After a fitful night, we dragged ourselves to the station, where we overpaid for a couple of capuccinos at Trung Nguyen Coffee -- an indisputable case of railway robbery, but we were desperate for the caffeine. Well, one of us was.
 |
| 'Ga' is one of the few remnants of the French years [Photo: MU] |
Our first destination was a small town, Thap Cham -- literally, Cham Towers -- about eight hours north of HCMC. The train passed vast dragonfruit plantations. Mark, who had never seen a dragonfruit plant before, pointed out the window and said, "Triffids." What?
The triffid is a fictitious, tall, mobile, prolific and highly venomous plant species, the titular antagonist in John Wyndham's 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids and Simon Clark's 2001 sequel The Night of the Triffids.
Ok, so we saw countless triffids, vineyards and a large area where they're making salt by evaporating sea water, all on our way to Thap Cham. Outside the Thap Cham station, Mark felt a beer was in order, so we sat (squatted?) on the child-sized plastic stools that are customary at coffee and beer cafes, our knees bumping up against our chins. A Frenchman pedalled by on the bicycle he'd just redeemed from the railway officials, irked that he had to give them a "tip" to collect it. He asked Mark where he's from, and no matter how many times nor how clearly Mark enunciated it, "Finland" elicited only shrugs and puzzled stares. So much for the geography component of the French educational system.
Flipping through an 8 year-old guide book, we settled on a Ninh Chu Beach resort described as "reasonably priced" and "bizarre". Welcome to the Hoan Cau Resort, where you can live like a hobbit in a cement tree trunk.
Flipping through an 8 year-old guide book, we settled on a Ninh Chu Beach resort described as "reasonably priced" and "bizarre". Welcome to the Hoan Cau Resort, where you can live like a hobbit in a cement tree trunk.
 |
| The mattress was good, and the bathroom was clean. And that's all I've got to say about that. [Photo: AC] |
But really, we hadn't come there for the whimsical lodgings or chipping cement statues of water buffalos.
 |
| We came to swim in the deep green sea. Which we did. [Photo: AC] |
Do you see the blue tub containing fishing net in the middle of the beach in the photo above? A man with an oar pulled it down to the waterline, hopped into it, and paddled out to cast the net. Wasn't there a nursery rhyme about going to sea in a tub?
 |
| Mark swam again at sunrise; I walked the beach, passing the many locals doing Tai Chi there. [Photo: MU] |
It was indeed a bizarre resort, partly because we were there on a weekday, when it was practically deserted. Evidently the Vietnamese pour in on the weekends. Even so, crowds could do only so much to disguise the overall dilapidation. This was the view from the lobby.
One night of pretending to be hobbits was enough, so we took a taxi from the beach back into the town, Phan Rang. We didn't have a hotel in mind, so the minute I saw a hotel sign in the center of town, I pointed to it and asked the driver to stop there. He looked dubious. Mark went in to investigate.
Mark came out after a few moments, clearly pleased with the place, announcing that the rooms were fine, and better still -- they were $10/night, which seemed especially reasonable when compared to the $5 rate for a 2-hour stay. (This would not be the first time we'd stayed in a place with hourly rates; Mark has an uncanny knack for finding them. Wait, I found this one... Never mind.)
 |
| Welcome to the Great Dismal Swamp [Photo: AC] |
One night of pretending to be hobbits was enough, so we took a taxi from the beach back into the town, Phan Rang. We didn't have a hotel in mind, so the minute I saw a hotel sign in the center of town, I pointed to it and asked the driver to stop there. He looked dubious. Mark went in to investigate.
 |
| What are a few circular purple windows after a faux tree stump? [photo: AC] |
Mark came out after a few moments, clearly pleased with the place, announcing that the rooms were fine, and better still -- they were $10/night, which seemed especially reasonable when compared to the $5 rate for a 2-hour stay. (This would not be the first time we'd stayed in a place with hourly rates; Mark has an uncanny knack for finding them. Wait, I found this one... Never mind.)
The lobby, with its fuzzy magenta furniture, seemed to fit the general brothel theme, but this place proved a bit of a surprise. Notice the gleaming floors?
The hotel's middle-aged and nattily dressed owner appeared and looked startled to see us -- a pair of foreigners -- in the lobby. He was, however, delighted. He whipped out his iPad and asked me to pose for a couple of photos. I think he wanted to be sure his art formed the backdrop in this one.
The kingdom of Champa ruled the central part of Vietnam for over 14 centuries. Champa co-existed -- albeit combatively -- with the Khmer kingdom of Angkor. Originally Hindus and occasionally Buddhists, the Cham began converting to Islam in the late 14th century. Cham has now become synonymous with Muslim; the majority of the Cham nowadays live in Cambodia, with about 100,000 remaining in Vietnam, and most of them around Thap Cham.
The eponymous Cham towers date back to around 1400 and sit atop a hillock. They are three structures -- the gate tower at the far right, the repository with its boat-shaped roof in the centre, and the sanctuary or main tower to the left.
The structures are all of brick, and I find it amazing that the leaves (acanthus leaves?) protruding from the roofs have survived.
 |
| Kinky pink [Photo: AC] |
The hotel's middle-aged and nattily dressed owner appeared and looked startled to see us -- a pair of foreigners -- in the lobby. He was, however, delighted. He whipped out his iPad and asked me to pose for a couple of photos. I think he wanted to be sure his art formed the backdrop in this one.
 |
| Welcome to the Xuan Mai, your choice for trysts and tired tourists. [Photo: enthusiastic hotel owner] |
In the end, there was nothing really seedy about the Xuan Mai. Yes, Vietnamese couples checked into the hourly rooms from time to time, but they seemed like regular partners; the women didn't appear to be prostitutes. The rooms were decently turned out and spotless. Mark, an architect, was just happy to be in a room with square walls again. The round room in the tree trunk offended his spatial sensibilities.
Some years ago, I recorded a biography of Attila the Hun for the Malaysian Association for the Blind. The author pointed out that we typically mispronounce the warrior's name. It's not At-TILL-a, but rather OUGHT-ill-a. Finnish and Hungarian, strangely, belong to the same language family, and Mark's surname is Uotila. I'd mentioned the pronunciation of the Hun's name to him when I was recording the book, and he said that a Hungarian fellow once said there was likely a connection.
I'd forgotten this whole incident until it came time to board the scooter that we rented from the hotel owner. A stylish little vehicle; some of the models look more like Vespas. Anyway, We covered a lot of turf on our Attila. Vietnam also has many electric bikes -- wonderfully quiet! They've not caught on yet in Cambodia.
 |
| A Uotila on an Attila [Photo: AC] |
The kingdom of Champa ruled the central part of Vietnam for over 14 centuries. Champa co-existed -- albeit combatively -- with the Khmer kingdom of Angkor. Originally Hindus and occasionally Buddhists, the Cham began converting to Islam in the late 14th century. Cham has now become synonymous with Muslim; the majority of the Cham nowadays live in Cambodia, with about 100,000 remaining in Vietnam, and most of them around Thap Cham.
The eponymous Cham towers date back to around 1400 and sit atop a hillock. They are three structures -- the gate tower at the far right, the repository with its boat-shaped roof in the centre, and the sanctuary or main tower to the left.
 |
| Unlike the ruins at Angkor, we had this place to ourselves. [Photo: AC] |
The structures are all of brick, and I find it amazing that the leaves (acanthus leaves?) protruding from the roofs have survived.
 |
| The gate tower [Photo: MU] |
Shiva dances in the sanctuary's lintel -- note the intricate leaf (or flame, perhaps?) designs above the arches here, too. The tree behind the tower and to the right had delicate pink blossoms with a strong scent of baby powder.
Just inside the sanctuary's entrance sits Nandi, Shiva's bull. We read that Nandi would have been "fed" regularly by farmers in times past, offerings in hope of good harvests. He's fed but once a year now, at Cham New Year in late October.
In the depth of the sanctuary is the altar; its centrepiece is a lingam painted to resemble the Cham king, Po Klong Garai. Especially after living in Malaysia, where the practice of Islam is becoming ever more fundamentalist, I was surprised to see these two items in the Cham temple, still revered. The Malays would have destroyed them in iconoclastic fervour.
Buenos Aires is full of litter bins shaped like penguins. I thought they were whimsical but odd. If they looked incongruous in Argentina, they look downright wacky in Thap Cham.
On the road between the Cham towers and the beach stands a massive patriotic monument in 16 April Park. (I've yet to discover the relevance of 16 April.)
Across the road from the monument is the Ninh Thuan Provincial Museum. An eye-catching building on massive grounds that, as you can see, are well-maintained. As I peered through the building's locked doors, I could see a man walking down an upper-level corridor inside, but it was very clear that the museum hasn't been open for years.
On our way back, we stopped for dinner at a big seafood restaurant that had signs and menus in both Vietnamese and Russian. We ordered cocktails, but the waitress shook her head. "You don't have gin?" we asked. No. We ordered something with vodka. Again, no. Rum? Nope. She flipped the cocktail page and pointed to Bia Saigon. All that Russian signage, and no spirits?! No matter -- Mark ordered us a crab in tamarind and a plate of small, grilled eels, one of which still had a small fish in its jaws. A bonus.
Our first train tickets, booked through the online site, bore our full names. The ones we bought at the Thap Cham station for the next leg of our trip identified us only as "Foreigner". The train left the Thap Cham station at 11:48am; we reached Ha Noi at 3.30 the following afternoon. We booked the upper berths in what Vietnam Railways calls a "soft berth cabin". (The hard berth cabins have six berths, three on each side, one about six inches above the other. A claustrophic nightmare.) For the first few hours, we shared our cabin with two Russian women -- mother and daughter -- and the daughter's one year-old son. They were on their way to a beach holiday at Nha Trang and left the train with staggering amounts of luggage. We weren't entirely sad to see the toddler disembark, but he was immediately replaced by a Vietnamese child of the same age, whose parents boarded at the Nha Trang station. We retreated to our upper berths for a game of Scrabble.
As I finish this post, I hear the music of the Cambodian gamelan on the next street. Thunder is rumbling, and lightning is flashing. A good rain to break the 40-degree heat would be wonderful. Ahhh, here come the wind and the rain, and the gamelan continues. Life is grand.
 |
| The sanctuary [Photo: AC] |
Just inside the sanctuary's entrance sits Nandi, Shiva's bull. We read that Nandi would have been "fed" regularly by farmers in times past, offerings in hope of good harvests. He's fed but once a year now, at Cham New Year in late October.
 |
| Waiting patiently for his next meal [Photo: AC] |
In the depth of the sanctuary is the altar; its centrepiece is a lingam painted to resemble the Cham king, Po Klong Garai. Especially after living in Malaysia, where the practice of Islam is becoming ever more fundamentalist, I was surprised to see these two items in the Cham temple, still revered. The Malays would have destroyed them in iconoclastic fervour.
 |
| A case of synchretism. Always good to hedge one's bets. [Photo: MU] |
Buenos Aires is full of litter bins shaped like penguins. I thought they were whimsical but odd. If they looked incongruous in Argentina, they look downright wacky in Thap Cham.
 |
| "Pardon me, but did you just call me 'wacky'?" [Photo: MU] |
On the road between the Cham towers and the beach stands a massive patriotic monument in 16 April Park. (I've yet to discover the relevance of 16 April.)
 |
| Vietnam is Communist in name only, but the images are still there. [Photo: MU] |
Across the road from the monument is the Ninh Thuan Provincial Museum. An eye-catching building on massive grounds that, as you can see, are well-maintained. As I peered through the building's locked doors, I could see a man walking down an upper-level corridor inside, but it was very clear that the museum hasn't been open for years.
 |
| A white elephant, perhaps, but a well-tended one [Photo: MU] |
On our way back, we stopped for dinner at a big seafood restaurant that had signs and menus in both Vietnamese and Russian. We ordered cocktails, but the waitress shook her head. "You don't have gin?" we asked. No. We ordered something with vodka. Again, no. Rum? Nope. She flipped the cocktail page and pointed to Bia Saigon. All that Russian signage, and no spirits?! No matter -- Mark ordered us a crab in tamarind and a plate of small, grilled eels, one of which still had a small fish in its jaws. A bonus.
Our first train tickets, booked through the online site, bore our full names. The ones we bought at the Thap Cham station for the next leg of our trip identified us only as "Foreigner". The train left the Thap Cham station at 11:48am; we reached Ha Noi at 3.30 the following afternoon. We booked the upper berths in what Vietnam Railways calls a "soft berth cabin". (The hard berth cabins have six berths, three on each side, one about six inches above the other. A claustrophic nightmare.) For the first few hours, we shared our cabin with two Russian women -- mother and daughter -- and the daughter's one year-old son. They were on their way to a beach holiday at Nha Trang and left the train with staggering amounts of luggage. We weren't entirely sad to see the toddler disembark, but he was immediately replaced by a Vietnamese child of the same age, whose parents boarded at the Nha Trang station. We retreated to our upper berths for a game of Scrabble.
 |
| The tiles slid about as the train rocked, but still a blissful pastime. [Photo: MU] |
As I finish this post, I hear the music of the Cambodian gamelan on the next street. Thunder is rumbling, and lightning is flashing. A good rain to break the 40-degree heat would be wonderful. Ahhh, here come the wind and the rain, and the gamelan continues. Life is grand.
Things I like in this post, in no particular order:
ReplyDelete1. The pop culture reference to John Wyndham, whose writings I adore.
2. Penguins outside of Phenom Penguin.
3. Mushroom-like chalets.
4. You being asked to pose.
5. Uotilla on an Atilla.
6. Cham Towers.