Short on both days and rays, February is a most uninspiring month with the cold, wet, and grey, of each and every day morphing my running trails into muddied slop-fests and squelching any enthusiasm for cycling. So with my current exercise either by way of shivering or pushing my luck, it’s time to try and fast-forward the remains of winter.
Having previously fallen head over heels for Vietnam’s splendidly preserved little town of Hoi An we are off to rekindle the relationship. Depressingly, a delayed flight out of Hong Kong sabotages our connecting flight to Danang and results in being rerouted 600 km south to Saigon.
Queues at Saigon’s airport are slower than a nursing home sack race, and with our connection time to Danang rapidly dwindling a group of folks kindly allow us to go ahead of them in line. However, as on prior trips to Vietnam, clearing immigration turns into a vat of unpleasantness. Reaching the lemon- licking lookalike official in charge he seems to have a chip on his shoulder the size of a blue whale.
He will not allow us through, and when we ask why he offers no explanation, just dismisses us with an insolent bark of ‘back of line’, accompanied by an infuriating backhand flip as if shooing away bad air. Man, there are some people you really want to see make a 500ft bungee jump with a 600ft cord!
Baffled by his gruff affront a few folks in the queue unsuccessfully appeal to the guy to let us through, and by the look on their faces we know we’re not alone in thinking the jerk should be persuaded to donate some chromosomes for research in the field of assholeology!
Frantically seeking a solution we jump over a couple of queues, only to find another constipated looking official spearing us with adversarial eyes as if we’re gum on the bottom of his shoe. Reluctantly the egotistical knucklehead, and an aggressive thud of his stamp collides with our passports.
Stressed the Hell out, we bolt to the flight gate like a cork popping out of shaken champagne. As the last passengers to board, we flop down into our seats wondering why condescending Vietnam officials always seem to have the charisma of a stool sample, and attitudinal issues so serious that I don’t think even Dr. Phil would be of help!
From Danang airport we taxi to Hoi An over risky roads home to none other than Lou Natics. With Vietnam’s convoluted address format our muddled taxi driver drops us at the wrong hotel, and attempting to locate our booked hotel we drag our bags through a ceaseless sea of honking of horns with all the subtly of a sledgehammer!
Shambolic roads without rules are one of Nam’s biggest stressors with horrendously hyperactive traffic having only sporadic outbreaks sanity. Even the traffic light signals are lost in translation. Vietnamese version: Green – I can go. Amber – I can go. Red – I still can go!
The vehicular ridiculousness is exacerbated by delinquents all from the same Daredevil Driving School. Apparently intent on suicide by stupidity, the mental midgets drive on whatever side of the road they fancy with an overwhelming preference for horns over brakes. I can just picture the total scope of what a Vietnamese driving lesson must entail; “horn here, accelerator there; any questions?”
In any case we finally locate the hotel, surprised to learn it was sold a few days ago, with the new managers arriving only yesterday. Luckily they honor our booking, but are taking on no other guests due to a staff shortage and much needed renovation construction. The hotel’s redeeming feature is calming panoramas across flawlessly green rice fields.
Ingrained with an ‘early gene’ I love to wander a city at the blush of dawn, as it tends to show a face typically hidden from visitors. You know what they say about birds and worms! Well, at first light in Hoi An’s wet market the early bird not only gets the worm but also anything else that wriggles, flops, slithers, or pinches!
Topping up at a currency exchange we flex our math muscles trying to get our heads around all the zeros on the VN dong. As one of the world’s least valued currencies it requires over 28,000 dong to compensate for a single Canadian dollar, and exchanging two hundred bucks we become dong millionaires six times over! Almost in need of a wheelbarrow to cart away our new stash of cash we set off to engage in a little de-donging in the town’s interesting artisan shops.
Sunshine bouncing off the canary-coloured buildings of the Old Town naturally lifts our mood, and dangling cloth lanterns are so prevalent it seems the sky is raining down colorful miniature hot air balloons. We gently try to ignore sellers with envying eyes that lay claim the sidewalks as their hunting grounds, and circle us like seagulls in search of lunch.
Unfortunately in recent years the town has been invaded by hordes of mannerly-bankrupt Chinese tourists with shouted conversations altering the once peaceful vibe. Another negative is the river being treated like the town’s toilet, polluted with a flotsam of rubbish from those entrenched in the south of sane ‘I don’t want it here so I’ll toss it there’ mentality. Honestly, if these cultural bumpkins were knives I swear they wouldn’t be sharp enough to behead a muffin!
To escape the bothersome congestion we cycle outside of Hoi An via the reversibly named An Hoi Bridge, and enjoy the rural calm of Kim Island by following only the end of our nose and a series of eenie-meenie-minie-mo decisions.
Leaving the boat building village of Kim Bong we become disoriented in the realm of rice fields, and trying to get our bearings we meet a friendly English speaking girl who kindly invites us to her family’s home where they’ve been making rice papers for three generations.
After a pleasant visit our lovely new friend bequeaths us a couple of conical paddy hats to help shield us against the sun, creating another reminder that when travelling getting lost can often be the best way to find what you’re looking for.
Back in Hoi An cycling changes dramatically with drivers constantly testing our hazard dodging prowess. We’re never totally comfortable in the chaos, because let’s face it, in a country where the horn is king, a tiny bicycle bell ding-a-linging its little heart out just doesn’t quite cut the mustard!
In the claustrophobic town markets the sellers are business barracudas who could likely sell salt to a slug and require putting my well-honed bargaining skills to work against their Asian persuasion. My ‘foolosophy’ is to try and brighten the drudgery of their day by jollying them up, and judging by the little snorts of laughter and wrist-spraining handshakes, it clearly seems to be working.
With TET holidays now upon us sidewalks are carpeted with heavily laden kumquat trees and large clay pots of yellow flowers; both meant to ensure good luck in the coming New Year. The result is the roads seem to resemble moving gardens, with every second motorbike carrying one of these celebratory pots precariously balanced on the back.
The trusting new owners leave us the keys to the hotel today because they’re off to Saigon to celebrate TET with family. This unique opportunity means that for the next week Christine and I have the complete run of the hotel and its facilities all to ourselves; an experience that is certainly a first for us!
Unfortunately TET does have a few downsides for travelers. Most businesses and restaurants lock their doors for a week to spend time with family, and my extrasensory perception tells me alcohol moderation is not the name of the game during the raucous karaoke parties held by any of those remaining.
Sprinting towards cirrhosis, late-night revelers fancy themselves as singing sensations, but in reality their tonally-challenged yowls sound extraordinarily akin to a cat being castrated. Without anesthesia! The partying takes no pity on our ears, and struggling at night to sleep, we wish laryngitis upon them all!
Cycling to An Bang Beach during TET has been our salvation. Sipping the cold sweet juice of decapitated coconuts and flipping the pages of a good novel, we are calmed by the lullaby of waves rhythmically chasing each other to shore and frothily hissing up onto the sand.
Today I somehow get some grit wedged into my eye and it’s painful to the point it feels as if somebody has parked their motorcycle under my eyelid. After a few hours vainly trying to flush it out I am still unable to open my eye and getting worried about damaging the cornea.
Seeking medical attention, Christine and her cyclops pedal off in search of a recommended doctor, but after braving the daunting roads to reach his office we’re totally shocked by his curt reply. Looking at me as if I’m a leper without a colony, he says “TET. Too busy. No, you go other doctor”.
W.T.F.? It seems to me the apathetic oaf is a bit of a hypocrite when it comes to his Hippocratic Oath! Unable to find another doctor we cycle to the hospital experiencing déjà vu from another Vietnamese hospital drama eighteen years ago. Beds are clogged with victims of motorbike accidents, and the bed I’m told to lie on is a gross petri dish harboring the mystery stains and DNA of previous patients. Eventually a doctor appears, but after several futile attempts to flush out my eye he suggests I use some eye drops.
Hmmm, let me get this straight. Both Christine and I couldn’t flush the eye out, you can’t flush it out, and now you think a few eye drops are the answer? Not exactly Mensa material, this guy. Unable to contain my exasperation and voicing my concern, a lovely nurse who has been patiently observing suddenly decides she wants to have a look for herself.
Grabbing hold of my eyelid she rolls it back, and in a matter of seconds lets out a little whoop having spotted the lodged debris. With the aid of a Q tip she quickly extracts the piece of grit bringing instant relief to my eye and turning my grimace into a grin!
It seems that unlike many doctors, nurses are rarely short on caring and this little sweetheart’s attitude certainly has my gratitude. Sometimes a little thing can make a sumo-sized difference, and I’m now able to cycle away with both eyes open, which on the streets of Vietnam is always a very prudent idea!
Walking from town to Thanh Ha Pottery Village we pass a pair of old codgers sharing some staggering looking rice whiskey that looks like it’s still fermenting. They encourage us to stop and join them, but having gone down this road before and knowing Vietnamese moonshine to be a real pain in the glass, I tell them thanks but we’re in a hurry to meet someone; an outright falsehood told on behalf of our livers!
On the way back to town we approach a little bar. The sun is scorching and the beer icy cold; you do the math! Even though the price of a glass of local beer has risen from 14 cents on our last trip to 16 cents today, the more astute among you will likely surmise the inflation does little to dissuade my will to swill. Beer is good but beers are better!
Some claim ‘day beer’ here is a rough draft compared to more mature craft beers, but as a beerologist in training, I feel it my vocation to purchase several in order to enhance my beer acumen for a thorough review on product quality if asked. Yeh I know; I’m selfless like that!
With Hoi An a foodie’s mecca we’ve become connoisseurs of drool-inducing salads infused with the likes of passion fruit, pomelos, papaya, mangoes, shallots, dragon-fruit, and other marvelous morsels of Asian awesomeness evoking murmurs of pleasure. Freshly plucked veggies are grown organically, using special algae found only in a lagoon near the vegetable village of Tra Que.
Cycling out to the organic village through the green silence of rice fields flatter than a ducks instep, we come to a water buffalo sliding its bottom jaw side to side. As a smiling farmer gestures to get on top of it we know a dong donation will be expected but figure it will be a new experience so why not?
Christine readies her camera as I awkwardly climb onto the beast’s back, but the photo shamefully implies I’m trying to ‘mount’ the mammoth mammal. Hoisting myself further up its back to a more respectable position I’m uncomfortably aware I have absolutely no business sitting atop a 7 foot, 2500 pound animal, which with one toss of his huge upturned horns could instantly convert me into Canadianshish-kebab!
Fortunately the brute has the gentle manner of a Buddhist monk and is unfazed by its human cargo! As traditional symbols of the country, buffalo are of such value they’ve been dubbed the ‘BMW of Vietnam’. The cud-chewer’s cartoonishly large feet act like hooved snowshoes and help them lumber through peanut butter textured fields during their search for something to swallow or a place to wallow.
At the romantically crumbling 100 year old bar called Hill Station we climb unsound stairs to an equally unsound balcony. Rotted floor boards offer glimpses of the bar’s lower level, and sitting beneath the hairy pink blossoms of a mimosa tree we pray not to plunge through the dissolving floor. Sipping our wine we have a view of life’s daily activities unfolding both on the street and in the bar below. It seems a building inspector is a completely unknown profession in Vietnam.
In search of dinner, aromas smelling like a handful of heaven lure us down an alley to a well-hidden hole- in-the-wall called Ba Le Well. The décor is below basic but the place wows the masses with a fixed menu, that like anything from IKEA, comes with variety of items requiring assemblage.
Ingredients transported to the table include satay-style barbequed pork and chicken, a bowl of peanut sauce, a plate stacked high with herbs and greens, rice paper sheets, and a Frisbee-sized pancake known as ‘banh xeo’. What is not included with the meal is tableware.
Frowning question marks at each other over how best to tackle our meal without cutlery, we hear our cheeky waitress tut-tutting her disapproval. Perhaps pitying her puzzled patrons she offers tutelage with a demonstration of how to construct a rice paper wrap.
OK, our turn now, we got this. Actually we don’t. Our lame attempt to squash and roll the bulky ingredients together results in decorating ourselves from fingers to elbows in spillage and leaves an outbreak of peanut sauce emblazoned on my shirt.
Scowling at her ankles, no doubt aghast at our sloppy struggles, the lurking waitress returns to offer her supper-spillers yet another lesson. Thanking our taskmaster once again we order a beer and take advantage of her absence by cramming all the food together inside the monster pancake and quickly scarf it down! Having brought great shame to the art of roll-wrapping at Ba Le Well, the meal was still a mess of good eating, and we sincerely hope the waitress will be out of therapy soon!
Our two-wheeled steel steeds groan beneath us as we cycle through bucolic surroundings featuring forests of Nipa palms, duck and fish farms, boats with painted eyes, basket boats, towering bamboo, and sprawling rice fields spread out before us like vast green tablecloths.
Relaxing at our bungalow after the ride I find myself doing a little head-scratching over the translation and spelling of the swimming pool rules:
- check the deepth before swimming;
- when bathing pool, do not thrown bottles, cups, can, and food into pool;
- not allowed children use mable or something else to break pool ( broken one will cut your toes);
- when coming pool area people have to keep common Don’t play dangerous game;
- If you need helps please call
Musing at a medley of misinterpretations and misspellings, I’m wondering if I should ask management for ‘helps’ in explaining about ‘playing dangerous games’ and preventing children from using ‘mable’ to break the pool!
Cycling out of town today to a workshop called Taboo Bamboo we meet a third generation bamboo carver named Tan. A true master of his craft, Tan shows us his bamboozling creations including amongst other things, a rotary telephone, beer mugs, bicycles, his entire house, and fully functional electric car!
Ever since arriving in Hoi An we’ve been noticing shops with a striking photo called “Hidden Smile” on display. The subject is an elderly boat rower named Bui Thi Xong, who shy about smiling due to a lack of teeth, smothers her mouth with leather-like hands; but the lovely crinkle lines radiating from the corners of her eyes betray her smile and she holds the honorary title of “The World’s Most Beautiful Old Woman”.
Walking beside the Thu Bon River we happen to have a chance encounter with this same 80 year old Ms. Xong, and absolutely jump at the chance to have her take us for a row in her shallow flat-bottomed boat. She speaks no English at all, but without notice in the middle of the river the wonderfully wizened one unexpectedly sets aside her paddle and strikes up the famous pose, allowing us to preserve the moment in a photo. Lovely lady, lovely experience; only wish we could have enjoyed a conversation.
For reasons unknown my back has gone out today, converting me from hale and healthy into a hobbling hunchback, and with my flexibility now only about one point north of rigor mortis, we cycle into town in pursuit of a muscle relaxant. Finding a pharmacy is relatively easy, but then things quickly begin to go downhill.
Since no English is spoken in the shop I try making use of my acting skills as most Vietnamese are usually quite adept at sussing out any pantomime thrown their way. With a performance I’m sure would easily qualify as a contender in the Oscar’s Best Actor category I begin wincing and point to my back.
The woman pharmacist signals she’s got it. She scoots off and returns to the counter with diarrhea medicine! No ma’am, my bowels are just fine, but thank you for asking! I try improving my apparently crappy acting, and in Act Two, I embellish a grimace as if chewing on raw rhubarb while bending over and holding my back and stomach simultaneously to demonstrate I cannot straighten up.
Again she scurries away, and in a flash she comes back with ….. Wait for it; Drum roll please; Ta-dah ….. drugs for pregnancy! Oh terrific; now I’m also going to need a paramedic to help remove my jaw from the floor! W.T.F. lady, are you a for real pharmacist or have you just been brought in to do the dusting!
Turning her big browns on me, Christine senses my patience disassembling and comes to the rescue by mentioning the actual name of the drug. One more time the pharmacist scampers away, and inspecting her next presentation of items, we spot one with a label that actually mentions ‘muscle relaxant’. Bingo; I’ll take the box! Ah yes Vietnam, you are always an adventure package just waiting to be unwrapped!
The oddity of this year’s trip is we’ve spent the entire month in the same town, and with the weeks now blurring into one another our exuberance begins to flat line. Our remedy is hiring a car and driver for a road trip to Quang Nam Province and the fishing village of Tam Thanh.
The exteriors of the many houses close together are ideally suited as a canvass for depicting scenes of everyday Vietnamese life, and recently enjoying a makeover, the cheery-looking village with vibrantly painted walls has become the first mural village of Vietnam.
Wandering from the village to a nearby beach sprinkled with fishing boats, we then drive on to the Heroic Mother Monument. Chiseled into solid rock 18 meters high and 120 meters long is the face of Nguyen Thi Thu and her nine children, all tragically killed in the American war. Amazingly, the mother who endured such unimaginable loss lived to the ripe old age of 106.
Our last stop of the day is My Khe Beach in Danang. Formerly called China Beach, it was used by the Yanks during the ‘American War’ for R & R (rest and recuperation) or perhaps more accurately, I & I (intercourse and intoxication), it is far too crowded for our liking so we head into the bowels of the city in search of a deceased chicken in peanut sauce and a cold beer to wash it down.
Hoi An’s ‘Lantern Festival’ occurs once every month on the full moon, and tonight is the night. After a medicinal tipple at the Hill Station Bar we saunter into town randomly dispensing a bag of plastic dinosaurs that leaves the appreciative little recipients dressed in big shiny smiles.
On this festive night electricity is used to a minimum and transportation limited to walking. After dark alongside the Thu Bon River small kids and old ladies sell candle-lit lotus flower lanterns meant to pay respect to ancestors. The offerings are set afloat and create an enchanting atmosphere with the reflections of the softly flickering floating flotilla of fire dancing along the blackness of the river.
Numerous times we’ve tried in vain to locate an inspiring local couple married for over 70 years and said to be living somewhere near the organic vegetable village of Tra Que. Today is the last day of our holidays, but with our flight not leaving until late afternoon, we devise a plan for one last attempt.
I’ve brought along a picture of the couple, and after pumping pedals for distance and people for directions, we’re finally pointed towards a small dirt road. Favored by luck we find the paddy-hatted veggie farming duo sitting hand in hand on a house porch. Though not speaking a word of English they kindly show us about their humble abode and the thriving gardens out back.
The well-known horticulturists are 96 year old Le Van Se and his spry but toothless 88 year old wife Nguyen Thi Loi. Farmer Se was supplying the Viet Cong with food supplies during the Indochina War, and caught by the French army, was imprisoned and tortured for 10 months in Laos. When released, he returned to his home in Hoi An to rejoin his wife and resume their habitual farming.
Years later during the Vietnam War, Se was captured yet again, this time by the American army who imprisoned him for 6 month for once again providing food for the Viet Cong. His wife Nguyen was the head of women fighting for the liberation of Vietnam, and she too was held captive for 4 months.
Eventually both the gritty old farmers were freed and once again reunited. When asked if he has any hatred against the French or Americans, Se says he lives in peace with the past and in his old age has chosen to forgive.
As a great story of everlasting love the inspirational couple has become a living history book for the young people in Hoi An. Still living peacefully in the exact same village where they were born, they are busy doing what they have done all their lives; tending to their beloved organic vegetable garden every single day. Our persistence in searching out the lovely couple is a perfect ending to travels in a country we’ve come to adore.
Back in Canada spring has now sprung, and with the plants and trees starting to put their clothes back on it’s time for the Vietnam vagabonds to skedaddle, so I can coax out a dormant green thumb and tend to a garden of my own.
Mark Colegrave February 2018