Hoi An and the Killer Ants

“It’s raining men, hallelujah, it’s raining men, amen…”. Actually, it’s not, or else I wouldn’t mind so much, not even if they were small Asian men with very long fingernails. It’s not even raining cats and dogs, that at least would be a bit interesting. This is just continual, torrential rain and it’s getting me down.

The train journey from Hué to Danang supposedly rates as one of the best in the world, but for me, it doesn’t come even close to the stunning Nice to Monte Carlo route. Granted, it’s a pretty journey and you pass alongside some great little beaches only accessible by boat, but it’s difficult to see too much through the water pouring off the roof and down the windows. I’m hoping that everything I’ve read about Hué being known for it’s rain and Hoi An being so much drier will prove to be true, so I’m almost holding my breath as the trains pulls into Danang, waiting to feel some sun on my face. No such luck. We step out of the train, back into torrential rain, and into a taxi for the 40 minute ride into Hoi An.

We’re staying at Thien Thanh Hotel (www.hoianthienthanhhotel.com) which means Blue Sky. I wonder what Vietnamese for Pissing Down is? We have a choice of rooms; a small room at the back, with a balcony and a lovely view across (flooded) fields, but the kids will have to share a bed or, for $5 a night more, a huge loft room, with 4 beds but no view and only a couple of (very small, floor level) windows. We take the loft option as we figure space is more important than a balcony, especially with the mosquitoes below who are enjoying the pools of water everywhere.

We have to stay here for a few days whilst I wait for delivery of my replacement phone so we set off to see what’s here. Tailors, tailors and more tailors for a start. In fact, just about every other shop is a tailors. Will’s resisting but I’m keen to investigate so get myself measured up in a couple of different shops for some dresses and trousers. I take my Missoni dress into a third and ask them to copy it and we get a couple Ruby’s dresses copied whilst we’re there. I have mixed success and ironically, the least fancy looking shop makes the best fitting dress, needing only a very minor adjustment which takes literally 5 minutes to do, and a pair of black linen trousers which need no adjustment at all. Might as well get another one done whilst I’m here – they are only £7 a go after all. Will’s eventually decides that he wants a piece of the action so we check out the two best known and most expensive (of course) tailors in town. Adong, which is just ridiculously expensive (by comparison) and Yalay, which we decide upon. He gets 3 double-cuffed work shirts, 2 casual linen shirts and 5 pairs of trousers for £120. And postage home couldn’t be easier as two post-office employees come to our hotel with a box, tape and scales and it costs just £20 to send 7 1/2 kilos home.

In between almost daily fittings, we visit the old merchants houses, a family temple, the Cantonese Meeting Hall and the Japanese Bridge. We find a great restaurant/bar called Then and Now with great food and art, and even manage to squeeze in a 2 hour boat trip up the Thu Bon river. Hoi An was one of South East Asias major international ports from the 17th to the 19th century and ships came here for silk, fabrics, porcelain and lacquer-wares, all of which are still very much for sale today, only on a much smaller scale. It was largely untouched by the American War and the old town in another UNESCO site, preserved in all its glory and thankfully closed off to traffic, making for a gorgeous place to wander around without fear of being run down.

One morning, it’s actually stopped raining and we head for Cua Dai beach, a 30km stretch of wild, yellow sand lapped by slightly scary waves. It’s a gorgeous beach for a walk, until you reach the area where the palms trees have been stripped back and the 4 star resorts have been built. Here, the sea turns a rather lovely shade of oily brown and dead, bloated fish scatter the beach, along with lots of tar which coats all of our feet. But not to worry, the hotels are there with white spirit to clean it off. Shame they don’t just clean up the beach in front of their resort instead.

Harley’s picked up a really nasty chest infection which needs anti-biotics to treat it. I’m pretty certain it sleeping with the air-con on that’s making us all sickly. I’ve got a really bad throat with swollen glands and Will’s coughing up all sorts. Not sure it’s just a coincidence that Ruby, who’s on a strict 5-a-day of fruit and veg, is the only healthy one.

I’m home alone for the fourth consecutive Saturday night whilst Will has another hot date (although he swears he’s watching rugby) with a packet of Oreos and a bottle of red (plus sleeping kids). In the darkness, I sneak a second Oreo from the open packet and do a hole-in-one onto my mouth. Something tastes a bit strange. I pick up the packet, take it into the bathroom for some light and peer inside. It’s swarming with ants and I have about 200 crawling around in my mouth, some of them biting me!! Brushing my teeth at 100mph doesn’t even get rid of them all and swilling out with water doesn’t drown them. I’m bitten several times and the inside of my mouth feels like I’ve eaten 20 chillies! Does this mean that I’m now classified as a meat-eater? Urgh.

It’s still raining and I’m starting to feel like Anne Franks stuck up in this loft room, so we plan on heading further south to Nha Trang where we can hopefully do some diving at one of the islands.

Washed away in Hue

On the plane, rummaging through my bag for my camera…it’s GONE. I do NOT believe this. It’s been taken from my day pack in the airport. The only thing Will and I can figure is that, as I got out of the taxi, I took the camera out of my trouser pocket and put it in my bag, in view of about half a dozen guys who were sitting on the wall outside. When we walked in, we stood for a while just inside the door, looking at the departures board. It’s a busy airport, we’ve got 2 kids, lots of bags…..I’m gutted. Not only because it’s been stolen but because it had all our photos of Halong Bay on it which I hadn’t yet downloaded.

We’d heard great things about the historical sights to be seen in the former imperial city of Hué (former capital of Vietnam), so we were prepared to be blown away, but not washed away. First two nights, we’d booked into Asia Hotel www.asiahotel.com.vn which has won awards for best hotel in Asia. Not sure who they bribed to win that, but it was very certainly one of the best value places we’ve stayed this trip. Really lovely room, balcony, sitting area, dressing room and massive bathroom complete with an all-singing, all-dancing shower come Jacuzzi bath. It also had a couple of little extras which they had failed to mentioned to us.

We’re all fast asleep in bed, vaguely aware of the pounding rain outside, when I let out a blood-curdling scream, waking the rest of the family up. I’m not sure whether I dreamt it, but I’m pretty sure something just jumped from the top of the bed onto my arm, down onto the floor. “Oh honey, I didn’t tell you, there was a mouse in the bath earlier” says Will. I’m pretty certain this wasn’t a mouse. My arm is still red and feels scratched from claws.

Morning; mmmm, that’s a lovely gnawed banana on the side. Ooo, who wants to have some of this nibbled apple? If that was a mouse, my name’s Mickey. Open the curtains looking for fresh evidence…the streets outside our hotel are flooded. For as far as we can see, the water is a foot deep around us. I venture out in the afternoon only to report my theft at the police station and buy a new camera. Wading through muddy, knee high water is not my idea of pleasure, but it was considerably more pleasurable that my experience at the police station. After being sent from pillar to post, ignored, laughed at, sniggered over and generally made to feel like the village loony, I’m told that, since the theft happened in Hanoi, I have to go back to Hanoi to report it. I think I may have added a few choice new English words to their vocabulary as I walked away, fuming.

I’ve never experienced a serious flood before and this was a harsh introduction. The Perfume River, just one street down from our hotel, had burst its banks and some areas of the park that ran alongside were chest deep in water. A restaurant that was normally on the riverside looked as though it were actually in the river and a member of staff was swimming there in an attempt at some kind of salvage operation.

We booked a tour of some of the historical sites for the next day which we hoped would take us away from the floods but unfortunately, most of the points of interest are under water themselves, so we have to drive out of town for some time to get to dry land. First stop is a Chinese Pagoda, pretty but not very special. Next, the Tomb of Tu Duc, which is much more impressive. It’s very atmospheric and easy to imagine his 104 wives (wonder if they ever gave him permission to go out drinking for 11 hours and come home at 5.30am?) wafting around the lake and temples. The concubines, for some reason, seemed to have an area to themselves. He must have had some stamina. Tomb of Khai Dinh is next and, although the tomb itself is much more beautiful, 127 steep steps up to the courtyard tells me that this Emperor probably didn’t have much energy left for 104 wives by the time he got home.

A move to the Orchid Hotel www.orchidhotel.com to escape Ratty but the rain’s not letting up and there’s not much else to do here, so plan our escape to Hoi An and hopefully some better weather.

HANOI THE THIRD

Arriving back in Hanoi at 6pm, Will’s already twitching to get to the rugby, even though it doesn’t start for 6 hours. We get the kids back to the Paradise Hotel and Will scuttles off to Finnegan’s Irish Bar. It must have been a very long match with hours of extra time since he doesn’t stagger in until 5.30am, just as I’m getting up to deal with a sick Harley who’s been sleeping in with me. I’ve seen Will very drunk, I’ve been very drunk, but woah, I ain’t seen nothing yet!! I manage to get him undressed and streer him into (Harley’s single) bed but he’s somehow falling out of the top, bottom and sides. An hour later, I manage to drag him into the double bed where he sleeps for the next couple of hours. The kids can’t stop laughing at the snoring and keep looking at each other, then me, in total amazement before cracking up again. It’s about 8am when he tries to climb out of our third floor window whilst looking for the toilet. The hotel has just been upgraded from a 2 to a 3 star and it seems the staff are going all out to get a fourth one. They can’t be more helpful, but I’m pretty sure that babysitting drunken adults is not on their list of services so we sit it out for a while.

By about 10am, I figure it’s safe to leave him alone and I take the kids out, leaving him a note of where to meet us for lunch at 1pm, should 7 ½ hours sleep be sufficient. Of course, he’s a no-show and Ruby keeps asking me what’s wrong with daddy. I’ve managed to fob her off with the semi-truth that he’s very tired, but she’s looking at me suspiciously. We return to the room at 2.30pm to find a sleepy but considerably more sober Will who’s full of hilarious stories about last night, but we both agree that you probably had to be there….let’s see what next Saturday’s final brings.

We’re off to Hué in the morning and the hotel have given us a free taxi ride to the airport. The driver spends the entire journey blasting his horn at anything that is 20 feet or less away from him. We pull up at the airport and he turns to Will and demands “You give me tip”. “Yeah” says Will, “I’ll give you a tip. Stop bloody tooting your horn, you’ve given me a headache”.

Our bags weight just under 60kg, which is the total allowance for internal flights through Asia but we’re also carrying a day pack each and we have an additional wheelie-bag full of reading, writing and school books which we usually take onboard with us since we know it tips us over the limit. It’s all a bit hectic at check-in and our bags get checked through two different lines, so we take to chance and check in our book bag. 16 kilos! Of books! That’s more than my entire wardrobe for a year, toiletries, I-pod and speaker, handbags…Cider House Rules is going to have to go.