Exploring Quy Nhon

We found the cutest little Catholic village just outisde Quy Nhon.

Saint Francis of Assisi was there, as was a statue of a famous Vietnamese poet* and an assortment of cherubs and avenging angels.

Small neat houses lined the street. Behind the village was the beach, where crab fishermen were mending their nets.

Darling Man hunkered down to chat to the fisherman, who specialises in catching ghẹ (flower crab). Miss M and I wandered down to investigate the beach, which was full of parked basket boats. The ocean behind was full of blue fishing boats with painted-on eyes.

After the flatness and city-ness of Ho Chi Minh City, 14 hours south on the train, the mist-covered mountains overlooking the bay were a soothing sight for my eyes. And my soul.

We are here to explore. I am exploring my adopted home. Darling Man is exploring his birthplace. And Miss M is coming along for the ride. She is excited about sleeping on trains and putting her feet in the sea. Darling Man and I are excited about the food we’re going to find. Vietnam has so many regional specialties that not even well-versed Vietnamese foodies like Darling Man are aware of them all.

So here we are, on a rented motorbike, on the other side of the mountain from the main part of Quy Nhon. Exploring.

I love the fact that we can just get on a motorbike and head off into the unknown. Darling Man speaks Vietnamese and so it doesn’t matter that we don’t have a map. Our family looks odd piled onto a motorbike — large white me on the back, handsome Darling Man in the middle and cute-as-a-button Miss M perched up at the front. Vietnamese people are friendly anyway. But when faced with such a strange-looking bunch on a motorbike, they take a little bit of extra time to chat.

And so, wet and tired after our beachy investigations, we head back to our hotel. I ask Darling Man to find out the name of this neat and tidy Catholic village … or a local restaurant. I’m not fussy.

We drive around a bit. No luck on the restaurant.

We notice there are an inordinate number of people in push-wheelchairs chatting in the park-like area in the middle of town.

There are also baskets beside the road containing the cutest little ducklings.

Darling Man pulls his motorbike over in front of an older man wearing pale blue pyjamas and a brown trilby. He’s carrying a bucket in one hand. Darling Man asks directions back to Quy Nhon … and the name of the village.

The pyjama man, who has a kindly lined face, waves his arm around behind him, indicating Quy Nhon is back over the eucalypt-scented mountain. Then he says the name of the village and holds up his right hand. He has no fingers, only stumps. Darling Man and I say “ahhh” at the same time. Darling Man took a few moments to process pyjama-man’s central Vietnamese accent and I took a few moments to remember a mention of a leprosy hospital I’d read about near Quy Nhon.

We were in Qui Hoa.

In halting Vietnamese, I asked pyjama-man if he was healthy now. He smiled a lovely smile and said yes.

* There is now some debate about whether the statue we saw was of a famous Vietnamese poet or Gerhard Hansen, the Norwegen dude who discovered the leprosy bacteria in 1873.

By: Barbara

A career girl who dropped out, traveled, found love, and never got around to going home again. Now wrangling a cross-cultural relationship and two third culture kids.