Road Trip Therapy Time (IV): Tipsy Travel Time-out, My Lai Terror & Tears and Titillating Beach Time

I sleep until 00:30 and I'm WIDE AWAKE......

I'm still awake at 3:00.  WTF?

 6:00
"My flight" from Taipei just left for Sai Gon, LOL. (I rebooked the flight for three weeks earlier, otherwise I would only now arrive in Sai Gon ;-(

No, I didn't sleep well last night.  But I'm not sure whether it wasn't just EXCITEMENT about the upcoming day and the URGE to do something while I have this fabulously rotten room ;-)

The feeling of the freshly risen sun FLOODING my room with LIGHT is 

unreal / surreal.  

 I think I might want that feeling again tomorrow morning !

So at 6:30 I'm pondering the question whether I shouldn't stay an extra day in Quang Ngai.  This is the stop on this trip I expected the least from but for some bizarre reason I like this ugly city.   Maybe just because its so bloody REAL without ANY signs of pretense.

6:50
I just caught myself DANCING to DENMANTAU tunes on the sun-swept filthy carpet in my room.   
Hint:  Always listen to your inner self.  And if you catch yourself DANCING, STAY another day !

7:30
Done.   And I've paid less than the already cheap Expedia rate.  In this part of Vietnam I've been noticing a very strange thing.  Expedia is 30% cheaper than Booking.com.  Always worth checking out the competition !

7:45
OMG that is good Pho !


(Actually, as I will find out days later... 
....it is 
Bun Cha Ca ;-)

 And WHAT are all THESE things?...... I guess I gotta try them all, LOL.

Every second bite is like "SHIT, in my entire life I have NEVER tasted THIS flavour before!|

7:56
Oh Oh,  there is a Flood-my-pants Tsunami Warning going off

8:15
After I narrowly survived the first Tsunami wave, I decide to drink a Heineken to see whether there might be a second wave before I head to Coopmart. 

  

Better Safe than Soiled !

One gulp of Heineken later and I can feel the second wave approaching on the horizon, LOL.

Hey, isn't Madonna a fan and pays big bucks for vigorous internal flushings of a similar nature?   Silly woman.  I get mine for free !

IN the back of my head I seem to recall that Tsunami waves can come in Threes....

In motion this looks like an ant trail

Oh. GOOD!  
The Coopmart here might not have Gouda cheese like the one in Quy Nhon, but at least they have Nivea lotion.   And WINE, LOL.   There is not a single interesting shirt in the shirts section, but walking buy the hoodie & jacket aisle, I notice something out of the corner of my eye.  
OMG. PLEASE let it fit.  
There are only 2 jackets left and the labels on both say XL.  The first one is too tight in the shoulders.    Is Karma with me today?  Will the second one be made a bit wider?   IT IS and it fits ;-)

Not only is it a gorgeous jacket in that Sapa-style Indigo fabric.  The fact that it sells at 189,000 VND doesn't hurt either.   That's US$ 8.11 !


On the way back to the hotel, I pass a loaded BICYCLE ridden by an OLD MAN.  His wife rides side saddle on the back and the front is laden with all kinds of stuff.   I pass them and stop around the corner in the hope of getting a picture of them approaching.  Alas, they must have turned off, so all I get is this......

And just after that last picture, my camera freezes AGAIN. BLOODY Panasonic Lumix piece of SHITE.  NEVER AGAIN will I buy a Panasonic Camera !

Another Tsunami wave?  Oh Shit!

I hear the cleaning lady in the hall way and rush out.   The language mix is great.  Khong Cleaning!  Giay Ve Sinh!  (Literally: Paper VC (there is no W in the Vietnamese Alphabet)
She gives me 2 and I will take one roll on the road with me today.   Just in case ;-)

11:00
Scooter keys..... Check
Toilet paper.....Check
Swimming trunks..... Check
Wine bottle & cork screw ..... Check
(It would be downright uncivilized to travel without ;-)
Money...... Check
Camera ...... DEAD

FUCK PANASONIC!   Ah well, cell phone pictures will have to suffice..... 

It takes some time to find the Son My Memorial site, because Google Maps has it WRONG (correction submitted ;-).   I end up googling an image of the monument, showing that picture to people along the road, and pointing in various direction with shrugging shoulders.    People are happy to help and point me in the right direction ....

This is where I expected to run into white people again...... I expected TOUR BUSES filled with American tourists...... seeking atonement......

There is NO ONE HERE apart from me.   
It's unbelievable! 
The world has made me a cynical man but my view of the world STILL seems to be too naive.

I take a mental note..... recalibration in progress...

The scooter parking lot is EMPTY except for my ride......

I walk over to the window that says TICKETS and pay my 20,000 dong for the site and the 2,000 Dong for scooter parking.

Yes, those are graves on the sides

Walking towards the monument is difficult..... I'm afraid of bursting into tears uncontrolled

The strange thing is, when I walked up to the Picasso Mural in Guernica in Spain, I just wanted to pay my respect but did not feel this trepidation.

I try to take a 'selfie' to get my mood across.........  not a very good one......

when I download the pictures to my laptop later today, I realize that unbeknownst to me, the camera took one more shot while I was putting it down....

Karma was with me, because this unintended, un-aimed, and unflattering shot is PERFECT for the occasion... a touch of Colonel Kurtz ....

The paths through the memorial site are concrete, with imprints of bare feet and army boots......... 

500 Vietnamese Old men, women, children, and babies were raped and hunted down here...... and seeing these imprints you can imagine it happening right NOW!

Piles of bodies were just dumped into a ditch......

THE ditch .....

In the museum.... a list of victims in THIS village (there were two other villages)

The slaughter only stopped because THIS GUY, a US chopper pilot saw what was happening, pointed his gun at the US Army butchers, and threatened to shoot them if they killed another Vietnamese......

By that time it was too late for the people in the picture below.....

Just moments before all of them are SHOT DEAD.
Fucking TripAdvisor published my picture of the American but DID NOT publish THIS ONE.
PATHETIC Western culture !

Naturally, the US covered up the massacre and none of the guilty were punished.

It's too much to handle........ I leave after buying three packs of cigarettes for exactly the standard rate.....

Me leaving the site means that there are ZERO visitors there now ....
Fucked up world!

I'm not heading South again, but further North...... there is something I want to check out .....

Into the boonies .....

What I was looking for...... but it's CLOSED...... and access to the beach is blocked by a fence ....

.... back to the scooter, back to that intersection again, head for the beach again...... I park my scooter under the last trees and walk......

HOLY F*CK, this is GORGEOUS ;-)

Three Viets are fishing with a hand-carried net further South and WTF is THAT?

A truck is racing along the beach, heading towards me FAST......

.....but then veers away towards the path through the trees where I parked my scooter.   When it drives way too fast over the bumpy uneven path, it swings and swerves and I'm afraid it will fall over sideways and bury my scooter under its bulk.

So I'm taking my ride onto the beach ....

'nough said ?!

The following video demonstrates that Sony cameras in cell phones are CRAP because they can't even refocus during a shot ...... but WATCH it, because it's an AWESOME RIDE !

I am all alone at this beach...... time to get out the bottle .....

.... and to STRIP !

OMG, the water feels as fabulous as it looks.  The only thing that finally gets me out of the water is the realization that the Philippines are situated much less than 2000 km due East from where I am.   

And  I KNOW that there are SHARKS in the Philippines.   

I google this one day later and right now am not sure I will ever go into that water unencumbered again ;-(

Then the fishermen who were all the way at end of the beach, move to a spot just 100 meters past me.....  They all STARE at me standing there in my underwear but smile and wave back once my waving has broken the ice....

Being completely NAKED is a No-No in Vietnam........ so how do I get out of my wet undies and back into my pants ....?

QUICKLY..... is the answer ;-)

rush hour on the way back, lOl 

On the way back I take a different route....... HOLY FUCK .... it's a brand new divided highway with two lanes each way...... and I'm barreling down the road with 80-90 km/h while pulling down the helmet into my face every 20 seconds!

18:15
I am HUNGRY.

Time to walk down the river again.  Seafood Buffet for 100k sounds tempting.  
It also sounds too good to be true.  Yes, it's a seafood restaurant, but there is NO buffet.  And I don't feel like ordering a big fish.

So I keep walking.  Until I see smoke rising ;-)

The woman at the grill sees me and shouts "Chicken!" (In English even), to which I grin, say "ga".... "mot".  

She has been doing this for a while and knows EXACTLY when those chicken morsels are no longer under-cooked.  When I see that the chicken comes with cucumbers and/or horseradish leaves I change my order to "hai!".

I actually feel EMBARASSED when I pay with a 100k VND note and get 80k back.

20,000 VND for two chicken skewers with veggies and that fabulous Japanese-style dipping sauce.  That's US$ 0.86.......