"Hmm I'm not so sure about the elephant ride - not the sort of thing I'd usually choose to do but it seems to be part of the package and it might be fun". Weary words after a long day on the road and a few beers. K's response was philosophical if a little surreal. "Well after swinging my leg on and off a motorbike all day...an elephant tomorrow should be no problem". We both collapsed in laughter at the mental image.
This mildly hysterical laughter continued the next day: as we balanced ourselves atop the sad old beast, feeling absurd (me wincingly so - was there adequate padding between our metal bench saddle thingy and the ele's spine?); as we realised how jolt-lurchy the ride was going to be and how our saddle was kept on - by a precarious and not very comfy-looking relationship with the ele's tail; as ele snatched perilously at fresh bamboo leaves mid-descent of a steep embankment (clearly tastier than the dry straw scattered on the road at photo opp. points); and as the people on the ele in front of us screamed a little as their ele rebelled and knelt for a proper dip, mid-river, wetting their shoes. Our laughter only stopped when our ele tried to do the same and squealed as he got metal-spiked by the mahout. Oh no! Distress! Confirmation of my misgivings about this jaunt. For the rest of the ride, I had to keep pretending that this must be better for our ele than a working life lugging heavier things than people.
K and I were doing a 2-day motorbike tour with the Easy Riders, from the lovely Da Lat in the highlands down to Nha Trang on the coast. Da Lat is a place of whispering pine trees; the scent of roasting, caramelising sweet potatoes - the white-fleshed ones like the mbambaira you get back home; market stalls with mountains of avocados; vats of mulberries; artichoke tea; chewy sugar-bomb dried strawberries; and cakes to die for.
Our Easy Riders, Su and Phuoc (right), were relaxed, knowledgeable dudes with a sense of humour. We meandered through the mountains stopping often to take in the scenery, stretch our legs, and to learn about local industry/agriculture: a flower farm, coffee, tea, tapioca, turmeric (yes, really), sugar cane, cocoa, and pepper plantations, a silk factory, basket weaving, a rickety rice-noodle production line (2 people), a mini rice wine brewery in someone's kitchen - tasting included - and even a tiny brick factory. We encountered delighted, daring kids holding out their hands to whack ours as we passed on the bikes (ouch for them); got caught in bicycle commuter traffic (in Vietnam cities, it's motorbikes rather than bicycles); and swapped details of our backgrounds with Su and Phuoc over 333 beer and vast tableloads of amazing food at 'local price'. After a second day of hard riding and the slightly hairy experience of Highway One at rush hour, we left the Easy Riders in Nha Trang clutching soft-seat train tickets they'd sorted for us, as well as recommendations for a guesthouse and tailors in Hoi An. Ele-ride hiccup aside, this trip was the highlight of my time in Vietnam: I came away from it marvelling at the fertility of the land (is there anything that isn't grown in Vietnam?) and with a deep-rooted respect for how resourceful, resilient and hard-working the people are. I have plans to eat baked beans on toast for many months so that I can return to do a longer bike trip.
(Pics above: hilltop view of rice paddies; young poser; rice harvest; rice wine brewery; silk factory; fishing village near Nha Trang - boats and fishing nets; and lastly, my future retirement home on a small cocoa farm, complete with satellite dish.)
And the rest of Vietnam? Well, K and I had met up in Ho Chi Minh City, which the locals still call "Saigon". I quite liked the feel of the place, although I have to confess that, after 2 days of bus travel from Sihanoukville, the simple imprint which Saigon left on my brain was one of many many motorbikes, a very black and dead looking Black River, some coffee shops and local restaurants I'd like to explore further, and streetside fruit shakes which were works of tastebud art. The visit to Cao Dai temple was unexpectedly fascinating (must read more about this) and the Cu Chi Tunnels were claustrophobic, sobering, but a little marred by the "tourist information" film which made ZTV broadcasts look like balanced investigative reportage (yeah, tone the propoganda down a bit guys. "Brave guerillas" might capture more minds than "hero American killers".)
(Pics above: Cao Dai Holy See)
After the Da Lat-Nha Trang trip, we spent a relatively comfy night in soft seats on the train to Danang for Hoi An. There was more laughter (suppressed of course) at the state of the pair of monk's feet which took up residence on my armrest for the journey.
Hoi An was a delight. A faded old city with slightly crumbling buildings and handsome teakwood merchant houses. We subjected ourselves to public measurement humiliation at the tailor's and then spent the next few days eating great food and mozeying about - renting bicycles to ride out through rice paddies to a couple of beaches and to a pottery village where K impressed the local potters, having a go on the wheel. The potters kept telling me she had "clever hands" (always an option my friend if London gets too much!)
(Pics above: Hoi An)
Then on to Hue for a quick stopover, where the highlight was the Thien Mu Pagoda. We caught the sound of a large singing bowl being rung by a monk. Oh, this is a sound every office should be compelled to play at lunch time to calm frazzled minds. After Hue, we dashed to Hanoi for a Halong Bay boat trip. We had fun kayaking in Halong Bay, but having seen that water, I now realise how naive I was donning my swimming cozi beforehand ("maybe on a 5day luxury cruise, and the equivalent distance from shore, love!"). We also caught a charming water puppet show in Hanoi - which I made more entertaining for the privileged, bored group of teenage schooltrippers in the audience when I nearly bailed headlong down the theatre stairs. There was talk of me keeping a public humilaition log, but it would now just take too long to compile. Am I this much of a clown back home? Answers preferably NOT in the public comments boxes below! One memory souvenir I have of Hanoi is that of loads of young people sitting on very low chairs on the pavements outside cafes in the French Quarter, drinking iced green tea, and cracking sunflower seeds, creating a quaint and lovely soundtrack to evening conversation.
In Hanoi, I bid a lonesome farewell to K as she headed to the airport and I trudged off to the train station, bound for the hills of Sa Pa and H'mong weekend markets, hoping that I was not going to be the only woman in my 6 berth "hard sleeper" compartment. Of course I wasn't. There was a lovely Vietnamese family who shared their pumpkin seeds with me. The train had a minor accident, but we made it there in the end.
Sa Pa is a magical, restorative place to while away some time gazing at the mountains (above) and drinking tasty teas and infusions, which is mostly what I did, save for a rain-shortened village walk and a trip to Bac Ha market. The market has lots of tourist stuff, so is best visited to watch the local people trading everything from agricultural implements to traditional medicine. I was reminded that some things are universal when I sat down to have lunch next to a Hmong woman (most of the other foreigners seemed to have legged it back to menu-ed cocacola cafes once theyd photographed the pigs trotters etc). This lady suddenly gestured to the stallholder, pointed with disgust to something - a hair in her noodle soup- and demanded a new bowl! I ate mine quickly at squint-distance.
(Pics above from the walk to Lao Chai village, near Sa Pa)
(Pics above: Bac Ha market - traders mainly from the Flower H'mong. Selling? From top: sugar cane; bamboo shoots and veg; traditional medicine (I think); chilies; rice wine/whisky; food stalls; heading home)
So Vietnam? Apart from having one of the coolest flags in the world, Vietnam touched a few soft spots and I have no doubt that I will return (babe, start stocking up on the baked beans).
Posted: 6 May 2012
I was greeted with a friendly high five from Hugo, a long-term MCC (Marine Conservation Cambodia) volunteer. He and Louis stashed my stuff under a ledge in the longtail boat to shelter it from the storm clearly heading our way and Mr Pyai cranked up the motor for the 45min journey to Koh Rong island where I'd be based in a small fishing village. Hugo "yeah man-ed" with joy as the boat crested and crashed over wave after wave wetting us all, and then positioned himself against the petrol container to stop it from flying overboard. He glanced at me occasionally to check my terror level. Of course, I put on my best "yeah, nice ride, but not as good as white water rafting" face.
They were fabulous hosts, pointing things out to me (e.g. a tiny islet with no people but a temple) and telling me about the projects on Koh Rong Samloem and Koh Rong. The Koh Rong satellite project, based in a small fishing village, was quite new, so they were still doing discovery diving: working out what was under the water around the island; mapping; surveying the seabed and marine life; and making up names for the reefs. Pretty exciting stuff, (although I suspect that the Cambodian government may not leap to adopt "pothead reef" as the official name if it becomes part of a marine protected area!).
It was great to arrive on a weekend and have a couple of non-working days to get to know some of the volunteers (the rest had gone back to the mainland for an internet fix or visa admin). Once we'd got over delicious-lunch torpor, they took us newbies over to "Bad Dog Beach" a breathtaking place that only reveals itself as you arrive panting (in using that word I speak only for my unexercised self) over a hill from the village. It's more beautiful than any picture can portray.
After the beach Hugo shared some tips on polite behaviour in the village, best observed because the project still needed to gain the trust and respect of villagers. There were a couple of anecdotes about people being invited to houses of the influential to drink and to eat interesting foods (impolite to refuse) but I was assured that it rarely happened to female volunteers. Well, my friends you may know what's coming next.
After a large dinner, I moseyed out onto the equivalent of our porch to finish my beer. As an aside, I should explain that the MCC bungalow, like others in the village, is a wooden house on stilts over the sea (this particular patch of sea otherwise known as "the poopy water" due to it also being where most things in the village are disposed of). The front side of the "porch" is right on the pier and the pier is the main road of the village. Anyway so, a gasper in one hand and half a beer in the other, I was taking in the night air, which still had the faint smell of fuel fumes from departing fishing boats. A man approached. "You like beer? You, me, drink beer". Shiiiiit. Not wanting to scupper the project single-handedly on my first night, I was led by the wrist along an single plank path - unlit, save for gentle flashes of diffuse lightening- over the poopy water to a beautiful porch with green plants and a large table of men and one elderly lady ("Mama"). A beer was pressed into my hands by the man - who'd now introduced himself as Lucky Blue. "Drink drink". A whole crab was put on a plate in front of me - "Nyam! Eat!" (with gestures in case I wasn't sure). I've never chosen to eat a crab, and I was clueless about how to crack the thing open. I gave it a few feeble twists until one of the other men took pity on me and did it for me. I started to pick at some spongy bits until Mama showed me which bits to eat. My relief at finishing this creature was shortlived, as another was put on my plate. Then a kind of langoustine and then squid. Each rest between mouthfuls was punctuated with "Nyam! Eat!" and rounds of laughter. Then Lucky Blue pulled out a bag of brown, dry shrivelled things and my heart sank (might they be monkey gonads - a test?)
But of course they weren't. They were sugared cashew nuts picked, dried and roasted by Mama, and she gestured to me "take the rest of the packet home". I was the evening's entertainment for sure, but there was much good-natured name and language swapping and I will never forget the Khmer words for "cheers, eat, crab, langoustine, squid". I don't know how they're spelt, but if you want to know: "chalamoy, nyam, kdam, pkang, muk".
Well the time on the island flew by. I did quite a few dives in my first week, and was amazed at the difference in visibility between Koh Rong (1-3metres) which is not yet a protected area and is trawled with impunity and Koh Rong Samloem (10m+ visibility) which is a marine protected area with fishing restrictions in place, offering decent - and profitable - recreational diving. One can only hope that fisherman can be persuaded that there is a way to protect marine areas and enhance - rather than ruin - their livelihoods. It's a difficult argument for any government to have. Sadly, it may not even get to that point. There are plans for significant development on the island, which I understand include an airport, golf resorts and the like. It doesn't sound like sustainable development, local empowerment, or eco-resorts are terms which feature heavily in these plans.
Unfortunately my ears bailed on me at the end of my first week (I suspect the ear infection was not entirely unrelated to the proximity of pothead reef to the poopy water, as I was not the only one with ear troubles). So, I was unable to do survey work after that (very disappointed) but I continued with teaching English with another volunteer. We gave informal, early morning lessons to the project leader's wife and our MCC cook, and in the afternoons we took English lessons at the local school. The kids were on holidays, but when they heard we were giving lessons, they rounded up all their mates to come along. Refeshingly keen lovely kids! The Khmer schoolteacher who usually teaches English (unpaid for that part of his job, I believe) showed us some of the teaching games he plays and took the first few lessons with us, but then was happy for us to take them on. Brilliant fun!
In between teaching, the other thing to be done on the island was trash collection and incineration. Very hot and dirty work. Everyone's favourite, which would partly account for most volunteers' desire to dive 2-3 times a day. "Trash" involved getting a fire started in the volunteer-built incinerator in the morning (all those Nyanga water-boiler lessons finally yielded results, Dad) and then doing a beach clean up or collecting bins from the village every hour or so, then sorting, and burning their contents. Before the project started, there were no bins in the village and everything got disposed of in the same way that generations had disposed of (largely organic) waste: thrown on the ground or into the sea. But disposal of plastic etc in this way doesn't work. The MCC project is currently working on the basis that leading by example works better than preaching on arrival. So bins have been placed at various points throughout the village, and the volunteers collect these regularly. Long term, MCC hopes to build a larger incinerator and to have funding to employ a couple of villagers to collect and burn. The bins are being used, which is great.
Beach clean ups involved collecting rubbish washed up onto the beaches: the aptly named "Garbage Bay" and, on one occasion, as a treat, Bad Dog Beach. Beautiful beaches, marred by discarded fishing nets, old shoes, Red Bull bottles, lightbulbs, batteries, and infinite plastic straws and bits of polystyrene. Bad Dog beach, the stunning palm-fringed one in the pic above is also fringed by a high-tide line littered with medical waste. I'm talking used syringes, and the accompanying glass vials (syringe bottles) used in hospitals. The swim that we rewarded ourselves with after that beach clean up started with fairly careful foot placement in the shallows! Here's hoping the island-developers will fund proper medical/waste disposal units on the mainland/Vietnam or wherever that stuff is coming from, before they build the super-deluxe resorts.
While I was on the island, we all had the privilege of being invited to a local wedding. A visual feast of colourful outfits (changed by both bride and groom several times), loads of delectable food (including banana blossom salad and a delicious duck), beer served with ice (and topped up throughout the evening with anything from ice to icebergs - take note anyone planning a wedding: saves alcohol and much drunkenness and is surprisingly refreshing), and many a Khmer dance lesson on the dance floor.
So, its a long post this one, but I wanted to share with you my time in this lovely spot, with some of the kindest, most generous, and friendly people I have met on my travels. To say it was a special experience doesn't really do it credit, but I'll leave it at that. I do hope that you will forgive me for peppering my conversations with references to the Island over many months to come.
Pictures below
The village; snapshots of MCC (including industrial kitchen activity, weekend acitvities, and of the village kids who loved the fish ID book); incinerator; and the apocalyptic sunset.
Posted: 20 April 2012
This is what happens...
If you're driving a bus and doing this at 5minute intervals (hint: not scratching your ear)...
But if your mobile phone ring tone, teeth-jarringly shot suspension, and 10-second hooting policy prevents people from sleeping on your "VIP" sleeper bus, at least they will be cooled by aircon...
And will be able to use the VIP loo, which looks a little different from the shiny white thrones in the adverts (oh and no shoes allowed in here as these must be left at the door of the bus)....
...provided that they can navigate their way to the loo over all the passengers sitting on the floor who are unlikely to have paid $17 for the ride...well not to the bus company anyway. And when you're driving like a maniac, what's the point of a speedometer that works eh?
Yep, nightmare journey. Was I really saying thanks be for the night bus a day earlier? Two hours into the journey, there was a very loud bang, a cursory look at the problem, and travel continued at a marginally less deathly speed, but that's not to say it was less deathly. Unfortunately the driver couldn't speak English, so he couldn't tell me that we had a puncture and we were driving on regardless. My guesthouse relayed that info to me after a concerned call to them, but I was told not to worry and bail from the bus as there were 2 wheels. I have to confess that there was some less-than-calm texting home with the details of my journey and insurance policy number. I have not yet learnt the art of being super chilled! Still on my to do list.
Loving Hoi An at the moment. Will post about Koh Rong soon.
Posted: 14 April 2012
