Poo on the beach and shaking bunk beds

  Quy Nhon, Vietnam
Sunday, May 24, 2009

I'm a little bit worried about coming home.  After just a few days in the colder, wetter climate of the highlands I was seriously beginning to miss the sun.  If Michael Fish is lying about this summer, I think I might be in trouble.  Rather than heading straight to Hoi An, I decided to make a stop in the fishing town of Quyu Nhon for a couple of days to recuperate from whatever is wrong with me (I don't think it's malaria or dengue, but have self-prescribed myself a little cocktail of anti-biotics, anti-inflammatories and anti-histamines.  If Gill reads this - Laird not Thomas - I'll be im big trouble).

The bus ride was about 2 hours shorter than expected, which came as something as a surprise having braced myself for one at least 2 hours longer than quoted.  Why not just tell me how long the ride will take?  It's not like I've got a choice. Grrrr.

I stayed in my first dorm of Vietnam and other than the story to come later the place was really nice.  A bit too much on the backpacker fare, not everyone has a vegemite, banana pancake and pizza addiction but apparently they're in sufficient numbers to warrant identikit menus across Asia.

The place is a lot like Pratchuap Khiri Khan in Thailand. Currently still a fishing village but with beautiful beaches, tourist hotels, a new promenade and massive resorts to the north and south, it wont be for long.  The main beach has hundreds of fishing boats moored just off-shore and when I arrived the wives and families were just going out to meet the boats and bring in the days catch.  They do this in boats which are completely circular and about 4ft in diameter, I don't know who invented them or thought that they'd be the most practical shape but they're very pretty.  As was the afternoon sun on the mass games of football and volleyball going on,  the boats which were painted a million different colours and the people sitting on the wall of the promenade watching the action.  What wasn't so pretty was the man having a shit on the beach.

The next day, I decided, and this may come as a shock to some of you, that I fancied a day at the beach.  What may also come as a shock is that I haven't been on one since Ju left when we were in Borneo - I hope that helps a bit with the jeolousy.  This won't though.  Because of what I'd witnessed the day before on the main beach, I decided to go a bit further afield and look for one with a little less excrement.  I know my superlative's are getting a bit boring and that I'm not good at explaining just how amazing the scenery is but I'm no Hemingway, so if you want to understand what it really looks like, watch That episode of  Top Gear.  I'm just going to say that the hills are green. Very green.

We reached the deserted cove and the moto driver arranged to meet me 4 hours later.  And then it was just me, a deserted beach, some gentle waves, a little stall that sold drinkies, oh and a haggard, moth-eaten old Alsation which walked up to where I'd made my little home (behind a Shirley Temple - or the other one, I always forget - rock) sniffed me and then had a massive shit.  Seriously!

Alsation poo aside, it was a lovely day, I've managed to turn myself off-white without burning and am really quite proud of myself - it's only taken me 4 months!  On the way back we visited a leper hospital, that was weird.

That evening, I met a girl called Alex from Holland and we had some strange vegetarian food - more of the point & wonder technique & then when it arrives you're still not sure what it is.  At least in a vege restaurant you're semi-safe, although I think there might be some variation between the Vietnamese and Oxford English definitions of the word.

The only other thing of note happened that night, there were about 6 people in the dorm and the boy on the bunk above me who looked about 12 and spoke like he went to Eton, although he said he was Kiwi basically spent the whole night masturbating.  Nice.