Seven Days in July

Returning to Cat Ba is really, really hard. Ultimately a result of little things piling up, it’s the first time I’ve experienced culture shock on any scale since arriving in Southeast Asia.

The spiral begins at 3:00 in the morning in the KL airport. A Vietnamese lady pushing a trolley piled high with bags, three kids in tow, shoves ahead of me in the check-in line. The act highlights the stark difference between general demeanors I’ve encountered from strangers walking the streets of Malaysia and Vietnam. A simple courtesy and willingness to point me in the right direction from Malaysians stands strong against the blatant disregard I tend to receive from Vietnamese. My general invisibility lasts until someone wants something from me, at which point incessant hounding ensues with a selective deafness to the word “NO.”

Upon arrival in Hanoi I hand documents to the officials behind the airport’s visa counter and settle down to wait for my visa to be processed, printed and signed. A wait usually spanning 15 minutes stretches over two hours before I’m even able to step into the day’s hideously long immigration line.

I exit the airport and head toward a platform to catch a public bus into the city. A man shoes me toward a waiting van instead. “You go to hotel? I take you to hotel for five dollars!” A cab would set me back $25, and a bus/motorbike taxi would cost $3.50 with a lot more time and hassle. I bite.

I spend the next 30 minutes crunched into a minivan while our driver nabs more people than the vehicle has seats and crams luggage into every inch of space around us, effectively eliminating any time I might have saved by skipping the public bus.

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The next morning I wake to catch a 5:20 bus, early enough to return to Cat Ba in time for my shift that aftenoon. I wander into the street in search of a motorbike taxi (xe om). A guy calls me over to his bike. “Where you go?” Luong Yen, I tell him. “What?” Luong Yen. Bus station. “Ahhhh, ok, ok, get on.”

I hold back. How much? Fifty thousand dong, he tells me.

Considering it’s still pretty stupid early in the morning I talk him down to 40,000 VND. Price agreed, he drives me 30 seconds’ ride. To a building surrounded by rail tracks. I’m not an idiot, this isn’t Luong Yen Bus Station, and I’m sure as hell not paying 40,000 VND for that. In case you hadn’t noticed, dear sir, this is a train station.

The xe-om driver calls over a guy from across the street. “Where you go?” he asks. Luong Yen Bus Station. The guy turns to my driver. “Luong Yen,” he says. I hear absolutely no difference between what this random Vietnamese guy has just said and the phrase I repeated over 20 times in the last ten minutes. My driver looks at me, throws his hands in the air and begins to curse.

He demands an extra charge when we arrive at the bus station. I hand him 40,000 VND and walk into Luong Yen.

Communication here can be so unbelievably frustrating at times– I learn how to say a word or phrase, spending hours practicing pronunciation. When I try to repeat it in context with a stranger I receive blank, uncomprehending looks. For the most part people simply don’t seem to care that I’ve attempted to learn the language. It’s a “what the hell, you’re an idiot” response that sometimes makes me wonder why I even try. The reaction is worlds away from the cranky ladies in KL bazaars whose entire demeanor changed to surprised smiles tinged with pride when I began throwing out numbers in Malay. (Given, even I was surprised I knew those numbers, but that’s beside the point.)

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The journey to Cat Ba is, as usual, overfilled. As usual, it’s full of people yammering at each other and talking at full-volume into cell phones. And, as usual, women and girls my age rush to cram onto the next bus at transfers, utilizing knockoff handbags to save seats for friends.

What are we, in kindergarten?

I return to a different community than I left. From a company of 15 employees, three have moved on from Cat Ba Island while I was away. Ross, our previous bookings manager whose role I’m now filling, has left with a former staff member and volunteer to travel Vietnam by motorbike before continuing to Australia.

And Liz is gone. Liz, who, during her short tenure on staff, I connected with like two or three other people in my life. Our easy camaraderie drew on parallel personalities and backgrounds coupled with willingness to acknowledge the more negative sides of our human selves to each other, even as together we reveled in shared and individual triumphs.

Liz, whose odd background and perspective, like mine, mixes meandering dirtbag climber with a clear view forward. Liz, who belayed me with the uttermost patient support, my life in her hands as I navigated one of the scariest pitches I remember. Liz, who threw me straight back to high school as we edited each others’ blogs, opening pieces of our souls to each other for commentary. Liz, with whom I shared long and passionate discussions about trust and judgment in climbing and pretty much every other aspect of life, unafraid to stand up for herself or voice her beliefs and stand firmly behind them.

Liz, with whom I sang along to Taylor Swift and traded chick flicks after work, and with whom I shared insecurities and frustrations and failures and triumphs and dreams. Liz’s departure wrenches me harder than anyone who’s come through the island, again demonstrating in stark clarity the transient lifestyle of everyone whose path I cross. Were I too traveling, the situation would feel natural. Instead I feel like I'm trapped in an eddy as I watch travelers come and continue on, leaving me behind over and over and over again.

On top of everything new, I’ve been absolutely stir-crazy since I woke one morning a month ago with a massively swollen elbow after a particularly hairy kayak shift. The slow healing process has kept me off rock and rope since that day and the situation is making me cranky as all getup.

And, I realize, I desperately miss big mountains. The type where you reach the top and look around, and all you see is snow and ice and rock and trees. The Church of Higher Elevation, a good friend called them. I miss letting my soul soar.

I return to work with apathy. I’ve managed to pick up some sort of virus on the bus from Hanoi, sapping any energy I might have retained traveling back from Malaysia. It amplifies everything I feel, leaving me emotionally spent and utterly uncaring, wanting to be somewhere– anywhere– but here. In all honesty I’m ready to call it. My commitment to see the year through currently stands as the only factor holding me in Cat Ba.

I have a long chat with Chris, my manager, a couple days later. It’s more of a monologue on his side, delivered from personal experience with compassion and empathy while I stare at my pillow. Somehow he manages to hit on every crazed and over-exaggerated emotion I’ve felt in the past three days. He points out why we’re here, how I’ve grown and the people I still have. He lays out potential paths moving forward. Most importantly he emphasizes, contract or not, if I truly want to leave he will not keep me here.

I spend the majority of the following hour crying into Chris’s arms.

I wake the next day feeling better about things as a whole, beginning to break down walls I’ve built between myself and my coworkers and the world around me since my return from Malaysia. I find focus in beginning to connect with new staff members and getting my feet back under me, once again picking up agent bookings and contracts and custom trips and inflation rates and projections and everything else that keeps my mind busy.

A week after flying in, I return to Hanoi in higher spirits. I freak out a bit when the driver of my minibus decides on a whim he doesn’t feel like finishing his route, dropping me on the side of a road an hour from the city amongst no one with whom I can communicate. I take a breath and locate a city bus stop, and some time later I arrive at Luong Yen Bus Station once more.