Everything filed under: 'Asia 2005'

Down in the mouth

I’m aware that this won’t be very exciting for anybody but me (and possibly my Mum, who will work herself into a frenzy about 3rd World medical facilities) but I’ve just been to the dentist and it was WONDERFUL!

There’s something quite unnerving about letting strangers stick sharp things into your mouth and scrape around, but this time I’m glad I did. I’d been bothered for a couple of days with red gums and was becoming increasingly manic about the implications of them. As I get older I become more anxious, more of a hypochondriac. Any headache has me reaching for the guidebook’s health section to read that I have either the first signs of typhus, typhoid, Hep A, B or C, malaria, dengue, tetanus, diptheria, bilharzia, arachnophobia, yellow fever, polio or Crohn’s disease. Normally it’s nothing worse than a hangover, but it doesn’t stop me worrying.

So off I popped. Down the road from my hotel is a boutique dentist’s surgery with a very attractive receptionist. So I popped in for a check-up and came out one and a half hours later with six new fillings and a numb face.

I had always prided myself on the state of my teeth. Previous trips to the dentist over the past few years have never lasted longer than 15 minutes. I’d get a little badge that says “I was brave” and compliments on a perfect set of incisors. So perhaps I had been lulled into a false sense of security, even overconfidence, about my oral health.

It took three minutes and six sharp stabs to identify cavities I never knew I had. I suppose if you poked me in the eye with a sharp stick it would be sensitive as well, but there were definitely painful spots that contrasted with the non-painful spots either side of them.

It was unlike any dental appointment I’ve ever had (the last one was over two years ago) but I remember fillings being metallic, slimy tasting and liable to stick out like a nun at an orgy. These this time involved a little bit of paste and an ultra-violet gun. I got pricked twice by a syringe with a bent nib (a novelty in itself) and didn’t feel a thing.

To combat the red gums I had a “scaling and fluoride polishing – Full Mouth” and my molars are shining like cats’ eyes. You can’t even see the fillings. The price was the best thing – 4500 baht, 92 euros or 63 quid – and teeth 14, 15, 16, 24, 25 and 47 are good as new.

So don’t forget to floss, children, and for dental work of any gravity, head off to the airport …

12/07/2005 | Asia 2005 | 1 Comment

Wuss

I’ve wussed out. I write to you from Bangkok, where I fled two days ago after losing myself in Hanoi. I’m not alone. I’ve been exchanging emails with fellow losers and have counted two comments about arriving in (and leaving) Hanoi. April said “I really had enough of Vietnam as well, they are fucking crazy and I cannot believe I managed to get out of the place alive.” Meanwhile, Olivier wrote to me and said “Ouais ben, je viens juste d’arriver a Hanoi .. and I only want one thing .. get the hell out … as I was telling you before, I’m just totally bored of vietnam …”

Nothing wrong with Hanoi per se, it just comes at the wrong end of 2000 km overland. It’s a bit like Ho Chi Minh City, a lot colder, just as charmless. It’s got the pitfalls of a big city with very few of the benefits. There was some lovely beer. A lot of the folk were terrific. A lot of them were less terrific. I was sick of saying “no … because NO …” and paying up to 20 times face value for stuff. The food in Vietnam was some of the best I’ve ever had anywhere. A lot of places had taken both chicken and egg off the menu (I don’t know which one came off first.) Vietnamese pork is unlike any I’ve eaten anywhere else. Ditto the tea, although more than a pot can be a strong laxative. Ditto the coffee – world-beating. I bought a percolator. Unsure of what to match with the pearls I bought, I picked up a tea-set. Apparently I should have been looking for a twinset, but I don’t know what a twinset looks like.

Also had to invest in a new bag to lug around my new toys. Rather like the Buddha, perhaps the shell-embossed chopsticks and matching case will be less exciting in the cold light of day. Vietnam also had some great pith helmets, but I persuaded myself I could do without them (and am now regretting it.)

So nothing funny has happened, nothing to make you chuckle. I got detained at a bank in Hanoi for suspected fraudulent use of travellers’ cheques. The teller was convinced the signature on my passport was different to the one I was supplying. So they took photocopies of my passport, visa, plane ticket, driving license and made me sit down in a back room and write out my signature 20 times, twice for each cheque. Having taken note of where I was staying and satisfied themselves that I am me, they let me go with a cheery “please come back soon!”

I took a taxi to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum to look at the old man’s body. The cabbie stiffed me with a rigged meter and when I got there it was shut, so I walked around the outside and then got stiffed again on the way back five minutes later. Good job I cashed the cheques, I suppose.

12/06/2005 | Asia 2005 | No Comments

Briefly, Big Buddha

There is a six foot, 150kg Buddha, hand-carved from local wood in the shop opposite my hotel. It has my name on it. I watched it being finished (it’s a masterpiece) and for only $750 including postage and packing, a steal. It would look serene in the corner of our appartment, casting its patronly eye over our comings and goings. In fact, Mrs K would like it so much I’ll surprise her with it, a belated Christmas present to liven up late winter.

***

Picture this …

One cold Saturday morning in February, post-holiday blues well established, drizzle of sleet out the window. The phone rings. It’s a man speaking rough, Antwerpse Flemish. Something to pick up, apparently, at the port. Bloody heavy, he says, will need a large van and possibly a crane to pick it up. Doesn’t know what it is, customs papers say wooden carving, origin Vietnam. “Matt, do you know anything about this?”
“Yes dear, thought I’d surprise you with a life-size Buddha carving from the East.”
“You fucking what??”

And so, three weeks later we have organised a crane, a van, and two men to pick it up for us. The shipping company are charging custody fees. Mrs K and I are no longer speaking. The transport costs more than the carving. I have to go to Antwerp and sit in the rain for three hours while it’s cleared through customs. The customs officials split it open to check there’s no contraband stuffed inside. They put it back together with insulation tape. Arriving back in Brussels, the Buddha’s not looking so serene in the Belgian light. Worse, there’s no hope in hell that it’s going up the stairs, so it sits in the lobby of the building for six months, being pissed on by passing cats and rats. And more than that, it taunts us, laughing at my inadequacies. The landlord evicts us for causing a permanent fire hazard. By now the story of the Buddha is famous, a “standing joke” between friends, the humour hiding their disgust at my thoughtlessness. Two months later and I am single and homeless, accompanied only by a Buddha too heavy to move. I am a target for drunks, weirdos and curious children. I catch my death on the icy city streets. Buddha looks on, laughing …

***

Considering the implications of this purchase, I run the idea by Mrs K. She replies, “$750 on a buddha????????? Please refrain from buying anything until I arrive.”

I wonder if it’s too late to cancel the order …

11/30/2005 | Asia 2005 | No Comments

I want your dong!

In Hoi An, halfway up the right-hand side of Vietnam, a Paris of the East. Hoi An is renowned for its cut-price tailors. My memory shall be the rain. It’s got progressively wetter as I’ve progressively progressed north. I’ve yet to invest in a poncho or umbrella, but I think it’s only a matter of time. Time is forcing me to type fast as power-outages are common. My speling wlk not fsufferf, thouhg.
I’ve been on a spending spree. I followed a girl on a bicycle (first time since I was twelve) to her aunty’s shop for my first fisting (my speling wlk not fsufferf) for a pair of suits and a couple of shits (my speling etc.). They gave me coffee, compliments and a Next catalogue. I ordered two suits and two shirts. I can happily say I now look like a high-street mannequin. I’m off to a second shop for a second fitting once the rain has stopped dripping on my keyboard and hopefully this time will be dapperer than ever, my suits chosen from a year-old copy of Men’s Health. (I know.)
Five suits (including one safari suit – they refused to do it for me in powder-blue, muttering something about professional integrity,) four shirts and a winter coat for a couple of cents over 300 euros. Not that I’d risk them at the dry-cleaners, though.
I was worried about being taken to the cleaners here, but have enjoyed fixed pricing and fair-trade. The first shop were mighty pushy, though. I learnt to sell things in Malta, when I touted timeshare to the world. It was a skill I soon forgot, and not nearly as effective as the sometimes doe-eyed, sometimes cheeky and sometimes just plain aggressive Vietnamese Close. In Saigon it was “Motorcycle? Marijuana?” In Dalat, “Where you go? I take you.” In Nha Trang, “Motorbike? You very handsome … I suck you?” Here in Hoi An is the honest and direct “You BUY something?” normally followed with “Why NOT?” If you do succumb, as I did this afternoon, you get a sweet nod of thanks, followed by “You BUY something MORE???”
***
Most blogs are barred in Vietnam by the big IT department in Hanoi, along with various other websites like MSN Groups and the recruitment website of the British Army (well, my thoughts have been to the future …) I can’t see this blog from anywhere here, which means I can’t post pictures, so I’ll have to give you a link  here. Lots of pretty Shakespeare-worship ones and the like. Soon off to Hanoi for more big-city shenanigans …

11/28/2005 | Asia 2005 | No Comments

Cool Shalimar and the Bum Gun

On the inside door of the toilet in my family home is a copy of the Bristol Stool Form Scale. It has six pictures of turds of varying viscosity. It appeals to our sense of humour, a low-tech version of ratemypoo.com. To my relief, after turbulent intestinal times in Thailand, my offerings have calmed and settled at around Type 3 to 4.

Thailand truly is the best place to have the shits. Next to the toilet, occasionally alongside the bog-roll and occasionally replacing it, sits the Bum Gun. The Bum Gun is a high-pressure hose with a trigger, identical to those you wash your car with, plumbed into the cistern. When you’ve done, you blast (like a portable bidet), dry off with a single sheet of paper and go on your way. If you’re going 10 times a day, it’s considerably more comfortable than wiping with scratchy tracing paper. I’m truly missing it, Vietnam has fewer. The Bum Gun is a modern version of the bucket and scoop, which you still see everywhere that doesn’t have a Bum Gun. Bit trickier, that one, especially if you’re wearing anything below the waist.

I am gobsmacked that I haven’t mentioned the Bum Gun sooner. But there it is, preserved as one of the defining memories of my tour. Allegedly if you know what you’re doing and have really high pressure you can be a bit more thorough and self-administer an enema. Something best left to the professionals, unless you want river water starting its own eco-system in your gut.

Speaking of rumblings, I stayed in the very cold and very quaint Dalat for three days. The second night I took to my bed early (I had been coughing and clucking, ruffling my feathers a little) and was settling down to sleep when my whole body shook. It was like a palpitation that started in my feet and carried up to my shoulders and neck. As soon as I noticed it, it had gone. Then it happened again five minutes later. And again. I was a little worried. It took me a good ten shakes to realise that my bed was rumbling, not me, in unison with the traffic on the road outside. There’s me, three floors up, insulated behind double glazing in a room with a carpet, and the bed shakes at the passing of anything bigger than a bicycle.

I am now in Nha Trang, which is a beach and a picturesque one, but the weather is not kind to us. It’s rainy season and the swell on the water is impressive enough to put me off diving for fear of more internal turmoil. Consequently there’s little to do, other than meet folk and share stories. I picked a restaurant on the basis of its flyer on my first night in town. “Mai Anh Restaurant,” the flyer read. “Your satisfaction is our food.” But the clincher was further down the page: “Fun for single people and kids (Tom and Jerry Cartoons.)” I went as a single person and enjoyed the cartoons very much, interrupted only briefly by meeting people. As these things so often turn out, the next day I found I had agreed to submerge myself in four feet of non-organic mud before jumping in hot mineral springs. The mud-baths proved to be a great conversation-starter and I was happy to have 14 new friends to eat dinner with that night. I missed the cartoons a little, though.

***

“No prostitution, opium or other social evils allowed in the rooms.”

“Viet Nam Customs – forbidden: children’s toys having negative effects on personality development, social order and security.”

***

Front desk tried to talk me out of staying at their hotel. They told me that yes, they did have a room but they were terribly sorry, it was very expensive. Disappointed, I thought I’d look at where I wouldn’t be sleeping and asked to see the room. Wow! Teak floorboards, scented candles, air-con, mini-bar the size of a house, sea-views, enormous bathtub, room service, free breakfast, 80-channel television and most importantly, really tasteful, done out like a French planter’s villa at the height of the Indochine period. Downhearted, I asked the price.

At 20 dollars a night, I think I might stay here forever …

11/25/2005 | Asia 2005 | No Comments

Plagiarism and love affairs

The bus journey to Dalat was a bit of an ordeal. Eight hours, two speeding fines, one puncture and a series of seat-hugging hairpin bends. The views, however, were spectacular. Dalat is delightful. I arrived late last night and found Saigon Nite, a bar with a glowing visitor book and pool-shark of an owner. He also trounced me comprehensibly at Connect 4. I left happily with low self-esteem.

Today I walked 1400 kilometres, my “Diesel” runners now broken in and my feet broken up. I learnt that “karaoke” is a euphemism for going to the toilet. I drank poo-coffee, cà phê chồn, the beans ingested and evacuated from the insides of a weasel. Every other house on the road up had large drying mats layered with coffee beans in the driveway. Life could be worse than living, drinking and working coffee. I am conducting an illicit, one-sided and highly satisfying love-affair with Vietnamese coffee.

My hike today reminded of a Sussex summer (e.g. it was fucking freezing) and verdant beyond belief. There’s a big lake (circumference: 450 km) that I trekked around, which was gratifying despite the water being the colour of mud. There’s a golf course. They make strawberry jam and sell it by the road. There are lots of domestic tourists (although unlike Sussex they’re keen to have their photos taken with the foreigners. In Eastbourne the closest the locals come to interacting with the foreign tourists is when they’re nicking their handbags.)

On my last day in Saigon I toured the Cu Chi tunnels and Holy See of Cao Daism. Cao Daism is a religion based on Taoism, Catholicism and Buddhism. They also recognise other prophets such as Mohammed, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare and Victor Hugo. I have tried long and hard to come up with a Caodaistic version of the Lord’s Prayer in French iambic pentameter, set to music. You’ll be pleased to hear I’ve given up.

We spent about an hour and a half out of the bus, five and a half hours on it. When our guide wasn’t trying to get in the pants of a Danish girl three times his size, he was talking incessantly. A typical interjection might go something like this:

“Good morning ladies and gentlemen, good morning Vietnam. (Snigger) If you look out the window, you know window? Window? Yes? You know window? You see the traffic is very busy. The traffic is very busy. Out of the window(?) the traffic is busy. You know? This because many Vietnamese people, you know(?) going places. Maybe they’re going to shops, or work, or to a party, a wedding party perhaps, you know? You know wedding? Wedding, yes? So maybe a wedding party, or shops, or just going to meet friends. Maybe they have boyfriends and girlfriends, you know? Maybe just meet friends, normal friends. Not boyfriends or girlfriends. Or maybe they go to a wedding(?) party. The roads are very busy. In your countries, you know, you have roads. Roads, yes? In Vietmanmycountry we have roads but not like your country, yes? In Vietnammycountry the roads very … busy … with people going places. Maybe a wedding(?) or shops or visit boyfriend … etc”

This went on all day. Everybody was too polite to ignore him. He invited us to join him on a three-day tour of the Mekong Delta but didn’t have many takers.

***

Just read Self by Yann Martel and it blew me away. Seriously, the best piece of fiction I’ve read in ages (and I’ve read more than 25 books since arriving in Asia.) The following is lifted straight from the pages of the book. I’m sure it’s legally dubious to quote it here, but if somebody buys it and reads it I’ll feel atoned …

“Travelling alone is like an extended daydream. You catch all the sights, you watch the people, you admire the scenery, all the while inventing your own company and your own scenarios, on your own time and at your own pace. It’s the only way to travel, if you can stand the regular loneliness, which often I couldn’t. But thank God there were the easy friendships of fellow travellers, friendships that lasted an hour or three days, a meal or a train ride, that were a gold-mine of travel lore and useful information, that always started with “Where are you from?’ and ended, when you felt like turning left, not right, with a simple, honest “Bye.” ”

***

Bye.

11/21/2005 | Asia 2005 | No Comments