19/01/2011

After breakfast, we jumped back onto the Junk boat that we’d arrived in. Ryan-or-Bryan-or-Terry-or-Len came over and gave us all feedback forms to fill out. Alongside such statements as “the quality of the Tour Guide’s English”, there were boxes to tick with ‘Exceptional’, ‘Good’, ‘Average’ and ‘Below Average’. Argggghhhhhhh, I get it now. Below Average. Ryan-or-Bryan-or-Terry-or-Len kicked those Malaysian guys off because they said his “English was below average”. Not “below Everest” like we’d thought he had been saying a couple of nights ago. Well considering I’ve just got that now, it was probably a fair evaluation. None of us had forgot his treatment of the French couple on the bus yesterday and he was never going to do well out of this. Me, Ben, Benny T and Andrew Price never marked higher than ‘Good’ and any positive ratings were for the condition of the boat. Ben and Benny T had a field day on the ‘additional comments section’.

We got the group photo before boarding the coach back to Hanoi. Almost every house along the road had the Vietnamese flag fluttering proudly outside just like they do in the States with the stars and stripes – although with a polar opposite message.

“Ben, its Christian, the guy we met on the tubing and his ginger mate”, I noted when we stopped off at a service station.

“How many people over the course of their travelling have referred to them as that Christian and his ginger mate?”  came the reply.

“I wonder if anybody has drawn the similarities between them and a pair of Denis the Menace characters”

“Oh with their noticeable nobly knees?”

“Yeah”.

Throughout the coach trips here and on Catba Island, we kept coming across this American Man, his Vietnamese Wife and their excruciatingly annoying child. Thankfully they weren’t on our boat but they’re here now, standing in front of me in the queue of the service station shop. The kid’s far too intelligent for his age and I’m not the only one to feel that his precociousness is drawing me into a suppressed violent rage. I’m waiting in the queue to buy a box of cookies for the group, when he turns around to me, points and whispers into his mum’s ear in very good English “he plans to steal them”. His Mother forces him to apologise to me although I laugh it off and roll my eyes at the mum. I’m not laughing inside. As if by the power of God, I find his Achilles heel when I go into the toilet minutes later and his Dad is cleaning him up after he’s clearly pissed himself. He must be about 5 or 6 and far too old for this. He sees me and begins to panic, imagining all the respect and love he generated on the coach draining away. I look at him, while his Dad has his back to me, point and mime a very cold and calculating laugh. When we stop off an hour later for dinner, I whisper in his ear that “because of you, the whole coach now stinks of urine”. That should put him in his place. I think I’ve done him a favour though, as any kid his age that intellectually developed is never happy come adulthood. Now he can begin to actually enjoy his childhood and stop being an object that his parents use to get attention on holiday.

Been here under 3 weeks and Ben has already found a way to avoid the attention and constant bombardment of street sellers; Freeze. One Tuk Tuk driver would not stop hounding us for a fare and instead of the usual pleading to go away, we just froze, like statues. They didn’t know what to do, where to look. Our frozen smiles and motionless eyes made them feel very uncomfortable. We did however get caught out with the Woman who tried to dress us up as a brace of rice farmers for a photo. We were clothed in all the gear. Well, a hat and the crop carrier balancing on the shoulder. So we had to donate or buy her bananas. For the next street we walked down we decided to change our game plan.

“Right, okay, for the next one, when they approach you, just pretend you are having a fit”. It worked. Don’t try looking for this technique in the Lonely Planet. You won’t find it.

We met Andrew Price in Hanoi Backpackers for the quiz night and did alright. Most surprisingly was how much we’d learnt on our trip which came in useful. For example we knew that Vietnam’s national sport is the one with the shuttlecock, thanks to my encounter with those lads on Cat Ba Island. Also that the national animal for good luck is the turtle, from the cave tour we did. Felt like Slumdog Millionaire.

Headed for a few more beers and a few games of table football in another bar. Ben is ridiculously good. I didn’t actually know you could be good at this game, but he is. I get my single victory over him when me and Andrew Price take him on and a local lad in a game of doubles.

“No Ben, no rematch, I want to end it on a high. Victory to us. Never playing again. That was a one off. No rematch. Never. Long may me and Andrew remain as champions”.