Skip to main content

I got 99 problems and a beach is one

Day 99 - Nha Trang
Ben don't surf. He do look at beaches. Them's the breaks. Charlie don't surf either so there was not much to see in Nha Trang except sand and water under a grey sky.
Stepping out of the hotel in search of my morning coffee I found myself unsure why I came here so I went to look at the beach in case that was the reason. It wasn't. I think I just liked the name of the place. I also wanted to get ahead of schedule so the previous day I'd decided to to find out just how far I could ride. It hadn't got off to the best start as, after my dinner in the silent restaurant, I'd returned to my room only to be woken by doors slamming with a startling ferocity. Someone on my hallway was very displeased with something, possibly doors. They kept this up for over an hour and my early start was out of the window. After packing up I resolved to just give the throttle a flick and see where I ended up. Once on the road things improved markedly. The scenery was engrossing, for mile after mile the road cleaved to the sea and ran over clifftops. The road arced and the bike tilted and my centre of gravity was moved. Red rocks rose to one side, a carpet of boats to the other and it was all I could do not to stop and stare. It was food for the senses where there was neither time nor means to obtain food for the stomach.
5:30 downtown Nha Trang, rush hour. Bikes start to mount the pavement in frustration at the stationary cars. I'm not quite local enough to attempt that so I sit boxed-up like I hadn't been since Hanoi. After seven and a half hours of riding it could anger me but what's another 10 minutes? I drop the bike and bags at another non-descript hotel and, for a change, search out a bar. The one I find is so expat it bleeds baked bean juice. There is the usual crowd of white middle-aged guys, some chatting, some staring dispassionately at the cricket on TV. A large Welsh flag is hung alongside the Vietnamese flag giving a strong clue to the proprietor's heritage. On this trip I find I inevitably fall into conversation in places like this and there is an increasingly familiar tone to them. They are generally an odd lot these expats, seemingly uninterested in anything. It took me back to a Luang Prabang a month ago, a month ago??, and beers with Faron's friends by the river. The ones here in Cheers Bar lacked Gunther's entertaining insanity but, again, everyone here had their story about why they are in this bar. They'll tell you if you ask but can only seem to talk at you. Call it conversation is to exaggerate. I think travellers vex them, they seem to want to scream "don't you understand? I live here!" They're not a tourist and your holiday is so basic and unimaginative to them. The feeling they give is of a nihilistic life where the only thing worse than being here is not being here. Even though the long ride had put time in the bank there was nothing to keep me. Time to head for the hills.
Wanting to make at least part of this wild extrapolation of my biking skills sensible I'd started off the journey eight days ago in long-sleeved shirt and trousers. The chance of coming off the bike seemed high (i.e. unquantifiable) so I wanted to preserve as much of my skin as I could in that eventuality. The climate soon put paid to the wisdom and I was back in t-shirt and shorts within a day come what may. But now there was a slight chill in the air for the first time in a long time and arm hairs bristled. It wasn't far out of Nha Trang before the main road became a mountain road kinking and weaving over rises and down the other side. When the road angled downwards I could shoot nimbly past the convoys of cars slowly picking their way through the hairpins. When the road pitched upwards my old girl wheezed and spluttered and those same cars overtook me and I'd have to start the process all over again. To add to the frustration I'd ignored a couple of petrol stations in Nha Trang and now, as the fuel gauge ticked down, there were none to be seen. I suspect there's no RAC in Vietnam and even if there were I wasn't a member. Based on my experience of the Vietnamese people so far someone would probably stop and pick me up. And then drive me to a bar to get shitfaced with their family before we hit the club. But all I could think of in the moment was how I would have to, instead, build a shelter in the trees at the side of the road. And when a thunderstorm hit it would be a irresistible refuge for a snake that would bite me. And then, being so far away from medical treatment, I'd die. There is a lesson here - just stop for oil.
But none of that transpired. The petrol station desired filled my fuel tank before I was mired and the tired old engine fired. Reaching Dalat alive marked a week of continuing to live in what were still hazardous circumstances. My blood sugar felt low so the nearest restaurant would do. Feeling the need for some traditional British cuisine I ordered up chicken and chips. The chicken arrived in a BBQ sauce and it was near-impossible to identify which part of the bird each chunk was from. I think it was cut up by a wood chipper. The dish also came with rice in a bowl the size of which you'd eat cereal from. The quantity, indeed its existence at all, was quite inexplicable. Also brought, by way of desert, were a bunch of bananas. I ate one, out of politeness I think. It all felt a bit like if you let a four year old decide on their own dinner. The search for my usual sort of haunt afterwards was fruitless though. Dalat was well-stocked with upmarket cocktail bars but seemingly nothing so low-rent as what I preferred.
glass half full
That and the incessant traffic through the city centre until late didn't endear the place to me. Nha Trang wasn't it and neither was this. From the get-go I knew that my visa limit would mean I did this trip on the bike or another sort of trip off it. There wasn't time to dig into a place. For all I knew Nha Trang and Dalat could have the most wonderful sides to them that I couldn't afford time to find. I had to rely on a place flaunting its wares, that were agreeable to me mind, as I soon as I rolled into town. Six months around Central and South America was a similar surface-scraping experience. Breadth or depth, few get both.
Labels:
Location: Nha Trang, Khánh Hòa, Vietnam

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts

The Duke

Pub review They say: "We came for a skittle on a Saturday night and they were very welcoming but you know how you hear about lizards ruling the world, the barstaff had a very lizardy look. Make your own mind up!" --Craig Savage 4/5 I say: 'The place where everybody knows your name' The claim is painted onto the wall and doesn't seem so outlandish on this chilly Tuesday night as there is no-one in the pub to know my name or not. Dry January? I can't imagine that's a thing around these parts. You don't keep over 30 pubs in business with virtuous gestures like that. It might be a Tuesday thing. Per usual I try to find a quiet corner with my beer, surely an easy task in an empty pub? Not so. Speakers hang from every nook and carpet the space in a thick fog of sound. It isn't even the usual autotuned pop/R&B dirge being vomited into my ears. That stuff I can confine to a background hum. Instead it's the pre-match commentary for the Brighto...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sisyphean Airlines

Day 56 - Panama City We nearly didn't make it into this slip of a country. Cruel fortune had us standing in the queue for the only Panamanian border officer who had read and decided to adhere to the rules. "Return ticket?" bugger.  His steely, uncompassionate gaze was unmoved by our desperate explanations of our travel 'plans'. Bribery also failed to move him to endorse our entry so our bus driver, with infinite generosity, offered to relieve us of another $36 to write up a return ticket to San José that we would never use. This finally satisfied the entry requirements and the stamp thumped down. The country is divided by a synonymous strip of water down which floats a not insignificant quantity of the world's goods. Though our initial plan was to dive the canal, renovations kiboshed that idea and we had to settle for the traditional topside view.  On initial viewing the city itself seems built on the wealth its transoceanic connection brings.  Buildings soa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Angkor Whaaaaat?

Day 5 - Siem Reap With the water festival finished we has one more place to visit in Cambodia. Angkor Wat is an indisputable wonder of the world and the largest religious monument ever constructed. It sits within a temple complex covering 400km², the scale of which is impossible to adequately describe. Its towers seem to rise organically from the ground, the stone flowering from the earth into wonderfully symmetric form. Only modern capitalism and totalitarian hubris seem to inspire similar architectural endeavour as the gods did in the past. I don't necessarily agree with any of those ideologies and their human cost but religion's diminished power permits me a less coloured appreciation of its monuments. In the stone of Angkor Wat you see reflected the same desire for, and defiant belief in, permanence that runs through our species. I see it in the chiselled signage above the entrance to long dead banks and businesses in the City of London. The owners thought the gilded lobbi...
Post a Comment
Read more

You don't have to mentally unstable to live here, but it helps...

Day 380 - Margaret River It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. It was a Tuesday, it was like any other. Me and the Cornish lads had slogged through another day on the vineyard and were driving home. I switched on my phone to check messages, my housemate Emily had text. All our stuff's on the street. Martina showdown. It had been building to this but with 3 days left before we left Margaret River she'd actually done it. Perhaps I should recap? The housing situation at Tunbridge Street had been deteriorating since, well, since I moved in really. I'd have to say that this was in spite of rather than because of my presence. I hadn't met the landlady before I took the room so my first contact with Martina was after wo...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Hallmarks™ of civilisation

Day 9 - Bratislava Breakfast was taken in Hotel Sacher in Vienna, home of the famous Sacher Torte. I wouldn't ordinarily begin the day with cake but holidays do strange things to a person. Suitably tortified we jumped on a train for the second of our two day-trips, this time to Slovakia. I had preconceptions about the places that we'd been to so far, some based on personal experience others less so but Slovakia ranked as a genuine unknown. Having great affection for Prague and by extension the Czech Republic I suppose I wondered if the Velvet Revolution of 1989 had cleaved off the less desirable part into the eastern state. Luckily we three had established a means of determining the level of advancement of a place, thus - Question 1 - Does it have an Ikea? yes, we saw one from the train. Question 2 - Can you tour the place on a segway? yes, one was sitting outside a tourist office. Question 3 - From where you are standing can you see an H&M? ...oh Bratislava you were so...
Post a Comment
Read more