this and that, here and there…

July 3, 2007

I just got an email from my mother this morning accusing me of dropping off the face of the earth. It just seems that the longer you’re away the less you bother with writing home, and the more involved this whole living precariously and carelessly becomes. Shame.

In eight days I have to go home. Also a shame.

Currently I am being deafened by a monsoon beating down on the corrugated iron roof of a small travel-agency cum internet cafe in a little resort town called Mui Ne on the east coast of Vietnam. It’s less a town than a road along which thatched-rooved bamboo huts have been interspersed, with requisite pool tables and restaurants in between them to please the tourists. It would be a much lovelier place were I not here in the rainy season. But you can’t have everything.

I can’t even remember when the last time I wrote was. I think it may have been just after leaving Myanmar, before I decided that I was just too tired and busy to bother with writing any more. The past month of travels have been very eventful, yet so full of long bus/boat/car rides, that every time I found myself in front of a computer I had to struggle to keep my eyes open.

A very brief summary:

Elephant trekking is depressing. Don’t do it. The massive spikes they use to control the animals will make your sensitive little Western hearts patter, and on top of the iffy treatment of the animals, it’s actually quite boring. I think it’s one of the things they put in the tourist brochures and everyone does without thinking about it.

Swimming in ice-cold waterfalls during monsoons is about the best thing in the world. That one is going down in LJH’s personal top 5 transcendent moments. And being accompanied by a hilariously cynical and yet rather lovely Englishman (who shared my joy in the moment) added enormously to the pleasure. I think we both felt like big kids.

People from Guernsey are hilarious. But I think you had to be there.

Laos is so laid back it’s nearly stopped. It’s the first place I’ve ever visited where the people working in the markets are sleeping more often than not, or would rather chat amongst themselves than sell you anything. I think they must have spies in Vietnam who see how much the tourists want to be invisible/murder everyone to avoid/stop the horrifying statement, “You buy from me?”

The mountains in Nortern Vietnam are gorgeous, and Sapa is a great little town. It’s too bad the people living there don’t understand that if you constantly hassle foreigners to buy their bits of tat/ride their motorbikes/go for a massage or whatever else they want you to do, that it’ll just make them not want to do any of the above. Capitalism is far from being understood. I will never quite understand why if you are wearing some recently purchased earrings/bracelet/purse it makes the people think that you will want to buy another identical item (“But I already have one”). Go figure. Also, the tactic that “You buy from me, then I leave you alone” just doesn’t endear one to the potential customers. Another lesson they just don’t seem to want to learn.

I am quite looking forward to getting home. It’s strange but I’ve had about enough. That and my bank account is starting to run a little dry.