Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City)

I've never liked calling this place Ho Chi Minh city. It seems incongruous that the government would change the name of the biggest city in the country overnight to the name of a former leader that the people of this very city did not vote for and in fact fought against. It would be like changing the name of Sydney officically to John Howard. I can imagine there would be many residents who would never stop calling the place Sydney. So I am going to refer to it as Saigon, as the locals do. 

Observations

I think I could probably live in this city. Which is a big admission because last time I was here I just wanted to get out. I have walked past loads of nice looking restaurants today and seen quite a few expats having breakfast/brunch/lunch. Little french bakeries, mexican and japanese and indian, thai etc. All costing less than half, in many cases a quarter what the equivalent cafe in Brisbane would cost. I found a whole street of Japanese restaurants and grocery stores, catering to the expats I guess and  went into one for lunch.  It was dark and pretty cool. Two people opened the door for me and as soon as I stepped through the doorway about 15 people all yelled at slightly different times a welcome for me in Japanese. It was a cachophony of voices. Rather overwhelming but it made me feel important and special so thats ok. I was sitting at a bench which surrounding the centre food preparation area. There were about 11 chefs in the middle all working their rice in wet hands into beautifully shaped ships and carefully slicing raw tuna and salmon.

I ordered a lunch set for around $6 and loads of food came out, way too much for me to eat. I was working my way through when a beautiful lady sitting just around the corner from me said in very good english, "you use your chopsticks very well." I told her I try but am no where near as good as the locals.  We started chatting and talked about life in Saigon. She knew I was an aussie because she went out with an Australian 4 years ago. She lives in the north east of the city in an area where lots of expats live. She said it is much quieter than the backpacker area and has some nice locals cafes and restaurants. She works for an international company and has an American boss so she has been polishing her accent for some years now. She could almost have passed for an american. I told her she should come for a holiday to Australia. She said she would love to but the Australian government makes it very difficult for Vietnamese to get a holiday visa unless they are part of a highly organised package deal. Get on the bus, get off the bus etc etc. We presumed it was because the government was scared that some would stay in the country and not go home. But the new, modern Vietnamese person is starting to earn a lot of money and wants to see the world.

Anyway, I told her I was trying to buy shoes for a wedding, and she told me to try Parkson Plaza which was a few blocks away. She offered to drop me off on her scooter as she was meeting friends for coffee nearby. I said, "sure that would be great!" She didn't have a helmut for me but that doesn't stop anyone around here. She said she would go slow, as if that would make it completely ok. Its actually illegal to ride without one now but the police prescence is pretty much non existent so off we went, at a racing pace of about 25km per hour. As I was getting off outside the shopping centre she said to me, "I don't know your name!", so we swapped names and off she went. Thats the southern friendliness for you.

There is a constant threat of a downpour here now, the monsoon is just starting and the humidity must be 95% I reckon. You can almost reach out and touch the air. There are short, sharp, heavy showers once or twice a day. There is a sense of anticipation in the air that the season is changing and the wet season is arriving. 

This part of Saigon is clean and well ordered. Large, mature trees, flower beds down the centre of the roads. This is the Saigon that I read about, but didn't find or see last time. Now if they would just ban smoking inside public buildings that would be great. Sharing a closed up, air conditioned cafe with smokers is horrible.

Tomorrow is my last day in this country. The first week went slow and the next three flew. I'm glad I did different things to last time, I thought I might end up doing exactly the same and seeing exactly the same and I wanted a different experience. This time I didn't like Hanoi and did like Saigon, but I think that is in part because Hanoi was my first landing point, it was extremely hot and I was sick with cramps for the whole 3 days that I was there. Walking along a hot street and bending over double because of a strong cramp does not endear you to a place. But I will give Hanoi another go next time. 

My last day to buy shoes in this place tomorrow, so I'm going back to the modern, Myer like department store to try and find something suitable. I reckon its going to rain tomorrow as well, we had a very heavy hour long downpour at 3.30pm this afternoon, its funny seeing all the scooters racing through the rain trying to make it home, all covered with their little thin raincoats.

Mekong Delta

I flew down to Ho Chi Minh city a few days ago and organised a 2 day 1 night trip out into the Mekong Delta. Its not in flood like last time I went out so I was interested to see how different things might look. I went to a different region the first day and went on a couple of boat rides up narrow rivers and canals. 

The thing about the Mekong is that it is such a big river system that everybody in this region, (and its something like 10 million people,) live and breathe the river. They fish in it, bathe in it, swim in it, wash their dishes in it, wash their clothes in it, throw their rubbish in it, sell their fruit and vegies from boats on it, use it as a means of transport in the outer lying villages that don't have roads, etc etc. The only thing they don't do is drink it, which in hindsight is a very good thing. The little rough timber houses that sit out over the river appear to all  have their bathrooms, (small corrugated and timber slat extensions), dropping their grey and black water directly into the river. I might be wrong but I presume thats how they do it. And then you see a bunch of kids happily splashing about a bit further up river, or an old man using a pot to pour water over himself and then take a mouthful and swirl it around to wash his teeth. All I can say is that many of the locals must have stomachs of steel.

Everywhere you look people are making their living from the river. And then surrounding the river are acres and acres of bright green rice paddies, full of water as they get close to harvest time. And you see little old men and women, in their bamboo cone hats, bent over double pulling out weeds and heaping up the wet clay to make sure the water doesn't flood the wrong paddy. Where ever you look in this large region it's flat as a tack. Not a hill in sight, just coconut trees rising above the lush undergrowth, its a strange image because there is nothing for a hundred miles taller than the tallest coconut palm. Just an ocean of green vegetation and then the brown, silty river splitting into hundreds of smaller rivers and canals. It is quite a place actually.

I decided to pay a whole $7 extra for my trip, (which made it $33), and stay in a homestay that night, instead of in a hotel in the big city of Can Tho like the rest of the group. 5 of us chose the homestay so when we got to the hotel in the late afternoon the 5 of us were bundled into a taxi and then he took off out of town for about 20 minutes. We soon realised that he kind of knew where he was supposed to take us but not really. And we hadn't been told a thing, just told to get our bags and get in the taxi, we had no idea where we going. So it felt a bit strange, hoping that this guy would figure it out. He eventually rang the owner of the homestay and 15 minutes later she appeared on the narrow village road on a bicycle and told him to follow her. So there we are slowly following a graceful Vietnamese woman in a cone hat riding a bicyle along little roads that got progressively narrower. We finally pulled up in front of a house that spread across a large area with an open air cafe on the edge of the laneway and then a row of hammocks strung out under a bamboo shelter overlooking a small river. It was all very nice.

The poms went off to look at the market and I asked the owner if I could borrow a pushbike and have a look around. I cycled off in the other direction and cruised along the narrow bikeway, passing little houses with courtyards onto the laneway, dogs lying around in the late afternoon shade and kids riding little bikes or playing games with their mum and dads on the steps of their houses. It was all very peaceful. Except for the little scooters that would fly past me every now and then beeping loudly. I rode in one direction for about 20 minutes and then turned around and went back the other way.

They prepared a beautiful traditional south vietnamese dinner for us that night and we ate it outside under the bamboo shelter. Local fish, actually one of their own catfish growing in a concrete tank under the verandah! And ricepaper rolls, vegetables, steamed rice, and other yummy things. I had a huge room with a basic bathroom, no hot water but the outside temperature never went below about 25 degrees so didn't need it. 

By far the worst part of the trip was 3 of the people on the trip with us, they talked loudly about the most boring things on the bus and on the boat, constantly complained about everything and never listened to the guide. Made it painful. But overall definitely worth it.

Dalat

The motorbike ride

So the first full day in Dalat I hired a motorbike, (scooter), from the hotel, $6 for the day and I had to put around $3 worth of petrol in. I  spent 5 hours getting lost all throughout the lovely hill town/city of Dalat. Lots of little roads following the ridges out of town. I kept going along one for a while, 10km usually and then would turn around and come back into town. I got the hang of the whole riding on the ride hand side and also going around roundabout the wrong way. Pretty confusing actually, particularly when there are hundreds of other bikes and no one is giving way on the roundabout. Well not the same way we do in Australia anyway. 

I found my way to the crazy house, which was designed by a female Vietnamese architect who studied in Russia in the 70's. She is pretty cool, she wears flares and platform shoes around the place, hows that for stuck in a time warp?? The crazy house is hard to describe, its a building that is made from off form concrete, it looks like trees and caves and has stairs built into the sides. I'm not explaining it well, google it and you will see what i mean. Crazy House, Dalat, Vietnam.

I also found my way to the summer palace which is a very cool building straight from the 1930's. It was left in the same condition, no change, including furniture, floor coverings pictures on the walls etc. So it feels like you are stepping back in time. Its a series of large open spaces, lounge and reception areas for the king to meet people and then more informal spaces where he, his wife and 4 children relaxed, ate and slept. The gardens surrounding it are beautiful as well.

I saw some other things as well and had great fun riding around town. Couple of slightly hairy moments, but pretty good all things considering. When I eventually got back to the hotel on a bit of a high, my lovely hostess said to me, "why don't you take it out again tomorrow and follow your friend who has hired a motorbike guide for the day?"

Speaking of friends, I think I said that I met some other women travelling alone around the communal breakfast table. One was an Aussie from Melbourne, one was an American from Michigan. We had dinner together that night and the American and I talked about doing a motorbike tour  the next day. She was going to hire a guide and ride pillion with him and I would follow on my trusty scooter. 

Wow, what a day I had!!

We left around 9.30am and I followed them out of town and we started on the hills. It was so cool zipping around corners, some of them hairpin bends as we made our way up the mountain and over the other side. We travelled through pine forests and past massive flower gardens and vegetable gardens, it was fantastic. We stopped a few times so he could show us things, ie, a silkworm farm and silk weaving factory which was cool, a coffee plantation, flower farm and small village. I was riding along with a huge grin on my face, it felt good to be riding through such beautiful landscape. A couple of times huge trucks would come around very sharp corners taking up the whole narrow road but we would just squeeze to the far right hand side and keep on going. It felt like we were absolutely flying but we never actually went over 60km per hour. We were only on 125cc bikes remember so anything over 50km per hour feels pretty fast!! 

We rode for nearly 40km through the mountains before we reached our main stop at a big waterfall. We climbed over slippery rocks and down a pretty dangerous path over huge boulders down to the bottom of the waterfall. When we got to the bottom we got drenched and nearly thrown backwards by the amazing force of the water, it was pretty impressive.  I have heard that you can actually get into a cave right in behind the waterfall but we just stood at the bottom a couple of metres from where it fell into the river.

We then had a local feed for lunch and got back on the bikes for the ride back.. It was just as good if not better on the way back, I was leaning into the corners and having a great time. My friend took a few photos of me and she is going to email them to me, so I will put them up on the blog when I get them.

Dalat is a lovely, cool, laid back mountain town and I would definitely go back.. I had a really nice couple of days before landing in hot, sweaty, noisy, busy Ho Chi Minh city.

Further musings on motorbikes

Part 1

The sleeper bus. 

It should really be called the "no sleeper" bus, or the" impossible to get sleeper" bus. Boy what an experience. I told myself I would never do it because they have a reputation for being uncomfortable and dangerous. Not sure what came over me in the end. I think it was the fact that it was going to save me around $120 and a couple of transfers between airports, hotels etc. Still haven't decided whether it was worth it or not. 

I boarded the bus in Hue at lunch time on Friday. We drove down to Hoi An, took 4 hours. Then stopped at Hoi An for 2 hours, got back on and off we went down south. Driving all night in a little seat that tilts right back but still damn uncomfortable. Designed for 5ft tall Asians, who also appear able to sleep in any setting, at any time, with any amount of background noise etc etc. Very jealous of the locals snoring away beside me. Reached Nha Trang at around 6am the next morning. Hang around for another 2 hours. Get on a smaller bus and drive for another 4 hours up to the mountains of Dalat. Arrive lunch time the next day. Practically 24 hrs on a bus. Not.. happy.. Jan.

Part 2

The view from the bus window.

Towns, farms, crops, kids, people, animals and bikes. Bikes everywhere carrying everything. I believe that it might just be almost illegal to carry nothing on your bike expect yourself. Everyone seems to make the most of the fact that the bike can carry things. 

* A guy riding his bike, his wife sitting behind them. In between them she is balancing an adult bicycle upside down.

* A woman carrying 8 x 20L drums on her bike, strapped in front, beside and behind her. I hope they are all empty.

* A guy riding on his own but coiled around him is a huge roll of pvc tubing. 

* A bloke gets on his scooter and puts a crate of beer bottles at this feet, balancing precariously. Then his wife gets on behind and balances 2 more crates of beer bottles behind her husband. They take up most of the seat space so she is sitting right on the back of the seat half hanging off, desperately hanging on to those crates.

* A guy riding on his own but carrying a large 40cm pedestal fan.

* A guy carrying a brand new LCD tv, still in the box, it looked around 66cm. 

Do they all assume that they will never crash? They carry such precious things,  including new born babies fast asleep in their mothers arms. 

We pass by so many different crops on my long bus trip, loads of rice fields first of all, then other food crops including peanuts, beans, strawberries, corn, then as we get up higher carrots, more corn, cabbages, and more rice. There are so many food trees along the edges of the road and in peoples back yards, just freely available to anyone walking past to pick. There are paw paw trees, avocado trees, mango trees everywhere heavily laden down, bananas, coconut, pineapple, durian, And then you see the animals wandering around as well. Chickens, ducks in huge groups on ponds and small lakes, some cows and pigs. All free range. Probably have a much better short life than most of the meat grown for food in Australia come to think of it.

All this doesn't really make up for the crapness  of the bus trip though, and I reckon I got maybe 4 hours sleep all up. The trip up from Nha Trang to Dalat is up and over a mountain range, a scarier and more spectacular drive than the one up to Sapa i think. We go from 0m up to 1800m and the trees change to pine trees and the air changes to cool and dry, no humidity for a few days!!!

Dalat

I finally arrived at my hotel here and the wonderful hostess knew my name as I walked in. I had called her the previous day to ask if she had a room free and told her I should arrive at approximately lunch time, but still. This is a very good sign. She shows me to the room and its small but lovely. And the shower!! Its a power shower, within a proper cubicle! It was amazing! And the bed!! The softest in the whole trip. And the breakfast!! Its in her own kitchen around a huge communal table, spread with everything you could want, eggs, bacon, toast, loads of fruit, peanut butter, vegemite, jam. The great thing about the communal table is that you talk to those sitting beside and across from you. I met 2 other women who are travelling alone, an Aussie and an American. We chatted for ages and agreed to meet for dinner.

Hue 2

The motorcycle trip.

Up and ready to go at 8.30 in the morning. My rider pulls up outside the hotel and hands me an old, very loose helmut, more like a bicycle helmut rather than a proper motorbike helmut. Oh well. Its what they all wear. I have no choice anyway. 

He is probably around 50 and has little round John Lennon spectacles and very bad teeth. He introduces himself as Mr Hueng and tells me to climb on board.

He is riding a larger motorbike than the scooters you see everywhere but its still only 150cc. He tells me the government does not allow anyone to buy a bike larger than 150cc, except police and government officials. Got to love the communist party! So we zoom through the streets of Hue, we aren't going fast and so can hear each other and are chatting about all sorts of things for the first part of the journey. He is riding very slowly and carefully and I feel very safe with him. We leave the town and go onto some narrow little back streets and lanes, past the front doors of houses, chickens scattering, people wandering. Its good to get out of the city and onto local little roads, just us two, not with a bus load of tourists. First stop is a lovely timber Japanese arched walking bridge, around 15m long with timber seats built into each side. People are sitting and lying on the seats, escaping the early heat. 

Next we went to a buddhist temple complex, my guide tells me that around 70 monks live here in quiet serenity. He thinks its hilarious they all they eat are vegetables and tofu. We walk around for a bit and then he tells me to go over to the temple main building as they are about to start their morning chants. Around 8 of them stand quietly in their orange robes and then one of them rings a deep bell and they all start chanting, it was pretty surreal. One hits a small bell, another hits a different kind of drum. This feels like I have been let in on their own private meditations, really nice atmosphere.

Then along more narrow little dirt laneways, just wide enough for two motorbikes to pass each other, through rice paddy fields, past large flocks of white ducks, past people in cone hats bent over double pulling rice out and weeding corn fields. Then bumpity bump across a little local bridge and we arrive at a tomb, very impressive tomb as its turns out. 

Spread across a huge acreage amongst frangipanis and pine trees, there is a lake with a timber summer house built over it with steps down into the water. The emperor used to come here  with his family and staff during summer time and spend time in the large boat house reading poetry and watching the family boat around on the lake. Then up stairs and then more grand stairs and into some large, beautifully decorated buildings that were his house and wives houses, that then became parts of the tomb after he died. I think it was built around 1864. He planned the complex of parks and buildings and it took 10 years to build, 10,000 men worked on it. It was calm, majestic and beautiful and just a little bit boiling hot.  

My lovely bike rider was waiting out the front for me, we had some lunch and a cold drink and then rode for 20 minutes to the next tomb which was a whole different story. This one was also in the middle of now where, surrounded by beautiful forests and hills and up another huge set of steps. But this one was built in the 1920-30's and there are influences now from France and Europe. The rooms are square and have faux columns, the walls and ceilings are painted to look like grey and white marble. The main room itself was amazing, so much colour and decoration everywhere, not a blank piece of wall, floor or ceiling in sight. They use a process for decoration called cut and paste, (early microsoft windows they tell me!), its really broken bits of pottery glued back on to make a new pattern or picture. They use it to great effect, it looks amazing from a distance.

Back on the bike, and he takes me through a little forest, up a bumpy track to the top of a hill. It turns out that at the top of the hill is an american bunker, we can look inside but not much to see. A concrete building just poking out of the ground with a view of the whole surrounding area. He points in the distance and tells me that over on that mountain range is the Ho Chi Minh trail that the Viet Con used to get information and supplies from the north to the south. He tells me that his father fought in the war, for the south, alongside the Americans.  It seems strange to think that this green, lush hill top had loads of American soldiers using it as a hideout. I keep seeing and hearing things related to the war, but I can't really see any benefits out of it, only disadvantages and loss. The Vietnamese have a relatively calm, shrug of the shoulders type attitude towards it all now it seems as well. They are just happy that as a unified country they are no longer owned by anyone or fighting anyone, they can just get on with the job of making money and developing as a country.

Then we make our way back into the city of Hue. It has been a lovely day, a great way to see the local area, in the hands of a safe, friendly guide.

Hue

Hue is a lovely place, right on the wide Perfume River, which happens to be full of rubbish in some places but don't let that stop anyone from enjoying bathing, washing up and fishing in it! Thankfully the Government has realised the benefit of allowing the public to use the foreshore so both sides of the river are large public parks with people promenading up and down all times of the day and night.

I spent the first full day walking round the main part of the city and across the river looking at the Citadel which was fantastic. One half of the town is enclosed by a 10km long 6-8m high brick and stone wall with a 20m wide moat around the whole thing, very cool. To get inside the main citadel you have to make your way through one of maybe 6 entrances, very narrow arched short tunnels. Then the royal citadel, the most historical section is approached through another main entrance, a Citadel within a Citadel basically. This one provides access into what was the emperors large collection of palaces, temples, meetings houses and homes. He had 104 wives you see so he needed a lot of accommodation! No children mind you, impotent from a bout of chicken pox or something they said.

It was all pretty intact, and some of the main buildings were fabulous, detailed timber construction, hand painted and  carved, beautiful tiles, all very nice. Steps up and steps down, different levels, step up and over and through, it was all about keeping this one particular emperor, who was pretty little, higher than everyone else. He had hundreds of people living in this place with him, military mandarins, teaching mandarins, wifes, concubines, eunichs, etc etc. One big party house!! It was like a minature city. They say he had 50 chefs cooking 50 different dishes for him each day, they tried to outdo each other by making their dishes more and more fancy and that is where the complex and decorative tradional Hue food comes from. Who knew...

There were large outdoor areas, beautiful gardens, ornaments, flowers, lovely rows of trees and then I came across a large open area with 2 elephants hanging around! Apparently you could pay $20 and go for a ride on one of them. They seemed relatively happy, standing under the shade of the trees chewing on bamboo.

I took the long way back across the river and was exhausted by the time I got back to the hotel. I reckon I walked at least 10km, most of it in 35degree temperatures! I had an umbrella but that still doesn't stop the heat, my whole body was wet with sweat, it was literally running down my back and down my legs and down my arms, just thought you might like to know that. If it makes you squirm, my apologies, just skip that last sentence!

Quiet, expensive dinner, ($8) in a nice western style restaurant with 5 other couples from Australia, all over 50....what is it with this area and baby boomers?? Then I hit the sack early ready for my motorcycle tour the next day.

Hoi An 2

Well, I went on a date with 2 French men on my last night in Hoi An!! I met them in the hotel at breakfast time, they were having trouble communicating that they wanted their eggs cooked so the yolks were still runny! We said hi and one of them asked me where I was from. Then we went our separate ways. Then when I came back to the hotel later that morning to have a rest and shower and change my sweaty clothes the person behind the desk said that there was a message for me. It was from the French guys asking if I wanted to have dinner with them that night! 

Now before I go any further I sadly should let you all know that these guys were "older" gentlemen.... approximately mum and dads age! Very nice and all that but they have children my age. They have been friends for years, used to work together and in the last 2 years both have become separated and/or divorced from their wives so they decided to make the most of their new retired freedom and see some of the world. 

One spoke ok English, the other not so much. But between us we worked out what we wanted to say and talked about their lives and my life and had a lovely night. They wanted to drink wine so bought a rather dodgy bottle of Aussie red and then an even dodgier bottle of red from Argentina. Thankfully the Aussie one was better so I didn't lose too much face. We had a very  expensive meal by Vietnamese standards, 1,400,000Dng which is around $70 between the 3 of us for 2 course meals and 2 bottles of wine. But they insisted on paying  so it was fine by me.

They left the next morning and I spent the morning rushing around finalising fittings and payment for the clothes I ordered and then the afternoon in transit to the next city, Hue which was a 30 min taxi ride and then a 3 hour train ride and then a 15 min ride with my very heavy suitcase on the back of a scooter, (free pickup from the hotel!)