Charlie and Steve's Excellent Adventure

July 14, 2015

While you were working – Chasing Shadows, Doc Let, Vietnam

It’s goodbye to little Russia Nha Trang and off to big Russia Doc Let in a short flight of fancy just 40km north. Inspired by images from Mr Do Dien Khanh in his little white room of photographs we’re off to a place that hasn’t graced many maps but has prodded us to change our course. So many images grabbed us in that studio from this place we’re heading to, images of people farming salt in simple traditional ways; everyday life as Mr Khanh puts it. Through the Nha Trang gauntlet of possibly the friendliest hostel hosts we’ve had this trip it’s onto our bikes, Rob and Greg, to chase visions of an image on a wall in a room. From one beach to another and neither of them are the reason for our visit. This part of Vietnam is popular with Russian tourists who flock from their cold world to relish the sun and sand that requires great generosity for us Australians to even call a beach. In another life riding up the coast to stay at a beachside resort for the opportunity to take some photos that may or may not eventuate seems folly, but the blessing of our traveller lives affords indulgences, a day chasing shadows is better than a day hiding from them.

From our weirdly cheap but rather plush beach resort we venture north of town to the salt flats to see what we’ve come here to see. In short not a lot beyond a beach and a bunch of dehydration pools that look nothing like the grand white spaces in the photos we’ve seen; there’s some inside knowledge here and we don’t have it. We do however have families harvesting seaweed on the beach and a trio of young boys rowing to shore in what can only be described as baby pools made of wicker to accompany the scooter procession along the shore. Never mind the dead dog on the beach Charlie points out to me as I attempt to enjoy baguette I went back into town for.

Harvesting seaweed, Doc Let beach, Vietnam.

We haven’t found the salt flats yet, not the ones we want anyway, but we have stumbled across what can only be found when we chase shadows; a real world scene that makes us think that the romantic photographs we saw in Nha Trang aren’t that idealistically romantic at all. In this scene that hasn’t graced a travel brochure Charlie takes photos of what our travel brochure might be, right down to the cheeky boys now ashore that try to sell us a packet of biscuits for a dollar. In the absence of the salt flats we have found a miracle; seriously, Charlie’s dead dog is now up and very much alive. That baguette was delicious.

Delicious or not, just one baguette is never enough for lunch so back into town we’re on the now customary pre-school sized chairs by the roadside for some ‘one’. One is a fabulous dish, we’ve been having it all across Vietnam, we sit down and hold up one finger and out comes food which all seems different but we order it the same way. This one is a fishy soup with noodles and fish cakes, of course it’s the only dish this lady does. The ‘one’ dish is a very Vietnamese thing, the idea of having small scale restaurants or stalls and specialising in one really good thing is something the rest of the world really needs to adopt; why do two average things when you can do one thing perfectly? As we leave the small tables crowded over by a tarpaulin flapping in the breeze there’s seven sets of eyes looking right at us. We’re heading back to big Russia and I can only guess that not a lot of white faces visit this stall as the chatter positively explodes upon our retreat.

Coracles (Thúng Chai in Vietnamese) line Doc Let beach, Vietnam.

The shadows have evaded us thus far and for a time we’re giving up the chase to be like the locals, the Russians that is and finally go into the ocean, I still can’t call this a beach. All local adventurous credit we gained on the beach with the dog zombie is now up in smoke, Charlie even falls asleep in a deck chair on the beach, but in Vietnam we’re visiting big Russia so of course: when in Rome.

Dinner time comes and this indulgence simply has to stop, we walk across the road to a more local looking restaurant, or bar, who can really tell? A few shouted words and in a flash a cute little girl in pigtails comes bounding from next door to greet us. Her posture proud, her face confident she rattles off in her best Russian; well we don’t know what she says but I’m sure it was said perfectly. In a few charades time we’re next door for food with the little girl and her mum who can’t seem to believe we don’t speak Russian. We’ve come chasing the shadows of an artists vision and ended up with not a single shadow caught, in their place just a trip to a beach that didn’t make it onto the tourist trail. To think that we could have been safe and cosy in Nha Trang, who needs a shadow to declare a successful chase.

July 13, 2015

What you’d rather be seeing – San Telmo, Buenos Aires

In March 2015 we were in Buenos Aires, Argentina and I spent an afternoon in the grungy suburb of San Telmo focusing on photography and in particular portraiture. Due to all the top summary posts of South America at the time I didn’t publish these images.

We’re on the home stretch of this trip and prone to reminisce, join us as we remember the faces of Argentina.

To see other posts containing my photographs see the category “What you’d rather be seeing“.

Why do you want a photo of me? Great subjects aren’t always models.

The most European of Latin countries, racial differences make up a part of Argentina’s story still today.

“Do you want a photo of me or that silly thing behind me?”

Take the photo. Take it because I have little to give.

Another day another shoe. Just like so many before and yet to come.

Just another day, just another Che Guevara clone.

On the street or in the window, everyone’s a model in Buenos Aires.

Che Guevara or Lionel Messi my son?

Old and new, a once grand economy and now.

First date; or last?

Public property now private, what does your footpath say about you?

There are customers inside they can wait, this is fun.

We used to be such a powerful nation, now I have maté.

July 12, 2015

Gluttony Expedition – Room for Two, Nha Trang, Vietnam

It’s time to pay the bill, but we don’t have any idea how much we’re to be paying and only a slight idea what we’re paying for; we’re sure we ordered something with beef in it but was there beef in dinner? Yousef hands over some notes and a young boy stands stuck to the spot, unsure what to do next although he’s done this a million times. He slowly edges away and without a chorus of objection from the four people he can’t understand he surmises that the coast is clear, he can leave and no one is going to shout at him. In no time he’s back with the small pieces of change that Yousef doesn’t want, but it’s part of that process he’s done a million times before. In the wave of a hand and the flash of a smile Yousef destroys the process; people take the change, this is not how it works. He’s stuck to the spot again, this time with confusion rather than uncertainty. Another friendly gesture and the realisation dawns, the process has an exception.

With childish glee that the once terrified boy cannot contain, he skips with high heels to show off to his friends, the bounty he now has all to his own, not an amount worth a mention to any of us but it’s worth skipping in public for him. It’s evening and our faux double-date is going well, Holly has even done herself up we’re told. We’re on a tour of sorts, a food tour of Nha Trang but this one is a little different, this time we’re the all knowing, all seeing locals. This day started with quite a different script, so how did we get to be on a double-date food tour of Nha Trang that we’re completely unqualified to be guiding? The answer comes close to defining the spirit of this excellent adventure.

Sweet fried dried crab, snack from Dam Market, Nha Trang, Vietnam

Bright and early was the alarm, we commenced the shuffle that we’re rather used to now, up early and walking to the shop. Not quite ready for the world we’re shuffled to a car and got prodded like cattle to a boat, still not entirely ready for getting up let alone being this far from bed. A few mumbled words make it through the defences and we nod, this is all quite routine. Alertness threatens us on a salty sea breeze that takes the fight from a sun that doesn’t quite sting like it should. It’s all a precursor really, in no time the world is blue and with that blue we’re awake; the climax of our ever so dependable routine now upon us as we breathe the air under the surface of the South China Sea. Scuba diving felt so grand, such a discovery when I first took the breaths I shouldn’t be able to; now the enlivened feeling remains untamed but frontier discovery is replaced by a sort of comfortable embrace, a down couch that has your groove well worn into it.

Corals, fish and all the usual cast are there to greet us, sadly not as many fish as we’d have liked but over fishing is a global problem and no more so than in Asian waters. Trigger fish greet us too, our old territorial friends that enjoy a sparring nip to keep us out of their domain, but nowadays we’re more locals here than visitors, more local under water than on the streets of Nha Trang. This day didn’t have Yousef or Holly in the script but travelling does that sometimes, a less padded world encompasses us without the ready contact to a cast of friends and family, doors usually shut are so often left swinging on the hinges nowadays. They’re breathing on the surface we’re finning beneath and on this great adventure every person we see has a unique story to tell, a story we’re more interested in hearing than we usually are.

Heading east to dive off of Hòn Mun island, Nha Trang, Vietnam

Diving is all the blissful things it promises to be, a blue cuddle from an old friend. An enormous frog fish is our highlight in an otherwise passive day more about familiarity than discovery. Today the triggers weren’t even nipping. Awake now the boat bobbles back, and the conversation with Yousef and Holly goes like many before but moves quickly like only few seem to. The rituals are passed: travel stories, work lives at home, where is home; and that’s where most travel insta-mates find themselves stuck in a whirlpool, going around in circles but unable to be pulled into the middle, just around and around.

In no time we’re at a street stall, our street food festival holding us in good stead as we share our discoveries with two people that seem to have no troubles getting into the eye of the whirlpool and beyond a surface of flapping arms. Steamed buns and sugar cane juice are some of our favourites and now they’re favourites for Yousef and Holly also before coffee places us on a soap box. We feel like coffee experts and for a minute we possibly carry it off too, Yousef and Holly have been a little gun shy about the local food thus far but we’re having none of it. Some people inspire confidence to immediately let you be yourselves and leave protocol back on the boat circling in the whirlpool we’re all now lost within. We make plans to meet up again for dinner.

Boat captain, manouvering his boat, Nha Trang port, Vietnam

Another Vietnamese blind stab in the dark is a success, rice paper rolls with something like meat and something like savoury candy goes down a treat. Here the days impromptu script writes to the now, the little boy skips with glee through the restaurant displaying far too much excitement for the small change he’s just won; or so we think at least. With our guide caps on it’s baguette time before a beer and to finish off this day that didn’t want to be what the script said it should. But who needs scripts anyway, this year of cut strings and abandoned routine was in a way written for a script that had no words penned before they happened.

Yousef has an interesting upbringing, the son of a mixed faith household; Catholic and Islamic parents raising a child of no religious identification at all; post-post-modern poster child. Holly works for a company in the same group as Charlie’s, another market researcher with a right brain who wants to write and be creative, a kindred spirit to both of us. Through doors that are so often closed two people have walked right in past the otherwise fortified barrier of our worlds that usually have no time for more friends. Can you ever have too many friends and no time for more? We took a plunge and said goodbye to our old worlds to allow a road to form under each struck footstep rather than lay out far in advance. A road already laid out doesn’t allow newcomers to emerge so suddenly and in this openness we have one of the primary reasons for this great adventure; life’s never too busy for another couple of friends; anymore.

July 11, 2015

While you were working – Little White Room, Nha Trang, Vietnam

Cool air rushes to greet us like a friend a little too exuberant backed by passive ambient music in this embrace that welcomes us in so eagerly from the humid heat of a Vietnam day. In the tourist mecca that is Nha Trang the window to everyday Vietnamese life that was yesterday is easy enough to grasp in clutches but impossible to hold onto for long. Nha Trang is loaded with cliche tourists from the old Communist ally turning Nha Trang into a little Russia; but little Russia lies outside now, oddly the cool rush of tourist friendly air takes us to the life of everyday Vietnam and the many faces that stare at us in turn. From little Russia we have crossed a threshold and into the world of Mr Do Dien Khanh and his photographic vision of his native Vietnam. The search for comfort over experience seems such a contrary Russian ideal misplaced in Vietnam; see the world, open your eyes then let it open them further we say with righteous ease.

We walked the famous beach of Nha Trang to see a true Vietnamese coastline fashioned into Russian style. Is the Russian influence contrary to the identity of Vietnam that we have come to see or made authentic by its undeniable place in recent history? Are we just escaping the real Vietnam in favour of the dreamy vision of a romantic that conveniently suits our own? It’s so easy to scoff at the plump lushes that drape over deck chairs on the beach and live in a sanitised world as we escape into sanitised air conditioning to see the gritty identity we romanticise in sanitised pictures. A simple walk into a little white room now a complex swirl of challenged ideals, a simple little white room becomes a babushka doll on the click of a door closing behind us, more than it first seems.

View of Nha Trang beach from the bridges, Vietnam

We’re in a tourist town crawling with the definition of tourists cuddled in the embrace of tourist comfort in our endeavour to see real Vietnam, or at least what we think real Vietnam should be. The faces of our visions look down upon us in black and white, old and young alike stare accusingly at our placement in this absurd situation, embracing so tightly what we are so distant from. In this cool room of too much white and not enough colour, beautiful images stir the heart and prod the mind; we are after all everything we decry. Our middle-class privilege is all at once the precursor to our righteousness, our accusation, our ideal and our hypocrisy as we strive not to put the cart before the horse in our vision of Vietnam.

Alain De Botton, famous philosopher and my secret man crush, poses that we place our conclusions first when it comes to consuming media, that we seek what we want to see rather than allowing ourselves to see what indeed is there to be seen. We all do this to some degree, I wonder now how much I do this myself. Alain rallies against the trickery of the media and the heartstrings they pull, posing they they are social managers, artists of a form, skilled at manipulating us under the guise of a factual reporting service; the news is the art of social engineering, not the science of delivering facts. He so elegantly says:

The dream of the news is that it makes us care about other people and situations. But we cannot identify with people to whom we haven’t been introduced. Humans will only respond to art, to people who are skilled in making you care.

I stare again at the faces I feel such empathy for and question for the first time: is this true Vietnam, an artistic vision or both?

Street fishmonger, Nha Trang, Vietnam

In this cool room these words drum at my consciousness as if spoken by the mouths of the ‘real Vietnamese’ I see looking down upon me. I attempt to look objectively, to take the facts the world has given me rather than arranging the ones I choose to grant validity. Possibly, surely Russia is a crucial and permeating part of Vietnamese recent history, does little Russia not deserve a place in an authentic view of modern Vietnam? Alain is indeed an artist, and so is Mr Khanh; in this world surrounded by art, my mind filled with the words of an artist inspiring me to critique myself: am I seeing facts or being manipulated by artists? Another artist of notable influence contradicts the almost linear inner dialogue, Oscar Wilde said:

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex, and vital.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

In this little room in contrary tourist mecca little Russia Nha Trang we venture onto an artistic flight that this somewhat superficial town should not allow; but this little white room does. In less than half an hour, a little room in Vietnam has taken me from looking at one artist, hearing another and seeing the wisdom of a third yet I struggle to pin down which is which. With apologies to all three I take the advice of all three. Mr Khanh your vision is true and beautiful, Alain your cynicism is a life vest for a drowning world and Oscar you are possibly the most correct. As always, little in this world is simple, least of all a dance with artists and philosophers. The heat rushes to join us like a friend a little too exuberant and the search for exact answers left behind in the air-conditioning where it belongs. We welcome new eyes to an authentic Vietnam, a culture freed from a place in the past and allowed to exist in the now without degradation as it is rather than how we’d like it to be. The unsolvable artistic conundrum just got simpler because of a fat tourist on a deck chair; a gift, from Russia, with love.

July 10, 2015

Gluttony Expedition – Dead Words, Nha Trang, Vietnam

After the stern talking to yesterday Greg is finally behaving like a man befitting my substantial repute and Rob has continued his good form from the lovers tiff just out of Mui Ne. I don’t want to jinx the good fortune but just possibly there’s to be four of us all getting along again as we carve our way down the mountains to Nha Trang; to beach, scuba diving and a return to heat from the blessedly cool Dalat. The food fest that was Dalat is consigned to history as we journey from town and into the country, again skirting the rugged mountain slopes into wide arcs and clipped corners. It’s like taking a couple of donkeys onto a racecourse and riding high in the saddle, Rob and Greg aren’t the finest of machines to be honest but we all conspire to keep the ruse alive.

It might be impossible to repeat the glut-athon of Dalat on the road but there’s no reason to turn our back on food snobbery, there’s never a reason for that; particularly in Vietnam. First stop is coffee and as is the ritual now we stop at someones house who has plonked a sign out the front to take up the comically undersized stools, adult sized seating just wouldn’t seem right. Coffee is the liquid equivalent of skydiving, Rob and Greg are cooling down but we’re afforded no such slow down. On a concrete patio in someones front yard a fire burns some rubbish just near to us and a busy ladies lounge room open to the world, yet again the humblest of settings seems to be the discordant key ingredient to decadence and indulgence. Where in every other country we’ve visited small local places have a charm and authenticity that can’t be contrived, it’s a purely Viet phenomenon that the food is unquestionably superior in a weird resources to outcome contradiction.

The other phenomenon that is truly Viet is the one offering model, she does coffee, coffee and coffee, baguettes are a bit further down the road. Back on Rob and Greg we roll down the hill but the busy place seems to be the pho place; baguettes another time it seems. The broken record skips track again: delicious, authentic, local and all that guff, the assumption of deliciousness is becoming somewhat mundane. What’s not mundane in this travel day come food tour is the guy in the restaurant that wants to get on the drink at lunchtime as we’re offered a full cup of what can only be called moonshine. Viet coffee all of a sudden feels like a watered down milkshake.

The warm hearty beef pho acts as a counterbalance to our newest mate who won’t take no for an answer. Sensing our trepidation he brings over three shot glasses and pours it out and calls ‘YO’, and downs his shot. It would be rude to refuse. Oh look at that, the glasses are full again. Few words are spoken and even fewer are caught before they depart this world without finding a life in ears that understand them; so much is said on so few words that live another moment. Strangely enough we do say and hear more than the words that are kept for another time; this man is generous, this man is kind and warm of heart. This mans son is shy but inquisitive of the people from a world that seems so much bigger than his, this mans wife is the fortitude of this family unit and this mans friend is a content soul happy to watch this conversation unfold. This mans home looks like a cleaner version of a roadside mechanic and there’s not enough storage space to house the love and family unity that tints the air which smells of pho, the dusty ceiling or the clean swept floor. On so few words given life we understand so much, we learn so much. There is one word we understand though, yo, and voila, the glasses are full again.

On leaving I’m surprised to learn that there’s no intention of billing us for the moonshine, nor for the tea that he insists on sharing. For some conversations there’s no need for a lot of words if you can hear with something other than ears. After Viet coffee and moonshine it’s not a great surprise that my heart is fluttering a little but a part of the flutter is undoubtedly the conversation of uncountable dead words not so dead after all, so few living words were born on breath. This mans missing canine tooth greets us behind a smile of generosity and humanity in place of calculation and conceit. His son sits close yet cautiously out of easy eye line, entranced by the temporary visitors from a bigger world that won’t stay long; they never do, says the excitement that masks the disappointment he fights off for as long as he can.

It’s a little sad, the conversation of dead words sticks to us too thickly as we wave a fond farewell to disappear to our big worlds never to return and battle a child’s disappointment. And it clings, all the way down from the beautiful mountains and onto the hot plains leading up to Nha Trang. Intent on soaking up the food journey that has become so much more than just food we can’t help but take up one more opportunity, one more privilege to stop at a small roadside place. We invent a need for coffee. Many words live another day on ears that give them homes this time, a man speaking great English goes about his business in the typically attentive and industrious Viet way. Before too long we’re farewelling this man also and onto Nha Trang.

At a food stall in town now we take in some sort of rice dish topped with sausage, pork I think, dried fish and god knows what other special secrets before shuffling one stand left to indulge in a Nha Trang specialty, pancakes. We’re stuffed to bursting on a day that should by all rights have been a travel day, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t really even about the great scenery, it’s even more than the food. Today we didn’t just taste Vietnam, we didn’t just see Vietnam, we heard it. We heard the dead words that found no ears in which to call home but cling to us still. We know so much more about that man and his family and none of it exists on living words, just the ones we thought were dead.

July 9, 2015

While you were working – Trouble in Paradise, Dalat, Vietnam

The love affairs continue, it’s back on the bikes and off into the countryside and onto the open road to search out what having our own bikes has to offer, freedom from timetables, schedules and bus routes. With two English guys, Sam and Milo, we charge further into the mountains sweeping on the black ribbon that is our road to carve out the mountain face. Hugging the curves through the bends Greg is purring like a kitten while Charlie is similarly in race mode on Rob through scenery to inspire the cinematic adventure of a dramatic chase scene. High walls of stone cutaway oppose steep drops from the mountain, our black ribbon divides rising mountain from falling valley to channel us through rugged slopes that should offer no passage.

In such a short time so far our bikes have taken on the personas of their namesakes, Rob Horne and Greg Holmes of the Wallabies; Rob is the fleet footed pretty boy with a tough streak while Greg remains the doe-eyed brute with more muscle than brains. Just how we like em; not sure what that says about us respectively but that’s for another therapy session. Todays destination is Elephant falls about 40km away but after only about 15km’s Greg is throwing a tantrum, for such a tough guy he can be a real sook sometimes. His engine is fluttering, spluttering and generally farting all the while as he objects to going further before soon enough his objections turn into outright refusal. Lets just say that the sweaty push up the hill is not full of romantic bliss, there’s trouble in paradise.

The namesakes of our bikes, Rob and Greg

Pulling into a typically basic roadside mechanic it’s time for charades again, I don’t think I really get any messages across in this interaction at all but we’re back up and running somehow. Before the falls there’s Le Minh coffee plantation to visit for some famous weasel coffee. Greg is again having a sook just in time to pull into the coffee plantation; on some stern words I leave him to have a little think about his attitude and head in for coffee. This time it’s Charlie and Rob’s turn to maintain a dignified silence.

Sitting at our balcony overlooking a valley the is nicely poised between bustling rural life and wild jungle we enjoy our poo coffee, yes this coffee is literally shit, it’s undigested coffee beans extracted from weasel poo. Weasel coffee is often reportedly the most expensive cup of coffee in the world, but why would people pay so much for glamourised cat droppings? It seems that the weasels, civet cats, have quite the discerning taste and only select the best beans to eat, from there the unique enzymes in their stomachs ferment the beans and remove some of the bitter proteins in the bean making for a strong yet smooth coffee. In one taste it’s quite easy to see the difference, the coffee we have is made a touch lighter than the syrup that we have enjoyed so far but it’s a one of a kind taste, nearly worth the tiff with Greg just to get this far.

There’s an elephant in the corner, who in their right mind decided to pick up a bit of cat shit, then forage through it enough to find a coffee bean and as if this wasn’t weird enough, decide to roast it and see if cat shit tastes nice? And what does this have to do with a baguette? The answer is that they’re both leftovers from French colonial rule. French farmers in 1857 were the first to clear the land and plant coffee trees but in the early years the Vietnamese were forbidden form accessing the coffee grown on their own land, coffee was to be a European thing too exclusive for the downtrodden locals. And here again we see the Vietnamese ingenuity that never says ‘near enough is good enough’. Local farmers found beans the only way they could, yes, they picked up cat shit and quite literally went thorough the impossible thought process just questioned; they foraged, washed, roasted and voila; in your face Frenchie!

Steve on Greg and Charlie on Rob, near Dalat, Vietnam

In the worlds second largest coffee producer, Vietnam now bookends the coffee bean market: the majority of the nations produce is substandard and can only be used as instant coffee yet a piece of the market is arguably the most exclusive in the world. The flip-side to all this fanfare and applauds is that ironically the nations booming coffee industry has deforested much of the civet cats habitat reducing their numbers. Combine environmental degradation with often questionable treatment of the caged animals and the weasel coffee party takes a serious edge very quickly. Is it so good that it overcomes ethical hurdles like animal cruelty, deforestation and destruction of natural habitats? It’s not exactly in the leagues of whale flesh or shark fin soup but all of a sudden there’s a bitter aftertaste that wasn’t there before.

Gripes with coffee ethics are soon replaced with gripes with Greg’s temperament: now Greg, have you decided to behave? It appears not, I’m soon rolling down the hill to find another mechanic. Like a bipolar princess with a prescription drug habit he’s going again for no apparent reason, this big handsome lush proving more delicate than his brawn would suggest; he’s a sook but he’s my sook. On the turn of attitude we take the chance to head back into the embrace of Dalat and available mechanics thrashing Greg the whole way with the firm hand of high revs, he likes it a little rough.

The sook prevented us from reaching the falls but didn’t stop us enjoying a great day, he’s at the mechanics now for a stern attitude change for tomorrows long ride to Nha Trang, the beach mecca of Vietnam. Sam and Milo are back and mimicking the typical domestic stoush scenario there’s only one sentence to deliver to Greg as I walk out the door. “I’m going to the pub with my mates, I expect a better attitude when I get home”. At the moment he doesn’t have a lot of redeeming features to garner much affection, thank god he’s pretty.

July 8, 2015

Gluttony Expedition – Fighting the good fight, Dalat, Vietnam

Yesterdays first little jaunt into Dalat promised so much, had us so excited for the place we’re about to get into, taste and see. Waking to bleary eyes and no great abundance of energy it’s time to see if it was all just a rose coloured ruse or if Dalat is the beautiful food laden wonderland we hope it is. Walking up the main street everything looks like we remembered it from last night, food everywhere that is as we venture onto salvation in coffee. We’d heard of a weird old place set in a townhouse but renovated to be an architectural masterpiece or a comical disaster depending on your point of view. With the entrance blocked by a rough pile of bricks neatly sealing off any entry like a fort made by young kids playing at soldiers, we have an option to climb over or err on the side of comical disaster. We don’t climb the bricks.

Luckily enough there is coffee everywhere so we need not go far. With the coffee beast sated it’s time for lunch, and who needs a guidebook when you can just apply the Asian food rules for hunting and gathering, there’s just three rules to apply to all but guarantee appeasement of the food gods. First of all and most importantly it cannot be a shiny well presented restaurant and in particular, never a franchise; essentially the more basic the better. First rule satisfied, rule two is that it needs to be busy; basic can mean flexible food health so if they’re not turning over their produce this could mean a volatile bum. With rules one and two locked away in the instant it takes to condemn or elevate a place some refinement is in order; there must be a healthy proportion of locals present, over half ideally.

A Vietnam visa being prepared, Dalat Market, Vietnam

We don’t need to go far, after a dash into the bakery again we return to some metal tables on the footpath directly opposite the cafe with all three rules ticked off in a sweeping glance. We’re ushered inside the small box of a room to similarly rudimentary metal tables adorned with the usual plastic basket that belongs in a pre-school room storing crayons or playing blocks but here the bounty is fish sauce, soy sauce and a few types of chilli. As usual they do just one dish and the beef pho (noodle soup) comes out steaming with the usual heavy dose of the herb garden too fresh to not be still in the ground. We’ve adopted a food rule in Vietnam that we are only allowed to eat at local places, on the street if possible and with only one dubious accreditation in Mui Ne we’ve upheld the rule for over a week now. There is no looking back.

Some may say that all we do is eat. Some may contend that we drink coffee as well. We would have to disagree, there’s beer in there too, but just to upset the apple cart entirely we’re taking in some sightseeing that entails no consumption of deliciousness; it’s a frightening proposition but we’re off to the crazy house. Perched on a hill atop the town with commanding views the crazy house reveals, if nothing else, an apt name. Somewhere between a melting candle, tree roots, a dilapidated castle and an unfortunate drug induced psychosis the crazy house is less a house and more a convoluted network of vine like pathway bridges in a labyrinth that makes Alice’s adventures in wonderland seem positively staid. Weird rooms fit nestled into whatever organic space is offered as we arc across, over and through this monstrosity of childhood imagining as definition escaped easy description. Treetop vine-like pathways give way to bulging caves amid fairytale castles that are melting by the minute; nothing makes sense in this place without a single straight line except for the smile that makes us feel like kids again without the need for acid, mushrooms or cactus root.

Crazy House, Dalat, Vietnam

So with coffee and food in our bellies and the disorienting jumble that is the crazy house it’s hard to know if our uneasy state is a Viet coffee heart palpitation, high blood sugar levels or architecture psychosis; either way we need a little lie down to ease the come down. The much needed rest serves to quell the drug free bender that is Dalat as well as prepare us for the glut-athon to come. We’ve thought about doing a bit of a food gauntlet of the three food rules and Dalat seems the perfect place; we’re planning on starting at the market and buying one of every food we see from street vendors only. A monumental task to be sure but we’re up for it, the ultimate test of the three food rules.

Like prize fighters before the bout we’re nervous, excited and the adrenaline is pumping, we round the bend to a world exploding to colour, light and life. First cab off the rank is some famed meat on a stick, famed for its place on BitJealous.com mind you but famed none the less. We have no idea what it is but not knowing makes it all the better, maybe there’s space for a fourth rule. Some purple rice thing with fish sauce goes down a treat before it’s time for more meat on a stick, this is heaven; on a stick. Some kind of hot soy milk with bean paste refreshes us between rounds before it’s back in the ring for another Vietnam visa. The beef soup stall doesn’t seem to see us so we don’t know how to order that one before it’s up the stairs from the market proper and down the main street.

Red chicken lady preparing our dinner, Dalat, Vietnam

After a few rounds in the ring it’s gluttony five, street vendors zero as we’re still going strong. Chicken and rice time, we’ve seen the red chicken lady before but this is our first date, or bout; who knows really. There’s rice, there’s chicken and on top of it all there’s piles of other stuff: there’s some kind of sausage, a dried fish and some other fatty meat but on the whole it’s just a delightful mystery. Reconfirming our dedication to eating what we don’t know, the best food we eat invariably seems to be the food we can’t identify. The champions of this glut-athon are waning on the home stretch as Viet food makes a charge back, we’re flagging but just like an Asian bus there’s always room for one more. Barbecued banana is topped with a coconut with soy milk fluid and slopped into a small plastic bowl like detention centre gruel but it’s possibly the best dessert we’ve had this year. The rule still applies, there’s always room for one more, a sweet bean drink full of fruit and jelly tops off the sweet indulgence as the final bell rings on the glut-athon of Vietnam. The first glut-athon of Vietnam, there will be more.

We waddle back though the night time streets possibly declaring victory to Vietnam as we pass a couple of vendors we don’t buy from; if this is defeat then call me a loser please. The food rules are not only reinforced, they are now iron clad, there exists no possible reason to go to a western style restaurant and the thought of going to a franchise place seems positively terrifying. We do pass a brief scuffle on the street, two young guys having a scrap that dissolves quickly enough not to donate a lasting discord on our way to food coma. We have an eating disorder it seems, our burden and joy a permanent companion, our internal fight reflected by the one in the street but not so fleeting. We’re not necessarily winning, we’re definitely not losing and all the while it doesn’t seem to matter, we are truly fighting the good fight; someone has to do it

July 6, 2015

Gluttony Expedition – The Good obsession, Dalat, Vietnam

So distant now is the punishing slog of our first leg on this road trip, getting lost, bad roads, baking sun and sore bums seem a more distant memory than just two days ago. A shimmering ocean flanks our right side in this adventure north, cows graze on a beach and sandy soil even more red than my beloved sunburnt country emblazons the lush green of a tropical world in place of the arid beauty I know. Australia’s red centre kisses the ocean and shakes hands with a Queensland forest in a place we call Vietnam.

We’re both happily getting into this polygamy thing, respectively Charlie and I are husband and bike with Rob and Greg, all four of us taking in scenery that is as jarringly dramatic as it is serene. Sweeping crests reveal inland juts of ocean, straight lines guide us through booming tropical forests that explode from earth that belongs on an artists palate and all the while the cool ocean air graces our world we would not see any other way. This is what gives road trips the reputation for romantic escape, this world that is ours defines a phenomenon dreamed of by the world that is not us. What also defines the phenomenon is rolling with the punches and dealing with the cards we’re dealt; there’s trouble in paradise with Charlie and Rob, they’ve busted a rubber. Maybe Charlie was riding him too hard or possibly Rob is just playing hard to get but as Charlie stands on the side of the road with a flat tyre and discontented frump Greg and I just maintain a dignified silence and go looking for a mechanic.

Our first foray to a side of the street mechanic, somehwere betweem Mui Ne and Da Lat, Vietnam

We’d heard that wherever you are in Vietnam help is never too far away, Greg and I play couples counsellor and in no time Charlie is pushing a sulky Rob back down the road. We couldn’t be further from anywhere we know with not a shared word of any language yet somehow this is somehow fun. Tools scatter a dusty driveway with parts strewn over a ground that’s part workshop floor and part bare ground in the most backyard makeshift mechanic I’ve ever seen, this is Viet style that didn’t make the Lonely Planet top 25. Charlie and Rob are talking again, this is an experience we could never buy and with a fairly benign tiff now resolved it’s nothing but a thick layer of the experience that can’t be manufactured; yet again we’re in the middle of the essential principle of a road trip.

The scenery continues, occasional agriculture nestles sympathetically into a jungle that can’t be gentled over mountains rearing up through intermittent flat pans of jungle or rice patties, or both. Lunchtime rolls on and in a town we can’t name on a road we can’t find on a map we stop in at someones house with an open front selling pho, the famous noodle soup that built a nation. Two gorgeous little girls pile out exuberantly going for high-fives and calling out ‘hello’, thrilled to say a word in English. In a house that is admittedly not too different from the rudimentary nature of the mechanics workshop everything is simple, past it’s best days and completely without pretence. There is one gleaming contradiction however, it’s not sharp clothing, a flat screen TV or a car parked out the front, it’s immaculately fresh and clean herbs and leafy vegetables so contrastingly perfect in this house of abandoned vanity. Unsurprisingly the pho is outstanding and brought to us on a smile, if there’s one thing to form your life around there surely is little more credible than to make your obsession food.

Steamed rice paper rolls with mushrooms and topped with bbq pork. Dalat, Vietnam

Onto Dalat there’s grumbles from both our boys after a hard day lugging us up the mountain but a few whispered words to Greg has the potential tantrum in check, we limp into the mountain town of Dalat and into blessed cooler weather. Dalat immediately reaches out as a cool place to be, small but grand, quaint yet bustling and all the while the food bar gets raised yet again into a stratosphere far far away. A recommendation from our hostel has us sitting in a small cafe style restaurant being utterly ignored by all and sundry, this is a little weird. Repeated attempts to order pass on yet another polite smile, this is very friendly but oddly polite and rude simultaneously. After giving up and rolling with whatever happens our food arrives, it seems they do one dish and by sitting down we have essentially ordered. Long complex menus attempting to cover many different cuisines often signals disaster, is it natural to assume that a menu refined to one dish is a triumph or is that just pushing it too far?

Unequivocal answer delivered, triumph, success; I need a tissue and a moment alone. Steamed rice paper rolls with mushroom are topped with barbecued pork and garnished with fish sauce and some unnameable herbs that feel like they’re still growing they’re that fresh. At home we call ourselves foodies, we love food but the whole nation of Vietnam seems to take our obsession and laugh at it. A bakery nearby plucks the best parts of a French patisserie, Greek cake shop and wraps it all in the love and attention that is purely Viet; restraint is needed. This first dash into town to get a pulse is turning out to be a dazzling eye opener, we’ve seen good markets on this trip in many countries but in the descent of the steps to Dalat market all contenders seem comically inadequate. Rice paper is bizarrely barbecued with egg and herbs to make a strange sort of rice crepe thing called a Vietnam visa; one bite and we have finally arrived.

Dalat market from the main stairs, Vietnam

Food glorious food, it’s all around us and almost mocking in its simplicity. There’s an unrestrainable ingenuity to Vietnamese culture, a culture that doesn’t know terms like ‘near enough is good enough’. In a way every culture has a focus, a defining aspiration that drives a people; a new car, the perfect lawn, membership at the right club, fashion, more cows; everyone chases something. Beyond the delicious food itself the culture is now what is speaking most, Vietnam en masse chase little of passing possessions, glamorous pretence or vanity. In the place of what so much of the world enjoys yet places second or worse, Vietnam feeds their families, shares, loves, connects with the earth, builds community and shows us all how it’s done in a single elegant item on a menu that you don’t even have to order.

July 6, 2015

While you were working – A Dud Hand, Mui Ne, Vietnam

There’s salt in the air again, we can smell it. The seaside town of Mui Ne is a mark on the map for many travellers for beach time, sunshine and flash bars; for us though the primary function of this seaside oasis has nothing to do with sun or sand and everything to do with grease and grime. It’s time to get the oil changed in the bikes. As a testament to the mechanical fortitude of our machines they need oil changed every 200km; this is set to be a love hate relationship. We are however outlaying our first cash for our bikes so a commitment of sorts is being made and thus, the new additions to our families need names. For reasons that should be obvious two of the recently named wallabies get the mantle, Rob and Greg; based on rugby skill alone of course.

From the satellite resort section of the beach we pry ourselves free to venture the 7km into town to find our mechanic who will validate these new trysts, we’ll go soon we promise ourselves. If there was a travelling mode we would decry with venom before leaving on this adventure it would be exactly this: sitting by the pool doing nothing. Guiltily we give into the punishing day that was yesterday and soak up a little slice of much needed torpor we didn’t realise we needed. There’s a glorious beach just a minute or so walk away but it just seems too far, instead it’s off the deck chair and into town we go for jobs we must do in place of relaxation we want to do.

Past the glittering turquoise beach we splutter to town so sadly unable to conjure the time and space for carefree swimming in the ocean. Mui Ne is a coastal town for all money, small scale development crowds a main street only to ebb quickly to nothing just behind the one street that really matters. Street carts dot the occasional piece of blank space, guys on scooters offer rides incessantly, there’s fruit on mats in front of the market and a veil of hectic buzz replaces the usually languid shrug of a life at ease. There’s variations that Vietnam throws up but on many measures we aren’t as distant from the small beachside town feel we know from home.

We find our mechanic by chance more than anything as street numbers in Vietnam seem more like a lottery draw than any sequence of reason, 401 should be beside 35; makes total sense right? We win lotto though and find him smothered in grease and happy disposition, like the rest of this industrious culture he cheerily declares half an hour for two oil changes and changing the rear suspension on my bike. That was alarmingly easy. Main chore seemingly sorted it’s time for the serious business, market time for clothing that can keep out the sun followed by coffee and food. Who are we kidding, food and coffee come first.

No that isn’t our bikes, Greg and Rob, but another one stilll going strong, Mui Ni, Vietnam

Beef noodle soup and pork and rice fit into a neat little food category of Vietnamese invention: a bit average by current standards but genuinely great food. Vietnamese food sets a high bar to fall from but nothing seems to tumble very far, we’re ready to throw it out there; Vietnam is very possibly the greatest food culture on earth. Coffee again is a dense chocolatey caffeine punch in the face that we’re already getting addicted to, all the energy we need for local market time. Long pants, gloves and face masks will hopefully mean no repeat of the lobsters in white boy clothing of yesterday, a long road sits before us and the sun is unlikely to shine any less as the days roll on.

After our scout around Mui Ne the few markers of difference we know from home seem even softer around the edges, hot bitumen scalds our rubber thongs as we walk on the road that has no footpath, a bag of fruit dangling from our hands. The world rushes by but not a care sticks to us in the quintessential beachside town too far away from home to feel this familiar. Back from the cheeriest mechanic ever Greg And Rob are in fine fettle again, Greg doesn’t even wobble all over the place at every bump anymore, I’m starting to feel like we might even have a chance of making it all the way to Hanoi. I can dare to dream.

From the dizzy heights of grand Angkor to the depths of despair of human making in the killing fields and the war remnants museum there’s been a heavy dose of high emotion lately, Asia just doesn’t do lethargic passé moments. We dip in the pool, have a beer earlier in the day than we should and chew the fat with a few other travellers in a picturesque coastal town in what would commonly be called the essential holiday experience. It’s a shift for us to see it that way. Riding high on a mixture of inspiration, outrage, romance, grandeur and sunburn Mui Ne delivers the slow down we didn’t even know we needed in a country that deals out a dream day when all it’s trying to do is slide you the joker in its pack.

July 5, 2015

While you were working – Wiping the Slate, Mui Ne, Vietnam

Wind whistles past us as our bikes splutter and misfire through the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh and onto the offramp and into the tunnel that will spit us out of this big friendly city. There’s a deluded optimism that fends off the unending list of reasons not to do this in favour of the sole positive that promises to multiply, adventure. Or maybe it’s just the unnatural buzz of Viet coffee that lifts us well above the trepidation we know we should be feeling. Either way our bikes make it for ten straight minutes and even up the incline to take us out of the darkness and send us into the living metaphor of light at the end of this tunnel and no return.

The adventure ahead is palpable, we dive into it as if into a thick soup we can’t drink up or ride into fast enough, weirdly enough Ho Chi Minh city feels now like a safe secure bubble rather than a culturally foreign new frontier. Signs we can’t read whizz past us as we plod through places we can’t pronounce, all the while letting the safety net go with more and more exuberance than is advisable. In this modern world we have internet access usually to get us out of, or into, any situation we could want with such ease, such security; the abandonment of easy WIFI is just one ingredient to this deviation from the lives we know. In good time we are crossing a bridge with shadows cast in the wrong direction and a city looming ahead of us instead of behind. We made it about half an hour before a wrong turn, or was the wrong turn a long time ago?

Day one of the road trip to Hanoi from Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

We now enter our first venture into the urban fringe bush bash of Vietnam. Signs mean nothing, asking for directions is a little tough when the only word we know is ‘thank you’ so there’s nothing for us to do than just keep positive and keep going; this is after all the adventure we signed on for. Alarmingly we’re about two hours in and the bikes are still going, grudgingly mind you but going none the less. GPS satellites are now a thing of the past, we cling like early explorers to the direction of a cast shadow just hoping we make it to somewhere before we break down, an inevitable, not an uncertainty. Apparently our battlers need a rest every two hours such is their fragility which comes at a ferry crossing. We’re pretty sure we need to do this.

Still with no idea where we are other than roughly east of Ho Chi Minh, we bash over dirt roads dodging heavy machinery and other bikers alike on roads that may or may not be on the map. The permanent spectre of this trip is the dreaded breakdown, we cling to the dubious assurance that if we break down people will just appear; apparently you’re never really alone in Vietnam. We’re not sure if this is a good or bad thing but everyone that has told us seems to say it with a smile on their face, lets just go with believing it’s a good thing. So quick recap if I may, a few hours in we’ve barely breached the city limits, we’re hopelessly lost, lucky to be still moving and pitting our hopes on mysterious people who apparently emerge from the jungle; this is going well.

On a ferry somewhere east of Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam

Four hours in we’ve done about two hours of the day but we are fairly sure we know where we are, roughly. the bikes are still going somehow and with us burning to a crisp in the horrid Vietnamese sun it’s time to give everyone a break, machine and man alike. The idea of choosing a lunch stop seems so trifling, there’s somewhere that looks like it sells food and we’re not in a position to bargain. The smiley dude at the restaurant greets us with a simple statement blessedly in English ‘I do chicken and rice’. “We’ll have two chicken and rice please”. That was easy. Simple but tasty, lunch is a treat as we gather together renewed confidence in making it this far resolving to push on to Mui Ne rather than taking an alternative early stop. I do wonder if this foolhardiness is going to bite us in the bum soon or sooner?

A few hours along and it’s bike stop time but really the fragile nature of the bikes acts as a handy masculinity foil for our own need to recoup. Safe to say that the bikes aren’t the most comfortable things ever. The road emerges only to fade into the distance behind us and with it the ever assumed security of knowing where we are in the world, even though a faint sliver of confidence begins to threaten the un-safety net we are learning to rapidly embrace. Bingo, we know where we are, right turn. A few minutes, looks weird, lost again. We have surely spent more time off the proper roads than on them so far, knowing what’s going on is best left to package deal type travellers we tell ourselves.

Another rest stop, for the bikes of course, and we’re scouting anything cold and or liquid before a veer into a roadside restaurant calls for a quick deviation back to the road; police. We are after all riding illegally and with our larger bank notes secreted away we’re ready to recall our Spanish, pretend not to understand and go for the bribe option. On a day that’s threatening to deliver adventure overload this is however one fun interaction we’ll happily defer to another day, as inevitable as a breakdown but today has no more space for adventure stories. Staring in the face of every sign that might say that this venture is a bad idea it’s time for more Viet coffee, the local version of a Quaalude. We can’t read the local signs anyway so caffeine seems like a fabulous idea.

Fishing boats in Phan Thiet, enroute to Mui Ne, Vietnam

It’s amazing how maps start looking more like they’re meant to when you are were you think you are. We’re burnt to a crisp with wind-burnt faces and sore bums but after ten hours of continuous relief that the bikes are alive overlaid with fear that they soon won’t be, two bundles of frayed nerves roll onto Mui Ne. The bikes need an oil change but they have made it, for the first time today we can be certain of where we are, we haven’t had a run in with the law, a disagreement with local traffic or a marriage breakdown; dare I say we have a successful first day on our hands?

Locals have laughed at us the whole way and routinely given a big smile and a thumbs up, there’s a tourist bubble somewhere but we lost that somewhere after the first wrong turn out of Ho Chi Minh. Over two hundred kilometres lies behind us but a grand total of nearly 2000 kilometres is the task for our bikes that remarkably show just 2km ever ridden on their speedometers. The African road trip was the road trip of the decade but now it’s hard to say if this one is grander, better or bigger; comparisons seem out of reach when not even making it is such a likely possibility. Our former lives never seemed so far away; we’ve abandoned a travellers life that was already escaping a real life only now to plunge into a life we have no name for. Tomorrow has never been a cleaner slate.