Vietnam Day 13 – 16: End of the journey

Day 13 – 21st June 2007

Thus this is a concluding entry to my entire Cambodia-Vietnam backpacking trip, something I’ve been putting off to complete as I didn’t really want to relive the ending moments of my final days in Vietnam. It was something I had been dreading – returning to negaraku Malaysia, that is – but as the cliché goes, all good things must come to an end.

The 13th day of being in Vietnam (accurately 10th day) was the day I relaxed the most. I slept till about 10am or so, which was probably the latest I’ve ever awaken in this entire trip, as we seemed to lead very healthy lifestyles, save for the excessive alcohol (and a little drug) intake. There honestly wasn’t much to do in Hué save for the pagodas and ancient tombs which we have covered briefly yesterday – we young’un’s probably couldn’t appreciate such historical and cultural values that much, except knowing which would be the best photography moments.

We walked to our Camel Travels to dump our backpacks, a considerable feat as my bag seemed to get heavier after accumulating all sorts of things throughout the journey (probably not too much). Headed to Phuong Nam for breakfast/lunch, where it proclaimed to sell the best fruit shake in Hué, which didn’t seem to be far from the truth. Except for an encounter with a completely tasteless noodles (they probably forgot to add salt or something), the food is excellent – the best in Hué, of all the limited food we’ve eaten – although it probably couldn’t rival Cafe 43 in Hoi An.

We went to a ‘cyber’ cafe, as Kazz kept mentioning to us, which was really a coffee joint but with a futuristic banner outside their shop. There we played our usual game of 31 while I sipped my iced Lipton tea (costs almost next to nothing), and headed back to Phuong Nam again for our early dinner at about 4pm.

At Camel Travels.

Our bus to Hanoi arrived at 5.10pm, thus began what we presumed would be a 12-hour horror ride, after the tremendously bad experience from Nha Trang to Hoi An. Funnily enough, the bus stopped at a restaurant at 7pm, which we hung around for a while before boarding it again.

I was sitting next to Kazz, after changing seats initially as I didn’t want to sit next to a snoring, sweating stranger, and after teasing Siew Kiat and his new found Irish girl-friend who were sitting together, we both suddenly felt an urge to pee. A while later Gopi contracted the same urge, and omfg we had to suppress our pee for 4 hours.

After we drifted in and out of our sleep, Siew Kiat mentioned that the bus should stop at 12am somewhere, as it was written on the tickets themselves – but we didn’t exactly put a well of hopes ahead of us, knowing from past experiences that such information was far from accurate.

At 12.15am, Gopi couldn’t stand it any longer, pushed the rude Vietnamese who was sitting next to him away (the bugger had his legs on top of the chair in front of him wtf, poor Irish girl), and proceeded to the front of the bus to talk to the bus driver, who in the end appeared to speak naught of English. As usual, a photocopied Lonely Planet Vietnam guidebook came in handy, and after scourging for the Vietnamese equivalent of ‘toilet’, and communicated such an intention, the bus FINALLY stopped, after passing by countless of petrol stations that actually have the fucking toilets.

But guess where we stopped? It was really in the middle of nowhere – an accurate description would be on the right of a narrow road with tall, grassy fields, and we honestly thought we’d be getting a physical toilet. But fuck it, when a man’s bladder was about to explode, you let go wherever you can, and in our case, next to the grassy fields with at least a dozen other men peeing simultaneously wtf (which I found out after the bus continued its journey, the fields was next to RAILWAY tracks as there was a train that utilised it at that hour! wtf what if we got ran over by it!). (One Vietnamese even peed next to the bus WTF.)

It was abhorrently dark alright, and while I was releasing gallons of urine a little far away from Kazz, I looked up at the sky and there were the galaxy of stars I’ve been staring at the entire journey (at least, when we weren’t in towns) to keep my thoughts of peeing away. Beautiful couldn’t half describe the utter awe I felt, there had to be hundreds and hundreds of them adorning the sky, as if a jeweller had played a role in this fantastic masterpiece of the sky, accessible only in the remotest of places.

It was a rather odd sensation too, to be peeing next to strangers in the open and just gazing at the stars ahead. I might even go far ahead and say that it was the best view I’ve ever seen in the entire journey.

But what completed the experience of this stargazing activity while I was in the bus sitting near the left window earlier (prior to this odd peeing marathon) was an extremely low-hanging half-moon that was just next to the mountains ahead of us. If I could snap that photo there and then, I would’ve – the moon was the closest to Earth I’ve ever seen, and with the breathtaking expanse of stars, I wish I could conjure that image in my mind no matter where I go.

‘Magical’ has to be the right word for that place and time.

Day 14 – 22nd June 2007
We reached at 5.30am at Hanoi, where it was already as bright as day by then. We slept quite uncomfortably in the bus, I had about an hour or two of sleep at most – the constant rumble and uneven roads were likely the cause – but time did seem to pass by rather quickly, I must’ve gotten used to any 12-hour buses by now.

After the bus finally stopped, we were moved by a taxi for free to Darling Backpackers Guest House, likely a ploy invented by said guesthouse, but it appeared to be a favourite among many backpackers, as evidenced by recommendations written by them that were strewn throughout the place. We ate their free breakfast and used their free, and also fastest Internet in the entire Vietnam so far.

There while waiting for our room to be ready, we chatted with a fellow Malaysian who looked like he was in his 30s, who was there with his male companion. He was bloody patriotic – even had a keychain of a Malaysian flag attached to his backpack – and jokingly reprimanded us youngsters for being apathetic about our upcoming 50th Independence Day. The Chinese Penangite was probably the most patriotic person I’ve ever encountered, and hilariously enough he even quizzed us about the 5 lines in the Rukunegara HAHAHA wtf.

We eventually bade goodbye with one another when the two of them got their rooms, we were moved to another hotel with a supposedly bigger room to accommodate us. Finally after the few hotels we went to didn’t meet our approval and expectations, we ended up in Camellia Hotel, supposedly a 3-star hotel. It was only like, USD$3 per person per night too, but we were separated to two different bedrooms.

After spending my entire morning sleeping a while and watching MTV Movie Awards 2007, we had our lunch at a cafe after walking around for a bit, then went back to our hotel to wait for Francis to join us after receiving his e-mail earlier that he would be staying an extra day in Hanoi and would be joining us. He had left a message at our hotel when we came back, and cleverly enough, the message that we left at the hotel to be delivered to him wasn’t delivered. -___-

We played cards – Blackjack and 31 – till about 5pm when Francis arrived, all sweaty and exhausted from the walking around with his backpack.

The hotel staff explaining the Halong Bay and Sapa packages to both Kazz and Francis.

We then went in search of our night market while Francis looked for his puppet show.

Kazz buying some fruit shake with pearls thingy from the market.

As usual, we navigated around the town with only a map, and thought that we should treat ourselves with our final night together (Kazz and Francis would be at Halong Bay the next day, while we had to content ourselves in Hanoi due to lack of time).

The restaurant has a nice ambience, but the food was mediocre. My vodka+Ricard was one of the most potent foul-tasting shite I’ve ever tasted to date. In the end we played 31 to see who would drink the remaining thing (I barely touched it), and Kazz.. the unlucky bugger, lost. Lmao.

We made it back to our hotel at about 9pm, where Francis was already at the hotel. After watching a bit of Casanova on the telly and waited for Gopi and Kazz to return, we had our usual drinking session again with our usual cheap-ass vodka where I lost horribly at 31. So much so that even when I’m completely sober, I puked again. -___-

Guess who lost the game of 31! (that one round, that is)

I couldn’t join the game anymore – should more amount of the foul alcohol enters my system, I think I’d have brain damage.

And here’s our fantastic little group photo snapped when all of us were completely inebriated (save for steel liver Siew Kiat), that I had to make this my blog’s new banner for now. The memories created from this trip, I hope I’ll never forget.

After finished the last drop of the vodka (Siew Kiat was as usual, punished for surfing on the Net for too long and not participating us in the games by drinking a large amount – which he did play in the end), we went out on the pretext of wanting to club. Almost everyone was high at this point, and this was where my memories began to fade as I wasn’t of the right mind. The only few words I remembered was Francis telling me, “I’ll take care of you Clement,” when Gopi was asking who was gonna take care of an obviously drunk me, should I be allowed to go out with them. “I’ve had friends who took care of me when I was drunk, and I think I can take care of my friends in return.”

Might’ve sounded like an insignificant thing to utter nor remember, especially when everyone was high, but for some reason I thought it was kinda moving and poignant.

We hitched a taxi after walking for a bit (after asking a few passers-by, most of them girls for some reason, in the midst of our hazy intoxication), I collapsed in said taxi, and woke up to find out that a few of them had found a nightclub but it was closed wtf. A nightclub that closes after 10pm.. rightttt.

We had Francis lead us back to our hotel after walking for about 10 minutes, amazing when one still possesses an acute sense of direction when your mind is terribly disconcerting. Reached hotel probably at 1am, our latest night out by far.

Day 15 – 23rd June 2007
To be honest there wasn’t much to talk about this particular day, since we spent our day walking around and exploring the city a lot.

When we woke up in the morning (for me at least), I remembered that Kazz and Francis were leaving, and went down just in time to see them with the hotel staff, discussing about Halong Bay or sommat. Both went off separately – I didn’t exactly feel terribly sad to see them leave as we had amicably said our goodbyes and good-lucks and end them with a little handshake, it was an appropriate sort of end to a rather dysfunctional travelling family we had been, and more than likely enough, I won’t be seeing them again, unless of course, I visit them from whichever countries they are from.

I went for a breakfast with Siew Kiat nearby, eating what had to be wantan mee, but with tremendous amount of beef and chicken and other assorted vegetables. I suspected that we were being ripped off by a few thousand dongs, after close observation with other patrons who paid for their food, but I guess that’s what’s happening to tourists worldwide.

I went out to teman Gopi for lunch since he missed breakfast, leaving Siew Kiat at the hotel. We went around too scouting for prices of hotels nearby, as Gopi has abandoned his plan of staying overnight at the airport after hearing from the hotel staffs that the airport doesn’t allow people to sleep in it – how true that is we may never know.

I’d like to explain one of the most amazing things there is in Old Quarters, Hanoi, where we stayed – every street has a specific name that denotes a specific item that the entire street would be selling. For example, one street would have shops selling almost exclusively hardware alone, another would have paper lanterns, another street would sell clothes, another souvenirs, and the list goes on. The entire design shows how well-planned it is, although we did get lost a few times as there were simply too many crossroads, like Hoi An, but worse.

We hitched a taxi after much bargaining, 50,000 dong to go to the main city, which was only about 1-2km away. Lunch at another ‘better’ restaurant than normal was just so-so, which prompted us to think that ‘high-class’ food wasn’t that tasty after all, as compared to street food.

I had diarrhoea then (probably because of breakfast), which forced Gopi and Siew to locate a coffee joint immediately for me to unload my unfortunate innards. When Gopi had finished sipping his coffee and telling a few stories, we decided that there wasn’t anything interesting to see, and hitched another taxi back (almost got conned by a few motorcyclists too).

Amazingly enough, this particular taxi has.. an LCD screen for its back mirror WTF. =.= Not to look at the back windscreen, but to watch movies or television wtfwtf.

Sorry there weren’t any pictures but really, there wasn’t much to snap. We wanted to head to this particular bridge just outside Old Quarters, and because Gopi still wanted to go on with his souvenir-shopping, both Siew and I left him at that and asked him to meet us there.

We wanted to walk on the bridge to head to the island in the middle of the lake, but it was already closed. And it was only like, 6.30pm wtf.

We waited for Gopi for quite a while, till the sun finally set. A view of the lake and its surroundings.

Quite an excellent place to relax, and also a popular haunt among the locals for obvious reasons.

They also had this pagoda thing, which took me ages to snap a good pic without a tripod.

After not seeing Gopi, we finally left and headed back to the busy ol’ night market of Old Quarters (there was also a pretty nifty Tourist Centre which was one of the only few shops that was open). Met a couple of youngsters whom I said hello too – they turn out to be Singaporeans, “No wonder, from your slang I thought you’re either Singaporean or Malaysian,” they told us.

After walking for ages, not knowing where to eat, we ate at this eatery, which would be rather put-offish for the most of you. We actually sat in front of the lady in white (which was actually like a kitchen) and ate in front of her while she prepared our dish. As usual, we were overcharged at 15,000 dong, when others were paying way less.

Went back to our hotel after consulting our map, and Gopi was in our room, looking all bored. Eventually went out again to teman him with dinner at an equally dirty place, but by then my legs were aching from walking the entire bloody day, so we went back to our hotel to just plain recuperate.

We set our alarm on Heng’s 3310 for 5.30am and dozed off.

Day 16 – 24th June 2007
“OMFG GUYS IT’S 7:20AM!” That came from Siew and it woke us all up immediately – evidently the 3 of us overslept, taxi was supposed to arrive at 7.30am to fetch us to the airport, and I’ve yet to complete my packing. Showering was the last thing on my mind.

Amazingly enough, Siew managed to shower in like 3 minutes, and it was entirely comical come to think about it – I was trying my darndest best to fold my sleeping bag (that was used as a blanket, my first time ever using my sleeping back in the entire trip as blankets weren’t provided in this hotel) into the smallest size possible, Siew Kiat efficiently and effectively had everything packed and moved out, Gopi casually ambling out of the room after helping me packing a few stuffs, as he had the foresight to have already done showering and packing the night before wtf.

I also unfortunately had to pangsai for a bit, so I made the rest wait for me while I did whatever I had to do. The taxi arrived a minute later after I walked down to our ‘lobby’ heh.

Back in the taxi, we asked the taxi to go as fast as he could – I think we paid about USD$3 per person for this. Missing our flight was the last thing we had in mind.

The rest of the flight journey was rather insignificant at this point – bought our alcohol at the duty-free shops, we boarded our AirAsia flight to Kuala Lumpur, and I managed to finish Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World finally while in the aircraft. The original plan of finishing it in 12-hour bus rides failed as the light was either too dim or it was too uncomfortable to read.

We chit-chatted with an auntie (or rather, she initiated the chat) whose daughter turned out to be at the same college as I went to. At one point we entered the clouds and everything was so blindingly white I couldn’t help but wonder if we were in an odd limbo – it had that effect on me, at least.

Yadida after eating lunch at McD’s LCCT (wanted to eat our final breakfast in Hanoi, but thanks to us oversleeping, we didn’t have it), we sat the RM9 bus from KLIA to Subang Parade, only took us about 30 minutes. During the bus ride we were adjusting ourselves to being back in Malaysia again – the road signs that seemed familiar, the driver sitting on the right side (as opposed to Vietnam’s left), horns were barely heard.. I was in that state of mind where everything seemed so familiar yet distant at the same time, as if a part of me had already been rooted down in Vietnam, a communist country where I had one of the best funs in my life.

The first other familiar face we saw back in Parade was Poh Yuen, who was working at Starbucks Carrefour.. she looked utterly overjoyed to see us that she rushed out without attending to a waiting customer, where she turned back after realising her mistake.

Then my parents picked me up from there.

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I know this isn’t much of a conclusion that some of you may have been expecting, but it all seemed tied up nicely. I had been preparing myself for the final day, after what Kazz had told me in Hoi An – to essentially enjoy the moment while you’re at it, enjoy yourselves with the travellers you meet to the best while you’re at it, because we won’t be seeing them again.

Both Siew Kiat and I had our fair share of complaining that time wasn’t enough, and if we could, we’d stay on and explore Halong Bay and Sapa, the two destinations that we’d really like to visit in Northern Vietnam.

It has been an eye-opening journey, a life-changing experience, if you will. It’s the people that I met that imbued me with their life stories, their ideals, their philosophies.. like Kazz, how can I forget someone who has a tattoo of Jesus smoking marijuana on his chest, yet preached about not killing a living thing, even a cockroach or an ant, like a Buddhist, despite proclaiming himself to be an atheist? Or Francis, the anti-Kazz, whose sharp and cynical tongue I enjoy listening to? Or Siew Kiat, cool, calm, collected – our steady rock that pieced the lot of us together? Or Gopi, our resident bargainer or smooth-talker, that always managed to reduce prices for us substantially?

I’ve seen the ugly and the beautiful sides of both countries I visited – and I loved them both. Again don’t mind the cliché, but truly it isn’t the destination at the end that’s important, the most important has to be the journey itself. In the span of 2 short weeks I’ve gained twenty times more over there than what I’ll gain in Malaysia should I decide to rot with my dull, dreary routine in the same 2 weeks.

I’ve met the children of the world in a condensed journey; I’ve met diverse cultures; I’ve met the natural, perpetual human greed; I’ve met an ex-drug dealer; I’ve met a Cantonese-speaking grandmother who sold me my Vietnamese hat in Saigon; I’ve met a Vietnamese family in Dalat who smiled continuously at us and tried to communicate to us, and failing to do so, we communicated in the universal languages that are smiling and laughing; I’ve met a cynical, comical blonde-dyed Canadian-Chinese; I’ve met ladyboys; I’ve met friendly fellow travellers; I’ve met prostitutes; I’ve met the kindest and friendliest tour guide in the world; I’ve met children begging and selling us non-essential items; I’ve met my growing love of the world and travelling, essentially.

As per my favourite quote that applies, “The world is not beautiful; therefore it is.”