Hoi An, Vietnam

To view Part 1 of photos from Nha Trang/Hoi An, click here.

To view Part 2 of photos from Hoi An, click here.


The first commandment for every good explorer is: an expedition has 2 points, the point of departure and the point of arrival. If your intention is to make the second point coincide with the actual (theoretical) point of arrival, don’t think about the means – because the journey is a virtual space that finishes when it finishes, and there are many means as there are different ways of ‘finishing’. That is to say, the means are endless.

- Che Guevara, The Motorcycle Diaries


I arrived in Nha Trang with a heavy heart. I missed my peeps and the routine I left in Mui Ne and probably didn’t give Nha Trang the chance it deserved based on my mood, so I only stayed for 2 days and it rained PURTY much the entire time I was there. I couldn’t even go for a walk on the beach without getting thoroughly soaked. That’s when I decided to hightail it outta there and head off to absorb the culture and charm of Hoi An!

There was a Vietnamese holiday the day after I decided to leave Nha Trang, which meant that almost all of the buses were booked. I got the last seat in town....which meant sleeping at the back of the bus in between a French couple and 2 girls from South Africa. Of course at the time, this seemed to be an unfortunate circumstance. There is no room at all between the seats...meaning, we might as well have all been sleeping in a king size bed together during an earthquake! But being in such close proximity, we all made fast friends before trying to get a decent night’s sleep on a long overnight bus journey (11 hours) that had us arriving in Hoi An at 6 AM.


Gillian and Tony, the 2 girls from South Africa, and I decided to take a room together. Both of them had lived and worked in Banff, Alberta (Canada) for a year to save up for their SE Asian tour. We hit it off and ended up staying in Hoi An together for several days.

Our mornings consisted usually of getting breakfast (wicked potato omelettes at Tam Tam restaurant) and chilling out with a coffee at our favourite restaurant. We rented bicycles and rode to the beach, shopped and read. When we finally got sick of that, we decided to rent motos to check out Marble Mountain.

The man who rented the motos to us (I will call him ‘motoguy’) had a neck beard. This was no run of the mill average neck beard people. His whiskers extended clear out past his ears. My heart felt a lot of sympathy for his better half. Another trait we noticed about many of the Asian men is that they have at least one really long nail. I have heard a couple of theories on this. The first was that they use it as a sort of ‘tool’ or ‘pick’ if you will. Exactly what is picked, I don’t think we need to go into. The second theory is that it shows distinction (or a sort of ‘chick magnet’, if you will). If a man has nice, long nails, it means that he is a member of a more esteemed class (this tradition dates back to the Qing dynasty) as he has time to tend to his nails and isn’t doing manual labour or hard work that would require his nails to be short. I like this theory better, although the former explanation was demonstrated before me several times!

We followed the moto guy to the petrol station where he told the attendant to put 3 litres in. Tony had figured out just how far a litre will take you and asked the attendant to only put 1 litre in but by then it was too late and I was left to pay 35,000 dong for the gas. I told moto guy that if my tank wasn’t near empty when we returned that he would have to reimburse me for the money I put in. He looked at me with a blank stare, one I was becoming very familiar with since getting to Asia.

We cruised the 25 km to Marble Mountain. I had a couple of Vietnamese men ride beside me and blatantly stare while I kept my focus straight ahead pretending to be oblivious. All I kept thinking was thank goodness Gill and Tony are behind me. Generally, I had found traveling in Asia pretty safe but it was a definite comfort to have two sisters watching my back.

Unfortunately when we returned from Marble Mountain to Hoi An, I was still on ¾ of a tank, which I knew spelled conflict ahead. As soon as we pulled up to moto guy, the key was promptly taken out of my ignition. I asked very nicely for moto guy to pay me back 20,000 dong since he now had almost a full tank of gas, courtesy of yours truly. He of course was not keen on the idea so I said ‘Well, fair is fair. I guess I will just keep this helmet then.’ I grabbed the helmet to take with me and he raised his hand and struck my forearm to try and get me to release the helmet from my grasp.

Wo.

The next words that flew out of my mouth, I cannot take responsibility for...

‘Don’t you EVER f***ing TOUCH me AGAIN!’

I could feel my heart pound and blood gush into my cheeks. The gloves were officially off. I jumped on his back and rolled him onto the pavement. OK no I didn’t do that but I probably could have based on our statures. I wondered what this guy would have done if we weren’t in public and it made me even angrier to think of how he might treat the women in his life.

Gillian is supermodel tall, so I handed the helmet to her and she held it up in the air so that he couldn’t reach it. This did not make motoguy a happy camper. A random Vietnamese tourist came out of a hotel nearby to act as a mediator between us and help resolve the situation but moto guy wasn’t having any of it. I decided it was time to bring out the big guns and threw a big lens on my camera and started snapping photos of them and their sign. They were yelling but they couldn’t really do anything with the crowd that had gathered around us by that point. Tony, Gill and I finally decided it was time to walk away but not after putting up a good fight. In the end, I lost only a couple of Canadian dollars in the deal but that had nothing to do with it. It was the PRINCIPLE! I understand that corruption is deeply imbedded in Vietnamese society and they do business differently than we do BUT this kind of behaviour is doing NOTHING for the health of their tourism industry and if travelers keep turning a blind eye and accepting this behaviour, it will never change. This along with having to physically pry my money out of a ladies hand in the market after getting manhandled by her had me debating whether I should skip the rest of Vietnam and head straight to Laos from there.

I will say that I met many lovely Vietnamese people and I also need to mention that it is extremely important in Vietnamese culture to keep up with the Jones’ and they will do what they can to achieve this dream. I am not berating Vietnam as a whole country in any way, especially considering their volatile, war-torn history and the pain and suffering they have endured. I have come from a pampered life to a developing country and have no right to preach but am merely observing and sharing what I have experienced. Tony, Gill and I really did have an amazing time there - dining in the many quaint little restaurants riverside with lanterns glowing around us, observing the architecture, sampling the tasty fresh baking and having clothing tailor made at ridiculously cheap prices...who can complain about that?

One day, I was having lunch in one of our favourite restaurants and met Michelle, a fellow Canadian from Montreal. She was staying just outside of Hoi An in a villa that belonged to her best friend which was also her headquarters for planning said friend’s wedding. Her kids were there as well as her son’s pre-school teacher, Tara-Lee, who came along to help care for the kids while Michelle was working. She asked if Tara-Lee could join myself and Toni and Gill for dinner some night since there was not a whole lot to do for a single girl in Hoi An. Tara-Lee ended up meeting us for the first of many dinners that evening. It was great to meet someone from home and the 4 of us had a fab time together.

Tony and Gill decided to move ahead to Hue after spending a splendid week in Hoi An. I planned to meet them there as Michelle and Tara-Lee invited me to the villa to stay a couple days – this was an offer that I could not pass up after backpacking for several weeks. I ended up getting to stay in my very own villa complete with a private garden shower not to mention some really amazing extras like giant sized terry cloth towels, a TV (!), fully loaded iPod, stereo system, king size bed with more fluffy, white pillows than I could ever want or need and best of all we had a private swimming pool right on the beach with an up close and personal view of the ocean..dreamy!



My first night there, I took my camera for a walk away from the private beach and met several local kids who had oodles of energy to burn and luckily for me, happened to be uber photogenic! I had the most amazing time and this was probably THE highlight of my stay in Hoi An.

After 2 marvelous days and nights at the villa, I decided to move on (before I got too used to the lap of luxury). The local bus picked me up outside of the villa and I headed off to Hue to meet Tony and Gill for another fun-filled overnight bus journey north to the right bank of the Red River to Vietnam’s capital - Hanoi!



“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”

- Clifton Fadiman

Immensely Sized Flying Grey Monster Bugs - Mui Ne, Vietnam

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” - Tim Cahill



To view photos from Mui Ne, click here.

To view Kiteboarding photos from Mui Ne, click here.

Sam, James and I arrived in Mui Ne expecting to be eaten alive by tuk tuk drivers but instead were greeted by 3 rather mellow moto drivers who actually took ‘no’ for an answer – how very charming! It seemed fitting then that we would end up at a guesthouse called Mellow, which set the tone for the rest of our stay.

That evening, we went to a restaurant on the beach to have what would be the first of many entertaining dinners together. When we were about to pay our bill, one of the servers came out and opened up a valve on a pipe to empty an awful smelling liquid that made its way onto the beach and directly into the ocean. Of course, for someone from a country that hides its polluting ways, this was rather appalling. I asked the server what it was he was doing and suddenly he didn’t speak very good English. Then the other server came over to clear a plate and also completely dodged the question. It was obviously sewage but I just wanted them to admit it and perhaps start a conversation about it.

When traveling through a developing country one has to remember that they have had big problems to tend to and it takes money and education to keep a place in check when it comes to the environment, but I do believe in many cases, it is just plain ignorance and inconvenience (laziness) and I wish to put a stop to it. Why people think it is a good idea to unload their crap into the sea is beyond me.... It doesn’t exactly make one crave seafood when what we dump into the ocean is demonstrated right before you. Pardon my language but is this not like shitting where you eat? Mui Ne is an 11 km stretch of beach that is seemingly quite beautiful at first until one takes a closer look. In front of the touristy resort areas, the garbage is not as bad but a walk further north down the beach, where most of the local fishermen are, the Styrofoam, plastic and various other detritus becomes much more apparent. The amount of litter I saw on the bus ride between Ho Chi Minh City and Mui Ne could almost be likened to driving through a landfill. Give a local a piece of garbage to dispose of and they will just throw it on the ground for you. Arg! And the beaches....don’t EVEN get me started! So before I go on another environmental tangent, I will stop there...for now.

46,000 – estimated number of floating plastic pieces per square mile of ocean, according to a 2006 UN Study.

We met the fourth party, Annete, of our little group the next evening while dining at what was to become our favourite restaurant. Anette was on her way home back to Denmark after traveling through New Zealand and Australia. This was the first of many enchanting dinners together full of tasty delights, stories, laughter and SERIOUS debates ranging from politics to the existence of the supernatural...you name it, we covered it.
Our first excursion was to the sand dunes. On the way, we stopped at the Fairy Springs where we waded through a long stream and trekked up and down steep, sandy hillsides to observe sweeping views of lush scenery and waterfalls. Eventually we made our way to a bay filled with colourful little boats and children selling their wares. We made fast friends with the kids which again had me wondering how I could smuggle them home in my backpack!



Then came the grand finale! We got to the sand dunes shortly before sunset, which didn’t really matter because just as we got there, the clouds rolled in (as per usual)! It still made for a beautiful powder blue sky highlighted with rain clouds behind a sandy brown horizon. We had to walk quite a long time to get to the dunes and then of course uphill to the top where we could take our crazy carpets and zoom down the hillside. We were already covered with sunscreen, sweat and bug spray, so adding sand to the mix just made us good and dirty....which makes for the best showers EVER. And speaking of showers....

One thing that I won’t miss about Mui Ne are the immensely sized flying grey monster bugs that seemed to want to terrorize me wherever I went...despite having saved several of their lives! The owners of our guesthouse kept the light on in the bathroom at night for those of us blessed with small bladders. This would be not such a trying experience if the immensely sized flying grey monster bugs were not so attracted to this light! Each time I visited the bathroom, I would find at least one of these creatures lying on their backs frantically flailing their skinny appendages so they could turn over and fly away. What was God thinking when he made such a thing? They are like kamikaze pilots! As much as I was disgusted by these ‘things’, I still saved at least one or two of them on a nightly basis by taking the pool cue (cause what bathroom doesn’t have one) and nudging them on their bellies until they glommed onto the end and I could flip them over. I went to bed that first night feeling very satisfied and quite sure that my bug karma was upped a few quotients. To my dismay, the next morning I found that both victims had been eaten alive by insidious ants. I found myself speaking out loud to them: ‘Why didn’t you fly away when I turned you over? Don’t you get it??’ I was quite preoccupied with the failure of my rescue mission when I realized I was not alone. I turned around just in time to hear the snicker of the janitor looking quite entertained by my conversation with the dead bugs.

One night while in the shower, I heard a noise coming from the window shutters. I didn’t really take notice until I saw the shutters start to separate and a shadowy silhouette of what looked like a bird started to form. The next thing I knew, one of the immensely sized flying grey monster bugs was swirling around me unruly in a counter clockwise FRENZY! I was .... well, NAKED and in a public area, so I stood paralyzed and from deep in my belly up through my lips came the girly-est, most embarrassing, high-pitched noise my voice box has ever made. I came to my senses and grabbed the towel and ran full tort out of the danger zone! Sam met me just as I was exiting wondering what had happened. All I could do was point into the shower room where the immensely sized flying grey monster bug was (as it does) frantically flailing its skinny appendages upside down on the floor. Once I caught my breath, I grabbed my trusty pool cue and saved the murderous, suicidal creature, as I now felt it was my duty! After that, they fell on me from the ceilings in restaurants and continued to try to off themselves in our bathroom. Perhaps I had done something evil to these bugs in another life and they gave me numerous chances to redeem myself? Regardless, I don’t miss Mui Ne in that respect!


Most days consisted of the 4 of us meeting for breakfast and then it was over to Jibes for lattes and sunning in their comfy beach chairs. I usually edited photos inside watching kiteboarders and windsurfers whip by, drinking espresso and wondering if this was me really living this life? Then in the afternoon, we would all eventually congregate again at Wax where they served the FINEST Vietnamese coffee and offered up bean bags to lay on the beach with...sigh.


Then we would all go back to our guesthouses to freshen and meet yet again for dinner! The food was amazing in Mui Ne. You could get anything from traditional Vietnamese food to pizza, pasta and best of all espresso! I have never had dessert so much as I did in Mui Ne. In fact, I don’t remember a night that I DIDN’T have it! It usually consisted of some kind of coconut or banana combination with a pancake or ice cream – ooh la la!




Mui Ne is best known for its kiteboarding and windsurfing. We came just on the cusp of the end of the season, so I took the camera out for a couple of late afternoons and photographed 2 kiteboarders, Steve and Rich, both from England. I loved it! This was much easier than photographing surfers on the North Shore since the action happens much closer to shore and I needn’t bother with a ridiculously long lens.


James, Sam and I decided to rent motos to take the 30km trip to Ta Cu Pagoda where the largest reclining Buddha lives. Driving there during the day wasn’t too crazy with traffic but coming back was a bit of a different story. Vietnam as I mentioned before is not the SAFEST place in the world to rent a moto. When people pass each other, they basically put the pedal to the medal and lay on their horns at full speed to say, ‘get the hell out of the way or somebody’s gonna die!’ On the bus from HCMC to Mui Ne, our bus driver was constantly beeping his horn at either animals or people crossing the road or as he was passing other vehicles. If we went through a village or town, instead of slowing down or having stop signs or traffic lights, he just honked the horn all the way through town to clear the way so they don’t have to slow down. The three of us stayed close together and fastened our helmets for a wild ride back through the exhaust and cornucopia of motos, bicycles, trucks and chickens. Surprisingly, we all survived the drive home and despite the danger, were VERY grateful for the cool breeze on our faces – a nice respite from the hot, muggy weather.

Oh and by the way..the largest reclining Buddha in Vietnam was definitely large and a beautiful sight along with its surroundings (see photo album)!


We finally parted ways after 11 fun filled fabulous days together. Anette went back to Denmark and Sam and James went to Thailand to meet some of their friends from England. When I departed Mui Ne, I left with tears in my eyes...these days will always be a cherished part of my memories on this journey.



Coming up..Nha Trang and Hoi An!