There’s a change in the air.
Its cooler for sure, but it runs deeper than mere temperature.
“The story begins with a classic adventure: Tony and Maureen Wheeler’s 1972 journey across Europe and Asia to Australia…” and so reads the prologue to the Lonely Plant.
And an indelible mark was formed on a part of a continent, as it’s first book – South-East Asia on a Shoestring – was born.
The route has changed, so too the names of many of it protagonists – countries, towns and cities. War has de-stabilised governments, scarred lands and its people, bought death to front doors and families.
But backpackers kept coming back.
South East Asia caught on, adapted and thrived, so the Gap Year student, the drifter, the holiday maker, the junkie, the retired cultural seeker, the sabbatical undertaker can lose and find themselves by the same token.
And their impact should not be underestimated.
It has cultivated a huge demand and supply culture…
…whatever you want, they’ve got it. From drugs to ancient ruins, from true love to trophy wife, pristine beaches to jungle laden mountains, from adrenalin fuelled adventure to the laid back pot smoking life, the menu is as wide and varied as the terrain.
But one crime – if you can call it that – that can be partially laid at the feet of Tony and Maureen Wheeler’s creation: it’s made it all so goddamn easy.
English is now spoken everywhere, western food served prolifically.
ATM’s line the streets of impoverished towns whose cumulative revenue would not come close to matching the money within.
Forgotten tribes speaking forgotten languages, can now perfectly enunciate phrases like ‘Handsome man’, ‘Want to see my shop?’, ‘Where you go?’ ‘ You want massage?’.
Lost towns once ignorant to the advancing life outside their walls, now offer Wifi at every street corner while Manchester Utd and Chelsea badges adorn the chests of the men that football never reached.
You can leave home with your bank card and a change of pants and breeze through a continent.
Old backpackers whinge incessantly at how things have changed for the worse. How the spontaneity has gone, the organic trail of their travels replaced by freeways, sleeper buses and skyrise hotels: ‘Back in my day…’
But do you know what? Shut the fuck up.
It’s been great fun. No substantial loss of identity. Each country unshakably holds onto its customs, traditions and personality.
It may be played up for the tourist at times, but the world is getting smaller. And as the western world continues to destroy itself with frightening abandon, South East Asia sits back, smiles and counts the takings.
Through Thailand, Laos and Cambodia I was subjected to such varied experiences that regardless of what might be in years to come, I felt no sense of dilution.
So as I cross into the People’s Republic of China, waving goodbye to the rollercoaster of its South East neighbours, I know the ride has come to an end. The party over. It’s not that my adventure won’t be as exciting, thrilling, inspiring as it has been…
…its just that I’m hitting a country that plays it by its own rules.
And my feeble posturing will be comfortably drowned out by 1.3 billion people and the grind of world’s second biggest economy. Where dusk falls to the faint echo of The Brain’s prophetic denouement…
“The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try and take over the world.”
But aren’t we forgetting something? Indeed we are Pinky.
The unforgettable Vietnam.
It started in Saigon. On a street corner, with my good friends Paul and Grainne.
It started with my continuing obsession with buying art from every country I visit. The art shop was across the road from our table, so quickly abandoning our conversation and my coffee I shot across to take a closer view.
As Paul’s eyes followed me, a tall, languid, gangly Frenchman strolled into his view to use the ATM next to the shop I was in. Not being 100% about his judgement, Paul ran over to me and in his dulcet Irish tones that I’ve grown to love, whispered:
“I think I’ve just seen David.”
What? Bucketeer David? David who I left in Cambodia to embed himself in the hedonist life of its Southern beaches? David who was adamant about returning to Thailand? David whose grasps of logistics surely wouldn’t have gone as far as to have secured a Visa for Viet-
“DAVID!!!!!”
So it was.
And thus Vietnam started to play out like a rerun of your favourite programme, with the best highlights of a previous life coming back to bless you.
Like Paul and Grainne:
Though we’d always planned to hook up in Saigon, our chance meeting at the War Remnants Museum was spectacular – if hugely inappropriate. This powerful symbol of the needless death and destruction of the Vietnam War, hosts weaponry and warcraft claimed from the Americans, imagery that sickens and cuts you to the core, and provides a real education on actually how many countries – and people of the world – were so adamantly against it.
It’s a sombering walk through. It was just a pity that amidst the silence of so many pensive observers in one of the most sensitive parts of the museum, a little Irishman walked into the field of vision of a little Englishman’s, whereupon the little Englishman gave out a rapturous ‘YESSSSS’ – that would have given away our secret location from across a 100 miles of wartorn countryside – and embraced the man in front of him.
Oops.
Like David:
The man who loved my earlobes was back in my life, with 4 loud. The man with a pure god given talent to bed almost any woman who stray along his path. The man whose capacity for loving his fellow man outstrips mine. The man whose capacity to survive capitalist driven countries without a penny to his name. The man whose music charms even the most cynical guitar hater.
And with his smile as full as I ever remembered it to be. And with the 4 boisterous but brilliant London girls in tow. Never judge a book by its cover, or true characters by their strong cockney accents.
Like Anja:
New York. Stylishly boho and beautiful. Intellectually brilliant, academically intimidating, but comfortably normal.
And wonderfully scatty.
My affectionate NY bookworm I met in Laos turned up mere seconds after David’s surprise appearance…
…on that same street corner, on that same hot, Saigon afternoon.
Like – and I unashamedly save the best to last – Catherine Gwynne and Ester McGeeney.
I had tried to be clever. Hiding under my cap, glasses and now nailed on beard (who’d have thunk it – I cannot let go of my abundance of facial hair), I planned to see if my sister would recognize me. But watching her as she emerged from Saigon airport was one of the best sights I have seen in my trip full of amazing sights.
Just as it would be 2 weeks later, bidding her farewell on a cloudy morning on a North Vietnam Island, I made no attempt to hide my emotion, let alone my face.
And so it was that 1 became 3. Travelling alone hadn’t happened in a while – you’re never far from a friend or new acquaintance that will share a portion of your itinerary. But there’s a difference when you suddenly have a united agenda with people you know and love from home.
This was to be no relaxing holiday. This was to be their snapshot ride on the South East Asia rollercoaster.
All aboard!
Saigon: C&E’s night one. Tiredness and Jet lag are just not good excuses. You’re on the other side of the fucking world. Lets get pissed. No. Don’t really fancy it… we… long flight… but… knackered… and… Oh look there’s a place selling buckets! Have you guys ever tried a bucket….?
Day two: Houston, we have a problem
There’s a little toilet, in a little restaurant in Vietnam where Catherine Gwynne’s alcohol consumption from the previous night was given the full projectile treatment into Saigon’s sewage systems. The girl was good for neither use nor ornament that day. Ah well, me and Ester had other plans.
We skipped through Saigon’s bustling market together where I decided to play the quiet, laid back guide who liked to keep a low profile in front of locals
But fear not, Catherine recovered and the next day, we 3 of Orient were heading out for a day trip and a true education on just why the Americans were so unprepared against the VietCong (VC).
Mr Bean took us around the Chuchi tunnels constructed by the VC in their defence against the good ol’ US of A. True. The man himself (eponymously titled) was a wiry Southern Vietnamese man, with devious eyes, who acted as a guide for the Americans during the war. Resolute in his stance that we shouldn’t ask him any questions about his opinions on the war. Only to give us them regardless. Very confusing man. But as the tunnels were impressive - a taste of the hundreds of miles of tunnels that would confuse and irritate the Western invaders based in nearby Saigon – it did little to affect our day.
The tunnels enlightened you on how resourceful the VC were – collecting used American weaponary, bomb shelling and debris, turning them into their own weapons of mass destruction, and using against the materials original source. Clever. Very clever. Now if only the West would learn their bloody lesson.
And then it was back to Saigon.
Sitting at the foot of Vietnam, Saigon has a real lure about it. Renamed Ho Chi Min once the war ended after their legendary Communist leader, the enigmatic, mysterious former moniker has been a hard one to shake off. Along with the city’s capitalist tendencies. Unlike northernly Hanoi – the country’s capital – it may have lost a bit of the traditional Vietnamese flavor to mollify its thousands of visitors, but underneath the international friendly veneer, the towering skyscrapers, there’s a substance to it.
But unfortunately, we were not to stay there for any more time. We had a country to cover in less than 2 weeks. South to North, and 700 miles. Father Ho Chi Min would have been proud.
Next stop, the Vietnamese’s Weston Super Mare: the beach resort of Nha Thrang.
The weather was definitely starting to turn a little – to me the sauna of Cambodia was long forgotten. And while pretty Nha Thrang was pleasant enough, it wasn’t a mind blower. So I reluctantly caved in to something that in my wildest dreams I never thought I would sanction.
To allow Catherine to ride a scooter.
Despite one little glich, she made a mockery of my concern (as she has done most of my life), and the winding roads heading out of Nha Thrang were torn apart (at 40km an hour) by me, C&E (Catherine and Ester) and the accompanying Anja.
We took a little dirt track off the main road, and just when we thought we had hit was a dead end, a local guide took us away from our bikes to a hidden waterfall that guarded a secret little cave.
Waterfalls seem to have been a running theme in my travels. From the first one in Goa, to the giants of Laos to this seemingly innocent – but fiercely protective – one, it was like a mini snapshot into the travelling experience for C&E. You head out blindly with no destination, doubt your decision along the way, only to come across a little gem. Your own little find.
Your own little slice of natural paradise.
The next day bought a MEGA slice of manmade paradise.
The huge waterpark on the nearby island resort of Vinpearl. Stand back kids, I think I’ve just wet my pants with excitement.
This wasn’t the tacky, shambolic, blu tac and cellotape jobbie you’d expect dribbling out piss coloured water…
…actually it was pretty tacky…
…this was a full on, shit your pants (just out the water please), legit waterpark. Hold onto to your trunks, bikini bottoms, scream like a girl and take the plunge. You may leave battered and bruised (UK H&S would have a field day), but cor blimey it was fun. After all, you’re only 32 once.
But this wasn’t ‘proper travelling’ (don’t worry, I’m cringing as I use the term). This was holiday fun. So onwards and northwards to Hoi An, and one of the real highlights of my time so far.
This idyllic little French town banked on the shore of the South China Sea, doesn’t just have a mighty beach dramatically poised against the crashing waves of an angry ocean, as endless, mercurial white sandy shore stretches far past perspective will allow…
…you can also get like wicked trainers, righ’ like well cheap an’ dat.
Hoi An is copy central. Same Same But Different. Take a photo of whatever you want to any of its multitude of clothes shops, dressmakers, tinkers and tailors – Aberchrombie hoodies, Superdry trainers, Snakeskin boots, Louis Vuitton bags – and in 24 hours and for just a handful of dollars, they’ll have made their version of it. It’s not always perfect (pick your store carefully), but for those who glance, you’ve got yourself an absolute bargain.
Just make sure that they get your size right (he says as his copy Onitsuka Tigers pinch his toes).
Hoi An was like a little dream – four days in a luxury hotel for next to nothing, by the town’s inner river scenery (manmade, gloriously tacky, and wonderfully charming), a reunion with Paul and Grainne, sumptuous food… good times.
But our itinerary was urgent and further north we went. And this time we cheated.
Sleeper buses had been our main mode of travel up to this point. Okay, so no classic motorbike/scooter combo as modeled by Messrs Clarkson, Hammond and May… but still worth a few brownie points.
Until we threw it all away with a flight from Hoi An to Hanoi (there’s an anagram there – hard to believe but there is).
To be fair it was only around £25 each – and the train, our initial preferred mode of transport, was just the same. And that was a whopping 18 hours or so. When you’re on a fortnight’s itiinerary, there’s not much argument.
Hanoi, the cooler, less hectic older brother of Saigon sits right at the top of Vietnam’s long thin stretch where the land balloons into an expanse of rolling hills, mountain ranges and stunning limestone carskes surging from earth and water. The country itself is fashioned like a bent cotton bud. Wide areas of land – each with their own distinct personality fashioned by the French, the war, China and climate – topping and tailing a thin expanse of terrain.
The city, gloomier, more closed in, claustrophobic, but infinitely more charming than Saigon, takes charge in the centre of the northern landmass – eyeing the mountains of Sapa to the West and mythical ocean landscape of Halong Bay to the East.
As for the people…
…well lets not dwell on them. In short, there’s an edge to the Vietnamese that can sometime be expelled quite explosively. They are by far the most belligerent of the South East Asian community, but since they’ve seen off invasion attempts by 2 of the world’s biggest countries – China and America – they’ve earned the right to be complete cocks when they want to be.
And they don’t have that annoying Thai habit of fawning all over you at the start, only to get pissed off with you when you don’t buy anything. The Vietnamese will look you up and down and make a decision there and then on the reception you’re going to get.
In the main its friendly, but sometimes… just sometimes…
…oops meant not to dwell on them.
So Hanoi was reached, but no time for idle chit chat – it was the overnight train to Sapa. It would be a wonderful journey – the 5 of us (me, E&C, Paul & Grainne) – getting drunk in our own cabin on the type of early 20th Century trains that built empires, but unbeknownst to us, we were heading straight into the eye of a storm.
Literally.
A front had hit Vietnam, bringing unseasonably cold, windy and wet conditions to the north. And at the heights of Sapa – 1600 metres –boy, you really felt it.
Luckily Sapa is also the home of great North Face shopping, so even the most unprepared, reluctant trekker (Grainne – I’m looking at you here) can arm themselves against the elements at remarkably low cost.
However the oppressive cloud that hung over this richly scenic part of Vietnam would not shift, and E&C&I made a unanimous decision to bail after just one night. We made our own ways back to Hanoi, where we were to take the early morning bus, bus, boat and bus from there to the magical landscape of Halong Bay, and its main resort island of Cat Ba.
After 24 hours of travel we arrived tired and drawn, but with the fortnight coming to a rapid end, we were determined to finish on a high.
And that we did.
Halong Bay is the stuff of legend. No, really. I know people say that when someone lends em a fiver (at least I do) but I mean it this time.
Ever since the French came across it on their colonization of Vietnam, and imagined hidden dragons ready to leap from their hiding places and attack their ships, Western visitors have been blown away by the sight of huge, mysterious limestone carskes bursting from the water. Literally thousands in numbers, sailing through on top of the many boat trips is one of the definitive South East Asian experiences. And while tourism has diluted any feeling of isolation, it does not take away from the sheer impact of seeing it with your own eyes.
3DTV can kiss my ass.
We had started our trip amid cloud, but finished it under a clear blue sky. And what a backdrop it gave these surging, giants of rock. Fate had also decreed that we would have our boat to ourselves (albeit with captain, cook and guide on board).
It was to be our last day together – emotional, sad but utterly memorable. A day I could live every day. Vietnam had pushed us, inspired us, annoyed us, thrilled us and knackered us in equal measure… but it saved the best till last.
Breathless, glowing – mainly due to the sun – and back on dry land, we headed out on one last night before we parted ways. As a little subplot we met 2 cracking German lads called Jonas and Maxi, who came along for the farewell party of D&E&C. We drank, laughed and partied, in part to celebrate…
…in part to forget the trauma of our goodbye looming in the distance.
But tomorrow came. And Catherine and Ester went.
Those who know me, will know how that must have made me feel. 2 of the most beautiful human beings ever to have been crafted, leaving one of the Inbetweeners waving tearfully from the side of the road.
Luckily the subplot with Jonas and Maxi took its turn to throw in its wicked little twist.
Cat Ba is famous for rock climbing, and I’d been planning to do some – at a cost of around $50 for only half a day. But utterly desolate, I had no drive to do anything but mope. It was then that Maxi and Jonas revealed they were (relatively) expert climbers themselves, had all the gear I would need and dragged me to one of Cat Ba’s rock faces to stop me moping around.
Only have wall climbed before – and only ever comfortable at grade 4 (equivalent to learning chopsticks on the piano) they pushed me – nay, FORCED me – up a 5b (Rhapsody In Blue), a 25m 4+ (the Entertainer) and finally halfway up a 6 (anything by Jamie Cullum) until my arms gave in and they hoisted me down, tired, broken but floating on pure adrenalin.
There is no cure to the pain of saying goodbye, but that day came very close.
But reality was nipping at my heels. My money had been running out steadily. China would offer me a chance to earn some and enjoy a respite from the momentum of travelling. As if by magic, I received an email offering me a job in Shanghai – a city I have long dreamed of visiting.
It was to be in 7 days. Just a week to cover the half of one of the world’s biggest countries. I needed to get moving.
I headed back to Hanoi with enough time to co-ordinate my route, and – though it was my 3rd time there – it would my 1st time to enjoy some of the capital’s charms.
And just as I was contemplating a quiet end to my South East Asian chapter, the feisty fickle finger of fate put the stoppers on that.
More specifically by reintroducing Paul, Grainne, David and the London girls once again into my life.
Reunited again. For one last night. Crazy, drunken but full of friendship and love (with buckets thrown in for good measure), it gave this chapter…
… this adventure…
…this rollercoaster ride the fitting ending it so, so richly deserved.
Vietnam – hard faced, and stoic – had actually given us the perfect platform for goodbyes.
China could wait. 33 hour train journeys could wait. 1.3 billion people could wait. This was my moment, my time and nothing would take that away.
Goodbye my friends…
Goodbye Ryan, David, Anja, Celina, Paul, Grainne, Viktor, the boys from Olly’s Place, Jonas, Maxi…
Goodbye South East Asia…
Goodbye buckets #breathes huge sigh of relief#
Goodbye rollercoaster ride…
Goodbye Ester (till 2012 x)
But mostly – above everything the previous 4 months had offered – goodbye my little sister.
I love you and this is dedicated to you.
Keep safe x
