To Hell and Back to Bangkok Again

First things first. I'm here, I'm alive and I'm so grateful. Our stay in Hanoi was noisy and bustling and busy. We met up with Maureen and Maggie again and went to see a water puppet show with them. A very old art in Viet Nam with an orchestra of ancient instruments accompanying puppets flowing through a water stage depicting ancient myths. We shopped, dodged traffic and walked and walked and walked. We also visited the famous Hanoi Hilton Prison where the French originally tortured and held the Vietnamese in the early 50's and the Vietnamese subsequently held the American pilots captured during the VN war. Senator McCain's flight suit is still prominently on display here. A hideous place. Man's inhumanity to man again, an echoing refrain on this journey through Asia.

One day while walking back to our hotel we heard a hell of a crash and turned around just in time to see an SUV pummel a scooter with 2 girls on it. The passenger flew through the air and slammed into the ground while the driver had her foot trapped under the bumper of the SUV with people yelling for the SUV to back up and us yelling "No!" but he did. Luckily he did not rip her leg off . It was quite gruesome but the police happened to be there at the time and pulled the girls away and threw them in cars and cleaned up the scene before anyone knew what was happening and the insane flow of traffic resumed as before. No accident reconstruction, no ambulances - no evidence. I could not stop thinking of those poor girls for days. The young lady who flew through the air was dragged to her feet in complete shock and God only knows what further damage was done through this action.

Hanoi is an exciting city but very tiring, the noise factor alone is nerve wracking. The Vietnamese people are very shrewd business people and while they don't appear friendly on the surface, they can be very sweet. One bizarre aspect of this city is that it starts buzzing at about 6am with food and flowers and wares of all sorts and goes full steam ahead all day, but at night everything slams shut at 11pm and the streets are deserted. We got lost at night trying to find our hotel as everything is shuttered and empty and foreign without the bustling life of the day.We contacted Miss Linh Chi, a friend of Bruce Chambers, to organize some tours for us over the coming week to Halong Bay and Sapa. Miss Chi is a lovely, gracious, kind and efficient young lady and if you do Viet Nam, you must hook up with her!

We embarked on a visually edible 3 hour minibus ride to Halong Bay viewing rice paddies, flower farms, rolling hills and the buzz of life in the country which made the trip whizz by. Upon arrival at the dock, we were greeted with the sight of dozens of huge junks harbored and awaiting their fresh catch of tourists for their one or two day sails. Our boat is luxurious and a walk back into time. If it were a train it would be the Orient Express. When we board the boat a young lady hands us cool wet cloths to wipe away the bus trip and after all parties have boarded, a total of 10 on this big boat, we set sail and settle in for a princely feast of a lunch. We are served cold white wine, king prawns, cracked crab, steamed garlic clams, crispy tasty fish and many other accompanying dishes while sailing out to a view of the 3000 island bay. If there is a heaven, then surely Halong Bay is the foyer.

We are sailed into ports of caves of grottos that are vast and cavernous and look like something out of a science fiction movie. Every time we disembark and return we are handed our small cool cloths to wipe our brows and there is always juice or fruit or some culinary treat to welcome us back aboard. After backpacking and stowing up in less than stellar accommodations, we have landed in the horn of plenty. Our cabin is cool and tropical and as luck would have it, we end up with the best berth on the boat with lots of room, hot water and comfort. Our companions are mostly Aussies with a couple of American girls. We make fast friends as we ooh and aah our way through the mysterious ocean mountains jutting out of the sea. At night we anchor in a bay amongst several other junks and again are served a delightful seafood supper and plentiful Viet Nam dishes. We are so relaxed for the first time in months there is little guilt for this indulgence. After dinner Ivan brings out his guitars and plays for the most appreciative cocktail set and a young fella from Australia accompanies him while the U.S. ladies are dipping for squid at the front of the boat. It was 2 days of bliss and then we are back on land and heading for Hanoi. It's a good thing we have had this respite as had we known what was to transpire over the next week, we would probably never have left the boat!

Back in Hanoi we ready for our trip to Sapa to visit the mountains where there are 10 indigenous hill tribes who live in the cultures and mores of history. It's a 10 hour train ride and a one hour mini bus to Sapa and as it turns out for us, an auspicious and ominous journey through the fog. Once in Sapa arriving early morning, we check in our hotel and go down to meet our tour guide, a sweet little Black H'mong girl who takes us out to the market and for a day trek into villages to see the life of the villagers who hold steadfastly to their old ways of dress, trade and lifestyle. We return for the evening and have dinner again in the fog. This is no ordinary fog, it is cold here and you cannot see your hand in front of your face. We catch small, jealous glimpses of the amazing terraced hillsides and vast scope of our altitudinous threshold. It is titillating and beyond our reach so we settle in and hope for the best.

In the middle of the night my stomach is grabbed by an iron fist and I spend the hours until dawn scuttling between bed and toilet. Something is very wrong and I cannot remember pain like this for a millenium. I had hoped that by daylight I would have purged my scourge but it was not to be, it was worse. And it got monumentally worse. Moaning, tossing, whimpering, trying to find a comfortable position with no release I start to realize that I am sicker than I probably know and that I most likely have food poisoning. The hotel sends up the doctor and he diagnoses, yes, food poisoning and leaves me with tablets and instructions. The pain worsens. I am so afraid, I really don't want to die in Viet Nam and poor Ivan stays beside me just staying calm and trying to find things for me to eat that may possibly stay down. No chance. We call the doctor back later and he starts to administer more meds and in the end we call for a private car to take me back to the train station an hour away to get to Hanoi before I reach a crisis. My last memory of Sapa is the doctor sitting beside me on the bed hanging IV bags from the coat rack and telling me "you don't worry, you don't worry", this after telling me that people die from this. Shit. The doctor was a lovely, caring man and I will never forget him for his compassion, patience and encouragement.

The thousand hour train ride was excruciating and again I alternate between the small bag beside my bed and the rattling, smelly train bathroom. Miss Chi met us at the station and took us directly to the French International Hospital where they admit me and take blood tests. My bacteria count is off the scale and after stabbing me a total of 5 times because I am so dehydrated (ouch dammit!), the young VN nurses finally find a vein to insert an IV. Over the period of the next 2 days I am infused with 15 bottles of rehydration solution and 3 bottles of cypro to fight the infection and am finally starting to come out of it. I was very weak, very afraid and immensely disappointed that this may be my last memory of Viet Nam. I am emminently grateful to all the people who helped me through this ordeal; Ivan, of course, my angel, the people at the hotel who got the doctor and were very concerned for me, the lovely doctor, the car driver, Miss Chi, My VietNam angel, and the nurses in Hanoi. I cannot thank you all enough. Mostly I am grateful to be here to write this blog!

We spent one recovery day in Hanoi and got the heck out of there as soon as we could. My very last foggy memory of Hanoi is in our car riding out of the city on the day before Tet ( The lunar New Year - everyone's birthday) watching the Vietnamese selling huge bundles of flowers, plants, finery, holding your breath as they balance pots of kumquat trees and pink blossom trees 2 and 3 at a time on their scooters, buying exotic foods and herbs and good luck charms and burning incense and fake money in the hope that this will be their prosperity to come. It's exciting and exhilarating and yet I am happy to leave it in my rear view mirror this day. The next morning we headed for Bangkok and here we sit. We have had a great 2 days here visiting markets, watching spiderman- like window washers on the sky scrapers, eating lovely Thai food again, riding the subway to the areas of the city we have come to know and love.

Last night we watched Chinese acrobats celebrate the New Year by balancing a wee, tiny girl standing on the shoulders of four to five people standing on eachother's shoulders; a stomach wrenching display as one wobble could send that nymph crashing to her death. The dragons danced, the firecrackers cracked and the Chinese are officially into the Year of the Dog (which by the way is supposed to be my year?!!). I bought knock off Gucci purses, enamel jewellry, we ate great Italian food and jostled our way through Patpong for the last time on this leg of the journey. All is well, we are both healthy again and tomorrow we click our heels and fly to Oz. Love to you all and wish us luck.