Hello Almighty, Almighty, this is PBR Street Gang - radio check, over.
Radio: Street Gang, this is Almighty, standing by, over.
- Apocalypse Now
Karg continues to make available to Sleeping Horse Pills, the personal journal of his adventures while traveling in Vietnam. His thoughts are recorded deep within the grips of a Tiger beer and southeast Asian moonshine haze. His last entry described his encounters with the Hmong people of the Northern Vietnamese climes, in The Nam Diaries Bac Ha pt.I and II.
Having survived the treacherous journey up and down those mountain roads with the guidance of his teenage guide Ang and the brave driver Mia, Karg travels back to sea level and the gorgeous Ha Long Bay.
The mist and water evoke some interesting thoughts as Karg continues to face himself, his perceptions of Vietnam and it's people as well as fellow tourists from around the world. The exotic locale and languid motion of the water play tricks on the mind of the traveler as he inhabits a boat with Jimmy, the bartender from Wisconsin who is his lone traveling companion and the most familiar stranger on the vessel.
Will Karg heed the advice to "Never get outta boat", or will he come face to face with "a fucking tiger"? Will he be content to stay on deck where he is subject to restless dreams and nightmares, or will he get scared and impatient, calling in an air strike? Hit the jump to find out but remember, it may be your mission, but it sure as shit is the chief's boat.
Green Pearls by Eric Karg
A curtain of haze hangs fifty feet over the water. I can pretty much touch it with my hands if I sit up in my lounge chair. I imagine my eyelids as perfect half circles, like a cartoon drawing. Perfectly immovable. Actually my whole body feels immovable. Maybe it could be moved with a little effort? There is no fear of actually moving in the near future, it is a purely hypothetical thought. How long have I been sitting here? Jimmy was next to me last time I looked. Where has he gone? It's humid, really humid but not at all hot. My gaze takes in the glass smooth surface of Ha Long Bay. You can look deep into the water and know the heart of lime green. The lime of stone, base, not that of fruit.
When we first pull into the shaggy rock lagoon there is another smaller junk, resting idle. Its inhabitants have already slipped into the almost oppressive silence of this spot on Earth. The staff sits together sharing a mid-morning meal in the very keel of the boat, just as the hosts on this boat will be doing shortly. Orientation to the boat and the quarters took only a few minutes. After the orientation, another luncheon. Pork loin in tamarind sauce, grilled prawn in garlic, stacks of steamed spring rolls and an unidentifiable red meat dish described as beef. Just as the tides in this region, a small local craft appears out from around corner. The pilot is maybe eleven years old. Where he and his little brother came from I have no idea. We could probably be within a couple hundred yards of shore without knowing it. But the silence suggests that we are as far away from land as we feel. Shouting a sales pitch in an even tempo they come closer. The stout wood walls on the first deck of the Dragon Pearl are too high for the commerce to take place over them so we buy shells with iridescent surfaces through the round portholes. Come to think of it, this transaction is on the starboard side. This is a nice break; I have a little security from the constant hawks in this country. If I choose not to buy I can slip away from the hole and not be seen. If I keep my head down.
Turns out moving comes totally natural. My server returns with the tray propped up by her tiny shoulder carrying four 12oz cans of Tiger beer. This is her fifth trip this morning. I am impressed. It's two floors down to the kitchen from the observation deck where we decide to have our breakfast. I sit up to place the cans about me and remove the empties. Jimmy is next to me again.
Dinner last night included white wine, real wine made of grapes and not distilled like every other wine in this country. We were seated with an Israeli couple. Dinner included steamed prawns, spring rolls, grilled reef fish, barbecue pork, steamed vegetable, breaded squid and the five bottles of wine. I have not included half of the plates that came to our table because as dinner progressed I found that although I kept offering to share our plates with the Israelis, they seemed reticent to share with us. Racial stereotypes aside, I thought their behavior was a little surprising just the same. For instance, a plate of breaded fried peas or a variation on vegetable tempura and soy dishes were set on the table just as the listed meat dishes, but the couple would scoop the plates to their side of the table unapologetically. Just to make a point, I would reach across the table with my chopsticks and grab a pea or a piece of tofu. So it was known that I didn’t care whether they felt like sharing or not.
The haze of humidity seems to fill the room. Each lamp, gold against the richly stained wood walls sends out halos. The food swims in an ocean of good wine in my stomach and the guests of the Dragon Pearl step out onto the forward third deck. Some to a game of cards or the sharing of pictures or just an after dinner chat. Jimmy decides to point out that the Israelis are vegetarians. Turns out the stereotyping is right on target. It was the obnoxious Americans taking whatever they wanted, talking too loud and drinking too much. I find trying to fight the preconceived notions about Americans on this trip is becoming a losing proposition. I am not a good ambassador. It is proven again and again, despite my focus, that I fit the description handily.
This boat is three stories above the water line. The first floor has most of the bedrooms including ours, on starboard. The aft has old, thick wood stairs that descend into the frighteningly consistent, milky green of the water. The prow is a sort of open area complete with the tie off knobby things and rope-work ascending to the junk's fore and main masts. I never see the sails unfurled. We are under motor power the entire time. The second floor, I guess you would call it the deck, has what must be the state rooms for the wealthier, better healed traveler (in our case the Canadians and the Israelis). The main dining room extends into an open dining area. Above this is the sun deck, where I've been sitting this whole time. As a matter of fact, as soon as I found this area I haven't left it. The morning of the last day and we've been sitting in this bay of sorts, surrounded by this green water that has the effect of a highly polished birds-eye maple table, punctuated with white rose flower shaped jellies.
We are encouraged to swim by the pamphlets that came with our room. Since the rest of the passengers seem to have decided that the loud, drinking Americans don’t have anything of value to any future conversations, it's time to give swimming a shot. Now I don’t know if it's the attitude of the others aboard that drives us to jump from the third deck, or that a more easily traversed place of egress is not available. But, this is where we end up. Jimmy goes first, choosing to tiptoe onto the second deck's wicker awning tentatively, using his non-broken left hand to touch the railing he has already crossed. He leans out and he's gone. I listen close to hear a yell, a splash, anything! But nothing happens. I wait a couple of seconds and run. I plant a foot on the tiny railing and dive. It's magnificent. The very picture of grace, like cliff divers from TV in the seventies. My spread arms move slowly from my sides to before me as my body arches towards the water. I am vaguely aware of a blur of color, a small crowd has gathered to watch our idiocy. I am more aware that my perfect dive should have come to a close by now. Finally, the back of my hands hit the surface a fraction of a second before the cold water slaps hard at my back and immediately strips my shorts off.
It feels deep. Deep, cold and really salty. The notion that I still cannot tell what the visibility is even in the water, motivates me to move quickly through the water before an ocean dwelling opportunist catches up with me. Jimmy has given up on me rather quickly. I can just make him out rounding the back of our mighty Dragon Pearl. There are gentle stairs directly aft that descend into the water. It's here that we regain our ship. The Canadian couple that demurred last night about stealing my hat is waiting to shoot pictures of us climbing aboard. We share e-mail addresses to ensure the digital pictures will be sent to us. The staff smiles as towels are passed out.
We pull out of the little cove surrounded by the arched stone back of the endless dragon that makes Ha Long Bay, our home for the last twenty-four hours. The motor chugs in a thoughtful manner, whipping a cream white froth in the ever lime glass surface behind us. The pace we set seems too quiet to ripple a bow wave. Just as we are getting under way, I spend a little time at the small prow of our junk. If not for the gentle, barely audible noise of the blades I would not know we are sliding through the slowly lifting humidity towards a sunlit day. This brings us back to the top-deck. It is here in our voyage that we finally surmount the ultimate deck of the proud Dragon Pearl.
In hindsight it’s a bit like a Conrad novella, constantly moving amongst these jagged gumdrops with new shapes on each shore. A pagoda appears on a mountaintop, the entrance of monstrous caves or a beach covered with a row of red flags. Deliciously foreign. Rounding a corner of yet another island my eyes are met with a sight incongruous, a seaborne storage shed business, or so it seems. Rows of open green garages, this green is the patina of copper. It's a floating village. I start waving like a madman with an idiotic grin on my face. Granted I've been drinking all day, but it seems important to get across my culturally sensitive appreciation of the brave statement that is their life. I mean anyone can live in squalid conditions on land, but this takes gumption. Dark hair caps the bright eyes of the children as boats row out to shout at us as we pass. Adults glance up from chores or sit looking indignant at the grandstand of big-eyed, foreign devils plowing up their front yard. We move on.
The observation deck is still left solely to us and we sit timeless. Like an apparition, a Vietnamese girl stands before us with a wood-framed, black felt display board. Pearls, multicolored in earth tones spread out as necklaces, earrings, rings for fingers and bracelets crowd its surface. Having no other marks on this deck of the ship, she sets to work in a low voice suggesting, assuring, and confiding to us in a language we don't share. We look politely for a while and deciding not to make any purchases, we wave her away. Without any effect however. She has dealt with the likes of us before. Changing tactics, she moves to sit between Jimmy and I knowing we have nowhere to go. Really, no way to avoid her at all without dropping several floors and locking ourselves in our tiny room. Two short moments pass as Jimmy motions to see the pearl and abalone shells again. We have reconsidered.
This is, after all, supporting the local populace in whose home waters we are sitting. The same brave people living in the pontoon garages we've just passed. Visions of a Utopian fishing and pearl farming village living in harmony within this gorgeous environment. Taking only as much as the need demands at any given moment. Communing with the fish, eating seasonally. A glorious return to pastoral ways past, long forgotten by my own Western people. Perhaps some of the European white guilt, some of the earth destroying can be staunched right here. I could make a bold stand, a statement! It begins here. By making an indigenous purchase, will I make the world a stronger, brighter place? The images of hope running though my brain don't match that well with the recent memory of the village we've just passed. I can’t think of anything that looks natural or organic about the way these water people live. Expressions I’ve seen here will repeat themselves over and over again as we stomp not so lightly through Vietnam. I don’t know yet that experience holds a dear school. Moving from experience to experience, I will become more bored with the notions I had of Vietnam and the King people. Just as new desires and questions rise to the surface of my mind. This is only the second morning in country. Already my mind and body are switching to a different mode. This is the beginning of the change. A slow, soft landing here. Not on Terra Firma, but out in the coastal waters metaphorically easing us into the culture. Without remorse, or any guilt, I buy a pair of earrings and a necklace of green.
We spend the day working our way back to Haiphong, to disembark and regain the terrible bus back to Hanoi. In fact, it's not that the bus is horrible, it isn't. It's bright, new and probably French, an example of that country's continued interest in Vietnam. But the roads between Haiphong and Hanoi are unforgiving of my Western ass. On the trip to Haiphong in the same bus that will take us to Hanoi, I am seated in the right rearmost seat. On the bench that spans the width of the bus. On the right side, moving forward is a line of single seats, the left side having two sets bisected by the walkway.
Back home I was halfway through colored belts culminating in a black belt in the martial art or system of Krav Maga. A solution based, physical response to conflict. I was good at it. One of the drills the practitioners of Krav do over and over from day one is the blocking of punches with the forearm's outer edge. This bone deflection is very painful to the uninitiated. One practices each movement or response in martial arts to increase the width of the electric cords within the muscles as muscle memory, so in the event of unsolicited combat the body can react without the hindrance of the frontal lobes.
On the drive from Hanoi to Haiphong I am seated in the rearmost seat on the right hand side of the bus. On the back of each seat is a hardened plastic headrest that also functions as a handhold or O' Jesus handle for the travelers inside. With each bone-jarring pothole we hit on this drive I unconsciously reach for anything to steady myself while still looking out the windows at the impossibly exotic countryside. After the first hour, this becomes harder and harder to do. The mind is drawn inward and in my case, downward to the whisper thin cushion of my seat. Into the second hour, the discomfort is unbearable to me and the rest of the passengers. Now the roads get even worse. With each mile the potholes correspondingly multiply and though it doesn't help, as our asses become airborne, all of our hands shoot forward to grab in desperation at the seat handle before us. As Fate would have it, seated to my left are the most attractive British women; in fact, the most attractive women I've seen the entire trip. We shoot up in the air together, bouncing shoulders. Her right hand grabs for the ill-fated seat back where Jimmy sits looking bemused at me. As if I have no self-control, my left arm comes snapping down on this ladies' innocent forearm in a damning strike. Five seconds later, and again I drive it home. Her forearms are bare, her eyes hurt and confused. The audacity of the continuing aggression and seemingly unconcerned abuse from my person in full view of all onboard keeps her from saying a thing. Perhaps the apology in my eyes keeps anyone from action against me. Or, maybe this sort of thing happens all the time in Nam. I don't know but by the time we arrive at the dock I feel terrible. But not as bad as the Britishers' arm looks.
In Haiphong the dock is stupid with junks. We literally have to tie up against a ship three out from the dock proper and make our way over gunnel and bow leaping from ship to ship. As happens in this case, everyone from my junk forms a line as if it's normal to disembark by climbing over several other ships. In a fit of impatience I shoulder my giant duffel bag and forge my own way thinking I am glad my parents aren't here, they would have been stuck. With each great stride over the water, the relaxation I'd felt while on the bay diminishes. By the time I stand in the parking lot I am affecting a look of indifference and impatience I don't feel. But everyone looks the same, as if to say en masse, I didn't take advantage of your gorgeous young country. Of course, I didn't just spend ten years worth of the average Viet's wages this night.
Midway back to Hanoi we stop at a roadside cafe. This is the sort of highway store/eatery I love. Made of the same sort of cinder blocks as the old root beer stands of the American nineteen sixties. The dirt lot out front abuts the cement floor of the dinning area, wholly open to the highway. The ubiquitous little plastic lawn furniture fills the room. In the back room that runs the full length of the place hang unique framed tiles, hundreds of them, fired right there on the premises. One stout cup of coffee with lots of cream and lots of sugar, a potty break in the donkey's stall out back and I buy two of those magnificent tiles. One features the seven-floored pagoda on the perfume river in the classic blue enamel. The second, a multicolored image of a mother pig and her five little piglets.
0 comments:
Post a Comment