The few days at Qui Nhon...
Trip Start
Jun 17, 2009
1
14
16
Trip End
Nov 20, 2010
Quy Nhon, Vietnam
Saturday, September 26, 2009
More straight from the journal, kind of blah...
I left Quang Ngai in a rush, I wanted the hell out of there. I woke up at 7, packed my stuff and jetted. I left so fast that I left my passport at the receptionist desk. I hurriedly walked out of the lobby, past all of the wedding decorations and pyramids of champagne glasses and hung on a right on the wide paved street. It was 7:30 and the rain had cooled everything off. The walk back to the main road was decent, the pack was light do to me sending unnecessary goods and weight back home 3 days prior. The people, as always, were as friendly as could be. Usually it’s just the dogs and kids that stare unabashedly, but even the older folks took double takes and kept there eyes fixed for several seconds longer than usual. I could tell not many white people had walked down that street. I found a lady selling sandwiches and bought a baguette off of her for breakfast.
I was chowing down when a guy on a moped pulled over and started rattling off something to me. At first I thought he was a part of the moped mafia, but then realized that they don’t really exist here. So I hopped on, he took up me up the main road for no charge, I was thankful for the help on that last half a mile. A transit bus was pulled over getting air in the back right tire. I approached and started bargaining. I knew the first price that he threw at me would well over par, he threw 70,000, so I low balled him. He looked at me with disgust when I offered 30,000. I offered 40,000 and he didn’t budge. I was sure that Qui Nhon wasn’t more than 40,000 Dong down the road. I tried the walk off trick and he let me go. I saw nothing else coming and walked back with 50,000 in my hand, we settled at 60,000 Dong.
The bus was already full, but there isn’t such thing as a full bus in Vietnam. I piled in the back with a middle aged woman half way on my lap, an older lady against the window on my right, a middle aged man to my left, and a really old lady against the window on the far left. The row in front of me was full of older women who were all turned looking and snickering at me. I just smiled and thought how good it felt to actually feel like I’m traveling again. The ride was similar to the ride from Vinh to Hanoi in the fact that it had 7 more occupants than legally allowed in most countries, the driver kept one hand on the horn while swerving through traffic, and there was a wiry young man, possibly on drugs, leaning out of the sliding door yelling at big trucks, animals, and people on mopeds. It all created a nail biting experience that ended in a feeling of gratefulness for life at the end of the ride.
We pulled into Qui Nhon at around noon. I hopped on a moped that claimed to know where Barbara’s was. Barbara’s is a place owned by a Kiwi and has dorm room beds for a little more than $2 a night. He dropped me off at the first gigantic hotel that he found. I saw a tourist information booth and told him that it was good enough. Inside I found two sweet Vietnamese girls and a young man. After some bartering and pleading, the girls had him drive across town to Barbara’s for a mere .60 cents. The place was pretty empty, I signed in and realized that I left my passport at the creepy hotel in Quang Ngai. I decided to grab a bite to eat then worry about it. At worst I would just take the morning bus back up and there maybe walk away with a better perspective on Quang Ngai. The recpetionist got a hold of the staff at the Ninh Tho Hotel and had them send it my way. It should get here in a couple days. Relieved, I took a nap.
I woke up and met Barbara, the owner. She seems like a really nice lady. I rented a bike to check out the town and rode around for a few hours and made it to a tourist attraction or two, then took it to the house. I liked the fact that there were 5 different volleyball courts on the beach, especially the two close to Barbara’s. Upon arriving back I met Jeff from Toronto. A cool cat that works in Thailand as a tour guide on organized tours of Southern Thailand. He has a hell of a job. We had some grub and I thought it was about time to check the vball courts and see if anyone was playing. People had come out of the wood works. They were every where on the beach. The vball courts were full and my heart began racing at the thought of getting in on a game. Jeff is dealing with a recent mysterious illness, so he wasn’t game, but he wanted to go and watch.
We walked down the sea wall to the first group of courts and sat down alongside a few spectators. Getting in on local pickup games is usually awkward and difficult, but these guys welcomed me in as soon as possible, I don’t even think the game was over. They don’t rotate positions here, you have an assigned job and you must do it…well. My assignment, which was told to me in Vietnamese several times, was to slam the ball into each and every one of the opponents faces. Haha, I would make a perfect spike and right after it they would reiterate the fact that I need to spike the ball. They spoke Vietnamese at me like I had speaking it since birth. I just smiled and nodded. It took a while for the first good setup to happen, but when it did I lit into it. The spectators all gasped and laughed afterwards at the defense’s effort to dig it.
Halfway through the game I noticed that more spectators had gathered, the pressure was on. 90% of the sets were to me, every time the ball was set my way, excitement would stir in the crowd. When I spiked it, they would abrupt into applause and laughter. We won the first game easily. A lady came by with a red bucket, one of my teammates handed her some money and motioned for me to get a taste of the what was in the red bucket. I first assumed it was water and I had brought my own, to the crowd’s amusement I picked up my bottle to show him that he needn’t pay for mine bc I had some. They laughed and I realized that it was not water in the bucket. I took a cup of the liquid, still not sure what it was, it tasted like a really weak sprite, maybe with some vodka in it.
I found myself with a new assignment in game two. I was to neutralize the other team’s big man, who, might I say, could bring the heat on some spikes. A little old man took my position. He held it down well, he was short with thin legs, but he could hop and control the spin on his spikes. The sun was setting on the town as I looked back over the bay and watched it go down in between sets. We lost that game and it was getting dark so we called it quits. After sitting around for 5 minutes, the guys asked if I wanted to join them for drinks. I thought for sure they were about to get Jeff and I wasted on either beer or rice whiskey and I was mentally preparing myself for a night on the bottle. We walked a block and half back to a storefront where the owner brought out a bucket of ice and several clear in bottles. We only had one each, which were paid for by my teammates, as kids gathered around listened to us try to talk to each other through basic English. They offered to take us back home on their mopeds, but we were within walking distance and declined. We made an agreement to meet back at the courts the next day at 5 and took off back ot the house for rest.
9-24-09
I woke up early the next morning and went for a stroll around town. My main goal was to find the grocery store. I couldn’t even think of anything I wanted or needed, but I always enjoy perusing a local grocery store to see the things they carry. Half way to my destination I realized that I had bitten a bigger chunk than I could chew out of this walk. Mostly due to a terribly placed mosquito bite on my foot right where my sandal strap wraps around the inside of my arch. I got to within stones throw of where the grocery was indicated on a rough hand drawn map of the town and began asking locals. They pointed the way and soon I found myself walking through an open air market that sold clothes ad furniture. Not happy with my finding I took it back to the house. But not before finding a guy that sold frozen yogurt and ice cold green tea. I had already scored some bananas, so I sat on some steps near the ocean and had breakfast.
I ended up catching a moped back for .56 cents. I found Jeff laid up not doing too well. He popped a couple pain pills and off we went. We got a moped for $3 each and went to the Cham towers. Pretty disappointing, so we headed off to the beach. Over a mountain and through some woods and voila, we were there at the gates of the Leprosy Hospital. 5,000 dong each and we were in. The hospital consists of houses for lepers and their families. Nice gardens are kept up and it’s a pretty nice little villa. They said that they were not allowing visitors at the time so we jetted to the back towards the beach, found a secluded spot, though the whole beach was empty, and parked the moped. We went for a dip and talked about life, politics, and the past. We had a good time hanging out there. Jeff’s fever came back as he hung out in a hammock, so he popped a pill and took a nap. I went back out into the ocean where I felt like a kid again, playing games with the waves, threatening them, fighting them, and just having a blast all by my lonesome.
As I watched 5 dogs playing around, running, and yelping, I began thinking about how long it had been since I had a good jog and decided to take a run on the beach. I never broke into a full run, but found that just a job sufficed. I passed a walkway that they have set up of medicine men of the past, there were probably 20 total busts of the people with short details in Vietnamese on what they were known for. As I made my way down the row trying to place each one, I saw a man motioning for me to sit next to him. I knew right away that he was a Leper due to the prosthetic leg below his right knee and the crutches. He patted the bench next to him and I was ready to have some wisdom dropped on me.
I sat down and soon realized that he spoke no English, man I wish I knew Vietnamese! Upon closer inspection I realized that he was missing his right leg below the knee, half of his left foot, and a little bit of each finger was gone. We only communicated through sign language. He knocked on his fake leg, pointed at his left foot, then lightly beat his chest while he shook his head. I felt bad for the old man. I know he could tell the way that I felt from the deep sorrow in my eyes. I tried not to feel sorry for him, I assume that’s not what he wanted, but I did. Especially after having just jogged by him. I then realized how much I take for granted everyday, especially my health.
I sauntered back to where Jeff lie in the hammock and told him about the experience. Earlier we had debated as to whether or not there were still lepers here, he had heard there were not. He was feeling better and it was about time to head back for volleyball, so we took off. The ride back was quick, we had to fill the tank back to how we found it and had it in just in time. I put on some board shorts and walked down to where the locals play vball. I didn’t quite bring my A game that day and had a sub bar outing. Dark clouds threatened over head and caused darkness to fall much earlier. We took it to the house early and cleaned up for dinner. While getting dressed for dinner in walked our new room mates, Steve and his girlfriend…Anna? They were Austrian and really nice, we talked about all of our current ailments. Mine being the traveler’s runs, she had a cure for everything. She hooked me up with volcanic ash to be mixed with water. It tasted like dirt, but from what I read on the web today, it’s quite effective.
We wandered the backstreets and as we rounded a corner a little old man ran out and grabbed me. It was a guy that I had played with the day before and he was inviting us to drink with him and his friends. Through sign language we let him know that we needed to eat first, then we be ready. Luckily just across the street a lady was making pho and we sat down on the tiny stools. The pho was great, especially for 10,000 Dong, or .56 cents. During dinner a girl on a bicycle hesitated a second too long in the middle of an intersection and got hit my a moped. We heard the plastic sliding across the ground and stood up to see what all of the commotion was about. She got up holding her hips as the middle aged couple that hit her, gave her a good stern talking to. They rolled their vehicles out of the intersection, talked for a minutes and split ways. It’s crazy the things that have become normal, everyday happening for me here. I hardly flinch at things like that now, whereas when I first got here, I would have gotten all excited about it and then analyzed it for while.
After dinner, we walked back across the street to where friend and his buddies sat around a pitcher of beer. They poured me glass after glass, Jeff was on meds, so he had to pass. We made goofy faces and tried to convey basic information via hand gestures and pictures on phones. We talked about family, travel, age, marriage, and volleyball. All of the good things in life. We were there for maybe 30 minutes before they called it a night. We had a short walk back to the house and once back we hit the sack.
Today was a lazy day, it’s rained on and off for most of it, it’s been nice sitting around. I just got my passport back from Quang Ngai, and bought a bus ticket to Nha Trang tomorrow morning. I’ll miss listening to the game, but I’m ready to get away from these money swindling women here at Barbara’s Kiwi Connection.
