January 2003

Well, I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. I really do understand now why some people are so very frustrated with Vietnam. It’s all well and good for people to try and sell me things, it’s even OK for them to try repeatedly, but some things are not OK. For instance:

1. 10 year old children selling postcards, no matter how much they may want you to buy just one more pack, under no circumstances at all, should ever tell me, “Fuck you and your grandmother!!” when I do not buy.

2. Travel agents take a commission on what they sell. This is an accepted fact. They’ve saved you the hassle of going to the train station and figuring things out on your own, it’s only fair. However, a $9 commission on a $21 ticket is a bit excessive, no matter how much they try to explain it away.

3. Tour operators whose tickets have the words “10% refund fee” printed at the bottom in 2 languages should give refunds when they are requested. They should not offer the customer 10% of the ticket price in lieu of the refund, and they certainly should not tell the customer, “NO REFUND! YOU GO NOW” when the customer attempts to point out their own published policy.

It can be a bit trying.

However, on the plus side, I will be going to Hanoi tonight on a train and not a bus. Granted, I’ve lost a bundle on the deal, but I’ll be able to sleep and walk around instead of being packed in like a sardine amongst the luggage and fellow travellers. And on top of that, I had a lovely motorbike tour of Hue and the surrounding areas today. It included a trip to the monastery where Thich Nat Hahn, one of the coolest buddhists ever, lived and taught until he left Vietnam for political reasons. If you get the time, you should read his books. Also on the list were several other pagodas from the last 400 years or so, and a gorgeous complex built for an emperor in the 1800s that they call a ‘tomb’, but which really is more of a city.

On that note, sorry to be brief, but I don’t want my train to leave without me….

Well, well. Behind on my posting again, as you can see. I’m currently in Hoi’an, have been for several days. For the first two, I managed to somehow aviod succumbing to the shopping demon that lurks in each and every lovely little street in this city, contenting myself with wandering aimlessly enjoying the sights. It really is remarkably charming here – the influence of the ancient Chinese is everywhere, in pagodas and bridges and meeting houses and even private homes, but the fin de siecle French colonial style has made a strong mark as well. Between the architecture, the lovely colored lanterns, the smiling faces, and the food (really, the food is outstanding), I barely even noticed the brightly colored silks in virtually every shop. I won’t even pretend I missed the shoes, though.

Yesterday, my will collapsed. I wandered into a shop owned by a local woman I’d met, thinking I’d just have a look, maybe get a pair of trousers or something. Let’s just say I’m going to be sending home a big fat package tomorrow morning. Yes, including shoes. How could I resist? They make everything to measure! They even draw around and measure the arches of each individual foot! Last night, I dreamt of designs.

Today, to get away from temptation at least for a while, I went out to the ruins of My San, formerly the most holy ground of the Champa Empire. The temples there date from the 4th to the 11th century, and although they are all now in varying states of decay, it’s still quite a sight to behold. Not for the first time, I wish I were able to post photos.

At one point, I was walking around one temple group examining these big craters in the ground, overgrown with grass. I was wondering why this temple group had (what seemed to be) man-made lakes when none of the others did. It turns out those were bomb craters. The Vietnamese people had forgotten about the Champa temples until the French came and started chopping down trees in the jungle, exposing the complex. By that time, it was already falling into ruin and decay – the jungle is not kind to stone, and nobody had been keeping it up for a long time. Then, during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong used the buildings as a hiding place from American troops, who proceeded to bomb the living hell out of them. The worst part: the particular group that took the biggest hit was the oldest, which hadn’t been modified since the 7th century. It reminded me of the days in the States when soldiers stored munitions in churches, assuming that nobody would dare to attack a holy place. By the end of the Civil War, hundreds of churches across the South were destroyed. There is, of course, an enormous difference between a 100 year old church and a 1600 year old temple complex, but it just goes to show that when war is declared, nothing is sacred anymore.

On a more positive note, have I mentioned about Tet? It’s the big giant festival of the lunar (Chinese) New Year, and the biggest party in all of Vietnam. It’s the 1st of February. I’ll definitely still be in the country, but not sure where yet – either Hue (ancient Imperial city) or Hanoi, depending on how things go. I’ll keep you all posted, for sure – how can I resist two New Year’s Eve parties in two months?!?

[yawn][stretch]

Well, it’s good to back in the land of the fully awake… I’ve spent the last few days partying hard in Nha Trang, in the company of many many very fun individuals, including one fabulous storyteller known in some circles, apparently, as Pisshead Si – I’d say we all agree that it’s an appropriate moniker. Along with Paul, Liam, Sam and several others whose names I either can’t remember or never knew, it’s a recipe for a serious bender.

The party began two days ago when I went on Mama Hanh’s four-island boat trip. Once we were all on the boat, around 9 a.m., our guide (whose name was Vietnamese for Strong Man) said a few words by way of introduction and welcome, followed by the reading of the rules:

– If you don’t have fun, you don’t go back.
– If you’re not drunk, you don’t go back.
– If you’re not full (of food, and too much of it), you don’t go back.

In any of these cases, we were told, we would be left with a life preserver out in the South China Sea and picked up by him the following day. This concluded the reading of the rules.

I wish I could remember the names of the islands we visited and do it in the proper order, but I don’t. I do, however, remember what happened, which is more important. First stop was snorkeling among some really beautiful and colorful coral and sponge formations. Some of my fellow boaters got sick of wrestling with their masks (which were crappy) and instead floated in life preservers, drinking BGI beer out of cans. Thus, it was about 10 a.m. when the drinking officially began.

Second stop, lunch. We all gorged ourselves while Strong Man reminded us that if we didn’t eat enough we would be left out to sea. After lunch, singing. Strong Man showed off his linguistic prowess (he can apparently sing in 26 languages) by doing a number for every nationality/language on the boat, which made about 10. Then, to make us feel better about our apparent ignorance, he taught us to sing Clementine in Vietnamese. Yes, Clementine. No, I don’t know why.

After singing, more drinking: it was time for the Floating Wine Bar. Strong Man sat in the middle of a strange, UFO looking contraption with a case of mulberry wine, and we all floated around him in life preservers until there was none left.

Two stops, more swimming, drinking and hilarity later, we returned to port around 4 in the afternoon and agreed to meet up at the Sailing Club for Happy Hour. What made us think this would be a good idea is beyond me. Happy hour runs from 6:30 to 10:30 every evening, and means 2-for-1 beers and free shots of vodka/pineapple/orange. Combine that with free pool all night and a gorgeous beachfront location – perfect for watching the moonrise – and you’ve got serious trouble. The plan, of course, is to get you to stay past happy hour. It works. We were there, I think, until about 3 in the morning.

So yesterday was a wash, lounging around on the beach and playing pool and staring blankly at inanimate objects was about all we could bring ourselves to do. That, and listening to Simon’s excellent tales.

And now, 12 hours of sleep later, I’m feeling pretty good. Off to Hoi An tonight, to (according to popular opinion) fend off millions of touts and perhaps have some clothing made, even though I keep telling myself I’m not going to.

I’ve still got stuff to post about the Delta and other things before I arrived bere, but that will have to wait. There’s just one other thing I want to put out there today:

It’s hard for me to find ways to remember and record the sheer volume of beauty I see in this country. The other day on the bus from Muine, I was watching rocky hills rise from the water’s edge, then fall away to enormous vibrant green rice paddies. The sea was a blue jewel off to the east, and ahead of us the rolling green foothills of the central highlands beckoned. Nha Trang lies just at the foot of these hills, and I’ll be passing through them tonight. It was a difficult choice to take a night bus, since I’ll be missing a lot of the scenery, but my hope is that I’ll be able to get enough sleep to make tomorrow a productive day anyway. If not, I’ll take it as a lesson learned and travel by day (or by train, which is comfortable but much more expensive) from now on. It occurs to me that much of this trip will lie dormant in my memory, waiting for moments to surface. It’s hard to accept that there’s no real way to set this down concretely – the beauty, the dozens of little excellent moments every day – but accept it I must.

And now, I’m shutting up. And all of you who read this and never write, I urge you to drop me a line sometime.

No kidding. Not only is it 30 feet from the beach, not only can I hear the waves as I sleep, not only is there a hammock 10 feet from the door, but there’s a disco ball and colored lighting in my room. Don’t ask me why, but there you have it.

I’m in Muine, which is about halfway between Siagon and Nha Trang for those of you following along at home, relaxing and swimming and reading about diving. I’ll be moving on in a few days, and hope to be in Hanoi before Tet (Chinese New Year), which will cripple the city beginning on February 1.

Before I came up here, I went out to the Mekong Delta for a few days, during which I had no internet access, so to those of you whose email went unanswered, I’m not dead and I’ll write you back soon, promise. Also, I’ve got some thoughts to collect about the Delta, which was a thought-provoking and educational experience. More on that to come. For now, it’s time to sit by the water and drink some vodka, and maybe start a club in my room. I do have both volumes of Lazy Dog…. Woohoo!

All those people who told me the Vietnamese are pushy and rude are on crack. After coping with the tuk-tuk drivers on Khao San Road (and elsewhere in Bangkok), these guys are an absolute dream. Sure, there’s lots of people trying to sell stuff, but everybody will take no for an answer – at least, they did from me. They even smiled and said goodbye – one guy gave me his stool to sit on while I waited for the museum to open. I did give it up and take a ride in a Cyclo – that’s a bicycle-driven rickshaw with the passenger on the front in a wheelbarrow-like contraption – but instead of (as in Bangkok) demanding ridiculous sums of money and then taking me shopping instead of to my destination, this guy cycled me around to about 3 of the places (out of 4) that I wanted to see here and then dropped me off at the 4th, all for under $2. On the way, he played tour guide as well, telling me what we were passing and when things were built. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have missed the grandmama tortoise at the Emperor Jade Pagoda.

Speaking of which, the temples here are very different from those in Thailand and Lao. Emperor Jade Pagoda was built in 1744, and is totally Chinese in style and language. There are roughly 6 chapels and over 12 rooms in total, all housed in a maze-like main building. The Buddha is indeed represented and holds pride of place, but many other Hindu and Buddhist dieties are in residence also, as are what I can only assume are ancient Chinese heroic figures. If I weren’t so woefully undereducated on these mythologies, I could probably go on for a good long time. I would particularly love to know more about the tortoise ponds just outside – all my guide could tell me is they’re special animals. There was one pond that had literally hundreds of little guys in it, and the other just had the big sleepy one. If anyone can enlighten me, please do. As it is, we’ll move on.

There is indeed, for those of you who may have heard, a miniature replica of Notre Dame Cathedral here – it’s about 1/10 of the size, brick, and totally surreal against its surroundings. I was unfortunately not able to enter, so I can’t comment on the stained glass, but the flying buttresses were sadly missing. It was not the highlight of the day.

The highlight was the War Remnants Museum, an oddly if diplomatically named monument to what we call the Vietnam War. It was this that really struck me. We’ve all heard the numbers and the rationale (or lack thereof) associated with the conflict, but gathered together with images and narratives from photographers of all nationalities who died or went missing, an exhibition dedicated to the worldwide protest of the war, and frank accounts of the victims and later repercussions, all made for an absolutely staggering experience. The last time I felt something like this was at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin, after which all I could do was wander the city for a few hours, fighting back tears. This was not much different.

What I found most impressive is the complete lack of bitterness with which the war was presented. While it’s true that most of the atrocities shown were those committed by the Americans with the help of their allies, the prison conditions of the Saigon government were also meticulously documented. And although there were no accounts of the tortures visited on nonvietnamese by the Viet Cong, the American anti-war demonstrators were given pride of place in that exhibit. And when you look at the sheer numbers of Vietnamese – particularly civilians – who died, it’s pretty incredible that the tone of the entire place is focused not on persecution but on remembering what happened last time so we don’t do it again.

I couldn’t help but think, as I looked at the photos of Hanoi and other cities in the North, schools and hospitals and residential neighborhoods razed to the ground, of the impact of the Allied bombs on Berlin and other German cities in World War 2, of the impact of American bombs in Afghanistan and perhaps soon in Iraq. It astonishes me that we still think this kind of action can have a sustainable, positive outcome. Punishing the civilians of a country over whose government they have no control is no way to change the behavior of that government. Killing civilians is not the way to influence foreign or domestic policy. That should be abundantly clear by now, especially with the recent killing of civilians on American soil. And yet we persist, again going counter to the wishes and beliefs of most of the rest of the world, including many of our NATO allies, threatening to wage war alone if need be – this time on Iraq, but again, who will suffer more – Hussein or his people? And once war begins, it is not easily ended. Nor is it easy for allies to stand by and watch the bloody outcome without becoming involved.

I don’t know what can be done to stop this from happening. It seems protests like those in the late 60s are outdated in the US, and I don’t know if there are enough dissenters to really raise a crowd of 50,000 in DC again anyway. Looking at it all from this side of the world, I just hope it doesn’t happen. The world is more connected now than ever, and I don’t just mean by the Internet – any action will have a much wider effect than those of 40 years ago. I don’t have an answer, just a deep feeling of sorrow and foreboding. I pray it doesn’t happen.

I don’t feel I can end on that depressing note, so I will share with you all a bit of joy in my little traveller’s world: last night I arrived in Saigon and took a room at a recommended guest house. It costs more than I’d like to spend, but that’s generally the case in big cities. The good news is, I’ve got a soft cushy bed, air conditioning, a window that faces a *quiet* alley, hot water in a private bath, and – best of all – a bathtub! I hadn’t seen one of those since I left home, and you can rest assured that I’m going to spend some quality time soaking in it just as soon as I finish my delicious (and free!) dinner.

Over and out.

A bit of truth for those of you who are considering T-Mobile as your wireless carrier: before I left the States, I called to confirm that I could still send and receive SMS without incurringany extra charges while I’m travelling. They assured me that the first 500 messages would still be totally free. Now they are charging me $1.50 each, both incoming and outgoing. As if we didn’t already know, DO NOT TRUST anything these people tell you. I am fighting the charges, and will keep you all posted.

More on the travel – and the new Lord of the Rings movie – when I simmer down. Over and out.

[entry updated on 3. January for corrections and minor additions]

Happy 2003, everybody!

New Year’s Eve on a tropical island can be a lot of fun, especially when you’re hanging out with Divers, some of the craziest people on earth. We all went to a little bar up the street from the Dive Center called Kudeta to start things off – even though things had really been started hours earlier, even before I came back from my afternoon dives. Anyway, at Kudeta everyone proceeded to get as far out of their heads as they could manage, assisted by all manner of chemical and organic compounds, many of which I didn’t even know were there until late on New Year’s Day. By midnight, Nigel (former DJ, current Dive Instructor) was in the booth wearing nothing but his headphones, screaming, “YOU WANNA SEE MY KNOB? YOU WANNA SEE MY KNOB? HERE IT IS!!”, alternating with “IT’S NEW YEAR’S EVE!! EVERYONE NOT DANCING IS A CUNT!! ALL OF YOU, DOWN THAT SIDE OF THE BAR: CUNTS!!!” This, apparently, is standard holiday behavior for Nigel, who was also naked on Christmas Eve and yelling into a microphone. Commented a bystander: “Nigel sure likes to get his kit off, eh?” Yes.

Midnight was great – everyone in the bar knew everyone else so there was an extended period of wandering around hugging everyone you saw, shouting HAPPY NEW YEAR into their ears because you were so deaf from having HAPPY NEW YEAR shouted into your ear by the last 15 people you hugged, and lots of toasting and drink buying and so forth. After the affection subsided, Owen (Divemaster in Training) began rounding people up and putting them in taxis to our next destination, a club on the opposite side of the island. By this time, Owen was quite a sight – sweating profusely, pupils like saucers, eyes rolling, with a heavy list to starboard – but I must grant that he was efficient. With military precision and liberal bullying, he got us all motivated: “YOU. Get in that truck. NOW. Tim, put her on the back of your bike and get going to In Touch. NOW.” [ed. note 03/01/2003: having spoken to many of the people there, not even Owen remembers leaving Kudeta, much less marshalling the troops. Nobody seems to recall much of what happened later on, either. Owen woke up the following afternoon on a bus near the beach, wondering what happened.] The only problem was that by the time we got there, several of us realized that we’d already had plenty to drink and moreover were still pretty tired from the afternoon dives, and really just wanted to go home. So we gamely downed a beer or two an then went back out in search of transportation. I don’t think it would be possible to adequately explain the insanity that is transit on Koh Tao on New Year’s Eve, after 3 solid days of rain, so I won’t try. Let’s just say it took a while and we hung on really tight. In bed by two, I was in excellent shape for an afternoon of diving on New Year’s day. Which brings me to:

Part 2: Happy to Be Here
From the moment we all arrived at the dive center, it was clear that it was going to be an interesting day. I was a bit tired and a bit nervous about my equalization problem, Susan* had lost her bag (passport, Visa card, cash, camera) at a beach party the night before and Pam*‘d had her cash stolen; Cameron (Divemaster) was a little bleary-eyed and hung over, and Marco (Instructor) looked beat.

Now, before I continue, I should probably say a few words about my fellow divers on this particular afternoon. As I may or may not have mentioned, I had some trouble equalizing my sinuses on a previous dive and therefore had to join another group to complete my re-certification. Most of the group was fine, good underwater and knowledgeable about equipment and procedures. Susan (the one who lost her bag) was a bit on the nervous side, but did very well at 18 meters, Lucy and Stefan were very together, and then there was Cindy*. Cindy was nowhere near fine. Cindy couldn’t remember whether to inflate or deflate, couldn’t remember to watch the others in the group and stay with them underwater, couldn’t remember that in order to move she had to kick her legs. She didn’t kick at all, and on every dive I was on she had to be reeled in because she was wandering off in a direction entirely apart from the rest of us.

New Year’s Day was not your average afternoon diving experience. The first dive went very smoothly, right up until the end, when we did a safety stop 5 meters underwater. I was hovering around Marco’s knees, Susan and Pam were drifting up near the surface, and Cameron was struggling to drag Cindy up from the bottom (she wouldn’t kick) when I heard a motor. I looked up just in time to see a dark shadow passing, Marco kicking up and grabbing Susan and Pam and yanking them back down – the boat missed their heads by less than a meter. This boat, confronted with two dive boats on the two pinnacles of the site, with no less than 4 groups of divers underwater (bubbles clearly visible) between the two, had decided to cut straight through the center of the dive site – at speed. This is unheard of, and completely outside the bounds of any sort of common sense. The worst part was that it belonged to another dive school. Marco was furious, Susan was beside herself, and everyone was shaken. Fortunately, everyone was also completely unharmed.

We got back on the boat and headed for the next dive site. Susan decided she was in no shape to get back in the water, so the rest of us went down. It was time for our last exercise – compass navigation. Sound difficult? Not really. You look at the compass to get a bearing, then swim in a straight line for about 20 seconds. Then you turn around and swim straight back. Marco waited at the beginning/end point, and Cameron swam with us. Since visibility was low and Cameron was ahead of me, I kept an eye on Cindy. When I was turning around, so was she. I thought, “Great, she can see me, I can see her, she’ll follow me back and it’ll all be good.” I was grievously mistaken. I swam back, and one by one the other all arrived – except for Cindy. We waited a minute or two and then surfaced, according to the standard PADI procedures. No sign of her. Marco went looking for her in 3 different directions. No sign of her. Pam started to panic. Still no sign. Finally, about 5 minutes later, she surfaced – roughly 100 meters away, back at the boat.

By the time we got back to the dive center we all needed a beer. But the good news is that I’m legal to dive again, and planning to do as much more as possible. I’m going to have to forgo the next round of courses, though, since going up ladders on to boats with full SCUBA and 6 kilos of weights on has not been good for my ankle. So I’ll take it easy for a few days and then head off to lovely Vietnam around the 7th or 8th.

So what did you guys do for New Year’s?