Early Monday morning in Ninh Binh, and it has been decided that we will rent a motorbike to cycle ourselves around the northeast province. I was quietly against the idea from the very beginning; I have not driven a car in ten years and should not be permitted to operate any motorized device beyond a computer. There was of course the now-famous Beard-Trimmer Disaster of 2005, but I'll not go into it. Anyway, I suppose that women are said to be attracted to motorbikes, and so against my better judgment and without a second of experience, I elected to pilot the thing, rather than being necklaced with the award of World's Biggest Pussy.
My defeat was quick and short but maybe worth mentioning. I informed the boy that I had no inkling of how to operate this particular machine, and he consoled me that it "is easy, no problem. You go". He made several gestures intended to indicate the location of the gearshift, the throttle, the brake and so on. I have recently adapted the habit of nodding my head affirmatively in response to things that I in fact have no comprehension of, and so it is possible that many of my instructor's poorly-Englished admonitions were not taken to heart. More likely is that he reflexively assumed that most grown men are able to contend with a machine as unchallenging as a motorbike, as all are in his country, and felt it might be safe to allow me free-range of the vehicle's commands. In short, I put the thing in gear, cranked the throttle and rode a spectacular and unintentional wheelie through the street before wiping out seconds later with the bike on top of us. A crowd of onlookers pointed and laughed; the only thing more bruised than Jasmin's legs is my manhood. I shook my fist at the bike and cried "Old Foe, you've not seen the last of me". I will attempt this feat again in a place better-suited to wheelies and injury, and avoid those locations so obviously conducive to ignominy.
Ninh Binh is dubbed as being rather like Halong Bay, but with the karsts instead jutting up from broad green rice fields as opposed to from the open ocean. As the paddies and surrounding villages are thoroughly flooded, the immediate impression is much the same. We take a small vessel down a river that ordinarily runs like a little artery through the paddies but has since burst and presently consumes them. The operator of our little vessel has no arms and so commands the oars with his feet. The little river winds beneath a number of prominent karsts; because of the water level, we are instructed to lie down on the floor of the boat in order to negotiate the passages without head injury.
We head south, crossing the DMZ, and enter the former capitol of Hue. Much of the city is still underwater from the typhoon; it brings to mind some fucked-up, third-world Venice, with half-submerged tourist-toting rickshaws substituting the gondolas. Six hours later we board a bus for Hoi An. As it turns out, Hoi An was just the sort of Vietnam I was looking for: charming cobbled lanes along a river and a delectable regional cuisine, without the cloud of noise and exhaust one is greeted with in Hanoi. As the city is famous for its hundreds of tailors, I purchase three new custom-tailored suits that I will rarely wear. Then again, I am advancing in years and people are dropping like flies, and I don't want anyone gossiping about how Paul always wears that same old suit to every burial. You fall into your thirties, and you begin to notice death; they die all around you, they fall into their cold little destinies and expire without any fucking explanation. It is frustrating.
I take a cooking class and learn to prepare a number of dishes. While eating the dishes I'd just prepared, a cat jumps up onto my lap; I imagine him transmogrified into one of those fractaled nightmare felines painted by Louis Wain throughout his later, troubled period. The cat had a big pair of furry balls dangling beneath his asshole like little Christmas tree ornaments and I thought about preparing him too. I spend several long evenings drinking the shitty red wine of the Dalat region and writing on the third-floor balcony of the Phuoc An Hotel.
Day five in Hoi An, and we figure we'd best not wear out our welcome. We beat it on an evening bus south to Quy Nhon. Of the long caravan of busses headed south to Nha Trang, we were the only persons bound for Quy Nhon. To pass the time, I assemble a selection of my favorite words from the Vietnamese lexicon. These are common terms and they appear nearly everywhere. The winners are: Bang, Bich, Bong, Bung, Dan, Dang, Dich, Dong, Dung, Hang, Hung, Long, Phat, Phuc, Quoc, Tan, and Van. Certainly the owners of the shops Ban My Dung and My Hung Son must wonder why so many westerners pass by giggling like stoned freshmen.
At 1:00 A.M. the driver hustles us off the bus and deposits us on a dark and deserted street in the rain eleven kilometers from town. This is evidently the only way to get to Quy Nhon and certainly must be why no one comes here. Some motorbike drivers come by and agree to take us into town for a small fee. I am fatigued and uncertain and we roll for miles through unpopulated areas, it is raining and our gear is soaked and naturally I imagine that they'll drive us to the countryside and shoot us both in the face and take our money. I ready myself for impending doom as well as one can and remember that it's been a hell of a life. Thirty protracted minutes later we roll up to the hotel and wake the sleeping concierge; we tell him of our reservation and he steadfastly insists that it does not exist. And so we shrug it off and are finally left at the Hotel Saigon Quy Nhon, easily the best and most expensive place in town.
Now the guidebook suggests that this city is "considerably less frequented by tourists", which is precisely why we selected the destination. I tire of listening to busloads of rich Europeans exchanging complaints about the prices or the service in this place or pointlessly whining about the weather in another. But we are the only tourists here, and in my estimation, it feels as if we're the only tourists who've ever been here; it is a lonely, stranded sort of sensation, but not without its own accompanying excitement. No one speaks a lick of English, save a few words from the concierge, and walking the streets we are gawked and laughed at like some anachronistic Christmas parade float in June.
We spend the next day cycling some twenty kilometers out to a pair of ruined Cham towers; I rode perhaps the gayest bike ever manufactured; it was painted a pastel pink and had the wussie-bar frame and a little basket. It was an emasculating little pedal but I enjoyed it all the same. The locals poured out of their homes to watch us ride by, and I smiled and waved like a good celebrity. We later duck into a heavily-populated outdoor tavern, much like the bia hoy institutions of Hanoi, but a bit larger. All eyes are on us; but they are full of curiosity and entirely without malice, and so after several drinks I feel quite comfortable. Coming out of the lavatory I am intercepted by a table of eight young drunk locals; they speak a few words of English and insist that we join them. I accept and we drink several more pitchers of the local brew.
An hour later these folks demand that we retire with them to a local karaoke bar; I'm beginning to grasp the significance of karaoke in these cultures. It is a kind of interface, a Universal Adaptor, a means by which persons of linguistically disparate nations might participate as equals and communicate via the foundation of popular music. So we acquiesce to another adventure and roll off on the backs of motorbikes, gritting our teeth in the rain and again hugging the torsos of drunken strangers.
Nha Trang
10/27/07
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