Vietnam Part Six: Mai Chau continued

We spent the next two days in the Thai village of Mai Chau (referred to as one of the minority villages in Vietnam), where we stayed with a family in a stilt house. I tried to find out why they are called minority villages - not when I went there, just now as I was typing this, but decided who cares? It's what they are called. The village has limited supplies of water and electricity. These services were only available during certain hours of the day, but thanks to Eskom, I was well trained for this.

What follows is a list of Awesomeness that occurred during those two days:

My hand and ankle got bitten and decided to swell - the ankle so that I couldn't walk properly, the hand was so big you couldn't see my knuckles for two days.

Even without electricity our host family was still able to concoct mountains of the best food we had in Vietnam.

Shower - well, there wasn't one. There was a concrete bathing room with a massive tin tub that would be filled when the water was on, and a plastic scooper that you would dunk and then splash yourself. Possibly the best bathing experience of my life, especially as the water was cold, but the village was hot and humid. Although within five minutes I was icky sticky.

Toilet - squat (which Japan has gotten me used to), but this one required more use of a scooper to flush your waste product away.

The Beds- the house was one big room on stilts that the family did everything in, but at night sleeping areas would be partitioned with thin curtains. We then each had a futon with our own voluptuous mosquito net. In the candle light it was fairy princess heaven and what I had always wished for in a bed when I was a child.

I saw fireflies for the first time in my life. They are incredible creatures, for which faerie lights are a pale substitute. I would like to invite any fireflies and their glow worm mates looking for a home, to come and live with me and be my loves.

Waking up naturally at 5am. No electricity at night. Not a whole lot to do. Early Sleepytime, plus lots of walking = super happy sleep cycle.

Walking tour of the village by our hostess, which included a super scary climb up to a cave. A way awesomer cave than the one Sexy Mexican David took us to. We switched off the flashlight and blew out the candle and sat in solemn silence contemplating the darkness and the madness that would descend if you tried to do this longer than 5 minutes.

They had hammocks - Ah hammocks! Another childhood fantasy of mine that was thwarted by too-small gardens or trees that insisted on being in the wrong place or parents that thought the money would be better spent on new school shoes. Mr S got a cold on the second day and decided to stay at the house and rest in one of the hammocks. His ass decided to make a hole so big, it split the hammock in two.

Cycling - While Mr S was recuperating and killing hammocks, Mr N and I decided to take a bike ride through the village. We spent a lot of time shopping in the more touristy area, and then decided to head back. I made the mistake of entrusting our route to Mr N, who decided it would be "fun" to ride through the rice paddies. Unfortunately, rice paddies are not meant to be biked through, and the wee walking paths quickly become unnavigable, which resulted in us having to carry the bikes a fair way and me screaming expletives to the bugs that were planning an invasion of my skin. Later, when recovering with a beer, I pretended that it had all been a good laugh - I wanted to seem adventurous and high spirited and not afraid to carry a bicycle unnecessarily through a rice paddie when there was a perfectly good road only meters away. However, Mr N, should you be reading this, I lied.

Vietnam Part Five: Mai Chau

We catch a taxi from the backpackers to Ha Dong bus stop, or bus station - we're not exactly sure which. The driver deposits us in the dust with a wave of the hand that Ha Dong is somewhere Over There. We head to Over There, but the people at Over There tell us that this is not Ha Dong. We walk a little further down the road, and return to Over There and from Over There we think we see a sign for Ha Dong on the opposite side of the road. We ask the people at Over There if Ha Dong is across the road. They tell us `Yes, it is Over There` (Over There now having moved to the opposite side of the road). We cross to the other side and are back at Over There. We try to read the bus schedule at this Over There, but decide to seek refuge in the bank next to Over There where a lovely lady tells us which bus to get onto. The next Cowboy Bus that lasoos along, we hop onto. This makes the conductor very angry, but at least we are moving from Over There to Ha Dong.

A few minutes pass before I break Mr N's reverie at ruffin' it, to ask 'How will we know when we have got to Ha Dong?' Frantic questioning of fellow passengers ensues. Another lovely lady comes to our rescue and informs us that the Over There we just left was Ha Dong, and this bus is leaving Over There but not going to Ha Dong, because it was already in Ha Dong. Get off bus. Walk back to beginning. Discover that the place where the taxi driver (who we had been cursing as a useless sod) was Over There. Get onto bus. Weeee and away we go to Mai Chau.

We drive for two hours in a luxury upgrade of a South African minibus taxi. There is a steering wheel and the door only makes its surprise open sporadically. Plus, we have green velvet curtains.

We are shuffled off by an enterprising taxi driver (not the bus driver, another driver of a normal car) in a dusty town. We are now Taxi Central, as cars and motorcycle taxis swarm around us, each offering a dodgier deal the one before. A helpful shopkeeper - another lovely lady ( it seems all our heroes are female) saved us from the buzzers and helped us get onto the next bus that we needed.

The next two hours we bumpity bumped up the mountain road and I made friends with the refrigerator that was being transported in the aisle. We abruptly took a pee break when the bus ran out of petrol and Mr N, Mr S and I discussed the Nature of Smoking, and addiction in general.

Mai Chau finally greets us. Hungry and tired and full bladdered, we are approached by an enthusiastic businessman who wished us to stay at his house. Distrustful and grumpy, we attended to out physical needs before agreeing to a no-strings-attached viewing.

We agreed and we speed along on the back of motorcycles, the mountains opened up to rice paddies and a wooden village and our city slicker hearts were sold. Finally, we had stepped onto a slightly less beaten track and could feel superior in our rusticness when we told our stories back home.

Vietnam Part Four: Halong Bay

We leave for Halong Bay the next morning with a tour the backpackers had organized. A three hour bus ride, during which we meet Alex - a solo traveler, with a well-worn beard and who had been forced to use women's deodorant, male roll-on either being non-existent or ineffectual in South East Asia. However, even in hygiene obsessed Japan, this seems to be a common complaint. I have heard tell that it is due to different swear glands and thus Asian people don't require deo. My morning bus ride to school would like to disagree.

We take our toilet break at a touristy rest-stop, that is happy to part you with your money for trinkets and over-priced food. Mr N, Mr S and I had been contemplating what Japanese tourists would think of a place like Vietnam - so contrary to all they hold dear (dirty, noisy, people talk to strangers) and we were to find an answer. We had spotted the Japanese tour buses on the road and were already aware of their tendency to travel in packs on neatly organized tours. However, we were unaware of the extremity of the situation until we reached the aforementioned rest-stop. There were three souvenir stores in the building. After acquiring refreshments to fill the emptied bladders, we took a gander and were startled to see a banner in Japanese. Not just kanji (which is still used a little in Vietnam). Full-on Japanese. An entire souvenir store just for Japanese tourists! With staff who spoke Japanese! And especially designed, individually wrapped omeyagi for them to take back to their co-workers to apologize for taking their paid leave. Because that's the whole point of traveling isn't it? To speak to people in the same language as home. To travel only with people from home. To be protected from the Big Bad World.

At Halong Bay we meet our tour guide, the unbelievably sexy Mexican David. He was the kind of sexy that would cheat on you with your best-friend on your bed, while you're in hospital recovering from brain surgery, and you would be the one who would end up apologizing.

We set out into the bay, the beauty of this incredible place only slightly marred by the plastic bags floating just below the surface. The Mr.s jumped off the side of the boat (I refrained due to Body Issues) which resulted in Mr N holding the easy access flap of his boxers for the remainder of his afternoon, having only brought one pair with (yeah, and he criticised us for packing too much luggage!). We kayaked to a cave - which sounds faaaar more thrilling than it actually was. The kayak was rushed because we had to get to the cave, and Sexy Mexican David failed to inform us of quite how far this adventure was. The cave was disappointing, and the lagoon (contrary to the pamphlet), was about as big as a guy's penis who insists on repeatedly informing you how big it is.

In the late afternoon, we returned to the boat for dinner and Forced Fun (aka a drinking party, which was really set-up to increase the alcohol sales on the boat and get Sexy Mexican David laid). We soon discovered that the majority of the other people on the tour were not recent university graduates, but rich Brits who had barely escaped high school. The evening degenerated after that. We escaped to the top deck to hang out with the crazy Israeli paratrooper and the South Americans with unbelievably good teeth. I watched a woman confront not being as young as she thought she was at the bottom of a vodka tonic. The party raged on until the wee hours. I turned in at midnight feeling that enforced fun was a little more fun when I was younger.

I was the first on deck the next morning, and soaked up the splendour of Halong Bay feeling as though I was the only person in the world cradled between the cliffs of broken teeth(with the exception of the other boats a few meters away). Breakfast was disappointing, but I did acquire the info that Sexy Mexican David had, indeed, had carnal knowledge with one of the British girls.

The evening brought a return to Hanoi, and I was given the best donut I have ever had - small and round and the perfect balance of crispy outside and mushy inside, with an aftertaste of coconut that lingered in the mouth like an ex-lovers smell on shared sheets. I searched the streets for more in the coming days, but, alas, no.

My love affair with Hanoi deepened on during the night, but an uncomfortable voice wonders if the experience isn't a little too safe, a little too packaged, a little too sterile, that I need to see more as I walk the streets - take in the whores and hawkers rather than cocooning myself in a mental NO. How little we trust ourselves to deal with consequences.

Vietnam Part Three: Ho Chi Mihn continues and Hanoi begins

We woke up to a dripping air con and scrubbed the travel grim off our skins before heading into the hustle of Saigon. We walked to a nearby market, and disappeared into the aisles of sweatshop merchandise. Breakfast began with durian and mangosteens, followed by spicy pho that soothed the acheyness of exhaustion with chili and lime, and the day was finally kicked into gear with iced coffee. It was love at first slurp. Ah! Strong, syrupy Vietnamese coffee, beans the colour of dark chocolate, glossy and sticky. "With milk" means condensed milk - a style that hits the spot with a bang (this is not easily admitted, being a strong supporter of the "Sugar does not belong in coffee club").

A gander through the stalls, then back on the street, where we get picked up by two motorcycle taxis. We were hesitant at first, having being warned about the risk of being ripped off, but they won us over in the end (the leader having some family connection to an American GI that made him incoherently entertaining).

The ride was better than any merry-go-round or fair ground attraction that could ever be invented. Clinging onto the hips of my driver, I let him do his thing, and suddenly I was in a movie, with the baddies chasing us in hot pursuit.

Next stop: War Memorial. We were suitably sober, but then spent more time in the souvenir shop than actually looking at the displays. Mr N and I had a half-hearted debate over the nature of evil - my main argument being that war is insanity, and how much responsibility can individual soldiers be expected to carry, when their generals are aiming to "bomb the Vietnamese back into the Stone Age"?

Back onto the streets, where we learn the trick to crossing the road lies not in waiting for the robot that will never change, but simply to step into the on-coming traffic and walk - slowly and directly - to the other side.

We wander for hours, lapping up the free entertainment provided by the anniversary of the Vietnamese victory, then finally clamber into a taxi. The driver tries to rip us off, but is too confused in his highness to pull it off.

The next morning we fly to Hanoi, which is an unbelievable smoothie of Europe and Asia. The architecture is an insane mix of skinny, multi-storeyed houses that have been cut from different buildings and dumped next to each other - like a cake made of slices from eight different cakes - with Tarzan vines swinging between them.

I thought the backpackers would be a welcome break from Japan, but it was strange being around so many foreigners - especially young Australians and Brits trying to assert their Independence after school or university by acquiring a cancerous tan, not washing their hair and wearing large amounts of paisley, whilst making Skype calls to anxious parents that, yes, they have been able to find Western food.

After settling in and a shower, we amble into the night and gawp at the group in the common room watching satellite TV. We aim for the chaos of the night market and eat more street food, and return some hours later to the same group, still watching TV, but now in the possession of a large quantity of pizza.

Vietnam Part Two: Donging Ho Chi Mihn

Our plane lands at 11.20pm, and we make our way past the dour faced Immigration officials. I always tightrope the border of Panic Attack whenever I wait in those ques. Even though I know there is no logical reason why I should be stopped, I keep expecting Gandalf to jump our from behind the counter and inform me: "Yooooou shaall nooot paaaaas!" If you are (as I am) inclined to doubt the sanity of humans and are (as I am, unfortunately) one of that species, you have to doubt your own sanity too, and leave room for the idea that you may have multiple personalities that you are unaware of - that it is not the 24 hours of no sleep and airline food that have left your digestive tract as clogged at the N1 to Pretoria during peak traffic, which the municipality thought would be a super time to kick roadworks into full swing, after a taxi has collided with a bakki (rather, it is the result of one of The Voices that have found it amusing to thrust condoms of Colombian Gold where angels fear to tread).

By midnight we meet the taxi organized by the backpackers, after waiting for Mr S's luggage and trusting that the money exchange didn't rip us off. We all enter Ho Chi Mihn (still Saigon to everyone but the people would make the signs and official city stationary) millionaires. With the amount of sex we were offered over the course of the next week, it is fitting that the currency is called the dong.

The heat slaps us in the face, and even at this hour, the streets still whiff of syrupy chaos. The drive to the hostel shrugs off the dust of exhaustion, and the new city calls to us. We dump our bags and head into the night. First, Mr N is determined to find pho. Tick. Then, we head to the Crazy Buffalo - a bar on the main corner of the backpacker's strip. Tables spill onto the sidewalk and a gargantuan buffalo head of neon lights, puffing its nostrils in light fantastic smoke, looms above the entrance. I suspect that it is really the lair of a supernatural villain in a B rated fantasy series and that Buffy is just around the corner.

A beer feeds the exhaustion, and soon we are all in bed. No one sets an alarm. The air-conditioning is a blessing - until it begins to drip during the night, which sends Mr S to the insomniacs asylum.

Vietnam Part One: The Road to Uncle Ho

During the first week of May, the natives of this island celebrate a string of public holidays commemorating, well, I'm not quite sure what, but it's commonly referred to as Golden Week. It's "golden" primarily because it allows one to take a week off without actually having to take a week off. A few months ago, Mr N, Mr S and I decided that we would take the opportunity to escape our daily drudgery with a week in Vietnam. Mr S had not traveled outside of Japan since he stranded himself here almost two years ago, with the exception of a visit to the Home Republic, and Mr N sought a last adventure before his impending return to the New World, where he will no doubt build an army of robots to ensure that all humans eat their vegetables, refrain from all vices and never sneeze again.

Our journey began with a six hour overnight bus ride from Sendai to Tokyo. We had opted for the cheaper, and therefore less comfortable, bus - a decision we would later come to regret as we were driven to the brink of sleep deprived madness and homicidal inclinations.

The windows were curtained in a clash of blue and yellow and purple fabric that seems to plague public transport and budget hotel rooms. I was seated next to a woman who sighed repeatedly (interestingly, when Mr S and I had gone to purchase the tickets, the cashier inquired if the third person was male or female. The masculine confirmed, they proceeded to seat me next to another woman, presumably for fear that I would drive a man to wanton abandon, resulting in disastrous and unmentionable consequences. Unmentionable because I can't think of a suitably witty punchline here). Where was I before the parentheses? Oh, yes! The sighing woman! She was trying to tell me through the violent, tense release of air how annoyed she was with my presence - that I should deign to have been designated a ticket next to her seat.

She wore a leopard print shirt over black pants with too many zippers. She was years beyond looking good in this statement of coolness (but I doubt anyone would, except in the 80s, when standards were lower). I didn't get a good look at her when she twaddled on to the bus, but I could sense the presence of a few extra kilos (although, I may have been projecting) and suspected that she sold make-up at cosmetic Tupperware parties. She enjoys white wine out of a box and laughs a little too loud. Divorced, but believes in the Hope of Pop Love thanks to the Japanese version of Oprah (aka J-Oprah). She was hoping for someone - a similarly situated laydee (not a gaijin) - to sit next to, so that she wold be distracted from her return home to a romance novel collection and mid-range chocolates.

It was at this point in my presumptuous musings about my neighbour that the lights were turned off, and everyone was well-behaved and went to sleep. Except for me.

Hours of dozing later, we were dumped in Toyko at 5.30am. We stumbled past the drunk salary men who had failed to score the previous night into Tokyo station just as the first trains arrived, and watched the deserted platform swarm with hundreds of synchronized suits and heels that had no business being up this early on a public holiday. Hours were whittled away as we hunted for a palatable breakfast that would not offend our collective dietary fussinesses. Already the sleep starvation was taking its toll, as we wondered the streets of Shibuya, snipping and biting each other's heels.

I erupted as Mr S and Mr N sauntered while debating the finer points of Japanese grammar and schedules were delayed. My concerns over time management were met with, "Chill the Fuck out" - which only stirred the madness more.

Twelve hours after arriving in Tokyo, we finally boarded the plane and prayed for sleep to descend in Economy Class. No one was listening.

Bad Days

So. It's been a while since I've written here. March was more cold weather and April is skipping along with Winter holding on until the bitter end. But, today was officially the worst day I've had since I've come here.

It was no one big catastrophic event. No bad break-up. No major work screw-up. No tragedy by most definitions. Part of me even feels a little bit guilty for feeling so shitty. Instead, it was the combined effort of many little things that finally had me running to the bathroom to cry (I'm not proud of it, but I did manage to do it quietly).

Other teachers that sprung lessons on me unexpectedly. Not being told that today was staff photo day-the one time I haven't washed my hair, or put on make-up, or brought a suit jacket to work and so will look like the frumpy, rubbish foreigner. This is on top of weeks of loneliness, and days of not speaking to anyone else because of language barriers, and not knowing what I'm supposed to be doing because nobody fucking tells me anything, and a weight problem I didn't use to have, and missing dust and noise and chaos and sunshine that feels like walking through apple juice, and always being tired, and not knowing what comes after this, and why did I come here in the first place?

chocolate dream lovers and obligations gone amiss

I emerged from my apartment at 7pm, having finally slopped myself off my living room floor and taken a shower, because I was hungry and I smelled like closing time at a pub. But, mainly because I was hungry. Oh, I also got dressed; public nudity generally not being acceptable, even though it might make picking a mate a far less risky business (clothing being a deceptive art, often resulting in disapointment, especially if you're not drunk enough). Although, the most time I currently spend naked is the ten minutes I spend in the shower, or as I hop in front of my impotent heater when I get dressed.

The supermarket is alive with the voices of harpies screeching out Valentine's specials on chocolate! chocolate! chocolate! For a country that is thought of as the waistline haven, they do like their sugar. I don't know how they stay so slim. There are fried, sugarpumped, fibreless orgies everywhere. At first, I thought Japanese women just didn't eat. Now I realize that they have secret glands that take all the excess calories and pump them into their hair to be used for Anime hairstyles.

I loathe Valentine's Day. It is a cursed day, invented to make everyone miserable. Singletons are reminded how lonely and pathetic they are, and how long it has been since they've had a good, solid fuck. Sex has become a fantastical creature, perfected by the imagination, meant for people with smaller bums and bigger breasts. All the disappointments, the tequila cocks and the premature ejaculations are erased from the mind; until all that is left is an Eden of smooth skin and mind obliterating orgasms that you may not enter.

And for those dating or in a relationship, someone is going to lie about how it means nothing to them ( but really it's very, very, very important) and someone will believe them (thus fucking up royally for not being psychic, and hence being cast out of aforemeantioned Eden). There's just too much Goddamned pressure.

Valentine's Day in Japan is a little different. Firstly, it's only women that give out chocolate to men. Wow! If this had been the case when I was a teenager, I would have been spared many years of high school humiliation, when the only Valentine's gifts I received were from a well-meaning, but misguided mother.

However, this tradition is not without its drawbacks. They have a term "giri chocolate", meaning "obligation chocolate"-meant for all the men in their life that politeness dictates they give to (like work colleagues). Although, this sounds like a recipe for a giri chocolate being interpreted as a "I'll show you my sushi, if you'll show me yours" chocolate - which results in the That guy in the office (the one whose hair is a permanent oil slick and smells like wet clothes) thinking that the Wikkan Love Spell he performed in his bathroom (he still lives with his mother) involving freshly squeezed semen and raw eggs, has actually worked. Leading to missing underwareand dead mice in your potplants. Ultimately ending in an untimely dismemberment (in a lace wedding dress, of course) in a bathtub as you're consumed over three weeks in the form of sausages, pies and sushi so that you may both be joined forever in wedded bliss.

Enjoy the silence

Japan is a lonely place. Lonely for foreigners living here. And, just as lonely for the natives - if the proliferation of pornography and iPods are anything to go by.

School has started again, although the students are still on vacation. Unless I wish to whittle away my paid leave on nurturing greasy hair and cheese melting techniques in my pajamas while I chain-smoke episodes of Qi (though I do believe that this is a very honorable way in which to spend my life), I have to occupy myyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy(crap! the y key has come lose again - an old injury from a Japanese textbook that was hurtled at my laptop)self for eight hours a day.

Conversation with the few co-workers that are at school is not really possible. OK, well, possible, yes. Painful, definitely. My smattering of Japanese just doesn't allow for it, and dialogue is usually comprised of strangled words, aching smiles and my "I have no idea what you're saying, but I'm just gonna go ahead and nod anyway" face.

Wikipedia has become my saving grace and Hellish Mistress (contraryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy to popular belief, not all ALTs are lazy louses).

So, I arrive home only to realize that I have had, at a push, five lines in today's script. Most of which was when I ran into a friend's girlfriend on my way out of the gym, and by then I was beyond conversation.

I find myself in strange territory. My previous job requirement was to do almost nothing but talk - to the point where I began to loath the sound of my own voice. Now, it's not quite sure what to do when it's called to the front. Like an indecisive politician, it gets stuck in the corridor until someone else takes over. Usually the proletariat, or very fashionable fascists.

I suspect that the Japanese are just as lonely too - trapped by their families and paper walls. So much of Freak Japan is built to escape; even if for a few squirts of time in a masturbation cubicle. The love hotels are temples to solitude with a chosen other. Alcoholism in women is increasing as housewives escape their prisons of boredom. iPods are shrines to freedom from everyone else.

To be a foreigner living in Japan is to thrust oneself into the lonely sphere of always being outside. To be Japanese is to be born into the loneliness of never being alone.

Of course, I could be completely wrong. Maybe they're all just fetish freaks polite enough to keep their J-POP to themselves.

Enjoy the silence.