There is sometimes a tendency with veggie food for people to try and make something that looks like meat but is in fact veggie. This regularly perplexes me and several of my veggie friends, as we reckon the best veggie food doesn’t bear any resemblance to meat, and is none the worse for it.

Today I had a great example of veggie food that was just veggie. I guess the tofu maybe looked a bit like a meat substitute, but actually this was tofu done deliciously and definitely to be celebrated as a thing in its own right. I followed recommendations from Maps Me and Trip Advisor and went to a restaurant called Claypot. They cooked the food in a clay pot and had a note in the menu saying to beware it would take half an hour to cook to allow the flavours to all intermingle. It was truly delicious. Tofu and Eggplant (aubergine) claypot, preceded by a banana shake and complimentary salted nuts and followed by iced sweet coffee:

I was only too happy to take my time over this meal, having cycled 7km to get there, and after my night train and crazy huge backpack on a motorcycle ride. It was very welcome indeed! The lady also recommended things for me to do in Hoi An.

On her recommendation, I cycled from here to the Pottery Village, where I enjoyed a wander round and another shake and doing a crossword before heading back by a more direct route.

Note the bamboo straw 👆🏼 good use of local resources!

Altogether I reckon I cycled nearly 20km today, which after my challenging journey to get here and on a bike with no gears was pretty impressive I think! I had to stop several times on all the journeys to drink water, and because it felt safer negotiating some corner junctions on foot. By the time I was 1 minute away from the homestay I was pretty exhausted and had to stop again!

Then I arrived to a welcome from Dzung who fetched me a big bottle of water and perched on my bed while I asked her if she could book me a taxi (CAR, not bike, I hastened to add) to take me to the airport on Sunday morning. Thank goodness for Google Translate, which enabled us to communicate. And also for her ?grandson who helped as well. She’s so tiny, she sat on the bed and swung her legs merrily during this whole exchange, ringing another relative to find out the cost of the taxi to the airport for me as well.

Tomorrow I have booked tours for both the morning and afternoon and they will pick me up and drop me off as part of the tours. On motorbikes. But at least this time I won’t have a huge backpack on! After all the cycling today I am glad for that, too, to be honest.

Cancer knocks your confidence in some very foundational way. Everyone’s journey with it is different and yet I’ve read that doctors and nurses report this phenomenon regularly.

I had breast cancer a few years ago and went through chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy with it. I’m now 3 and a half years clear of it thank goodness. Having cancer knocked my confidence in ways that I’m only just beginning to uncover, in the challenges of travelling that have been bigger challenges now than they would have been before.

I’ve been so exhausted for so long that my ability to plan (never very great anyway- no actually it was pretty good, I just found it exhausting always) has taken further knocks, and has made me reluctant to engage in any work or other life experience that would involve a need to plan much. In travelling, I’ve had to face both my weakness and lack of confidence in planning and to find the residual skill I do have and put it to work again and again and again. When I’ve been exhausted with it, I’ve had to still do it again. And as I’ve done it, I’ve been able to look back on the planning I just did and celebrate it for the way it paid off. This has been enormously confidence building.

I’ve also had to sleep on the same room as many men; those who I’ve never met before, those whose names I don’t know and whose language I don’t speak, and some who speak my language and whose names I have learnt. For me this is entirely new. And sounds dodgy but isn’t at all. There’s no idea on the night train that women might only feel safe sleeping in the same car as other women. Everyone is jumbled up together. I wonder whether there are many women travelling on their own in this way. Hard to tell as I’m in a compartment with only four beds but so far the only woman I have seen is a mum with daughter and her dad. And the beds have pretty much all been occupied most of the way I think.

Shortly after writing the above I just put my glasses on and turned round to inspect my fellow car occupants and found the guy on the opposite bunk leaning out of it quite a way, looking straight at me! I turned away, with my face to the wall again, and recalled historian Mary Beard’s account of her terrible experience of being raped on a night train, which I just read at the end of her little explosive book (a must read) Women and Power. In the dawning realisation that I was alone with this guy in the carriage, I reflected that it’d be pretty impossible for him to get across to my side (the benefit of having a hugely inaccessible upper bunk) and if he did I’d kick him to kingdom come, so on balance I’d be fine. In the middle of formulating these defence plans, the train stopped and two women and a baby girl arrived like a quiet trio of angels to the bunks downstairs. I greeted them and they apologised to me for putting the light on. In the grace of God, I hadn’t actually realised the other 2 guys had left, though I thought I heard one leave.

In the morning, after we’d all freshened up, I got chatting to the younger woman whose baby it was, checking what the next station would be. She confirmed it was Da Nang and said she and her mum were taking the little one all the way to Da Nang for the baby’s immunisation injections. I asked if they would stay over in Da Nang or whether they had to come straight back. She said they would come straight back. I guess they must have got on the train around 4 hours before we got to Da Nang. I said “That’s a long journey”, and was silently thankful they were getting off the same time as me! Of course when we arrived there were huge signs saying “Ga Da Nang” and the guard in our carriage came to our compartment to tell us all we had arrived. I guess he knew we were all due to get off there so I needn’t have worried.

Here’s my tiny and also immaculately turned out hostess Dzung, from my next homestay. Who did indeed pick me up from the station and drive me to the homestay on her motorbike. Oh my. That was a half an hour I’ll not forget easily!

She is a very good driver though, and didn’t honk her horn once. But she is also very petite. How do these Asian women manage to always look so immaculate even during and after driving through crazy traffic on motorbikes or walking up hundreds of steps?? I may never know.

Dzung had my room ready and waiting for me, so I had a shower and collapsed gratefully into bed for an hour’s kip before heading out on a PEDAL BIKE to explore. No more motorbikes for me!

…a blow by blow account!!…

Well, this is quite a thing. It’s 5pm and I’m on the night train from Ninh Binh to Hoi An. And as far as I can tell, my “seat” is an upper bunk bed and I’m not convinced there’s anywhere else to go and sit. I could go and stand in the narrow corridor, but I’m going to have to steel myself for that. It was a bit of an operation getting up here!

After I’d looked puzzled and pointed to the table, then used it to give me a leg up, the old man travelling in the same car with his daughter and little granddaughter (in pyjamas) showed me the tiny metal fold away thing you’re meant to use. I think it’s meant for tiny Asian feet and slim Asian bodies. I’m hoping it doesn’t give way as soon as I try it out!!

Moments after this little interchange, I accidentally dropped a crunchy bar on the table in front of him and his granddaughter, which made them laugh.

I’m not sure how secure this bunk is. I’m lying on a sheet on top of the slipperiest fake leather covered platform. The sheet has already come adrift! And the ride is pretty bumpy. There are bars to hold onto, but there are also gaps.

Still, the guy opposite me on the other top bunk is snoring like a trooper already, so it must be possible!

At least it’s already dark which will surely help. Oh wait gosh a meal has arrived! A hot meal like a full dinner on actual plates. None of this cold sandwiches thing. You pay extra for it. The family downstairs have bought some. I had a big lunch so am contenting myself with my rescued crunchy bar.

Thanh explained to me before that Vietnamese people don’t really drink anything with their meal. (A drinks trolley did come round but nobody eating was interested though the guy opposite bought something I think.) And they don’t have dessert, though Thanh made a lovely banana chocolate cake for us with baking soda. She apologised because this is the only cake she can make, apart from carrot cake. I’ve no idea how she did it – maybe in the microwave? (The only oven they have at Mai’s.) It was very good anyway.

I am sketching in my mind the hypothesis that Vietnamese night trains exist purely to make us extra grateful for any form of good old stationary bed. There were extra fast bouncy moments on this journey when the thought that I was working my way back to the quiet, breezy sophistication of Singapore was my only comfort. Well, that and the wall to which the bed seemed to be indelibly attached, thank God!

The air con was surprisingly good in our compartment, such that I found I did need to use the cover provided. But then I also had a few hot flushes to contend with later on. Every time I’ve had those again I remember my cancer journey and reflect that it’s a good job I didn’t try and do this a year ago. And how grateful I am to have such insignificant health problems to deal with now.

The lady from my next homestay has contacted me to offer me a ride from the train station to her place tomorrow morning for a small extra fee. I accepted, then she sent another message saying she forgot to mention it would be on a bike not in a car. 😳 I explained I have a big backpack so don’t think I can ride a bike. She said she thought it would be ok. (And then I realised she meant the oh so popular in Vietnam motorbike not a pedal bike!)

When I researched buses from the station in Da Nang to Hoi An, it looked like it would take 2 hours. And then I’d have to get a taxi to the homestay probably, which is out of town near the beach. But when I researched again, it said that to drive straight to the homestay (which is between Da Nang and Hoi An) would only take 36 minutes. I’d struggle to do 2 hours on the back of a motorbike with a huge backpack but 36 minutes might be ok. Having witnessed Vietnamese motorbike driving at its worst in Hanoi I had been vowing internally to never travel that way. Ah well, when in Rome…

Well, I fell asleep surprisingly easily the first time. So now my hot flush has passed let’s try for another go…don’t think about the motorbike don’t think about the motorbike don’t think about the motorbike… 😬😆

Ah. The light’s gone back on. The guy opposite looks like he’s preparing to get off. And Grandad below’s mobile just rang, so he’s now having a conversation. And the train has stopped and honked long and loud (to wake up anyone who needs to get off??) It’s only 8:40pm still. Another 11 and a half hours to go!!! (Don’t think about the motorbike don’t think about the motorbike don’t think about the motorbike 😂) Oh. I think the family got off too. (While I was facing the wall.) Does this mean I may have the room to myself…??? There are more people getting on, wandering up and down the corridor trying to locate their “seat”. Ah, a sharp suited businessman just got in, greeted me “Hello” and is installing himself below. Well, I can honestly say I’ve never experienced anything remotely like this before! It’s like celebrity wife swap without the celebrity. Or the wives or husbands. Thank goodness!😂😂😂

Night night… I think… (will this guy ever turn the light off?? I guess it’s still only 9:05pm)…Turns out he was being polite leaving it to me to decide when to turn out the light.

5am for some reason Maps Me can’t locate me even when we’ve stopped for quite a while. And although there are occasionally some random announcements they’re always in Vietnamese and never translated and so far I’ve been unable to distinguish any place names in them (though to be honest I’d be unlikely to). And there are no electronic signs telling us where we are. And when we stop at stations there are no announcements on the train (I guess to avoid disturbing us weary travellers.) So all in all I really hope the estimated time of arrival in Da Nang is roughly correct (or at least not later than we actually arrive). It’s my only guide as to where we might be. Hmmm. We shall see…

In the meantime I have so far managed to get down and back up to the bunk again about four times. I’m becoming a pro! (Oh the curse of a weak bladder!) and I managed to locate my powerbank so I am charging up my phone ready for the next stage in the journey.

We just hit a rainy patch which probably means we’re getting somewhere vaguely close. Due to arrive in Hoi An at 8am ish. I naïvely thought this would be the terminus for this train but of course it’s not. I reckon it’s going all the way to Ho Chi Minh in the South.

Everyone has been getting on and having to reuse the previous person’s sheets. I’m glad I got on as far north as I did. Mine were definitely clean as I watched the guard get them out of his cupboard for me. I’ll try to leave them in a vaguely decent state for whoever comes after me.

Well, so Zach and I took Thanh up on her challenge and cooked dinner… with a bit of help! We had a delicious feast of English-Vietnamese-Kenyan-Latin American-Canadian food! Our offerings were as follows:

Ali – green bananas fried like plantain and sukuma wiki (Swahili for a way of cooking sukuma greens/cabbage so it “lasts the week” a vegetable dish that’s designed to be used all week long) – I learnt to make these from a friend from Kenya who stayed with us for a while.

Zach – Patacón a Latin American plantain dish, here made with green bananas too

Nghia – delicious fried fish and fried tofu with tomatoes, spring onion and fish sauce (he made the oil catch light while he was tossing this in the pan in a most impressive manner!)

Thao – green bean and cabbage dish with pork stock, rice and fruit for pudding (people rarely eat pudding here but they do have fruit every day)

The ingredients all sourced locally – vegetables and fruit from the market, fish from the river, green bananas from who knows where but there are loads of them here, as well as sweeter small fat yellow bananas.

Over dinner we spoke of many things, including a lot about politics, communism, wars around the world, migration and the situation with many refugees displaced around the world.

Also Thanh talked about how lucky we were to have passports that mean we can travel virtually anywhere in the world. She is right, of course. It was good to hear her be so honest. She’s a very quiet, thoughtful person. In conclusion, she said she was happy with her life, and with being in her country. Because there is no war, and every year since the Vietnam War things have been getting better, so the sisters agreed they have some good leaders at the moment politically. And of course, they’ve had people from over twenty different countries come and stay with them even just in the last few months! So perhaps there is no need to travel. If they ever are able to though, I reckon they will have friends in all sorts of places. I will say that to them before I leave.

Dragon fruit, which turns out to be really good when it’s actually sweet and ripe (not like the terrible disappointment I had the only time I tasted it in England… the colour and look of it is so promising, but it tasted of over boiled potatoes it was so bland!) and green oranges. 😋

Ah, and I asked about the early morning radio broadcast thing. The sisters giggled and said it was their village’s way of welcoming us! I said, “What?? At 4:45 in the morning?!???” Apparently when the voice is speaking it’s the news about the country, agricultural news etc. They said they no longer notice it because they’ve heard it every day since childhood.

This afternoon I donned my Vietnamese hat and mounted my faithful steed to head off to Bich Dong Pagoda, just under 9km away. Eeee I could feel my calve muscles after yesterday’s exertions with all those stone steps! Also, sitting again on a bike made ultimately for someone of smaller stature. The seat was pretty much the right height for me actually, as I could only just touch the ground with the tips of my toes, but the pedals were too high up, so I ended up feeling like my legs were folded up awkwardly. Anyway, the bike still went at quite a lick… I managed to overtake quite a few people – I wanted the breeze of a quicker pace, which I managed just fine.

The hat really was almost levitating off my head as I whizzed along, only held on by the ribbon under my chin. Otherwise it wasn’t barely ever touching my head!

I had to stop and get off as a parade came by – maybe a funeral I think, though I didn’t find out what it was about. An entire village looked like they’d come out for it though, and were parading a couple of mini Pagoda type things on biers through the street while everyone else very smartly dressed followed on. Little piles of burning incense sticks marked the path. A man was playing what looked and sounded like a traditional type of oboe, and lots of cymbals were being clashed repeatedly at the front of the parade. I didn’t want to be disrespectful, but managed to get a tiny bit of footage:

The Pagoda and temple are kind of built on several levels inside a mountain and in a grotto/cave:

This chapel looked more like a Buddhist one than the usual to the kings/political leaders sort of thing, perhaps?

Then, horror… more steps! This time inside the grotto/cave. Was this fixation with steps upwards in a mountainside a metaphor for reaching enlightenment or heaven or something, I wonder?

An ancient bell and a half!

Huge stalactites

I loved the way the light fell on the figures in this temple area:

Yep, more steps. Some nearly as deep as my knee!

I’ve no idea what this big stone is. It looked like a gravestone, but was inside the second level part of the temple. On closer inspection it looks a bit like someone was practising writing characters over and again on it maybe?

I stopped and had an ice cream when I reached the exit, and the lady who sold me it pulled up a chair for me to enjoy contemplating the view while eating it. I asked her how to say “thank you” – shame on me it took me this long. It’s “cam on”, apparently.

Then it was back on the faithful steed all the way home in time to have a shower and cook dinner. I passed some beautiful beginnings of the sunset type views on the way, looking over rice paddies to the distinctively shaped limestone mountains that are so prevalent here.

I passed what might be a graveyard?

Another great day in wonderland!

Continuing my thoughts about stillness and wildlife, here are some of the extraordinary beasts I’ve seen in Vietnam when I’ve been still enough for long enough. None of these are my own photos, as I am abysmal at getting photos of small flying things, or things that whizz past while I’m cycling.

This first one shot across the river right in front of me while I was sitting relaxing, in a flash of bright sapphire. I can’t believe it’s actually quite common here! In England our kingfishers are very rare, and not so completely brightly strikingly blue all over, though they are beautiful.

And butterflies – there have been loads, and of different types. These pictures are all borrowed from the same website (credit at the bottom of most):

Do you like my be-pearled twinkle toes? Such a lovely gift for a blogger looking for fine pearls, thanks Jo D!

Next to them are some insect repellent (v necessary) and a green orange. Because, well that’s how it is here. The other one, which I ate earlier today tasted good but a bit more like grapefruit than orange.

Anyway, off to do the cooking now! Hoping dinner works out well…

As I have been travelling, it has been really important to keep my mobile phone charged up. And for all you naysayers who hate people using phones all the time – yes so do I, but there’s a time and a place, as with most things.

At the advice of travelling friends I downloaded the Maps Me app before I came away, and frankly, without it I’d be really stuck. It shows your location and you can use it to plan journeys on foot or bike or car or whatever. It tells you a route and estimates how long distance wise and time wise it will take you. It’s like Google maps, but it only uses GPS, so you don’t need WiFi or to be online to use it at all. As I only have WiFi internet access, whenever I’m out of range of the place I’m staying or a café with WiFi I can’t use the internet. (Well I could, maybe, but it would cost a fortune.) Travellers avoid this by getting a new SIM card in each country they go to (most of the airports offer them to you on arrival out here). But I’m here to be here, so I’m happy to not have WiFi except when I land up somewhere.

The only drawback with Maps Me is that it doesn’t have such comprehensive information about public transport, and sometimes locations might be missing or misnamed, so I have needed to double check with Google Maps while I have WiFi and then drop a pin into the Maps Me map so I can see where I’m going when I’m offline. But sometimes (perhaps because travellers use it more), it’s easier to find home stays on Maps Me than on Google Maps.

Just while I’m on this topic, even in really out of the way places here there is WiFi in the cafés and homestays. And my top tip for travelling in Vietnam is if in doubt re WiFi codes, try 123456789. I don’t know if it’s because the communist thing has imparted a strong sense of community, or whether it’s not understanding what a password is for (it is probably very perplexing if you’re not from a western individualistic culture after all), or maybe it’s because it’s just too hot? Too hot to worry about having to remember/find out/for café staff to be asked about different passwords? Or because people don’t have access to the sort of technology where it remembers your password for you? But all the WiFi passwords so far in Vietnam seem to be 123456789. Except my hotel in Hanoi, which actually had the 6 missing (a typo? Do the staff end up apologetically explaining that as their mistake, I wonder?!).

Another travelling tip: bring a powerbank so you can recharge devices on the hoof. You don’t want to get stuck somewhere and not be able to find your way back or show your digital ticket. For the uninitiated (as even my Silicon Valley brother was – oops, correction; apparently he just had never heard the word “powerbank” that we use in the UK for this), this is what a no messing powerbank looks like. It’s pretty heavy, but worth its weight in gold. You can see it has two USB inputs so you can charge two devices at once (I also have a small tablet with me). So far it retains its charge really well (although the initial charge up took a long time.):

Anyway, all of this was to point out that my phone periodically needs a recharge and so do I. I find all this planning and checking of maps and so on quite tiring. So this morning I am recharging my phone and recharging myself with a slow morning at the homestay.

Awww! Just as I was cutting my fingernails (nails and hair seem to grow disturbingly fast in this humid climate, for some reason), I had a visitor who came in through the window. Just briefly, exploring the room and then she was gone. She’s like a tiny and wilder version of our household cat Xena (Warrior Princess, presumably still scared of the cat flap 😆):

I think animals are wise; they only show up when you are still enough for long enough to not be a threat. Here’s another poetic passage about that, and how it might relate to us as human beings that I love:

“The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.” (From Parker J Palmer https://books.google.com.vn/books/about/A_Hidden_Wholeness.html?id=oRrrRQ-6UdgC&redir_esc=y)

Maybe our soul, or whatever is most deeply essential to us, will only show up when we are still enough to welcome it? That resonates with my experience, anyway.

One of the things I learnt pretty fast on my cancer journey was how to stop. I had no choice really. Having stopped for long enough, gradually, I noticed things that were important to me made themselves known to me more clearly than before. Perhaps because I didn’t have the energy to hide from them or ignore them. My tentative suggestion is that it would surely be good to engage with this without getting seriously ill? I’m meeting some people on my travels who are engaging with it without being seriously ill, so it must be possible!

In the afternoon, I walked back to the homestay, asked if they could do some laundry for me and then borrowed a pedal bike to cycle down the road in the other direction to nearby Hang Múa.

My faithful steed for the day👇🏼 No back brakes but hey who needs brakes?!

I know this hat looks silly, but the locals really do know best. While you’re cycling, the updraft creates a really refreshing breeze, and pulls the hat off your head, while the ribbon holds it on securely, and the breeze cools your head. Also, what little contact it does have with your head is not sweat inducing because of the light natural stuff (bamboo? Or some kind of reeds?) it’s made of.

I parked the bike for the princely sum of 10000VND (about 34p), and went off to explore on foot. This whole area is really well laid out, with lots of places for you to sit and appreciate the stunning views across the rice paddies and lotus lake even before you climb the steps up the Dancing Mountain.

I enjoyed a contemplative walk around the lotus lake while hardly anyone else was around, then made my way up the steps.

Remembering the lesson from the Winchester Mystery House and the extra shallow steps Sarah Winchester had put in to help her get around, I was grateful when occasionally on the way up they’d done something similar:

View from the top of Dancing Mountain:

This👇🏼 is the lotus lake with the curving then heart shaped walkway that I’d walked on. If you look closely you might be able to see some people walking it:

There’s nothing quite like travel to help you grasp that it takes all sorts to make a world. Watching this guy (and several others) reminded me of that fact 😲:

With all the stone steps in the wall, sometimes this place is known locally as the “Vietnamese Great Wall”, like the Great Wall of China, I guess. (But much much shorter!)

The story about how this came to be called Dancing Mountain is about one of the ancient Kings, the Tran King, who visited Hoa Lu (the ancient capital city) to build Thai Vi Temple. In the story, he often visited a cave under a bell shaped mountain where he enjoyed the royal concubines dancing and singing. So he named the cave “Dancing Cave” (Hang Múa), but now locals use the name to talk about not only the cave but the whole area.

I asked several people for help today. That’s a lesson I’m gradually learning. The French guy to hold the row boat still so I could get in and out more easily, the homestay lady if she could do some laundry for me, and when I was at the very top of Hang Múa, I asked a guy if he could get my phone out of my bag pocket for me as I couldn’t reach it reliably with my bag on my back and I was balanced pretty precariously. Then I asked a lady if she could put it back for me once I’d taken this photo of the dragon at the very top, whose claw I touched:

At lunchtime I asked the French couple who came and sat with me what other places they’d been to and where they were going next. They recommended Hang Múa, which decided my plans for this afternoon, and I was able to recommend Trang An boat trip, which they were going on to after lunch.

Oh and I also asked a Vietnamese photographer/tour guide about the immaculate Asian woman who I saw at the top of all those steps, dressed like a bride in a long flowing white dress, with lots of beautiful lace on it and high heels. He said your wedding is important it is something you hope to only do once. I asked him whether this lady had actually just got married (the guy dressed like a groom seemed to have very little to do with her), or whether perhaps she was modelling the dress for a fashion magazine or clothing company. I said I thought it looked very difficult for her to climb all 500 steps dressed like this (in fact I saw oodles of Asian women dressed beautifully at sights like this, somehow managing to reach the top still looking immaculate, posing for endless photos taken by their boyfriends or friends or maybe other photographers). He tutted and said the people I should feel sorry for are not the brides or models but the photographers, having to climb all 500 steps all the time to take the photos! That’s when I found out he was a photographer (now retired from taking wedding pictures though, which I think he was thankful for!). He showed me a beautiful picture of the rice paddy we were sitting in front of, which he took just as the evening sun threw a shard of warm golden glow across it. He definitely has a gift!

Tonight, Canadian Zach has arrived at the homestay. We all had dinner together, in the course of which both he and I said we were kind of missing cooking, with all our travels. Our hostess instantly said, “You can cook here if you like – tomorrow?” We established the elements of a dish we reckon we could make between us… so, tomorrow night we’re on duty!

I also had a lesson in how to use chopsticks. I need more practice. But it looks like I’ll get plenty. Maybe by the time I leave Asia, I’ll be a pro? I thought I was doing well, but my technique, while ok with noodles, does not really work with rice.