Leathery skin, long looks

South East Asia, as we somewhat lazily refer to it, has long been a favourite holiday destination for Western tourists.

So much so that, contrary to our experiences in China, Japan and Russia, the region has, at times, almost felt like a home-from-home, such are both the numbers of Westerners we have come across and the facilities the tourism-savvy locals have put on for their visitors.

From the dirt roads of Laos to the temples of Cambodia, from the streets of Saigon to the jungles of Thailand it is not unusual to meet a fellow Western tourist, be it backpacker or package holiday.

They travel a well-trodden path or, increasingly fly in a crowded sky, on new budget airlines (unaware of the connection between their plane flight and the damage increasingly wreaked by climate change on the places they visit).

Short on time and long on regrets, we join the herd whizzing between the main sights (albeit sticking to surface transport).

Many become seduced by the places they visit and linger just a little longer, shortening their stay at their next destination, perhaps cancelling it altogether.

Some, a few, don’t seem to leave at all.

We’ve come across them, Retired from the West, attached to the East.

Way back, in the 70’s or 80’s they visited these places as tourists, two weeks out of Europe for a holiday in the sun. They returned home but the places they visited stuck to them like the resin of a Jackfruit.

Their lives lacking something in the West, they returned once again, to the beaches, the temples, the people, for another heady rush of the scent of the East, and became hooked.

Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months and before they knew it they were applying for temporary residence here, renting an apartment, meeting or even marrying a local, starting up a small business.

I’ve lost count of the number of guesthouses here, or tour operators owned by a German, a Frenchman or some other European.

Some of these people really go to seed in the tropical heat, driven half-mad in the by the extreme change in their surroundings, sometimes overindulging in cheap beer, cheap drugs or cheap love.

Something pops in their head as a result of the alterations to their existence and they remain suspended, neither Western nor Eastern. All leathery skin, a long look in their eyes.

There are many of them out here but recently we’ve met two particularly fine examples…


Jonny
Boarding the sleeper bus from Saigon to Nha Trang, I selected a bunk above a grizzled-looking, wiry chap in his early 60s.

As I squeezed my belongings onto the narrow mattress, he offered some advice, “Stick your bag on the tray there mate, these buses are bloody great aren’t they?”

To Jonny, as he soon introduced himself, everything was ‘bloody great’. Unmistakably Kiwi in his demeanour, this outgoing fellow had plenty to say as our bus speed north along Highway One.

A keen sports fan, Jonny soon regaled me with a lengthy report of Formula One-driver Lewis Hamilton’s latest and championship-sealing win. Not the greatest of motorsports fans I nodded politely and noticed how out of place this funny chap looked on a bus full of twenty-something backpackers and the odd Vietnamese.

As everyone else bedded down for the night, seeking solitude… in their ipods or earplugs, Jonny excitedly continued, launching now into a resume of his favourite films, nodding his head and waving his arms in front of the TV screen just inches from his nose, as Rambo dispatched various villains on the crackling screen.

Later, as the plug was pulled on Stallone and the lights went down, Jimmy lowered his voice and vaguely referred to the life he had left behind back in New Zealand.

Taking semi-retirement (though what from remained mysteriously elusive) and seeing his marriage break down, Jimmy decided to up sticks and seek a better life overseas. He returns to his old land, for about one month a year, keeping the authorities happy and perhaps trying to patch things up with his estranged wife.

The rest of the time he seems to spend in Thailand, drinking beer, his skin slowly turning to leather seeking solace in the arms of a local lady he met somewhere down the line.

Theirs must be a somewhat relaxed relationship, judging by the way he seems to have one eye permanently on the opportunities for a local liaison on his travels.

One young student receives the full Jimmy charm - a smile, a few winks and an attempt to coax her into conversation. His mobile phone clearly impresses her, his words eliciting her embarrassed giggles but soon the raven-haired beauty has dozed off leaving the leather-skinned lothario’s eyes to wander once more.

He’s soon found another skimpy, doe-eyed lovely, her little white dress, yellow crop top and gold high heels drawling a low whistle of admiration.

Clearly well-experienced with the local ladies, Jimmy explains to Lara how to spot someone ‘on the game’. He isn’t under any illusion about the love that is on offer to him from all local ladies. ‘They’re only interested in one thing, mate - your money, They don’t give a f**k about anything else.’

It was only the next morning, once I’d stepped off the bus in Nha Trang at first light and guzzled a coffee and condensed milk at a pavement café that I realised that neither does he.

Sonny
Many of the ex-Westerners we met had built themselves a little empire; Sonny was no exception. Retreating from the world to the peaceful coastline up above Nha Trang Sonny has claimed his little piece of paradise.

He hasn’t kept it all for himself though, but rather gives the opportunity to tourists to share a piece of it, for a day or two, as they pass by on the coast road.

Sonny’s self-proclaimed ‘paradise’ resort is situated on a strip well away from Highway One, alongside a sandy beach populated only by fishermen weatherproofing their coracles, their children playing in the waves.

Small bungalows open onto the beach from where tiny, inquisitive crabs pay visits and scuttle across their verandahs. A blissful retreat from the hassle and heat of Saigon.

Sonny himself is a large, ebullient man, still domineering both in both his physical size and personality at the age of 81. A French passport holder he came to Vietnam 12 years ago and has spent the time building his own little empire, with a beach resort and a bolthole in the Highlands.

The resort revolves around the owner, and when he is not there (which is quite often) it is hard to arrange anything, his minions being all small, shy locals, without a word of English between them.

The young girls cook and sing sweetly to themselves, the men shuffle about in dirty short-sleeved tops, unbuttoned to the waist in the tropical breeze.

For a man his age, Sonny is in rude health, swimming a kilometre a day (As I type this I can see him in the sea, teaching his 4-month old Rottweiler how to swim. He carefully lifts the poor pooch as the rollers threaten to drown him, imploring him to paddle, human barking at dog).

In fact some might find him rather rude altogether, his abrupt, assertive manner , betraying his Croatian, or as he corrected me, Yugoslavian, roots.

Although genial and clearly happy to be the centre of the party, Sonny tells you what he, not you, wants to hear.

Clearly keen to keep our custom a bit longer he attempted to convince us that the ongoing monsoon make heading on to Hoi An, our next destination, an impossible quest.

“No good, no good“, he rasped in his hoarse Balkan voice “is all under water!”

“ Hanoi one metre!” he exclaimed, holding out a fat finger to emphasise the point. “Hoi An?, ohmygaaawd, you go, is all water.”

He waved his arms about, working himself into a frenzy

“Is water, water, WATER!. You stay, you relaaaax. Four days, five days”

It seemed incredible then, that given Sonny’s fearsome descriptions of the waterworld into which Vietnam had apparently turned, his little resort remained untouched. But the explanation was obvious: “No water here - we have microclimate.”

Ah, of course, that was it. Here we were in the one corner of South East Asia which is apparently untouched by the monsoon, where large black clouds gather but, somehow, decide not to drench the local population.

I reflected on this a couple of hours later as a massive storm hit our resort, lashing up the beach and hammering on our tiled roof.

Sonny’s talents are just limited to tourism and storytelling though; he’s still gone something left in the tank when it comes to romance as well. Since arriving in Vietnam 12 years ago this cunning old fox has got himself a wife (aged 37) and children, aged 10 and 6. She doesn’t know about his other kid, he cackles conspiratorially to me, born by another woman and hidden up in the hills.

We catch a wide with Sonny to the local gas station for our pick-up on the way up north. The rain buckets down, turning the dirt road into a quagmire. Holt bolts of lighting streak down all around, lighting up the surrounding scrub and drawing gasps from us.

Sonny assures us we’re perfectly safe in his tiny Korean car, quickly upbraiding us for our apparent lack of knowledge about lightning. ‘Didn’t you go to school? My kid of six he know that’.

A day later, strolling through the hot and remarkably dry streets of Hoi An, I thought back to Sonny and his ludicrous claims. Perhaps I should send him a postcard, or a holiday snap of our time in Hoi An, complete with scuba gear.

Names have been changed to protect the innocent