After a buffet
breakfast downstairs in the hotel, we checked out and then hopped
into a taxi to the little beach-side village of Bai Xep. The cab
driver first took us to what we think might have been the adjacent
beach, but when we explained that we were staying at a place called
the Haven, he backed up and drove us a bit further along – and then
dropped us beside the main road, clearly still quite a long way from
the beach and our hotel. We wondered why he didn't take us further
down, but it all became clear when we walked down the hill and into
the village. What looked like a road down quickly turned into a
narrow path that twisted and turned through the heart of the village.
The path gave us a pretty intimate view into the open houses and
little shops that lined the route. We passed people dozing in
hammocks and beds, people watching television on the floor and people
staring curiously at the ot, sweaty white folks struggling under
their heavy backpacks.
Eventually, we
reached the end of the path; the beach and bay ahead of us down some
stairs. To the left was a white gate and through it was our
destination. Passing through the gate we found just what the name
suggested – a cosy little haven with an open-plan communal dining
and reading area, a library and some sun loungers arranged under some
coconut palms. We were greeted by Chris from Mittagong (in the
Southern Highlands in New South Wales – a place where I spent many
a happy childhood winter staying on a friends' mixed cattle and sheep
farm in a draughty one-room shearer's shack with an outside toilet)
and his friend Alex from Wollongong, the Haven's owner. We checked in
and Chris showed us upstairs to our room – a pretty basic affair
with a double bed and a double mattress on the floor for the girls.
We quickly changed
into our swimming costumes and hot-footed it (literally – the sand
was scorching) down to the beach for a swim. Bai Xep is a fishing
village located on a small and very quiet bay. Numerous brightly coloured fishing boats
bob out in the water clear, refreshingly cool water of the bay, and
the beach is relatively clear of litter. For lunch, we ate next door
at Big Tree backpackers, Alex's new venture, and then just lazed
around for a while reading our books/Kindles – the girls lazing
properly in a couple of hammocks.
After a while, we
roused ourselves to take a little walk into the village. When we
first arrived in Bai Xep, we had been so focused on getting to the
hotel that we didn't pay too much attention to our surroundings. But
when we walked back out, we discovered, at the centre of the village,
a well, from which sprouted a series of pumps connected to pipes
connected to the various houses in the village. Sitting around the
well were a few women with an array of fresh(ish) fruit and
vegetables arrayed in front of them, and we found a few bits and
pieces to buy from them.
Later in the
afternoon, we went for another swim a bit further around the bay and
then grabbed a big empty sack that had been washed up on the beach
and filled it with litter on the walk back. Back at the Haven, the
girls played with Skippy the half-tailed cat (many of the cats in
Southeast Asia have a mutation that causes their tails to be
curtailed, often ending with an odd little twist or kink), a little
puppy called Pippa, adopted from a local family across the way, and
two Australian kids, India and Dion. These last two belonged to an
extended family who have been travelling through Cambodia and Vietnam
for some time - Paul and Christine, their daughter, Kylie, her
boyfriend Steve and her two kids – and who stayed at the Haven for
our whole time there. We ate dinner at Big Tree and then stayed up
late talking to Brits Lucy and Sam, who have been riding around
Vietnam for some time on a hired motorbike.
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