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By Root 677 0

in bird’s nest soup as I do in the next Steven Seagal ecothriller. The gunboat thing finally dissuaded them from having me attempt rappelling from any cliffs, but I feared the issue was not yet dead. I did, however, want to see some islands. Linh and his friend Dongh, our driver in Nha Trang, said they knew a place on Hon Mieu, a little fishing village called Ba Mieu, where the seafood is supposed to be spectacular. I put a lot of faith in Dongh’s opinions on food. He is a foodie, and as soon as he’d met me, he’d announced that I was a lucky man, for I was in the best town in the country for food. When we’d eaten dinner the first night, he’d kept pointing out highlights of the meal, asking if I’d noticed the amount of roe practically bursting from the green crabs, the freshness and flavor of the local lobsters, the clear eyes and noble conformation of the whole fish. He’d already fed me really well at a fish joint by the beach, and when Chris had asked about the food at our hotel, he’d rolled his eyes at the ceiling and given a decidedly lukewarm response.

Chris, it appeared, would have been well advised to pay closer attention. I’m surprised Linh is willing to take me here, that he is allowing us to see this – and film it.

As our hired boat approaches the surf off the island of Hon Lon, Dongh calls out to two thin, shabbily dressed men on the beach. A long, narrow launch sets out from shore, straight into the breakers, and eventually pulls alongside. There’s room for only two passengers at a time in the leaky, water-filled launch. Lydia and I clamber in and are ferried to shore, riding the waves the last few yards. Chris is still back at the Bao Dai, probably getting up close and personal with the plumbing. This is a Vietnam I haven’t seen yet.

It’s a hard-packed, finely grained white sand beach around a small cove, strewn with trash, flotsam and jetsam, an absolutely godforsaken strip. A small village lies back among the trees on the muddy banks of what looks like a drainage ditch. Huts, hooches, shacks – as soggy and fragile-looking as you could possibly imagine – sag into unhealthy-looking brown water. There is no sign of electrical power, telephone communication, television, or any modern development dating after the mid-seventeenth century. There are a few bundles of sticks, and a thung chai resting upside down on the sand. I see no signs of life.

Lydia and I are alone on the beach, and I’m thinking about a swim. The surf is high, with a nice shape, the waves breaking far enough out to get a good ride if I want to bodysurf. Suddenly, we’re under attack. Women come running from their huts, holding baskets of cheap seashell jewelry (the same Macao-made stuff you see on every beach in the world). The women are screaming, desperate-sounding, waving babies in front of them, shrieking, ‘Look! Look! Baby! Baby!’ They surround us on all sides, pressing in close, aggressively shaking fistfuls of necklaces and bracelets in front of us. It’s impossible to deter them. I shake my head, saying, ‘No, no . . . thank you . . . no . . .’ again and again, but it’s no use. They’re pushing in, tugging our clothes. I move away, but they follow wherever I go. Lydia looks nervously at the boat, Linh and Dongh still waiting for the launch to return. I make the mistake of buying two pieces, hoping that’ll satisfy the women, but it only makes them more desperate and inflamed. They begin arguing with one another, screaming, shouting, waving their fists. A woman presents me with her baby, a beautiful child with a single gold earring with a tiny gold bell – probably more valuable than the entire village – and begs me to buy a flimsy string of shells. I give in, which causes the others to redouble their frenzied efforts.

‘I have a plan,’ I say to Lydia. I run down to the water’s edge, peel off my clothes, and dive in, then swim as far out as I can. Lydia chooses to remain ashore.

Nice curl on the waves. No reason at all for Charlie not to surf. I’m sure he must – somewhere. Some American soldier must have left an old longboard behind. There