Not only an alliteration, but a surprisingly authentic experience.
Mark and I were more than a little sceptical, on our arrival in Sapa (the mountainous town right in the north of Vietnam) to go on a hillside village tour. It just seemed too touristy, too much like going to look at humans in a zoo, you know? Nobody in South Africa can go to a real working village (as far as I know), and the whole thing made me feel a little uncomfortable.
But then we saw a really interesting photographic exhibition, where they gave young girls from the local H’mong (the biggest tribe) cameras for a month, and then published the photos as an exhibition… Fascinating! Scenes from their home, work, friend and family life, and it made us want to find out more. So we signed up for a full-day tour, entirely unsure what to expect.
What we got was a 12km (at least!) hike through some completely unspoilt countryside. We were lucky enough to have booked through the Tourism Office, not a tour company, and as a result our group of six headed off on a different route, far away from the madding crowds. It took us a while to clear the crowds, though, and I could see how a whole day of that would drive me mad.
For the next four hours, we walked up and down narrow rocky paths that led to and through three different villages, over rivers, through rice paddies (literally through – I have the muddy shoes to prove it!) and alongside some truly spectacular views (take a look by checking out our Best Moment of the Day from that day). Extraordinary stuff. Our guide was a local Vietnamese man born and raised in Sapa, and could answer all our questions about the area (we had a whole heap of questions because the day before we’d gone on a shorter – although still strenuous – hike to a different village and a waterfall, and hadn’t been able to answer any of our ‘I wonder why?’ musings). To accompany our guide, six H’mong women tagged along, equipped with large baskets on their backs. Baskets full of things to sell. We were a little wary at first, but our guide assured us they would try to sell to us at lunch and if we weren’t interested it was no big deal.
I believed him.
For the next four hours we chatted to the ladies about everything from marriage to kids to daily life to the surrounding landscape, and they wove us small trinkets from ferns – hearts, horses and a crown of ferns for lucky old me! I felt like a fairy princess. The walk was hectic but fun, it felt like we were really getting into the heart of the stunning scenes we’d been looking at for the past few days.
And then we hit lunch. And a horde of about twenty women started hard selling us their wares. Our formerly friendly, very chilled walking buddies suddenly switched on a flood of guilt tripping, crowding us as we sat down to lunch and pushing their items into our faces. I totally understand that selling is necessary, especially after they’ve spent hours walking with us (we didn’t ask them to, but it was a treat). However, Mark and I have a strict souvenir buying policy (we don’t buy anything. If we’re ever tempted it has to be TINY, and all their goods were pillow cases and shirts and tablecloths. No good). Eventually we ended up ‘tipping’ the lady that had accompanied us, and we all parted ways with a bad taste in our mouths.
The problem, as I see it, is that the situation has been blown out of proportion. Five sellers to six tourists is not good maths. Not at all. I think what happened is that a random seller chanced upon this being a good way to sell (through personal connection) and now far too many people have cottoned on, and shrunk all the potential out of it. It’s a pity, really, because until that point we’d really enjoyed the tour.
After lunch we walked for another hour or so, and then collapsed (quite literally). Five hours is a lot of walking!
Diabetically, I was fine. I took very little insulin at breakfast and went high two hours afterwards (the usual testing time) but seeing as I still had another 2 hours of hardcore hiking to do, I let it slide. I tested again before lunch and I was totally fine, and then took slightly less insulin for the rest of the day, knowing the impact it would have on my blood sugar. I still ended up waking at 5am with low blood sugar (I thought I would), but seeing as we did all of nothing the next day, that was quite all right!
Well, not quite nothing… We looked at some beautiful gardens up in the mountains, had a good old-fashioned sleep in, and left Sapa for Lao Cai, and then the overnight train to Hanoi. And then! One of the ultimate highlights of our trip. I’ll tell you allll about it tomorrow, I promise.
One of the things I love most about travelling is the potential for surprising nuggets of inspiration that pop up out of the blue.
Like this Confucius Cup that we found in the oldest house in Hoi An (our favourite place in Vietnam so far)…
The cup has a hole in the bottom of it, but if it is only filled 80%, you can drink out of it no problem – it doesn’t leak out of the bottom. If it’s filled 100%, however, the liquid drains out of the hole in the bottom. The lesson? Don’t be greedy and take more than you need. Ha!
Wouldn’t you love a cup like this? (Apparently it’s the last one in Vietnam – take a look at it below)…
So if you’ve taken a look at our latest video diary, you’ll know that I was feeling rather stressed about the hectic amount of travelling we had to do this week…
From Hue, in central Vietnam, we took an overnight bus to Hanoi (about 16 hours on a bus with ’sleepers’ that lay back at a comfortable enough angle, but were created with short Vietnamese in mind, so didn’t let you stretch your legs out. Ouch.) When we arrived at 6am, we dumped our bags and then wandered around the city allll day, a day spent getting our bearings, picknicking by the lake, going to the market to buy scarves and a warm hat for the suddenly cold weather and, oh yes, buying train tickets. Because that night we were heading for Lao Cai, in the North, arriving at 5.30am, and then catching a bus to Sapa, an hour away.
Phew.
Now, before we left, I was rather worried about this whole trek. Not only because it seemed exhausting from the starting point, but because I wasn’t sure where we would get food, and how my diabetes would react to all the moving and lack of sleep, and if it would all piece together smoothly enough. Turns out, it wasn’t as bad as I had anticipated. Our bus and train both left and arrived on time, and finding food was (obviously) no problem at all. The only problem, in fact, was how exhausted we were, and the resulting sense of humour failure. Walking around a foreign city filled with honking motorbikes and cars and people people people is exhilarating when you’re feeling fresh and energetic (as we were at the beginning of the day, relieved to be out of the bus!), but at the end of a long day of getting lost and found, and not having a place to call ‘home’, it’s simply infuriating. Especially when as you’re trying to navigate the hordes of motor vehicles, people are approaching you on all sides asking you to buy things. Grrrr!
Still, at least this was a once-off for us. We met a couple on the train who have been travelling at this pace for the last month and a half, and another couple last week who spend only ONE NIGHT in each place they visit. Lord Above, if that was us I would be completely exhausted. And they seemed to be, actually. Turns out travelling is a lot less fun when you’re really tired.
I am so grateful we get to take it easy! I think that’s why this trip so far has been such a joy, and why we still have so much energy to keep going – we’re very careful to conserve our energy and sleep enough and eat really well. As soon as we arrived in Sapa, actually, we took straight to our bed (a deliciously warm, electric-blanket-heated wonder with bouncy pillows and a warm duvet. Heaven!) Since then we’ve been wandering around the town and surrounding mountains… But more on that tomorrow!
It happens, I think, when you’re travelling this much.
Here’s our latest video diary to find out what’s raising my blood pressure (but hopefully not my blood sugar!)
I realised today that I usually only blog when things ‘happen’ – not when everything is going smoothly.
So today I would like to say: I am one happy diabetic. I have had pretty much perfect blood sugar for the last couple of days (really, no highs, no lows, just an even keel) and I feel really healthy and well. I’ve got lots of energy, I’m sleeping really well, I’m eating as well as I can (although we’re battling, again, to find another with even a semblance of wholewheat in it!) and I’ve had a couple of days of ‘forgetting’ I’m diabetic. Of course I don’t ever really forget I’m diabetic, but some days it’s so easy that it doesn’t seem like a big deal.
I love these days.
I think part of the reason my blood sugar has been behaving itself so well is because the weather has changed. Does that sound crazy? I don’t think it is… A couple of diabetics I know have said they notice a link between hot weather and topsy-turvy blood sugar readings, and I think I agree with them. Just think about how you feel when it’s hot outside (I mean really hot, midsummer heat wave hot, as it has been the last few weeks). Sweaty, tired, thirsty – it must have an effect on blood sugar.
Midway through our stay in Hoi An the weather shifted from unbearably hot (unable to go out between 11am and 3pm hot) to cool and drizzly. Lovely! And now we’re in Hue, 3 hours further North, and it is COLD. Wintry! Amazing. I didn’t think it was possible. I’m enjoying it today, because I’m indoors and it’s cosy and warm. Yesterday, though, wandering the streets of Hue and trudging over the Perfume River, I was not such a happy chappy…
(I think this is my sarkiest Best Moment of the Day ever!)
PS – If you’re looking for an easy way to look at all of our videos, I’m very happy to say we’re now to be found on ICYOU (Intensive Content for your Health) – a health video website. Check it out here!
So as I mentioned the other day, we’re in Hoi An in Vietnam, city of temptation.
Mark and I have been angelic in our refusal to buy anything (anything at all!) since we left home at the beginning of September, but the combination of extremely reasonable and hand-tailored clothing was too much to resist, so we each bought a coat. And decided to model them for you…
Here’s Mark:
And here’s me:
And then, of course, I couldn’t resist a pair of handmade (extremely cheap) shoes, especially when they were not only GREEN but also with HEARTS! Heavenly.
Did I mention the HEARTS?
So we’re feeling extremely happy and fulfilled by our little shopping spree…. The retail therapy worked!
That’s a little of what our last couple of days in Vietnam have been like…
We’re in Hoi An, or, as I like to call it, Temptation Central. There are tailors everywhere - amazingly talented seamstresses who can whip up any item of clothing your heart desires in a couple of hours, for about an eighth of what you’d pay for it at home… Mark and I haven’t bought anything on this trip so far – one top for me, two shirts for him, that’s about it. But we succumbed to temptation here in Hoi An, and we’ve both had coats tailored. I’ll post photos later, they’re just being finished off at the moment. It is so thrilling to have something made to order! It’s my first time.
Not only is Hoi An full of clothing shops, it’s also full of shoe shops – heavenly meccas where they measure your foot and make you a pair of shoes. As in, handmade! For less than $15. I ask you! How can we resist? Well, girl shoes are that cheap – men’s shoes are more expensive. So I’ve had a whimsical pair made – picking them up this afternoon. I’ll post a pic, don’t you worry!
Hoi An is also the land of incredible food. We have eaten so well here the last couple of days. They have a whole heap of local delicacies, including wonton soup (so tasty), fried wontons (yum), cao lau (a sort of noodle soup, delicious!) and white roses, which are the least tasty but the prettiest of the lot. You can also make your own fresh spring rolls. YUM.
So we’ve been eating, shopping, and wandering around what is without doubt one of the prettiest towns we’ve seen on our travels. Set on the banks of a river, the ancient town is a World Heritage site, so all the old shop houses are in their original condition, and there are loads of lanterns hung all around, and classical music piped into the streets every morning. Lovely!
Which was why it was such a surprise to see these poor dogs dressed up like clowns this morning…
So I might think I’m a pretty savvy diabetic traveller after having tackled Malawi, Swaziland, the USA, Canada, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, but that’s nothing in comparison to Alex Williams, a type 1 diabetic from Australia who has zigzagged all over the globe, and is planning to walk across the Sahara desert next year in the Marathon des Sables. Pretty impressive stuff.
Here’s what Alex has to say about travelling with diabetes…
1. Hello! Please could you introduce yourself – name, age, how long you’ve been diabetic?
Hi. My name is Alex Williams. I’m 52 years old and have lived with type 1 diabetes for 36 years.
2. Where have you traveled?
I’ve travelled all over the south east coast of Australia, from as far north as Townsville all the way down and around to Adelaide. I can put my hand on my heart and say that I’ve probably driven on every stretch of highway in the state of Victoria. I started travelling the minute I got my driver’s license at 18 and haven’t stopped since.
My international travel started 25 years ago when my soon-to-be wife took me to “meet the family” in New Zealand. I was blown away by the beauty of the North Island and caught the travel bug there and then. But how do you describe to someone who has never done it, the adventure and curiosity of seeing an airport in another country, and then the strangeness as you drive through the city for the first time?
I’ve been back to New Zealand once since then, but as we were staying with family, there wasn’t a lot of diabetes adventure involved.
Fifteen years ago I got a job in Saudi Arabia. I travelled there on my own for the first trip and shared a flat with another westerner for 12 months. Then my wife and children were able to come over to join me in Riyadh, where we lived for the next 4 years. Each year we would do an international trip somewhere. Sometimes it was back to Australia to visit with family in both Brisbane and Melbourne, and sometimes it was elsewhere. During this time we did a 4 week driving tour around Great Britain in a Kombi Campervan, driving almost as far north as John O’Groats and south to Southampton. We spent a week in London just enjoying the history, the culture and the sheer joy of being there. http://www.geocities.com/alex_of_oz/Saudi_pages/Pommy_trip.html
During this time we also did a 5 week driving trip around Western Europe, flying from Riyadh to Paris via Jeddah and then driving from Paris to Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland and then back to Paris. We stayed in Paris for a couple of days, and then caught the overnight train to Rome, where we stayed for a week of walking. Many interesting things happened including nearly getting arrested in Rome. http://www.geocities.com/alex_of_oz/Saudi_pages/Europe_99.html
I also managed to squeeze in another trip from Riyadh to Glasgow, this time for business. The interesting thing about this trip was that the night that I was flying into London before swapping to the plane for Glasgow, was also the night that Princess Diana died in Paris. My whole trip to Glasgow was over-shadowed by Diana’s death. I caught the train from Glasgow to London on the day of Diana’s funeral. That was an experience that I will never forget. The flowers arranged around the gate to St James Palace were truly incredible.
Travel took a back seat for a few years until about 2005, when I travelled to Bangalore in India for four and half months. This was a business trip in which I was meant to train them up so they could take my job. I still have my job. This was also the first time I had travelled in a third world country, so the food, hygiene and medical side of things were interesting. All went well with few dramas. While there I wrote a number of stories, with one focusing pretty much on my being diabetic – http://www.geocities.com/alex_of_oz/Bangalore_stories/Missive_8.html
There is another story that talks about the time we were travelling between cities and I started to have a hypo. That can be found in the India stories here – http://www.geocities.com/alex_of_oz/Story_index.html
The last trip I did, which was 3 years ago, was a 4 week trip back to Bangalore. This time the food caused me some difficulty because I was staying in a serviced apartment where I was reliant on other people providing and cooking the food. You don’t realize how reliant we become on our “western” time schedule until you are living in a third would country where time is much more flexible.
3. What was the most difficult thing about traveling with diabetes?
For me, the most difficult thing about travelling with diabetes is keeping track of where there is a reliable source of food, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For example, lying down on the public seating benches at Rome airport to stay until the first plane left in the morning, only to discover with 2 minutes to spare that the food shop that we can see just across the walkway is not staying open all night as expected, but is about to close and won’t open again until the plane is airborne. And guess what? I don’t have any emergency food in my bags.
Another difficulty is the effect that the jetlag, time differences and physical and emotional stress has on the sugar levels. There is an underlying constant awareness that the sugar level can plummet at any moment, which is especially stressing when travelling by yourself. This happened to me while in a hotel in transit in Bahrain; the sugar plummeted and it took me 2 or 3 or 4 hours (see what I mean) to get it back. However that was not in time to catch the airport shuttle bus!
4. How prepared were you before you left?
I believe I have experienced most things a diabetic can experience while travelling, and learned from the experience. Yes, I have woken up in intensive care in hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia after having a massive hypo. I needed to go under a general anesthetic so they could put my arm back in place. I had managed to dislocate my shoulder while having a fit in the hypo.
I have found myself without food, and learned from the experience. I have found myself with nowhere clean to have my injection, and learned from the experience. I have been challenged by the customs officers in Jeddah airport when they saw my injection kit, only to be deflated when I told them “Sucre dam”, which means “sugar blood” in Arabic, which is their way of referring to diabetes. I learned from the experience.
And I’m sure I will learn more when I travel to Morocco and walk across the Sahara desert.
5. Do you have any hints or tips for diabetics who want to travel?
Always carry a doctor’s letter
Always carry extra insulin and equipment
Always have emergency food with you that is robust
Always know where food can be obtained
Write lots of lists, to reduce the stress level and therefore the hit on sugar levels
Always pack your medical kit and emergency food in your carry on luggage
Maintain 2 medical kits; one for your carry on luggage and one for your suitcase
So long as you plan properly, there is no reason why you can’t travel
Yip, it had to happen. Two and a half months in, and although I’ve had disheartened days and sad days and bad diabetes days, I hadn’t had a freak out, till this morning.
Let me set the scene…
The last couple of days have been really interesting – we left the chaos and colour of Ho Chi Minh City on a late-night (11pm) overnight train to Danang, which was actually a lot of fun. We chose the soft-sleeper option, a four-bed sleeping compartment which we shared with two older American guys, who left at 5.30am so we had the whole cabin to ourselves for the rest of the day. Lovely! We could have flown for almost the same price, but we wanted to see some of the countryside, and I’m so glad we did…. It was stunning. Loads of rice paddies and local farmers and gorgeous scenery. I loved it (and just realised that I was so busy videoing it that I didn’t take any photos! How foolish of me). We arrived in Danang in the late afternoon, and headed to a beachside hostel that came highly recommended.
Not really our usual cup of tea – very basic accommodation and without doubt the hardest beds and worst water pressure we’ve had in any place so far – but we were won over by all the reviews of the lovely owners and the communal dinners. The dinners were fabulous, everyone heads down to the dining room and the family brings out big plates of food to share – incredible baby spring rolls, fresh grilled fish, tofu, a chicken dish, piles of vegetables, rice and noodles. YUM. What’s even better, though, is that because you’re all sitting at a communal table, it’s impossible not to start chatting, and make friends. It’s funny, most of the time I don’t really notice the absence of friends, but any time I do we meet some lovely people and make new ones – I suppose it’s one of the rhythms of travelling.
Anyway! To cut a long story short – we had a lovely two days in Danang, wandering around the town, swimming in the sea, and eating delicious communal dinners. Our room didn’t have a mini bar fridge (as most of our rooms do), so when we arrived I asked the lady at the front desk to put my bag of insulin in the fridge – and pointed at a fridge in the room. She nodded and said, “Fridge, yes, fridge, no problem,” then took my insulin off to another room – which they often do, to take it to a fridge with more space.
No problem! I thought, and sat down to dinner.
This morning, when we checked out, I asked for my insulin, and she went over to the safe, which was a cupboard, and took out the bag of insulin. So it had been sitting – unrefrigerated! – since we arrived two days before. Not only that, the room it was in wasn’t even air conditioned (as our bedroom was), so it had been sitting at room temperature or higher for two days.
I lost it. For two and a half months I’ve been carrying around this precious bag of medicine, making sure it’s kept safe and cold every time we stop anywhere, and now, because of a miscommunication and me believing that when a word was repeated back at me it meant that word was understood, it had all been put in jeopardy. I burst into tears, and it took me a loooong time to calm down.
I’m feeling better now, obviously, but I have yet to test out the insulin to find out if it’s okay… We’re about to go out for dinner now and I’m going to test it then. Please say many prayers to any god you know that it is, or I’m going to have to stock up from a doctor in town, and there goes any budget we have.
Ironically enough, yesterday was World Diabetes Day (we didn’t have internet, so I couldn’t blog), and this morning – before the drama – I was planning a blog post on why I’m grateful for diabetes. That will come soon, I promise!
This is how our last week and a bit in Vietnam has been (this was actually ready on the weekend, but internet has been a bit sketchy so could only get it up and running now!)
An honest take on how it’s really going…
Enjoy!
(Here’s the link if you’d rather watch it later.)
