gorgeous island’s success will ultimately be in it striking a balance. Ah yes, as in all of life, it’s always about striking a balance!
Mark Colegrave March 2014