Nha Trang

Nha Trang is a black hole. In a good, you-don't-want-to-leave way. Some guy warned me about this, and while I got out of there yesterday, I really wanted to stay at least a couple of more days. It's supposed to be a big party town, lots of foreigners because of the good beaches and diving, and I suppose it is, but I didn't party at all, and I was loving it for entirely different reasons. Firstly, I bought a new guitar when I got there, so I'd have something to play while travelling, and suddenly every Vietnamese person in all creation wanted to be my friend. That's not necessarily a non-annoying thing, but it did gain me entry to some cool places, like the houses of some nice people, and some music-making with new acquaintances. the point is, Nha Trang may be known for lots of foreigners coming to scuba-dive and party, but that doesn't mean that's all there is there, nor does it mean that the people of Nha Trang aren't still keeping it real. Plus, I got to swim in the ocean.

-I saw a cock-fight in a back-alley. Eww. they looked like vultures. And one guy was trimming all the feathers off his champion bird's chest and telling me he was the Mike Tyson of local cock-fights.
-Went to the Cham towers (Hindu-Buddhist, see picture.) Here again, I snuck in for free, but I more than made it up for it in the donation box, no worries.
-Lots of gambling. You put three dice under a cup, shake it around, and people guess what numbers come up. Sophisticated entertainment, I know.
-Went exploring in the harbour, with the help of the boat-man pictured below. Took lots of pictures and smelled the (mostly bad) smells of the harbour. The fishing fleet was all moored because they work at night here. On the night horizon the fleet looks like another city out over the water. -I didn't go to the big Lonely-Planet-recommended pagoda here, because in exploring the back city, I found some stairs which led me to a smaller Buddhist temple. No tourists whatsoever. No one, except the grey abbott, two very young apprentice-monks, a man in brown robes who was may have been a servant, and two women, occupation unclear. And a dog who barked at me, then the abbott smiled and asked "le chien?" It seemed to be the only French he knew. They taught me to sing a chant in Vietnamese. It was a ball.

Catburgularama in Vietnam

Since my last post, I've been either on buses or waiting for buses, on my long long trip from Hanoi down to Saigon. I'm not even sure what day it is now, although no doubt it says on this computer somewhere.

The one respite from bus-o-rama was an 8-hour layover between buses in the city of Hue. In the Vietnam-U.S.A war, Hue was the centerpoint of the Tet offensive (see top picture and this one) but long before, it was the capital city of imperial Vietnam. So guess who scaled the walls and snuck into the imperial palace! Yeah, it was totally me. It was very Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Here's how it went down. I got off the bus and went to check out the palace. Strolling around the citadel wall, away from the main entrance I found the secondary entrance, a big and ornate doorway. Locked. The wall was old, though, and there were big chinks in the brickwork, so I figured that for fun I'd climb up a bit. I was expecting to be yelled at any second by someone from the street over across the moat, but when no one seemed to notice me, I figured I should just keep climbing. This is where my Quebec city training came in handy. And then I got to the top, and still no voices yelled, so I peeked over and saw.... AN ELEPHANT ON THE OTHER SIDE! That's right, I totally scaled the palace wall and came face-to-face with an elephant. It took me a minute to to realize he was tied up, but no time at all to realize "This is awesome". Then, as surruptitiously as I could in broad daylight, I snuck along the top of the wall and found a ramp entering the palace grounds. Some figures were coming down a path towards me, but I hid before they could see me, until I could tell they were just tourists. After that, it was explore-the-palace time with everyone else. Nice place. It's very big and very run-down, but you can see that it must have been the cat's pyjamas back in the day. I left through the front door, like I was the cat's pyjamas, and then it was back on the bus.

Other trip updates: At the suggestion of Brendan, the only Badinhologist I know, I'm reading Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Also, you'll have to forgive me for typos since I'm doing these posts under an internet-cafe time limit. But then, you probably like finding them. You just love the typos, don't you? ...You disgust me.

Lastly, for those who do or don't remember last spring/summer when I was in Quebec city, you can check out the original catburgularama.