Five flavours: Day 10 Hoi An to Bangkok

Soundtrack: “England 2 Colombia 0”, Kirsty MacColl

Our last breakfast in Hoi An was mi quang, wonderful rice noodles, pork, quail eggs, and shrimp, in a salty broth full of flavour. I did a better job of making the ca phe sua da, being more patient in my water pouring. The hotel dining room television has generally been off during out stay, but today the Mexico vs England men’s world cup football game was on, so as I ate I watched the second half. The Vietnamese commentator was getting very excited when goals were scored or came close to being scored. I haven’t been paying the hugest amount of attention to this year’s men’s world cup, to be perfectly honest I’d rather be spending my time wandering metaphoric rice fields than watch young men run around well curated football fields in an event blatantly designed to take from the poor and give to the rich. Though at least the folks from FIFA won’t be getting much advertising revenue from Viet Nam, as they didn’t show any ads, not even at half time or during the hydration break. The other good news was that England won, sadly crushing the hopes of millions of Mexicans but I’ve been dark at that country since they let the millionaire who killed Kirsty MacColl get away with it.

Our flights weren’t until the afternoon, so we had time to have one last Lemon Tree massage, where some more well-placed knees turned tight muscles to jelly. Then it was another big half a mango and back to the hotel. We were a little sad to say goodbye to the hotel staff, they have been lovely, if a little manic in their happiness and enthusiasm. They really seem to love welcoming people to their country, and making sure everyone has the best stay. Maybe it’s just from all the built up Hoi An resilience, I guess you gain a different appreciation of things when your town spends a couple of weeks a year under at least a metre of water.

It feels like every time we are driven between Hoi An and Da Nang, we take a different route. While that’s not possible, partly it’s just the way the road between the two has been built up over the last 12 years, and partly because every driver seems to have their own way of getting from the southern outskirts of Da Nang to the airport. I wonder how long it will be before they redevelop the last remaining huts and hangars left over from the American War. I’m a little surprised they are still here.

L’s flight homewards left before mine, so after saying goodbye I had time to wander the airport. Da Nang International, or DAD for short, isn’t the largest, but it does have a few eating options and duty free shopping. I figured on mixing up my diet so went for some dim sum, crunchy rolls and dumplings that were an odd colour but delicious anyway.

Ah, VietJet, fortunately this was my last flight with them this trip, and I suspect, barring future impossible to refuse prices, my last flight ever with them. I got to the departure gate in plenty of time, and everything was in order. About 5 minutes before boarding was to commence, different staff turned up and changed the gate to a flight to Taipei. No information was given to us folks waiting to go to Bangkok, the new gate people knew nothing, and all the other airport boards hadn’t changed. So for at least 15 minutes a lot of very confused passengers stood around, being completely unassisted, before eventually a new gate was announced. A little earlier I’d noticed a VietJet flight land, though didn’t see if it had stopped at a gate. As I got to the new gate, it was apparent that was our outbound flight, as the first passengers were just leaving the plane. I guess VietJet’s saving grace was that as a budget airline they could turn over the plane quickly, so we only departed a little late.

I started reading Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me the Waltz on the flight, but in my tired state found the beautiful but dense prose a little hard going so I put it aside and dozed. We got into Bangkok almost on time, so the pilots must have taken a short cut to make up the schedule. Flying in over Bangkok at night reminded me just how big a city it actually is.

The airport is huge too (it has two international airports, and I flew into the new one). And like every other huge airport in the world, it employs too few immigration officials so there were solid crowds to get through. But I queued like almost everyone else (there were a couple of travelers who tried cutting queues and while I didn’t see the full consequences, they were certainly hauled back into line) got through after being thoroughly scanned, and my case was waiting for me on the baggage carousel when I got there. Always a good thing. The system for booking a Grab car is a little confusing, well it makes sense when you’re standing at exactly the right spot, but if you order the car before you get there to take into account their time to arrive, getting to the pickup place isn’t straightforward. But I managed, and was shortly in the back seat of a grab taxi that was zooming along the motorway.

Checked into hotel fine, it’s a bit of a difference going from a boutique Vietnamese hotel to a chain abode: on one hand everything is designed to efficiently fit together, but there are too many light switches, and the place just lacks the additional personality. Just don’t tell L I said that, she’s always the one wanting the boutique personality, and I’m sure she’d love to know that she might just be right.

The Bangkok mission is as follows: eat, shop, see palace, see drag. South East Asian queens are awesomely fierce, they tend to perform with a physicality and intensity a little above and beyond other queens — there are exceptions of course, but as a baseline I think it’s a fair call. Bangkok has two (that I know of) regular shows, House of HEALS, and Stranger Bar. We went to House of HEALS last time, so this time I started with Stranger Bar. At least one of the performers, Kandy Zyanide, I’d seen at House of HEALS, and folks who watch such shows would know her from Thailand Drag Race (Season 2 I think). There were several Drag Rave alum performing, including Srimala and Spicy Sunshine as well as other known queens Gisele Rafael, L Gie Bloomz, Too Calderone, and Amora. Stranger bar is in an interesting alleyway, there are a number of other bars that gave a bit of a feel of it being a Gaybourhood, but I could be wrong. The show started at the advertised 930pm, drag queen time, so a little after 1030pm, but in the three sets they performed and rocked the house down. Maybe because it was a Monday night, it wasn’t a huge crowd, which was good in a way as the queens were able to circulate and mingle and I got to say my thanks. The attendees seemed about 50-50 locals and tourists, so I can’t really say how big a local following there is for this, but I hope it’s healthy.

I foolishly stayed until the end of the show, around 2am, and then tried to get a Grab back to the hotel. This ended up a little convoluted, as the app had placed me on the wrong side of the road and I hadn’t noticed. In most places this isn’t a huge problem, but there are a number of roads in Bangkok that are separated down the middle with fences and barriers, and so I had no way to conveniently cross. All credit to my driver, he managed to find a way to the right side of the road, and got me back to the hotel.

I had a quick walk to check out the neighbourhood, get my bearings, sweat off a little alcohol, and hit the local convenience store for water and snacks, then it was into bed way too late.