In the James Bond film Moonraker, there is a scene where Bond (Roger Moore) and Dr Goodhead (Lois Chiles) get stuck on an airborne stationary cable car, stranded there by Richard Kiel’s villain “Jaws”. A typically Bondian fight ensues. James nearly falls to his death; Dr Goodhead tells him to hold on (“the thought had occurred to me!”), etc. Eventually, they send Jaws’s cable car hurtling to the bottom of the line at breakneck speed and he crashes into the building below.
The truth is that cinema never matches the thrill of real life. That scene is nothing compared to the genuine stomach-in-throat feeling of being on a cable car, gazing at the landscape beneath feeling a squeamish cocktail of exhilaration and terror. You don’t need the Hollywood embellishments. A further challenge for the faint-hearted is that every few seconds, there is a turbulent rumbling while the cable car passes over a metallic cog mechanism on a pole. In reality, these poles are there to stabilise the line and reduce pressure on it, but in the moment of swinging freely from a beyond-skyscraper-level height in a glass pod, it is the very last thing you want. The whole vehicle rumbles and shakes. It was one of my best experiences ever.
As I write, I have returned from accompanying my sister on her travels around Asia. The cable car was our transport to the Golden Bridge in Vietnam. The bridge itself was magnificent. Less magnificent was the wax museum we visited afterwards. The tour guide should have taken us straight home, for it reached hilarious magnitudes of awful. It was like Madame Tussaud’s but adjusted for the £3 ticket price. Among the celebrities featured were a Mr Bean with alien-esque bright green eyes, a completely unrecognisable Marilyn Monroe, and an elderly lady making a pixie-like hand gesture sporting a greasy, uncombed hairstyle worthy of Boris Johnson. It was meant to be Queen Elizabeth II.
Our destinations included various cities in India, Vietnam and the Philippines. As I discovered, they are three profoundly different countries regarding the type of holiday you get. India is the one to choose if you wish to escape Western culture; it is the one which has remained the most inoculated against our influence. Similar to when I visited China, you will be treated like a celebrity for being the only white person on the street. Your hand will be shaken vigorously. You will be asked for selfies (or star in them involuntarily). My sister even had someone’s baby thrust into her hands. What is lovely about this is that the intentions are seldom sinister. They are not exoticising you or – dreadful word – ‘othering’. It is completely harmless; they are curious and want to say hello! We saw some adorable schoolchildren who passed us and waved in the street, smiling at us when we waved back. It is humblingly wholesome, good-faith curiosity.
Then onto Vietnam, which I confess was my favourite of the three. Vietnam is a glorious and unapologetic assault on the senses. Hanoi is home to an unforgettable ‘Train Street’: a street of colourful shops and cafés with a train track running through it. About ten minutes before a train is due, staff will quickly hurry everyone off the tracks and tourists like us eagerly sit at the cafés. Diligent waitresses will check that our bags aren’t too close to the track and that our knees are safely tucked in. Then the train comes, and it is about the same distance from the spectators as my laptop screen is from me as I’m writing this. It would never work in England’s health-and-safety-obsessed culture, but it is phenomenal fun.
Then the Philippines are more varied: Boracay, our last stop, was essentially beaches and books. It was much more of a typical ‘holiday’, which you need after the chaos of Vietnam. One exception to this rule was our moped riding around Bohol. I confidently clambered into the driver’s seat, a nervous sister behind me, channelling my inner Lisbeth Salander and thinking, “hell yes, I’m a natural.” Then we got stuck in the mud and went splat.
Moral of the story: Southern Asia may be incredible, but bring some plasters.
