My husband and four of his batch mates from Jabalpur Medical College planned a holiday to Vietnam, with their wives in tow, since all of us are empty nesters now. We have all known each other for many years and having met each other at a wedding recently, we were all geared up for the fun in store.
I am not sure if the men realize how much we women (I was going to write girls but realism took hold) tend to know about them. We have heard so many stories starting from college times-the love triangles, the personality clashes, the college trips going up to politics during reunions that we have our own versions of what happened, when we weren't around and thats because these stories have been repeated over the years bringing as much joy every time; for instance the time the group went to Kashmir.
Two of the guys Ab and B (I think I am beginning to understand why they are friends, names alphabetically similar, roll numbers were close together) are sons of Professors of the same Medical College too and now a lot of them are the elite of Jabalpur and are a support system for our family in Jabalpur.
I have studied in an all girls medical college and when we have get togethers we hardly ever involve spouses! I was inclined to think it was because wives are good at feeling at home in most circumstances unlike the men, who need looking after. This was reiterated by A (a radiologist, who is owner director of a diagnostic centre in Kolkata) who was telling me about his wife's college reunion. D is from Kolkata Medical College (was a a posh K..hal Kaatta then) and the nearly 60 year old boys and girls are going to go on holiday sans spouses. A did not mince words when he said that its better this way because batch mates' husbands tend to feel left out, I am sure he wasn't talking about himself!
Well, five of us wives had so much fun trying to record slow motion reels while sightseeing in beautiful locales that there was no question of any of us feeling left out. There was also D, who had acted like the catalyst whenever the pace of the organization of the trip had stalled. D was the mother hen, during the trip too and would make sure I was part of the reels and photos even when I wanted to stay out considering how megasize I looked, in comparison to the rest and also because I wanted to spend time behind the camera rather than in front.
I thought I was a good photographer until the group of ladies humored me and let me record one of the slow motion (SLO MO) reels. It was D who diagnosed, much to my embarrassment that I had no idea you have hold the button for the whole sequence, unlike when you record a normal video. We all laughed and shared my abysmal efforts on the WhatsApp group. Well at least it was a great ice breaker!
Apart from us five couples, the participant who was responsible for a major chunk of our enjoyment was the box like, blue tooth karaoke speaker with two mikes! We had a lot of singers in the group. B was the Kishore Kumar of the group and his wife S crooned some great ones too in her husky sexy voice which complemented her glamour girl looks and figure. Ab apparently never sang in college but wife N let out that he actually did because he sang for her soon after they got married! So we were still learning stuff about each other. Ab and N were singing like pros too while trouble shooting technical woes (Karaoke songs, phone batteries, charging of speakers...etc etc) It was fun and it usually meant we looked forward to two hour bus journeys!
Vietnam is a country which has recently opened up more to tourism (we now have daily direct flights to Danang, Hoi Chi Minh and Hanoi from New Delhi) and even though one can see the fast pace of development in the cities, people are simple, dextrous, hardworking and unfortunately elderly women and men are earning from manual labour like rowing boats for tourists in Hoi An where they used round cane boats (created to evade tax from French colonisers), bamboo boats in the Mekong delta and at the Hanong bay.
Having been a French colony, people are not comfortable with English. The Vietnamese language is actually a Austroasiatic language which was originally written in a script which involved Chinese characters but has been adopted during French rule to be written in Latin script.
This meant we had to concentrate and sometimes struggled to understand the tourist guides. However our most popular, spontaneous, animated guide at Hanoi, Tai was great at his job. He took feedback from us regarding what we would like, modified times according to our needs like extra time for shopping and bargaining and went the extra mile for us even while being very thorough in insisting to see the tickets for flight timings!
We landed in Danang and stayed in one of the prettiest cities, Hoi An. Since it was the first stop we thought we will wait and buy one of the beautiful lamps in the bigger cities but we didn't find the colours, shapes and varieties later. The other problem was the currency- Vietnamese Dong is a hugely undervalued currency. So trying to get our heads around prices was difficult. Everything even 100 grams of fruits cost 20,000 Dong!
We started shopping when the smart local ladies in the Mekong delta tour started telling us the cost of the hand embroidered bags and other textiles, handicrafts in Rupees. Once we realized how cheap Vietnam was, there was no looking back. This trend reached a peak in Hanoi where we negotiated good bargains and the locals accepted cash in Rupees! We were taken to a Bamboo fibre place which was selling beautiful things and while we made Tai reassure us, that there will be no compulsion to buy ,we ended up buying loads. Similar thing happened at a place which showcased the process as well as the hand made paintings from sea shells and egg shells on wood.
Another thing which was cheap and which we ended up getting nearly every day was massages! People seemed to know exactly what to do to make you relax and enjoy and would want to know if you were coming back!
The cruise at Hanong Bay (area comprising nearly 2000 islands) was in a ship with two groups of six Indians and most importantly a group of single Indian women, twelve in number, with a man tour manager who could be heard shouting in the dining hall- "who had two vodkas/three beers?" When we were asked if there were any smokers in the group of 35 people on the boat/ship, the hands of few women from that group went up. Our husbands suddenly felt they were on a college trip and had encountered a group of similar age girls on the cruise! B in particular was belting out melodious Bollywood numbers from the time we got on to the motor boat which was taking us to the big boat. He was also impressive with "Baar Baar din ye Aaye!" in the dining Hall when we found the group of some very beautiful young girls singing the birthday song for one of their own.
Vietnam was destroyed during the American war and we went to the Chu Chi Tunnels, a 121km complex of underground tunnels with traps which was responsible for the Vietnamese winning the war and Americans losing domestic support for it. People are very emotional about this and this is one place where there is a blatantly Anti American documentary playing at the start of the tour. I wish people would pay heed and not continue to create similar situations elsewhere in the world.
Everyone talks about the food in Vietnam. Some believe its very good, some are afraid you might be fed snakes but the usual problem for a group of Indians traveling together is - "Three eat chicken, mutton, fish, three eat only cheese and vegetables, seven eat eggs, five eat fish....." Like our Team Leader Ab admonished B- "You cannot tell them dietary requirements of 18 people for a group of ten!"
The vegetarians had carried a lot of reserve food- parathas, theplas, sweets etc and they were a grumpy lot when faced with vegetable soups and salads (noodles and sticky rice was a saviour). The non vegetarians were grumpy because the portions and servings were less as seven of us had been deemed vegetarians (I was the disruptive person who wanted to have the fish and egg but wouldn't have chicken) and this was a subsidized group tour. On retrospect and since Vietnam is cheap, may be we should have not had meals included in the package. The reserve food was devoured eagerly the days we were on the bus during meal times. Both N and Anu who are post holders in the Jabalpur Obs Gynae Society were the providers and Anu was aptly named Annapoorna!
BK and Anu have a hospital and a farm house in and around Jabalpur, but the interesting conversations we heard about, were the ones Anu had with her rather large dog! BK sounded jealous when she told us the dog refuses to eat if she comes home late, unless she tells him in the morning that she is going to be late! Anu's innocence was endearing as was D's struggle while trying to understand jokes and conversations in Hindi!
BK Sir was our Guruji, encouraged us to listen and open up in conversation. With the singers vying for the mikes, it was an important and welcome break which helped us find out funny and not so funny things about each other.
We are all suffering from a hangover after so much fun in such a short space of time. The friend whose daughter's wedding we met at and who did not come along, as he had been to Vietnam before; has already put in his OK for the next trip, whenever it may be! Until then Folks!
