my first leap

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.

 

 

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 conditioning to the loud whirring of the fan. Also, he doesn’t like air conditioning; so it being on is for my benefit. But the temperature it’s turned to, it might as well be not on, I don’t need a blanket and I still can’t sleep. So in my pyjamas and trainers, I’m tapping at this computer downstairs. One of the reception guys is next to me doing something on the other computer. I had hoped the sofa would be free so I can crash there but it’s occupied by whom I can’t tell as everything is still dark outside and in that area of the room. Every now and then I’m scratching my knees and my upper thigh at mosquitoe bites. It’s not attractive and the guy next to me can see but I don’t care, the bites are bloody itchy. Here’s the lowdown on the past couple of days.

Monday 25th July —

The night before my 3rd cousin (who I call 3rd sister) had called left a message for us that instead of coming at the proposed 7am, she was going to come at 8am. So we had an extra hour sleep. After a quick coffee and a bit of bread; I left Seb talking to 2 very pretty French girls, who choose not to speak English and choose to not see me at all quite blatantly that I do the same now, in search of as many ATMs as I could find. We had calculated that I needed 14,000,000 dongs still to collect for my relatives. I found 4 within the vicinity. Trying not to look dodgy; having to take my card out every time to get my next 2,000,000 dongs; I came back once to the hotel to see if my 3rd cousin was there yet – luckily she was running late and Seb was occupied by the ladies so I ran out again hoping to find another ATM; feeling if I go back to the same ATMs which are normally situated in stores, the owners would call the police; I finally got my 14,000,000 escaping police attention and dodging motorbike taxis or rental salesmen and the many who are selling their goods, constantly calling out to you like lawn alarms every time you walk near even though you’ve said ‘no’ to them how many times.

When I got back, 3rd cousin was there with Seb. We left taking a taxi to the bus station. The bus stationin Binh An is large, filled with buses sat in their own smoke and sharing plumes of pollution with us. There’s a line of brightly coloured umbrellas in the middle outlining food and other goods stalls.

I found another ATM at the bus station but, like the French in Vietnam with everyone other than their own (I’ve been told and have recently witnessed), chose to ignore my attempts of interaction and spat out my card. Great. I had an wad of untouchable 14,000,000 dongs in my bag and I needed some spending money.

After buying the tickets, we had to wait 30 minutes. We’d be sitting in the bus and people selling shirts, bread, chewing gum, lottery tickets etc came on, and attempted to woo the cash from your zipped pockets and purses. Seb bought a fan and a shirt; very thin and quality material; 3rd cousin saw it and told us it was second hand after looking at the almost washed out label; I told Seb who told me he knew; the material was thin and it was a good price. 3rd cousin bought a bag of bread. The bread is good here, soft yet crispy. I asked her if there was bread where we’re going imagining we’re going to some dark hole that never evolved. She said yes, but they’re just different over there. The journey took almost 3 and a half hours, non-stop, not good if you have a weak bladder. Luckily mine was behaving itself. In London, I’ve seldom had to calculate the sunny side of a bus; here, my 3rd cousin does. She tells me the seats I’ve chosen are on the sunny side, after I’ve put my bags away and got comfortable. She looks around and tells me that we can move later because it doesn’t look busy. She was right. After having the bearing sun on me for 10 mins, I moved to a seat on the other side of the bus; slept and then found the sun had followed me; I would sit back next to Seb again. There is no air conditioning so you have a choice; open the windows and have polluted air rush in or no window and breathing as though you have your head covered in a plastic bag. The window stayed open. City scenery slowly made way to more greenery including fields of corn that reminded me of ‘Children of the Corn’. We were not going to see another tourist or Western person for the next 2 days. I didn’t care; they tended to be French anyway; and Seb welcomed the idea of not doing the tourist thing.

A bus journey is something to experience. The driver constantly honked his horn; while ‘the conductor’ shouted at passing motorbikes and slow vehicles to get out of his way, also yelling out our destination to anyone who may be waiting by the side of the road and wanted a ride. One time, the bus slowed down and the conductor jumps off and with loud fast Vietnamese, grabbed the woman’s arm and hiked her up and off the bus roared again. Seb noted that the money goes into these guys’ pockets and not the bus company’s. Another time, we stopped outside the Vietnamese equivalent of a garden centre and a couple of men jumped off, heaved a dozen waiting bushes neatly sitting by the roadside on to the bus filling up the remaining space, jumped back on and off we went again. And if you’re lucky enough, like me, you’ll get to endure a journey where some woman’s foot is stuck through the gap between seats and windows; this one had a hole in her stocking giving me an eye full of her blackened toenails and a whiff of I-dare-not-conjure-up-in-mind-again smell. I nudged ‘it’ a couple of times but it didn’t make any difference. I had to endure the alien intruder for the whole journey. At one time, she hugged the back of my seat with me still sitting there. Personal space woman, ever heard of such a thing?! Everything is done at an amazing speed that you really have to prepare your things well ahead of jumping off or I’m sure you’d be pushed off and yelled at.

We finally arrived at a small village; a few houses and stalls – sometimes stalls look like houses and vice versa; you’d walk up to people eating thinking it’s a food stall and realise it’s a family eating their dinner in their open living room and vice versa – and it felt like we were far from civilisation. 3rd cousin told us we can wait at 7th cousin’s place nearby. We walk there in the dry burning afternoon heat. 3rd cousin had bought me a hat at the bus station when I told her I had lost mine. Lose anything in Vietnam and you’re unlikely to see it again. I realise why when I see how my relatives live.

—

It’s 6am, 28th July. I’ve got to finishing packing. We had hoped to get our passports back and head off to Hue or Hoi An but we didn’t so we’re going to Muine Beach for a couple of nights before coming back here. I’m tired and I don’t know what I’ve written. Will finish later.

***

Life isn’t a matter of milestones but of moments – Rose F. Kennedy. American Author, mother of John F. Kennedy & Robert Kennedy; daughter of John Francis Fitzgerald, 1890–1995

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