my first leap

I’m back at Yellow House Hotel in Saigon. It’s 21.57pm. Seb has gone for a walk. We’re taking it easy after a 4 hour coach journey from Muine Beach.

Tuesday 26th July —

Seb was up at 5am. He told me later he was desperate for a pee but found both the back and front door locked with a padlock. But he was woken up earlier by the rooster’s cries, the farm animals singing, the flickering TV playing karaoke and bugs dancing on his chest. I tried to sleep until Seb came up to my net and whispered ‘Are you up yet?’. I was now and got up to begin my zombie walk at 5.20 in the morning.

I needed a pee and hoping to avoid relieving myself for the whole day was not going to work. After, I brushed my teeth with some drinking water. I felt a bit guilty as everyone else is using the water from the hose in the yard. I used as little as possible thinking that would make me feel less guilty. My stomach had not been quite right since I got to Vietnam and it was now quietly behaving itself. I didn’t want to disturb its sleep.

I put on yesterday’s clothes. They kindly asked why I was wearing yesterday’s clothes. I didn’t want to explain that this was the best combination that kept me cool. I went and got changed. I transferred all the insect repellent patches to the clean clothes. All my patches end up on my pyjama top and bottom. I can safely say that I could easily impersonate Mr Blobby with the circles all over me. My relatives treat us with very strong sweet coffee for breakfast. I dipped my crispy bread in it. Nice. In Vietnam it’s normal to get up at 5am and finish work at 5pm. Sang’s wife asked us if we wanted to go to the market with her. We jumped on our motorbikes and went grocery shopping. At the market, we passed a basin of wormy-like finger-like squirmy sea things and Sang’s wife asked Seb if he wanted to try. Seb shook his head in horror muttering ‘no, no’. She laughed. I looked away with a suspicious feeling I’ve had these wormy things before but they were dead and fried and looked like a veg. I didn’t know what they were, now I knew. I tried not to think about it. We bought water and tissue for ourselves, important for survival here. My cousin’s wife bought food for dinner. She asked Seb if he liked the fish we had last night. Seb loved it. So we’re standing there staring at dead fish spread out and kissed by flies and Seb, I’m sure, wanted to change his mind. Luckily the fish she orders are the alive ones in a bucket. The fish lady sits squat as she takes out a fish and hits it on the head knocking it out. She does this with the next one but it fights so she wacks it again. And then she cleans, guts and scales them right in front of us quickly and skilfully. At the market we are a novelty. Everyone wants to know who we are. The women tell my auntie Seb is a good-looking guy. We ate some pho bo at a food stall nearby and Sang’s wife tells us how 4 years ago they had no water and had to collect water from a well 40 miles away and because they had to pay for it and had to use the majority of the water for crops, they washed themselves with a noodle bowl of water to conserve what water they had. Now it was easier, they had their own well. She told us of her pretty 18 year old daughter. After being beaten by my uncle, for something she didn’t do, committed suicide. She told us with tears in her eyes. This reminded me of my visit to Hainan Island in February when I wandered around my relatives’ village and came across a woman who was working on a machine that was churning out potatoes. Somehow she guessed who I was and when I confirmed it, she started crying there right in front of me. Sometimes you don’t realise the impact you have on those who enter your life.

Sang’s wife is close to the owner of an ice stall where they cut ice and sell them by the block. We parked our bikes outside and watched a young boy (the son most probably) cutting and selling the ice. We too bought a block from him. With the block of ice, the vegetables, meat, fish and a crate of beer, we had the task of getting all this back to the house on 2 motorbikes. Sang’s wife took the beer, we took the food. Seb had a basket between his legs and I carried a bag as well. This and bumpy roads made an interesting thrilling ride. Sang’s wife stopped twice; the first time to give a man outside his house the crate of beer and then a boy outside his house a bag of something else. It seemed she was shopping for others as well.

She had bought a bottle of petrol. We found out that 7th nephew used it for his weed cutting machine. We watched him and then followed him – he’s only 18 years old – like excited children and watched him do his days work cutting weed from the forest floor. Seb saw him and Sang cousin plant trees.

We go for a drive and again big moths the size of eye balls zoomed around us and into us. Seb had one in his ear and had to stop to make sure it was out. These moths were found in the living room as well swooping around the tube of light. Zapping them created a bigger pop and their bodies took longer to burn but there was too many of them. 7th nephew saw our plight, hung a plastic bag using a straw to hook it to the light. Amazingly, the stupid moths would flap close and fly into the bag and couldn’t get out. I don’t know how that worked but it worked.

I write this as I sit in the living area with the whole family around. 4th cousin and her husband have come over with some durian-like fruit called ‘jackfruit’ from their back garden and some hairy lychees. Seb had asked what the hairy lychees were called and I said jokingly ‘I don’t know, hairy lychees’. I’ve just looked them up and amazingly they are called ‘rambutan’ and ‘hairy lychees’! My 4th cousin explained that these ones are from Thailand and were much sweeter than the ones from Vietnam. We’ve also tried ‘mangosteen’ it seems. My relatives ask me what I was scribbling. I try to explain the concept of blogging and they tell me that there’s an internet cafe 20 mins ride away. Outside a teenage boy we saw the day before watches us. We were told that he’s the neighbour’s dumb son. He stares at me through the window. My relatives just ignore him.

—

It’s 22.57pm. I’m tired. Need to pack. Hoping to go tomorrow to Hanoi.

***

Poster $5.99 (74 x 115 in)

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. – Mark Twain. American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835–1910

 

I’m now on the free internet (one computer) at Lucy’s Resort in Muine Beach. 

Monday 25th July —

7th cousin’s place is basic; we meet her husband; and daughter who sweetly brought us a glass of water. This is the first time Seb has seen a village and he was itching to go out and explore with his camera. But before he got a chance; my other relatives, 3 of them, arrived on a motorbike each. We introduced ourselves; the 3 are; Sang cousin, his wife and 4th cousin. Sang cousin is the eldest and over 50 years old; he suggests Seb takes a bike so Seb tries out one of them but after some fiddling he exclaims that the brakes don’t work. They laugh and explains that he has to use his feet to stop it. Seb’s not so sure. So they offer him another. I explain to my cousins that I need to buy some biscuits, sweets, fruit and drinks to bring to my auntie’s place. The hats here are made with rims that stick to your head so when you’re zooming along on your motorbike, it wouldn’t come flying off. Seb’s hat that he bought in Singapore shot off his head once and was rescued by my cousins. After that, Seb bought a hat from Vietnam that stuck. They lead us to the market; a bunch of tunnel like stalls hidden in an alley away from the dirt road. You find everything; meat, veg, fish, clothes, including flies buzzing around the meat. We ride laden with shopping until we get to country dirt roads and nearer to the house, the roads become muddy and uneven making it a bumpy and scary ride. Seb tells me to not move too much and hold on as he tries to prevent us from falling sideways into the ditch. Then we ride right, along on a tiny slip of a road and then left, between a hedge of trees, we come to the house.

The house is basically a big primitive barn; the external walls are large planks of wood nailed together but leaving gaping gaps in between; the roof is corrugated metal. Dogs bark at our arrival. We find out that they had 6 dogs, one female. The female and another was stolen. One called Dolly, the most active and the colour of hay, liked to follow Seb and I when we walked in the forest. Alloy which Chinese translated means ‘he came’ because the dog came to their house and stayed. Ahac is a black dog and the other, the name escapes me and seems to not get the attention that Dolly and Alloy gets. All are kept to protect the crops and the house.

I meet my auntie and my 7th nephew (the 7th son of Sang cousin). Dinner was waiting for us. My cousins explain that they were expecting us earlier and had bought some ban cuon for breakfast. Now they were added to the meal of fried fish, bamboo shoot, vegetables and pork, soup and salads.

One salad-like a-strip-of-a-vegetable Seb and I had tried on Sunday 24th July when we rented a motorbike for the day and just rode for hours getting purposely lost, trying to find Saigon river at some point, riding around Ho Chi Minh City going through places called Binh Thanh, Binh An, Phuoc Long (where we joked they do something quite enjoyable for a long time : 0 ), Tan Binh – the few names I can remember, stopping to take photos; drinking coconut juice and then eating the coconut pieces (the man and his son, coconut sellers by the roadside, showed us how to skin the insides of a coconut with a spoon in one scoop) from inside the coconut; watching local people living by the river fish and the best was stopping at a food stall and sitting on chairs and tables made for little children, outside by a wall, and eating pho bo (beef noodle soup) that is famous in Vietnam for a price (7,000 dong) that was 3 times less than in Central Saigon (22,000) – you find that the further out you explore and the more Vietnamese it gets, the food tastes so much better and more authentic and the further you wander away from the tourist areas, the lower the price gets. This is when you realise how much you’re really paying as a tourist. As a tourist in a very Vietnamese area; you pay more than the locals (we found out from my cousins) but still one third less than you would in the centre of town and touristy areas. At this tiny stall we saw a woman eat some white round balls and we wanted to try them thinking they’d be sweet; but no, we find out later that these were called ‘com ruou’ (fermented rice ball). Seb didn’t like them. I didn’t particularly like them either but I recognised the smell and taste of rice wine my mum made every now and then.

Anyway, this vegetable that we had in our pho (bo means beef) we didn’t know and when we asked my cousins, we were surprised to find out that this veg is in fact peeled banana skin. I tell Seb that the meal we’re having is typical of a Vietnamese/Chinese meal; that always includes a fish dish, a meat dish, a vegetable dish and soup. Seb loved the food.

After the food Seb and I go for a walk. I tell my cousins that we’ll walk for 3 hours and will be back. They laugh and said an hour is enough. They were right. The barn-house is situated in a forest of trees, bushes and plants – all random if you didn’t know better. We find out later that these trees were durian and red dragon fruit trees; pepper and coffee bean bushes; potatoe and ginger plants, to name a few. After 10 mins of wandering in the productive forest where our bodies were swamped by mosquitoes and our feet had to beware of ants, lizards and the nastiest ever, these black centipedes just longer than my middle finger (Chinese translated name is train worms) crawl about and after watching two of them fight each other in the mud I had enough and wanted to go back. Later I find out that if these centipedes are curled up, it is most likely that they’re dead – Sang’s wife had stamped on one near the open kitchen and it curled up and died. The planting is so random that it is easy to get lost in the forest surrounding the house.

I asked Sang cousin if we could borrow his motorbike and go for a ride. After telling us to be careful, Seb and I zoomed off. The needle told us that the motorbike was in need of petrol so we stopped at a petrol station to fill it up. The petrol man, a toothless, thin, and skin rubbery brown smiled and chuckled, helping us to figure out how to use the key to lift the seat and find the hole under the seat. It was only afterwards, we realised that the needle was not working; it was still insisting it was running on empty. At least now we knew it wasn’t. We rode around; people stared (at Seb I’m sure; there were no tourist/hotel for miles and miles) and smiled; kids waved; we had fun. We buy more exotic fruits, pomegranites, red dragon fruit and these green nobbly ones and hairy lychee ones I don’t know the name of; any fruit we hadn’t tasted before and wanted to try. We rode back to the house with a basket full of fruit and drinks. We find out later that my cousins grew most of the fruits we bought and we could have picked them here and that we paid more than the locals for them; yet less than in Ho Chi Minh. Sang’s wife became really excited when we were surprised that they grew these fruits that she led us to a durian tree that had that afternoon at 12pm dropped big lumps of durian fruit; 2 were still there because Sang cousin couldn’t carry all of them. We learnt in Singapore from Joanna that durian is best when they drop naturally to the ground. Sang’s wife takes the 2 durian fruits back to the front of the house and with a cleaver stealthily chopped at them, opening them and offering them to us. Seb and I ate it all until we were sick.

Then it was dinner again. Full meal of fish, meat, veg and soup. Lovely. We were stuffed. After, Sang’s wife told us to prepare to wash before the mosquitoes make a feast out of us. To wash means to have a bucket of hot water and a bucket of cold water (cold water from a tap). You add the hot water to the cold mixing to the temperature of your liking and you pour the water on your body with a plastic cup. This is done in a concrete hut the size of a cupboard just big enough for you to bend. And before you go in, you have to zap any mosquitoes inside with a zapper or you could come out looking like a pimply red prune.

The zapper is a great invention. When my sister visited last time, they didn’t have this contraption. I don’t know how she survived it. It looks like a tennis racket and can be charged with the pull out plug. You press a botton, slap mosquitoes and flying insects with it and the electrictiy zaps the buggers to smitherines. Before you sleep, the zapper is used. And for the first night, Seb and I would stop and listen to the dozens of mosquitoes zapped when Sang’s wife moves around the bedroom area. The bedroom area is separated from the living room area by more planks of wood; no doors; and has 3 double beds in a row. We had brought the mosquitoe vapouriser which plugs in and kills; also insect killer coils. We were glad we bought them but Seb and I loved the zapper. We played with it and get very excited when we hear the ‘zap, zap, zap’ go off telling us we’ve successfully hit the buggers. The more we hit the more we felt good. It is a game trying to bat moving targets that suck your blood. We took the zapper to the toilet with us. To pee, Sang’s wife told me to do it among the bushes; it’s good for their growth. To poo, we go to this concrete hut not bigger than the bathing hut further away from the house. Seb tried it first but said he wasn’t sure if he was using the crouch-down toilet in there the right way. The zapper is used everytime an area is going to be used. I saw Sang’s wife use it in the open kitchen. The kitchen is something I’ve seen before when I visited relatives who are farmers in China. It’s the type of old fashioned kitchen now found in a museum to depict how Hakka people used to live – I’ve seen one in Shenzhen with my parents who confirmed everything was perfectly correct. My relatives in China and in Vietnam still live like this. Even Seb was amazed. There is no fridge or cooker. The food is cooked over bricks with logs burning underneath. Primitive. Dishes are washed in a basin in the yard where chickens roam freely. To have hot water you’ve got to boil cold water in a pan. That first evening, Seb and I heard the terrifying cry of a chicken; Seb said it sounded like it was being slaughtered. He was right. The sounds stopped abruptly not long after. We saw that chicken ready for plucking and had that chicken for dinner. At 8pm after washing (Sang’s wife zapped the area before and I noticed earlier that black centipedes walked the walls so it was not a relaxing wash) I was ready for bed, it was dark and there were no street lights and not much to do other than read and write or play marjong with relatives for money. I took the zapper and zapped the bed I was sharing with Sang’s wife. The place is crawling with black bugs that look like smaller versions of ladybirds. If you didn’t wear slippers inside the house, you can feel them on the floor. It’s not a nice feeling because you don’t want to touch them and you don’t want to crush them either. You basically don’t want them anywhere near you. The bedroom area is dim so you can’t see much. All the beds had netting above. I zapped at everything and was shocked to hear the popping sounds of fireworks, of unseen bugs as I banged the zapper on the pillows, the blanket and the mattress. I couldn’t see or feel the bugs but they were there, inside the mattress and pillows and on the blanket. My relatives told me it’s the material. I didn’t believe it. The next night, I was swinging on a hammock watching a Chinese period drama dubbed in Vietnamese by one single monotonous woman’s voice. I slapped the zapper around me and when it got to my butt area (they like my feet, my knees and my butt) it popped everytime I hit it and I hit it many times. I was a little alarmed and then thought ‘no way’ but when I got up, sure enough, my butt cheeks were dressed with new bites. The zapper tells the truth. I had secured my bed and was in it ready for bed. Seb’s bed, much higher, next to the planks which means closest to the outside was filled with bugs at the ends of the netting above in the corners. His netting had holes as well. Seb tried to get rid of as many as he could but no way was he ready to sleep in it. I got out and with a sewing needle and thread sewed up the holes for him. Sang’s wife offered to change the netting but we said it would be okay. She tells us that in April and when it rains the black bugs and black centipedes fill the rooms and make everything look black. No wonder containers in the house all have lids. After knowing that Seb and I zipped up our bags everytime; no bugs in our bags thanks. They don’t bite but the black centipedes exudes a smell or gas that makes your eyes water, we were told. 7th nephew had often ran outside to sleep and rather battle with the mosquitoes not being able to handle his stinging eyes and the crawling bugs on his bed and around him. Seb, sleeping in my 7th nephew’s bed, was not going to get a good nights sleep.

—

It’s 12.18pm, 29th July. Seb has finished squibbling in his diary in French and has gone back to the room. My feet and arms are throbbing from being bitten 5 times just sitting here.  

***

Motivation is like food for the brain. You cannot get enough in one sitting. It needs continual and regular top ups. – Peter Davies.

 

 

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