Tourist soap

There it was. Laid on especially for us along with the buses, tours and guides. Tourist soap. We have become tourist soap. Pieces of white matter packaged into boxes and taken around the country to be distributed in hotels and restaurants to order. Tourist soap is in particular demand at World Heritage Sites, UNESCO designated towns and areas seeking recognition as one of the Wonders of the World.

Being tourist soap is a claustrophobic feeling that creeps up on you and makes you mad at yourself for feeling grumpy in incredible places. I first realised I was tourist soap when I was delivered to a guesthouse in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, my feet having hardly touched the ground since Siem Reap. We were collected from our hotel in a minibus (where we did actually have to touch the ground to wade through knee-high flood water to get on the bus) that then collected other specimens from their respective hotels to be shuttled to a waiting tourist coach. We jumped from one bus to another and were driven to the centre of Phnom Penh where a tuk tuk from our guesthouse picked us up and whisked us away. The next day we went on a tour to the Killing Fields with delivery to and from the guesthouse front door. After twenty-four hours I realised that I hadn’t even wandered independently into town and had not been on public transport with a local, other than behind the driving wheel.

Nice and convenient really. There is a well developed tourist infrastructure between the sights in S.E. Asia that makes travel cheap, quick and convenient. So we repeated the whole shuttle-bus-hotel-tour cycle in Saigon and the pattern continued up the Vietnam coast. All our transport and activities were booked through the guesthouse and every time they were full of cakes of tourist soap.

If I’m so quick to whinge, why didn’t I do something different, you may ask. Well, it’s just so easy to let your guesthouse organise it all, and very difficult to find out about options otherwise. Plus it’s cheaper. The tourist sleeper bus costs $5 for a 10-hour journey. The same journey on the train costs $15 and took 12 hours, in addition to the extra time and cost of transport to and from train stations to the town centre. I didn’t mind being tourist soap most of the time, and it is nice to talk to others and exchange tips in English, but it was the first time it had happened on this trip and it just felt odd.

At times it did become suffocating. The most stifling was the Halong Bay tour (we were assured that a tour is the best way to see the natural wonders) where the tour guides couldn’t recognise you from Adam and really didn’t care. Everyday they shuffled thousands of tourists onto boats, off boats, back onto boats, up a hill and down again. They ran through the same tour guide prattle with a detached expression and eyes elsewhere. There was also, of course, the compulsory stop at a government tourist shop, which is never mentioned in the brochure. At every stage you are accompanied by other coach loads of tourist soap all being spun the same deal. At times the groups became so large that you couldn’t see the water for the suds, or the view for the tourists.

I liked the convenience of the tourist trail in Cambodia and Vietnam and it definitely enabled us to see more of the country within the limited time and budget we had available. However, it does feel liberating to be back in China. Yes there are touts and tours, but it is also possible to make your way around without them. You actually have to work a bit to get what you want and it’s all the more rewarding for it. Back to China, back to reality. I’m washing my hands of tourist soap.

Read more...

The Dos and Don'ts of South East Asia

Sun, sweat and scooters; trains, temples and tours; bananas, buses and lager. The tourist infrastructure in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos turns travelling into a wonderful holiday. However, alongside the tourist trade come touts and tricksters to be wary of. So to supplement your Lonely Planet/Rough Guide (delete as appropriate) here are World in Slow Motion's top tips for S.E. Asia:

Do:
- Take a sheet sleeping bag. There is a curious lack of bedding in these parts.
- Carry plenty of U.S. dollars cash. They are a useful back-up and the currency of choice in Cambodia.
- Drink bia hoi on plastic chairs in the street in Vietnam. 20p for a glass of draught lager.
- Drink fruity drink and coconuts with a straw. You can spot a fruity drink stall by the glasses of chopped fruit to which condensed milk, coconut milk and balls of sticky rice are added and served with crushed ice.
- Eat amok. This creamy Cambodian curry is the among the best food in SE Asia.
- Take the sleeper bus. A bus with beds is a sight to behold and an experience not to be missed, but don't expect to have a good kip.
- Have a massage at Seeing Hands in Siem Reap or Phnom Penh. These blind masseurs know what to do.
- Help out at Big Brother Mouse. Either chat with the children in English or buy one of their books to help promote literacy in Laos.
- Get up early to see monks collect alms at sunrise, a special sight in Luang Prabang, Laos.
- Go to the flag lowering ceremony in Hanoi, Vietnam. A triumphal affair every night at 9pm at the Ho Chi Minh memorial.
- Learn to say "no thank you" in the local language to keep the hawkers and touts at bay.
- Stay at Golden Temple Villa in Siem Reap. Excellent value and unlimited free bananas make it a winner.
- Stay at Hong Thien Hotel II, 46 Chi Van An Street, in Hue, Vietnam. Tien at reception is very helpful, but don't book a Halong Bay tour through them (see below).

Don't:
- Stay at Greenfields in Hoi An, Vietnam. Poor value and dreadful service.
- Rely on your guidebook for accommodation and eating recommendations. Use the Web, get tips from others and explore by yourself to find some real gems.
- Go on a Halong Bay, Vietnam, tour with Tuan Linh travel agency. These tours are sold through Kim Adventures and various hostels in Hanoi. The boat is broken and the guides lousy. If your boat is called the Duy Tan Junk 02, don't get on it. Electricity is intermittent and the motor may give out.
- Use the travel services at Victory Queen Hotel (formerly Old Darling Hotel), Hanoi, Vietnam. They take a whopping commission without telling you.
- Buy shoes at Cham H'Mong, 495 C'ua Dai Street, Hoi An, Vietnam. They fall apart within hours. - Buy your Cambodian visa at the 'Cambodian Consulate' in Aranya Prathet, Cambodia, it's a scam. Buy it at the desk once you'e through Thai immigration.
- Take any price as given - accommodation, food, things - all are up for negotiation. Pay what you think is fair.
- Sleep at the back of a sleeper bus. The bounce prevents sleep.
- Lose your temper with a local. If you cause someone to lose their temper they will lose face and make your life very uncomfortable as they try to regain it.
- Expect a peaceful sunrise at Angkor Wat, Siem Reap. You will be joined by hundreds of tourists all jostling for the same perfect sun-rises-over-ancient-temple photo.
- Wear shorts and sandals in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. The leeches will eat you for breakfast.

Read more...

Hanoi (Making a Buerk of myself)

Situated in the far north of Vietnam, like some crazy uncle shoved up in the loft conversion, Hanoi is one of the most enjoyable cities I have ever visited.

Life here is so rich, so thick it is almost mesmerising. Wandering the narrow streets of the city’s Old Quarter, taking in the scenes all around you is like drinking the coffee the locals lace with condensed milk: it is so thick, so strong and delicious you can only digest a little at time.

Drink in too much and you quickly suffer from sensory overload, your brain reeling from trying to process a million beguiling sights, bewitching smells, bewildering sounds.

In Hanoi I could walk the streets for days, seeking out my fellow human beings, peeking into their lives. A Western voyeur in an another dimension, where the streets hum with humanity and life seems so much more vivid than that back home.

Tiny shop fronts heave with goods, piled up to the rafters, bearing down on their owners. Often you can discern the shopkeeper, subsumed within a mountain of their goods, dozing against a rice sack or half-buried under an avalanche of boxes.

Many streets specialise in one particular type of product. This street sells only metal articles, that one purely toys. One shop I came across seemed only to vend sellotape.

We visited street markets in backstreets, where stall keepers sat outside Chinese-style temples and faded French colonial buildings. We saw tubs of crabs, string bags full of crawling toads and ducks hanging from hooks, glazed and ready to eat.

And all around us there were the buzz of commerce and the excited chatter of the street. People crouching on tiny plastic chairs around noodle stalls, or gathering under banyan trees and ragged awnings, where the sunlight plays through in thin shafts as they deal out a deck of cards.

Cockerels strut along the pavement, kids play keepy-uppy with colourful shuttlecocks and scrawny boys roam the streets selling faux GI zippo lighters, emblazoned with US army slang.

An old woman gnaws on a stick of sugarcane whilst other similar sinewy women plough the streets carrying bamboo shoulder poles, their baskets stuffed with tropical fruits: pineapples, persimmons and oranges, jackfruit, lycees and star fruit.

My favourite are the banana ladies, offering two varieties of banana, starchy ones in one basket, the sweeter ones in the other. All wear pointy straw hats, all bounce merrily along, swaying with their load as they tout for business.

You get the impression that this is life as it has been in Hanoi for hundreds of years. It’s survived war with the Chinese, the French and the Americans, the latter of whom managed to park a huge B52 bomber in one of the city’s ponds.

But unlike in Britain there is nothing nostalgic about this life: this is raw, hard-edged commerce and for many life is tough. Ever on the lookout for a new way to make money the Vietnamese eagerly embrace the modern.

Alongside traditional lacquerware and lanterns you can buy the latest knocked-off DVD - the new Bond Film, Quantum of Solace, appearing on the streets here well before it graced cinema screens.

The roads pulse with traffic: mopeds zip along, their horns quacking like indignant Donald Ducks; cyclos crawl past, their driver eyeing you up for trade; carts groan under staggering loads, their owners blithely steering them through the maelstrom.

Even motorbikes are pressed into freight duties, piled up with mountains of boxes, weighted down with heavy appliances, balancing ladders, bamboo poles or metal rods .

Pressed into every use imaginable the omnipresent moped has taken over the streets, spilling out onto pavements, blocking access to all. We had to climb over a squadron of them, backpacks and all, simply to get to our hotel.

Faced with an ambulatory meltdown, the authorities have been forced to act, passing a new bylaw banning the two-wheelers from blocking the walkways. Clearly unworkable, this leads to comical scenes whenever a police car hoves into view up the street as moped owners dash frantically to their trusty steeds, avoiding the long arm of the law.

Even here, in this bustling urban environment, above the noise, we often heard birdsong. It reaches out across the tiny lanes, penetrates across the lines of traffic, lighting your load and bringing a smile to your face.

Gazing up at some of these tiny choristers in their ornate cages, dangling outside a shopfront I was enthusiastically greeted by their owner, a lively chap who beckoned me inside and proceeded to show me his collection of finches.

They turned out to be a prize-winning collection, successfully entered into singing contests with other birds. The man proudly showed me his finest songster and the many pennants and rosettes it had won.

His next contest came in two days: I left him to continue his preparations.

Further down the street I spotted a creature of a more familiar hue - none other than former newsreader, Michael Buerk.

Keen to secure a photo with the legendary anchor man I interrupted his holiday and introduced myself. Lara (with camera) was utterly embarrassed and sensibly retreated to the Ladies, leaving Fewins to make a fool of himself.

“We’re travelling round the world!” I blurted to the man with the famous wink, “Without flying!”.

“Good luck with your trip” he said smoothly, before diving for the safety of his tour bus. Well it was hardly as newsworthy as an African famine was it. It wouldn’t even make The Moral Maze.

Yet I remained undeterred - who needs a photo when you’ve got an endorsement like that? I’ll have to insert it at the top of our homepage: “World in Slow Motion - as endorsed by TV’s Michael Buerk!”.

Hectic street life, Michael Buerk, golly I needed a drink after that. And what else than a Bia Hoi - ’fresh beer‘ brewed locally and served up on the street, all yours for 20p.

Relax, recline on a tiny plastic playgroup chair askew the broken pavement, and try and avoid falling into the path of the traffic just inches from your elbow.

Draining the dregs from the bottom of the glass a flash of inspiration hit me. Perhaps Hanoi’s more like the local brew than a coffee: cheap, refreshing and just a little bit rough.

And unlike the coffee you’ll be wanting a refill.

Read more...

Hue to Hanoi: letting the train take the strain?

Tired of the tourist soap, in Hue we elected to tackle the next leg of our route by train. We wanted to see a bit of Vietnam other than the tourist fleshpots, and encounter local people rather than Westerners.

Perhaps travelling by train would give us more of a chance of doing this.

We were looking forward to getting back onto the rails again, rather than onto yet another bone-rattling, leg-twisting, ironically-named ‘sleeper bus’.

Trains have always seemed to have more soul about them; fun, friendly, more of an adventure.

The photojournalist Tim Page, who’s rattled along a few Vietnamese railways in his time, puts

this better than me:

"Train travel allows the mind to wander, the eyes not really focusing on the passing countryside, the heady clackety rhythm becoming white noise, a mere sound tapestry to meditate upon."

"On a train you actually have a sense of getting somewhere, denied the traveller sealed in an aluminium tube zooming across the sky.

"There is an intimacy with your fellow voyager, a shared sense of the adventure rather than the common fear of being five miles high in the inexplicable."

So the Saigon - Hanoi train it was. Often termed the ‘reunification express’, the entire journey takes about thirty hours between the two great cities. Former opponents, now united.

Hue’s French-style train station (the ‘Ga Hue’) is a modest-sized building. Its pink paint is peeling off, leaving the impression the last person to paint it came from Le Havre rather than Hue.

Inside the small dusty waiting room, we occupied an entire row of flimsy plastic seats, our enormous bags dwarfing the slender locals hemmed in around them.

I poked my head around the door to glance at the platform: it was uncomfortably quiet, hardly a soul moved, let alone a train.

The scene looked more like one from my childhood bedroom - two platforms with low awnings faced each other across diminutive train tracks, barely lower than the platforms themselves. It was almost like revisiting my boyhood.

Did this Hornby Railways outfit really run all the way up to Hanoi?

Vietnam Railways is hardly enormous. Unlike say their Chinese neighbours, the Vietnamese, the 13th most populous nation on earth, do not enjoy a great spider web of a rail network. Indeed it’s a minor miracle that there’s a railway at all.

It runs the full length of this long land, winding its way along the coast, hemmed in by the high land to the west, battered by typhoons from the east.

During thirty years of war the line experienced more than its fair share of destruction, attracting the unwanted attentions of from Viet Cong guerillas on one side and American B52s on the other.

And even now it still can find itself under attack, running the gauntlet - in some provinces - of unfriendly locals, usually children, who like to let off steam by lobbing the odd rock or two at carriages.

Yet still it runs on, repaired and patched up, a symbol of the dogged determination of the Vietnamese people.

Back in the waiting room this determination was much in demand, as the minutes ticked by and the time dragged well past our designated departure time. Still no train.

The locals seemed unconcerned, dozing in the seats, nonchalantly sipping green tea and gazing at the traffic outside.
Finally, 50 minutes later it was action stations: a guard stirred, a tinny loudspeaker croaked out some kind of announcement and we were allowed onto the platform.

People plus baggage began shuffling onto the platform. Hardly a great swarm of people like you’d have to contend with in China, more a trickle of the unhurried.

A group of men crouched down on the platform, lay a battered old briefcase on its side and immediately started playing cards. They fingered their dirty old dong notes whilst others crowded around, watching the gamblers.

A young couple strolled up and settled down on the bench next to us, resuming the cooing they had been so rudely interrupted from back in the waiting room.

And still no train.

I began to wonder what it could be that was causing such a severe delay. Mexican bandits? The wrong type of snow? Richard Branson?

Finally, an hour later than scheduled, the noise level seemed to pick up, passengers stirred and, to much whistling both from its driver and the sundry guards on the platform, a train appeared, its headlights piercing through the descending gloom.

The dusty green carriages hauled up in front of us, the grimy windows obscuring the interior. We quickly boarded, hauling our bulky loads through the narrow corridors as the rabble pressed up eagerly behind us.

Peering into our cabin we found it already occupied: a large family, big enough to fill a small village stared back at us, their grubby kids sprawled all over the beds. Cue frantic hand signals and pointing at beds and tickets before finally the guard came along and turfed these stubborn train gypsies out.

Although ‘soft sleeper’, our cabin didn’t quite live up to our expectations: it held six beds rather than four, crammed in so that each bed had about two and half foot of space between it and the one above. Grimacing as I adopted a contortionist pose I squeezed my slim frame into a bunk at the top, hauling my pack up behind me.

We’d heard many scare stories about theft on such trains and I’d come prepared, squashing my bags into the tiny cubby hole over the door and securing them up with the bike chain I procured back in a Beijing market.

The chain‘s oily odour - one of Lara’s constant sources of complaint - added to the heavy fug of our narrow confines.

The bare strip lighting, the only light which worked, bore into my retinas and bounced off the soviet-style décor - a kind of faded bluey-green paint, reminiscent of the old trains I once travelled in Eastern Europe.

There was a jolt, and we started moving: ten hours through the night to the capital.

Our companions turned out to be the cooing young couple from the platform.

We held the usual confused conversation with them that we’d had with all fellow passengers since leaving Europe.

Courtesy of Lara’s point-it book and my natural flair for charades we covered marital status, family and occupation before moving on to the details of our time in Vietnam and our trip as a whole, with the aid of my much-used Michelin map of the world.

We moved on in the dark, crossing the former DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) around the Ben Hai river, lying on the 17th parallel - the dividing line when the North and South fought each other.

I felt the call of nature and sought out a suitable facility. A brown swamp sloshed around the bowl, splashing over the edge onto the floor with every jolt of the train. I tried another: locked. And another: also locked.

I sought out the guard, in his tiny broom cupboard of a cabin and persuaded him to open the one remaining, semi-useable fortress of solitude. No water - I silently thanked the ex-work colleague, a cleanliness obsessive, who had furnished me with handcleaning gel before leaving .

Back in the cabin more passengers joined us at Dong Hai; our lovebirds left us at Vinh, and through it all we fitfully slumbered, rocked gently to sleep by the motion, suddenly woken by a clang or a bang.

A short night, abrupt ended at 5.30am. Raised voices, doors slamming, a knock at our door: we’d arrived. Hanoi.

Alighting on a deserted platform I rubbed my eyes and pulled on my fleece in the cold morning air. The light was just seeping into the sky, revealing the faded yellow hue of the station, another French-style edifice.

I may have been half-asleep but there was no let-up from the touts. A particularly merciless posse awaited us in the station forecourt.Taxi drivers and cyclos, baguette vendors and orange sellers, the descended on us like crows on a sheep's carcass, tugging at our sleeves and searching for our wallets .

Their patter was well-worn: the same old tricks, the same old questions. Again and again.

‘Hey where are going?’, ‘Ello moto?’ (Are these people moonlighting for Motorola?).

In my dazed condition I felt like giving up, chucking a grubby wad of Dong in the air and making a run for it as the mob fought behind us, scrabbling in the dirt for the notes falling like autumn leaves onto the tarmac.

I needed a bed and a wash. I needed some tourist soap.

Read more...

Fancy popping into My Dung?

As a highly commercially-minded nation, Vietnam offers some of the finest shopping we have experienced so far on our trip.

At times we found the sheer range of goods on offer, and the whole haggling process involved in procuring, somewhat overwhelming.

We needed some light relief and we found this in the shops themselves.

For this country is not only offering every imaginable item for sale at low, low prices but comes replete with a whole host of amusing shop names. The kind of names that would make even your haughtiest schoolteacher guffaw with gusto.

Many shop names induced a snigger out of my Western-oriented, childish mind, but the following were particular favourites:

‘Phuc Long‘
‘Bum’
‘Dong Phuc’
‘Phuc Lot’
‘Dong Phat’
‘Hung Dong’
‘Duc Phat’
‘Duc Phuc’
‘Phuc Vu’
‘My Dung’

And last and certainly not least:
'Tommy Dung'

These names may well provoke a titter out of silly travellers but their commercial value is proven. And with names like this who needs advertising?

So Topshop, Next, Marks & Sparks: take note and save yourself millions.

Surely you could do better than such bland brands? Ditch the dull names and take a leaf out of the Viets ledgers.

Here's to popping into My Dung for a spot of luncheon next time I'm in Oxford Street.

Read more...

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

Read more...

In search of paradise

I sometimes feel that I am destined never to find a paradise beach. I first went looking in Ecuador in 1997 only for the coast to be tragically devastated by El Niñ o. Trying my luck this time in Vietnam - our first glimpse of the sea in South East Asia - and the monsoon that should have happened over the last few months has decided to get it all over and done with in the couple of weeks that we are visiting. Paradise always seems to be soggy.

We rocked up at Paradise Resort (we really tried) in glorious sunshine. In the two hours before the rain set in I got a glimpse of paradise, with coconut laden palms overhanging coral white sands and not another tourist in sight on the beach, only fishermen and a chap mending a coracle. The water was warm and clear.

But alas, all is not well in paradise. Both beach and sea were full of rubbish. Clothes, rope and plastic bags in all the colours of the rainbow adorned the shore. It was glorious to collect exotic shells from the beach but not so fun having to tiptoe over discarded bottles and peanut packets.
Sunset over the South China Sea and the coracle rollers of Doc Let was picturesque and watching the fishing fleet out at night with spotlights hauntingly beautiful. But the seemingly thin layer of oil on top of the waves this morning rather ruined my pre-thunder storm dip.

To be here enjoying the warmth and peace whilst the British eat baked potatoes in front of Guy Fawkes bonfires and the results of the American election trickle in (for today in Vietnam is yesterday in the U.S.), I know I am very lucky. I also know that this paradise would be greatly enhanced if more people thought about the environmental consequences of their actions.

It would be interesting to trace the origin of the plastic bags on paradise beach. I wager that they are not all from Vietnam but are a more travelled bunch from perhaps China, Japan or even as far away as the United States. And yet we keep making and taking plastic bags (and other superfluous plastic goods) that will all eventually end up on someone else’s paradise beach.

Of course even in paradise it rains, but these Vietnamese beaches are going to fare pretty badly under predicted climate change scenarios. Vietnam is one of the countries most likely to suffer from climate change. If the predicted sea level rises occur, one million people in the delta regions will be directly affected and most likely displaced, with a further 43 million people (over half the population) living in vulnerable coastal zones.

My journey in search of a paradise beach can go on (and will resume in Mexico), but for the Vietnamese they are not only losing their paradise but also their land, livelihoods and loved ones. Perhaps I won’t be the only one in a never ending search for paradise.

Read more...

Saigon: Two Wheels Good

“Saigon. Shit. I’m still only in Saigon”

Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now

Vietnam. Like the anti-hero of Francis Ford Coppola’s epic, I lie on my bed in the sweltering Saigon heat, a rusty old three-bladed fan slowly revolving above me.

My mind conjures up images from the film and others like it, movies with which I’ve grown up, shaping my visions of this enticing land.

But unlike Martin Sheen’s character I don’t lose it and trash the room in a fit of post-traumatic stress (at least not yet).

Instead my visions are disturbed by a strange buzzing noise, oddly out of sync with images of surfing GI’s and firefights with ‘Charlie’ in paddy fields.

As I awake from my reverie it grows louder and louder, as though thousands of bees are heading back to their nest, somewhere under my bed.

Drawing back the curtains I’m brought rudely back into the present, looking out onto a typical street scene in downtown Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon).

The source of the noise is not apian but human - I gaze down upon a street full of motorbikes and mopeds, moving in a constant stream, tearing up the street like a conquering army, sweeping all before them.

Honking Hondas, yapping Yamahas, screeching Suzukis, even moaning old Russian Minsks. It’s like a kind of oriental Quadrophenia.

Here in Vietnam the two wheeler is king.

For a practical people this makes perfect sense. Motorbikes provide them with a quick, easy and economical means of getting about.

Their size suits the Vietnamese - we’ve seen whole families crammed onto one bike - two adults and two kids - another, a little Honda, carried no less than five grinning teenagers.

Motorbikes also function as a kind of motorised beast of burden, deployed to cart the family’s food home or carry around the tools of their trade. These doughty little vehicles seem to be capable of withstanding a sizeable load - a very sizeable one.

Some of the bikers here would give Eddie Stobart a run for his money, squeezing onto their groaning machines great mountains of goods: pots; produce, even pigs, all trussed up in wicker baskets and heading for market.

And where there’s a market, there’s a motor. Or ‘moto’ in the case of passengers.

No Westerner in Vietnam is ever alone when walking the streets. Usually it’s the moto driver who’s thoughtfully accompanying them, trailing in their irritated wake, his little sing-song voice imploring them to hitch a ride on his grimy Suzuki: “ello motow….?”

It doesn’t matter how big you are, or how many bags you are carrying: Mr Moto will do the job. He made easy work of my 6 foot frame, 50 pound backpack and numerous other accoutrements, squeezing us all on board and zipping along the Saigon streets like a ballerina on speed.

As we tore up between the serried ranks of riders, I dug into his shoulder blades and thanked the gods that helmet-wearing has recently been made a legal requirement.

But pity the poor pedestrian. For here in Ho’Ville the sheer volume of traffic makes crossing the road a risky business.

You hover nervously on the pavement, eyes squinting in the bright sunlight, trying to perceive a slight gap which might allow you to squeak across. When one appears you’re in there, dashing into the road, pausing midway to finding another gap in the other direction, praying that some evil knievel doesn’t ram into your large Western behind.

Once again, our Western frailties are exposed. We look clumsy and awkward, like babies groping for their parents.

By contrast, the locals don’t find these bipedal menaces a problem; indeed they seem nonplussed at it all, casually sauntering across busy streets. A Ho‘Viller slowly strolls into the maelstrom, with barely a glance at the hordes of horsepower heading rapidly their way, and wanders out, without a scratch, at the other side.

This seems to be a blueprint for survival in Vietnam. We therefore adopt it as we board a bus heading north, pushing deeper into this this manic nation. Two weeks of ahead of us, without a scratch...

Read more...

How to…get in to and out of Cambodia overland

Aranya Prathet, Thailand, to Poipet, Cambodia
We crossed the border into Cambodia at Aranya Prathet, one of Thailand’s five land border crossings. It was a very confusing process with little information and scams a plenty. Have your wits about you and don’t trust anyone.

Having been warned against taking the ‘direct’ bus from Thailand to Siem Reap (that apparently takes you around the houses and down the worst roads so you arrive late and tired and go to the first guesthouse the driver suggests) we made our own way to Aranya Prathet. It feels like the end of the road with little in the way of accommodation and the dredges at the bottom of the culinary barrel (including frog, lizard and bush meat).

The border is open from 7.30am to 5pm and you can buy your visa at the border. The tuk tuk journey from town (6km) should cost no more than 50 Bhat, and make sure your driver takes you to the border and not to the ‘Cambodian Consulate’. The Cambodian Consulate is a scam. The sign and building certainly look legitimate and they do sell Cambodian visas, but after one too many “sure brother’s" we got suspicious. Only it was too late; as we had handed over $30 for a visa that we later learnt should cost only $20. The best place to buy your Cambodian visa, if you haven’t got one in advance, is from the visa booth once you have gone through Thai immigration and customs. Cambodian immigration and customs are then a straightforward stamp and enter.

Poipet is an unnerving and unwelcoming entrance to a country. After the relative ease, cleanliness and smiles of Thailand, Cambodia throws dust, ragged children and deformed adults at you. Women pull carts through a cesspool of a road piled high with rubbish and mud. Going through the Angkor towers gate into Cambodia felt like walking through a portal in to another world.

Moving on from Poipet to Siem Reap or anywhere in Cambodia is a chore. The Cambodian authorities claim to have made it easier to avoid scams by providing their own irritating touts and escorts across the border. Whether you like it or not, they’ll accompany you from Aranya Prathet to Poipet and put you on a free bus to the tourist bus terminal (about 200m), where you pay corresponding tourist prices. For a bus terminal there are very few buses. You can wait for the single daily bus to Siem Reap that leaves at 3pm ($10) or share a taxi ($60). There doesn’t appear to be an alternative. The taxi turned out to be a good option (although expensive for a three hour journey) as the road to Siem Reap is dire and you need all the comfort you can get. Rumour has it that Thai Airlines pays the Cambodian government to keep this road in poor condition to encourage more people to fly.

It is a slow roller coaster ride on red mud, about as bumpy as the roads in northern Laos, but it is also a fascinating introduction to Cambodia. Dazzling fields of rice stretch as far as the eye can see with water buffalo wallowing, children playing and men fishing with nets all up to their waists in water. Given the country’s history it feels tropically eerie. These feelings were offset by the surreal as a man on motorbike went by with two rigor-mortised pigs, trotters pointing towards the heavens, strapped on the back.

The last part of the trip is finding your guesthouse in Siem Reap. On the city outskirts the taxi driver passes you over to a tuk tuk for the final leg of the journey. Make sure you have a hostel reservation, or pretend you have one, and insist on being taken there and not to the one where the driver receives commission. The tuk tuk ride is included in the taxi fare. Another irritating ‘official’ rides with you trying to sell tours of the temples. Ignore him too. Once settled Siem Reap is definitely worth the hassle, and the journey there is an unforgettable and unique part of the Cambodian adventure.

Bavet, Cambodia, to Moc Bai, Vietnam
Leaving Cambodia is a doddle in comparison to entry. The road from Phnom Penh to Vietnam is good and there are direct buses from Phnom Penh to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) that take six hours ($12). Most hostels in Phnom Penh will sell you a bus ticket with a ride to the bus terminal included in the price. Many hostels also offer a visa service ($35), perhaps the easiest way to get a visa for Vietnam. British nationals need a Vietnam visa before arriving at the border, but other nationalities, such as the Swedes, may be able to travel visa free for up to 15 days.

There is little more to say about the crossing. It was easy. You give your passport to the bus staff and they get the exit stamp for Cambodia while you are eating lunch and admiring the bling of Bavet‘s casinos. You then get off the bus to go through Vietnamese immigration and your bags are scanned at customs. Back on the bus and you’re in Vietnam.

Read more...