Hanoi, Vietnam
It was always on the cards, it's a numbers game and when dealing with life in Vietnam and then throwing 12 anxious travellers into the mix things can become a little unglued.
Take for example the last excursion I took some folk on. 21 days from Saigon to Hanoi. I’ve run this one plenty of times so the biggest obstacles are personalities and acts of God. There I was, silting flapping my gums at the group meeting thinking to myself" I reckon this could be a fun group." The 12 good people were made up of 2 Irish couples in the mid forties, 2 young English folk (one of each), one 30 y.o geezer from Birmingham and 5 Australians ranging from 24 to 55. They all had personality and liked a laugh. Good, as my previous 2 trips had been a bit dull. But by the end of the shenanigans how I longed for the good old days. The days when things ticked over like a Swiss cuckoo clock and the travellers were as dynamic as Kevin Costner on Valium.
I even thought I would try something different at my meeting by handing out some information for the gang, something to refer to if they needed some facts about the country, some language skills and historical facts all neatly packaged up for their ready reference and convenience.
Most folk left the paperwork on the table at the end of the meeting. So, understanding that it can all be a little overwhelming, I gathered it up and the volumes of hard work to dinner to redistribute. Surely it was an oversight? Surely they could see the effort that went into it? Maybe not. By the next day only one person still had the guff and most of the others thought they had left it on the table at the restaurant.
But that's all by the by. It's early days yet Jack and we got a long road to travel.
The following day it was off the Mekong Delta a place lovingly know as the “swamp.” It's hot and I've done this journey way too often to get much of a thrill from it. I enjoy it in a perverse way as it's the start of the tour and provides a close environment, which helps initially to make people comfortable and allow them to get to know me. At the Homestay I can start to get a feel for the dynamics and the personalities due to the fact there isn’t anything to do but talk and drink and drink they did.
The Irish led the charge with the young Aussie bloke up to the challenge but right on his hammer was Birmingham. Neck and neck, to and fro they parried jibes and insults at each other's nationalities, codes of football and how much their respective countries could drink. It was only curtailed because there was nothing left to imbibe The Irish won the evening by also consuming brandy from hip flasks which they had secreted in their bags and this was the master stroke, the knock out punch that finished off the bout after the beer ran out.
'Yep, we're just happy with the 4 points and looking towards September. The boys worked really hard but as you know it's a game of three halves.” said the Irish when interviewed later.
The Vietnamese were up and firing on all cylinders by 5am. The whole country is awake and chugging past the Homestay in noisy diesel powered boats. Roosters have woken well before dawn and crowed the morning’s foul gossip to each other and conversations are being yelled from one side of the river to the other in that very singsong Vietnamese way. Suffice to say it doesn't matter how good you were last night but how you shape up in the morning and Australia won that event hands down. I was on the bench for the match due to lack of interest in the early qualifiers so I just woke up my normal grumpy self but the Irish, who are hard to understand sober, near impossible when drunk and incomprehensible when tired and hungover were not happy holiday makers at all.
"Got out of the wrong side of your mosquito net did you?" I enquired with an impish grin masking the sarcasm that exuded from every pore. Let them think they can take the Aussies on eh? Ha!
Sympathy is something I save for the plight of baby harp seals and puppies in cages not for beer swilling heathens who have the audacity to complain about the noise of the local inhabitants, the heat, the breakfast and the early start. All things they had been warned of beforehand. I even wrote this in the notes I handed them at the group meeting but we know what happened to those don't we?
So, after being swamp monsters it’s up to Dalat the City of Love we journey many miles north and as far removed from the Delta as one can imagine. Gone are coconut palms, waterways and floating markets, Dalat is in the cool hills perched amongst pine forests, a former hill station during colonial times. But riddle me this, if it is the City of Love why are the folk so miserable? Is it the cool climate? Is it the hills they have to walk up and down day in day out or is it the fact that it isn't the City of Love at all. This is only a clever alias hiding the evilness and sinister intentions of the inhabitants and the surrounding landscape. Not unlike changing the name of Shark Bay to Safety Beach on the Mornington Peninsula.
There's a guy up in Dalat known as the "Mad Monk." There is a hotel called "Crazy House", there is the woman who runs the haunted Villa 28 who is tiny, wears platform shoes, miniskirts with a fur jacket and is completely wacko. I’ve started putting the whole thing together and making the links between one seemingly innocent situation and the next. I have realised all along that Dalat has it in for my mental stability and me. This time around a near disaster was nipped in the bud but only because I am on to you Dalat and your twisted ways,
Strange things are afoot up there in them there hills, I know, I've been there.
In an attempt to make this trip both adventurous and fresh I suggested to the mob on the bus ride that there would be the opportunity to go abselling/canyoning but this would mean dumping the scheduled activities in favor of a whole day flinging oneself off cliffs and in to raging torrents of water. Not everyone was keen and I'd nearly go as far as to say some thought the whole idea fraught with pitfalls and imminent death. So the wowsers did the normal half day stuff and 6 of us went out for action. This ensemble was made up of the 2 young sexually frustrated Poms, 2 Irish women and one husband of the aforementioned nationality.
I had been keen to give this a try so I convinced folk that with my background in the Outdoor Industry I could help with instruction and safety.
The van picked us up at 9.00am and we drove for 20 minutes to the carpark of Datanla Falls. Here we geared up before walking down the trail to the base of the main falls. We then crossed a picturesque little bridge and continued further down the track, which was deteriorating in to a poor imitation of a track. A bit of a bugger to walk down but beautiful scenery, wonderful weather and the buzz of excitement created a chirpy bunch intent on fun and adventure.
Arriving at the site the local guides set up a rope down a very gentle slope. This was a practice run for the folk with no previous ropes experience. I went first to give a demonstration then the others had a go. Now understand this was about 10 metres in length and the angle of the hill was about 45 degrees ending on a large flat area. This was to give people the idea of the mechanics of abseiling, no vertical stuff, no raging torrents and no chance of injury or so I thought. All went well enough until the last woman stumbled whist being attached to the rope. Being a little nervous her legs were misbehaving causing her to trip and fall heavily on her tailbone. Her first words were after hitting the deck were "I'm going to pass out." which I thought was a bit dramatic considering she'd just fallen over but when she rolled towards me I could hear the sucking sound as the tree root that was plunged deep into her thigh muscle extricated itself.
No blood, thank God but the offending root was about as thick as a Bic cigarette lighter and about 2cm longer. She had really impaled herself properly. Luckily I've read every mountaineering, SAS, or survival story and action was necessary but now was not the time to pull out my current novel it was a time to be a hero.
Goddamn it, I could already see the credits for the new Hollywood blockbuster.
"A true story based on the amazing daring of Commander Adam Martin, an adventurer of the highest merit, the playboy philanthropist with a heart of gold. A lover and a hero. Men want to be him and women just want him. Now for the first time Touchstone pictures presents ... "
So while all this was going through my head and I gazed off dreamily into the clear blue sky the local blokes got her to hospital.
Nah, we had to do stuff and though I’ve trained for this sort of thing it all goes pear shaped and squeezes itself out the nearest window when you need it. Firstly, I grabbed the first aid kit and we cleaned and bandaged the wound. Then we had to make a stretcher from two saplings, climbing harnesses and life jackets. Then we had to get her back up a very tricky track without having another accident.
It took 6 of us about an hour to get her up to the carpark where the waiting vehicle was waiting patiently as driverless vehicles tend to do. Unfortunately the driver had knicked off for a coffee or abducted by aliens so we commandeered another van. One of the local guys had contacted the hospital via his mobile phone so we made a beeline straight there. Well we would have but the road was dug up so we had to circumnavigate around road works and bridges under repair to get to the hospital.
The doctor, a friend of one of the local guides was excellent and tended to things immediately. He was very surprised with the wound and really gob-smacked by the lack of blood. He told me another few millimetres and there would be buckets of blood.
Thank God THAT didn't happen. I associate buckets of blood with college kids, in some remote forest by a lake staying at an uncle’s cabin for the weekend being slashed and terrorised by a hockey masked sickle wielding psychopath. Phew!
So all's well that ends well. The rest of the trip was hell and nothing went to plan and my overall enjoyment was virtually nil. This was saved by the geezer from Birmingham whose standard saying when things were looking grim was "Nice one bruvver. Beer?"
If there is a moral to this story it just goes to show what some women will do for a root.
It was always on the cards, it's a numbers game and when dealing with life in Vietnam and then throwing 12 anxious travellers into the mix things can become a little unglued.
Take for example the last excursion I took some folk on. 21 days from Saigon to Hanoi. I’ve run this one plenty of times so the biggest obstacles are personalities and acts of God. There I was, silting flapping my gums at the group meeting thinking to myself" I reckon this could be a fun group." The 12 good people were made up of 2 Irish couples in the mid forties, 2 young English folk (one of each), one 30 y.o geezer from Birmingham and 5 Australians ranging from 24 to 55. They all had personality and liked a laugh. Good, as my previous 2 trips had been a bit dull. But by the end of the shenanigans how I longed for the good old days. The days when things ticked over like a Swiss cuckoo clock and the travellers were as dynamic as Kevin Costner on Valium.
I even thought I would try something different at my meeting by handing out some information for the gang, something to refer to if they needed some facts about the country, some language skills and historical facts all neatly packaged up for their ready reference and convenience.
Most folk left the paperwork on the table at the end of the meeting. So, understanding that it can all be a little overwhelming, I gathered it up and the volumes of hard work to dinner to redistribute. Surely it was an oversight? Surely they could see the effort that went into it? Maybe not. By the next day only one person still had the guff and most of the others thought they had left it on the table at the restaurant.
But that's all by the by. It's early days yet Jack and we got a long road to travel.
The following day it was off the Mekong Delta a place lovingly know as the “swamp.” It's hot and I've done this journey way too often to get much of a thrill from it. I enjoy it in a perverse way as it's the start of the tour and provides a close environment, which helps initially to make people comfortable and allow them to get to know me. At the Homestay I can start to get a feel for the dynamics and the personalities due to the fact there isn’t anything to do but talk and drink and drink they did.
The Irish led the charge with the young Aussie bloke up to the challenge but right on his hammer was Birmingham. Neck and neck, to and fro they parried jibes and insults at each other's nationalities, codes of football and how much their respective countries could drink. It was only curtailed because there was nothing left to imbibe The Irish won the evening by also consuming brandy from hip flasks which they had secreted in their bags and this was the master stroke, the knock out punch that finished off the bout after the beer ran out.
'Yep, we're just happy with the 4 points and looking towards September. The boys worked really hard but as you know it's a game of three halves.” said the Irish when interviewed later.
The Vietnamese were up and firing on all cylinders by 5am. The whole country is awake and chugging past the Homestay in noisy diesel powered boats. Roosters have woken well before dawn and crowed the morning’s foul gossip to each other and conversations are being yelled from one side of the river to the other in that very singsong Vietnamese way. Suffice to say it doesn't matter how good you were last night but how you shape up in the morning and Australia won that event hands down. I was on the bench for the match due to lack of interest in the early qualifiers so I just woke up my normal grumpy self but the Irish, who are hard to understand sober, near impossible when drunk and incomprehensible when tired and hungover were not happy holiday makers at all.
"Got out of the wrong side of your mosquito net did you?" I enquired with an impish grin masking the sarcasm that exuded from every pore. Let them think they can take the Aussies on eh? Ha!
Sympathy is something I save for the plight of baby harp seals and puppies in cages not for beer swilling heathens who have the audacity to complain about the noise of the local inhabitants, the heat, the breakfast and the early start. All things they had been warned of beforehand. I even wrote this in the notes I handed them at the group meeting but we know what happened to those don't we?
So, after being swamp monsters it’s up to Dalat the City of Love we journey many miles north and as far removed from the Delta as one can imagine. Gone are coconut palms, waterways and floating markets, Dalat is in the cool hills perched amongst pine forests, a former hill station during colonial times. But riddle me this, if it is the City of Love why are the folk so miserable? Is it the cool climate? Is it the hills they have to walk up and down day in day out or is it the fact that it isn't the City of Love at all. This is only a clever alias hiding the evilness and sinister intentions of the inhabitants and the surrounding landscape. Not unlike changing the name of Shark Bay to Safety Beach on the Mornington Peninsula.
There's a guy up in Dalat known as the "Mad Monk." There is a hotel called "Crazy House", there is the woman who runs the haunted Villa 28 who is tiny, wears platform shoes, miniskirts with a fur jacket and is completely wacko. I’ve started putting the whole thing together and making the links between one seemingly innocent situation and the next. I have realised all along that Dalat has it in for my mental stability and me. This time around a near disaster was nipped in the bud but only because I am on to you Dalat and your twisted ways,
Strange things are afoot up there in them there hills, I know, I've been there.
In an attempt to make this trip both adventurous and fresh I suggested to the mob on the bus ride that there would be the opportunity to go abselling/canyoning but this would mean dumping the scheduled activities in favor of a whole day flinging oneself off cliffs and in to raging torrents of water. Not everyone was keen and I'd nearly go as far as to say some thought the whole idea fraught with pitfalls and imminent death. So the wowsers did the normal half day stuff and 6 of us went out for action. This ensemble was made up of the 2 young sexually frustrated Poms, 2 Irish women and one husband of the aforementioned nationality.
I had been keen to give this a try so I convinced folk that with my background in the Outdoor Industry I could help with instruction and safety.
The van picked us up at 9.00am and we drove for 20 minutes to the carpark of Datanla Falls. Here we geared up before walking down the trail to the base of the main falls. We then crossed a picturesque little bridge and continued further down the track, which was deteriorating in to a poor imitation of a track. A bit of a bugger to walk down but beautiful scenery, wonderful weather and the buzz of excitement created a chirpy bunch intent on fun and adventure.
Arriving at the site the local guides set up a rope down a very gentle slope. This was a practice run for the folk with no previous ropes experience. I went first to give a demonstration then the others had a go. Now understand this was about 10 metres in length and the angle of the hill was about 45 degrees ending on a large flat area. This was to give people the idea of the mechanics of abseiling, no vertical stuff, no raging torrents and no chance of injury or so I thought. All went well enough until the last woman stumbled whist being attached to the rope. Being a little nervous her legs were misbehaving causing her to trip and fall heavily on her tailbone. Her first words were after hitting the deck were "I'm going to pass out." which I thought was a bit dramatic considering she'd just fallen over but when she rolled towards me I could hear the sucking sound as the tree root that was plunged deep into her thigh muscle extricated itself.
No blood, thank God but the offending root was about as thick as a Bic cigarette lighter and about 2cm longer. She had really impaled herself properly. Luckily I've read every mountaineering, SAS, or survival story and action was necessary but now was not the time to pull out my current novel it was a time to be a hero.
Goddamn it, I could already see the credits for the new Hollywood blockbuster.
"A true story based on the amazing daring of Commander Adam Martin, an adventurer of the highest merit, the playboy philanthropist with a heart of gold. A lover and a hero. Men want to be him and women just want him. Now for the first time Touchstone pictures presents ... "
So while all this was going through my head and I gazed off dreamily into the clear blue sky the local blokes got her to hospital.
Nah, we had to do stuff and though I’ve trained for this sort of thing it all goes pear shaped and squeezes itself out the nearest window when you need it. Firstly, I grabbed the first aid kit and we cleaned and bandaged the wound. Then we had to make a stretcher from two saplings, climbing harnesses and life jackets. Then we had to get her back up a very tricky track without having another accident.
It took 6 of us about an hour to get her up to the carpark where the waiting vehicle was waiting patiently as driverless vehicles tend to do. Unfortunately the driver had knicked off for a coffee or abducted by aliens so we commandeered another van. One of the local guys had contacted the hospital via his mobile phone so we made a beeline straight there. Well we would have but the road was dug up so we had to circumnavigate around road works and bridges under repair to get to the hospital.
The doctor, a friend of one of the local guides was excellent and tended to things immediately. He was very surprised with the wound and really gob-smacked by the lack of blood. He told me another few millimetres and there would be buckets of blood.
Thank God THAT didn't happen. I associate buckets of blood with college kids, in some remote forest by a lake staying at an uncle’s cabin for the weekend being slashed and terrorised by a hockey masked sickle wielding psychopath. Phew!
So all's well that ends well. The rest of the trip was hell and nothing went to plan and my overall enjoyment was virtually nil. This was saved by the geezer from Birmingham whose standard saying when things were looking grim was "Nice one bruvver. Beer?"
If there is a moral to this story it just goes to show what some women will do for a root.
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