The Travels of That Man, Matt

I’m trying very hard to like Hội An. It’s not making it that easy.

Of course, it’s new year holiday time. There are a lot of people here. The streets of the old quarter are packed with tourists, hawkers, food carts and roadside restaurants and coffee bars. The river at night is undeniably charming, with its continual parade of boats lit with paper lamps, and tiny paper boats with candles bobbing about.

It feels a bit like if you took Ibiza Town and transplanted it to SE Asia. Somewhere that has a history, architecture, and myriad winding streets, is overlaid with commerce at every level.

I get it. People have to make a living, and I imagine living costs here are inflated. There’s a noticeable difference in the price of things compared to Huế or Hà Nội. Obviously nothing that’s going to break the bank of a western tourist, but a can of beer costs twice what it does in Huế. The pleasures of a captive market.

Step away from the hustle of the town and a different landscape opens up. Between the town and the coast is an expanse of rice fields with meandering irrigation channels and – whisper it – wildlife.

Let’s talk about rice, baby

Being a rice farmer must be hard (well, duh). In some idle time on my train from Hà Nội I tried to find out how much rice you get from one rice plant. Estimates vary but in short: one plant might produce enough for one person for one day, maybe 150–300 grams.

You can do the maths. Planting and harvesting rice can be done mechanically, but mostly it’s a manual job. So of the roughly 92% of rice grown annually that is for domestic consumption, a lot of that is produced in the most basic fashion.

Anyhoo, that’s what I was thinking about as I passed cows and (maybe) buffalo in the fields: “that looks like a lot of rice but probably isn’t, and I couldn’t bend my back that much.”

Poetry time

I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky; I left my shoes and socks there – I wonder if they’re dry?

Spike Milligan

I got to the beach. I watched the waves crash against the sand. It was peaceful. I enjoyed it.

I got an unnecessary sunburn.

But I enjoyed it.

Gallery

More pictures here.

Chúc mừng năm mới

Yes indeed the day has finally arrived. Happy lunar new year. And what a wet start it was. Me and the two Aussies huddled under a bridge along with a few tens of locals to watch a firework display happening on the other bank, from around the Imperial City.

It was a good fifteen minutes long, but despite the stiff wind and rain, the smoke really obscured about two-thirds of the effects from our viewpoint. And then it was 00:15 and everyone went home.

SE1: Huế to Đà Nẵng

Up at some ungodly hour (09:00) to get breakfast and to the station to catch the 10:39 SE1 service. To my slight astonishment it arrived bang on time.

The journey to Đà Nẵng is mostly uneventful until the track navigates a pinch point where Huế province becomes Đã Nâng province. The track grips onto a mountainside to the west, falling away to the sea in the east. There are tight bends, some tunnels and quite amazing views as headlands come and go.

Sadly my seat was on the “wrong” side of the carriage so I had to take photos and videos through the half-open window in the vestibule. For sure, one unexpected lurch and that would be the end of my phone.

Built by the French Colonial Administration, it’s a remarkable piece of engineering. Usually only a handful of trains per day make the journey from Hà Nội to Ho Chi Minh City, but during Tết there’s something like eighty services per day.

Each one must lumber up one side and slide back down the other. The linkages between carriages squeak and groan, the wheels squeal on the rails as they are hauled slowly, painfully slowly to the apex before the relief of gravity takes over and the brakes take on the squeaking role.

As a minor train nerd, I loved it.

I’ll add some videos when I get a chance to upload them. Best turn the volume down before watching…

Hội An: it’s sunny

You’ll have spotted from the photos that the clouds dissipated on the journey. Here in Hội An, it’s pretty sunny. I’ll have to buy sun cream, which makes a nice change from, well, the entire journey up to now.

7: Hà Nội to Huế

Sunday was a travel day. Nothing much to report except a 14-hour train ride from Hà Nội to Huế, arriving at nearly 11pm. If nothing else, it highlights just how slow transport – other than flying – is in Vietnam. This is on top of the 8-9 hours back from Ha Giáng the day before so I’m kinda transported-out.

8: The Citadel in Huế

It’s a grey, breezy, drizzly day in Huế and I walked from my hotel towards the only game in town, the Imperial City, former home of the Royal Families of Vietnam.

I stopped for breakfast and talked to another British guy who was cycling north to south. He lives in Hà Nội but is moving to Paris and spending some time cycling the country beforehand.

I crossed the Perfume River, where there were zero tourist boats in operation. It’s so close to new year that a lot of businesses are already closed.

Into the Imperial City

I’ll admit that I didn’t get the audio guide, which may have been a mistake because there’s not a whole lot of explanation at each site within the city of what was there or what’s been restored.

Much of what was there was destroyed in various wars, notably the American War as it’s known here, but also the French had a good go at it too.

Far better that you go look things up on Wikipedia than I try to explain what I saw, but in short, the dynasty ran for a couple of centuries until 1975 when I was born. I assume that’s a coincidence. During that time, various kings and queens and concubines lived here and developed their own houses and palaces.

Most of what remains has or is being restored, with, I have to say, mixed results. The grand entrance gates and palaces look like new:

But other areas, while dotted with boards celebrating their restoration, have already been left to deteriorate again:

It’s rather sad that so much effort has gone into these areas and then they’re left. Especially given that the hard tennis court of the last king has been entirely refurbished for reasons that are unclear.

Still. It was an interesting half day of wandering around what is a huge site. If you go: make it a drier day, and get the audio guide…

By the way: I took a lot of photos on my big boy camera, the ones here are iPhone images. Maybe the others look a little better but in the dreary circumstances, this is what’s available right now to post.

(Spoiler alert, I’m writing this on day 6, after already crafting a whiny day 6 post, so here will just be the fun stuff).

Tết essentials

To properly prepare for Tết, you need at least three things:

Museum

Ha Giang has a neat little museum documenting the many indigenous cultures that make up the region. Most of the exhibits are in Vietnamese and English, but the first series of photos were not so I did a lot of phone translating, sometimes with less than stellar results:

I especially liked the grass ghosts who will worship ancestors or the recently departed.

And though I initially read the heading incorrectly, I am all for the idea of my wedding involving 50kg of wine, masses of rice and cold hard cash.

Suffice to say though, that Ha Giang is not the prettiest city you’ll ever visit, especially when shrouded in cloud (a topic for that day 6 post…)