Rest For The Wicked

The white sand’s hot, but the breeze cool.

It’s quiet.

My ears hear only the sound of the waves lapping the shoreline, and the occasional squeal of a child in the distance, playing a game with her friend the ocean.

A white, towering Quan Yin looks out across Da Nang bay. She’s protecting all of us, from way over there.

From her green, hilly perch.

Another icy peach tea sits within a longarm stretch of me, as I sit cross legged on my cushioned beachside wooden recliner.

Lazy boy on a lazyboy.

Looking out to the South China Sea

The Cost Of Being Alive

I’ve just been chatting with Kynie, a Londoner of Nigerian descent, outside our dorm in the guest house. He’s been telling me that the UK’s gone to shit, that everyone’s struggling with the cost-of-living crisis, he says that everyone’s talking about it, and that it’s all over the news.

It’s got me thinking.

What an outrageous concept.

That living has a cost.

I mean, living is free. Well, it should be.

It’s just that the economic paradigm has become so completely skewed that now there’s a huge number of people who are struggling just to survive, just to get enough to eat, to have somewhere safe to sleep, and somewhere to go when they’re sick.

Let alone enjoy all the pleasures and leisures of modern life.

What on earth are we doing, and why on earth are we putting up with it?

In my view the problem is twofold.

Firstly, the wealthy have way too much money stashed away, and they haven’t been paying their taxes. So there’s not enough money left for basic services for the majority.

Secondly, tax revenue is completely wasted on massively overpriced contracts to companies with vested interests, particularly in the military sphere.

To me, the solution is simple.

1. A global tax on the ultra rich.

2. A cut in military expenditure.

Well, the idea’s simple. But making it happen isn't.

It'd probably be easier to get a fat elephant to march through the eye of a tiny needle.

Just so you know, there’s actually 3,200 billionaires in the world.

Yep, it’s true.

That’s about 0.00004% of the world’s population.

And the wealthiest 10 of them have a combined wealth of USD1,270bn.

A one off tax of, say, 10% of all billionaires’ wealth, would raise, wait for it, a cool USD1,100bn.

By comparison, the UN estimates that it would cost just $40bn per year until 2030, or a total of $280bn, to completely eliminate world hunger.

Just like that.

So let's get that straight. If we were to tax only 3,200 people, and only tax them a tiny 10% of their total wealth, then we could eliminate world hunger 3 times over!

But of course we’d only need to eliminate it once, so that means we’d have a phenomenal $800bn left for shitloads of other important things.

And I think Musk, Arnault, Bezos, Ellison and co., with all their expensive toys, would survive.

Elon, for example, would only be left with $215bn.

Awww, poor thing, how would he manage?

So, just quickly, while we’re still number crunching, global military spending has now reached an astronomical $2,230bn per year.

The US, the highest spender, at $877bn in 2022, spends more than the next 10 countries combined.

That means the US spends USD2,400m every single day of every year on its military. That’s AUD3,600m every single day.

Australia itself spends AUD144m on defence, every single day.

It’s pretty hard to get your head around how much money that actually is.

But in my view, the amount is so astronomically huge and unjustified that it’s a criminal waste of taxpayers’ money.

So, just a 20% reduction in global military spending would provide $450bn per year for services for people who desperately need them.

How about spending a good chunk of that on providing clean drinking water, proper sewerage, health services, education, etc for those who don’t have it? Like for dirt poor people where I am at the moment, for example.

Or on services for vulnerable girls and women, stopping sex trafficking and slavery, providing a universal wage, rapidly phasing out fossil fuels and replacing them with renewables, reforestation, programs to reduce species extinction, you name it.

There’d be more than enough for all of it.

Others have theorised about such things, and have shown it’s possible. And they’ve number crunched before me, more accurately no doubt, and demonstrated that such actions would lead to huge economic benefits for every single country on the planet.

Let alone all the other benefits, particularly for all future generations.

But we all know things don’t change because the very people that need to be taxed, the uber-wealthy, also run the politics, through their massive political donation-bribes.

Political donations need to be banned, and election campaigns financed by equitable and fixed taxpayer funding.

The minuscule number of super wealthy people also run the media, feeding untruths to the masses about how their national economies would collapse if there were higher taxes for the rich, which is absolute buffaloshit.

Instead, they blame others for the hugely worsening situations for regular people, creating diversionary scapegoat-demons, and directing their allcaps fake fury against asylum seekers and "dole bludgers" and people with addictions and climate protesters and supporters of other movements like BlackLivesMatter and MeToo.

Yes. Despite their insane wealth, the uberwealthy are determined to hang on to every last dime of it.

Well most of them are. There’s a few, like Warren Buffet for example, who support higher taxes for the rich. He openly says he pays less tax than his secretary, and that this is ridiculous, because he’s the sixth richest dude on the planet.

You know, we’ve actually got no excuse for this state of affairs in a democracy. At least not in ours. There are achievable alternatives within our political system.

And the thing is, if I listen to what Kynie is saying, the status quo won’t last. It can’t. Too many people are going under.

Unless it’s addressed, he says the shit’s eventually really gonna hit the fan.

And it won’t be pretty.

I can say with complete certainty that it will look a million percent less pretty than the view in front of me right now, the view that I was totally appreciating before my mind suddenly got taken by a rip, and was involuntarily plunged into some very deep and dark places.

Ok.

I’ve made it back now.

On Holidays From My Holidays

I loved it in An Bang.

My wonderful guest house family, without the middle generation.

I spent a few sleepy slow days just being there, going down the beach, writing, playing guitar, and exploring a little of the area.

Such is the lifestyle of the (tax-paying) idle rich.

Rich in relative terms, of course.

I know I was super relaxed in An Bang because when I was walking around I was going so slow sometimes that I found myself stopping for no apparent reason. Maybe I’d stretch, or have a look around, maybe take a pic, have a sip of water, smile at someone, do nothing, and then remember what I was doing (nothing much) and eventually snailwalk on, happily and aimlessly.

Yep, she’s all about the journey mate, not the destination.

I went to the beach regularly.

It’s very chill.

Double Cat

I met a cool crew of locals (both Viets and expats) at the Double Cat Bar. We got to know each other a little, and chatted about all sorts of things, and when the live duo starting singing, so did we. It was super fun.

And then we danced.

Some of the crew

I spent a lot of time with a couple in their late thirties, who will remain nameless, in order to protect the guilty.

Which will, in turn, protect the innocent.

It was totally mind boggling talking with each of them, they are complete and utter opposites, in personality, manner, values and politics. And yet they’re together.

The woman comes from quite a conservative background, doesn’t drink, is relatively quiet (very friendly though), a vegan, and has classic left wing values and a sense of spirituality.

The guy, on the other hand, is loud (he was pretty drunk too), as crude as they come, takes the piss out of greenies and vegans, says Black Lives Matter is a crock of shit (“All Lives Matter”), doesn’t believe he should do anything whatsoever about climate change, and believes women (and children) need men to be their “leaders.”

His partner’s black, btw.

Yeah, really.

He was actually really funny at times, but then would come out with some classic cringe lines, particularly concerning women. The Vietnamese women at our table, who spoke English well, could understand exactly what he was saying.

At one point, an older woman sat at the table next to him, so he ended up being between her and his own partner, and he shouted out “Wow! Now I’m between a vagina and a hard place!”

The older woman, whom I’d been chatting with earlier, cringed and looked away.

He got jealous of me talking with his partner, and made comments about me being “on the make,” and saying overtly crude things to both of us.

I couldn’t bear it after a while, and eventually, when he wasn’t listening, asked the woman how she manages to not only put up with him, but to stay together with him.

She told me that they’ve been together for years, that he’s really helped her come out of her shell, helped her change her lifestyle, and that tonight he’s just drunk, he’s been drinking for the last 9 hours, and that he’s not normally like this.

Well, what can I say to that?

She knows him better than I do.

I really hope what she says is true, but I have my serious serious doubts.

Ancient Town

I explored more of Hoi An over those days too.

At the end of his tether

I saved my trips to town (Disneyland) for mid afternoon, knowing it was the hottest part of the day, and so no one much would be around.

Hardly a soul

Beautiful carved wooden building, now a museum of local crafts and folklore.

Hoi An has a centuries-long tradition of tailoring, which carries on to this present day.

Tribal woman weaving cloth for traditional dress. They still do this in some places.

Tinkering tailor

I went to an incredible museum, The Precious Heritage Art Gallery Museum, which is a celebration of the culture of Vietnam’s tribal people.

There are 54 officially recognised indigenous tribes in Vietnam, and the founder of the museum, French photographer Réhahn (that’s his full name), has formed relationships with members of all of them over many years. He’s photographed them extensively, and collected examples of their traditional dress, music, and other important cultural items, in order to preserve them.

It’s an amazing story.

The tribal people have incredibly diverse and rich cultural practices. Some are quite large (eg. the Dao and Hmong have at least a million members), and many others are small, and at huge risk of their culture dying out.

As is the case in many places around the world, the modern economy and mobile phones and the internet have provided young people with attractive reasons to get out of their villages and get work in regular industries in more populated places.

The result has been a devastating loss of local indigenous culture and language.

It’s great to see that the Vietnamese government is putting resources into turning this around, at least to some extent, and the work that people like Réhahn is doing is really inspiring.

Some of Réhahn's images

Later in the afternoon, Hoi An looks especially pretty.

Old market

The beautiful Quan Công Temple

More tailors

More of the market complex

Not all the old buildings have been renovated

Then, as the day cools (slightly), the crowds reappear, like ants to the honeypot

Ritzy tourist villa

Tree shrine

The famous Japanese bridge, which is being renovated atm. This is a poster of it I saw in town.

Badminton championship

Ant highways

Da Nang

I like this city.

It’s big.

It’s actually the third largest city in the country, with about a million people. But because of its spacious and stunning location, it doesn’t have that crammed-in chaotic city vibe.

The city lines the most magnificent long stretch of beautiful beach, it’s bordered by some stunning rivers, and tall forested hills provide a beautiful backdrop in almost all directions.

I stayed in the My An area, close to the beach.

The area’s jam packed with highrise hotels and apartments, but at street level it feels really cruisey, there’s loads of amazingly good food, and lots of interesting things to see.

One of the local guys who lives at the guesthouse is a cyclist, and he told me all about the mountain pass that I’ll be crossing tomorrow. “It’s easy,” he said, “no probs.” “There’s way harder places to cycle around here.”

Yeah, thanks mate, but I’ll take it with a pinch of salt. No offence, it’s just that 1. you’re  a local, and you told me you cycle up crazy steep hills regularly, and 2. you ride a super modern light-as-a-feather bike, and never carry tens of kilos of luggage with you. Or a guitar for that matter.

It was a cruisey flat ride to get to Da Nang.

What tourist development actually looks like in the flesh. Before and After in the one pic.

My An Beach

Surfers Paradisesque

I stayed on that recliner for a long time ….

The glitz

Trippy LED sculptures

The Login Café

$25 for one jar of imported tahini, and, ummm, did someone mess up the Vegemite label? Pizza? Vegemite Bolognese? Have I been away too long? Also $25 for a jar? Where am I?

Fill in the missing letters. It was actually quite nice.

Dragon bridge, as I rode outa town

The Hàn River

Hai Van

It was a beautiful ride towards the pass, along the infinitely long and insanely stunning beach, heading north.

Eventually I’d swung around the whole bay, and the hills beckoned.

The north-south railway line ran alongside the road for a bit, but the road climbed much higher, as trains can’t do steep climbs.

There’s a new highway here, it’s pretty gentle, slope-wise, made possible by the fact that there’s some long tunnels through the hills.

But pushbikes are banned, and I don’t particularly like riding on the highways anyway.

Plus this road’s the one with the views.

It didn’t take long to get some height.

It was long and hard and up. Up and up and up, in fact, for 12kms. But it wasn’t as steep as it could’ve been - I managed to get to the top without needing to push my bike at all.

No, the only thing I really needed to push was my mind.

Push it away from the climb, that is.

It’s a really interesting thing that.

As I was climbing, if I thought about how long I’d have to be doing this difficult thing, how hard it was on my legs, or how steep the road was gonna be around the next bend, etc, it became way harder. I’d need to spend time urging myself on, to keep those pedals going around.

But as soon as I just relaxed, breathed a few deep breaths into my belly, and forgot about getting to the top, my mind then had space to enjoy the scenery, other thoughts started swirling around, and the actual ride became just a part of everything else that was going on, inside and outside.

I wonder if that’s how superhero sportspeople push their bodies through various pain barriers to achieve incredible things - just by moving their minds to other places, and allowing the body to work without the mind needing to judge the painful sensory download that’s happening while they’re doing it.

The views were stunning, as usual. See the top way in the distance? The pass is near there.

These shrines played recorded traditional music, it was beautiful.

Up, up and away

And finally, I reached the top. This is the view looking out to the other side.

I stopped at a roadside drink place, I had an iced lemon juice, an iced milk, a whole bottle of chilled water, and a melon icecream.

All in about 10 minutes.

I also had a lovely conversation with a young Dutch couple, who told me, among other things, that they could pick whether a person was Dutch from miles away. I asked them how. They couldn’t tell me exactly, they said Dutch people just look Dutch.

Not to me. I mean, Dutch, German, Danish, you know, what’s the difference? Sandals with socks (but not in this heat, luckily), a little thin kerchief around the neck (women), expensive clothes and accessories?

I said that apparently people from the Netherlands are the tallest on the planet, and did that help?

They said no, people just look Dutch, it’s just in the face.

Well ok. I took their word for it, but was none the wiser.

Eventually, after a long recovery time, on I went.

It was a hugely long descent over the other side. Believe it or not, descents can be hard too sometimes, especially if the road is potholey and dodgy (which it was for the first few kms). You just can’t take your hands off the brakes, the muscles in my hands actually started to ache after awhile.

I mean, great not to have to pedal, for absolute sure, but it wasn’t a stroll in the park either.

Looking back at the pass.

Eventually I caught up with the highway again. I let it do its thing, and I did mine.

There’s those rail tracks again.

Ooh, and there’s a train, from my lunch spot.

The back road then passed alongside the beautiful Lãng Cô, an amazing saltwater lake.

Low tide food gathering

I had to sneak through a couple of small tunnels. Actually not sneak. It was legal. But race is the better word. The road was super narrow (as you can see), the tunnel quite dark, and as the trucks zipped through, they sometimes passed just a few centimetres from the edge of my panniers/life.

Phew!!

And then, before I knew it, I had completely left civilisation, and was back in the sticks.

Beautiful graves

Tiny makeshift mill

Hitting the gravel

Someone built this road, but nobody seems to use it, except me and the cows.

Eventually I hit a small village and found a guesthouse. This is the local pagoda.

And the main road through town.

A little track to the beach

A few families were enjoying the sunset, which was beautiful.

The water was warm, nearly hot. This'll probably be the last time I get to swim in the South China Sea for awhile, I reckon.

I tried not to disturb this guy. I didn’t want him to get crabby. We just did our own thing. He ventured out later, but I was too busy with other things to photograph him.

Beer invariably comes with ice here. It’s the best idea ever. Given the air temperature, a cold beer stays cold for about five seconds, so they give you massive ice chunks to put in your glass, and your drink stays cold for way longer.

Plus the slightly watered down beer goes further.

And you don’t get so pissed.

So, for that last reason, the idea would never take off in Australia.

An old lady came past and sold me some rice crackers. They were ngon! (delicious).

I had a ripper of a headache at the end of all that, after such a long hard ride on such a blistering hot day. In fact I had the headache even before I ordered a beer, but my only other drink option was Coke, and I really didn’t feel like one of those.

I slept like a dead man. Twelve solid hours. Well, twelve broken hours, with my headachey vibe’n’all.

From Cánh Dúòng

It was a beautiful hot (late) morning.

The fields and hills looked stunning as I rode off into the noonrise, no traffic around, just me and the buffaloes and the occasional rice farmer in the distance.

I had to take the highway for a few kms, not my fave, but it was ok.

Massive forest trees. Not sure exactly where they came from.

Núóc chanh (lemon juice) spot, late morn. I was starving, but they didn’t have food.

I spent the first half of the day’s ride alongside this beautiful saltwater lake. It was really stunning, the road was narrow, there was hardly any traffic.

There was a bit of climbing, but nothing too difficult.

I eventually found a stall that sold banh mi ôp la, (egg and salad in a baguette), and then stopped for an iced tea at this place. There’d obviously been a party the night before, there were almost-dead bodies everywhere, the teenager working there was quietly delivering coffees to the slow-moving zombies, there weren’t a lot of smiles to be had.

More rivers

More rice

More aquaculture

And then I finally hit the outskirts of Huê. The traffic was really nuts at that time of day, it wasn’t much fun in amongst all those motorbikes, all of them in a super hurry, squeezing past me at high speeds, in between me and parked cars and other motorbikes, that maybe yes maybe no, are gonna suddenly pull out without looking (which they do all the time).

Stressful!

Or bikes or cars squeezing in between me and fast moving trucks, the trucks blasting their hydraulic eardrum-bursting horns indiscriminately, just to let me know they’re there. As if I didn’t fucking know they’re there, they’re right next to me!!!

Arrgghhh!

Yeah, I know that’s how you drive here, but do you have to?

At one point my lips involuntarily screamed out “just slow the fuck down, you fucken idiots!!!”

But I’d shut off my voice.

My well-conditioned English-based Aussie politeness couldn’t let such uncouth words actually leave my lips, what a disgrace that would be.

So the bloody fuckwits got away with it.

Yeah, yeah, I know I’m not in my own country, and there’s different road protocols here, but there’s absolutely no doubt that they were being dangerous impatient wankers, no offence.

Rest Assured

Don’t be shocked.

I’ve actually locked into a routine.

Every morning I get up whenever I feel like it, do a little meditation and/or a few yoga stretches (if I feel like it), go out to get an egg banh mi brekky, come back and eat it, and then think about what I’m gonna do for the rest of the day.

It’s an intense lifestyle, but I’m dealing with it.

My little laneway. I haven’t seen one Westerner in my whole district, both times I’ve stayed here.

Brekky food stop. Ignore the meat, they do the veg version too.

Then I might go and explore somewhere, or chill or read or play guitar, or write, or chat with someone somewhere or other, and then before I know it the daylight hours will have passed, and it’ll be time to go to my fave locals veg place, and get a cracker big meal for $1.50.

Then I’ll go for a long walk somewhere, might go to the nightlife district and sit down for a drink and a chat with someone, (if there’s someone there to chat with), maybe do some grocery shopping, and eventually make my way back to my place.

Sounds good doesn’t it.

Because it is.

It’s amazing!

Beautiful temple gate

Traditional spiritual wood carvings, created in a magic cave

These places are still rocking late at night. It was about 9pm on a Sun night when I took this.

Just around the corner from my place. Sometimes they block off the traffic, (well, most of it), and have live music.

My dead end super quiet laneway. Well, super quiet at night. A shrieking shrill posse of boys play football and scream around on the street during the day sometimes.

And there’s almost no traffic.

OMG. Westerners! This is the Westerners’ hangout district, which, remarkably, is called the Western District. Go figure.

Fresh fruit in a cup, with lots of avos, dragonfruit, strawberries, mangoes, watermelon, strawberry milk, some sort of custardy cream, and fried coconut slivers. I don’t need to tell you how good it is. Or how cheap. Suffice it to say, it’s so good to be alive.

Shame about the plastic though.

Watching the rain from my balcony. So nice to see. It’s rained only once during the whole time I’ve been here so far. It’s been day after day of scorching clear heat. And still, hot muggy nights.

It’s so nice to be back here in this beautiful small city. I know this place a little now, I know some good spots, I like my little guest house and the people running it.

At the moment I have a couple of weeks of Vietnamese visa left, but I’m only 4 or 5 days from the border crossing into Laos that I wanna take, so my rest is assured.

Cycle-friendly river tracks

Stunning random temple

River transport

There’s a lot of amazing old gates and walls around the traps, leading to nowhere in particular anymore.

Coffin bearer

Chùa Thiên Mu

One morning I rode my bike upstream along the northern bank of the river, to Thiên Mu pagoda, a beautiful historic temple a few clicks from the main part of town.

The temple was built in 1601 on the order of one of the first Nguyen lords of the area, Nguyen Hoang. Before it was built, there was a local story about a woman who would sit at that particular spot on the river, and tell passers-by that one day a nobleman would come and erect a temple there.

And so it came to be. The nobleman turned up, met the woman, built the temple, but then the woman vanished, never to be seen or heard from again.

Who was she? Was she actually a person?

Nguyen Hoang named the temple after her, the Temple of the Celestial Lady.

The stunning pagoda is a well known image in Vietnam, and is often used to promote the imperial city here, or the country internationally.

Final Days

Yeah, well …

It’s hard to imagine, but another 2 whole months have almost passed since I first set wheel inside this amazing country.

Where did that time go? What on earth have I been doing?

I love this country.

I feel like I sorta know it again now.

I’m gonna miss it.

Soon I’ll be heading northwest, and then west, I’ll be climbing high over another range of hills, crossing the land border with Laos somewhere near the top, and then descending, down and down and down, all the way to the the eastern banks of the mighty Mekong River.

And Laos will be a different kettle of shrimps, I can tell ya.

Soon I’ll be back to the rustic world of authentic and poor village life. And I’ll be there for awhile I reckon, off and on.❤️

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