There were signs on many buildings of the damage inflicted by the floods of November 2007, the worst for many years, rising up to three metres, even though flooding has been a regular event for which the local government is well prepared with evacuation plans for the three days such floods tend to last.

  Consequently, we were relocated from our intended hotel in town, largely closed for flood repairs, to a riverside boutique resort fifteen minutes outside of town. One can imagine that the relatively small central area could become overwhelmed as visitor numbers increase, a problem likely to occur in the most popular destinations around the world in years to come.

  Today we have travelled to Hue by road, past China Beach where US forces first landed their war materiel at the beginning of the Vietnam War. The spot is marked still by crumbling unsightly Nissen huts left over from the war, a stone’s throw from Marble Mountain, five limestone and marble outcrops topped with delicate pagodas and limestone caves.

  ***

  Hue, Central Vietnam, the feudal capital of the Nguyen emperors – in name at least until 1945.

  Hue, still 500 miles south of Hanoi, likely to be a good deal warmer than Hanoi and pleasant enough for exploring what was the seat of imperial power for nearly 150 years until independence (only briefly as France returned for another turbulent eight years after the second world war).

  Again, the Americans did quite a good job, destroying much of the ‘ancient citadel’ and ‘Forbidden City’ which still forms the major portion of the old town. Automobile traffic is still very limited, but this is made up for by huge numbers of motorcycles and bikes.

  The indulgent lifestyles of the royals make for interesting history as they too operated the harem and eunuch scheme so successful in Peking as Beijing was then called. The incumbent in the early 19th century managed to acquire 147 wives, sometimes siring five on the same night, (hence the huge families) thanks to a special wine concoction to keep his pecker up, an early form of Viagra, the guides joke. Hence eighty percent of the population share the same name as the royal family. Not so much fun for the young female population though, who were sought out by royal scouts and those selected were then taken to the palace where they were forced to stay until they died.

  The Vietnamese have done a good job in Hue, as in Hanoi, in converting old French official buildings into art-deco hotels and charging a capitalist fortune for the pleasure.

  So much excitement on the streets at present as the Viet new lunar year approaches on February 6th, and inflation reaches fourteen percent this month as a result.

  ***

  Hanoi, Capital City of Vietnam

  Nowadays a new airline springs up every day around the world, but it was disconcerting to come across an aircraft with the logo ‘PMT Airways’ on our arrival at Hanoi airport. I have no idea if they have female pilots, but I think I’ll give them a miss anyway, just in case.

  As anticipated, we faced a significant drop in temperature compared with the relatively mild climate of mid Vietnam, down to almost freezing. Despite this, the Old Quarter of Hanoi was packed not only with locals buying ‘new stuff’ for the lunar new year, together with large numbers of lightly clad foreigners, sometimes in shorts and sandals, negotiating for thick padded jackets.

  Despite such unusually cold temperatures, street life was hectic as seemingly most of the city’s residents were clogging the streets with motor bikes, often heavily and precariously loaded with massive orange-fruited kumquat trees for the holidays. However, it was not uncommon to note motor cyclists balancing pillion passengers, carcasses of small cows, pigs and even dogs (a local delicacy eaten for some reason only in the second half of the lunar month), perhaps mindful of the owners’ return in the next life.

  As in India, driving is a mind-blowing experience with seemingly chaotic traffic flows and instant anywhere parking, but it all seems to work, admittedly at quite slow speeds.

  No visitor is spared the obligatory visit to file past Vietnam’s war hero, Uncle Ho in his cosy mausoleum, but in fact, the associated official and private buildings where he lived latterly, bunker and all, were quite interesting and he does seem to have been an alright kind of guy, modest with it.

  The overriding impression of Hanoi for me was the similarity to Seoul in South Korea, dusty colourless streets, much street-based activity involving selling, repairs, eating and so on. I am sure things must seem different in the throbbing summer heat.

  The houses though are utterly unique to Vietnam: often four floors tall, but often one room wide and no windows at the sides, only front and back, providing multi-generational living space, with daughters-in-law moving in with their husband’s family in the Chinese fashion.

  Talking of local customs, there are times when you do not want your mind broadened, but here goes anyway. Believe this or not, in North Vietnam it is the custom for the oldest son to dig up the remains of his dead parent after three years and salvage the slower disposing elements (teeth, bones etc.) and rebury them. This needs to be performed under cover of darkness fortunately, usually between midnight and 4 am but certainly before daylight to avoid bad luck for three generations. I guess we can understand that the new fashion for cremation seems to be increasingly popular. I suppose this is but an extreme aspect of the respect for one’s ancestors that forms the basis for religion in this country. People celebrate with a big family get-together the day one dies, not the day you are born, ‘deathdays’ instead of birthdays then.

  No visit to northern Vietnam is complete without the popular side-trip to Ha Long bay, three hours from Hanoi, where fancy wooden junks (or less fancy and cheaper craft for the locals) flit around the limestone islands like those in southern Thailand. Fellow Brits were disappointed to find out that James Bond chose Thailand, not northern Vietnam for the location of The Man with the Golden Gun, though it was the location used extensively in the French film Indochine with Catherine Deneuve. Sadly, the weather was bitter and the unheard of fall of snow in the mountainous north of the country near China forced us to defer our planned side-trip the Sa Pa Mountains for another year as we were just not equipped for mountain hiking in the snow in our sandals and T-shirts.

  So, our visit ended passing the spot where the US Republican candidate John McCain was shot down during the Vietnam War before he spent two years in the ‘Hanoi Hilton’. However, we received nothing but kindness from a people who have put the years of occupation by the Chinese, French and Americans behind them as they look to the future.

  As a postscript to my scribblings on culinary delicacies of Vietnam, a brief update on the delicacy of rat meat. The Wall Street Journal confirms why we were not, as anticipated, met by the sight of huge rats at every street corner while in Vietnam: they are being harvested in anticipation of the lunar new year of the rat which arrives today. According to Mr Pham Huu Thanh: ‘Both Vietnamese and foreign tourists are eating more rat meat these days’. He does not make it clear whether these tourists are aware of this fact. The going rate is up to $3.80 per kilo, half the cost of chicken and less than pork. The rat farmers are being helped by the fact that the locals are so busy digesting the rat predators (snakes and cats) that the rat population has been growing, only to be mown down by the farmers. Ironically, bird flu has discouraged many from eating chicken in previous quantities and the locals are therefore turning to rats instead. But of course, the taste for rodents has declined somewhat in China after the outbreak of SARS was put down to the consumption of civets. So, all in all, the poor creatures only have another 365 days to go before the heat is off for another twelve years.

  ***

  From the bitter cold of Vietnam at last to the warmth of Thailand. What a difference a ninety-minute flight can make. I have just realised I said the same thing last year, returning from Laos, after a similarly uncommon cold spell. Maybe this year’s ‘unusual’ is next year’s ‘usual’.

  Of course, the tropical temperature in Thailand saps one’s enthusiasm for sightseeing, and in the south of the country, the temptation to sightsee rather than chill out is much reduced. It is the beaches that draw the crowds, but this year, things are very different. The crowds are not European but Asian, especially Korean, and Russian and I guess this is a foretaste of things to come when the anticipated Chinese hordes descend in their millions. So many soothsayers say: ‘Come now before it all changes’ and indeed the new Asian younger rich have a much more boisterous approach to vacations, splashing and shouting in the hotel pool as 3 am, not something the Swiss or Swedish retirees were renowned for. As usual the Thais are adapting, attempting to cope with new languages they are being faced with. Restaurants have begun to add Russian to English on menus.

  So, back in sunny Bangkok Thailand and the annual emergency visit to a dentist – with a difference.

  The nearest seemed to be located in the local massage parlour; so, I approached one of the lovelies who said she would be happy to give me a dental appointment the same day.

  And indeed, when I returned, she donned a dentist hat and mask and ushered me into one of the rooms with authentic looking dentistry gear and set about fixing the problem. No anaesthetic, she said, but no pain either, right on both counts it turned out. She had a wonderful set of molars herself, but, sadly, placed a mask over my face with a hole for my mouth, either to protect me from the sight of all those vicious instruments or just to keep me from admiring her molars.

  Job done, and while still horizontal (me), she suggested, rather than a quick visit to the boring old hygienist as at home, better a leisurely massage from one of her colleagues. As I was already in the right position, so to speak, seemed like a good idea, especially as forty-five minutes dental work cost less than a check-up on the national health. I suppose English dentists don’t need to diversify but it seems like a good package.

  Khao Lak in Phang Nga ‘James Bond’ province has been rebuilt since the 2004 tsunami disaster and you can now buy T-shirts listing the national ‘disasters’ of the last 5 years, earthquakes, tsunami, bird flu, SARS, saying: ‘2008 what next?’ Never ones to miss a marketing opportunity, the Thais. But life goes on for the locals who survived, and the tourist flocks have returned, which is good news for the local economy, but for some reason, the expatriate visa-runs to Ranong on the border with southern Burma seemed to have all but dried up.

  Valentine’s Day is a big thing in Thailand, somewhat spoiled where we were by the mother-and-father of a storm which started at 7 pm on the dot forcing all hotels and restaurants on the beach to rapidly withdraw their fancy stages, lighting and table-settings to less romantic locations under cover.

  You may not have read much about it, but it must be said that the ethnic problems of the provinces in southern Thailand on the border with Malaysia continue to accumulate losses of live as the struggle continues, and there is the ever-present but unspoken threat of it spreading one day to Phuket or even to Bangkok, but hey, where do you go to avoid disruption? Not even peaceful Denmark these days.

  So, tomorrow is another day, here as elsewhere…

  I had planned to leave our readership in peace for a while but felt compelled to mention how our beach reacted to yesterday’s earthquake in Indonesia and the possibility of another tsunami.

  My wife had set up a massage session on the beach leaving me on my own in a quiet location. Halfway through the massage, the masseuse lady receives a call on her mobile from her son at the local hospital telling her a tsunami alert has been issued and she should get the hell off the beach. However, she decides to inform all her Thai friends by phone instead, while continuing to massage my wife with the remaining free hand. My wife had become alarmed (one-armed massage is alarming), as you will have guessed and felt she should warn her husband of the impending disaster. “Lovely Pearl,” the massage lady says, “no need, if it happens, it won’t be till 5 o’clock (it is 4:30), so there is time to finish the session” (and get paid), even though one would think it might take longer using only one hand and without one’s mind on the job. All these masseuses are now earthquake pundits, ‘7.1 magnitude? No problem; 7.8 erm; maybe 8.6, let’s get out of here’. Perhaps this is the new technology-free system their government promotes.

  Locals had supreme confidence in the supposedly new systems set up to warn of such events, but no one seemed to know (or at least say) what would happen if it was a serious warning.

  Everything was back to normal by 6 pm at Mama Mia’s bar with happy hour.

  Postscript:

  A word of warning for those who enjoy an after-dinner mint. If you find your way to a certain restaurant in the Sukhumvit Road area in Bangkok, then do not rip open the ‘after dinner mint’ and pop it into your mouth (it comes similarly packaged). It is in fact a condom, handed out liberally with the bill in the ‘Cabbages and Condoms’ restaurant to promote their usage ‘for the benefit of world health’; lurid charts on the wall outline the risks of not heeding their advice.

  Chapter 8

  North India

  So how eventful can the trip from an arrival airport to a hotel be? Well pretty eventful actually. After 20 minutes, the bus just in front of us slowed right down and started to zigzag across the road for no obvious reason. Our driver tried to pass but found the car in front of the bus doing the same thing. Suddenly we made an emergency stop with a ringside seat for a bloody punch-up between the two drivers, with blocked all traffic from the city’s international airport and probably backed up incoming flights from Europe and elsewhere. We prayed for a quick knock-out so we could get to our beds. But of course, all life happens on Indian roads. The flow, if that is the word, is dependent on the slowest denominator, and around Delhi into Rajasthan, this is the camel, closely followed by bullock cart, donkey cart, tuk-tuk and mostly overloaded trucks. This is compounded by a surfeit of more policemen (sleeping) than there are in the Met, all totally redundant since traffic only moves at five mph for the above reasons combined with the ubiquitous potholes which achieve the same end with no investment.

  The next day as we got further and further from Delhi into the scrubland desert, villages were generally just one-camel towns. One, however, lacking as they mostly do, electricity and all other mod cons offered a VHS to DVD conversion service. Business I imagine was not good. I would have advised camel servicing and maintenance.

  After many long and sandy hours, we made it to our first night stop: a medieval village comprising many beautifully frescoed havelis, or merchant houses from the seventeenth century in the midst of an endless sandy landscape dotted with what looked like olive trees. They have had less than one hour’s rain this year, so the wells are running dry.

  Our overnight stay in one of these havelis included a private dinner in the courtyard accompanied by local village dancers and a puppet show before we set off for another long day’s drive towards Bikaner and Jaisalmer close to the Indian Pakistan border on the old trade route from Europe to China. It’s a long slog, desert all the way from Bikaner to Jaisalmer, but so worth the effort.

  Jaisalmer became isolated when India split from Pakistan in the late 1940s with no vehicular road connecting to the rest of India until thirty years ago when one was built to transport troops and materiel to protect the border. Dozens and dozens of troop movements were passing us constantly. The location of the ancient walled city of Jaisalmer, perched on a high rock rising from the flat sandy scrubland below is breath-taking, a fairy tale fort 800 years old with turreted fretworked windows jutting out from the city walls; a shame we only had a few hours to explore such a fascinating place.

  But the desert soon reclaimed us as we moved south to spend the night in a tented camp far from the madding crowd. Well, there are apparently over 400,000 desert-based inhabitants out there somewhere, but you never see more than a handful at a time.

  For a bit of excitement, off into the sand-duned interior by jeep for a Lawrence of Arabia moment. What could possibly go wrong apart from getting a broken differential? Nothing really, just the bust differential, which immobilised the vehicle out in the boondocks surrounded by nothing but afore-mentioned sand dunes, our only neighbours: two buffalo. Panic sets in; the sun is high, water low. But wait, on the horizon, two specks approach. The 7th cavalry? The RAC? Omar Sharif on a camel? Nope, just two goat-herdesses who incredibly were totally ignorant about car maintenance, or so they said. But of course, nowadays there’s the mobile phone, but how to identify one’s position? Just past the third sand dune on the left opposite the buffalo, which were starting to move anyway. Eventually, a passing farmer on a tractor (isn’t it always?) did the business in time for us to get back for village folklore activities by the campfire.

  Onwards to Jodhpur and the classic fort but more interestingly the Maharaja’s Mausoleum built by his wife in 1906. A few hints were dropped that this was a very fine gesture for a widow to make and a lot less hassle than committing suttee, so we’ll have to see if the hint was taken.

  And on to a most remarkable way to celebrate poppy day, see below. The local desert tribe people scrape a living gathering the fruit of the local trees (they do not kill animals) which looks most unappetising, like sheep’s droppings and large tea leaves. However, on special occasions, like visiting gentry (us), out comes the local delicacy: opium ingested by mouth in liquid form (hence the poppy day reference). We moved on to bidis (Indian cigarettes) and the hookah for a most relaxing time until the dreaded carpet-selling moment arrived. While, allegedly it takes months to produce one rug, there seemed to be unlimited supplies of ‘ones I made earlier’.

  And finally into the fallout from a local monsoon which brought very unusual rain clouds and wet roads as we approached one of the many Jain Temples built in the fifteenth century, a 1,444 columned wedding cake of a temple used by followers of the minority Jain religion, the Waitrose of the bunch for top people, but with strings. All animal products (leather shoes, jackets etc.) had to be removed before entry (as life is even more sacred than for Buddhists) and if you want to join up, you must have all body hair shaved off. Followers wear white robes, but the seniors go naked (men only), so I guess I’ll pass for now. The building is elaborately carved and looks as good as the day it was built, using ingredients like ghee (butter) as cement. An opportunity for European butter mountains?