Heaven & Hell & Heaven 09.03.10

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.

Tao te Ching #9

It has been said that travel brings out the best and the worst in people – not only behaviourally (God knows we haven’t seen the worst of me yet) but also coping mechanisms: anxiety, confidence, faith and lapses thereof, patience and absence thereof. Our mettle was tested today.

After another sublime sunrise north of Nha Trang just jam packed with visual pulchritude then a relatively quiet day at Jungle Beach Resort (2.5 stars), we prepared to take a minibus back to Nha Trang – then on to Hoi An on the 11.30 night train. That’s when the seams started to part. Sophie couldn’t find her wallet with credit cards and health card etc. We had to jump into the van and had another ulcer-inducing ride along the narrow, two-lane Viet highway. The golden moment was when a bus passing us on a solid line found itself in a Klingon death lock with an oncoming bus that was passing a truck. So we were two abreast and the oncoming juggernauts were two abreast, travelling at highway speed (did I mention the dozen or so remora-like motorcycles swarming around. Everyone just came to a screeching halt and things sorted out in seconds. No one seems to get pissed, they just move on. Letting emotions get control would be fatal in these conditions.

When we got to town we needed some cash to pay for train tickets. But the ATM scarfed down my first interac card (Sophie’s wallet is missing remember) None of the 5 ATMs in the two block area would give me any cash on my next card and then we found out our train had been booked for 7.26. It’s now 7.10 and we are halfway across town. I threw our US funds that we kept for emergencies at the vendor and we folded space to make our way across town. The driver used his horn, accelerator and a bit of ‘The Force’ to get there. With 30 seconds to spare we lunged into the crowded (but small) train station. I got shaken down by a station-vulture for my last greenback and we climbed onto the sleeper car.

The night train is called a ‘soft train’. I thought that referred to the bunks but apparently it means that the train is cleaned twice a year. The ‘hard train’ is cleaned less often(?!!!?). I wish I had taken a picture of the WC on the coach. The sliding cubicle door was very hard to lock and then almost impossible to open. The smell would have gagged a maggot. The train jerked back and forth like the fun-house at the old Red River Ex. Unflushed urine was sloshing around in the toilet bowl and spilling over the brim (see today’s Tao te Ching) and fetid urine was sluicing around on the embossed metal floor like bilge in the cloaca of a sailing ship. The 5’ square unventilated room was painted a colour that might be described as chartreuse except the stains modulated the green to some even scarier hues. It felt like something out of a horror film. The smell was beyond my imagination to describe.

We arrived in Hoi An around 5.30 am after cadging a ride from the Danang train station. After dropping our bags at a hotel we trudged over the nearby bridge to the local market that was already in full swing – fishermen lugging greasy pails of thrashing fish and crustaceans off their boats to the crowded vendor’s stalls. We jumped out of the path of motorbikes speeding down the fish-slime slick narrow aisles. There were some very ‘interesting’ smells. Soph and I found a beverage stall and downed a tumbler of hot,thick, sweet Viet coffee and another drink (meieia?) that tasted faintly like halva. It is sort of thick and sludge-grey, not pleasant to look at but very satisfying. A little later we ordered some exquisite fresh seafood Pho on a bed of virginally white vermicelli, fresh chives and coriander.

Back in heaven. Soph found her wallet, ATMs work like a charm, we ate two more superb meals. Really a perfect day all round.

Hoi An is a beeyootiful town. Ridiculously picturesque with French colonial buildings and beautiful efflorescences of mildew or mold on caramel coloured walls creating a profoundly pleasing result. Traffic is much lighter than other towns and food is outrageously good and cheap.

And so to bed.