The Typhoon Tourist

The train contours along slowly, the track etched into the hillside midway between the hilltops and the sea. Every few hundred metres we pass over the fresh scars of landslides, rich turned earth and boulders. We move very, very slowly, as if excessive speed might send us off the unsettled tracks. The sea below is a boiling mass, the rock dotted water yellow and foamy, as if stirred by rolling alligators.

The town of Hoi An was recovering from two typhoons as I plodded my way down towards it and weather reports had been predicting a third to hit within days. In the end this last one turned on its heel and stormed off to sea, a miraculous u-turn to my mind, perhaps in answer to some poor end-of-their-tether believer who begged for a sign, any sign.

In Hoi An itself the sun is hazy and the wind erratic, gusting and whispering in equal measure. Each time the wind dies the palm trees hang limp and exhausted, completely spent. Then it picks up and the leaves resume their desperate horizontal pointing, the tableclothes attempt flight and the many flags ripple and snap proudly. At this stage the serious flooding of a couple of weeks ago has mostly receded, only a small overflow remains by the river. By all accounts even at its worst life continued almost as normal. This in stark contrast to home, where an inch of snow has us at hysteria level Defcon 4 and has the Civil Defense( "To Protect and To Serve soup") escorting cyclists to work.

I book a 24 hour bus to get from Hoi An to Saigon. Unfortunately I have the shits. They insist there is a toilet on the bus but the bus arrives and there is no toilet. I medicate to constipate but I still have a belly like a bag of snakes. I will need a toilet. I try and explain that I will shit myself if I take the bus. The other passengers pretend not to listen to me humiliate myself. They now don't want me on the bus either but the travel agents don't understand. I consider getting a hairnet and some soup to demonstrate the current state of my stomach. Fortunately they quite suddenly refund my ticket without me having to resort to an involuntary dirty protest.

I am on a motorbike taxi out of Hoi An, my bag strapped precariously on the back. We weave our way at speed through the many cyclists in white, as they weave through the many potholes, with their straw hats like sharpened woks. I perch between my bag and the driver, feeling extremely vulnerable, my short shorts getting shorter against the leather seat. My legs, my marlboro whites, show up alarmingly against the rain slicked black road racing by. I should have worn jeans. Forty five minutes of I should have worn jeans.