Scar Tissue

We were sad to leave the comparative luxuries of Hoi An behind us and throw the bags back on our bags to continue our travels but made the most of our last day of being able to veg out guilt-free. While Liz went off to do a Vietnamese cookery course on the other side of the river, Kristy and I took it upon ourselves to sample the rest of Tam Tam's patisserie shelves and lazily sauntered into town and set up camp in the bohemian cafe room of Tam Tam and worked our way through the rest of the pastries we hadn't tried which came accompanied with actual pots of tea:) Kristy and Liz then went to pick up all the tailor-made items they had ordered (which included breaking into a shoe shop after discovering the guy had done a runner with their money and help themselves to the shoes they were owed!) while I lounged by the pool engrossed in my Anthony Keidis autobiography. We all met up for a brilliant farewell meal at Tu Do, a small cafe run by the highly eccentric Mr Dong who insisted upon us trying the local beer before we left which we accompanied with a shared set menu of Hoi An delights including White Rose dumplings, special wonton noodles and a dish known as Cao La which is some kind of fried vegetable and meat parcel. After the ordeal of the previous bus journey we were hoping for something less traumatic but I should have known better. This was a different type of bus that was half seated and half double-bed sleeper berths so while Kristy and Liz snuggled up in their temporary boudoir I found to my horror that I was sharing with an eighty year old Vietnamese woman who was already changed into her silk pyjamas and lying down with a dirty toothless grin when I boarded. The rest of the bus found it hilarious as struggling with my bags I had to straddle the Old Woman to get to my half of the bed. Trying to make the best of a bad situation I ended up on the phone back home to wish Dad a happy Father's Day when all of a sudden the Old Woman sits up and starts smoking a cigarette! The girls behind complained to the bus driver who stopped the bus and wandered up towards the back to investigate at which point the Old Woman hid the cigarette under her hand as if she had no idea what the commotion is all about until the bus driver pulled the cigarette from its hiding place and angrily threw it out of the window forcing her to lie back down and start up a mock coughing fit in protest. When the lights were turned off and everyone settled down for sleep I plugged my ipod in and turned to face the window out of decency. Several minutes later when I decided to turn back over to avoid the dazzle of the street lights burning through the thin curtains I found the Old Woman had comandeered 75% of our double bed and ended up choking on her outstretched elbow. No amount of polite aheming or gentle prods would move her and so I spent most of the rest of the night wide awake trying to avoid suffocating on her elbows and clawing back whatever space I could when the bus hurtled round the corner sending us both flying towards the aisle only to lose it back again every time the bus hurtled in the opposite direction causing the highly unpleasant situation of finding myself squashed between the window and the smoky breath of my aged bed companion... Suffice to say not much sleep was had that night so we checked in at the first hotel we came to in Nha Trang and then went to explore the town. Nha Trang is one of the best beaches in Vietnam and a welcome stop off point on the arduous journey between Hoi An and Saigon but is not a common tourist destination and consequently not really set up to accomodate the backpacker which suited us perfectly fine as we were more than happy to settle into a bit of "real" Vietnam. Our first experience was locating a patisserie for a spot of brunch which was housed shelf after shelf of fresh pastries at dirt cheap prices but with no English menu anywhere, so there was nothing left to do but buy as many as we could between us and sit down to work out which ones were worth buying again! After gorging ourselves we headed straight for the beach, a golden-white sandy shore that stretches around the whole bay, and spent the afternoon sunbathing, swimming and reading, eradicating the memories of the Old Woman on the bus amidst a blur of Frou Frou and Regina Spektor. Our first day ended up being quite food-orientated as later on we stumbled upon the first supermarket I have seen on my travels (excluding the ubiquity of the corner shop style Seven Elevens in Thailand) and our joy was uncontained as we strolled up and down the aisles able to purchase products we had only come to dream of. Having packed three huge baskets we had a fantastic homemade dinner of fresh bread, butter, jam and cheese washed down with a couple of bottles of red wine and finished off with yoghurt and chocolate - hardly an Emperor's feast I know but having not been able to find most of the said products in the last couple of months it was fit for three travellers! Our second day in Nha Trang saw us hit the Hot Mineral Springs and Mud Baths which was hilarious. Traveling with two girls has opened my eyes to a whole new world, not least one in which there is a product that will soothe and solve every situation, and so a day of pampering was obviously the next logical step. In an attempt to justify this indulgence we decided to walk the 5km from our hotel to the Springs which offered a completely different perspective to the chilled, beachy facade that had been revealed to us on the first day. Leaving the beach and its patisseries behind we ended up in the local market and bought a breakfast of fresh fruit before stumbling upon the meat section which was quite horrific as the birds were being plucked live by the market vendors for their customers. After escaping that barbaric scene we had to trek through the slums and less well off parts of the town; huge shanty villages built on stilts on the river beds and streets of houses that bared open their fronts onto the dusty pavements revealing lounges doubling up as hairdressers or motorbike garages while the naked children ran about the streets with the stray dogs. It was a bit of a shock as up until then Vietnam had seemed quite a progressive country, especially in comparison to where we had already visited, but on further reflection made sense as to why the Vietnamese government were not pushing the beautiful beaches of Nha Trang onto the tourists as we had expected but were instead trying to conceal this aspect from the boasts that they will achieve the status of a developed country by 2020. It was a relief to finally reach the Springs having lathered up a nice sticky sweat from our walk and we plunged straight into the mud bath. The stench was somewhat nauseating but the feel of the warm mud was strangely relaxing and with the aid of the coconut bucket we ended up covering ourselves from head to toe in the dark greeny-grey clay which you have to rub into your skin to receive all the benefits of its exfoliation. After a good half an hour in the "tub" we progressed to the sunbeds where you have to sun yourself until the mud is nearly caked on your skin. I was a bit dubious about this as I recalled the painful waxing of the caked mud on the hairs of my legs from Glastonbury so I was the first to dive into the hot Mineral Spring showers to wash it off. Having extracted the gloop from seeming every pore and stitch of my trunks we had to walk through a piston jet water spray which was like being sliced open with razors before we could relax in the hot tubs which was like stepping into a bath of valium. When we emerged we could barely speak; it felt like we were floating through the complex having been purged inside and outside of every conceivable stain. We had just enough energy to grab some dinner at the poolside cafe before collapsing on the loungers into a stupor that lasted the rest of the most relaxing afternoon of my trip so far!
Unfortunately the bus saga continued as it materialised we had been conned out of a sleeper bus to Saigon and had to waste a precious day aboard a bus traveling there from Nha Trang, arriving in the pouring rain which leaked through the air conditioning vents...Arriving late in the evening we were fortunate to get a room at MyMy Art Hostel (with its manical manager!) and had only energy enough to explore the local area which was almost metropolis-like with its heaving neon streets and international restaurants and bars and a huge shock from even the smaller, less developed Hanoi.

In our couple of days there we managed to fit in a tour of the Reunification Palacae (an awful Catz-esque concrete building that conversely offered a much more interesting tour inside), a Cadoist Temple (a religion set up by three prophets including Victor Hugo that incorporates elements from Buddhism, Christianity and Taoism and defined by a huge Temple in which we were permitted to enter to witness a ceremony that involved monks of different coloured robes representing the different religions and a host of white tunic clad nuns) and the War Remnants museum which is quite possibly the most horrific museum I have ever been to with its photographic archive of disasters wreaked by the Vietnam war with America. I was ashamed by my complete ignorance of the Agent Orange dioxin horrors which have mutilated a whole generation of Vietnamese and the barbaric massacres of whole villages by the Americans who suspected women and children of harbouring Viet Cong. In the light of the war against Iraq it was eerie how many parallels could be drawn between the two events and makes you wonder what kind of atrocities have and are being committed in the name of pre-emptive justification...

It was a sentiment that was reinforced by visiting the Cu Chi Tunnels just outside of Saigon on our last day. This incredible network of tunnels spanning 250km housed 16 000 Viet Cong forces during the war. The simplicity of this tactic confounded all the technology of the Americans who were bayoneted every time they tried to attack the Vietnamese forces in their tunnel and is a tribute to the persistence of these forces and the sheer difficulty of their lives underground. Many of the tunnels remain open and I was allowed to slide down one particular entrance and cover myself while hovering in the bunker below it and it was absolutely terrifying. What was also striking was the minute dimensions and claustrophobia of these tunnels which I could barely even sit in...they had a special tourist tunnel network which was twice the size but petrifying to crawl under as we descended 10 metres underground - there was no room to turn around and two of the girls in our group had a panic attack though the mad 60 year old Malaysian grandmother was having a whale of a time!

It was a sobering end to an absolutely fascinating country that has offered mountains, remote hill tribes, a gorgeous archipelago, amazing food, beaches, long stretches of paddy fields and the hustle and bustle of motorcycle-inhabited cities. Having experienced the friendliness and hospitality of all the other countries I have visited so far the Vietnamese in comparison were cold, perhaps a legacy of distrust towards foreigners still lingers? Their relationship towards tourists is completely functional: they want the money and the industry but do not share the passion of the Indians, Neplaese or Thais who want you to fall in love with their country and never leave, but instead want to take your money and push you over their border.

They seem to be a country that is determined to become a developed power that will never allow them to have such atrocities as the American war visited upon them again but at the same time have had their psyche moulded by such traumas to the extent that they seem, rightly or wrongly, unable to let go of them.

FAVOURITE PLACE: MyMy Art Hostel

FAVOURITE FOOD: Fresh pineapple and rambutan

WORST PLACE: Bus to Nha Trang....

WORST FOOD: Now the lunar moon has come to fruition dog is back on the menu as a luxury for the second half of the month....

WHAT I'M GOING TO MISS: Patisseries, mud baths!!

WHAT I'M NOT GOING TO MISS: Sleeper buses and the non-stop motorbike traffic...

MOST BIZARRE: The Vietnamese womens' penchant for covering every bit of their skin from the sun with face masks, scarves and gloves even in the blistering heat and then hiding themselves under brollies and opened newspapers while we walk about trying to expose every bit of skin and soak up every last ray!; Kristy ordering a "freshly squeezed orange juice"from Romy's homemade ice-cream only to pass the time while Liz and I tucked into their goodies to discover she had accidentally ordered a full continental breakfast, at 9.30pm....

BOOKS I'VE READ: 'Scar Tissue,' Anthony Kiedi (how he is still alive I have no idea? A tortured soul who has reached salvation:)) 'First They Killed My Father'' Loung Ung ( a heartbreaking first person narrative of a little girl who lived through the Pol Pot massacre bringing to life the atrocities the Cambodian people suffered and will bring the most hardened person to tears); 'Cambodia Year Zero' (an historical account of the formation and workings of S-21 that reveals the horrific tortures suffered by all those who entered the prison)