The Blog

First: We’re OK, being far from the storm and earthquake.

From Aljazeera:

At least five people were missing in Lao Cai’s resort town of Sapa, popular with foreign tourists, but it was not known if foreigners were among the victims, the national meteorology centre said.

We were planning to go to Sapa and will reconsider those plans, of course.

So, after snorkeling, we went for a “try dive” – about 6 or 7 meters down, with all the fancy equipment, and a world of beauty unveiled itself. I’ve always been a bit skeptical about sports/hobbies where there’s a (noteworthy) element of risk. But I was never frightened, neither before, nor during the dive. Only amazement populated the experience. I’d do it again! Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring my camera – it’s only waterproof down to 3 meters, so no pictures was taken

In the evening we went for a gin and tonic and a beer at a bar. We hung out there until midnight, playing pool with one of the locals. A woman about 35-45 – it’s so hard to tell the age of a Vietnamese. We witnessed the first upset Vietnamese I’ve seen. She was screaming and yelling a lot of sharp sounds, very rapid. Apparently, she’d found her husband on a bar with another girl. Turned out, as far as I understood, that the woman we were playing pool with, had had the same experience. She’d left her husband. Anders told me that he was told that the women of Vietnam has good rights in that sense. That it’s not too hard for a woman to leave her husband if she’s being ill treated. And they do leave their husbands when they are.

The day after we met Pho (I have no idea how he’s name is spelled) a middle age guy hanging out at the beach. He was drunk, before midday. He was so happy, because his girlfriend had called him, and apparently told him something nice. He hadn’t been talking to her for over a month. He took us to a street cafe and had us buy a couple of beers for him. We chatted a bit. He told us he knew seven languages. Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, English and German. We didn’t entirely believe him. But he was entertaining and very smiling and laughing all the time. He wanted to take us to a karaoke bar, but we refused, taking our sleepy, sober condition and the time of day into account. We agreed to meet later on and have a draught, but never found him again. Here’s a picture from the cafe:

Us and ‘Pho’ at a street kitchen/cafe. We’re drinking coffee. Pho is in for beer.

At the beach. That’s Nha Trang for you.

And then we went paragliding.

Me and Anders getting ready to shoot 40 meters up into the sky. The guy doesn’t speak English, but he memorized the phrase “one to three RUN, ok?” – I was frightened right at that moment.

Running on water, shooting up into the sky. My groin hurt.

One hell of a view. Nha Trang has some 300.000 citizens. Anders tells me that he’s sometimes scared of heights. Our groins hurt.

Landing. I’m glad I did it. Not urging to do it again.

In the evening we went on a bus for Hoi An. But first, a curiosity. In Denmark, many people enjoy artificial ‘sun-baths’ or use various kinds of lotion to get tanned. Apparently, in Vietnam, pale skin is somehow a sign of status. So here it’s the opposite, and the very same corporations that make money on ‘browning’-lotion in my country, makes money on whitening-milk here.

Various Nivea ‘whitening’ products. Enough said.

Traveling by bus in Vietnam is an experience in itself. Remember our trip to Nha Trang by train? It was bumpy and uncomfortable. So getting into a really modern sleeping bus was promising. But the roads here are apparently build for maximum speeds of about 20 km/h, which was not at all respected by the bus driver. Well, some of the roads are OK, but most of them ends very sudden, turning into gravel roads. Or at least sudden enough for the bus to jump off the asphalt with a following hard landing on the gravel, throwing everyone inside up and down in their seats. I woke up a lot of times, scared, fearing that the bus was on it’s way onto the slope on the side of the road, or something even worse. Driving by night probably avoids most of the motorbikes that’s usually everywhere. But this fact must have been noted by others as well, because the roads were full of heavy traffic all night. And the style of driving here is more or less as follows: If something is in front of you, flash the head-lights and sound the horn, then engage in overtaking. If someone is trying to pass in the opposite direction, flash the lights and sound the horn. This will, usually, result in the overtaken vehicle going as far right as possible, and the vehicle traveling in the opposite direction going as far left as possible. If there’s still not enough room for you to pass in between, speed up. The overtaken vehicle and the vehicle traveling in the opposite direction will probably brake, leaving you enough time to complete the overtake. If, however, this approach is completely, obviously, suicide, wait for a moment behind the vehicle you want to overtake, and try again. This applies to all speeds up to about 80 km/h. If you are traveling towards two vehicles overtaking one another, flash the lights and sound the horn. Do not break or make way until the latest possible moment. I tried to film some of it, but the film are to shaky to sense what they’re about, anyway.

I didn’t sleep that much during this 11 hour trip. We’ve booked flight tickets for our journey to Hanoi. I certainly hope that air traffic is regulated according to international standards.

We checked in at the hotel in Hoi An at about 6 in the morning. We were alive, and should have been grateful for that. But the room, ordered as a luxury room with three beds, was tiny and with one single bed and one double bed. Anders was grumpy (he always is that early, but even worse after not sleeping that well, and not having access to cigarettes and coffee). He was outraged. The staff knows who we are know, they won’t forget in the near future, I guess.

Hoi An is great. So much more nice and cosy than Nha Trang. The center is free of motorized vehicles, and full of restaurants, bars, colored lamps and about 500 tailorshops. And of course, the tourists to fuel that many tailors, bars and restaurants. We spend the day yesterday walking up and down the streets, and ended up ordering suits, shirts and shoes – tailor made. We’re going there to try it on in a moment. I’ll have to take care not to have too much weight on the plane back.

That’s it for now. Life is great. I love you all.