Back Streets or Luxury? ー裏道か、豪華さかー

My recent trip to Vietnam with my wife and 9 year old son reminded me of travelling through South-east Asia twenty years ago.  I could see at that time, and I spent about three months backpacking through Thailand, Myanmar and Cambodia.  Since losing my eyesight, and also having a young child, I have taken easier holidays in Japan or in resort areas with good hotels and facilities for tourists. 

In Vietnam we stayed in three different hotels – a small, cheap hotel in Hoi An, then a more luxurious hotel in central Da Nang, then a cheaper hotel near the beach in Da Nang.  The switch from cheap hotel to luxury hotel amazed my son.  When he saw the second hotel, and we were invited to enjoy the free afternoon tea (with a chocolate doughnut), my son kept saying, “I am rich!  I have become rich!” 

The thing which reminded me of backpacking years ago was wandering around a place where people didn’t speak English, and having random encounters and experiences.  There was a banh mi, or Vietnamese style baguette restaurant just across from our hotel in Hoi An, and we decided to give it a go.  It was lovely, and much nicer than the banh mi restaurant recommended by guide books and frequented by tourists rather than locals. 

We wandered through the back streets near our hotel in Hoi An, looking for a launderette.  We found kids kicking a ball up and down a narrow street, dodged passing scooters, found a place to get our laundry done, and bought some wonderful coconut flavoured iced coffee from a street vendor. 

Things became much easier once we reached the luxury hotel in Da Nang.  The beds were bigger.  I broke a glass at our first hotel by kicking it because I was sharing a bed with my son, and sleeping with my feet next to his head, and the night stand with my glass of water.  We could all stretch out and relax in the second hotel. 

The breakfast was also a delight in the second hotel.  I tried dishes such as roast duck, sticky rice, dumplings, and pho noodles. 

But despite the greater luxury and convenience of Da Nang, my wife and I much preferred the back streets of Hoi An.

 

Hoi An Soup －ホイアンスープ

Our taxi arrived in the evening at T and T Villa, a small, three star hotel in Hoi An. 

We checked in, and walked up two flights of stairs, since there was no elevator.  The staff, seeing that I was blind, kindly asked if we would like to move to a room on the ground floor.  I said it would  be fine using the stairs – after all, there was a constant noisy beeping from car and scooter horns at ground level. 

After a short rest, we headed out into the city.  Our first task was to find a mini-mart, said to be about a ten minute walk away, so that we could buy supplies such as bottled water.  Imagine a Japanese lady helping her nine year old son along, with her blind husband tapping his cane and holding her shoulder as they make their way up unfamiliar streets.  The roads were very uneven, and there were many scooters parked on the pavement, meaning we had to constantly step into the road for stretches until the pavement became free again.  Crossing busy roads was very difficult the first few times, since there were no pedestrian traffic lights and several lanes of beeping scooters. 

But we did get used to it.  The locals were very friendly and helpful.  Sometimes a scooter would stop to block the traffic to allow my wife to get us at least half way across the road.  You could stop half way and just let the traffic pass in front and behind you until a gap on the other side became available.  At other times, local pedestrians would gesture for us to cross the road alongside them, as they zipped between the vehicles with a practiced ease. 

We made it to the mini-mart.  We got our water, some snacks, and a bottle of nep moi, a Vietnamese rice vodka.  It is about 30 per cent alcohol, and a few glasses each evening helped me sleep soundly! 

It was already getting late, so rather than look for any particular restaurant, we decided just to stop at a random restaurant that seemed to be selling noodles.  So we had our first meal in Vietnam in a pho restaurant that turned out to serve only vegetarian dishes.  I ordered something that was a light soup with noodles, vegetables and several different kinds of tofu.  It was delicious.  My wife shared a different noodle, vegetable and tofu dish with our son.  It was as nice a meal as you could hope for, and the total cost for the two dishes was 50,000 Dong.  That’s about 315 Japanese Yen or 1 Pound and 50 Pence in U.K. money. 

It was stiflingly hot and humid.  My wife said that as the lady cooking our meal was ladling vegetables and tofu into our noodle soup, a big bead of sweat was running down her face.  As the sweat reached her nose, my wife wondered if it was going to drip into our soup.  It didn’t, and she smiled as she gave us our meals. 

As we were walking back to the hotel, dodging scooters and bumps in the road, the sweat was dripping down my back too.  There were smells all around – coffee, spices and frying food everywhere.  The roads were a chaotic bustle of noises.  I felt like I was in a human soup.  And I loved it. 

As a blind person on holiday with others, I can sometimes feel quite left out.  Everyone else is sightseeing – literally looking at a beautiful view or statue or painting that I cannot see.  But on my first evening in Hoi An, I felt very much a part of the trip.  I could hear it in the bustle of life around me, smell it in the great variety of foods on offer all round, and even feel it dripping down my back.