Vietnam: China Beach

  China Beach, Vietnam
Thursday, February 22, 2007

I left Hanoi to make 16 hour trip to China Beach around 20km north of Hoi An on what is possibly the worst bus in the feckin world. It was bloody miserable. The bus was old and didn't have much in the way of suspension and with the bloody uncomfortable seats made life really fun. We set out about 8.30pm and started on our way. I managed to get a full seat to myself so was able to stretch. However at about 12.30am or 1 my peace was disturbed when he picked up another two passengers, once of which had to sit beside me. So I assumed the knee eating position and for the next two hours endured cramps in my ass and legs aling with pins and needles and when I eventually did find a comfy postiton and started to nod off I bust my bloody head off the window. At about 3am he pulled over for a pit spot and I decided that I couldn't go the next 8 or so hours in the same seat. So when I got back on and got to my seat in my best Vietnamese sign language I managed to get the girl to shove over so that I could stretch my legs and hopefully get a bit of comfort. That was going well until around 4.30am when the bus driver decided to fire on some sort of bloody Vietnamese dance music on the radio. I was fit to cry.

02 China Beach 2

My first stop was going to be a spot on China Beach called Hao's Place. It was around here that the American soliders used to go to during to war to relax for a few days before headnig back out to action and also had a hospital there. There was a series of the same name made about this spot (some of the older folk might remember) .It was recommended by the guys running the hostel in Hanoi. So with Haos business card and the map on it, the bus driver agreed to drop me off. When I got out of the bus and he drove away I just looked around and thought what the hell is this. There was absolutely nothing around me and I was in the middle of nowhere with no bloody sign of this spot. First thought was those feckin Aussie were havin a laugh with me (16 hours on the bus makes you  little cranky). However I spotted the sea and decided to make my way that direction with my card, luckily some really helpful locals put me on the back of their motorbike and drove me five minutes up the road to the right place. I was met by Hao himself a Vietnamese guy with really good english who obviously has had his fair share of paddies through there. After the initial "Come in sit down and chill man, just take it easy" came the words "Fuckin Irish", (I should point out he did mean it as a joke) I just fell around the place laughing. As it turns out he does a mean Irish accent as well. So after getting me a bite to eat and dumping my bags in the room I did exactly what he said and just realxed, mainly because there isn't a huge amount to do here but relax.

Hao's place is a family run place with his wife and his brother Bo, who

06 Getting the boat out to open water

doesn't really speak English so if a phone call comes in to make a booking and Hao isn't around he calls up the nearest English speaker to him to take the call. Its a really easy going spot where if you want a drink or some smokes you just go up and nab them youself and write it down on a copy book to be paid up when leaving. Everyday at 6.30pm he has a meal where we can all sit down and meet the other travellers and just generally have a good chat. In his twelve years running the place he said he has never had a problem with people taking stuff and not paying for it, which reflects really good on both the type of people travelling and the easy going atmosphere that Hao has towards people in the place. It because of this attitude that although I booked in for one night I have stayed here for 9.

The weather here has been pretty hot over. There have been a few scorchers to the point where I wasn't even able to walk on the sand in my bare feet beacuse the sand was so hot, don't be worrying too much about me though I struggled through. But if it make ye feel better I have turned from a nice shade of pasty white to a great shade of lobster red and that was with sun cream on.

Opposite the beach is a small town, whose main business is marble crafting, the town is over looked by Marble Mountain (named for obvious reasons). As you walk down the street you are met with store unpon store of marble statues ranging from fiercesome lions and huge buddas to dolphins and christian statues.

13 Budda doing the mexican wave

Every store has someone outside trying to entice you in to buy something. I was looking at a marble chessboard that was going for something like US$8. I got myself a little budda for 50,000 dong or 2.5 euro (1 euro is roughly 20,000 dong, which looks great when ya go to an ATM and take out 1,000,000 dong)

The town also play host to some pretty impressive limestone caves. There are two main caves depicting Heaven and Hell. The heaven side has all the different buddas from laughing budda to sleepinf budda at every corner you turn. Whereas the hell cave has some pretty grisly dipictions of various demon tirturing people in a whole bunch of unpleasant ways

45 The party on the beach

Oh and I have picked up a few straglers that I met in Hanoi. So now I'm travelling with Mini the Irish guy, Diana the Canadian and Ib and Linn the Swedes. They decided to join me in China Beach and we are travelling around together. So it looks like I will be stuck with them for a while yet.

Well I've a bunch of pics for ye to look at so will leave it there. Talk soon