I’ll be posting the rest of my Vietnam stories later. They’re mostly sitting on my iPad at the moment, and in fragmented IRC logs that I will piece together when I’m bored later. Since I gave out my website address to some people yesterday, they will probably be expecting a post and some photos of the day, so to the three lovely French tourists I met yesterday, Thomas, Axcell (I’m sure I spelt this wrong) and Catherine, here you go.
I hadn’t intended to come to Nha Trang. I didn’t even know what was here. I was just bundled into a car by my traveling companions and driven thousands of kilometers, the long way around the country to here in a taxi and then told in the morning that a boat trip to the islands had been booked for me. I thought “Islands ? I’ve lived half my life on islands, what would I want to see more of them for ?” but it turns out the fun of the trip wasn’t about the islands, it was about the tour. I don’t normally like tours as I prefer to travel alone on my own schedule, but on this occasion, it turned out to be unbelievably awesome.
We were squashed like sardines into a horribly overloaded minivan and headed down to the port where we got on one of many little blue boats, and headed out to sea. Our host, who called himself “Funky Monkey” which was also the name of the boat, was a brilliantly funny local who spoke many languages and kept us thoroughly entertained. As we left the dock he said “Welcome to Vietnam Airlines, please ensure your mobile phone is turned off and your seat belt is fastened as we are about to take off”. We laughed, but it got funnier. He then said that we were going to have karaoke later and thrust the microphone into Catherine’s face and suggested she sing, but she shook her head, and he said “Ahh no problem, we have lots of beer to fix that. Everyone drink lots. No beer, no fun. Drink a lot. Later, we swim with sharks. Only little ones… six or seven meters. But don’t worry. I will shoot any shark that looks at you. I am very good shooter. Just make sure you DON’T SWIM LIKE A SHARK. If you swim like a shark, I will shoot you too”.
He asked where everyone was from, and I was second up and proudly pumped my fist in the air and yelled “Straylya !” and he said “G’day mate”. The majority of the guests were from France, followed by Germany, China, and then Australia, of which I think there were four of us. One guy yelled out that he was from Vietnam, and our guide mutters “Fucking locals”. We got to the first island and went into the aquarium, which entertained the various Asians who acted like they’d never seen a live fish before. I wandered through in a few seconds and headed for the gift shop where I bought two gorgeous little dresses for my daughter Suki. I hope they are the right size, but I tried to err on the side of caution and got fairly large sizes. I would have spent lots more, but they didn’t accept credit cards and I had very little local money since I hadn’t had time to stop at the only Australian bank in the country back in Ho Chi Minh City when we were there.
We moved on towards the next island, and I had already chalked up several tally marks on my beer tab by this point. When we got there we were told everyone must swim and that anyone who stayed on the boat would pay a million dong penalty. I wasn’t that fussed on swimming but I had brought a towel for that purpose so what the hell. I climbed up onto the roof and dived off. The water was just beautiful. So warm and relaxing. It was clear, but a deep rich blue colour. I swam to shore and sat on a submerged rock for a while just watching everyone paddle around. It always amuses me how many people who come from small island nations can’t swim properly and need floatation devices. After that we headed off again and our guide stopped the boat in the middle of the ocean and folded down all of the seats into a huge table, and a feast was brought out. We all ate lots and talked, and I took lots of photos, and then the karaoke started.
Our host started with Australia and invited the nearby Australian guy up to sing Waltzing Matilda, who stumbled through it as if he wasn’t very familiar and he later admitted to me that he couldn’t really remember the words. Then he got Catherine up to sing Frère Jacques in French. Then amusingly I guess he didn’t know any German songs, so he got a German girl to sing Frère Jacques in German instead which I think she thought was pretty odd. He sang some other songs with people, and then got to the guy who had claimed to be from Vietnam, who stood up and admitted he was actually American. However, he was obviously very familiar with Vietnam because he sang THE most beautiful traditional Vietnamese song I have ever heard, and sitting there on this boat, floating in the middle of the ocean listening to this American sing the most beautiful Vietnamese song was truly amazing, and when he finished, we all cheered for ages because he was just such a pleasure and a surprise to us all. For the last song, our host says “Now we’re going to sing a song that represents everyone” and the band started up. As they started playing, I thought “I know that song… that’s …. that’s …. ‘What’s Up ?’ by Four Non Blondes”, which is one of my favourite songs. I had a lot of beer in me by this time, and I sang along very enthusiastically, as few other people knew the words.
To make things easier, I had been ordering my beers three at a time, and Catherine looked at my tally on the board with wide eyes, as I think it was up to close to twenty at this point. She pointed to another friend of theirs and says “He is a big drinker. But you have drunk twice as much as him ! You are impressive”. I laughed and opened another can. We stopped again for everyone to swim, but I was happy to stay on the boat this time. My friend back home in Australia was visiting her brother’s grave at this point and I went and asked our guide what you would say in Vietnamese to someone who was respecting a deceased family member and he couldn’t think of anything, so I asked him how to say “I miss you” and he said “Anh nho em”, and I passed that on to my friend hoping that it would mean something. My new friends had asked what I did for a living and I told them I was a computer programmer and one of them said “aahh, geek”, so I thought I’d show off just how geeky I was, and I pulled out my laptop and plugged my camera’s memory card in, and then wirelessly printed the photo I had taken of the three of them on my Polaroid printer, which they loved, and a few people around me looked very impressed and said they had no idea what I was doing or that you could do that. My Polaroid printer is so much fun to spin people out with like that. I took another photo of two German girls posing on the bow and printed one for them too which they were thankful for, and then we moved on to the next island.
I sank into a deck chair in the shade in front of the beach and closed my eyes for a bit and relaxed listening to the sound of the water, but eventually I decided to chat to the Vietnamese guy beside me who had the very non-traditional name of “Peter”. To say we had a lively conversation would be an understatement. We talked and we talked and we talked, mainly about politics and higher education. He told me that he had had to study abroad because while the education system in Vietnam was ok, you had to go elsewhere to attend university. I don’t recall where he said he’d gone, because I had about 25 beers under my belt at this point, but it was a fascinating conversation. I also asked him his views on living in a communist country since so many people seemed so proud of it and displayed the communist flag outside their houses. He admitted that he didn’t think it was so great at all, and we discussed the pros and cons of both communism and capitalism and eventually came to the conclusion that really, things weren’t that different between our countries, it mostly just came down to who owned what. It was great to talk to him, and he gave me a very interesting perspective on so many things, though I don’t remember a whole lot of the conversation now.
We headed back home and I finished my last few beers, bringing my total tally for the day to 31 beers, including the ones I bought on the island and the ones I’d had before leaving the hotel that morning. I was still pretty well in control though. When I got back to the hotel, I chatted online for a little before deciding to go out for dinner, since I had gotten a flyer for a cheap Indian restaurant that advertised beers for the equivalent of 40 cents Australian, but when I got there, I was too tired and full, and I drank half a beer, poked at my food, and ended up eating nothing but a little naan bread and then walking home.
All in all, it was an amazing day. Not because of what we saw or what we did, which was nothing special, but because of the amazing people. Hearing the American guy sing the beautiful song in Vietnamese was just mind-blowing. Talking to the french tourists was great fun, and having the fascinating discussion about politics and education with the local on the beach were all just amazing highlights of my trip so far, and I simply can’t describe to you how much I enjoyed meeting all these great people. That’s what traveling is about. It’s not about taking photos of buildings and mountains or buying souvenirs to take home. It’s about meeting amazing people from far away countries and hearing their perspective on life where they come from. Cheers to all of you for making that little boat tour such an amazing experience. And here are the best of the photos from the day.
Everyone I know right now is scattered all around the world.
