my first leap

It’s 2.15pm in Hanoi. I’m in the hotel ‘Golden Sun Hotel’, using the free internet access (2 computers), keeping out of the burning sun. The Golden Sun Hotel has just opened and belongs to the family who owns ‘Hanoi Guesthouse’ recommended to us by the receptionist at Yellow House Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. We had a discount and the room we have is the best room I’ve been in. Tastefully decorated, it has windows all around and the best bit, it’s overlooking the beautiful Hoan Kiem Lake. 

We’ve been riding the rented motorbike all around town; checking out the Red River, the lakes and just getting purposely lost. Riding around Hanoi is worse than Saigon; the motorists are crazier and the pollution worse. The roads here are more restricted ‘one way’ roads which drives Seb crazy. Seb’s driving is mad. He’s probably committed 101 illegal moves in the first half hour. Cars come straight at him and he just about swerves out of its way. Once, 2 motorbikes at each end come at me from both directions at full speed and I think ‘dear lord’ and Seb swerves and we’re down the road going at a mad speed. But when I scream he just laughs. Road rage is in French jibberish which sounds like he’s making verbal love to them instead being in French. Yesterday we did the tourist locations: the Temple of Literature (not much writing seen there), One pillar Pagoda, Vietnam Museum of Ethnology etc. But then our front tyre died on us, luckily slowly so we managed to get back to the hotel in time. And for the last couple of days I’ve (yes, me again) been suffering badly from traveller’s diarrhoea; not nice, not nice. The cramps got so bad yesterday night that I couldn’t move and had to lay on the bed not wanting dinner so Seb went out on his own for food. I love my food so missing food shows you how bad it was. Seb has some imodium tablets so hopefully that would stop me imagining the worse every time I feel the spasm need to spray and I’m not near a toilet. When you’re endangering your life on a motorbike looking like someone who’s in Scary Movie with your mask and hat, the last thing you want is to feel the desperate need to spray the whole of Vietnam right there and then. No, not nice thought.

We had some ‘bun cha’, lovely spring rolls and white noodles dipped in sauce – I’ve had this before in London at my Vietnamese friend’s place so I knew what to do. Seb was sceptical but ended loving it. I would definitely recommend it. We found this dish by accident. We were driving around and I saw the Vietnamese spring rolls and asked Seb to stop. Everyone in the place were Vietnamese. After going to ‘Little Hanoi’ (it was like being in the Twilight Zone because everyone in there were Western tourists) recommended by Lonely Planet and other touristy places, I can confirm that it’s rare to find authentic Vietnamese food in these places; the dishes are westernised where pho is made with carrots and Chinese leaf and the Vietnamese vegetables are missing and what you get is cut cucumber! Please. Totally wrong and not tasty. We vowed to avoid such places.

I’m here waiting for Aho to call. My mother’s brother’s wife’s brother’s daughter – I met in China this February. We’ve been having problems calling as one number was missing from the combination mum had given me. But this morning the clever receptionist at ‘Hanoi Guesthouse’ phoned up for the area code for Quang Ninh (where Aho lives) and found the missing number, the number 3. When I met Aho, she spoke Vietnamese and a bit of Mandarin and couldn’t speak Cantonese so we communicated in a language we were both not fluent in, Mandarin. This morning, I had to ask the receptionist to translate. Aho and her brother will come to collect Seb and me tomorrow to take us to Quang Ninh, the province my sisters and I were born in. We came back to the hotel and there was a mix up; the receptionist told us Aho had called and was coming today. We had another night here! So I’m waiting for this to be sorted out.

Tuesday 26th July 1.30pm — Bao Binh

Just been to for a long one, trekked to the outhouse with small steps going up and 2 large vases full of water. The ant-covered walls encased a crouch-down toilet. There’s a plastic petrol bottle twice the size you get in UK with a big hole cut in it. This is where you put your used toilet paper when you finish wiping. On the wall hanging from a string is a roll of dark green toilet tissue. I had taken a small packet of tissue just in case. In Vietnam, as in China, Malaysia, Singapore and rural Taiwan, tissue is very important for such things. In one of the vases is water and a scoop to hold water to flush the toilet with. The scoop is unusual. It’s a big plastic bottle cut in half, melted at the edges so you don’t cut yourself and in the middle is a piece of smooth wood nailed to the sides, like a scoop you’d find to get water from a well but this was made as though on Blue Peter.

Last night Seb let me have a go on the motorbike. We found a deserted stretch of road near the house and I started the engine. It’s so big and heavy even with my feet touching the floor. I found it hard to keep it upright. I tried, must have moved a wheel cycle before the bike lurched into a nearby prickly nettled bush. Seb helped me out, securing the bike and then helped me to pick out the needles that once came out left bits of bloody holes oozing blood and stinging. Seb took over. That was my little and only interaction with a motorbike.

At lunch, everyone sits and eats around the table. My relatives speak Hakka, Vietnamese and Cantonese. And they change from one to another naturally. Seb is picking up language, they think. They have warmed to him and speak to him as though he knew what they were talking about. Seb explained that when I spoke Cantonese to my relatives, he understood but not when they speak to me. So I translate, with bits of French added in here and there. This morning Seb said he felt at home here. And Sang’s wife got on so much with him wanted his phone number but he reminded her that even if she called he wouldn’t understand her. When she realised this, she laughed.

At dinner last night, they took out photos of my family in the UK taken years ago. And they pointed to Sheridan, my boyfriend at the time and asked if it was Seb. I explained. They asked when Seb and I were getting married. I explained. 102 questions. I prefer it when they concentrated on Seb, without me in the picture.

3pm – It’s pouring outside. I was reading Bill Bryson waiting for Seb to finish his French squiggles in his diary so we can get lost on the motorbike. No way that’s happening now. Our ponchos are not going to help. It’s raining sheets of hard water with unexpected rumbling lightning. We are in a metal shelter with wooden holes. Seb reminds me of what Sang’s wife said about when it rained; the bugs and centipedes will find shelter here. I’m imagining scenes of bug eating crawling chaos and can’t help look around me. The others play marjong oblivious to our fears. Our clothes which they washed for us were given back to us at lunch time, washed and dried. We didn’t expect it but we appreciated it. The rain has stopped, 10 mins later and no fast swarming man-eating bugs and centipedes yet. But then I am blind. Maybe the newly wet mopped floor confused them making them think we’re just a hollow tree with no roof and not worth sheltering under. The sound of smashing rain on metal sheets sounded great when you’re sheltered and dry. I enjoyed the tantrums of rain, the quick outbursts so unexpected. I enjoyed how the sun shines now in its place drying everything again, probably confusing the bugs and centipedes crawling on their way here to devour us. I want to go out. I feel tired and my body is resigning every minute of resting for the rest of the day. The crickets sing loud then suddenly soft in spurts echoing the rain.

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To Abi: Great to hear from you! Are you still in Chicago? Hope you and Ben are well. Will email properly when I get back to London.

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We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. – B. F. Skinner.

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.

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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 ... [Continue reading this entry]

I can't sleep. It's 4.57am. It's too hot to sleep. The problem with sharing a room with a fellow traveller is that you have to compromise. Seb doesn't like noise. It keeps him awake so we opt for the quiet air ... [Continue reading this entry]