Wet-season wanderings

It's been an extremely wet few months here. Not entirely surprising, given it's the wet season and all, but apparently in terms of the consistency and sheer volume of rainfall, we've been particularly unlucky this year, so that's good news. Not all that much to be done about it, other than to do a good deal of hibernating, complain about it at every possible opportunity. and remembering to pack waterproofs on EVERY bike journey (we've failed to do this on numerous occasions, all: 'oh it probably won't rain, it looks like it's easing off, this is gonna be a great journey!' when we leave the house, before promptly getting annihilated by a downpour, swearing copiously and driving home).

One advantage of the rain is the misty drama it brings to the hills. I've spent a good deal of my days off here taking the bike up Monkey Mountain, which sits just next to the city. The challenge is to try and sniff out hidden paths and do some exploring. It's pretty exhilarating, foraying into the thickly-wooded mountain and seeing what I can discover. On one such walk a few weeks ago I was lucky enough to see two extremely colourful and surprisingly large monkeys nestling in the trees. I was to later discover that they were red-shanked doucs, held in relatively large supply on the mountain but usually well concealed, so I counted myself extremely lucky to see them. It was among the most exciting moments I've had on the trip so far, being high up the mountain, taking in the immense coastal views hundreds of feet below, and having these awesome mountain dwellers happen themselves upon me in their natural habitat. Naturally, I didn't have my camera handy when I saw the monkeys, so you'll just have to take my word for it on this one.

On the flip side, there are things to watch out for on these jaunts, among them unexploded ordnance from the war, poisonous snakes, and perhaps most insidious of all, friendly Vietnamese people hankering after a picture with the giant wandering white man.


 Taking time to relax, listen to music, listen to podcasts and soak up the scenery have been major corner stones of life out here, and I've done my best to not to let the rain stop me from doing that. Anyway, I love the character that the giant storm clouds bring. It makes everything seem that much more profound, and evokes a real sense of nostalgia, a vice I like to indulge perhaps more than is healthy.



In sad news for us here, our semi-adopted puppy, Puppy, was dognapped and eaten a few weeks ago. In her wisdom, our landlady thought it a good idea to leave her tethered in the conservatory all day, every day, her routine broken only when we would come home to take her on a walk or have her in the flat to let off some of her boundless puppy energy and play. According to the people here, it was apparently inevitable that she would be taken eventually, and lo and behold we came home a couple of weeks ago to find nothing but a cut lead where our puppy used to be. The small silver lining for us is knowing that at least she's free from such a sad, limited life, but it is still very sad to come home and not see her bounding gleefully, so happy to see us. She was a lovely dog and full of character, and we're gonna miss her.

Nothing to do but press on, but it's certainly made things feel a little emptier and sadder here. The coming months should hold many positives, though, given we've a trip to the south planned in February, and my dear friend Alice is coming to visit in March, followed hopefully by a jaunt from my dear friend Dyer. Also, in a bid to do something constructive while I'm here, hip and ankle injuries allowing, I'm hoping to run the Da Nang half marathon in August to raise money for my aunt and uncle's clinic in Bangladesh. I'll be peppering facebook with info about that in the coming weeks.

I've enjoyed pressing on with the blog, although it's not been made any easier by a recently-severed internet connection to Da Nang.The official line is that a shark attacked the cable which connects the city to internet. Sounds pretty legit to me, so I can't really complain.

Otherwise, there's really not too much to report, apart from my decision today to dump Jen, go out dressed in my Sunday best and get married to a Vietnamese woman.

Danang 'Nam it!

OK, so it's a pretty lame pun. And it doesn't really relate to anything, apart from, perhaps, to the general frustrations of travelling, and the whole living-in-a-country-where-precious-few-people-speak-your-language thing. Plus, it's a pretty good pun.

I was thinking how fortunate it would be if I made a friend out here and if they were to die. Because then of course I could lead with 'Good Mourning, Vietnam!'. Come to think of it, that would have been a pretty decent headline to run soon after Robin Williams' death. Maybe it's not too late for that? Or maybe it's still too soon? Is it distasteful? I really don't know.

Anyhow, if that had been the title of this blog post, I'd have led with this picture, which I took from our hotel bedroom a few weeks ago.

However the whole "having a friend" thing might take a while longer. I wish I had some pictures to show you all of Jen and me with new friends, chatting and laughing. Cor dear how we'd laugh, if we had some friends. But unfortunately trying to get a picture with me and a new friend is much like that Simpsons episode where Mr Burns has to get a picture with a smiling child. And I'm pretty sure I must be pulling this face when I meet new people at the moment:

But, you know. Da Nang's a weird place. And one of its best and more challenging aspects is that it has fewer expats than many bigger cities. So while the locals don't hate us (genuinely, it's all big waves and smiles anywhere you go, and they don't even try to rip you off!!), there aren't a great deal of people for us to meet, so it's gonna take a little longer than p'raps we'd anticipated.

So, it's been a crazy few weeks. The initial adjustment has been, and is continuing to be gargantuan. Going from being a cock-sure journo to terrified teacher has been a bit of a transition. Suddenly, I'm no longer the 'king of vermiculite'. I'm just a regular guy again. Imagine that?! How the mighty fall!

Teaching kids is hard. There's no two ways about it. You need enormous energy, and enormous patience. I seem to have adopted a very austere and slightly awkward style with the kids, which for now seems to be doing me just fine. I can feel my Dad's own over-developed parent ego pouring out of me like water from a fire-hose, and for the best part it seems to be instilling a bungling and confused sense of fear into them which just about holds the classroom together. So thanks for that, Dad!!

Sure, there are the those moments on Saturday mornings when the little bastards are running around like mad men, and little fucking Vuong just won't get up off the fucking floor. And you're all there to the class like: "Is Vuong doing a good job or a bad job?" And the kids all hysterically cry out: "good job!!" and then the kids laugh and the teaching assistant laughs, and you're all I'M GONNA FUCKING KILL THE LOT OF YOU  YA LITTLE WEE SHYTIES!

But then, is that really any worse than sitting at your desk on a Monday afternoon, as you struggle to digest a starchy overpriced lunch from fucking EAT, with its fucking NO NONSENSE marketing. And you're sitting there making calls to fucking gas companies about how much gas they produce. And they're all 'oh I'm sorry sir we can't tell you how much gas we produce, even we don't care', and you're all WHO THE FUCK IS EVEN READING THIS SHIT?! you know? I mean can it be worse than that? I mean Vuong did get off the floor eventually.

Anyway, I better put another picture in here:

So today we went to Hoi An, and honestly, it was one of the best day trips I'd ever taken. After a bit of a morning snooze, we got our bikes and set off along the beach for about an hour to arrive at one of the world's most beautiful and ancient towns.

It seemed to take forever to find the old town, and we were starting to get pretty ratty with each other for a while. Until we stumbled upon this old temple, which was pretty damn cool:

After that. We got absolutely dicked by the rain. Remember Forest Gump, and the big ol' fat rain? Well that's what we got done by:

Riding the bike in rain like that was absolutely insane. But awesomely exhilarating, and we got to tear up some truly Vietnamese countryside while we did it. The scariest bit was riding through the knee-deep flashfloods, feeling like Jesus on a motorike, knowing that if we stopped we sure as hell weren't starting again. However, we enjoyed some much more pleasant riding a week ago, as we head in the other direction  towards Danang's neighbouring mountains:

Given its relative proximity to Danang (about 30km), Hoi An couldn't be more different. For starters, the punters are out in droves. You can't move for white folk. And consequently Jen and I were far less interesting to the locals there. Apart from of course the ones who wanted to rip us off - and there were those aplenty.

See these old dears? And see us? We're having such a nice and authentic gap-yar experience holding the surprisingly heavy fruit bowls and all that. And I was completely ready to start thinking about how tough it would be to cart those fucking things around all day. And to get all contemplative and everything, like I'm supposed to. Until the scurrilous little rat bags started shovelling suspect-looking fruit into a bag, before forcing it into our hands and
demanding the equivalent of nine pounds from us, which could buy you a pretty decent-sized house in Vietnam. With my cunning, I negotiated them down to about three pounds, but they'll still be laughing all the way to the bank. Cheeky bastards.








It was a truly brilliant day, and Hoi An is a truly beautiful place, and it was a genuine and wonderful privilege for us to be there today. That we're only a forty minute drive from it is a tantalising thought, and we'll be doing a good deal more exploring.

It's been an exhausting day, and I could go on and on. But one of the best things that happened was that I found out how to use the black and white feature on my camera. So, after taking a couple of moody shots of myself which I'll maintain were done purely for the sake of irony, I managed to snap a nice picture of me and Jen to share:

When all was said and done, we sat down to some delicious food. A Vietnamese speciality! I suggest you guys at home try and cook some up yourselves!

Day two in Da Nang - 29 August 2014: Shits and giggles

Two days in, and I’ve already managed to freak out, have a cry, and get diarrhoea. Not a bad haul -  I thought it would take a least a week to rack up those three travel classics.

As for the freak out, here’s some good advice: If you already have a pretty well entrenched fear of flying, don’t take it upon yourself to watch every single episode of Air Crash Investigation (excellent show though it may be) in the build up to the longest flight of your life. What it will leave you with is a pretty vivid idea of what could go wrong on each stage of the flight. While most people are tuning into some classical music and closing their eyes for a relaxed snooze shortly before take off, you’ll be sitting there thinking about how the plane’s tyres haven’t been pumped properly due to criminal negligence on behalf of a depressed engineer, the inevitable upshot being a puncture during take-off which fires rubber shrapnel into the engines, causing a rather impressive explosion 1,000ft in the air.

While others are tucking into the surprisingly edible mid-flight chicken schezwan, you’ll be agonising over the idea of essential mechanical parts of the plane failing to thaw after being subjected to minus 50C temperatures, leading to the hydraulics failing and the engines unable to receive fuel.

As you come into land, instead of looking forward to sandy beaches and exotic cocktails, you’ll be bracing yourself for a fatal brake failure, which will see the plane careen into a hanger, killing everybody on board, along with a good deal of ground crew.

I say I had a freakout - it mainly consisted of staring at the flight clock for nine hours straight, counting the minutes as they passed. Entire weeks have passed more quickly.

However, I managed to get my shit together for long enough to sit through Her, a truly excellent film, I thought.

As for the cry, well that’s rather more embarrassing. But as I started to try and switch off for a night’s sleep, the enormity of the life decision I’d made really swept over me. I was seeing a highlight reel of all the friends and family I’d spent time with over the last year, all their smiles and the wonderful conversations we’d had. And I was missing hugs like this:

Cliched as it sounds, it's only when you're away from the people your friends and family sometimes that you realise how precious they are to you. I've been so singularly minded in getting this whole trip together, that I've had to stamp out any anxieties about loneliness, or being away from those special, un-recreatable bonds. Fortunately, having Jen here to comfort me was a great help, and then sticking on a podcast with Louis Theroux unleashed plenty of Britishness to comfortably cajole me into a peaceful slumber. (Need to thank James Dyer for the tip on listening to podcasts - an amazing way to hear life stories of people you'd otherwise have no real exposure to).

It's good to cry sometimes. Odysseus - one of the bravest and most impressive of the fictional Greeks - cried about 600 times on his travels:

"Odysseus wept when he heard the poet sing of his great deeds abroad because, once sung, they were no longer his alone"

"Demodacus started to sing about troy again, and Odysseus wept some more"

“Yet Odysseus felt a longing for his wife and wept, sitting on a rock"

So you know, as far as the Greeks are concerned, my crying was very noble indeed. Still, so was being aggressively intimate with 6-year-old boys, so maybe it's a dangerous school of thought for me to start following...

In regards to Da Nang, it's a perfect combination of bustling chaos, with a few western comforts thrown in.The locals are lovely and curious, and that curiosity is no doubt further piqued by Jen's red hair and my 2 meter stature.  

We've eaten some delicious food, including one of the most succulent steak baguettes I've ever had - the crunchy bread which melts in your mouth a legacy of the French occupation here. And it cost 60p (although I later saw one advertised for the equivalent of about 20p) We also drank a couple of delicious smoothies, although I fear they might have been the route cause of the loss of integrity in my bowel movements. You can sort of see that I've realised it even as I'm drinking it:

There are some awesome sights in the city, including some extremely ostentatious bridges, one of which has a multicoloured dragon running along it, you can see a terrible picture of the tail here (I'll get better at taking pictures as time goes on, I promise):

It's been a hectic but exhilarating start to the adventure,  and following some initial sadness I'm starting to feel the excitement settle in. We've found the flat we want to stay in. Lovely modern furnishings and just a stone's throw to the beach. Tomorrow, we'll be going to observe lessons, while next week we'll start teaching ourselves. For now, we're dead happy.