Putting the boys first in Mui Ne
By Lonneke — January 21, 2016 07:52 am
After being such good sports for so many months, we felt it was time to do something for our boys.
This journey is no holiday for them, rather the opposite: they do have to sit in busses for days on end (I always carry an empty waterbottle with me in case one of them needs to go too badly), but don't get the reward of going to an amusement park or something like that. Instead they have to get used to new surroundings, unpack their bags at least partially to get their schoolwork out and make a home of a new white-walled room. And they never complain about it, not once. Even scooterdrives couldn't entice them anymore, it was just another thing on their to-do list, because their parents feel the need to see the area. Sure, once they climb to another waterfall, they like it, presumably mostly because they are finally able to simply move again, after being confined in small rooms most of the time.
Since we're raising the boys hardcore old skool (or totally average if you're born 35 years ago), they have no phones, PSP, or whatever they're called. Before we ventured off on this trip we downloaded some movies onto the laptop, but just for special occasions, such as three days of non-stop travelling in a row, it being Christmas, or when we're stuck in an ugly town where there's nothing to do and all the motorbikes are rented out already. We carry an iPad with us and when I don't occupy the thing to write, read (novels as well as travelguides) or post, they sometimes get lucky and are allowed to play a game of chess or checkers on it. Regularly they can read one of the hundreds of comic books on it.
At home, on our beautiful island Texel in The Netherlands, they are used to huge amounts of physical exercise each day. They can come and go whenever and wherever they like, and they do, running all the way.
This had become somewhat of a concern to us, the lack of freedom for running, playing. It had been a while since we were at the sea, which was always perfect for them: jumping waves and swimming, so they can express their zest for life. Usually we'd try to alternate cities or rural surroundings with the beach often, but since entering Vietnam we stayed in towns and the Mekong Delta. We tried our best, looked up parks in cities, where we would 'walk them', but this wasn't sufficient, not by a long shot. Whenever we had a place where they could go outside, there would be dogs, and the stray dog packs in Sri Lanka and India did not help them to build a healthy relation with these animals. In cities it's definitely no option to let them go out by themselves, with hundreds of scooters racing by each second, even on the pavements.
Sometimes it's hard to be not only parents to them, but to be their whole world, where at home they have a whole environment that chips in: school with teachers and other children, grandparents, neighbours, sports clubs, music teachers and all other things and beings that surround your children and are the make-up of their universe, and teach, inspire, correct, love and influence them. Fortunately they can be each others playmates, so the chopsticks are a magic wand one moment (Harry Potter), an arrow the next (Brotherband) and a lightsaber in the end (Star Wars). Reading a lot to them gave them shared obsessions.
We provide a feeling of home for them by maintaining the same rituals as we have at home, especially when putting them to bed.
Anyway, we decided it was high time to spoil them a bit, so we booked a hotel with pool (we never book up front, but we wanted to make sure there would be room). Arriving at Mui Ne Hills, climbing the dune it's located on, as the name suggests, the staff had a nice surprise for us: we got an upgrade into a luxurious room with two large beds and even a rain-shower. The boys went wild, claiming this was the most beautiful place we'd ever been and we quickly changed into our swimming costumes to check out the two pools. From that moment on we were at the back pool, where you could dive and jump and the name of their game was 'retrieve the pebbles'; throwing the smooth stones that laid around the pool into the water and then dive in to fetch them. There were some other Dutch guests, and especially the youngest one couldn't contain himself and conversed with them like it was his job: are you Dutch? Can you tell me how Darth Vader dies, my brothers won't tell me.
Being around other Dutch speaking people required some adjustments, we had become so used to the fact that no one could understand us, that we would freely discuss everything: the height of locals (look, she's even shorter than I am! And she really is an adult!), what other people are eating and whether or not we'd fancy a bite, all the people that died and the specifics about their deaths, and full reviews of every visit to the toilet. Now we tried our best to act like civil humans, and talk about suitable topics.
After three days of refreshing dives, snacking poolside, listening to lounge music, countless front crawl competitions and not one trip (not even to the white and red dunes, or that gorgeous road to a lighthouse, we sacrificed these, and it wasn't even difficult), we're rid of our guilty feelings towards our boys, at least for a while.
