Well hello again everyone. After going to a number of cafes with
WIFI and even signing on to a few of the networks to no avail, I have
finally bitten the bullet and entered one of the many internet cafes
scattered about this touristy beach town of Nha Trang. Its only a
dollar for 3 hours so I really don't know why I spent so much of the
day surveying the different cafes looking for a connection that would
actually allow me to sign on using my own computer. One thing is for
sure, however; the next time I do an international backpacking trip I
will be packing only my hard drive rather than my laptop as it seems
internet access is now available anywhere and everywhere, even the
remote hill tribes in Sapa offered internet at reasonable prices.
So
here's whats up: I've spent the last two nights on a sleeper bus, the
first one from Hanoi to Hue, where I had about 3 hours to check out the
Citadel, which was a really incredible place, a crumbling relic of a
once mighty empire. Well, almost. I'm sure Ankor Wat will put things
into perspective, as this complex of buildings and the massive wall
that surrounds it are all merely 200 years old, and the architecture
appears rather western in nature. I still enjoyed wandering its empty
streets in the overbearing heat, pausing often to shoot a photograph or
to sit under the shade of one of the many banyan trees to enjoy a cold
drink or a chat with one of the locals selling their wares.
The
citadel consists of three major areas, each one encircling the next,
with the forbidden purple city in the middle. Sounds enchanting
doesn"t it? The forbidden city is the place where the royal concubines
were kept, where the only men allowed were eunuchs so that the relative
chastity of the fair maidens that lay within could be kept for the
emperor alone to do with as he pleased. Fortunately, things have
changed and I was not required to leave my testicles at the gate. The
buildings inside, however, were much the same as the rest of the
citadel, with what appeared to be squatters living within the ruins. A
number of times I would walk through a door to find a lone man laying
on the floor, one leg bent with the other crossed over it like a mix
between the reclining Buddha and the contemplative Buddha with one leg
resting on the other, parallel to the ground. Rather than stir them
from their meditative slumber, I quietly backed away from the doorway
and moved on to the next ruin.
But the overall vibe of the place
was truly that of decay, with the once brightly painted yellow walls
flaking and even crumbling in places, the majesty all but ground to
dust and taken away by the wind and the heat.
Then, three
hours later it was time to head back to the bus station, where the
first cyclo driver I passed by offered me a ride at ten times the
normal price. I smiled at him knowingly and continued walking, without
even granting him a response. Immediately he dropped it to half of his
normal offer. Again, I smiled and gave him the universal motion with
my fingers that means "Thanks, I"ll walk." This went on for a couple
more minutes until finally I offered him 10, 000 dong, a number that
appears to be immense at first glance but actually equals out to less
than a dollar. We settled at 15 and rode off across the bridge where I
jumed immediately on the bus that was to bring me to Saigon.
The
first part of the bus ride was in daylight, and while the other
passengers dozed off or listened to music, I put my ear buds in and
listend to a couple of poetry readings I had downloaded by Robert Hass
and Ted Kooser, and was then inspired enough to write a few pages in my
moleskine and watch Vietnam pass me by in the window, with its chickens
and yellow houses, its beaches and mountains dropping off into the
ocean. We stopped at Hoi An, where most of the travellers from the
first leg of the journey got off and a wave of new faces appeared. Hoi
An is the place to go for cheap tailored suits and silk shirts, and
appeared to be quite a nice little laid back tourist town as well. The
group that got on the bus appeared to have already gotten quite
friendly with each other and sat just in front of me chatting away
until after the lights were turned off.
A quick note about
the sleeper buses here. There are beds, and the nicer ones can be
lifted up into a seat or reclined almost fully so that the ride is
quite comfortable. But last night, a combination of bad roads and
steep hills, and of course the "anything goes" system of driving here
actually jolted me awake a couple of times throughout the night and I
prayed to my guardian angels who I had not thought about since
childhood. People here are all over the road, often zooming around
cars in front of them, laying their hands on the horn and then somehow
sliding back into a space that has miraculously opened up in traffic
just nanoseconds before the truck screaming in our direction at full
speed passes us by with an audible and immense burst of air that shakes
the bus not to mention the bowels of the passengers up like a bottle of
champagne after the tournament has been won. But experiencing this, if
nothing more, at least makes one appreciate the quite times, the times
like today where you can sit on the beach under the shade of a palm
tree and read a book, drink beer and munch on a baguette with fried egg
and meatballs that alltogether cost about a dollar and a quarter. Yes,
the breakneck speeds and fear invoking rides lead in the end to a quiet
spot of beach, a nice breeze, and perhaps a group of young kids in the
distance splashing around and enjoying (though they don't yet realize
it) that time before responsiblity hits when they will be pushed out
from under the wings of their parents and reqired to fend for
themselves.
Which brings me to the present moment; I myself not much more
than a little bird still staring at the sun from time to time and
waiting for its light to be blocked by the head of what was for so long
the only god I knew, but the head does not come anymore, rather it is
there constantly, and grows translucent; allows me the option of where
I choose to focus my vision. And then I remember having left the nest,
having taken flight; the double edged sword of lonliness and
respnsiblity, that first leap which brings with it the empty road and
the houses that line it, the laughter and wailing that emenate from the
families who live inside.
After getting into the beach town of
Nha Trang at about 5:30 AM And finding a hotel where I could have a
shower and talk with my beautiful girlfriend Kanae for an hour online,
I headed back to the bus station where I dropped off my pack and then
began wandering the streets of Nha Trang, a name I had heard about only
in movies about war and betrayal.
The Nah Trang of
today, however, seems as though it could be Beachtown Anywhere; cafes
line the street where red faced tourists talk excitedly with one
another about the dive they just finished over beers that cost more
than triple what the locals pay around the corner. For me, I prefer
the quieter islands, the places as of yet untouched by the greedy
fingers of tourism, which is of course an exaggeration; as tourism has
had its hand up everyone's skirts at least once, as it is both a
blessing and a curse in this nation where people still make homes of
leaky ruins and die from simple illnesses. Toursim brings money, and
money brings medicine, food, shelter.
But something is lost in
the eyes of the people here, rather, I find myself projecting loss into
them, for perhaps it is only that we like to see ourselves in a better
light than those around us. Perhaps this infatuation I have with the
grit and decay of these places deals more with the knowledge that at
the end of the day I can walk away from it all and head back to my soft
mattress, my warm showers and if anything serious were to happen, my
hospitals with clean white sheets, with doctors who wear gloves and
don't spit on the floor, that unlike the old man I saw in Hue
yesterday, little more than flesh hanging loosely to his bones as he
lay on the bed there in the middle of the tourist office, as his family
busied themselves with package tours and bus tickets, waiting for him
to quietly slip away, that unlike that man I have the luxury of western
medicine and the false sense of security that comes with it.
So
this is Vietnam, a place where men die on cots in tourist offices and
foreigners come to watch the sun go down over the water, a place where
one can share a motorbike cab with the town butchers who smile kindly
at you one minute and beat the sacks of whimpering dogs that lay at
their feet the next, a place where you can barter with the locals as a
kind of game, while each dollar you talk them out of could feed their
families for a week or give thier children a new pair of shoes for the
upcoming school year. But Vietnam is also a place where you can lose
yourself, a place where the setting sun shimmering off the ocean
illuminates those massive karsts that rise up like dragons and blisters
your face in a momentary, eternal state of bliss.
And now the sun
is at its zenith, and I have no desire to leave this cafe and wander
the streets until my bus comes in a few hours, so I will sit here in
this quiet internet cafe where I am the only customer and the owner has
pointed the only fan towards me so that it whirs away, visibly toiling
in this immense heat. Sit here and watch as the locals across the
street gaze out at the cars passing by, at the street which itself
seems to be plodding of to somewhere cooler, one wave at a time.
