Coffee Boom-Boom & Sleeping with Charlie

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I woke up in a terrible mood, as I couldn't sleep on account of my sore back from the bufallo smash. I left the hotel at 12.30 for the 30km as marked on my $10 map. I again, true to form, headed off in the wrong direction, par for the course since I was in a city. I went for about 8kms in the complete wrong direction before stopping for my morning caffiene hit.

The waitress in the cafe was asking me various questions, like "do you want milk?" "Would you like some sugar? " "some ice with that?" and my personal favorite "boom boom?" She asked me this in the same run of the mill voice as she had asked me the other questions. The prostitution industry is huge here in Vietnam, with every cafe, hairdresser and roadside Karaoke joint (there is one of these three things approx every 200 metres on the highway), doubling up as houses of ill repute. You are just as welcome to sit and have a coffee in the cafes as you are if you are in there for boom-boom as they so affectionately call it. I gathered a small crowd while sitting in the cafe, with children asking me questions about my bike, and the pimps(?) asking me questions about where I was from and how much money people make there etc. I just got ready to leave when one of the 'waitresses' gave me a piece of candy, which I thought was sweet, then she stung me twice the going rate for my coffee.

I passed through a small 'Chinatown' on the way to Halong, a town which seemed to be fuelled by the Chinese engineers who were in town to build a new power station. As I was waiting for a ferry to cross the river, a Vietnamese struck up a conversation with one of the workers in Chinese, and the fat foriegner was obviously the topic of conversation. I let them speak about me for a few minutes before I turned round and initiated a conversation with them, also in Chinese, asking them where they were going. They both looked very sheepish, the girl even going as far to apologise! Once on the ferry, i couldn't believe the state of the water. It was a murky brown colour with a slick of oil over the top. There was lots of empty drinks bottles etc floating around, and it broke my heart a little to see everyone on the ferry throwing their rubbish into the river with gay abandon. This was only tens of kilometres from a world heritage site, one that the people were rallying to get 'Wonder of the world' status for. The water just looked like it was dying, if not already dead.

I stopped for lunch in a noodle restaurant, where I had a bowl of noodles and a beer. The restauranteur was a lovely man, really nice and helpful and he really seemed like he wanted to be my friend. Then the bill came, and inevitably he charged me 10 times what the bill should have been. He then asked me if I wanted 'Boom Boom' with his daughter, who was working there as a waitress. I left the restaurant feeling really down on Vietnam. It seems that the majority of people I have met, have been a prostitute of some kind. Whether it is selling their bodies for sex, or as the old restauranteur was selling, their friendship, or even their dignity. As I was leaving the town a small kid came running after me saying "money! Money! Money!" and holding out his hand. He wasn't a beggar, he came out of his parents shop at the side of the road, but I think people here just see foriegners as a walking ATM. I don't want to rant too much about this subject as people may think I am being un-PC or whatever, but I am really just telling it like it is. It's very sad.

About 20km's before Halong Bay, I passed an abandoned Viet-Cong Training camp, which was oipened in 1954. It was complete with bunkers and pill boxes etc and the temptation to camp there was huge. I decided against it however, having visions of being taken to a military POW camp and tortured and forced to play Russian roulette. I cycled for another 2km, and it was dark, so I stopped at a Bia Hoi cafe to try to blag a nights accomodation for free. I met some great young guys and proceeded to drink a few beers and cheww some betel nut - an amphetamine type nut which gives you a strong speedy feeling, like you have been drinking coffee, only stronger. They gave me a nut, a banana leaf and some tobacco and instructed me to fold everything up in the leaf and then chew it. It was very strong, but went rather well with the beer. This gave me some confidence so I started asking about the viability of camping in the Vietcong army base. They told me no problem so I decided I was going to do it. I stopped at another Bia hoi place on the way where I was accosted by around five or six small children. I had great fun playing with them and teaching them some English, and realise how much I miss my students from Aston. I took some pictures with them and promised their family I would send them copies when I got the chance. Then, at 9pm, WAY past my bed time, I sneaked off to sleep with charlie. I hid my camo tent behind a pillbox and drifted off to sleep.

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