AWOL Geordie - Steve’s global adventure

After the madness of Phnom Penh, I decided 1 month off the beer and tabs in Vietnam would be a wise move. I managed 3 weeks when I stumbled across a tribal village festival. Bollicks.

In Dalat I had another disaster cut-throat shave. The woman disfigured me and didn’t want my money but since it was only about 15p I gave her it anyway. There was blood everywhere and I am hoping against Hepatitus and AIDS etc.

The bus journeys in Asia are always nightmares and the minibus from Dalat to Buon Ma Thout was no exception. With room for 18 passengers and a driver, we managed to squeeze 25 passengers on. I could hardly breathe for the 5hrs it took to drive about 200km (less than 30mph on average). Also, a young lass next to me kept vomiting as did an old troll sitting in front of me. Nobody spoke English and my Vietnamese is limited to “Hello, Thanks, How much etc’. Who said travelling is easy? Sometimes it is an endurance challenge. To compensate we did pass through some stunning scenery. In BMT I strolled around the market (these markets and their produce are fascinating places for Westerners) and got talking to a lad from Nha Trang called Wing. He was selling stuff to the local hospital and I regularly dined with him and friends. The next day I went to the BMT ethnographic museum and found it closed (I am having no luck with museums in Vietnam). I searched for a guide to take me to some nearby waterfalls and ‘E De’ ethnic minority villages with their longhouses. I found Ding and we agreed 100,000Dong for a days tour. We headed to Thac Ray Nu waterfall where I swam and walked behind the water curtain before having a water massage where the water cascades onto (and hurts) your body. We stopped at Nieng, Buon Tuor, Buon Ahn Dhong and Am H’rin E De villages to see the longhouses and people going about their business. That night I had a hot pot dinner with Wing at his mate’s house down a very thin, very steep, dark and scary back alley. Seemingly, I was the only foreigner here so again many curious stares and Hello’s were endured, but I will stray off the beaten tourist track.

Vietnam is still a communist country and one thing BMT has plenty of is propaganda posters everywhere. Uncle Ho is everywhere as is the golden hammer and sickle and the golden star of Vietnam. In BMT centre is a monument of the first tank that allegedly ‘liberated’ the town from the evil capatilists.

In Asia people can’t have muted conversations. I am sitting here in a Quang Ngai internet cafe barely able to concentrate as two blokes have a chat which means shouting at eachother very loudly across the whole room. Some things I struggle with in Asia. The noise is incredible, be it a TV, traffic or people speaking/shouting to eachother. Also, pricing systems based on race i.e. If you are white you pay more. I took a packed local shitty bus, and where the locals pay 65000d, yours truly had to pay 100000. I don’t think this is right on ANY level. Imagine this pricing policy in the UK? I think the Commission for Racial Equality would have something to say. I doubt Vietnam has one of these as it seems to shit over its own ethnic minorities.

I digress. I jumped another packed minibus from Buon Ma Thout to Kontum through more of the luxuriant South Central Highlands. Here I passed millions of fluttering white butterflies, rubber and coffee plantations and many crazy tractors where the fume belching, unmuffled engines really distort the karma here. These tractors are driven using motorbike-type handle bars. I had to change buses twice as the first one broke down while the driver was shoving bags of charcoal into the back, the second one got stopped by the police and impounded. The third finally made it.

Once at Kontum I stayed at the Family Hotel where I had a steambath and massage after the killer journey. I walked along the Dakbla Riverside in the evening enjoying the relaxed atmosphere and freshly squeezed suger cane juice from the many vendors. Next day I got up early and, wearing my hiking boots, started walking 6km to the Bar Nah ethinic minority village of Konkotu. I was walking through the village admiring the impressive Rong house (a tall straw-roofed structure that serves as the village hall, built without nails) when I heard a voice calling me in English. It was a young lass called Bluey who studies English at the local Uni. She showed me inside the bamboo dwellings and explained the food preparations for a festival occuring later that day. She asked if I wanted to hang around and I bit her hand off. People pay fortunes to do stuff like this and here is me passing through and doing it for nowt. I helped them crush leaves by pounding in a big stone bowl. I watched as the men butchered a pig and filled its intestines with the said leaves. Most of the stuff looked disgusting but I ate all when the time came. I went for a swim in the nearby river as topless women washed clothes, naked kids frollicked and two men in a dug-out were fishing. I ate coconut, bananas and melon before the wine drinking started at about 1300. The wine is placed in big clay jars, filled to the brim and a small twig is placed on the brim with a branch dangling into the liquid. You have to keep drinking the grog (I don’t know what it really was but it was strong) until the liquid cleared the twig branch. Then the wine was topped up with water for someone else to try. It was a great laugh and most of the village was hammered sitting on the dusty ground in the shade of a shack.

An old man came back to the village and he was irate because I was there independently. I should have been accompanied by a guide and this bloke was an anal commie by the look of things. In another village, a young lad had came off his moto and a few of us went on the village bikes to investigate. This was another Bar Nah village and the lad in question looked OK (few scrapes) so I played football with the kids outside their Rong house. This place literally sees no foreigners so I felt like the Pied Piper of Hamlin with my entourage of kids. Again I was dragged across to drink more wine from clay jars and I was well pissed by the end. Half a dozen of us went back to KonTum river before retiring. What a day.

I am now In Quang Ngai relaxing before heading to China Beach in between Hoi An and Danang. This is a normal town with no visitors so there is not much to see other than Son My village which is the site of the My Lai massacre by US troops during the war. I’ve decided not to visit Son My as I have seen enough examples of human brutality in other places.

Here is a couple of pics:

Cambodia. That is a CPP sign (Cambodian People’s Party). I see they are working wonders! It wouldn’t surprise me if the sign cost more than the entire building project. I just had to get a pic of this so I parked my bike right in front of the shack. Locals were wondering what I was doing as tourists tend to photograph more impressive things like Angkor Wat.

The whole Asian economy is based on how much cement an old woman can carry. You see tiny wiry old women doing extreme physical labour on building sites here. They mix cement and carry bricks by hand. It is all the more impressive when you consider the heat. Pretty tough your little old Asian Grandmas. Remember there is no medical support here either!

Cambodia used to be a communist country - in fact a pretty extreme one under Polpot! A strange legacy continues to linger whereby many street names in Phnom Penh are still called things like Russia boulevard, Bulgaria Avenue, Chairman Mao drive, Lenin Street etc.

My first beach since Hua Hin in Thailand. Mui Ne, Vietnam. Not a bad place. I’ve been to worse.

Konkotu Rong house. This is a BIG bamboo building. No nails were used in the filming of this. This is where the village chiefs hold meetings and ceremonies.

Konkotu village. Preparing the crazy wine for the celebration. There were about 6 of these clay jars full of booze and leaves. Pretty cool. Bluey is the ‘modern’ girl in the jeans. The only English I will hear for a while.

Pho Bo (pronounced fur bo - Vietnamese for Beef noodle soup)

I was swimming off the idyllic palm fringed coast of Mui Ne fishing village, observing the coconut trees, when a distant memory came flooding back. I was taken back to the time when I was a young lad messing around down the donkey track near Pegswood train station. I noticed that some street artisan had left some very tasteful art at the station. They had added “by the ‘parm’ trees” to the Pegswood sign with deft strokes of a black permanent marker pen . I remember debating with a childhood friend whether it was the work of an illiterate delinquent or perhaps the perpetrator was in fact been ironic and he/she wanted passing people to perceive us as a village of unlearned Untermensch. Maybe they were simply disillusioned with their lot and making a civil complaint that there are indeed no ‘parm’ trees in Pegswood and that the Parish Council should get off their arses and sort it out (although the climate might have proved an obstacle). For me, I remain blissfully undecided and the jury is still out.

Thanks for letting me share that memory, now back to the travel bollicks. I took a 6hr bus from HCMC/Saigon to Mui Ne. I found a great hostel ran by a small family and decided I would stay here a while. It is a posh resort but currently out of season so very quiet and chilled. I spent 6 nights eating freshly caught steamed fish with German friends Nicole and Kia. I cycled 16km to a fishing village with a huge fishing fleet in harbour which was quite a sight. There must have been more than one hundred vessels. Mui Ne is a top site for kite-surfing and I watched the experts doing it for hours on end – jumping 10m into the air at times – very cool. I swam amongst them and occasionally had to submerge myself as they surfed directly over my napper. Every night at dusk I would go for a small beachside jog and have a game of footy with the locals. I hired a motorbike and went to see the sand dunes and the fishing town of Phan Theit (pronounced Fan Teet). The dunes are massive and there are red dunes which look like Mars and white dunes which look like an inland desert. The scale of these dunes is what strikes you the most - huge. After an enjoyable week by the tropical beach I jumped a 7 hr (should have been 5hr) bus to Dalat.

Dalat is about 200km inland and sits at an elevation of 1500m leaving the climate a lot cooler than elsewhere. At nights you actually need a blanket!! I haven’t used one for months. There is a lake in the middle of town and the green surroundings reminds me very much of England. It is pleasant to walk the 4km around the Lake in the late afternoon. On my first night here, I was sitting, unwittingly eating some goat’s brain soup (which was very tasty although not what I ordered) when a group of local piss-heeds dragged me to their table. They were drinking small shots of very strong local wine and forced me to join in the fun. As I looked more closely at the demijohns containing the liquor I noticed a snake floating in one. That was cobra wine. Another demijohn was full of goat penises and that was called goat penis wine. It was quite a culinary night for me. I have to say though, if you get the chance to try goat’s brain soup give it a go. I was lucky that I didn’t know until later what I was eating but I have ordered it a few times since.

Again, in Dalat I found a great quiet family run hostel where I am the only guest and I have been made very welcome. Only last night I was invited to join the family for dinner as they shared two whole Chinese roasted ducks with me. They let me eat the duck’s heed since I was a guest……… mmmmmmmm dubious honour or what? I climbed up through pine forests and jungle to the summit of Mt Langbiang which is the highest peak in South Vietnam at 2163m. It was a tough climb but it was great to look down at the rice paddies and villages below. On the way up I saw a shedded snakeskin which made me look twice before I grabbed for branches on the ascent. The temperature has been coldish for the last few days and I have had to wear my fleece. After glorious mornings here, it seems to rain every afternoon without fail. It is all a nice change after months of unrelenting heat. Some days I have a steam bath sauna to warm up! It is because of the climate which is why I want to hang here for atleast one week.

I hired another motorbike and explored the lush mountainous regoin around town. I visited the Datanla waterfall and an ethnic minority village called Xa Lat. I then headed aimlessly into the countryside and was greeted by many strange stares as I approached outlying farms in the middle of nowhere. One young dirty looking farmer bloke came up to me and offered a smoke as we started communicating in sign language. I helped him herd all his water buffalo back into a field they had wondered from and he then invited me into his shack for a cuppa. Very strange just sitting there smiling and saying ‘GamUn’ (Thankyou) all the time but it was a laugh. When I see the homes people live in here I think of that program: Location, Location, Location. I imagine them filming a couple looking around one of these shacks and deciding if the bare wooden floors and intermittent electric is OK. Also if they are in the right area for a good school and that the well doesn’t dry up in the hot season. I’d love to see it, you know them stuck-up Southern types as a rat darts out of the ‘kitchen’ (more just a small gas stove at the edge of the only room). We really are spoiled in the UK man. I saw a load of girls coming out of a village school and couldn’t believe how well turned out they were giving where they live. They were dressed in immaculate white silk top and trousers with a blue silk smock over the top. Honestly, they looked like they were going to a wedding or something, certainly not school. To think they then sleep in these hovels. I think women find appearances important here.

One dodgy thing about Vietnam in general is the amount of motorbike accidents you see. I may have been unlucky but I have seen about 10 crashes in two weeks. Today, a woman came off after running over a dog (there are millions of dogs here, like Mongolia) and she looked bad. This happened about 3m from where I was walking and I helped lift the bike off her. Other locals turned up and took over since I couldn’t exactly provide much comfort in English. I was racing around like a lunatic when I first hired my bike but after a little thought I drove very carefully to avoid the same fate.

Bao Nhieu Tien (Viet for How Much?)