Na Tran and the road to Dalat

I sat with my toes buried deep in the sand, watching the beach jut out into a warm turquoise surf. Locals gathered around for their evening games of soccer, volleyball and wave surfing while merchants wove amongst the tourist cabanas selling everything from cigarettes to bracelets to corn on the cob and sparklers. Families of Vietnamese tourists splashed and flipped and floated together, laughing with each wave that hit them and carried them into shore, than out once more. The sea here seems so immense, yet so lived in and I start to wonder what it would be like living here with the waves as my playground. It's a feeling I've had many times on this trip, wondering what the real world of local life is like. Right now, Its a world which I feel intimately included in- I'm a guest welcomed to join the party and partake in the energy spinning around on this stretch of coast. The scene was that of everyday life in this bustling beach side city, yet being present in it made me feel so alive and content in that moment, that I wanted to cry.

The sun was setting, meaning the town would quickly be waking back up from its mid day sun dazed sleepiness. Soon, the daytime Bhan Mi stands would give way to the smoked fish and fresh foot-long prawns being sold on every corner. The tour buses would be overtaking the roads from buzzing motorbikes, bringing with them fresh eyes and wallets arriving from Ho Chi Mihn, Ha Noi, & Hoi An.

Ive been here for hours, yet cant get myself to leave. So I order a beer. It's a fabulously priced $1, so naturally I up the ante to 2 beers. I've grown so accustomed to the art of just sitting, observing, taking it all in. This isn't the first time ( nor the last, I'm sure), that I've intended to sit down and kill some time only to find myself entranced and immobile while I lose hours in the sport of spectating. I know I could stay here getting my fill of cheap beer and continuing to wax philosophical, but I have an early bus to Dalat so I decide to call it a night.

The bus to Dalat Should be just another long bus ride, but  turns out to be a scenic cruise through untouched jungle and beautiful, forgotten villages. Every tight bend in the road brings with it the opening up of a new view,  a seemingly endless expanse of tumbling green hills and orange rocky rivers. With each additional 10k, a town punctuates the winding roadside with its shanty shops and colorfully painted Buddhist altars. Rusted over satellite dishes, were perched on the corners of boarded up shacks transmitting no signals and gathering an afternoon mountain dew on their steel arms. Villagers were squatting on their porches, smoking tobacco from banana leaves and watching the bus of tourists roll by. Their unaffected demeanor shows they've likely spent many similar hours, of many similar days ,  of many similar months- in the same languid pastime of porch perching.

Soon we arrive in Dalat. A day earlier in Na Tran, a local warned me not to expect much from the town itself- but I'm pleasantly surprised at how wrong he was. The steep jungle hills have stacked rows of colorful homes, all circling around a deep valley that's so shrouded in rainy fog u cant see the bottom of it. The roads are misted with fresh rain. The air is cool and a welcome relief from the humid lowland cities I've been in so far ( I'm instantly grateful that my decision to lug around Mike's Smartwool sweater has finally paid off, I end up wearing it the entire time I'm in Dalat). The climate and landscape all remind me slightly of a Vietnamese version of Seattle, & a lurch of homesickness quickly tightens my  stomach. Fortunately after a deadly 2 week bout with homesickness earlier in my trip, I'm familiar with this feeling and know the quickest remedy. I close my eyes, shoot a smile and positive thought back to my home city,  & open my eyes back to the gem of a town that is laid out before me to enjoy. Good Morning, Dalat.


Rainy hillsides of Dalat

My Friendly Vietnamese boyfriend, who had my heart when he welcomed me inside from the rain to watch cartoons and share his blanket.

Fourth of July in Laos

I'm sitting at a Bhuddist Wat towering one mile above Luang Pra Bang. The sunset is about an hour from now. Photog tourists begin trickling up the steep hill for a glance at a city perched amongst rolling jungle hills, that's soon to be cloaked in gold as the sun dips low over tiered temples, & retires into the Mekong.

A stray kitten has taken a liking to the back of my leg. He sits cuddling his body into me as he bites and tears at the fleas in his paws. I know he's mite ridden and likely diseased.  I should push him off me but he's so thin, scared, and young. His tail is broken and his face his scared. The poor thing has probably been itching and scratching, & fighting and starving since he was born, but he now looks so content lying against me as he slips into slumber. So I let him rest, and shoot myself a mental reminder to buy hand Sanitizer on the way home.

The sounds of the city coming alive for the night, echo from the main walking street below. Wood xylophones and haphazardly constructed can mandarins, mingle with the evening drums from the temple beside me. A Thai family strikes up a conversation with me and upon hearing I'm American, all the aunts and uncles and cousins begin posing around me for pictures. Two other nearby Americans overhear the conversation and introduce themselves. We start the standard traveler conversation: "Where are you from? Where have you been? Where are you going? "  After our introductions, I realize I've spent 4 hours up here lost in awe and contemplation, & I should probably head back into town for some food. Before leaving I remember the date, & turn to the American boys- "Hey by the way, happy fourth of July!"

A few hours later along the same lines of patriotic mentality mixed with a never ending appreciation for $1 beers, I head out to celebrate.  Laos has an 11pm curfew and there are only 3 bars in town so its not hard to run into everyone you know on one central downtown street anywhere from 9pm-midnight. I run into the two Americans, & happen upon three others at the bar. The place is run by a Canadian expat who lays out an unbeatable offer: bring Americans into the bar all night, & I'll play "American music" & make u free red white and blue drinks all night. Sold! Obviously, it doesn't take us long to stock up on Americans who were interested in a free fourth of July libation. Though his choice of "American music" ended up equating to played out classics such as Hotel California and American Pie, the entire deal worked out decidedly in our favor as we spent the pre-curfew hours dancing, and drinking, and celebrating 'Merica beside the lazy lull of the Mekong.

Luang Pra Bang, Laos

Dong Hoi to Hoi An

I walk the 1.5 miles back to the main bus station of Dong Hoi in an attempt at being responsible and buying my ticket in advance. No luck- tickets are only sold the day of departure so I'll need to be back at the station at 6:30am. One of the more frustrating feelings of my time here, though its a feeling I've grown accustomed to, is being grounded when my feet are anxious to move on. The public transport is confusing, with time tables that make no sense and buses that fill up at a moments notice.  So, I take it in stride and prepare to hunker down in Dong Hoi for one more night.

I wake at 5:30am and try to check out so I can haul ass to the bus depot. Again, no luck- the overnight manager speaks no English and  cant help me check out or get my passport back until someone else gets there to help him navigate the process. I'm on a time crunch so I deliver my best attempt at miming the words, "return passport please" but my fumbling efforts are met with a blank stare from his half asleep eyes. Somehow, he does know English for "5 more minutes," since he continues to say it every 5 mins. for the next half hour. Finally someone arrives who can help, & I'm off!

The bus ride should take about 7 hours. We seem right on track for about 11. The driver stops about every 3 miles to pick up few roadside hop-ons, whom I can only assume are paying about 1/10 what my "foreigner priced" ticket cost at the station. Locals hop on with giant bags of rice, only to get off three towns down, trade the rice for a stack of red plastic chairs, then continue riding on. Passengers are yelling at each other, shuffling bags of food and boxes of goods about the bus.  I'm beginning to realize the ways of the local Vietnamese bus system, and the breadth of commerce taking place within its carriages and the corridors it cruises down. I see a sign saying we're 30k from Hue. I think, "Good- we're almost half way". Then we stop again for a passenger and goods reload...then again for another.. then again for a car wash (yes, a 30 min wash of a bus half way through its journey...I didn't understand the point either, but we all felt shiny and clean for the remaining 3 hours). An hour later and we've moved 10k..I close my eyes and wish I had gotten that over the counter Zanax they sell for $3 a box (presumably to many a traveler for situations such as these). 

Finally, we arrive in Da Nang and my skepticism melts as I realize we've somehow still made it in under 7 hrs.   We pull into the bus station to a scene that looks like Beattle-mania. Motorbike drivers chase down our bus, banging the sides and clawing at the windows until they've managed to open them from the outside. They jump onto the bus while its still moving, throwing their heads in the windows  to find the most tourist looking passenger that they can overcharge for the ride to nearby Hoi An. Naturally, I've been pegged as the front running candidate. I'm not even off the bus before hands are hitting my shoulders and 5 men are around me fighting to grab and direct me to their motorbikes. I politely remove their hands from me, keep saying "no", and walk onward. To my luck, the local bus to Hoi An is right in front of me so I hop on.

I immediately make friends with an old man sitting on the bus alone smoking a cigarette.  He says to me in perfect English,  " I speak very good English." When we begin talking, I realize he used the term lightly and knows only a few words of English. All the same, he's lovely and he likes shaking my hand repeatedly, so I enjoy our meaningless conversation immensely.  He asks me if I'm American or French- apparently those are my only two Westerner options. He has the kind of eyes and face that you know his experience of Americans over the past 30 years, is probably complex and complicated to say the least. Yet, he is so excited that I choose "American", that he points me out to each boarding passenger. They all look and smile and wave and stare a bit and it's all very endearing/ embarrassing. Now that its been established that there's an American on board to provide the in- transport entertainment, we ride on exchanging handshakes and smiles for the next 30 mins. Sitting on the bus, I feel lost for the first time. Not 'lost' as in I don't know where I'm going, but as in nobody else in the world knows where  I am. I'm a bit off the grid, where nobody speaks English and I'm completely alone. I feel disconnected and rootless, wandering around a pocket of the world where I'm  unreachable by a single person I know. I feel my own smallness in a never-ending  spin of the world around me- the feeling is exhilarating and profound. Pulling into Hoi An,  I realize I haven't checked my watch in hours. It's 4pm, I've put in a 9 hour day of travel and couldn't be happier with where I landed.

Hoi An riverfront

Hoi An is known for it's affordable tailoring. Here I'm having a dress recreated from a picture online, tailored perfectly to me.  

Bangkok

Everything is swirling- 
    My Racing mind of concerns and confusions,
    Sprial together wit the warm sweat dripping from my face, through no exertion at all...
I can feel the pulse of electricity all around me. 
The bold and boisterous beat of the city, boasts of unending energy. 
She paints herself up, 
In flickering hues, that shift- 
    From red, To purple, To green, gold, & fuchsia.
Ominous sky scraping guardians of the city, 
Illuminate both a towering skyline, And the buckled in pockets of shanty alike. 
Street vendors, pushing and parading their products about, 
Fold in their stands for the night- 
    Pouring water over their heads to cool, And settling in at the nearby bar for a beer and a World Cup match. 
Pedestrians and motorists have a mutual disregard for each other's presence- 
Playing a delicate dance of chicken and near misses 
Weaving amongst each other, neither willing to relinquish authority over the road. 
An afternoon rainstorm shows up suddenly, 
Dropping with the weight of a tidal wave splitting open the clouds- 
    Falling loud and hard and heavy from the sky, to the bustle below it. 
Than, rolling peacefully along. 

I'm not as intimidated as I thought I'd be... 
Somehow, amongst all it's rushed, rattling blanket if urban life, 
The city comes up to meet you. 
Like a gracious host that offers you both calm, & chaos- 
    Both up front aggression, A
    And the comforting anonymity to get lost in her. 
Where the streets simultaneously scream, "get lost!"- 
    And, "come sit down, lets chat". 
With the always churning malay of madness, 
Enticing you to self abandon, 
To melt slowly into the steamy, unforgiving, & all at once welcoming- 

Arms of Bangkok, & her bronzed Buddhas.