Another One Bites

We took a walk that started in daylight. We weren't sure how far it was. We hadn't bought a map of the island. This tear shaped island in the Gulf of Thailand didn't really seem big enough to worry about having a map for its 45km length. Stepping off the surprisingly smooth ride on the prop plane we already knew there was some jungle to greet us as it felt like the wheels had clipped and chipped the mangos hanging on to the tops of the trees. Anyway, our taxi shied away from the main drag of resorts and took us up into the hills, a red clay track with potholes that could claim cattle.

A bumpy half an hour later we were at our eco resort. This was the kind of advertising that was designed to pull liberal-minded schmucks like me in, who don't mind flying over some beautiful aquamarine sea to get to paradise as long as we don't see the damage that our in flight service is doing. Offset that.
Except no one cared. The owner seemed more interested in drinking from mid-morning onwards and then going off with his mates to snorkel while the staff were left to fend off a slew of criticisms from the rooms to the beach; from the food to the over-charging. The place seemed like a tropical building site but in the end it wasn't the noise that we couldn't cope with but the wrong atmosphere, the wrong people and the wrong place. Our eco haven was built on top of the remains of dead prisoners, transported here from the mainland. Poltergeist that.
So we walked to a place we thought was close by. It was another world. Whereas EcoLipService Resort conjured up images of gangstars in bermudas, this place had a simple elegance to it. A tropical Shaker feel to the rooms, coloured-up woods minimally spaced in the large huts and where the bathrooms had saplings growing from between the tiles reaching up through the opened ceiling. A Franco- Vietnamese couple greeted us without surprise as though they were used to seeing
refugees from a marketing ploy.

So we returned in the dark to our eco resort, resolved and ready to transfer the next day. In the company of one of Ridgeback dogs who befrfiended us and padded alongside us we ascended the hill away from the resort. Darkness fell as it always does here like a stone; a rock fall that denies dusk and soon we were left flicking at our half dead torch cursing our eyes for their city focus. We passed by what we knew were homesteads with their mixture of scrapheaps and Buddhist shrines; their howling Ridgeback dogs and the flicker of VN soap opera in homes opened up without protection to the mosquitos we could both feel biting our faces.

Then a human howl, a raucous refrain lurching into harmony some ways off in the dark as we held on for balance and for reassurance. For the first time since I have arrived I felt insecure; a little edgy in the way that I had got used to feeling back home. That's the way you had to be if you were walking along the streets of Glasgow, say after the pubs closed in a lot of places and even then, it was at any time in some places. You didn't have to be scared you just had to be aware of your surroundings and be prepared for something to happen. It's the same thing, I know.

Nothing did happen. No. Something did. Our friendly dog stopped suddenly, its ears bending back. Never a good sign. Out of the black and into the road came a song that had a slurred tonality to it and my head torch picked out a startled figure of a half naked man who froze where he was, empty rice wine bottle in hand, his bare chest heaving with the fuss of adrenalin in his body. He didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. This wasn't the United Nations. This hadn't been rehearsed. He rushed out some words and I whispered a particuarly weak Hi and we moved on, a little ruffled but reassured.
Later, under the mosquito net, it was hard to sleep. The throb of Saigon motos had been replaced by a wall of sound, the crazy, scary, plain what the hell was thatness of it all was great. Here we were under the canopy next to the sea listening and a part of nature's tinnitus.

Dizzying Sights

Woke up and the world revolved. Not evolved. Should have. Could have. If mud-slides hadn't taken away mudhuts; if the ground hadn't been taken away from under them just before they were typhooned, old and ancient Hue battered with fresh and natural violence. Could have. If we had eyes to see as the smoke from Malaysia heads for Singapore's clean streets and then. And then. The apocalyptic forecasts keep the fire stoked for the Britishers' love and fear of the weather,a pre-Discovery channel fascination with all things that can't be controlled.
If anything had changed overnight it couldn't be seen. Not by me at least. The room was swirling and my eyes lied to me; bare face cheek in the mirror. They should have been rolling in their sockets, the pupils taking the curve of the eye, hugging it like a cue ball, but no, they remained fixed on the mirror while my head danced on a merry-go-round which had been placed on the poop deck of a galleon ploughing through some terrible storm. Of course there is exaggeration. This is illness. It should not be downplayed. It was surprising however to find myself so dizzy and staggered; like a raging hangover mixed with sea-sickness.
Dear Kate held me as we taxi'd our way to our ( not so free) healthcare.Of course it's a virus. Dear Doctor. Dear Diary. We are all a virus. Some apocalyptic swipe with mud or air or water or fire will sweep us away and who the xxxx cares. Trust me I'm a doctor they didn't say but they should have. I could barely see them. The room was spinning. This was some tropical Tarantella that was bringing some screwed up syncopation to my brain. You've got riddim, you've got style, that sweaty and pasty face is lighting up this world and do you mind if we cash in. An ear virus. $50 Consultation Fee. $21 for Prescription. Drugs for Vertigo ( I loved the movie thanks), for the cold ( think Lemsip) and STREPSILS ( think what the !@?k. If I could have stormed out I would have but I managed a dramatic stagger instead and a whispered certainty that the Hippocratic oath is silenced by such private care.
I'm better now and I can watch threatening mud and clouds of smoke from the safety of my living room.
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Okay, lets get a possible cliche out of the way first. The journey from paradise to hell can be a long one. Another weekend at the beach. ( 2 in a row, for christsakes' and I complain that the work is v. stressful ? Yes and eh, yes. Anyway, Mui Ne was its sublimely peaceful self. From the hub of humanity to the lull of waves, I am here again. In the morning there is talk ( but not mine) of dawn swims in the briefly cool air. At seven, I am told that the water is cold as Kate dives in and I walk the beach looking for shells and a state of wakefulness that usually eludes at such time(s). By the time, I walk back along the beach the air is hot and the Vietnamese who have been up since before first light have slowed to an amble along the sand.

At night, a new horizon is created. We thought we had discovered new land in the South China Sea, that we were Columbuses pretending to find a country not lost nor waiting to be found. But the horizon in daytime is unobstructed, unremarkable in its greyish blue lineage. By night we are told that the lights, blinking amber and red are the banana boats and coracles out for their catch of snapper and shell. Like in Maude Hutchins story where a child shivers itself to the core with imagination; where the links of a snapped anchor chain become the entwined torsos of dead sailors washed up on the sandy shore and the net floats, in their bleached colours, become the deadened swell of human heads finding home like sand crabs by digging into the sand.

Forgive the sombre tone but what is common place has sooner rather than later happened to me. Brief witness to RTA; passing safely recorder of carnage soon behind but lingering all the same. Bodies can twitch beside the road, so I am told, and no one will stop and care; a driver can be propelled into the air or squashed beneath tyre and people will certainly stop and stare. So I am told. If you stop and look no one will listen; if you hit and stop there will be trouble ahead. So, you can't get involved. When the moto driver hits the side of our minibus, I see his body jump briefly into the air, his bike skidding under him. There is a bump as the minibus goes over something. Something. It could be anything. So I am told. It was the bike, we went over the bike. Someone shouts STOP because roadside care might be needed, rudimentary resucitation must surely be there, on hand, in our hearts the hope that it was just his bike.

The further we get, our mutual words and recounts soothe our minds, a collective effort to shift the image of the flying body from our memory. I recall what I really wanted to write this blog about, the incredible but silent storm that took place miles from the road, in the peaks of mountains some distance away. The lightning scattering across the sky, back lighting the clouds in the night sky and so briefly illuminating the cowering life below. A scene that was incredibly evocative and somehow both gothic and tropical. A hybrid worth exploring. An image worth saving. Not everything we see, I guess, should be remembered. Given the choice.