Lower your expectations. Drop them drastically. There are no more Romans… no Caesar, no Caligula, no Tiberius… I swore to keep the daily travel diary frequent and consistent, self-deprecating and full of pictures. And most importantly… post one for EVERY day of my travels…
A series of unfortunate events led me to abandon this principle. Having my phone stolen in the capital of Vietnam cost me hundreds of pictures that would have populated forthcoming posts, and reams of notes that would have helped me write and deliver the posts I had planned. It led to me getting locked out of HSBC for almost a week, amid various other grievances some related and others not, which left me sapped of motivation and resolving to give up on my blog altogether.
But now that I have escaped Hanoi – a city I developed a powerful love-hate relationship with – broken with the Romans and cooled my anger and frustrations so that they are now no more terrible than they usually are, I have resolved to continue the blog, skipping a large chunk of narrative which I will publish when I am safely in a position to look back and laugh at my misery rather than letting it get the better of me.
But as I said, there are no more Romans, just I, Shane. I write from an island east of Vietnam…
DAY 37. Snakes and Ladders
The woman beckoned me into the alley. Was this the place? I couldn’t be sure. She beckoned me again more impatiently. I followed her in up a flight of stairs. ‘Money’ she said. ‘300’. Okay, I had the right place. This better be worth it, I thought as I paid the money. The woman led me through her home and out into her backyard, which was a junkyard swarming with puppies and dogs. They were running about all over the place. Smashed up pottery and glass lay everywhere. The woman pointed above us. ‘There. Up there,’ she muttered. I couldn’t see what the hell she was pointing at, but I followed the trajectory of her arm, climbing over planks of wood and metal beams which formed something of a shelter for the animals. The puppies swarmed around my feet barking relentlessly.
Finally, I got clear of the junkyard and found myself on a cluster of rocks which led absolutely nowhere. I was trapped… Except I wasn’t. A metal ladder stood in my midst, ascending upwards to the rocks and reeds of the mountain. Surely not…. I looked back. There was no sign of the woman. The dogs continued to bark. I double checked there was not another way out. My fears were founded. I grasped the ladder. It wasn’t the most precarious thing in the world; but it certainly wasn’t as stable as I’d have liked. After dilly-dallying for a little too long, I went for it.
Poem mountain was closed to tourists years ago… why? Something about a number of fatalities. The mountain is only 200 metres high, but it’s steep as hell and a great place to go climbing. While it’s technically closed to tourists, this woman uses her home to admit those who still wish to climb it, making herself a bit of cash in the process.
I thought myself prepared, but the steepness of Poem Mountain still took me off guard. Reaching the top of the ladder I realised there was no path to follow, only scraggly tree branches, rocks and roots to pull myself up with. Once I cleared this first hurdle, I was rewarded with the remains of a crumbling stone staircase marking out my ascent. Sometimes I could walk up the stone staircase. At other times, it was swamped and almost completely taken over by ruthless vegetation. And sometimes it simply crumbled away and ceased to exist.
The wind shook the plants. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something glide through the air. It was so graceful it seemed unnatural. Whatever it was, it was now out of sight. I kept going, and then caught more movement… turned around… An eagle swooped over my head. It was so unlike other birds, so much swifter and formidable. I must have seen an eagle up close before, but somehow this was different. Swooping around a desolate mountain so close to my head. It was hypnotic. I suddenly felt isolated in a way I hadn’t before. I continued my ascent.
When I reached the top, my breath was much less taken away by the view than it was by the exertion of getting there. The sun had not yet broken through the clouds, and though I could see from far out to sea – the endless gumpy islands drizzled in mist – to the city of Ha Long itself, a coastal ghost town, the good weather was sorely missed. But my success in making it to the top – especially when I almost didn’t even make it out of the rotten junkyard – was an achievement which gave me all the satisfaction I needed. I hadn’t felt this happy since before the horrors of Hanoi…
…Now I just needed to get back down.
I was on all fours, crawling down the stone staircase – the only way to bypass the thick forest of plants that had eaten up the airspace above me. All I was thinking about was the hideous prospect of spiders. I had seen things scuttle along the path and I had at times felt webs. I kept imagining them jumping down and landing on my head as I slithered and dragged myself along the ground… but I was so busy obsessing over spiders…. I didn’t think about what else might be slithering along the mountain besides myself….
I pushed myself up out of the plants and rounded a corner. Vegetation rustled. Something moved very close by. I stopped short, peering, thinking yet again about huge spiders. But then I saw the movement more clearly; a slithering. Then the thing came out into the open, making its way over the rock. It was bright yellow with black patterned stripes.
I fiddled frantically with my phone, trying to get a video of it. But when I looked up, I realised it had stopped moving. It was atop the rock with its head reared up. It was staring straight at me. Snakes are fast… It could be on me in seconds. I had no idea if it was dangerous or not. I slowly began to take a step back. A massive step back. Then another and another, striding down the path and getting the fuck away from the thing. It was probably harmless… but who the hell knows?
A little further down I came back to where the staircase was mostly eaten away by the plants. I slowly ducked and began to push through the bushes, but rustles and slitherings sent me scuttling back, heart pounding. No way… I couldn’t do it. I had to find another way down.
With the sun finally breaking through the clouds, Poem mountain appeared to have released its hidden monsters. I felt like I’d walked straight into a trap… I retraced my steps and took a different path, hoping I could find an alternate route… But I came to a dead end, and as I turned around, an enormous insect flew onto the path blocking my escape. It was as big and creepy as a tarantula and as flamboyant as a dragonfly with wings just as large. It was black and orange and hideous. Why didn’t I just brave the bushes! I lamented bitterly.
This alien creature buzzed about, coming closer and closer to me, backing me further into the trees. I was backed into a corner both physically and metaphorically. I unslung my backpack, held it out in front of me as a shield, and charged all the way back to the path.
I stumbled back down to the bush which I suspected was riddled with snakes and threw myself into it, shoving my way through and not pausing until I was safely out the other side. I couldn’t wait to get the FUCK off Poem Mountain…
Getting down to the ladder was daunting. As I lowered myself using the loose roots as ropes, I thought to myself… if a spider landed on me right now, would I be able to hold on? Or would I go screaming and tumbling?
I climbed back down the ladder, which was a far slower and far scarier process than climbing up it. But I should have been more worried about what was waiting for me below…
As I re-entered the isle of dogs, the scraggly little things seemed possessed with an anger even more outrageous than the one I left them with, and as I was crossing the junkyard one ran up and nipped me on the arm…
Luckily it didn’t break the skin but I washed it in water and soap anyway and thought what a good thing it was that I managed to get a second dose of the rabies vaccine before getting the hell out of Hanoi. Then I rewarded myself with a plate of seafood noodles and a can of Ha Long beer….
Now that I was free of Hanoi, I felt I should be rushing south, to explore the vast slither of land that is Vietnam – if not to try and catch up with my companions. Time to make up for lost time and get my travels back in gear. But my spirit was as a sea after a storm, calm but filled with wreckage. I had no appetite for travel. For two weeks I’d been caught up in Hanoi, and in all that time not a splash of sunlight. Just mist and fog and rain. Poem mountain was a great climb which filled me with just as much beauty as it did terror. And now I was enjoying weather which I’d forgotten existed and staring up at the mountain I’d just summited. But it wasn’t good enough. My travels hadn’t just slowed down, they’d stalled. And I had no interest in getting things up and running again. I yearned to do nothing. To slow down to the point where not a pinprick of stress or discomfiture could touch me. The feeling of isolation and lonesomeness I’d had upon Poem Mountain, when the eagle circled above my head, that’s what I wanted. Pure isolation. Peace. I needed to get somewhere remote. Nothing could make me happier… I thought.
