For the first time we find ourselves, today, a little at a loose end. We leave Saigon tomorrow, when we will spend most of our time on the bus to Chau Doc. We will spend a further day there, largely so as to time our visa right for Cambodia, but it is very much a transfer town and we will probably make the most of the unusually plush hotel we accidentally booked, in order to take advantage of the speed boat crossing to Cambodia which is run by the hotel and supposedly rather safer and more reliable than other options. So really it feels like goodbye Vietnam.
Vietnam, I feel, deserves rather more fanfare. We don't want to spend too much money or withdraw more cash as we have reached our budget and we can't take it with us. (Both literally and metaphorically) O is not back from Hanoi so we can't spend the day with her. We go to yoga, buy breakfast and sit in a cafe. It doesn't quite feel right. We scour the internet. What have we missed?
What we have missed, it seems is a place called The Escape Hunt, in which you take the character of a London detective in old Saigon and basically play an interactive game named Kidnapping at the Opera Room. You have to solve the mystery before you are allowed out. It sounds crazy, though reviews well, but for two people feeling a little as though they need an adventure, it seems quite fitting.
We go. We are greeted by a smiling Vietnamese girl (though in my experience here 'smiling' is an unnecessary adjective. Everyone is always smiling. I haven't yet sneaked into anyone's bedroom to check, but people probably smile in their sleep.). She is dressed, of course, in tweed and deer stalker and she christens M 'Shylock Barnes', though sadly does not provide him with a pipe. (Or as it turns out, a very adequate Watson). She ushers us into a small locked room (obviously by this I mean that she opens it for us then locks it behind her, not that we suddenly acquire mysterious powers and can walk through locked doors). Our challenge is to find the clues to solve the puzzles to open the numerous padlocks in order to find more clues, further rooms and, eventually escape from the room by finding the key, and solve the mystery of who kidnapped 'the journalist', who is a shady fellow with a brooding moustache. According to his photo anyway.
It's actually genuinely difficult, and you only have one hour in the room, so we don't even have time to take this obvious opportunity to say 'elementary, my dear Watson' which is frankly a waste. And I was so much looking forward to M doing his best angular Benedict Cumberbatch impression. Having said that, an hour is only barely enough time to solve the puzzle and my demeanor at the end, faced with two minutes to go and the possibility of having to leave before we knew the answer, certainly rivalled him in terms of irritability and lack of interpersonal skills. What's that you say? Something about it just being a game? Rubbish, my dear Watson.
Once we emerge, duly solved, we are of course given hats and magnifying glasses to pose for the obligatory photo and finally M gets a pipe. He 'smokes' it, gravely on his own inimitable style while I pretend to look closely at his nose with my magnifying glass. I rather suspect this activity would not have got Watson very far either in terms of crime solving or popularity with Sherlock, but hey. It was fun. Till they tell us they will put the photo on their website. We have now been immortalised twice on film. We have left our mark on Vietnam. I am not sure how edifying this has been for it.
We retreat home to say goodbye to what has been 'home', what has been 'our cat' and to leave a thank you letter for O who has been our host, housemate and now friend over the last month. Oh and to pack. What comes out of a rucksack must go back in? Right? Wrong. What comes out of a rucksack spreads itself immediately all over the floor. During the time it spends on the floor it swells to twice its original size and weight, grows tricky corners and sharp edges it didn't previously have, and then attempts to kill you on its way back into the bag. The bag retaliates by shrinking and tipping over and making ominous ripping noises though without any evidence of an actual tear and by growing additional and baffling ties and clips which don't connect to each other and weren't there before.
A sweaty couple of hours later I have just about won my battle with the bag but M's seems to have reproduced and spawned several smaller ones. We decide that's good enough. Life, frankly, is too short.
We have been invited by our new friend, P, to dinner after swing dance which, on a Sunday night, is an open dance on a tiny intimate dance floor in a small but friendly bar called La Habana. As we walk there we feel oddly discombobulated. We are not sure if it has been the right ending to our time in Vietnam. We wonder if we have made the most of it. Have we travelled too slowly? Should we have moved on earlier? Is our last day in Vietnam an anticlimax unworthy of this amazing country? It's the first time on our trip that we have left a country which has been our home for a month and once again we are unsure if we should have done it some other way. If we have matched up to that shadowy 'traveller' image which still haunts us buy refuses to take any discernable shape.
We arrive at the bar and immediately self medicate with beer. The dance floor is packed with far superior dancers and we sit back and let the beer, the music and the dancing wash over us. P, true to form is dancing enthusiastically. Watching her I think how much she and O wear their distinctive personalities in their faces and demeanors. I think how distinctive these two women are in a culture in which, at least until recently, had not valued individualism and which continues to expect submission of its women once they are married. I believe that O and P are part of a new generation which will, at least in the city, bring organic change to this culture. For this they are to be admired, but they are perhaps unlucky. It's hard to be the generation that bridges the gap from old to new. You have to live suspended between a tradition which disapproves of your choices and a brave new world which hasn't been built yet. It's likely that your children, if you have them, will live to experience the world you were hoping for, and that they will never be able to appreciate the weight of sacrifice you made to bring it into existence.
The dancing ends around nine, and the bar had such a nice atmosphere, we stay for dinner. Moving to a small adjoining room we listen to two Filipino musicians who sing a mixture of English and Spanish ballads with a friendly openness, and perfect harmony. I like to think it is neither the beer nor the fact that, aside from two rather disinterested tourists, we are the only audience members, that gives it a sense of intimacy. The musicians smile, meet our eyes, even wink at us. And when we sing along they quickly realise that P can really sing. And I don't just mean carry a tune. They wave her over and, amid much encouragement and whooping (also, it seems, a universal language) she joins them for a number. And another.
"You can sing!" one of the musicians calls over and beckons to me, the performance having become somehow, more of a private party. But I shake my head. I am happy joining in from backstage. I am happy watching P find her courage and her voice, and listening to her low tones and emotional renderings of song after song. I am happy watching how her face is flushed with excitement, how beautiful she looks. I am happy clapping harder and harder each time, swapping smiles with the musicians. I am happy.
I am very happy.
And this is it, I think suddenly, after P returns to her seat and explains the significance of a particular piece of music to her. After we find ourselves sinking easily, naturally into a heart to heart about love and its challenges. I am moved by P's story though will not reproduce it here out of respect to her. Suffice to say that my statement above about sacrifices, and the constraints of a society bound by certain expectations, is hugely relevant to P and O's generation. They are stronger, I suspect, than I could be and their courage to stand alone cannot be easily overstated.
This is it. This is the way we should spend our last day here. This, watching P return to centre stage amid furious applause from her two audience members, is what slow travel is all about. Being in a place long enough to collect people's stories. To understand people's struggles and celebrations. To make friends. To be inspired by others.
This is how you should end your visit. It's not the tourist attractions we're here for. It's the awe inspiring and beautiful people. And later, when we will sit in Chau Doc awaiting our transfer into Cambodia, and reflect on our time on Vietnam, this evening will rank higher than any of the guide book standard listings of Must See venues.
Farewell Vietnam. We leave you with two souvenirs, one gift, and five new friends. Because these things, we really can take with us.
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