Friday 28 July 2017

DAD to DMK (Leaving Vietnam for Siam)

I wake up at 2 am.

I have a translation to finish, so I might as well stay awake and do that, eh?

By 3 am the streets are deserted.

But by 4 am, there are some early risers (or late strugglers)

By 5 am I detect a hint of orange pink behind the mountains in the West.   
MUST go to the beach NOW !

Here is what expects me when I get there:




I realize that many many others had that idea before me.


Individual walkers or groups of a dozen seniors waving the arms as if drowning and trying to attract attention.  
But it's not only people enjoying the beach.  The fishers are coming back with their catch.




This beach is BUSY at 5 am.  



But it's also huge enough to handle the crowds and still give one an almost empty beach feeling.










The light during a sunrise in Da Nang is special.  
There is a reason why Da Nang used to be one of my 3 favourite cities on this planet.  And that reason is the Da Nang sunrise.












I can only compare it to the light over the ocean in Brittany.  Anyone who has ever seen that will know what I mean.

9:00
I'm leaving Vietnam today and decide I should buy more cigarettes. They're good here and cheaper than anything I will find in a Duty-Free store and I might as well take a carton to Bangkok, Manila, and Vancouver.
I head back to my local store.
Xin Chao and wave.  Here is the store with its smiling owner:

I get a carton of White Horse for 205,000 VND. That is converts to US$ 9 and is the CHEAPEST price I have EVER paid in all my 5 trips here.  They know I'm a Westerner. They know I come only once a year for little things.  They could have easily charged me a high price.   Nope.  The gave me the lowest price I've EVER paid in Vietnam.
Cam On Nhieu !

At the next corner I see a crane.   Long tubular re-bar ????  This tiny lot will house the next HIGH RISE 2 blocks from the beach.  














9:30

Time to sit outside and wait for my ride.  WHY do I take a picture of this bloody tourist hanging from a parachute being pulled by a speed boat?
Because I just saw the most hilarious thing.   
OK, Definitely NOT hilarious for the guy hanging from the parachute.

The boat has to turn at some point to get back to where the customer's friends or family are waiting. I think the boat operator thought it would be FUN to execute that turn with a speed that would let the legs of the person on the parachute JUST barely touch the water before pulling him up again.

Good plan.  It fails.  They submerge him TWICE to somewhere between his waist and his nipples.  When they finally get him UP and out of the water again, it is with a violent jolt and I see something black separating from the flyer and following a standard trajectory into the ocean.
I wonder whether he will miss his camera or the lost footage more ;-)

9:45
Yesterday I gave the motorcycle guy 500,000 Dong because I didn't have anything smaller.  He didn't give me change and answered "whatever you say" to my question how much that ride and today's ride to the airport would be.  He said he'd be here at 10 am today.

I'd been offered the ride from Ga Da Nang to this hotel for 20,000 but always made sure to pay at least 50,000 ($2.5) for the 15 minute ride.   And now he MIGHT come back after I gave him $25 yesterday.   

You just KNOW that NO one in the US or Canada would come back.   And by 5 to 10 I've come to the conclusion that I'm an IDIOT for having thrown that temptation in front of a Viet.

He shows up at 3 to 10.  UNBELIEVABLE anywhere in the 'civilized world'.

And here is an example why one should not glorify other people or cultures, LOL.
When he drops me off at the airport and I'm just about to tell him that he should really give me back 350k but that he should keep it for being so honest, he asks me "You pay me now?".

I must have looked at him as if I'd seen my first ALIEN.   Then I start laughing out loud.  Is he an amnesiac or does he REALLY think tourists are THAT stupid?  I tell him that I paid him 500k yesterday and that said amount should have been WAY MORE than enough !  He nods and I turn around.  
What an idiot !

I had e-mailed My, the other Easy Rider that I took a day tour with in December 2015 and met again in February 2016, and he replied that he just wanted to drop by my hotel just to meet me again.   Stay away from idiots. 95 % of Viets are amazingly honest & nice people, so there is no reason to burden your life with the other 5%


The important information

my ride

The usual traffic jam caused by stupid people with their huge luggage


Au Revoir Vietnam




Fly with one of those next time

I finally find out how to get to the public bus stop at Don Mueang Airport.  But I have to resort to asking for directions at the Public Information desk.  As with so many things, It's impossible to find the first time, but once you know how to get there, it's trivial.

This time Bangkok traffic is ATROCIOUS.  And I mean BAD.  Almost as BAD as Vancouver traffic actually.  Where a viaduct is being built, only half the lanes are available to traffic and it CRAWLS.
 It crawls so badly that when the bus driver opens the door for fresh air, I jump out with my backpack and start walking.  I'm faster than the bus.
Things you see when walking:  WTF?
 I walk around 15 minutes until I get too warm but have eliminated the stuck-in-traffic stress and wait for MY bus.
There it is again. Same bus, same driver
 When the bus driver recognizes me and opens the door he emits a loud cackling laugh.  NO, I do not have to pay again. See that wouldn't work in Vancouver with its bloody fare gates.  
Now the bus barrels down the streets with probably 70 km/h.

And then it gets REALLY STUCK.  The bus doesn't move an inch for 15 minutes.  But no chance for my Houdini Escape this time.   It's POURING outside the bus.

A Caucasian couple gets on the board. She is handling a folder of printed paper maps. WTF?

FINALLY.  My stop.  I know the area and head quickly toward Khaosan Road. 
I turn into it; it’s the shortest route.  OMG.  THIS wasn’t here 3 weeks ago!  Then it was still in Benidorm, where it belongs.  Or maybe I just didn’t notice.  Hordes of pale scantily dressed young white people, drinking it up, and socializing with the tuk-tuk drivers.   I feel like a seasoned traveler witnessing that display.

The pale people walk the street like headless chickens, stopping in all the tightest spots, so that I’m glad once I have passed them and can speed walk to my destination again.

After one WRONG very NARROW alley, I find the right very NARROW alley (Forget trying to get a scooter through here, LOL). Adamaz House.
Pay the money, get the key, WALK up the STAIRS to the 6th floor.  WOW.  A bed in a small room with glass on 3 sides.  On top of the roof.  With the loo, a sink, and a rain-forest shower OUTDOORS, LOL.    I LOVE IT.





5 minutes later I HATE IT.  They put all this effort into creating this hide-away on the roof with a view over the other roofs of Bangkok, and they neglected to dimension their Wifi server so that it is actually usable.   Too many cretins updating their Facebook accounts or whatever and I can’t even read the news, never mind listen to music or do ANYTHING useful.

I’m shocked at the severity of the tantrum I throw in my rooftop domicile.  

THIS will NOT DO!   When I ask the receptionist whether she can fix it or whether this is ‘normal’, she admits that it’s always like that.   I tell her that I might move somewhere else tomorrow.   The sign in the reception “No alcohol allowed on the premises” might also have something to do with the desire to move.  I’m actually going to SMUGGLE alcohol onto the premises later. That’s why I’m taking my backpack, LOL

But NO, seriously: I can deal with cold showers, instructions to throw the used loo-paper into a bin instead of flushing it, used soap of the previous occupants, but I can NOT handle lousy internet.   After all, I DO fit the description of a Digital Nomad.  Yes, DIGITAL!   And face it.  This Internet thingy has been around for 20 years by now.  You should have got the hang of it by now if you run a hotel.

I Want Wine.  Must GO Canal-view restaurant.  

Oh, right. There is a 7-Eleven along the way. Red bottle for 275 Baht. Add cherry yoghurt, moisturizer (I didn’t even give the security Nazis a chance; I left it in my Da Nang hotel room), pistachios, and I’m paying 500 Baht, CAD$ 19.  Not bad, even though wine is EXPENSIVE in Thailand compared to Vietnam.

OMG, Canal-view restaurant is PACKED with middle-aged PALE people, LOL.
The cute server is actually astonished when I request chop-sticks.  WHAT is it with TOURISTS? 
OK, I do have to realize that this, my 6th trip to Indochina, all of them within the last 27 months (!!!), does make me something of an Expert, LOL.
Yup, I am the guy in the Expedia ad !
Yes, self-flattery reeks, but my tendency to avoid tourist spots and my long-duration trips over here enable me to show you places that most tourists and even most backpackers can only dream of.  Must be the German in me: If you do something, do it right! 
And I must admit, that even in my own estimation, I have improved quite a bit since January of this year.   Hold onto the seat of your pants, Zu !

So, another trip in November of this year, another in January of next year, and I will be a fabulous tour guide, LOL. 

OK, yes, if you were wondering, I AM on my second glass of white wine ;-)



Thursday 27 July 2017

6 hours on the Reunification Express..... to DA NANG !

As usual I wake early.   


When I peek down to the street from my balcony, I see Viets doing their morning stretches in the street.


I'm NOT using the hotel-supplied bathroom product.   



Bleach my tan and I might return to Vancouver as an Albino !




Good Bye Quy Nhon !
7:15
I’m showered, packed, and head down to the lobby to pay and get my passport back.

The grizzled owner is having a cigarette while drinking tea with a friend at the table in the lobby.  I gesture No Rush and light a cigarette right outside the door.

HEY, I hear.
I turn around, and see him pointing at a small plastic chair.  I sit down to form a triangle with him and his friend, he offers me a cigarette, and pours me a glass of tea.   This is so friggin SIMPLE and UNCOMPLICATED.   He gets out his cell phone with the AMAZING speech-2-text translation app.
Are you happy to be here? 
I am very sad to leave Vietnam.
HUGE grin.
An about 30 year old super-fit Viet and his friend join us to make the triangle into a circle.
What your name?
Hans  (By now I know that the Viet tongue has issues pronouncing my real name)
My name Lee, like Bruce Lee !
I point at his bulging biceps, nod, and make an appreciative face; he grins.

He and his friend soon leave, explaining to me in English that they MUST leave to get his car fixed because yesterday his car broke down.   

Now it’s just me and the old man. 
Where are you from?
Canada
Ah. Last week Teacher from Canada here. Happy times. Evening we drink medicinal wine, writes the phone app, while he points at the bottle under the table that I already suspected to contain strange animal remains.

LOL.  Anthony Bourdain was right.  The Viets are the PERFECT Social drinkers.
That reminds me of Taskin in Istanbul, LOL.

The phone displays the questions:  Do you come here to settle?   Are you married? Do you want to marry Vietnamese woman?
When I tell him about my 99 year old Grandma, his face distorts in astonishment and disbelief.
Your Grandmother full and amazing life, comments the phone.
And he understands:
You come to Vietnam when you can.

I can see how the Canadian teacher a few weeks ago could have spent entire evenings drinking and texting with this man.   But I have to catch a train.
So he calls me a taxi, and he relaxes after I tell his phone 8:45 after it had asked me “When train depart?”

The taxi driver is the MADDEST HONKER I’ve ever seen in Vietnam.   No, he doesn’t give the little beep beep warning signs, he HONKS at EVERYONE who could even remotely be suspected of coming anywhere near his straight path  to Ga Dieu Tri.   Once he even shouts at a cyclist through the open passenger window.  PLEASE someone move him to Vancouver, he would fit in SO WELL.

I buy a big seafood noodle soup and a 1L bottle of water from one of the vendors.  20,000 VND.  That's a total of CAD $1.10.
 How can I go back to Canadian prices after this.   
Then I buy two of the Banh-Mi-sized baguettes for a total of 10,000 VND.     Maybe a Hunger Strike back home to protest the HORRENDOUS food costs?
 My eyes actually tear over slightly when I hear the whistle ....   
 and a minute later see the engine of the SE4 Reunification Express. 
  What a name for a train, LOL.
And what a train !



One of my clients is in his 70s.  I send him a message "You are of an age to get a kick out of the fact that part of the last translation was written on a train with the lovely name "Reunificaton Express" that connects Saigon and Hanoi.
Attached to that e-mail is the picture of Ho Chi Minh on the cover of Time Magazine.
And Yes, my client did get a kick out of that, LOL.



They have NEW Bedding !!!!  Much fancier looking than the last time I was on a Vietamese train, which must have been in  December 2016.  I sleep tightly through the first hour.

11:00
3.5 hours left until Da Nang.  As every time I’m taking the train there, I’m hoping that Anh My will be scouting the arriving trains for fortunate victims for his Easy Rider motorcycle tours.   If you ever get lucky enough to have an Easy Rider offer you a ride to your hotel from Ga Da Nang, don’t let this opportunity slip by.  And make sure to book at least a one-day trip with them. 

The train steadily click-clacks its way through planes of rice-paddies only limited by the distant mountains and areas dense with vegetation, most notably palm trees.

13:00
I’ve never slept as well as on a Vietnamese train, LOL.   This late already and I didn’t have a proper breakfast?  No wonder I’m hungry.   Let’s take that noodle soup container to the boiling water dispenser.  Yup !  They have those in ever car of those train.  And they have to.


The view from the lower berth




The Reunification Express takes 2.5 days or 60 hours to complete the 1726 km trip from Sai Gon to Ha Noi.  CLICK HERE for A 1-MINUTE VIDEO OF THE VIEW

And if you’re crazy or courageous enough to do the entire trip In one, you’ll need your morning coffee at least twice.   And lunch twice. And dinner twice.   The long journey alone would be torture but without hot coffee and at least a yummy noodle soup?   Add to that the fact that the air conditioning in the sleeping compartments is set a tad too low (it’s fine if you’re huddled in your blanket) so a bit of hot liquid is a definite bonus !


 
14:30
Ga Da Nang.  
Finally.  6 hours train at night is easy, but during the day 6 hours is my limit.

I look for My, but he's not there.  Another guy approaches me making a two-handed motorcycle engine revving gesture.   Easy Rider ?, I ask, and he's surprised to have been uncloaked so fast.

Helmet on and off we go on the by now very familiar ride.


Familiar?  Hell NO!  I am SHOCKED how the city has changed in the 9 months since I was here last.


I'm back in Jazz hotel at the comparatively quiet end of the endless beach (End of an Endless beach? I must be losing it ;-)

They even bring me a pretty welcome drink (Virgin, unfortunately)


A bit posh, but I wanted B&B (Beach & Balcony)
Sheraton, Hilton & Co have arrived in force and are erecting a concrete wall between the beach and the city.  

Even walking the two blocks back into Hello-Land from the beach promenade, I see MAJOR changes.  Every third lot is a construction site for new 2 or 3 level houses.   This is the very same street where I asked for Wine only last year through a small shop window and was offered Vodka because they never heard the word for wine before.   Now look at it:

This is what it looked like 11 months ago
Remnants of the old life are still here:
But for how long?

Even in the local market some people have LEARNED in the last 11 months how to RIP OFF tourists.  The nail clippers cost 40 cents in one store.  But then I fall into the tourist traps in a T-shirt store. She wants 400,000 Dong, 20 bucks for 2 T-shirts.   I'm stupid enough to buy them for 300,000 Dong.  She wants to show me pants too and I notice other VENDORS shouting NO, NO, NO !  I only realize WHY they were shouting that when I get home.  The T-shirt has a price tag of 22,000 Dong. 1 Dollar.   She tried to get 10 times that for it.  

11 months ago I was able to state with conviction that the Viets had not learned YET how to be greedy. Not Anymore.  They're fast learners.  
For now the others don't like what she learned. 
For how long? 
 Progress?...
or The End?

That restaurant is NEW.  There was an empty lot with children playing and a guy with a tire-fixing water bucket and his old trusty compressor sitting there last time I was here

But some things haven't changed.  My store is still there (although a 10 level hotel went up in the last 9 months one block to the right of it) and the owner recognizes me and even remembers the hotel that I stayed in 2 years ago.   
Smiling owner on the right




And there is that maybe 13 year old girl who greats me with Hola (now that is a new one) and when I reply with Xin Chao and keep on walking I can hear her behind me reporting this outworldly experience to her house-mates. I hear her repeating "Hola" and  "XIN CHAO !!!!".  

The cities might be changing here into something very Western but I have some hope that the Viet people will be able to resist the change into bland Lulu-Lemon-wearing veggies.  They still have common sense here.



I'm on my way back to the hotel and I'm walking by a restaurant where I've eaten THAT chicken 1.5 years ago.  The kitchen took FOREVER to bring me the chicken.
Yes, that was the time they explained themselves with "We had to pluck it first".  
Here is the Chicken Lady delivering those chickens to that same restaurant. They are ALIVE.  Which means that they not only had to pluck it !
A chicken got its head cut off just because I pointed at a menu item !
On the other hand: eating plastic-wrapped chicken sitting for however long on your local Western supermarket shelf for some strange reason no longer is my thing ;-)


18:30
I've just finished a mediocre seafood pizza (the taste was ok, but where is the seafood?.  I should have known though; I'm staying and eating in a tourist place), when I see three people crossing the road in their swimming outfits who look mighty familiar.  
It's the Dutch family who rented the scooters at the Kiwi Connection in Quy Nhon.  They're traveling the length of Vietnam by camper van after their cute son had convinced them to come here after he had worked in the Seagull hotel some time in the last year. Lucky Bastard, LOL

19:30 

More translating work to do .....