A random spew of emotions

So I'm now in Hoi An. I've ordered 2 pairs of shoes, one winter coat, 2 dresses and a pair of silk pyjamas (I'm most looking forward to the pyjamas :) they're navy blue with red shine Vietnamese silk with chinese patterns embroidered into the fabric). I'm rather behind on my budget but have stopped caring and figure I can't do too much damage in this part of the world. I have a persistent cold that alternates between a sinusy mind-bender and irritating phlegmy chesty cough. I have given up on my challenge to eat only Vietnamese food - not that it's bad, on the contrary, it's bloody fantastic, second only to Thai (nobody does red curry like the Thais). Today it rained continuously - torrential rain - from 11am to 8pm when it slowed to regular rain, then it got heavy again 15 mins later. It's still raining now (10:39pm), and the full moon festival was a no-show because of the weather. I haven't written in my journal since I started at Green Gecko.

I'm feeling a bit jaded. A bit over it. I miss my Cambodian kids, I miss my previous travel buddies, especially the longer-term ones. I miss my sister a lot. I miss cheese. I miss wholegrain bread. I miss kiwi music and English movies. I'd like to have one proper, good night's sleep that doesn't involve being too hot and sweating myself awake, or waking up at 6am when the motorbikes and local market set up shop outside my window. I'd like to not have to worry about finding a place to sleep, a place to eat, how much money to get from the ATM and how long it's gonna last me, or when was the last time I called my mother. I'd like to not have to be hyper vigilant about my valuables and personal belongings. I actually used a bike lock to chain my pack to the train bed while I slept.

I'd like to ask a question and get a straight answer. Actually, sometimes I just get a blank look so I've stopped trying to explain myself and just walk away instead. I'd like to see a price tag and take it at face value. I'd like not to have to bargain for everything; in my mind it's become a fight to pay the fair price for something, and you have to be a tough-ass ex-con streetwise fighter in Vietnam or you'll pay 7 times too much for everything. I'd like to go 1 day without being hassled "hello lady, where you go? You want suit? Look in my shop! Please sit down! Cheap cheap for you! Massage, spa, manicure? You want to eat?" The answer is NO thank you. (I always try to stay polite).

The latest one I'm getting here in Vietnam is "hello lady, where you from? You look like Vietnamese!" - except that I'm a head taller than all of you - which was fun the first time but I'm over having to explain that my mum's Chinese and my dad's Dutch and I live in NZ.

I'd like it to bloody well stop raining so I can take some photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hoi An is the most beautiful historical town I've seen in a long time. It's very Chinese (they have 1000 years of occupation to thank for that), lots of Chinese style temples and pagodas complete with courtyards & dragons on the roof. The people here are very superstitious with a Chinese flavour as well; tonight at dusk I saw lots of people burning papers in buckets outside their houses, lighting big wads of incense sticks and praying to their ancestors with offerings of rice and fruit, and lots of locals visiting the temples today. I wonder if it has anything to do with the lunar calendar (full moon tonight), i.e. burning old month's remnants to make room for good luck in the new month. They're very superstitious about the first customer of the day being lucky, just like in HK it's the best time of the day to nab a deal. It's a strange, comforting sense of familiarity to see all the Chinese influence everywhere. The town has Chinese letters all over it. But don't tell the Viets it looks Chinese - its a bit like saying that to a Taiwanese person. At dinner today the menu had a section for Hoi An specialties, where I found white rose, cao lau and "Huanh Thanh" which becomes "won ton" when you change it to pinyin. Also, "Trung Quoc" seems another meaningless word until you learn it's pronounced Chung Guo - meaning China (that's the mandarin pronunciation). So you can draw a lot of parallels. A lot of the time, if you didn't know you were in Vietnam you'd swear you were in China (well, the China of everyone's stereotypes anyway, I haven't been there yet but can let you know in a few weeks).

Another gripe - you'd think that having a roman alphabet, Vietnamese would be semi pronounceable, as opposed to Thai/Lao/Khmer where they have a collection of scribbles. OH NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO. Not only do they have 5 tones represented by accents - I can deal with that after all this time in Asia (by 'deal' I mean recognise and make absolutely no attempt to pronounce because I can't), but they have a whole SECONDARY set of accents that change how the vowel is pronounced. An "o" can be o, errr, oooo, aa, and the list goes on. So any letter can have 2 accents on it, and vowels can be combined into dipthongs of 2 or more vowels, and you've got a meltdown on your hands. Also, whoever mapped over the consonants must have been either a) dyslexic, b) retarded or c) playing a huge practical joke on the world and laughed all the way to his grave because d is pronounced as y, x as s, g as z, tr as ch... etc etc. So "Ao dai", the traditional Vietnamese dress with pants, is actually said "Ao yai". Go figure.

I'm really looking forward to Ewen's tour where everything will be pre-arranged, it's really keeping me going! "Just turn up and go with the flow". Sweeter words have never been spoken. Now I just have to make sure I get a visa for China before the tour starts (insert another long rant involving travel agents and embassies - I am not getting into that this time). Jason and Ewen have been really good with answering all my stupid questions - thanks guys!!

On the positive side, the food here is amazing. A bowl of pho bo ('faa baa' - see earlier rant about pronunciation - rice noodle soup with beef and herbs) or com ga ('gurm zoh' - chicken on rice) seem to be the staple breakfast, which isn't a bad thing at all. You can get fresh crunchy baguettes stuffed with cream cheese, pate, roast pork, veges and herbs for about NZD$1 on any street corner. The spring rolls come in a million varieties - all very good. There are local drink vendors who have a collection of tubs containing white beans, red beans, mung beans, grass jelly, coconut milk, soy milk and a number of strangely coloured unidentified things, its like pick'n'mix; you point to a few things, they go in the glass with a measure of sugar syrup and coconut or soy milk, topped with crushed ice. FABULOUS and a third the price of a can of coke.

Also, the coffee here is to die for. The iced variety cafe sua da comes super strong with a healthy dose of condensed milk - they make it hot and pour it over ice. It's the best I've had in a long time... arguably better than Lao coffee. (But Laos did hot coffee better)

Well I've tired myself out with that big rant. It's nice & cool right now because it rained all day - I actually felt cold and went back to the room to get a scarf today - so hopefully no midnight sweats, but it'll still be a 6am wakeup scooter so I'd better get some shuteye.

Thanks for listening and I promise the next one will be better. Pictures are on facebook if you wanna see.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=201811&id=669967675&l=8cd7c0ea3e

ML