The wind has gone for good in Mui Ne. The full moon shines on the mirror-smooth sea. Once the wind is gone, the mosquitoes come. I haven’t even used a bottle of mosquito repellent in a year of travelling the world. I put up with swarms in the jungle of Fiji without a murmur. But the last night in Mui Ne is madness.

I watch a film and try to ignore the five mosquitoes on my arm. After that, the bites become murderous. I go to the wax bar three more times in the hope that the mosquitoes will eventually go to sleep. Rest wrapped in a sheet in a hammock on the beach. Mosquitoes bite through. 187 bites later, I wake the boss at three and organise a mosquito net. (more…)

What is it in Vietnam now? Communism is written all over the place, but it’s nowhere to be found. Uncle Ho Chin Minh is still God, but his sheep value money far more than a sense of community. Everyone fights for themselves. The democratic military dictatorship in Fiji was much more communist. Vietnam is real capitalism with an asterisk.

There are only two reasons why Vietnam remains officially communist: firstly, there is a better way to justify the expensive visas. Secondly, the Soviet stars make a good souvenir. Otherwise, only Quicksilver copies would remain. All Vietnamese run around with them today, the red stars are totally out of fashion for them. (more…)

Just 50km south of Hoi An there is another world heritage site: My Son, an ancient Hindu cult centre of the Chumpa kingdom. Built between the 3rd and 15th centuries, the Chumpa developed masterly skills in mortarless brick construction. Some of the old temples still stand today.

in 1968, the Vietcong had a base here. The resulting US bombings took out 8 towers. Today – more or less – 20 tower temples still stand in an idyllic rainforest valley. Grass grows on the bricks. Old and new, it really smells of history here. UNESCO, I apologise for the mistake with Hoi An. (more…)

Everyone has to go to Hoi An. An old town, a historic ensemble, carefully renovated. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and proclaimed the highlight of every visit to Vietnam by every travel guide without exception. Today I arrive in Hoi An and need a whole two hours to develop a completely different opinion: Hoi An is the most pathetic world heritage site I have ever visited.

Just counted: I’ve visited 18 UNESCO sites so far on this trip around the world. Since last year, my home town of Regensburg has also been a World Heritage Site. The sites are selected on the basis of their outstanding historical significance in conjunction with actual history. That’s exactly why I’m shouting to the world: Forget Hoi An! (more…)

My landlady organises a Xe Om for me in the morning to the Bach Ma National Park, 40 km away. The French feudal lords built almost 150 villas here within 10 years from 1932 as a summer retreat in the mountains. Just 20 kilometres from the sea, the peaks rise up to 1500 metres. Steep mountains, green rainforest, shrouded in high clouds.

Entry is almost free. But I have problems getting to the summit. There are two options: walk 16km through tropical rainforests in the midday heat, or try the national park minibus. 20 euros for 9 people. But Bach Ma is quite unknown, and it’s low season: I am officially confirmed as the only guest in the 22,000 hectare national park. (more…)

I’m going to treat myself. A whole penthouse dorm on the fourth floor with a view over the old royal city of Hue. For me alone. I just about have the four euros a day. You can get some WiFi at the top, I work the whole first day. There are good restaurants, I try far too many. In the evening I’m almost too stupid to work with a bloated stomach. The DMZ bar is buzzing, but I get tired quickly.

In the morning, I set off for the old royal palace. The Vietnamese rulers of the Nguyen dynasty reigned here from 1805 to 1945. Hue is a citadel. High walls and a moat surround the city. The palace is a citadel within the citadel. At the very centre is the sanctuary: the innermost citadel housed the royal concubines. (more…)

At six in the morning, we set off on the bus to Dong Ha, the last major town before the Demilitarised Zone. We want to spend a whole day visiting the former border between North and South Vietnam and some of the worst battlefields of the war. Two hours later we are in Dong Ha, 30 minutes later I have a room, breakfast, a motorbike and Jörg has his evening ticket to Hanoi.

We don’t want to travel in a group, so we treat ourselves to a private guide for $15 a day. Quang is 50 and has lived through the war. Hopes were high, but before we see the first tank he tells us stories of glorious Vietcong concubines killing GIs. That may have been the case, but he puts it all across quite comically. (more…)

We take a taxi in the rain to Phan Thiet railway station, 30 kilometres away. Jörg has bought his ticket separately and we have different compartments. The journey takes us through endless rice fields. Last night was short, we were well rested. I fall asleep quickly. But not for long.

There are a whopping 9 people in my six-person compartment. One is a baby in a swing in the centre. It cries almost the whole night. That’s not so great, but what’s really cool is the young, overburdened mother. She keeps nagging the baby loudly. The apathetic young dad plays the Vietnamese hit parade up and down on his Sony mobile phone in the corner. I can’t get no sleep. (more…)

The wind has been blowing all week. I’m starting to believe that my “wherever you are, the wind should be gone” curse has also been blown away. I can’t remember being on the water for at least two hours a day for a whole week in 10 years of kiting. But that’s exactly what Mui Ne is.

I could really grow old here. Designing a few homepages on a deckchair on the beach in the morning. A few hours of kitesurfing in the afternoon. Go out for a good meal in the evening. Then a beer in the Wax Bar next door. A film to fall asleep to and off to bed. If this is what regularity looks like, I would probably never get bored of it. (more…)

The days follow a fixed rhythm. Get up late in the morning, walk 20 metres to the beach and keep your nose to the wind. Breakfast and hijack the neighbour’s WiFi. Two hours of work, nose into the wind again. Set up the kite, talk shop and head out onto the water. Today, the wind was really blowing for the first time. And Windfinder reckons there’s more to come.

My kite was always a little underpowered. Today everything fits from two o’clock. I’m hanging comfortably in the harness, don’t have to pull anything, just let myself drift. The waves outside are up to 1.5 metres high because of the wind. It’s also quite gusty, I have my problems with the ups and downs out at sea. There’s a lot to learn from cruising alone. (more…)

After almost 10 weeks and three countries in the doldrums, I finally get to kitesurf in Vietnam again. Windfinder predicted good wind from Sunday and was right. We came back at exactly the right time. My three friends can do their kitesurfing course and I’m finally happy again without too much effort.

There were heavy thunderstorms the previous night. Apparently Vietnam doesn’t work much with water power. As soon as the rain came, the power went out for 24 hours. It’s hard to work with flat batteries and no internet. My lot is even cruel. I have no excuse not to kite all afternoon. I set up the kite at eleven o’clock. After the first light winds, the kite falls out of the air and builds beautiful line nests. (more…)

The last day in biker heaven in Da Lat takes us directly to a communist toboggan run. We speed down into the valley to a waterfall, then up to the second ride. For the first time in Vietnam, a person drives carefully. In this case, far too carefully. A Vietnamese man blocks the toboggan run at 5 kilometres per hour, a path on which you don’t encounter ghost drivers every minute.

Back at the hotel, we saddle up our bikes and take an alternative route back to the sea. My sense of direction usually puts us on the right roads. But we still have to keep asking. The maps are too bad and the signs are extremely sparse. We drive through cloudy rainforest mountains on mogul tracks through the Vietnamese highlands. (more…)

Da Lat is something like the Vietnamese St. Moritz. It’s the only big city in the country where hotels don’t have air conditioning. It’s chilly at 1500 metres. At the beginning of the last century, the French were thrilled by the opportunity not to sweat for a few days. They built 2500 villas, followed later by a small Eiffel Tower. Today, Da Lat is also very popular with the Vietnamese and quite crowded.

We are here because of the roads. First thing in the morning we saddle up our bikes and ride into the surrounding countryside. Again, it’s difficult to see or enjoy anything. A lot of Agent Orange has been sprayed here. It’s blinding. Surviving an American invasion increased our belief in our own immortality to infinity. The driving style of the Vietnamese is accordingly. (more…)

On the very first day, I seem to have punctured my tyre. In the morning I patched the tyre, then set off for the mountains with minimal luggage. The first 80 kilometres are boring, but then the mountains begin. Due to a lack of signposts, we get lost and end up on a very small road to Da Lat. I don’t know whether the road has potholes or the potholes have roads. We often travel at just 20 km/h.

The first pass is a nice climb. After half an hour’s heating we are in the clouds. It’s getting cold in Vietnam for the first time, my clothes are too thin. Wisps of cloud cling to the steep rainforest slopes. Red earth burns under black clouds, Jörg’s exhaust pipe in front of my smart new history jacket. (more…)

Like everyone in Asia, the bus to Mui Ne is too early. This time 15 minutes, exactly one missed breakfast. The bus takes a full five hours to cover the 200 kilometres to Mui Ne. Endless street settlements pass by the window. Then the in-bus entertainment begins and I can’t understand the world any more. “Vietnam is looking for a superstar” is on TV.

Everything is interchangeable – songs, interpretation, presentation, make-up, dance. Everything is the same everywhere. Global dumbing down. Only the almond eyes indicate that we are in Vietnam. A small, proud country full of great history defeats a giant. First prize: the freedom to be an individual. Just as equal as the rest of the American world. (more…)

Saigon is schizophrenic, crazy, diverse, full of contrasts. The Americans have driven out the Vietnamese. Now they count in dollars. Vietnam is communist. Everyone fights for themselves on the streets. I walk the streets of the neighbourhood early in the morning. Endless poverty next to glittering shops. My millionaire status awakens the greed in many eyes that are narrowed with dust.

Many of the cyclo-rickshaw drivers are said to have been in the service of the Americans and, 40 years later, outlaws with no right of residence. I don’t know if the story is true. What I do see is that a striking number of them are quite old. But hardly anyone speaks English. A grey-haired, half-blind Vietnamese man with half my body weight drives me through Saigon for four hours. (more…)

Britta probably didn’t realise how right she was about the song before she decided to leave us. I arrive shortly before nightfall. Seven taxi drivers communistically share the driving of my trolley. It takes ages for them to realise that my will to take the bus is stronger. None of them speak English.

Nevertheless, I arrive quickly and my first impression is that the Vietnamese love twinkling lights. Everything looks like a Christmas tree and twinkles. Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh. Merry Christmas and welcome to real communism. My hostel is in the centre of the city. (more…)