Ha Noi - Cau Treo

At breakfast I bumped into Dorothy, the Dutch woman I first met in Nha Trang, which proved how narrow the tourist trail really is. I think Vietnam is especially susceptible to this because of the thin, snake-like geography of the country, but it still reminded me how much people are creatures of habit. The cities dot the spine of the country like sweets laid on a path for greedy children, and we hungrily follow.

She was sad because her month's holiday was ending and she was going back to working life. I was sad because today was my last in Vietnam, and, thinking of my arrival in Laos, I was anticipating similar feelings to those I'd felt when I'd arrived in Vietnam. That is feeling like an outsider and not connecting with people. I knew there'd be new people to meet, but I didn't want to start from square one. I wanted to see the people I'd begun to form relationships with, but that was impossible. Now it seems like one of those perennial paradoxes of the human condition. We're happy with familiarity --- it gives us comfort and a sense of belonging --- but at the same time we're always craving new stimulations. Striking the balance between these two competing drives is one of the hardest things to do, I believe.

We said our goodbyes and I nipped back to the hotel, stuffed my backpack with yesterday's gifts and headed to the post office. The bustle of the place helped me to cast off my gloomy thoughts. One of the staff taped up the box I'd inexpertly packed and my box of goodies began its long voyage home. Two months by ship along God knows what route. I had no idea if the package would make it.

I checked out of the hotel still with six hours to kill before the bus left. After the last overnight journey, I decided I would prime my body for the ordeal by having a massage first. The receptionist snapped her fingers and one of the men dozing on the couch jerked awake.

"Take this guest for a massage," I imagined she said, my Vietnamese still ropey. "The finest parlour we know. No sleeze, just beautiful female masseurs with honeyed fingers and the most relaxing oils," she continued in my mind.

After weaving through the chaotic, droning streets of the Old Quarter and being led up to an ill-lit room with a wiry man standing next to a dentist chair in the middle the room, I reassessed her words as:

"Take this guest for a massage. Somewhere awful because he didn't tip."

The wiry man indicated I remove my T-shirt and proceeded to pummel my body from the waist up. Thankfully my fat reserves shielded me from the worst of his blows. I think his last job was with the secret police.

After grabbing my bags at the hotel I hobbled round the corner to the travel agents and sat on the curb waiting for my ride to the bus station. The sun had gone down but the air was still warm. The streets were alive with chatter and flaming decorations and the smell of street food. I felt like I was leaving a place where I'd barely scratched the surface, countless lives and stories hidden just round the corner.

Somewhere to return to one day.

My ride arrived and ferried me across the city.

We slowed up near a metal husk of a bus. Surely that couldn't be the luxury, air-conditioned, reclining-seat coach the travel agent promised could it?

It was.

The Complex Plane

Feeling guilty about yesterday's leisurely pace, I spent today throwing myself around the city from first light to the wee hours. I think its an English thing.

First stop was at a push-bike hire shop where I fitted myself out with a standard issue cycle. One of the nice things about communism (putting to one side the secret police, informant systems, gulags etc) is, or was, that nobody has a better or worse bike than anybody else. There's one design and everybody rides it. No heartwrenching decisions about titanium alloy wheels, or Shimano DX or LX gear shifters. No decisions about anything. Who's going to steal your bike when theirs is the same? Equality.

One of the worst things about communism is that nobody has a better or worse bike than anybody else...people are different! I may not be the tallest Westerner, but that bike was still damn uncomfortable!

Luckily, the experience on the roads make you quickly forget about the saddle trying to lodge itself in your stomach. Cycling is a socially bonding activity hear. Bikers move along the streets like shoals of fish, a colorful, dancing carnival of life. Riders slip in and out of the stream, but the shape coheres. For once, cyclists aren't second-class citizens of the road next to drivers. It's a wonderful, liberating feeling. The nearest sensation back home is when cyclists arrange a 'Reclaim the Streets' ride and take over a long stretch of thoroughfares.

Roundabout, Vietnam style
Pumped up, I parked up and headed to the mausoleum (like you do when the adrenaline is flowing, right?). My psyched mood was swiftly brought down to Earth by the stately ambiance of the huge grounds which contained the mausoleum building. Everyone spoke in whispered snatches and moved like geriatrics. I had to hire some trousers, bare knees frowned upon by the guards.

In my too tight regulation issue trousers I joined the line and edged toward the tomb. The building is an ugly slate grey box of sharp angles and rock and totalitarianism. This isn't a time to crack a joke or flick the ear of the man ahead. The guards look mean and ready to pummel anybody who denigrates Ho Chi's resting place in the slightest.

And that included the great man himself.

He actually requested that he be cremated when he die. The living authorities thought better. I guess he didn't get everything right.

We enter the ill-lit building and silence reigns. Please no giggles, I think, endangering myself to the giggle-loop. Uncle Ho looks at peace, but it is still seriously creepy that I'm looking at the real body of the man. How long will it be until he can truly rest in peace and not be subjected to tens of thousands of pairs of eyes every day?

I spent the afternoon doing my gift shopping for the whole trip in one frenzied blitz. The Old Quarter is really something. There are streets dedicated exclusively to one type of good. Chinese decoration street. Or ironmongery street. Or snake wine street. I think it would drive me nuts if I owned a shop and all my competitors were in the same street. Although checking out the competition would be an easy task...

I'm crap at choosing presents for people usually. I endlessly prevaricate, neither having the chutzpah to buy something awful and get it over with, or having the discernment to pick the perfect item. In the end I make an impulse purchase and try to forget about it.

The strategy here was different. Buy a load of stuff and decide who got what later. Statistics would take care of the details. Even if that meant one entirely inappropriate present for one unfortunate individual - the carved wooden turtle compass, sorry, Dad - it was still worth it.

No agonizing shuttling between shops. Just, bang, bang, bang and Bob's your Uncle. I bought silk sleeping bags, an egg-shell painted tray, chopsticks, Vietnam flag T-shirts, a scarf, sequined purses, a vase and much more. All for under twenty quid. Tomorrow I'll go to the post office and get them shipped to the UK and that's that! Might even give it a try with the Xmas presents one year...

Tonight I ditched 'Highway #4' - not the debauched biker bar I expected (cause men in leather turn me on, oh yeah) - and went to the 'New Century Nightclub', named without any sense of irony. It was like being back at the Event in the early nineties. I think 'Late Century Nightclub' would've been more fitting. Glitter balls, wipe-clean surfaces, cheesy rock, soft-light porn decor.

The place was empty. I sat alone on a bar stool overlooking the dancefloor a level down (another throwback to the meat-markets of the eighties) and wondered what time the Vietnamese well-to-do youth started to party, if at all, or if there was such a demographic as the well-to-do Vietnamese youth. A Madame came over and offered me dances by unseen women. Unseen at the time of offering, not unseen when they danced. That would be ridiculous.

I politely declined.

The club was a good example of no matter how hard a society tries to hold back sexual desire, it will always find release somewhere. I never saw any physical chemistry outside on the streets in daylight, but here on the dancefloor couples necked while scantily-clad women strutted above.

I went down and boogied, for once taller than almost everyone else.

Unfortunately, tall, dark and handsome doesn't seem to apply here. At least not the tall bit....

Mean Streets

It was still night when the train pulled into Ha Noi.

Half-awake I stumbled out to the car-park outside the station and waved over a motocycle taxi.

We sped through deserted streets, the pre-dawn air chilling my skin. Nothing looked familiar. I wondered if I was being taken to right hotel. The street lights were few and far between, occasional pools of ugly sodium yellow illuminating broken roads and vermin. Jesus, it's four in the morning and I'm riding on the back of some random guy's motorbike in the capital of Vietnam.

Surreal.

But then any life is surreal if you think about it.

I shook my head and enjoyed the moment. I did get taken to the right hotel. Only problem was the hotel didn't open till seven and I needed to (a) lie-down, and more importantly (b) pay the driver the right fare. You see, I only had whole dollars on me and the fare was much less than that. I knew if I gave him a note he would say he couldn't give me change, so I trekked up and down the street looking for a place to break the notes. Nothing was open. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. I gave him the dollar and sure enough there was no change forthcoming.

I guess I was ripped-off but it wasn't so bad. A dollar was a lot for him so he was extra happy, and a dollar wasn't so much for me so I wasn't that unhappy. A perfectly amicable swindle. And maybe he really didn't have change.

The day's second attempted fleecing came when I bought some baguettes and was given four thousand Dong change instead of the correct forty thousand. Luckily I had my wits about me and got the money before I walked away.

Mt. Fansipan Base Camp - Ha Noi

At the foot of the mountain, while we were waiting for the ride back to Sapa, Thanh bought us a couple of beers and we sat outside the the shop/house enjoying the relaxing feeling washing over us.

By the time the jeep arrived my limbs had stiffened up so much it was painful just getting into the vehicle.

And that was pretty much the order of the day. Waiting for connections and then nodding asleep in various minibuses, trucks and trains as I made my way back to Ha Noi. Even the snaking, potholed road couldn't keep me awake such was my exhaustion.

Mt. Fansipan

Lounging Lizard
I've just returned from ascending Mt. Fansipan, the highest mountain in Vietnam at 3143m (that's over twice the height of Ben Nevis) and I'm totally stoked.

The tour group I booked the climb with described the climb as a 'trek'. Now either we're dealing with a linguistically challenged translator or else someone with a wicked sense of humour. The climb could not be called a trek; it involved ascending over 1500m in a little under eight hours in total.

This is not the domain of 'trekking'.

It is the domain of climbing. And remaining in that hunched chimp state even when the path shallows because you're so knackered!

We set off around ten in the morning and the first twenty minutes was like a scene from 'The Sound of Music'; gentle rolling hills, pretty streams and almost skipping along the path

Then we reached the foot of the mountain.

Conversation ended as it was energetically too wasteful and my focus became utterly consumed with the next step ahead; where to tread, or place a hand. Looking up the path was an utterly pointless thing to do because there was no visible peak to attain, and doing so only depressed the body further.

After an hour we stopped for lunch (I think our guide was being kind) and we chatted with a few fellow climbers. Some were headed down. Some up. It was easy to tell who was who. People with a look of fear on their faces were going up. People with a look of schadenfreude were going down.

Our guide, Tau, smokes because it's too easy otherwise!
They really laid it on thick: 'You think this is bad? Wait till you get a bit further.' We didn't need to hear that.

Back to the task in hand. The body goes into autopilot and you become hyper aware of the stresses and strains on your body. The pulse in your ears hammering away at a very unhealthy tempo; your breathing ragged and deep, the sound of your footsteps on root or rock. Very weird Zen like sensation. The hours go by quick but the moments last ages. Finally arrived at base camp around three. Feelings of happiness, but also trepidation about the following day. Your mind relays the quotes you've heard: 'The last hour on the second day is the worst'. In bed by nine, body fighting to recuperate.

Awake early. Stuffed full of energy in banana and chocolate pancake form; by the third one you feel sick but you don't want to burn up three quarters of the way up the mountain so you eat anyway.

Leave camp at eight thirty. Feeling pretty good. Mainly because all the stuff that I stupidly decided to carry up to base camp (books? like I've got the enegry to read, spare clothes? luxury, toiletry bag? don't even bother) could be left behind and I could climb light (camera, water and jacket sufficed). Again the Zen like state.

And suddenly I'm on the summit looking down over Vietnam and China, and over the mountains in the distance, Laos. Fantastic.

Planning the descent...
Coming down is a different kind of punishment. Not so physically demanding in terms of stamina and endurance, but a mental resilience is needed. One false step and you could be over the edge. Every footfall is deliberate and careful. Knees take a hammering as each step down jars. The route down amazes; did I really climb this far, and this steeply. It's hard to believe. Much rejoicing at the base camp.

I know a better answer to why people climb mountains now; not because they're there. But because you test yourself to the limits. Bring on the Himalyas in Nepal!

Anyone want to donate a flag?

Ha Noi - Sapa

Five Evocations:

1. Being mesmerized by the hotel receptionist dressed in traditional Ao Dai dress. I was leaving my most prized possessions in storage at the hotel while I went on a side-trip to Fansipan, but one look at this gorgeous woman put all my fears to rest.


2. The chaos of the smaller streets of the Old Quarter where road-space was divided between card-games, commerce, traffic, parking, pedestrians, and dining-tables.


3. Having my concept of 'overloaded' shattered time after time.


4. Boarding the train at Hanoi Railway Station in the steamy night, entering my shared berth and immediately bumping into a pair of smelly size twelve feet hanging from the opposite bunk.


5. Arriving in Sapa to the crisp dawn air and feeling not at all ready to climb thousands of metres.

City Life

The train rolled into Ha Noi around 6am. I grabbed a taxi with three Australian girls I'd met during the journey and we were carted to a cheap hotel in the Old Quarter. They had no free rooms, but assured us there would be some available by 8 when the first guests checked-out. We ate some limp breakfast and got more and more slouched in our chairs as we waited for a room. Eventually they led us to a drab room with four mattresses slung on the floor. Nobody thought much of the room so we headed out and looked elsewhere.

At the next hotel there was a three-bed room which was ideal for the girls. They took it and I went on to another hotel. There didn't seem to be many single rooms for a decent price so eventually I took a real dive of a room in some dingy hotel down a backalley.

I showered and hit the streets. First call was finding another room for anymore nights in Ha Noi. After that I caved in to my desire for music and bought a CD-player and loads of cheap albums. I'd wanted the travelling to be about immersion in foreign cultures and this excluded listening to familiar tunes. However, after weeks of tourist bars, crowded sights, and internet cafes who was I trying to kid? I stocked up on batteries and looked forward to some aural stimulation.

After some pho with odd things floating in the broth, I booked a trek up Vietnam's tallest mountain and then went to the cinema. 'The Quiet American' was playing. The place had some hygiene issues: rats scurried underfoot and a side door with a WC sign above led out to an alleyway. Luckily the film was good enough to forget about these things.

Hue - Hanoi

The School Commute, Vietnam
Five thoughts about travelling as a couple (from observation, not personal experience!):

1. You can't hide from the relationship.

Compared to life back home where relationships are squeezed in between work, family, friendship and interests, travelling as a couple away from home is all about you and your partner. Annoying behaviors which are silently tolerated at home will have to be confronted. Differences of opinions or values will surface. It'll either make the relationship stronger or end it. I've seen the faces. Glum listless looks of those who've realized the awful truth thousands of miles away from home, and the serene joy of those feeling the opposite.

2. It's harder to meet other travellers.

As a single traveller, the people I naturally gravitated towards were fellow single travellers, either alone or in small groups. Here I could make simple one-to-one relationships. With couples it's more difficult to do. You can feel like you're intruding, or not paying enough attention to one or the other, or feel like you're interacting with a symbiant creature. It's just easier to avoid that. Of course, couples still meet many people. I'm just suggesting the connections won't be so deep.

3. You can lose your own personality.

People talk about their experiences. For couples travelling together, those experiences have been the same for months, and this often means their individual conversations centre on the same topics. Add to this that the couple have probably heard the same tales/thoughts from each other's lips many times, and they start to talk alike. I call it normalizing. To hear two different people relate an event identically is creepy. Where to draw the line between your independence and your partnership is difficult enough at home. On the road it's even harder.

4. You won't feel lonely...but you might not feel free.

The companionship a partner gives must be great. Somebody who knows you so well, right alongside you for the journey. The downside is not being able to make those spontaneous decisions so easily. Someone asks you to drop your plans and go on a jungle-hike for three days? If you're on your own you can say yes or no straight away. As half of a couple, there needs to be discussion...

5. There'll always be someone just as keen as you to get out the holiday snaps!

All aboard...the night train!

Grave Times

Bone idleness kept me from making a pre-booked tour of Hue's Royal Tombs. At six thirty in the morning, the idea of poking around a stuffy crypt lost out to the idea of enjoying some more sleep.

Around eleven the guilt kicked in.

Armed only with a brief sketch of the route, I hired a push-bike, and set-out for the tomb of Minh Mang -- reputed to be the most impressive tomb in the area.

It also happened to be the furthest -- about thirteen kilometres from the city.

I pedalled furiously, fearing I was sure to get lost or wreck the bike or be sidetracked, and would need at least six hours to do the whole trip. I passed plenty of Vietnamese with bemused looks on their faces. Whether it was my means of transport, my red-face, or my khaki shorts that caused the looks I don't know.

Out on a quiet lane I passed an abandoned monastry or some such. The place just oozed atmosphere; I imagined Bruce Lee's enemies being trained in a place like this -- solemn fights to the death, breaking bricks with bare hands, meditation etc.

I got back on my bike, crossed the Perfume River by barge with a few locals, and eventually found the tomb site. Its a huge Russian doll of enclosures.

It begins with two lines of statues facing each other over a wide courtyard outside.


Then you get to the outer gates. The central one has only been opened once: to let through Emperor Ming Mang's coffin.

The second wall surrounds the majority of the forty temples, shrines, and other buildings comprising the tomb.

Then through a border house...

And some striking gardens...

Across a lake...

And up the steps of the burial mound.

That gate's locked!

Nuoc Leo

I can't believe how few photos I took of the food I ate while I was away. Guess I was too hungry and the food too appetising to waste an extra five seconds taking a pic!

However, one meal I'll never forget was the chicken satay wrapped in rice paper and accompanied by a peanut sauce (nuoc leo) I ate. Boy, was that a messy affair. Real pig at the trough time! Here's the recipe for the sauce.

Be careful, this is seriously scrummy!

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large clove garlic, peeled and minced
1 or more bird's eye or Thai chilies,
seeded and minced
3 ounces unsalted roasted peanuts,
1 tablespoon chopped, the rest finely ground
(but not butter)
1 cup chicken stock
1/3 cup canned unsweetened coconut milk
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 tablespoon sugar


1. Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir-fry the garlic and chilies until fragrant, about 5 minutes. Add the ground peanuts and stir until they give up some of their natural oil, about 5 minutes more.

2. Add the chicken stock, coconut milk, hoisin sauce, fish sauce, and sugar, and bring just to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low and cook until the oil from the peanuts starts surfacing, about 15 minutes. Transfer sauce to a heatproof serving bowl, garnish with chopped peanuts, and serve.

Hoi An - Hue

Moved up the coast to Hue, today. On the way we stopped several times to let the engine cool, and once to see the Marble Mountains where the VC holed-up in the cave system during the war.


In Hue, a cyclo-driver had the misfortune of lugging yours-truly around town. You see, consulting my bland but informative Lonely Planet, I'd noticed an unusual guest-house on the other side of the river from all the rest and decided that was where I was going to stay.

So, on the creaking cyclo, pedalled by a groaning octogenarian, I left the bustling heart of the town and crossed the river into the old city. It must've taken twenty minutes of solid riding. It was a world of tranquillity; gentle breezes, swaying trees and barely a soul in the hotel.

I didn't like it.

I leafed through the guidebook and pointed at a another place that sounded okay. Off the old man huffed, heaving my lardy frame and overpacked rucksack along the potholed roads again. Imagine my embarrasment when we pulled to a stop not fifty yards from where I'd hailed the cyclo in the first place! I gave him a big tip and sheepishly went into the hotel.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

This is one of my favourite poems and the Cham site at My Son, twenty minutes drive from Hoi An, illustrates the verse beautifully. Despite, or perhaps because of, its UNESCO World Heritage Site status, the site has suffered great damage through the years. Pillaging, natural erosion and bombing during the Vietnam War have all taken their toll, and the temples have a real decaying civilisation feel. The jungle presses in on all sides, there is little commercial presence, and the curators, or guards, sit away from the buildings smoking cigarettes and playing cards on fold-up tables.

Preservation efforts seem minimal. When the last partially standing temple finally falls, I'm sure the site will be lost to the jungle again -- tourists don't want to visit piles of masonry. Being a dreamer, and someone who thinks about the far-future too much, it makes me wonder when our great cities will be lost and forgotton.

And then I think, who will rediscover them?

London, 26th Century?

Lager Lager Lager

Fat, yellow Buddhas abound
The bus dumped us on the outskirts of Hoi An around 7am. I felt grouchy and was determined to find a hotel myself, so I began a big tour around the small town. By the time I'd walked the length of the place, stopping in every budget hotel listed in the Lonely Planet but finding a problem with all of them, I was shattered and still without a place to stay.

I walked back to the last one I'd passed and took a room.

Bad choice. It was expensive, empty and the decor was more suited for a reluctant suicide-job who wanted to make sure this time. Everything was made of black teak or mahogany. The walls. The chest of drawers. The bed. The only things that weren't was the bed linen, the embroided tablecloths, the doilies and the mosquito net. They were snow white.

I felt like I was in a BBC period drama with all the gloom and lace. Even the bed creaked in a spooky way when I sat on it. It got me out the room at least.

The mood came with me though, and I spent the day moping around. In the late afternoon a surge of energy found me hiring a bike and pedalling to the beach, 5 klicks away. At this point I regressed to typical-Brit-abroad-mode and acted like a beached whale on the sand -- reading and people watching and stuffing down the odd ice-cream or two. This set me up for a futher deterioration towards total lout status; I spent the early evening watching the Man U - Arsenal FA Cup match with a crowd of other Brits, ate pizza and guzzled beer. I might as well have been back home.

It wasn't homesickness as much as just letting myself slide into a familiar routine. The talk was standard blokey fare: football and women and laughs. Nothing unusual, and most the time I enjoy it, but tonight it just depressed me. I headed back to the hotel and read a little before the black decor beat me into submission and I turned the lights out.

Being away from any obligations, I've begun to notice the natural rhythm of my moods. It's all too easy to ascribe bad feelings to recent events, when in fact it often has more of a long-term, underlying cause, or is just part of a normal cycle of feelings.

Looking back from 2006 I think I've definitely smoothed those negative feelings out a little, and managed to channel feelings of anger or frustration in more productive ways. The Hungarian tax system is currently testing my 'If you can't change it, change your thinking about it' mantra, but even a hassle like that is washing over me these days. Anyway, apologies to anyone in the past who's had to endure my explosions of rage when the anger dam burst -- and that includes a completely innocent kid on a bike in rural France back in 1994.

After ten hours non-stop driving to make a ferry connection in Calais, all the way listening to the heavy-metal, verbal drivel, snoring, and bodily noises of my four mates, I flipped out, wound down my window and yelled 'F@$! You' in the kid's ear from point-blank range.

Poor kid nearly fell off his bike.

Nha Trang - Hoi An

Thanh, guardian angel of the deep
The previous night's drinking hit back with a vengeance.

I'd booked a diving trip. For the morning. The pick-up was at eight. By the time I'd crawled out of bed ten minutes earlier and made it down to reception there was no time for breakfast -- not that I felt like eating anyway. Sitting on the back of an open-top jeep we gunned around the town collecting the other divers before heading to meet the boat.

I felt sea-sick already.

Then we got on the boat.

I sat in the middle of the boat and closed my eyes. Monks performing zen meditation couldn't have been more focused in removing themselves from the realm of the external world. I was the dead, still centre of the universe.

Unfortunately, the boat wasn't.

Sea spray whipped across my face. The ship pitched and swayed. The beautiful horizon jacked up and down as if God were shaking out the sea like a rug. Waves -- small, pathetic little waves, but waves nonetheless -- rocked the boat as they passed. I tried to eavesdrop on the conversation between the Dutch divemaster and one of the other rookie divers to distract myself, but the nausea held firm.

After about twenty minutes we came to our dive spot. The stillness was bliss. It was time to get in the water.

One of the things you never notice when you watch footage of divers in action is the temperature of the water. Arctic or tropical you still see a balletic-esque sequence often against a soundtrack of classical music. The South China Sea is not the world's warmest body of water. It was probably exacerbated by the alcohol, but even in a wetsuit I had the chills, and was shaking from the cold a couple of metres under the surface.

The dive was still excellent, though. I had a great instructor named Thanh. He was so skilled that for the duration of the dive the only part of him I saw was the occasional signal from his hand over my faceplate. Kind of like my own guardian angel. The rest of the time my gaze was trained on the legions of fish, snakes and coral-types all around. The water was a little murky from dust churned up from the recent rain, but once up-close everything slid into view nicely.

The weirdest sensation came when we went under the boat and I lost the direction of the sun -- and therefore which way was up. I panicked and couldn't grasp if the surface was beneath my feet or above my head. I decided to call it a day and gave the thumbs-up sign indicating I wanted to come up.

On the deck Thanh informed me I'd got down to a depth of seven metres and spent thirty-one minutes underwater. Both figures beat my stats from the King Alfred Leisure Centre swimming pool in Hove, so I was pretty happy. Some of the shine was taken off when a right-on Danish guy emerged from the water thirty minutes later, and started talking about depths of twelve metres.

The hangover was still lurking and I nibbled at my lunch before we headed back to shore.

I took it easy in the afternoon and got ready for the twelve hour bus ride to Hoi An which left at seven.

If there's one thing that unites countries from pole to pole, rich and poor alike, it is this: getting a decent sleep on a overnight bus is impossible. It must be an international conspiracy. There are countless ways to arrange your body on a pair of seats in a half-full bus. The prayer position. The curl. The sideways slide. The feet in the air.

None of them are comfortable.

How I envied that guy laid out straight on the back-row.

As I finally began to drift off I had an idea for any budding entrepreneur: design a bus seating plan where everyone can lay flat. You'll be a millionaire within a year. The idea soothed me, gently leading me to the land of dreams. I imagined getting comfy on a deluxe sprung matress with a pillow filled with the best eiderdown feathers. Covering me was the softest duvet in the world; snug and fresh smelling like just washed and dried fluffy towels.

Then a pothole in the road jolted me awake again. Somebody's cheesy foot brushed my nose.

Cycle Culture

Mud Wrestling

The penny will drop...
Some people, largely men I suppose, expend an inordinate amount of mental energy picturing lithe young things messing around in mud baths. Messing around usually means wrestling, grappling, sliding about wearing nothing but bikinis or Speedo swimming trunks. Or so I've heard....

The reason these things are only imagined is simple. In the West, the only people who can afford to go to the exclusive health farms where you can find mud-baths are rich, middle-aged-and-over folks with waistlines bigger than their bank balances. And who wants to picture an Anne Widdecombe type mud-wrestling with a Norman Lamont type? The cheap option of wallowing in the mud of the Thames estuary watching dying whales and shipping vessels pass just isn't the same.

But....in Vietnam the fantasy is a reality! Thanks to globalisation and international exchange rates the mud bath experience is open to any Tom, Dick and Harry hailing from the developed world. 50,000 VND will see you into the Thap Ba Hot Springs, a health-spa on the outskirts of Nha Trang, where you can live the dream.

Or have it ooze away like the melted-chocolate-esque mud.

You see, it may look like melted-chocolate, but one accidental mouthful and it won't be Cadbury's Milk Tray you're thinking of. You'll be thinking: hmm, tastes like gritty mud...bit like that time I was two years old and decided garden soil might be edible. And then you'll think: am I really sitting up to my neck in a bathful of mud? Cold, clammy, itchy mud that in normal circumstances I wouldn't contemplate letting the tip of my shoe touch, never mind my skin. And then: damn, this is foolish.

Advanced capitalism at it again.

All these thoughts put a bit of a dampener on the lithe-young-things-mud-wrestling idea. I got to thinking of the liposuction-to-expensive-soap process in Fight Club. Rich people spending vast amounts of money siphoning off excess fat only for Brad Pitt to steal it and sell it back to the same people as high-class soap.

To be fair, I did feel pretty relaxed after the mud-bath, but I still wonder what it's all about. Good as a one-off experience I think. I showered and then moved onto the jacuzzi...

In the evening I went to the 'Crazy Kim' bar where I got talking to a Dorothy, a Dutch girl taking a month's holiday in Vietnam. We drank a lot of beers and cocktails and shots and had a fun time discussing God knows what. I've always liked the Dutch people I've come across and Dorothy was no exception. She was bright, articulate and attractive. I would've been attracted to her if I hadn't been in a great state of confusion about the relationship I'd left behind in England.

Da Lat - Nha Trang

The Road to Nha Trang
Nha Trang is a large town on Vietnam's south-east coast and is marketed as a beach resort with diving opportunities. Upon arrival I let the first tout I came to ferry me to their hotel. I didn't like it. I didn't like the hotel, and I didn't like the room -- a kind of space between spaces in the middle of the building which had no natural light.

I put my foot down.

"No. I'm sorry, I want to look elsewhere. Thanks."

"Sorry nothing."

This is a stock reply to any question which you answer in the negative and then apologise (a peculiar British trait). They mean your saying sorry is worth nothing to them. Politeness doesn't help them feed their families, so it's understandable. I left, determined to find something better.

Eventually I did. It may have taken a thirty minute walk, sweating like a pig, fully laden with all my belongings, but I ended up with a large, clean room overlooking the sea for a good price. Next time I think I'll just wander around without taking a lift from a tout.

I remember standing in that big room with its three single beds and wondering what I should do with myself. I was feeling a little lonely, but didn't want to just talk to anybody. I was missing everyone from back home. I stepped out to the balcony and took in the view.

Nha Trang can't be said to be the most beautiful place in the world. The day was hazy and there was a brisk wind whipping the palm trees over the road. The beach stretches most the length of the town, but there is no clear boundary between the beach and the promenade and the dusty, gritty sand seems to spill everywhere. There was something very dilapidated about everything. Not just in an obvious physical way, but in the resigned atmosphere of the place. Not a laid-back vibe, but a defeated one.

To brush off my glum mood I headed out.

To a bar.

Alcohol's always a good stop-gap...in the very short-term. Now, obviously this varies by personal temperament and place, but for me to strike up a conversation with a stranger in a bar is difficult. In England, conversation in a pub between two strangers usually gets as far as at "After you," as you bustle your way about. If you try to push your way into a group you get treated as if you were a paedophile. And obviously there is no one on their own to talk to. And if there is you probably don't want to talk to them.

It's pathetic really. What is this hang-up about talking to people you don't know? Yeah, you might not be on the same wavelength, or have completely opposite opinions, but if you're in a situation where you want company and you're alone then what's wrong with just talking to somebody?

So, I made it into the bar. Then instead of engaging someone in conversation directly I looked for a sneaky route in. Nabbing a cigarette, or getting a light are possible entry points. I wasn't smoking, so I used...the pool table. Talk about a long-winded method. I put down my money on the side of the table and waited my turn. Then in painful dribs and drabs between strokes, I stoked the conversation with my opponent. We went from monosyllabic exchanges to meaningful dialogue over the course of three games. Why the pool table prop is needed I don't know.

Anyway, it ended up being a fun night with an American-Irish couple who probably needed some respite from one another. I think it was a turning point in the travelling because it wasn't purely coincidence that led me to the night's events, but an active choice...

...albeit only about deciding to play pool.

It was a start.

Paradise Lost?

Orchids and Dirt

Da Lat is Vietnam's honeymoon capital. The place where affluent newly-weds come to titter and frolic after they've exchanged their vows. A cooler climate, a wide lake, a European style to the architecture.

Nothing too special for me. A set of qualities I have met and will meet a hundred times again in cities all over Europe. Transport the place to Vietnam and it takes on a whole different meaning. For the Vietnamese a place like this is a rarity. And because it is a rarity it is expensive.

So even though there's nothing inherently special to this place, no important history, no places of outstanding natural beauty, this is where people can distinguish themselves from others in an economic way. Strange what a desire for status can do.

For the traveller this just makes Da Lat an ordinary place with extraordinary prices and pomp. Although still poor by Western standards -- in terms of infrastructure like street maintenance, litter collection, health standards at public markets etc -- there is an air of pretension about the town which is almost absurd.

Central Market, Da Lat
For example, at dinner, feeling like something else other than rice or noodles, I went to a Western restaurant. On the menu I found dishes like the 'Eiffel Tower Steak' and 'Parthenon Pasta'. What exactly do these descriptions mean? Are they going to be scale models of their names? No, it just the food's going to be small and pricey.

Or take the carefully manicured lawns surrounding the 'Lake of Sighs' -- a boating lake 5km from the town -- peppered with glorious flowerbeds. Fenced off, and out of the fiscal reach of most locals, rich fellow countrymen come and stroll around in ostentatious dress twirling sun parasols as they go. After strolling about like Victorians they might picnic on the grass or paddle about in kitsch swan-shaped boats.

There is a scale model of the Eiffel Tower in the the town, and at one time Da Lat attempted to add the moniker 'The Paris of Asia' to its name. Fortunately it didn't stick.

So that's how I spent my day. Mopeding between areas of squalor and extravagance.

Xuan Huong Lake, Da Lat