Halloween-free zone

So, the OH opens the envelope containing the CD version of his English year book, then looks at the postmark. "Where's Port Louis?" he asks, puzzled. And, because I've been there, I can tell him it's in Mauritius, in fact the capital. What are the odds? (I have to stop asking that - regular readers (ha!) know all about me and coincidences.)

Last year, apparently, the Year Book came from Hong Kong, so even fancy, ancient professional associations aren't above shopping around the world for the cheapest mass mailer - and this time it's little Mauritius, a drop of land in the Indian Ocean, where I went in 2010 and *cough*dentally had a story about it published just three weeks ago in the NZ Listener. (That's not my only Mauritian story, I hasten to clarify, just in case there are any potential employers reading this: it was the seventh.)

So, Port Louis: big old fort up on top of the hill, built by the British when the French populace resisted the idea of the abolition of slavery, the dark stone rooms now full of arty souvenirs; swanky new waterside development with upmarket shops and live jazz and young people preening and parading in their fashionable gear; crowded back-street markets with sacks of beans, rice and spices, vendors shouting, cars squeezing past, people everywhere; cathedral, temples, mosque, churches; quaint little Natural History Museum with some sad remains of the dodo; verandas, balconies, shutters, palm trees, boabs, banyans. Noisy, hot, busy, interesting. Worth seeing.

Back from 'Nam

There should be more frolicking, I think. Not at the Ha Loa Prison in Hanoi, where this instruction was engraved in a marble panel on the wall, obviously: respect is the only fitting response to all the suffering that's gone on there; but generally. We should all frolic more.

I've come home to spring, when it's normally lambs that have sole rights to the use of the word: trees all in leaf, weeds springing long and unlovely and lush, mock orange in flower. It's good to be back - though it was good too to be away. There's nothing like a new country to stir up your interest, stimulate your thinking, inspire your photography. I really enjoyed my week in North Viet Nam: terrific scenery, really delicious food, and such nice people. They work so hard, but they still seem to have time for fun, and for themselves: those morning sessions of walking and exercise were very impressive; and you've never seen initiative till you've witnessed the inspired uses that a simple concrete bench can be put to. Gyms? Pft.

I also felt safe, wandering around (albeit clutching my backpack defensively to my chest): not a target for any sort of unwelcome attention other than as a potential customer, which is fair enough. It was good that there were no beggars at all - try saying the same about Queen Street. As usual, the trip was a bit rushed; but not because tourism people were trying to get as much value out of visiting travel writers as possible, since this was an actual tour that anyone could take: World Expeditions' Rocky Plateau Tour, to be precise. It was intensive because it has to be, to fit as much distance and experience into the time that most people have available. I think that's reasonable: no-one would go to North Viet Nam for a relaxing holiday, they go to see and taste and feel, which is exactly what we did. And we left the place a bit better off for our visit, thanks to World Expeditions' sponsorship of one of the schools we visited.

We were also, you'll be glad to hear, careful always to toilet in fixed places.

HBTM, HBTM...

 

Huh. While there was singing of 'Happy Birthday' last night and multiple toasts of apricot and passionfruit liquors, today on my actual birthday nobody here has remembered. And to add insult to injured princess feelings, I'm spending the day travelling back to Auckland from Hanoi economy class. It's a horrible way to spend a birthday - even if I was starting to think I might dispense with the concept altogether.

But it began well enough, with chancing across St Joseph's in the old quarter as I strode along in the spitty rain fending off umbrella-vendors. Mass was well under way when I slipped in to enjoy the singing from an almost-capacity congregation, not one of them with a hymn book. They made a lovely sound in the equally lovely church.

And then I went to the other extreme by seeking out the Hanoi Hilton: the prison used by the French to inflict untold unpleasantnesses on the local people; and then by the Vietnamese to hold US prisoners of war. You can't blame them for presenting the two quite differently - there were beds and guitars and neatly-pressed clothes in the US section, and in the dark and gloomy wing where the Vietnamese had suffered, there was this - which kind of puts into perspective a soft seat, meal service with wine and unlimited movies, I have to admit.

Waiter, there's a...

... cricket in my salad. Yes, it's a crap photo: that's what happens when you're juggling low light, long shutter speeds, macro subject and a total inability to cope with the technology because of seven shots of rice wine inside you. This time, apricot liquor, with a powerful chilli afterburn. Two proper journos, one freelance, a videographer, a presenter, a tourism company director and a local director: check it out, it's a volatile mix when you add in the local firewater. I would like some credit here for my dedication in posting this entry with - literally - one eye shut for better focus, and multi back-spacing to cope with the keyboard-skills sabotage that results from just a sniff of alcohol, let alone a 20% share of three bottles of rice wine. Plus beer.

It's a degenerate end to a day that began so well with zen tai chi on the sun deck of the boat at dawn, as the - count them - 14 surrounding boats woke up, weighed anchor and set off for Surprise Grotto. We stood on one leg and stretched and reached and - personally - felt silly and possibly the butt of some Asian in-joke as we tried to follow the master, getting totally thrown at the point when he adjusted one of his tunic buttons.

What's the difference between a cave and a grotto? Apparently, a grotto you can go right through. And the surprise? Well, let's just say there's an accidental link to the name of Vietnamese currency. I'll save you googling it: it's the dong.

After trailing through the huge cave system with its unusual sculpted ceiling, we went back to our boat and were taken, reluctantly, back to the harbour at Halong and driven off again to Hanoi. There we went to a performance of the Water Puppets, which was a harmless and relatively inexpensive novelty, before going out tonight for our farewell dinner in a restaurant that, thankfully, didn't make us sit on the floor, but had cheat seats with a hidden footwell so we could be comfortable as we ate our spring rolls and sweet cucumber salad and crispy chicken (Col. Sanders, hide your face in shame) (and stop trying to look like Uncle Ho), Chinese lamb (shock, horror) and stupid beef noodles and probably something else, but it's all merging now - and the crickets, small and crispy and surprisingly flavoursome. Though the leg-between-the-teeth worry was a new one for me.

Good day, good evening. good company. Even though our World Expeditions local-guide know-how in selecting a genuine Vietnamese restaurant was mitigated somewhat by discovering in the corner of it a person from Albany, which is the next Auckland suburb over from mine. Tch.

Funny, peculiar and ha ha

 

I’m guessing the people dancing by the lake this morning weren’t the same ones we saw last night – respect for their stamina, if so. First thing, the pavements were busier than the roads, with a great surge of people striding anti-clockwise around the lake, sneakers on their feet and determination in their eyes. Others chose to get their exercise more competitively, playing badminton in teams with or without a net; and others still were dancing, some classical ballroom, others Gangnam style – that’s a very long and energetic dance, by the way, in such humid conditions, and respect again to the dancers who jumped and flailed their way right to the end.

Most fun to watch, though – literally – was the young man surrounded by a double circle of mostly middle-aged women with their arms linked, who were laughing for their exercise. Breathing first, and some chanting, but then a vigorous “Ho! Ho! Ho!” that ended every time in real laughter. It was peculiar but infectious, and as good a way as any to begin a day that might involve a lot of tedious sitting and not much human contact - or possibly too much of it.

Our day started with more – surprise! – driving, this time for just 3½ hours to Halong Bay, known for its thousands of scattered karst islands in a warm green sea. We were such a novelty up north, Western tourists, but here we’re just the raw material for a huge and efficient tourism machine that moves people out into the bay and back again in vast numbers. We set off in our junk-type boat with its fancy cabins across the bay into the network of islands – along with a flotilla of other boats doing exactly the same thing.

Being part of a mass tourism operation is a new experience for us here in north Viet Nam, but it's still worth it to see the beautiful and striking scenery, the floating fishing village with its accomplished stand-up rowers and cute schoolkids, the pearl farm where the shellfish were being seeded, and the sun setting behind these extraordinarily shaped islands with their sheer sides and fuzz of foliage. Limestone, eh: always such a star.

Fun for some

Not for this guy, I suspect, judging by how much pork we've been served since we've been here: every lunch and dinner, and sometimes breakfast too. Probably not going to end well for him - though the baskets of piglets we also passed on the road, on the backs of motorbikes, were more likely just moving house. Today's most amazing motorbike loads were a roof truss on one and two 2-seater wooden benches on another. Yes, we were on the road again, heading back south to Hanoi - yet another long day in the van, but less of an ordeal today as the mountains were behind us and long sections of the road were pretty civilised.

You might think that spending so many hours in a van is a tedious waste of a holiday, but the simple fact is that to get to that amazing karst scenery up north, it's the only way, as there are no airstrips. And I wouldn't have missed seeing those mountains for anything. This is, after all, a World Expeditions trip; besides, as I keep saying, the entertainment value of the traffic itself simply has to be seen to be appreciated.

So here we are back in Hanoi, briefly, before heading off again tomorrow. There was a very good dinner at Quan An Ngon, a huge and efficient restaurant seething with staff; there were drinks beforehand at a rooftop bar overlooking the swirl of traffic circling a roundabout by the lake, and afterwards in the elegant splendour of the Metropole; but best of all there was life to enjoy - where else, but on the streets: children playing and shouting "Hello" before rushing away giggling, families eating, the surging tide of motorbikes to weave through crossing the road, goods laid out, bright and neat and ordered by type, so there seemed to be a book street, a bling street, a toy street, a whisky street and so on. We finished by strolling around the lake in the dark, the coloured lights reflected in the black water (hiding apparently a mythical turtle), alongside which people sat and rollerskated and talked and courted and laughed and played games and danced. And they were all having fun.

Not comfortable - but so interesting

When the total journey's only about 150km, but it takes you 6 hours to do it, that tells you all you need to know about the road. Today we completed our circuit through the spectacular Dong Van Karst Plateau, looping back round and returning to the town of Yen Minh, near where we spent a couple of nights at the homestay. The road is narrow, winding, up and down, and also pot-holed and often unsealed, with slips and roadworks. As well, it's crazily busy with pedestrians as well as vehicles: mostly motorbikes carrying their usual absurd loads - we helped one guy out today who lost his balance and fell over, and was cast, his four big sacks of dried beans making the bike far too heavy for him to lift by himself. The guys set him back up again and he went on his way, over 100km to do while perched on the petrol tank.

It seemed we always met the biggest trucks on the sharpest corners with sheer drop-offs hundreds of metres down to the river - no exaggeration, the scenery is Andean-epic. The endless lumpy peaks shaded off into the distance, green to purple to silver, the terraces stepped away down to the river, and everywhere there were people, local H'mong, the women in neon-bright pink and turquoise, orange and purple: headscarves and skirts with trousers, all of them carrying babies in slings or huge bundles of firewood or baskets of some sort of crop. We're over taking photos of the buffaloes on the road, the goats with bells round their necks or the pigs - that's all so two days ago; but the people are endlessly fascinating, and so friendly. Quite often, we've seen them taking photos of us, Westerners being such a novelty here.

The journey seemed harder today because two of us were sick, one very, poor thing, which meant lots of stops for her to chunder and the rest of us to enjoy being still for a few minutes. It was a huge relief to get to our destination for the night: another echoing hotel room with high ceiling, bare floor ornate furniture and idiosyncratic light switches. Also, this time, the hardest bed ever - honestly, it's like a divan base that they forgot to put the mattress on. But it doesn't matter at all, because I'm so tired (and empty - no dinner for me tonight, though I went along anyway and slipped lots of treats to the little cats prowling round under the tables in the restaurant) that nothing's going to stop me getting a good night's sleep.