BILAMBIL CALLING : THOUGHTS FROM DAVE ' THE BLOKE' OVENDEN

VIETNAM

A Vietnamanee Visitation

Ok…The story goes like this…The weekend before I was about to take that far out trip, and covertly hang with the Commies…I was goofing off at the Bilambil Blues Club, and, Jamisons Restaurant…The nowtime jumped me quicker than expected…

 So, on Monday night, I emptied and switched off the fridge, laid a few dirty towels on the floor nearby, squeezed a few extra things into me travel bag, it was late so I hit the sack…The next thing I remember, Jesse, who was to pick me up on his way to work, was rolling me out at the Coolangatta Airport, the international end… ‘Hey’, he says, ‘ here’s a slab of me home cooked, moist banana cake’…

The thick grey clouds were tucked in tight, an it was raining as I stepped across the tarmac, up the rickety tunnel and into that Air Asia jet plane, then strapping self into the seat before we taxi to the runway… Hey, that pilot throttles down as the engines roar, and I’m now moving fast along the runway, then a lot faster, the back end seems to drop as that big jet plane, with its nose pointed up, shudders and shakes, moans and groans, then I takes to the air…

As we bank, I with a window seat take a look at Bilambil Heights, and off course the Office, on the side of the Greenmount headland, the waves were rolling in…

That big jet plane slices through them rain clouds and upwards, where the sun is shinning from a blue sky…

It’s a long haul as we high fly over this great wide land…

A bit of turbulence as we hit them lows lurking off the west coast…Then upwards and onwards, towards the tropics…

It’s an easy drone, as I high fly over the equator, while that Irish trad band, Danui, is jumping through the headphones tightly perched and sitting round my bird nest looking head.

Ok…I’ll try not to waffle on too much, so I’ll stick to the diary, and not get on that story telling track…

Now…This is the game plan…

K.L…First stop for me, connect with the Toad the next morn at the busy Kula Lumpur International Airport…

Then we jump a three and a half hour Air Malaysia flight to Ho Chi Mihn City [Saigon]…

Reacquaint with the gang at the four bedroom, ninth floor Ho City apartment, with swimming pool below…

The gang…Kack, John ‘n’ Sue, Grerg ‘n’ Pat, [they had spent a week in Cambodia, and arrived at Vietnam the day before us]…An now there’s me an Mr Toad…

So here we all are in Saigon, now called Ho City…

After all the good g’days, hugs an kisses, we all loosen up with long, laughing, raving drink…

Then John, who is a master at culinary delights, pipes up… ‘Hey, lets hit the roadside Viety restaurant for a bowl of Pho’, pronounced Phur…A deliciously tasting big bowl of brothy chicken an green vegetable, spicy flavored soup, with thick slabs of French bread…We all slurp off, laugh a lot, then walk the narrow horn honking streets back to the digs, tuck into the lift, press no 9, key our way in, then hit our hard, but comfortable beds for dreamtime sleeping…

 Oh…And yes, the horns are forever honking, as a thousand and one, motor cycles, busses, trucks and cars, somehow maneuver there way up and down the wrong or right side of the road, all going each and every witch way, as they are motoring on, going to, or coming from somewhere, up and down the busy streets of south Vietnam…Ho City style…

It’s a sight, smell, and a sound to behold…and when you have to cross the street; death is there, looking at you, right between the eyes…But hey, that isn’t nothing like a cyclo ride into the on coming throng…I somehow survived, and kept my diary honest and up to date…

Saigon…An exotic tropical mix of unusual old French colonial buildings, situated here and there among a cluttered array of two and three story cement boxes, where the locals live and run there many and varied little businesses, there’s a thick black mass of electric wires that run along the street, and are draped like ill fitting curtains over a leaning lamp post on the corner…the footpath is a seething mass of people, and hardly a round eye to be seen, the roadway is a noisy throng of traffic, motor scooters, small cars, trucks, busses and pushbikes, all honking horns and ringing bells as they somehow thread there way through the busy Saigon streets…

That night, on a hard, but comfortable bed, I was so tied, and slept too sound, for far out astral dreaming…

It’s morning as the sun, laser like streaks through a slight gap in the curtains, I open my eyes and immediately pipe the new day in, Toad who was blissfully taking the pigs to market, sits up with a startled look on his sleepy face, blurts out… ‘Shut the fuck up will ya, and stop letting off them crackers, the war is a long time gone’… ‘Arh’, I says ‘how bout a nice cuppa tea, and a few slabs of buttered toast, spred with some home brung Vegemite’…

Anyhow were all up and about, cept for the Grerg, he’s still horizontal, rolled up in the doona, waiting for the Bag, [now known as the Cook, otherwise Pats] to deliver his breakfast in bed…That’s the Grerg for ya…

We all sit around with the maps, planning the events for the days activities, my first full day in the land of the Vietnamanee…It was hot and humid…

After I had a dip in the cool pool, we all ganged up and set off down the street, talking while walking, and me dragging up the rear, just so happy to be there…

Hey…The time has come, we all somehow have to cross the street, and I’m thinking how the fuck are we gunna survive this life threatening maneuver…Now, if I was a religious man I would think a few prayers, fondle the beads, clutch a lucky stone, and step to the street…

But I’m not…So, somehow magically, as the traffic swirled around us, we reached the other side, all intact…

Amongst the madness of the street, there was a surreal sureness’ within the gang, as we threaded our way toward the One Pillar Pagoda…[Buddhist temple]…

My diary, which, for this particular part of, reads like this.

Jade Emperor Pagoda…Built in 1909 by the Cantonese…[Quang Dong] congregation…Filled with statues of phantasmal divinits… And also and as well…

 Grotesque heroes…representing the characters from both the Buddhist and Taoist traditions…

The pagoda is dedicated to the emperor of Jade…

The supreme Taoist god…So the brosher says…    

As we enter this far out sacred place, with a big fig tree in the courtyard… Lotsa people milling around, amongst them big stone statues of dragons, also fierce and frightening looking warrior types, and the eyes, they mess with your mind thoughts, the incense burned, the joint was smoking, I sat with John A…On a stone slab, beside the pond, where the big colored Carp, lazily flap, slowly through the water…We thought about everything, and more…

Later that afternoon, me and Toad take a stroll through the seedy side of Saigon, De Tham street…Got propositioned a few times by some slightly tarty types standing in small groups around the hair salons, nothing went down, as we threaded our way through the many motor cycles parked upon the footpath, though, I do need a haircut, and a beard trim, so I’m sure hopping the happy ending will come sometime sooner or latter…

But not right then, cause some young silly thinking Viety youth leaned his two stroke over, on the footpath, with a white hot exorst, that burned into Toads outside, left legged carfe mussel, one two and three degree scorch…

Look I didn’t see it happen, but I sure heard the verble commotion…

Toad let off a barrage of four letter words that nearly stopped the traffic, the young 90 cc bike man fled into the throng of the street, I busted a heel strap on me crocks…

And as the Toad was cooling down, I says, ‘ pain is such a personal thing, aint it’…He responds, ‘ Ouch, Yikes, it’s a big sting, lets sit at a sidewalk, footpath bar, an have a beer’

‘Yea’ says I, so the Toad with a pocket full of Dong, orders up in his Vietnameway, a Tiger, pulled from the tap, an a Heinikan for me mate…[that’s me]…

We sat there on the footpath, with a frothy beer, in the madness of the moment, and took in the passing parade…

When the alcohol had dulled the Toads sting, and my stubby was empty, he blurts out, ‘lets jump a cyglo back to the digs, if your game that is’… ‘Arh, ok’ says I, with my inbuilt instinct for survival, at that moment being somewhat threatened… Then before I was with it…

Toad was, in his Viety way, was haggerling a deal with a couple of Cyglo bike riding, peddle pushing, street riding sharp shooting cats…

Ok…So the next description goes like this…

The Cyglo, a bicycle, with a single structured seat, sort of cradle like, perched upon the front axel, so you sit at the front, as he peddles from behind…

We mount up, and wave to each other, smiling, laughing…

Then as I looked at him, and he looked at me, our faces turned into a horrified look, as we hit the mainstream flow, and instinctively we both realize that this was a race, between me and him, and our peddlers through the mad crazy streets of Saigon… Ho style…

Let me tell ya, it was a hang onto ya hat affair…

I know cause I was there…

I screamed out ‘FUCK’, many times, as I’m sure did Toad, as we cut the corner and headed into the oncoming traffic, magically, or maybe mystically, we survived, and shouted at each other, at that moment, I think I was in front…

We were half way back, then, fuck me dead, we rolled into a big moment of madness, where the main arteries merge, like a bit like Taylor Square with no traffic lights…

I put my hands up to my eyes, till we reached the other side

Now, if I was a cat, I’d of used up nearly 8 lives…

But I aint, an me an Toad did survived the ride…

Back at the digs, we somehow make it, and sometime latter, after a few nerve settling drinks, we gear up for Kacks call, a swanky doo, silkin thing, top shelf, Vietnamese nose bag, where the quiet and oh so good looking young waitresses hover around and smile…

We orders up and eats well, me struggling with them one handed, doubled fingered chop stick things…

The odd noodles mist my mouth, but them waitress smiles; well they really could make an old bloke like me, flip…

Well, after we’d all noshed up, emptied the bottles, wet wiped our faces, and coughed up with a truckload of Dong, and some American dollars, the seven of us is on the footpath, flagging a couple of taxi cabs… Somehow it gets sorted, and were on our way to the old and established, French colonial style, Majestic Hotel, to top off the night…

If walls could talk, that place could tell a million stories…    

 To be continued…