I arrived back from Vietnam to find I had post. Please keep sending those views of the Penines, Shropshire Canals and similar nostalgia that moves the expat to tears nad makes him reach for the gin bottle.
Back in Malang after meeting Viv in Jakarta. Her plane was delayed a for a day and she got the chance to tour Dubai. On the the taxi ride from the airport to Jalan Mandalawangi we based a shop with a large awning advertising 'Nothing!!!'. Today we looked around Malang town centre ( Not Malang Town Centre, which is MATOS a huge shopping mall.) and did some essential bank and glasses repair stuff. While we wandered around we passed a roadside stall with a man sitting behind a glass case containing..... nothing. If the British economy continues on its troubled way you may start to see these shops in your local high street.
I arrived back from Vietnam to find I had post. Please keep sending those views of the Penines, Shropshire Canals and similar nostalgia that moves the expat to tears nad makes him reach for the gin bottle. Some people seem to have trouble reading the blog. Please let me know any problems and what browser you are using. I recommend Firefox
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Next day I headed for Crocodile Lake. A lake about 5km from the nearest road and stocked with Vietnamese crocodiles in an attempt to preserve the species. There is either a long walk over surfaced road and then track before you head off into the forest, or you can hire a bike and leave it at the start of the forest trail, or pay for a lift in a truck. I hired a bike. A bike with no gears, slightly buckled wheels and a bent pedal. On the road it was hard work; on the rocky unsurfaced track it was... very hard work. But the ride was magical. I'd walked through one storm of butterflies and now I cycled through a constant cloud that changed from white to blue to yellow and back to white again. A cloud that stretched for miles.
I saw little on the trail to the lake except one giant squirrel but all around birds were calling in the undergrowth and the canopy, but I did see a lizard with a brilliant blue head that turned to a dull brown when it found out it was being watched. At the lake there are a few rooms for visitors and a viewing post that doubles as the kitchen and dining room. As I approached the hut (raised on stilts and connected by a walkway because in the Rainy Season the lake water level rises dramatically) I saw a fine old sambar buck grazing at the lakeside, but later it was the bird life that impressed. Later I was to sit drinking coffee and watching an osprey fishing. As well as osprey I saw heron, kingfisher, egret, hornbill, bittern, pitta, darter, gallinules; these are just the ones I remember and can put a name to. I can't remember being in a place that such a variety of birds that could be easily seen. I young Vietnamese couple asked if I would like to come with them in a rowing boat to look for crocodiles, their friends were too scared. I went and we saw no crocks only mysterious disturbances in the water. The Vietnamese rowed they both spoke excellent English and the girl sang her quite extensive repertoire of sailing and boating songs which included Row, Row, Row Your Boat but not The Eton Boating Song. In retrospect I should have taught it to her. The evening meal of fish freshly caught from the lake was excellent though, like most fresh water fish, very bony. The sort of fish you do not want to let on a plane as several lethal weapons could easily have been constructed from the bones. I shared a room with a French Canadian tour guide who was checking the place before a party of biologists from Canada arrived. He had lots of small badly tattooed butterflies on his legs and was interesting company as he had traveled widely to out of the sway places. I did not ask about the butterflies as personal questions are rude. There was also a young German herpetologist staying - the ideal job for a German - who told me there were probably about 250 crocs in the lake. He was counting them. here is also something of a mystery about where they lay their eggs as no nests have been discovered yet. I wanted to get up early to head back as I had to catch a bus back to Saigon. I was woken by the sound of the building being demolished. I rushed outside and it stopped; inside it was deafening. Over breakfast I was told that a civet cat lived in the roof space. It was probably installing a new plumbing system or demolishing partition walls. I had not been feeling well in Saigon, sore throat, runny nose, feverish and a tormenting itch that made me sneeze every ten seconds, so the long bus ride was not entirely pleasurable. I was put off the bus at 4am and immediately besieged by loutish young men offering to take me to the park on their motorbikes for an outrageous fee. I haggled for a slightly less outrageous sum and set off on the back seat of the bike my arms round the driver and holding my huge rucksack which was wedged between him and the handlebars. On my back was my small, but heavy, day pack. Just over half way to the park we ran out of petrol and had to sit in a cafe until a pale wash of light coloured the sky and it was decent to wake someone up at a petrol station. To get into the park I had to cross the river by ferry and then walk a few yards to headquarters where I booked a room. I was very tired as I had hardly slept for two days but still went for a walk later in the afternoon. The park is mostly secondary forest as it was badly damaged during the Vietnam War when it was sprayed with agent orange. On my short walk I only saw one large dipterocarp tree with the huge buttress roots, the kind that mark a real primary rainforest. I did see several brightly coloured bill as well as horn bill and drongo, I saw no animals except a squirrel but several times I though I heard deer moving away through the undergrowth. Butterflies were everywhere and as I returned to the park headquarters I crossed a bridge where thousands of butterflies were drinking from shallow puddles on either side. As I passed by they rose like a sudden flurry of Winter snow, flakes of white, blue, yellow and orange. After dark at 7pm I went on a night 'safari', sitting on the back of a pick-up truck with two other English visitors while the guide shone a powerful lamp into trees and bushes to catch the glint of nocturnal eyes. It was a short drive and the pickup went far too fast but nevertheless we got a beautiful view of a potto very low down and close to the road. I have seen them before but as small shapes with huge shining eyes high in the trees. So it was worth the trip to see one so close. We also saw something else I had always wanted to see close up. Nightjars sitting in the road and pretending to be sticks. And doing a very good job too. I was a littly doubtful about our Guide's qualification to be a wild-life expert when we saw a cat. 'Cat!' he said, 'Wild cat?' asked the others. The guide muttered something that I thought was 'Cat cat.' but the other safarists pressed on 'A wild cat! What kind?' 'Cat.' the Guide repeated. In the brilliant light of the torch we watched a village cat trip daintily over some open ground. That incident aroused my suspicions, though the guide had been factually right and on the way back when we saw the fluffy back end of an animal disappearing into the bushes the Guide said, ' Civet cat!' I don't claim to be any kind of expert but I have been in to Borneo quite a few times and by now I do know the back-end of a civet cat when I see one. And this was not one. Far too fluffy. Probably ground squirrel or similar. I overshot my stop despite asking several times to be told where to get off.
So after a seven hour bus ride I'm stranded in the rather nice town of Da Lat, it seems like a resort town in the hills, where I am waiting for the 1am bus back towards Cat Tien. Saigon/HCMC took ages to get out of. First all the modern high rise buildings, hotels, shops and restaurants and then the industrial zones. Endless yards full of lorries, vans, cranes, diggers and earth moving machines. It was as though the entire country of Vietnam was about to be rebuilt. When we finally left the city behind we drove through rubber plantations and villages more like those in Indonesia, shacks with rusty corrugated iron roofs, litter strewn along the roadside and unsurfaced tracks leading off to left and right. This scruffiness was not so general as Indonesia though. Often there were towns and villages that were clean and tidy with loots of new and colourfully painted houses. The smaller houses were often rather like brick or concrete caravans with the door in the front rather than the side. With the porch on front they also looked like big wagons that had sunk into the ground so no wheels were showing. These narrow rectangular houses are seen in the cities too where they are often several stories high. For once I am traveling without a guide book or map. This is mainly the influence of the young 'uns who spurn such things. Though they do have a Lonely Planet Vietnam. A mistake on my part, so I have had to buy a school atlas to navigate by. I travelled through a very Christian part of the country and there were at least as many churches as Confucian temples. The churches all looked new and were in a rather vulgar ecclesiastical architectural style. Perhaps they have all gone up since the liberalisation policy was introduced. To kill time I have bought my atlas, had a meal and found this Internet bar where I am having a glass of whisky and writing. Still almost four hours to go though and the mosquitoes are literally making a meal of my feet. The modernisation of Vietnam is most impressive and though red flags are common and some Soviet style posters, urging the populace to greater things, they are comparitively unobtrusive unlike the advertising hoardings. Neither the military or the police are in much evidence either. If it wasn't for the red star and hammer and sickle flags this would just seem like a developing South East Asian country almost on a par with Thailand and Malaysia. Language is problem, although there is usually someone who speaks a little English somewhere around. The script is Roman but with a bewildering number of accents because the language is tonal. I find pronunciation very hard even after being told the word several times. I may have said this earlier but the coffee must be among the best in the world and it is almost worth coming to Vietnam just to drink coffee and eat soup. If you eat soup. The girls let last night and are traveling north as far as Hue. Vietnam, like Norway is a long narrow country and a visit to the capital, Hanoi, would have taken too long. Besides the real reason for their trip is to buy new shoes. Apparently the place they are going to is full of traditional shoes makers who can make a pair of shoes to any design in less than five minutes for one US dollar. I don't believe a word of it and think its just a load of old cobblers.
Yesterday we visited the Cu Chi tunnels. For anyone who grew up during the Vietnam War it is a strange experience. All kinds of memories from that time flooded back. Figures like General Westmoreland, General Giap, Nixon, Johnson, Kissinger, Jane Fonda and the the Tet Offensive, The Ho Chi Minh Trail, tghe images of the naplalmed girl running down the road, the kneeling prisoner shot in front of the press cameras, the monks setting fire to themselves and much more. For the young people, and they were mostly young people it was probably just another historical theme park where they could shoot real bullets from an AK45 or other gun used at the time. I doubt if many knew more than a few hazy facts about the war. But for anyone interested in history the place is extraordinary and unsettling. We had a guide, Son, who talked us through the tour. He had been in the army of the South and I got the distinct impression that there were lots of things from the past that he did not want to bring up. There was no mention of the South Vietnamese army at all. The only enemy were the 'mad American devils'. Are the other cities like HCMC? I will just have to ask the girls when they get back. I suspect they are less crowded and touristy but probably have the same signs of modernisation and Western influence. Now to pack my bag. As well as my boots I found my camera had gone and I have had to buy another here as well as a hat, a jacket, a tee shirt and a duck puppet. We also had a wonderful meal in the market sitting on tiny stools around a tiny table. It felt like some Infant's School school dinner. There are lots of variations of pho, a rich soup with noodles, vegetables and meat and we each had a variation. The market is huge and though it is supposed to be fixed price everything seems to be negotiable. The china is particularly good. The irony of the US dollar being almost a second currency still overwhelms me. What is left of he war is now a tourist attraction. I'm repeating myself, I know but it is so hard to accept. It would be easier to believe I have slipped into some alternative history of the kind novelists love to write about. This is hotel is so pleasant that we all decided to stay. Tomorrow we plan to see the famous Viet Cong tunnel system and the day after the girls set off towards Hue in the north and I set off for the Cat Tien National Park where the last rhino in Vietnam live. Follow this link http://www.namcattien.org/forest.htmand see the incredible number of species that live there.
I expect to spend at least three days walking around the park watching wildlife and insect and snake hunting. That's the plan and then I meet the girls again back here before we return to Java. Saigon traffic is possibly worse than that of Java. It may not jam up as much but it is chaotic and fast and takes not prisoners when pedestrians try to cross the road. Several times today I have had to dash for my life to escape motorbikes and busses. The traffic may be bad and one does get pestered by hawkers but the streets are clean the pavements fairly uncluttered and the cafes excellent. There are beggars too which somehow I had not expected in a Communist county, especially old people who are generally respected and cared in the Confucianist societies. I don't know what we are doing tonight but I will be drinking a long cold beer and having more of the marvelous coffee. Oh, and Vietnam has blocked Face Book. Something I can't help feeling rather glad about. In my hotel room in Saigong. Very clean, quiet and cheap. I went with Maddy and Benita to eat. Lisa had been feeling sick and was sleeping. We ate in what was one of a chain of Vietnamese restaurants but the food was good and the coffee excellent. Even better than on Java. I will mention the soup first. I had the speciality, it sounded disgusting tripe, muscle and meat with noodles, but it was good. Though the tripe did not add much to dish except a certain tripiness. I can't see what the Vietnamese like the stuff so much. It's better with onions.
The coffee comes in a small metal filter place on top of the cup and drips through to make something like a thick cafe noire with a slight vanilla flavour. Saigon is a bustling modern South East Asian like so many others. Full of neon lights, motor bikes, cars and smart shops. The blatant capitalism was not quite what I'd expect and the place seemed extraordinary and unreal to someone who had lived though the years of the Vietnam War. This is what the city would have looked like if the Americans had won. Here in Ho Chi Minh City - the old part is still known as Saigon - the US dollar is almost a second currency. The world turned upside down. I'll see what it looks like tomorrow. Now to finish my beer and go to sleep. Oh, and dong is the currency. Almost 30,000 to the pound. Looking down from the plane I could clearly see the ribbons of houses spreading out along the roads leading away from the city. These ribbons are often so long that you can sometimes drive from town to town in Java and never glimpse the open countryside behind the houses that line the roads.It was not only roads, I was surprised to see similar ribbons following the twisting courses of the larger rivers. As we gained altitude there was little to see outside the window, no dramatic volcanoes rising above a sea of clouds, only a few peaks and dark jagged ridges in the distance. It was only an hour's flight and as we began the descent we passed over the city of Jakarta. I have seen many cities from the air but this was unexpected. It looked exactly like Sim City. Patches of industry, commerce, expensive housing, cheap housing, stadium, golf course, fire station, school and so on. All neatly put down and left to grow. You really have to have played the game to appreciate the simile. If you haven't, use this as an excuse. Sim City 2 though. Stick to the classics.
Now I sit on the floor of Jakarta airport and write in my notebook while the girls are wasting good money on a crazy foot massage. Personally, I would pay someone to keep their hands off my feet. Feet are feet and hands are hands and ne're the twain should meet. Kipling again. The airport is fully of floor sitting, blocking access to fire exits and vending machines, colour coordinated h women in jilbabs, jumjums and jimjams and men in the male equivalent. I'm not good at clothing names. They are all in groups and are all off for a good Muslim getogether or pilgrimage. The clever ones have brought carpets to sit on and look as if they have just flown in to the 21st century out of the Arabian Nights. Before leaving Malang airport we went through the security and baggage check and as we made our way into the the waiting room we had to pass the Fish Quarantine man. I knew who he was because of his badge, Fish Quarantine. He said nothing and we passed silently by – 'watch the wall my darling as the Gentlemen pass by' -* but as I sat down. On a blues plastic chair, for those interested in such details. They make writing like this 'spring to life'. I know I've been telling other people that for years. Yes... as I sat down I began to think, Malang is nowhere near the sea, and several questions floated past my eyes like those things you don't really want to see when you go swimming in the sea, plastic bottles,clumps of weed, sandals and …... other stuff. Among these questions were:
Madison – she's American – went and asked him. She returned and told me his job was to take dried fish off people who insist on trying to take it on to aeroplanes. This did not help mutch. Guns and knives, I understand. Bombs, I understand. Pointed sticks, live chickens and snakes, I can understand. But why you cannot take dried fish on a flight between Malang and Jakarta and why so many people want to that a special guard has been appointed to stop them; these things I cannot understand. Sometimes Indonesia is a mysterious country. * Kipling and Beyond the Fringe A shoe thief - or in my case boot thief - sneaked on to our verandah and stole some of our boots and shoes, including my walking boots that I had left outside after the Bromo walk. It is a bit of a problem because though I have walking sandals they are not good for the forest as the leeches and ants will crawl in through the holes. I will be wearing leech socks so they will have to do the usual climb up my legs but even so I prefer boots as sandals offer multiple entrances and the little things would squish under foot. I really don't mind leeches, at least the tropical leaf leeches. - I'm still unsure about the water leeches - they are actually interesting and attractive little creatures and do little harm except leave you with a boot full of blood. Mosquitoes and biting flies on the other hand are real pests and carry infection as will as leaving itch lumps that one simply has to scratch and scratch all night long. That is bad as the bites can become infected but it's scratch or go insane through itchiness.
Note to Viv. Can you bring anti -itch cream and more Deet? Viv is visiting again after we come back from Vietnam and has been laden with requests for Marmite, gin, Deet, Faulty Towers and tons of other stuff. My next entry will probably be from Vietnam which will be only the second communist country I have visited. The first being the former Yugoslavia. It is extraordinary how times have changed. Who could have imagined during the Vietnam War that American tourists would be welcomed to tour the battlefields and tunnels. The Museum of American War Crimes has even changed its name to spare the sensitivities of US tourists and is now something like The Vietnam War Museum. Perhaps future wars will include a Tourism Brigade to fight battles in particularly scenic locations and demolish villages and buildings that might interfere with hotels and golf courses. Stranger things have happened. Which reminds me of the US psychic experiments with goats. There is an excellent film Men Who Stare at Goats - something like that - based on these experiments. It makes you have a certain fondness for the kind of people New Scientism call 'fruit loops'. What does that mean? I have had constant stick from the girls because I innocently said, 'I want to watch Men With Goats'. I am now weary of endless goat jokes. But goats are attractive creatures, they seem to have an awareness and an intelligence that most other bovidae. I remember sharing a sandwich with a goat in Corsica and having a long conversation about this and that. It was a most sympathetic animal unlike the sneaky pig that bit my brother's french loaf. Now to carry on with the things I have to do before I leave. |
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