Tết 2018 (Part 5): The laidback ending

Part 1 of tết 2018 can be read here

Part 2 of tết 2018 can be read here

Part 3 of tết 2018 can be read here

Part 4 of tết 2018 can be read here

17/18-Feb-2018

The holiday was winding down. the massive fireworks had launched, the day trips to Huế and the Marble Mountains were covered, and the days at the beach were still there, but less about drinking and more about taking it all in. The staff at the hotel even demanded I write up a Tripadvisor review of the hotel to help them out. I was going to do one anyway, but being told to type one out while they were over my shoulder was a bit much. In all honesty it made me want to reevaluate the service with just that one moment, and I deleted my review a few days after. Vietnamese people out there, don’t force people into submitting 5 star Tripadvisor reviews!

The rest of the holiday was refreshingly chilled. I visited a few of the teachers other hotels and found they had a rooftop pool! They spent the day swimming and having drinks. At one point they even did a water dance to Uptown Girl. It was fun to watch and relax for a bit.

More interesting for me was doing something I had been meaning to do for a while: Rent a motorbike.

This was a particularly intimidating experience but I had wanted to do it after noticing it is the only real way of getting around a city fast. The streets of Hanoi were chaotic enough to ward any newbie off the roads, so Da Nang’s quieter streets seemed like a good starting point for trying out an automatic underbone bike. Despite having a driving license, I asked the renter for a quick lesson on operating the Yamaha Nouvo. I gave him 500k and after starting the machine and taking 4 right hand turns with him while indicating, it seemed easy enough, as well as going at a decent speed. He was fine with me handling the bike, but I think he found it to be a very simple opportunity to make a lot of cash. Maybe he was surprised since the teachers that didn’t have driving licenses were freely bombing their bikes down the streets already without much of a care. I was being cautious when it came to my first time on 2 wheels.

I picked up Rebecca and gave her a lift to one of the other hotels, just to be all braggy and manly and all that. She liked that I was being careful if nothing else, and we stopped off at one of the cafes to chill. It was nice to have some freedom of mobility, even if it was only across the block. The heat in the city made it hard to walk more than a few kilometers without burning.

After a bit of chit chat I headed to another block where a few people were gathering and chilling out. Sitting down, I found their plan for the night: Ride to the giant Buddha overlooking the beach in time for sunset. Being something that’s always visible in the distance but only seemingly reached by bike was definitely up my street, and it didn’t seem too far.

The trip began with what seemed like the start of a grand prix; about 9 bikes, with 2 people on each. I was one of the few riding solo, but that meant less responsibility if anything bad happened (cautious Paul thinking there). Once we were ready, we all took off. After the initial quiet of the blocks, we made it onto the busier main road running parallel to the beach. At this point some were bombing it, going well over 80km/h on machines that may have said they could do 160, but would likely have an engine explode at 100. Not to be outdone, I had my MP3 player blaring Fatboy Slim and other F1 classics matching their speed. After seeing that they were not going to slow down on top speed when the locals were barely reaching 40km/h, I slowed down to keep more in line with what locals were doing. I settled into a groove of 50, and was happy to take it relatively easy as I passed the waves and the golden sands of My Khe beach.

After a hilly finale, pushing the hunk of metal and plastic to the top of the hill, I had completely lost the others, but it didn’t matter too much as I parked my bike and paid a man to keep an eye on it. I was sure to see them somewhere around the temples. The obvious centerpoint was the Buddha. This was far taller than first expected. It turned out to be huge! At 67 meters tall, it was the tallest statue in Vietnam and would be just 12 meters shy of matching the tallest building in the republic of Ireland (seriously, build up, not out lads).

I did encounter the rest after taking my time through the attractive temples and smaller statues. We headed to the wall overlooking the bay and just took it in. The sun began to set and buildings light up with all sorts of LED animations and colours. The sea reflected the lights and all that could be heard other than the chatter were chirpy insects and the waves. It was a wonderful ending to the trip.

After returning to the hotel, I returned the bike, had a last gander at the beach and then got ready to pack and return to Hanoi. I was returning a day earlier than most, just to settle in before teaching resumed, but I did think I regretted my decision to book earlier. Maybe next time I would learn my lesson.

All in, it was a brilliant holiday, full of excitement and discovery. The balance of sessions to day trips was balanced well, and trying out new foods was a delight. It certainly made me a Larue fan from then on out, and made me see more of Vietnam than a smoggy city and motorbikes. Hội An especially was the loveliest place I had seen thus far, and I hope to see more of the country as the internship progresses. The North is good, the center has had a peek. The south is the next big frontier, but we will have to wait until the next long weekend to see some of that!