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Diary - 2009 August (Vietnam)

2009-09-04 to 2009-09-06

The Last Days in Vietnam

Hanoi again! It's always good to get back to a place you know already - you know where to go, you know the prices, the habbits, the places to eat - everything is easy!

The only two tasks I had was finally writting my diary and organizing my trip to China - well, the latter was in the end just a train ticket to the next big city in China - none the less a 10 hours train ride.

2009-08-25 to 2009-09-04

Phu Quoc

After I had seen so much of Vietnam I thought I can do the last two highlights as well: Phu Quoc, the sunny island in the South West and Sapa, the fascinating village in the hills in the North.
After reading about Sapa I found out, that the perfect views of the landscape are rare because of the weather and the hype about the hill tribes vanished for a fake tourist attraction.

So I flew to Phu Quoc to find out, that beside beaches there is nothing to see.

The two waterfalls in the middle of the island are just creeks with some shallow pools and the beauty is totally overrated where else the dirt around is not. In a typical Vietnamese style waste is just thrown away, no matter where you are. :-(

Anyway, after the stupid thing with my leg and to much booze I thought a week just hanging out in the hammock, reading Boell and a lot of sleep is all my body wants.

To check out the island and to see the Fish Sauce Factory I rented a motorbike. The Fish Sauce Factory was good to see, despite it was just a big storehouse with enormous tanks with something what had been parts of fish and a stinky liquid inside. Nonetheless it’s worth seeing it – particularly when you know, that they produce about 200 million liters a year!

Driving to the falls meant mastering a muddy trial with a bad bike including having a flat tire and getting disappointed by the poor falls. A highlight was the ‘museum’ of the Pearl Farm. A sea pearl farm managed by two Australians, who know how to do the business and harvesting indeed very nice pearls and selling them for good prices. But what should I do with a pearl on my trip!? :-) No fiancée around…

I had a long talk with the owner explaining me how a shell’s body is constructed, what they eat, how long they grow (pretty fast, they get the size of 20 cm in Diameter within three years!) which is the size when they are best to harvested. Where harvesting means to bring them up to the surface – within water to keep them alive – open them about 2,5 cm and making a small surgery to take out the implant which was set about 18 month earlier. This has to be done fast and clean to be able to reuse the shell, meaning to set a new germ and bringing them down into the water again. The water on the west coast of Phu Quoc is the secret. The tides and the waves are good, so the water moves a lot, the temperature is the right one and there are enough minerals and plankton to feed the shells.

‘Unfortunately’ within two days I met about 20 people to hang out with, having fun, talks, beers, long billiard games and endless nights – not good for my body but good for my soul! :-)

Especially I had fun hanging out with the two Germans Klaus and Norbert running restaurants on Phu Quoc and the Australian guy Jimmy owning the Dog Bar. A place with billiard, darts and good atmosphere for long talks and some beers…

For the first time that season I was able to watch my soccer club FC Bayern life on telly. Winning against Wolfsburg 3:0 – what a nice surprise!

Another surprise was, when Nomh from Lang Co came to Phu Quoc to see me. We spend two nice days exploring the island another time, checking out beaches and spending time in the Dog Bar.

2009-07-26 to 2009-08-25

Lang Co

I stayed another two days in Hanoi with Marte and Hanne, two girls from Norway, which I hope to meet again down under in Brisbane where they are studying, before I decided to extend my visa for Vietnam and go back to middle Vietnam to see the small village where my friend Kinh (The guy I met in Pakistan and India) is from. As he stays in London he gave me some instructions via email how to find his house in the village, where nobody speaks English and the guy who would take care of me.

Before Lang Co I spent one day in Hue - it has a nice citadelle and a beautiful pagoda with a spectacular view - but not more. I had a great lunch with two Germans, which was a highlight, too, but one day was enough, I took the bus the next

And this was when the adventure started! :-)
Literally nobody spoke English there and just finding and getting inside the house was not that easy, because nobody was at home. But the hospitality was so great that wherever I went I got invited for lunch or dinner, for coffee or beer or both and the quality of seafood I found in this village brought me to a new dimension of taste! Absolutely delicious!!! And you get a big plate of shells cooked with lemongrass right on the beach for 25.000,- VND, which is Euro 1,-!

After meeting Kinh’s family I was introduced to Hang, Chinh, Hung and Tay, where Tay became my all time guide and best friend in town. We spent the next three weeks together, having the typically coffee in the morning – just men drinking the very strong Vietnamese coffee (I did not know, that they are even famouse for exporting it) cooled down with ice and playing Chinese Chess. It took me about two days to just get familiar with the different tiles, because the meaning of the different tiles is just indicated by Chinese Signs. So first learn to read Chinese, than you play! :-) Of course it’s a good source to miss some attack strategies when you could not read the right sign! :-)

After coffee there is time to have breakfast – typically a hot noodle soup. I changed this later to french baguette. Sometimes I just need food similar to food at home! :-)

We spend time on the beach running, swimming, hiking around. But the best time was always when we met with other people for having lunch or dinner with local seafood and beer. I was normally not a great fan of crabs – but this changed after having real good fresh crabs in Lang Co for breakfast. Again a new dimension in taste!!!

The perfect day on the boat

The best gathering was the day on the boat. As Tay is a fisherman, he can always use a boat and we formed a group of six including Dong from Saigon, who was born in Lang Co and - what a surprise – could speak English! Tay brought in delicious fishes right from the net which was alongside the boat and then was going under water like in the old days: He had a compressor on the boat which yields air in to a hose that Tay bound twice around his body with the end in his mouth! No adapter, no nothing, just the pure end of the hose in his mouth. An old mask formed the rest of the equipment and off he went to plug the best shells right from the rocks to bring them on the boat half an hour later to cook and eat them! Having some beers and a guitar and jumping into the water every five minutes we had the perfect day on the boat!

Another day I met another person capable of speaking English! After speaking just with your hands it was so nice to exchange meanings and being able to describe things in detail!! She even invited me to a wedding party where she was the MC – meaning she was leading the party with a microphone, organizing the show, singing songs and alike. As a foreigner people loved me and I had to drink with everybody and dance and give them kind of an extra show.
As it is typical – maybe because of the heat – the bride was changing her dress three times. The groom was so brave that until the end he was staying in a shirt and jacket! I would have died and was happy with my polo! :-)
After asking why the bride does not look too happy I got informed that she is just worried because of the ‘first night’. The tradition keeps working in the remote villages!

On the way back from the wedding I had the chance to eat dog meat – I did not like it – it really tasted bad, I could not eat it. Still hoping it was just the way they prepared it.

Of course – like in all Asia – they had a Karaoke coffee in town, where they were performing at their best in singing songs and were forcing me to sing a song like I do – in the worst possible way. Well, they told me it was good, but did not force me to sing again! :-)

The other day we went to Da Nang for a real party night with clubbing, dancing and alike. We partied hard and stayed over night which probably was the last bit of pushing my leg to get the worst infection ever.
The scratch from the catwalk on Cat Ba island was just healing on the surface, but got infected below totally and my leg got swollen and red, I got even fever and I decided to definitely go to the next big city to the hospital – even thinking of loosing my leg – yuck, that was not a good time!
The hospital of Da Nang was very good and they gave me a big dose of antibiotics and cleaned the wound very good. Harmful when sticking tens of centimeters of bandages into the ‘tunnel system’ of pus holes and pulling them out again – yuck again – and going into these tunnels with grippers and nippers.
It was a hard time ignoring the pain but it was such a great feeling to see people doing things in a way showing that they know what they were doing. The wound was so bad, that I had to go there 8 days in a row to be on the save side. The best thing on that story was, that the way from Lang Co to the hospital in Da Nang leads over the famouse hill pass Hai Van which is an attraction because of the beauty of the landscape.

When my leg got better we had a great day at Bana Hill Station on 1200m over NN where the air is chilly and the views are great. We did it by cable car - also I would have preferred walking this is not a sport Vietnamese people adore! :-)

One of the best days we had, when we went to Lang Co’s waterfall back in the hills. A 20 minute motorbike drive and 30 minutes hike and the best part of the surrounding landscape is reached – a perfect waterfall forming hundreds of cascades and pools and even slides. We spend the whole day jumping, swimming, climbing, sliding, and diving in the water and on the rocks.
It’s a place where I still think of opening a tourist attraction and same time think of keeping the secret because this perfect place will get destroyed when people come en masse. I will tell you when I open the first resort there! ;-)

Overall the three weeks in Lang Co were just a perfect time!!! Tay was the best guide, friend and teacher, Chinh and Hung gave me such a pampered time staying with them in the same house or staying at their cafe, feeling like part of the family! Dong, Thoa, Thuy, Tueyt, Nomh and all the others were completing the set of friends for a really perfect time!


	Start: 2008-04-10					Oli on his way from Munich to Hong Kong				End: 2010-05-12