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Published: January 20th 2008
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Whittling away their lives
Craftsmen carving in Hoi An I have never been anything remotely close to a shopaholic, in fact I’ve always held a strong contempt for shopping as an activity. My actions during the three days I spent (literally) in Hoi An would therefore have to be considered highly out of character, cos I simply couldn’t stop buying stuff. Perhaps this was in part due to the novelty of having everything - pants, shoes, shirts, suits etc - made to measure. Perhaps it was due to the rock bottom prices. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I feared returning home to a wardrobe containing nothing but jeans, ripped t-shirts and thongs (or ‘flip flops’ if you aren’t an Aussie). These are all plausible explanations, but in the cold light of day I think it was the flattery of the store folk that sucked me in and bled me dry.
“You have a wonderful body for wearing that shirt. It really looks fantastic!” said the lady at the tailors as I tried on a shirt. Conveniently ignoring the fact that I am currently a little doughy around the flanks and that my belly was hanging over my belt at the time, I chose to believe that
it was a sincere remark made in earnest. I suddenly felt fantastic.
“Oooh handsome, handsome!” said the lady at the cobblers as I tried on my shoes, before following up with “you buy another pair!” “She wouldn’t say I looked handsome if I actually didn’t - she is an honest, fair dealing citizen as well as a businesswoman” I told myself as I considered the comment and attached advice. “I probably don’t need a third pair of new shoes, but then again they might also make me look handsome” went my thought process as she measured me up for the next pair. Lost in my thoughts and vanity, the next thing I knew I was signing the receipt.
And so it went, on and on and on. By the time I left Hoi An to head north to Hue, I had acquired over 11kg worth of new clothes and shoes to ship home, and a greatly inflated self esteem. At one point I contemplated buying a dictaphone and taking it into a suit fitting, just so the flattering remarks would still be mine long after the last shoe sole had worn through, shirt stained and pair of pants
Flying the flag
HJT outside Hue citadel outgrown. I think I'll shop around some of the tailors in Melbourne upon return. No doubt they charge like a wounded bull, but if they are given to making wonderfully frank and constructive comments like those in Hoi An I might start to have the occasional pair of socks made to measure.
The notoriously aggressive touts and spruikers of Hue would be well advised to learn such a smooth pitch, as I would have been far more likely to stay at their hotel if they quietly commented on my imposing physique, rather than getting in my face as soon as we got off the bus and shouting at me. We followed the one whose spiel sounded the best, knowing that the prices he quoted were probably half what we’d actually be charged, cos his lies sounded the best. After the best Indian meal we’ve had in South East Asia, we decided that we would all check out the Hue citadel the next day, and that just Greg and I would do the tour of the De-Militarised Zone (DMZ) the day after. Somehow the 6AM start didn’t appeal to Gem. Truth be told it didn’t much appeal to Greg and
New and old
Gateway entrance to the Hue citadel me either, but there was one stop on the tour that I felt I had a moral obligation to visit. To bypass it would be 'un-Australian.'
The photos pretty much tell the story of the Hue citadel. The layout and some of the buildings were quite impressive, but what interested me more was the proximity to the new city. The citadel covers a massive amount of space and is somewhat of an oasis of calm, as it is right next to one of the more hectic commercial areas of Hue. Despite this appeal, it wouldn't really provide more than a couple of hours of entertainment for anyone other than a hardened Vietnamese history buff.
Whatever the citadel may have lacked in excitement value, it was all made up for by just one stop on the DMZ tour the next day. The tour started off rather slowly, taking us to a few places that were exciting only for the fact that I'd heard of them before. The first such example was the 'Rock Pile'. I don't even know which Vietnam War movie I have heard it mentioned in, I can't remember the context, and I never had any idea
Anyone keen to wet a line?
Hundreds of carp in Hue citadel - Greg was excited of what it was. But the point was that I had heard of it and therefore it was near enough to an unmissable attraction. I can't deny that it was with a degree of disappointment that I discovered that it was just a rocky mountain, almost completely indistinguishable from the other mountains around it.
Next up was the Ho Chi Minh trail, the supply route along which the northern Communists kept the southern Viet Cong armed and equipped for making rather of a nuisance of themselves. These days it's really just a road through the mountains. Although our guide was probably telling us about a number of exciting shootouts and daring ambushes that took place along the trail during the war, I was having difficulty in deciphering her rather broken English. This was made even more difficult by the short distance between the microphone and her mouth, and the resulting feedback.
All this was forgotten when we arrived at our next location, the Khe Sanh combat base. As we approached, it struck me that on countless occasions over the past decade I had stood in a beery embrace with one or more fellow Aussie bogans while belting out
Style tips from the northern neighbours
A Chinese style building in Hue citadel the Cold Chisel classic of the same name, without the slightest clue as to where Khe Sanh was or what happened there (other than the fact that it was Vietnam War related). I had no idea what a 'sapper' was, what the 'long forgotten dockside guarantees' were about, or where exactly it was that the 'telex writers cluttered where the gunships once had been.' I couldn't find any answers to these queries anywhere at the base (although wikipedia later told me what a sapper was), nor could I find any statue of the great Australian band that put the place on the map. No tribute paid anywhere in fact. Despite these disappointments, it was a definite highlight of almost eleven months of travel, if for no other reason that I can now boast that "I've been there" whenever the song is played in future.
Our last stop was at the Vinh Moc tunnels, the network in the DMZ just north of the Ben Hai River which was the boundary between north and south in a divided Vietnam. Compared to the Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon (now widened to allow access to large Westerners), Vinh Moc afforded five star comfort.
Just for the hell of it
A random building in Hue citadel In parts I barely needed to duck my head, I could turn around anywhere, breathe easily, and didn't fear rising anxiety or a claustrophobia attack. Best of all, there was an entrance to the tunnels that opened out onto the South China Sea near a lovely little beach. Far from the hot, stuffy, hellish setting of Cu Chi, Vinh Moc would have made for a nice little seaside retreat. Considering the Americans only scored one direct hit on the tunnels in the whole war and this only caused minimal damage, I know where I would have wanted to be stationed if I was enlisted in the North Vietnamese Army.
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Minh Nguyen
non-member comment
Well Written Blog
Reading through your first paragraph, I thought you're a lady due to your shopping comments. Well, those tailors did do a great job hooking a man buying 11kg worth of clothes and shoes :-) or maybe this shopping thing is in you already, they just help you discovering it. I'd love to visit Hoi An again in the near future. It's been more than 20 yrs since the last time I was there. It must have changed a lot!