Note to my loyal substack readers: This will be my last installment. I’ve trialed this for six months and my subscriber base is still too low for me to consider going to a paid model. My time is better spent working on magazine columns (which pay) and developing other creative projects. I hope you’ve enjoyed my writing and will grab a copy of my travel memoirs when released. It’s finally finished and in the editing stage - wooo hoo!
Backstory: Eula and I have just celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary in Hanoi. She is heading home and I’m about to do some solo adventure travelling. Of course it was a good idea.
I was picked up by my guide and his driver at 6.30am the following morning. His name was Thang which I thought was brilliant. This diminished slightly when he told me it was pronounced ‘tongue’. Still excellent. I didn’t record the driver’s name in my notebook so let’s call him Roger because, why not?
We were headed to Cat Ba, which is a large Island several hours east of Hanoi, on the coast. Yeah, I know I just said it was an island so logically it would be on the coast, but it could have been an inland island.
It wasn’t but it could have been. Let’s not be pedantic.
Anyway, we drove directly into the tail of a typhoon. Yep. Off to the usual start.
The main roads, such as they were, had become rivers, literally. At one point the water was so deep it was coming over the bonnet.
Did the appalling conditions slow Roger down? No, they did not.
Am I going to complain about this? No, I am not.
Mainly because we made it to the city of Haiphong just in time to get the boat to Cat Ba so no harm (except to some car surge soaked pedestrians), no foul.
The weather cleared up beautifully and I had lunch at the delightfully named ‘Dolphin Restaurant’, which is still in business. According to my diary I had sautéed shrimp, pork and rice and it was ‘pretty good’.
I stand by that review.
After lunch I decided to hire a motorbike and ride it to Cat Ba National Park, where I would go on a jungle tramp.
I had promised Eula I would not hire a motorbike in Vietnam. This was a lie. To make amends I resolved to wear a helmet. The man at the motorcycle hire place said I didn’t need a helmet. It was perfectly safe. He had a large scar on his head. I hired a helmet.
My motor-scooter was a Honda Beast. This made me happy. At least, it did until I looked it up on the internet and discovered I was actually riding a Honda Beat.
My testosterone levels immediately dropped.
It was a twenty minute ride to the start of the jungle trail and I arrived completely crash-free. I dunno what all the fuss was about.
The tramp itself was amazing. The trails wound through thick, lush jungle and it was alive with colour, sound and movement but this would be more than just a walk through the trees. My destination was a NVA watch tower that was used by the Viet Cong during the war.
It took a couple of hour of trekking through some pretty sketchy terrain to get there, including slippery, overgrown tracks and rock faces with ladders embedded in them.
The tower itself was ‘tres impressionnant’.
It loomed more than 15 metres above the jungle and its condition was, umm, decaying. Basically, it was held together by forty years of rust.
I was amazed there were no ‘Keep Off’ signs or barriers anywhere. Health and Safety was completely absent. I guess they figured if you were stupid enough to try and climb it then you’d be no loss when you inevitably fell off.
Excellent. I was exactly that amount of stupid.
Excellent. I was exactly that amount of stupid.
About a third of the way up I remembered I get vertigo on man-made structures. Not good.
After another third and on a particularly rickety section, I became annoyed that no-one was around to read my T-Shirt. It had been given to me by one of my more sarcastic mates and said ‘I DO ALL MY OWN STUNTS’. At that moment, it had never been more apt.
I didn’t make it to the top of the tower – see ‘vertigo’ and ‘rusty as fuck’ – but the view I had from two-thirds the way up was spectacular. The jungle was laid out before me and I could see for kilometres.
Those NVA dudes sure knew how to build a tower.
On the way back I concentrated on wildlife spotting.
If you’ve read any of my adventures, you’ll know in every country I visit I set myself the impossible task of viewing an animal in the wild that I have virtually no chance of seeing.
In Vietnam it was a tiger, which, had I seen one, would surely have eaten me.
At the end of the tramp my wildlife tally was as follows: One large spider (and I mean large, I have a photo of it and it was way bigger than my hand), two lizards, one crab (Why was it in the jungle? Had I discovered a new species? Crabbus Woodis), several frogs and a millipede.
I note that no tigers were spotted.
Excellent read as always. I look forward to the book. My "Feral Roadside Motels of Australia" should be out shortly
It’s a shame you can’t keep writing here Glenn, glad I discovered your words. Let us know when your memoir is available as I would love to read it!