Number one: An unexpected friend.

It had been a long day and an even longer week. The mean streets of Hanoi had shocked and allured me. I had fallen in both love and despair.

A whirl-wind trip on a party yacht through the famous Halong Bay and a few nights on an island took their toll.

Although I feel like I should explain the island thing a little more. It was an island. That is all.

We slept on the ground with holey mosquito nets with flax rooves overheard and no walls. There were long drops and buckets in the place of showers and toilets. The company running the trip provided the food and drinks and that was it. Don’t get me wrong, it was amazing but this is also where I unknowingly contracted Guardia, a rather unpleasant third world illness. Surprised? Not really.

And here’s where the unknowingly things hits home. Feeling a little ill I took the two or something hour boat ride back to the main land, then onto a over crowded mini van for six hours, then back at the hostel for five hours sleep before been herded onto a tuk tuk. The tuk tuk took us to the train station. The train station was an over nighter and took us to the most northern parts of Vietnam where we boarded a bus which after three hours arrived in a sleepy and misty little village called Sapa.

Sapa was on the world wonders list for its astonishing rice fields where you got up close and personal with thousands of years worth of mans hard labour. Miles and miles of rice terraces. 

We spent the next two days trekking through knee deep mud rice felids and mountains preying malaria or dingy fever wasn’t close by. Stopping for swims in water falls and rivers, eating, for the most part, amazing food at local Vietnamese homes and sleeping on the floor of local tribes abodes.

Then back through the mountains, onto the bus that took us to another bus that took us to the train which took us to the tuk tuk which took us to the hostel, where I got another eight hours sleep with 12 other strangers in a dirty dorm room. Then back to the bus station and onto the dreaded sleeper buses!

These buses are one of a kind. Your seat resembles that of a go kart when you were seven mixed with a coffin that you might find in such a country as Vietnam. You duck to climb, yes climb in, and nestle down as best you can for the 12 plus hours of a hot and BUMPY ride ahead. I’m not even kidding when I say you get air from your seat/ go kart.

This particular one was a 16 hour stint where I was to meet my new fellow travellers in the seamstress beach town of Hoi Ann. 16 hours except at 3am we came to a halt in the middle of absolute no mans land.

Sure the sun rise over the dry empty fields was beautiful but mainly it was like sitting on the side of a dusty littered gravel road in a pool of your own sweat for five hours with the odd attempt of taking matters into your own hands and trying hitch a ride; only to find the helpful partakers in the passing cars couldn’t speak a single world of English and were much more likely to harvest your organs.  

The thing about South East Asia is, its not Auckland. When you have a problem you fix it yourself, there is no such thing is calling help, no such thing as road side assistance or a mechanic nearby. And its not the DIY kinda buzz we Kiwis love to own either. Its like the bus driver, a tiny tiny Vietnamese man with missing teeth and a strange goatee, gets a hammer of some sort or sometimes a crow bar and shoe lace and puts his head in the engine and hits stuff…hard. Then he might tie something up, load everyone back on to the bus which now doubles as a sauna only to repeat the process 500 meters up the road.

And so, you can imagine what a long way it was. After this torturous journey I arrived at my first stop; organized stop should I say. Time to haul on your 20 kg backpack again, jump on the back of the first scooter that grabs your attention and prey they are taking you to the right place. Although this particular time I really had no clue where the “right place” was. All I knew is that my next bus, and the final leg of that roady, was another five hours away and I needed to get as far away from that dam bus as humanly possible and fast! I also had this overwhelming urge to eat and so as the tiredness took its course I simply nodded, rather then barterer, flung my leg over the motorbike and said “can you take me to food please”.

My new friend Si, the motorbike owner, was much more interested in taking me for a grand tour of every single statue and garden in the city;

 “You have many hour in Hue, you must see many place. I give you good good deal. We friends. Good deal for my friends”.

“ No Si, you don’t understand I am very hungry and very tired, lets just get food. Right now.”

This argument went on for sometime before we pulled up at a VERY third world looking “shop” (which looked as though it doubled as someone’s home) for a “vegetarian western food fix” as I had desperately requested.

At this point, it was fair to say that the Guardia had taken full effect and my crippled and confused body could only put it down to having eaten dairy somewhere and that my allergies were giving me grief. So I sat in this home/shop with my new friend Si and three others; two where the owners. A sweet old Vietnamese lady, someone who looked like they could be her dear old grandmother and a classic old school Texan grandfathery type, except less friendly.

The menu, of course wasn’t in English and so it quickly turned into a game of Pictionary as I tried to distinguish fries, one of the only things I thought I could get and ensure that wouldn’t be meat or have dairy. This failed multiple times but in true South East Asian style they nodded anyway and said “we do, we do”. Of course 20 minutes later they came back with some kind of egg infused fried rice. Luckily I was in that over tired feel-like-I-might-die-if-I-don’t-stuff-this-in-my-mouth-in-record-time, kind of mood so it did the trick.

Si continued to chat away as I inhaled my food about some bike club called the Easyriders and that he would take me to Hoi Ann for good good price and see all the beautiful spots along the way, not like bus. And I have to say, the parts I did hear sounded lovely if only to avoid stepping foot on another f-ing bus. But the trip was to take two nights with Si and two nights I did not have.

After sometime of this debate the Texan man decided to jump in. I’m not sure where he and his English where when I was trying to order but suddenly they were very present.

He joined our table and told me of his life. This isn’t something I would normally have to time for. But in this case time, was one thing I did have and I didn’t mind the company. We sat in that shop-house for the next three hours and he told me his story.

 My eyes etched the walls as he talked, every inch was filled with some picture, old school cola posters, fluffy kittens, paintings of longboats, framed newspaper articles. They all hung there as if representing their era in the world and meaning nothing more, not to me anyway. Each one with a layer of dust and hanging to a stained cream wall that I was surprised took the nail to hold the frames.

The tables we sat at where cracked white outdoor furniture that you might have had as a kid in the 80’s back home and had old floral or fruit patterned sheets draping over them acting as table cloths. There were no ceiling fans which was usually a make or break for me in that unbearable humidity but the owner had very nicely positioned a fan right in my face upon arrival; a gesture I was incredibly thankful for. There was no actual food present, but a door frame with a beaded curtain hanging over it at the back, this is where the food was made, I could only assume it went to outside where there was a gas cooker, wok and stool.

A big rolling garage door hung above the opening to the road where scooters occasionally whizzed by. Other then that no one came and no one left.

Jim lived in Hue full time now. He had done for the last six years and the 12 years before that he would come out here from American for six months to teach English for free in an old factory close by. Back in 1968 when the Vietnamese war was upon us Jim was summoned to fight, he came way out here for the first time and fought with his fellow soldiers against Northern Vietnam.

 One day of which “ I remember like yesterday, I was left in a rice field and out of ammunition. I was wounded, my leg was bleeding, and I was limping through the long grass trying to find my way to safety. I new in my heart that was it, I was done for so I just stopped, I sat there with my useless weapon and prayed and I don’t even know how long it was for, but this lady appeared. She took my arm and helped me up and walked me to her home. She had two sick young children there who sat on the floor very afraid of me, but she fixed me up, fed me and then let me go. After the war we all went home, and of course it was very hard to live any normal kind of life. But I had never intended to, I had always planned on going back to Vietnam and repaying my debts”.

Jim waited and worked for the next 18 years or so before he respected that promise and returned to Vietnam. He went right back to where they had fought and tried to find out who had lived around there then and who had saved him but of course it was a tough feat. Instead he decided he would give back to the people of Vietnam selflessly and has every single year since. Now he was there full time and the idea of ever living back in America seemed like a distant memory. His family would come to him, but he wouldn’t go back, this was his home now. Dirty old Hue. He came to that café/house every single day and paid those women for that average food in full price every time.

Of course it all sounded alarmingly like a movie to me and I guess for half of the story I thought he was humouring me but by the time I left with Si on the back of his bike to catch my next bus I really believed Jim. He paid Si for my ride and as we rode off together I felt a kind of sentiment for Hue that I never expected. I felt a sudden drive to continue on my path too and although I never saw the gardens or statues or even the main street of Hue I felt as though I couldn’t have ticked it off in any better way.