January 6th 2009
As we're picked up to go to the airport, early, – again – there's more than a twinge of sadness leaving both our hotel and this city which, while being nothing like Manchester of course, is sort of like our home city, there's things to see but not that many, it's all about being there and sampling what's going on around you. I've liked it here, a lot.
Traffic is slow around this time, which is not surprising, so it takes around 45 minutes to get to the airport and of course for the first time on this trip we're taken to the domestic rather than the international terminal. The domestic terminal at HCMC is fine, I was worried that it wouldn't be airconditioned if it caters for “locals” but of course there's a whole mix of people travelling and the Vietnamese are probably in the minority even traveling internally.
Our first queue of the trip too, which is almost a relief, things were too easy. It all goes down very quickly though and having been at the airport around 20 minutes perhaps we're sitting near our gate with an hour or so to kill before we're due to depart.
When we're finally called to board it becomes clear that we're going to be leaving late and that sort of becomes apparent when the Vietnamese Airlines staff take us to a China Airways Airbus. The flight is packed and I'm guessing the plane had to be upgraded at some point which was then delayed incoming. We're sat together having checked in nice and early though so that's all that matters.
The flight passes without incident, well, apart from some fairly heavy turbulence on approach to Da Nang which was a little stomach churning. If HCMC airport had a flavour of the old US air strips about it then I can see why just about every Vietnam War reference on film and TV has some mention of “flying missions out of Da Nang” - this is real back to basics stuff, I suppose you'd politely call it “tired” but it's plain shabby.
After a fairly long wait for baggage our driver is waiting for us, a man of very few words it turns out, but that's fine.
It turns out to be about 40 minutes from Da Nang to Hoi An, the speed limit here is only 80km/h on the fastest roads and everyone seems to take them very seriously so we seem to just trundle along. As we drive through Da Nang to the main coastal road there's nothing particularly inspiring about the place, like its airport, until we reach the outskirts and there appears to be some major development work going on with a very futuristic looking building already in place. This is Vietnam's 3rd city but I think the drop off from the first 2 is pretty dramatic. With all this building work I can't help thinking who's going to be buying up all these apartments and office space. The coastal road similarly appears to be one long building site, or at least with hoardings up to proclaim the next “resort and apartcondo's” - big names too, Crowne Plaza, Raffles, they seem to be lining up to build here – maybe I'm just being miserable because it's really cloudy and has obviously just rained, but “why” is the only thing going through my head – oh and “why” followed by “have we bothered to come here for 2 nights”...
The Palm Garden Resort is certainly very nice, and expectations are high as the posters in the airport advertising this place were proudly showing photos of the Miss Universe contestants for the pageant which appears to have been held here in 2008. Claims 5* status which I'm not convinced of, 4* definitely. Our room is spacious and while we don't have a sea view we're not far off. Grab something to eat in one of the restaurants overlooking the South China Sea which is looking pretty rough but all adds to the atmosphere.
I plan on getting a suit made, Hoi An is famous for its 200 tailors and previous visitors have recommended taking advantage. We're 5km outside Hoi An itself but the hotel provides a shuttle service which we take advantage of at 4pm.
Initial impressions of Hoi An are also not great. It's a small town and doesn't look particularly appealing. I can see on the map Le Loi (again!) which is where the tailor I have been recommended has his shop so we head off on a loop to get there.
When we get to Le Loi, which would be a 1 way street in the UK it's so narrow, certainly the quality of buildings increases dramatically and it's all looking quite pretty but I'm concentrating on finding this tailor. We pass a school that's just kicking out – cue complete madness in the tiny street with parents and kids shooting off on motorbikes in all directions.
Finding the tailors we're lead out the back – which would concern me were it not for the recommendation – to an area with catalogues, cloth samples, and tables and chairs to sit, look, discuss. The catalogues are funny, UK high street catalogues, you pick what you want and they'll tailor make it for you. After a discussion we settle on a style and cloth so how much? Now, I'd been lead to believe this would be around the £50 mark, someone else had said even less. So I was a little shocked when I was told it would be $280... With a cheaper fabric that could be brought down to $200 – and yes yes I know that a tailor made suit in the UK would be much much more – but with 2 fittings required in the next 24 hours, not being 100% sure on the style and hopeful of losing more weight when we get back home, I decide that it's just not worth it.
So with a mixture of disappointment but also a strange relief we head off to explore these nicer streets of Hoi An and almost immediately all thoughts of the disappointment of our arrival are banished. Hoi An is a lovely place, the narrow streets give is great charm and there's a mixture of shops, restaurants, bars which give it a very interesting feel. The guidebook says it's a UNESCO World Heritage place, but it also say we'd have to pay £3 to get into the town which we didn't, so
I'm not 100% sure on that one.
Having taken in the sights, and there's not that many it has to be said, this is a small town, we park ourselves at Treat's - “The original and best backpackers bar in Hoi An since 1997”. One of our guidebooks is South East Asia on a shoestring and this place is highly recommended. One look at the drinks menu and you can see why. Happy Hour is 4pm to 9pm and bottles of beer are basically 40p, it's crackers. We spend over an hour sitting in the open window watching the world go by, a few beers each, Sarah also has a Pina Colada, our bill... £3.
By now it's dark, we head to another bar for a glass of wine and there's a full blown cookery course going on. That would've been nice to do but as we're only really here for 1 full day it's not going to be possible.
Shuttle bus back to the hotel at 8:30pm and there appears to be some sort of open air play going on at the bus station. It's drawn quite a crowd, there's lights and microphones so it's not just appeared from nowhere but given its location it all seems a bit odd. Our shuttle bus driver struggles to describe what it's about, he uses the word Opera but with no singing, yet, we decide not to pursue it any further.
Have a late dinner in one of the other restaurants in the hotel. It's a highly international menu as you'd probably expect but we both have the Vietnamese Chicken/Beef satays for starters which are fantastic.
We round off the evening in the hotel bar which is almost empty but they have a band playing. Come to think of it we've seen hardly anyone while we've been at this hotel, have no idea how many other guests are staying here, the weather hasn't helped perhaps but it's all a bit strange.
The band finish, Sarah and I play a couple of frames of pool – I'm far too much of a gentleman to say who won of course – and we finish for the night. Tomorrow is “power relaxing” - a day we've had lined up to do absolutely nothing...
Showing posts with label Ho Chi Minh City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ho Chi Minh City. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 January 2009
Day 12 – Ho Chi Minh City
January 5th 2009
Our last full day in HCMC, up at 9am for breakfast then back to the room to check our plans and pack the bag for our wander round.
Out the door on to Nguyen Hue and the first thing that hits us is that it's a hot one today, going to be a real test of the acclimatisation we've thought has been going well. Not only is it sunny, which makes a world of difference, but it seems to be quite humid compared to what we've got used. So the pace of today will be necessarily slow.
All the museums and public attraction buildings have lengthy closing times for lunch – a throw back to the French now doubt! - so timings are also going to be difficult to manage as it's unlikely given the heat we'll actually fancy any lunch today to fill that gap.
Turning down Le Loi (Lay Loy – Vietnamese not French which was my first thought), one of the main boulevards, we take our time walking down to the main market in HCMC, Ben Thanh. This is a part locals part tourist market, which is good as we don't feel isolated from the everyday goings on, and is within a market building as opposed to being outside. All the guidebooks warn to be aware of pickpockets here, happy to report nothing missing, I can see why, the walkways between stalls are incredibly narrow with each tiny stall seemingly having at least 3 late teenage girls working on it. They're quite tactile in trying to get you to stop, so in all those hands it wouldn't be too surprising for the odd wallet to go missing. Clothes are the main selling point, and while I've no doubt whatsoever they're all fake, seeing Ralph Lauren shirts for £3 brings a smile. Walking past the stalls eventually brings some desperate “what are you looking for” from the stallholders, suspect anything you said they'd rush off elsewhere and get it. I eventually buy an iconic Vietnamese flag t-shirt and have fun with the bartering, not done it for years but the old techniques come flooding back. You actually have to remember not to be too harsh, the sums aren't actually much to us, so I'm happy that my T-shirt comes down from 55,000 to 40,000 – less than £2 in the end...
While there's the odd fan in the market it's pretty stifling so we escape outside and after a hundred yards dive into a bar/coffee house for air con and some drinks, I become weirdly enthralled by a TV programme on the life of the, not particularly good, Argentinian tennis player Juan Ignacio Chela – well, I haven't actually watched TV this holiday so it's just novelty value I suppose!
Next stop is the Reunification Palace, which we know will be closed at this time but are hopeful we can get into the grounds for a walk round. This is the place the Communists headed straight for when they entered Saigon and scene of the iconic photo of the tank passing through iron gates. While we don't get in we can clearly see the building from the fence and it's a strangely modern affair considering it used to be the old palace of the president. Then you realise that it was bombed twice by disgruntled South Vietnamese air force officers so it's actually a 1970s building. The tanks and a jet fighter in the grounds all add to the effect.
Bit more walking and we're into the afternoon, the heat is really getting to us now so we find another cafe, Arnolds, for another 7Up and air conditioning while we wait for the War Remnants museum to open.
The War Remnants museum is one of those places where you don't really want to go but you sort of have to. Put together almost instantaneously by the Communists when they entered Saigon, it's been open for visitors since September 1975 (the same year they took over the south). At least they've changed the name, used to be called something like The Museum of War Crimes against Vietnam, but I don't suppose that really drew in the French and American tourists, and while the French get away with it a bit, it's the Americans who obviously bear the brunt of the propaganda. I think propaganda is just about the right word here, it's very obvious that the wording and “quotes” used are all trying to portray a strong message of pure US atrocities in the area and without being intimate with the history of the conflict there's a large number of photos which could easily be construed in a number of ways. I have to shy away from one section of the exhibition, seeing the pictures of the child victims of the chemical warfare is too much for me. Ultimately it's the plainly obvious message that war is terrible and the stats behind it are just incomprehensible. Sarah observes in a children's art competition showing pictures of peace etc that there is a clearly indoctrinated message being put across – this isn't free thinking art of children we're looking at, so perhaps there is an undertone to Vietnam in general that has simply passed me by.
We take a stroll back to the hotel via the City Hall to shower and have a rest before another, more gentile, evening in HCMC. The heat has taken its toll so we certainly need the break.
A guidebook recommendation is to go for cocktails at the 10th floor bar of the 5* Caravelle Hotel, as it's just round the corner would be rude not too so we duly oblige. Get a good balcony seat with good views around. Strangely our own 3* hotel – which we can see clearly from our perch – has a much better view from its 11th floor restaurant but sitting outside on the balcony is very pleasant indeed.
A couple of cocktails later, a whopping bill – the guidebook said Happy Hour, it was wrong – and we head to Lemongrass, the restaurant we were unable to get into last night. This time we're successful and have a very good set meal, the cheapest one it turns out at only $12 a head, but genuinely the one we wanted.
Back to the hotel for the last time and packing up again, our pickup is at 9am tomorrow morning to take us back to the airport for our flight to Da Nang and hopefully some R&R in Hoi An.
Our last full day in HCMC, up at 9am for breakfast then back to the room to check our plans and pack the bag for our wander round.
Out the door on to Nguyen Hue and the first thing that hits us is that it's a hot one today, going to be a real test of the acclimatisation we've thought has been going well. Not only is it sunny, which makes a world of difference, but it seems to be quite humid compared to what we've got used. So the pace of today will be necessarily slow.
All the museums and public attraction buildings have lengthy closing times for lunch – a throw back to the French now doubt! - so timings are also going to be difficult to manage as it's unlikely given the heat we'll actually fancy any lunch today to fill that gap.
Turning down Le Loi (Lay Loy – Vietnamese not French which was my first thought), one of the main boulevards, we take our time walking down to the main market in HCMC, Ben Thanh. This is a part locals part tourist market, which is good as we don't feel isolated from the everyday goings on, and is within a market building as opposed to being outside. All the guidebooks warn to be aware of pickpockets here, happy to report nothing missing, I can see why, the walkways between stalls are incredibly narrow with each tiny stall seemingly having at least 3 late teenage girls working on it. They're quite tactile in trying to get you to stop, so in all those hands it wouldn't be too surprising for the odd wallet to go missing. Clothes are the main selling point, and while I've no doubt whatsoever they're all fake, seeing Ralph Lauren shirts for £3 brings a smile. Walking past the stalls eventually brings some desperate “what are you looking for” from the stallholders, suspect anything you said they'd rush off elsewhere and get it. I eventually buy an iconic Vietnamese flag t-shirt and have fun with the bartering, not done it for years but the old techniques come flooding back. You actually have to remember not to be too harsh, the sums aren't actually much to us, so I'm happy that my T-shirt comes down from 55,000 to 40,000 – less than £2 in the end...
While there's the odd fan in the market it's pretty stifling so we escape outside and after a hundred yards dive into a bar/coffee house for air con and some drinks, I become weirdly enthralled by a TV programme on the life of the, not particularly good, Argentinian tennis player Juan Ignacio Chela – well, I haven't actually watched TV this holiday so it's just novelty value I suppose!
Next stop is the Reunification Palace, which we know will be closed at this time but are hopeful we can get into the grounds for a walk round. This is the place the Communists headed straight for when they entered Saigon and scene of the iconic photo of the tank passing through iron gates. While we don't get in we can clearly see the building from the fence and it's a strangely modern affair considering it used to be the old palace of the president. Then you realise that it was bombed twice by disgruntled South Vietnamese air force officers so it's actually a 1970s building. The tanks and a jet fighter in the grounds all add to the effect.
Bit more walking and we're into the afternoon, the heat is really getting to us now so we find another cafe, Arnolds, for another 7Up and air conditioning while we wait for the War Remnants museum to open.
The War Remnants museum is one of those places where you don't really want to go but you sort of have to. Put together almost instantaneously by the Communists when they entered Saigon, it's been open for visitors since September 1975 (the same year they took over the south). At least they've changed the name, used to be called something like The Museum of War Crimes against Vietnam, but I don't suppose that really drew in the French and American tourists, and while the French get away with it a bit, it's the Americans who obviously bear the brunt of the propaganda. I think propaganda is just about the right word here, it's very obvious that the wording and “quotes” used are all trying to portray a strong message of pure US atrocities in the area and without being intimate with the history of the conflict there's a large number of photos which could easily be construed in a number of ways. I have to shy away from one section of the exhibition, seeing the pictures of the child victims of the chemical warfare is too much for me. Ultimately it's the plainly obvious message that war is terrible and the stats behind it are just incomprehensible. Sarah observes in a children's art competition showing pictures of peace etc that there is a clearly indoctrinated message being put across – this isn't free thinking art of children we're looking at, so perhaps there is an undertone to Vietnam in general that has simply passed me by.
We take a stroll back to the hotel via the City Hall to shower and have a rest before another, more gentile, evening in HCMC. The heat has taken its toll so we certainly need the break.
A guidebook recommendation is to go for cocktails at the 10th floor bar of the 5* Caravelle Hotel, as it's just round the corner would be rude not too so we duly oblige. Get a good balcony seat with good views around. Strangely our own 3* hotel – which we can see clearly from our perch – has a much better view from its 11th floor restaurant but sitting outside on the balcony is very pleasant indeed.
A couple of cocktails later, a whopping bill – the guidebook said Happy Hour, it was wrong – and we head to Lemongrass, the restaurant we were unable to get into last night. This time we're successful and have a very good set meal, the cheapest one it turns out at only $12 a head, but genuinely the one we wanted.
Back to the hotel for the last time and packing up again, our pickup is at 9am tomorrow morning to take us back to the airport for our flight to Da Nang and hopefully some R&R in Hoi An.
Sunday, 4 January 2009
Day 11 – Can Tho to Ho Chi Minh City
January 4th 2009
Early start, for a holiday anyway, 7am for breakfast. Have to hang around for a bit as there's nowhere to sit, who'd have thought everyone wanted to eat at this time. Not quite the range we've been getting used to for breakfast but, relatively speaking, we are out in the backend of beyond so no complaints.
The reason for the early start is we have a boat trip to the floating markets, the biggest on the Mekong Delta, to make and the later in the day it gets the less people there are about, more people = better photo opportunities!
Nduc meets us in the lobby and we walk down to one of the small piers just a couple of minutes from the hotel. Not many other people about at this particular moment and true to form a boat pulls up, much bigger than yesterday's, and soon we're on our way. Just us, our guide, the driver and his assistant! Cruising in the larger boat is even better than yesterday which did get a bit choppy on the waves at times. Passing under a strangely “under construction” bridge – strange in the places it hasn't been completed yet, i.e. they've left what looks about 4 feet right in the middle – it takes us about 30 minutes to reach the floating markets.
Now we'd both pictured something off “Wish You Were Here” I think, floating up and down somewhere narrow haggling with the locals over souvenirs etc but unsurprisingly we are completely and utterly wrong. This is a full on commercial market, it just happens to take place on the river. Large boats are the wholesalers, smaller boats come and go as middlemen take the goods on to other smaller boats for shipping off who knows were. Then there are the smallest boats simply selling all manner of items to the larger boats which happen to be their homes too, we're talking anything from washing up liquid to pumpkins. Trading seems to be heavy in pineapples and rice and after a while we pull the boat up next to a pineapple wholesaler, climbing on to the top of our boat for a better look around while Nduc explains the intricacies of the exchanges. In between negotiating with an old woman who already has a boat load of pineapples but seems to be after more he carves us 2 pineapple “lollipops” - which is good for a 10,000 Dong (about 40p) tip of anyone's money. Back in the boat to head back with not a tacky souvenir in sight, I feel an avalanche of tourist mania is coming our way soon, surely? More tipping – and I'm consulting Sarah each time now, the maths and general value of money was beginning to do my head in – and we're back to the hotel for a quick shower before Mr Lap picks us up in the car (a Ford Escape, made sure I looked at the badge this time).
Only a few minutes outside Can Tho we stop at a building called Long Tuyen. It's some sort of communal hall/temple. Nduc tells us it's the best restored of its kind around and goes on to the detail of what it is, how it came about, and the rest. To be honest much goes above us in a combination of sheer volume of information and understanding the English but it pre-dates the French taking over, had some sort of permission from the King to be established there and many National heroes appear to be commemorated, cue large bust of Ho Chi Minh of course.
To the car then, which is where we'll basically spend the next 4 to 5 hours retracing our steps back to HCMC. Traffic isn't as bad it being a Sunday today, but unfortunately there's a couple of crashes on the way which in a universal rubber-necking style seems to hold us up more than it holds up the people coming from the direction of the crash itself. Spend most of the time just gazing out of the window at the passing scenery – most of which is urban and fascinating – or dozing. We stop at the same service area as on the way out. Now as if to re-iterate that it really is just about the nicest service area I've visited there's actually a wedding going on there! Lunchtime and they're onto the Karaoke already, it's truly awful and they all seem to be having a blast. We catch a glimpse of the bride, she's wearing a Western style dress which does make me wonder what they would've worn before and, while it's doing nothing to stop them having the day of their lives of course, that makes me a little sad.
After I lose, badly, the estimated time of arrival competition we're at the now familiar Saigon Oscar Hotel and say farewell to Nduc and Mr Lap. Time to stretch out for a bit, finish the Dean Koontz – which is a strange one – get the Cambodia leg of the photos onto Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/scfc9697/tags/holiday/ ), and prepare for a night on the town.
About 8pm we head for Underground, a bar just round the corner from the hotel which is in all the guidebooks. It's in a basement (obviously?) and is the sort of place you can imagine 35 years or so ago was frequented by the US army. Not that it's old fashioned or anything, there's US College football beamed live into here and, oh, Gillingham v Aston Villa in the FA Cup, not County v Aston Villa in the FA Cup, damn! A few drinks later and it's time for some dinner. Plenty of restaurants in our vicinity but of course the one we choose – is highly recommended in the guidebook – is open, has a table, but not enough food in the kitchen, they've been busy tonight! Well at least that's honest... As we stroll away and ponder where next to try the gentleman on the door beckons us to follow him. We do, well we try anyway, he's no more than 5' 2” but it's a struggle to keep up. He takes us to a different restaurant which we'll eat at tonight, decent recommendation, will shop around a bit more tomorrow night I think. Complete the night with a couple of drinks at Ice Blue and we're back at the hotel well before midnight – ah how time's change...
Early start, for a holiday anyway, 7am for breakfast. Have to hang around for a bit as there's nowhere to sit, who'd have thought everyone wanted to eat at this time. Not quite the range we've been getting used to for breakfast but, relatively speaking, we are out in the backend of beyond so no complaints.
The reason for the early start is we have a boat trip to the floating markets, the biggest on the Mekong Delta, to make and the later in the day it gets the less people there are about, more people = better photo opportunities!
Nduc meets us in the lobby and we walk down to one of the small piers just a couple of minutes from the hotel. Not many other people about at this particular moment and true to form a boat pulls up, much bigger than yesterday's, and soon we're on our way. Just us, our guide, the driver and his assistant! Cruising in the larger boat is even better than yesterday which did get a bit choppy on the waves at times. Passing under a strangely “under construction” bridge – strange in the places it hasn't been completed yet, i.e. they've left what looks about 4 feet right in the middle – it takes us about 30 minutes to reach the floating markets.
Now we'd both pictured something off “Wish You Were Here” I think, floating up and down somewhere narrow haggling with the locals over souvenirs etc but unsurprisingly we are completely and utterly wrong. This is a full on commercial market, it just happens to take place on the river. Large boats are the wholesalers, smaller boats come and go as middlemen take the goods on to other smaller boats for shipping off who knows were. Then there are the smallest boats simply selling all manner of items to the larger boats which happen to be their homes too, we're talking anything from washing up liquid to pumpkins. Trading seems to be heavy in pineapples and rice and after a while we pull the boat up next to a pineapple wholesaler, climbing on to the top of our boat for a better look around while Nduc explains the intricacies of the exchanges. In between negotiating with an old woman who already has a boat load of pineapples but seems to be after more he carves us 2 pineapple “lollipops” - which is good for a 10,000 Dong (about 40p) tip of anyone's money. Back in the boat to head back with not a tacky souvenir in sight, I feel an avalanche of tourist mania is coming our way soon, surely? More tipping – and I'm consulting Sarah each time now, the maths and general value of money was beginning to do my head in – and we're back to the hotel for a quick shower before Mr Lap picks us up in the car (a Ford Escape, made sure I looked at the badge this time).
Only a few minutes outside Can Tho we stop at a building called Long Tuyen. It's some sort of communal hall/temple. Nduc tells us it's the best restored of its kind around and goes on to the detail of what it is, how it came about, and the rest. To be honest much goes above us in a combination of sheer volume of information and understanding the English but it pre-dates the French taking over, had some sort of permission from the King to be established there and many National heroes appear to be commemorated, cue large bust of Ho Chi Minh of course.
To the car then, which is where we'll basically spend the next 4 to 5 hours retracing our steps back to HCMC. Traffic isn't as bad it being a Sunday today, but unfortunately there's a couple of crashes on the way which in a universal rubber-necking style seems to hold us up more than it holds up the people coming from the direction of the crash itself. Spend most of the time just gazing out of the window at the passing scenery – most of which is urban and fascinating – or dozing. We stop at the same service area as on the way out. Now as if to re-iterate that it really is just about the nicest service area I've visited there's actually a wedding going on there! Lunchtime and they're onto the Karaoke already, it's truly awful and they all seem to be having a blast. We catch a glimpse of the bride, she's wearing a Western style dress which does make me wonder what they would've worn before and, while it's doing nothing to stop them having the day of their lives of course, that makes me a little sad.
After I lose, badly, the estimated time of arrival competition we're at the now familiar Saigon Oscar Hotel and say farewell to Nduc and Mr Lap. Time to stretch out for a bit, finish the Dean Koontz – which is a strange one – get the Cambodia leg of the photos onto Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/scfc9697/tags/holiday/ ), and prepare for a night on the town.
About 8pm we head for Underground, a bar just round the corner from the hotel which is in all the guidebooks. It's in a basement (obviously?) and is the sort of place you can imagine 35 years or so ago was frequented by the US army. Not that it's old fashioned or anything, there's US College football beamed live into here and, oh, Gillingham v Aston Villa in the FA Cup, not County v Aston Villa in the FA Cup, damn! A few drinks later and it's time for some dinner. Plenty of restaurants in our vicinity but of course the one we choose – is highly recommended in the guidebook – is open, has a table, but not enough food in the kitchen, they've been busy tonight! Well at least that's honest... As we stroll away and ponder where next to try the gentleman on the door beckons us to follow him. We do, well we try anyway, he's no more than 5' 2” but it's a struggle to keep up. He takes us to a different restaurant which we'll eat at tonight, decent recommendation, will shop around a bit more tomorrow night I think. Complete the night with a couple of drinks at Ice Blue and we're back at the hotel well before midnight – ah how time's change...
Saturday, 3 January 2009
Day 10 – Ho Chi Minh City to Can Tho
January 3rd 2009
Up early and a hearty breakfast for both of us this morning as at last everything seems back to normal healthwise.
Not 100% sure what to expect today, all we know is that we're going on an excursion to the Mekong Delta, staying overnight then back to the same hotel in HCMC the next day.
So, at 8am as arranged our guide, Nduc, who turns out to be in his early 40s and – usefully for a guide – has got plenty of stories to tell, is waiting for us in reception. Outside is Mr Lap, our driver, and that's it. The two of us, our guide and our driver in a nice Ford mid-sized SUV type vehicle. Suddenly feel very important!
The distances we'll cover today are not great, Can Tho is only 120km or so away but due to the state of the roads and the general traffic we'll initially be driving for 3 hours, then we'll do a boat trip, then another 45 minutes drive before queuing for a ferry to take us the final hop to Can Tho. Place names are going to be a struggle to recount as the scale on the map in our guidebook is too great and we're not able to jot things down as we go.
Heading out we get some idea of how sprawling Saigon (it's now cool to call it Saigon, our guide is southern Vietnamese and that's what they all call it, not being Communists and all that) is, it seems to go on forever. This is also where we see some of the more poverty stricken side, although you can tell it's all very entrepreneurial, the buildings are all over the place. As with everywhere in the world it seems, building work is going on apace, with new residential “cities” popping up all over the place. Our guide is, of course, concerned that this is all eating away at the local habitat. It seems that much of the changes in Vietnam could have the usual range of long term problems, the replacement of rice fields for industry and fruit growing just one of them... He also makes an interesting point about the weather – will sound familiar this one – rain is forecast, and it shouldn't rain. Indeed it shouldn't rain again until the lunar New Year which is 4 weeks away. Flowers used for the festival are already blooming and the farmers are worried. “Something is wrong with the weather” - said it would sound familiar.
Our first stop, and we're on National Route 1 here, a road that stretches the full length of Vietnam to the Chinese border, is to pull in alongside a couple of tour buses – queue crescendo of beeping horns as we're blocking the way – to see a temple to the unique Vietnamese religion of Caodaism. Unique is a funny choice of word actually because while unique to Vietnam is was basically invented by a western educated Vietnamese bloke who decided to combine a whole range of Eastern and Western religions to form a new one. It's certainly a good one if you can't make your mind up, everyone's in there, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and more.
Pressing on with just a quick stop at the equivalent of a motorway service station – think Balinese style huts on a huge scale with seating for diners and ponds full of beautiful Lotus flowers and you're there – and by late morning we've arrived at Can Be(?) to take our Mekong Delta boat trip which will last approximately 3 hours.
Having sorted the sun cream and insect repellent out we head for the boats, getting on a San Pan with about 8 seats on it and we're away. Erm, yes, the two of us, our guide, our new – very smiley – boat driver and that's it. Feeling like royalty now!
The Mekong is massive and obviously any photography will not do justice to it. It is by far the widest river I've ever seen, totally guessing that it's probably about the width of the Solent. Nduc says “it's wider in some places and narrower in others” - which is fair comment. Hard to judge though because apparently what we can see as the other side are actually islands – this is the Delta of course so the Mekong itself is all over the place.
We go up one of the tributaries just to see life teaming on either side and on the river. Commerce is everywhere, the classic houses on stilts and houseboats anchored that'll apparently be somewhere completely different tomorrow selling their wares.
First stop is a place where they make things from rice and coconut. This seems entirely strange when we do stop and of course what leaps to mind is there's going to be a hard sell somewhere. We see someone making “pop-rice”, they don't have corn to pop so they use what they do have. Next they're sticking them together to make sweet rice cakes, all packed by hand. Someone else is making coconut sweets that look like caramels, all packed by hand again, finally our guide has a go at making rice paper – best leave that one to the experts. We then sit down, drink tiny cups of sweet tea and eat some of the rice cakes and other by products such as coconut strips. Then back to the boat... I think they forgot something? Nope, we were actually taken a route that bypassed the small shop before drinking our tea. It's like you have to re-write every preconception you have of the way people will try and get money from you. They were just showing us what they do, if we were desperate to buy something we would, if not no problem, it's incredible.
Then for some real cruising, and incredibly enjoyable just stretching out and watching the riverbank go by. We sample some fruit on the boat, the Lychees were very nice as were the tiny bananas, the Mandarin not so good.
Some time goes past, no idea how much but would've been happy for it to be longer, and we stop for lunch. First we catch the backend of a music show, eat some fruit, then we're lead by Nduc down some strange passageways, that while completely open you'd probably feel a bit nervous if alone, till we reach a restaurant area. This is all for tourists of course, many other Westerners are eating there, lots are in couples only too, so perhaps we're only lesser royalty afterall. The food is different, some bizarre, mostly tasty. Highlight is the Pork cooked in coconut juice with sticky rice – excellent.
Back on the boat and we cruise some more, our guide takes over the wheel as our boat driver takes a machete to a couple of coconuts and we're soon sipping the juice out through straws.
Now I'm not trying to be naïve here, I know full well that all this smiley excellent service is to get a good tip at the end and our boat driver certainly gets one. The point is that nobody is hard selling to us to try and get our money, what they're doing is making us feel incredibly important so that we feel like parting with our money, and it works. We feel great, they get paid, and we don't have strange wooden objects we've got to lug around the rest of S.E. Asia incurring extra baggage penalties! (Sorry everyone, no strange wooden objects will be handed over on our return...)
Mr Lap meets us off our boat journey and it's now back on the road to Can Tho. We have to queue for a while to get a ferry, doesn't bother us in the back but I'm certainly glad I wasn't driving. Here there are people selling for all they're worth but having thought we'd probably be surrounded, nobody even looks at us. They're selling corn on the cob and strange sounding pre-cooked and fermented pork stuff which even our guide says you need a strong stomach for. Westerners obviously don't buy this stuff and they're doing a roaring trade with the locals anyway.
The ferry journey is approximately 15 minutes, we see a bridge the Japanese are building in partnership with the Vietnamese. Apparently a whole section of it collapsed a couple of years ago, over 60 were killed, but they're working on it again now. It'll be 10 miles long(?) when completed. Later Nduc muses that the Japanese are great builders, but not in Vietnam. Apparently they built a tunnel in Saigon which sank!
Can Tho (It's Cantho in all the guidebooks, we have an obsession with putting Vietnamese names together into 1 word it seems. Viet Nam, Ha Noi, you get the drift) is a city that's been upgraded to be on a par with Saigon. Population wise though it's about the size of Manchester and according to Nduc there's no international industry here. Our hotel is the first 3* hotel in the Mekong Delta and is basic but fine.
Dinner is at the Nam Bo restaurant which has been booked in advance by Nduc and seems to be exclusively used by tourists. Our table on the outside balcony doesn't materialise, we'll have to sit indoors (no problem to us) and Nduc is not happy. We convince him we're fine and can sit. He hangs around recommending items off the menu, I've invited him to eat with us but he's already had a street meal so declines, then Sarah realises that he's actually waiting for some sort of sign from us to “let him go” for the evening, so let him go we do – 7.30am tomorrow to see the floating market, ouch...
Dinner is good, we share the house speciality for main course which is the “steam boat” - a sort of savoury fondue, but instead of the liquid being oil to fry the food it's a bubbling sauce which is transferred to your rice bowl. Very tasty. 3 courses, 5 beers, ahem, £13 for two.
Quick look at a major statue of Ho Chi Minh and it's back to the hotel for an early night ahead of the even earlier start we'll be having tomorrow.
Up early and a hearty breakfast for both of us this morning as at last everything seems back to normal healthwise.
Not 100% sure what to expect today, all we know is that we're going on an excursion to the Mekong Delta, staying overnight then back to the same hotel in HCMC the next day.
So, at 8am as arranged our guide, Nduc, who turns out to be in his early 40s and – usefully for a guide – has got plenty of stories to tell, is waiting for us in reception. Outside is Mr Lap, our driver, and that's it. The two of us, our guide and our driver in a nice Ford mid-sized SUV type vehicle. Suddenly feel very important!
The distances we'll cover today are not great, Can Tho is only 120km or so away but due to the state of the roads and the general traffic we'll initially be driving for 3 hours, then we'll do a boat trip, then another 45 minutes drive before queuing for a ferry to take us the final hop to Can Tho. Place names are going to be a struggle to recount as the scale on the map in our guidebook is too great and we're not able to jot things down as we go.
Heading out we get some idea of how sprawling Saigon (it's now cool to call it Saigon, our guide is southern Vietnamese and that's what they all call it, not being Communists and all that) is, it seems to go on forever. This is also where we see some of the more poverty stricken side, although you can tell it's all very entrepreneurial, the buildings are all over the place. As with everywhere in the world it seems, building work is going on apace, with new residential “cities” popping up all over the place. Our guide is, of course, concerned that this is all eating away at the local habitat. It seems that much of the changes in Vietnam could have the usual range of long term problems, the replacement of rice fields for industry and fruit growing just one of them... He also makes an interesting point about the weather – will sound familiar this one – rain is forecast, and it shouldn't rain. Indeed it shouldn't rain again until the lunar New Year which is 4 weeks away. Flowers used for the festival are already blooming and the farmers are worried. “Something is wrong with the weather” - said it would sound familiar.
Our first stop, and we're on National Route 1 here, a road that stretches the full length of Vietnam to the Chinese border, is to pull in alongside a couple of tour buses – queue crescendo of beeping horns as we're blocking the way – to see a temple to the unique Vietnamese religion of Caodaism. Unique is a funny choice of word actually because while unique to Vietnam is was basically invented by a western educated Vietnamese bloke who decided to combine a whole range of Eastern and Western religions to form a new one. It's certainly a good one if you can't make your mind up, everyone's in there, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and more.
Pressing on with just a quick stop at the equivalent of a motorway service station – think Balinese style huts on a huge scale with seating for diners and ponds full of beautiful Lotus flowers and you're there – and by late morning we've arrived at Can Be(?) to take our Mekong Delta boat trip which will last approximately 3 hours.
Having sorted the sun cream and insect repellent out we head for the boats, getting on a San Pan with about 8 seats on it and we're away. Erm, yes, the two of us, our guide, our new – very smiley – boat driver and that's it. Feeling like royalty now!
The Mekong is massive and obviously any photography will not do justice to it. It is by far the widest river I've ever seen, totally guessing that it's probably about the width of the Solent. Nduc says “it's wider in some places and narrower in others” - which is fair comment. Hard to judge though because apparently what we can see as the other side are actually islands – this is the Delta of course so the Mekong itself is all over the place.
We go up one of the tributaries just to see life teaming on either side and on the river. Commerce is everywhere, the classic houses on stilts and houseboats anchored that'll apparently be somewhere completely different tomorrow selling their wares.
First stop is a place where they make things from rice and coconut. This seems entirely strange when we do stop and of course what leaps to mind is there's going to be a hard sell somewhere. We see someone making “pop-rice”, they don't have corn to pop so they use what they do have. Next they're sticking them together to make sweet rice cakes, all packed by hand. Someone else is making coconut sweets that look like caramels, all packed by hand again, finally our guide has a go at making rice paper – best leave that one to the experts. We then sit down, drink tiny cups of sweet tea and eat some of the rice cakes and other by products such as coconut strips. Then back to the boat... I think they forgot something? Nope, we were actually taken a route that bypassed the small shop before drinking our tea. It's like you have to re-write every preconception you have of the way people will try and get money from you. They were just showing us what they do, if we were desperate to buy something we would, if not no problem, it's incredible.
Then for some real cruising, and incredibly enjoyable just stretching out and watching the riverbank go by. We sample some fruit on the boat, the Lychees were very nice as were the tiny bananas, the Mandarin not so good.
Some time goes past, no idea how much but would've been happy for it to be longer, and we stop for lunch. First we catch the backend of a music show, eat some fruit, then we're lead by Nduc down some strange passageways, that while completely open you'd probably feel a bit nervous if alone, till we reach a restaurant area. This is all for tourists of course, many other Westerners are eating there, lots are in couples only too, so perhaps we're only lesser royalty afterall. The food is different, some bizarre, mostly tasty. Highlight is the Pork cooked in coconut juice with sticky rice – excellent.
Back on the boat and we cruise some more, our guide takes over the wheel as our boat driver takes a machete to a couple of coconuts and we're soon sipping the juice out through straws.
Now I'm not trying to be naïve here, I know full well that all this smiley excellent service is to get a good tip at the end and our boat driver certainly gets one. The point is that nobody is hard selling to us to try and get our money, what they're doing is making us feel incredibly important so that we feel like parting with our money, and it works. We feel great, they get paid, and we don't have strange wooden objects we've got to lug around the rest of S.E. Asia incurring extra baggage penalties! (Sorry everyone, no strange wooden objects will be handed over on our return...)
Mr Lap meets us off our boat journey and it's now back on the road to Can Tho. We have to queue for a while to get a ferry, doesn't bother us in the back but I'm certainly glad I wasn't driving. Here there are people selling for all they're worth but having thought we'd probably be surrounded, nobody even looks at us. They're selling corn on the cob and strange sounding pre-cooked and fermented pork stuff which even our guide says you need a strong stomach for. Westerners obviously don't buy this stuff and they're doing a roaring trade with the locals anyway.
The ferry journey is approximately 15 minutes, we see a bridge the Japanese are building in partnership with the Vietnamese. Apparently a whole section of it collapsed a couple of years ago, over 60 were killed, but they're working on it again now. It'll be 10 miles long(?) when completed. Later Nduc muses that the Japanese are great builders, but not in Vietnam. Apparently they built a tunnel in Saigon which sank!
Can Tho (It's Cantho in all the guidebooks, we have an obsession with putting Vietnamese names together into 1 word it seems. Viet Nam, Ha Noi, you get the drift) is a city that's been upgraded to be on a par with Saigon. Population wise though it's about the size of Manchester and according to Nduc there's no international industry here. Our hotel is the first 3* hotel in the Mekong Delta and is basic but fine.
Dinner is at the Nam Bo restaurant which has been booked in advance by Nduc and seems to be exclusively used by tourists. Our table on the outside balcony doesn't materialise, we'll have to sit indoors (no problem to us) and Nduc is not happy. We convince him we're fine and can sit. He hangs around recommending items off the menu, I've invited him to eat with us but he's already had a street meal so declines, then Sarah realises that he's actually waiting for some sort of sign from us to “let him go” for the evening, so let him go we do – 7.30am tomorrow to see the floating market, ouch...
Dinner is good, we share the house speciality for main course which is the “steam boat” - a sort of savoury fondue, but instead of the liquid being oil to fry the food it's a bubbling sauce which is transferred to your rice bowl. Very tasty. 3 courses, 5 beers, ahem, £13 for two.
Quick look at a major statue of Ho Chi Minh and it's back to the hotel for an early night ahead of the even earlier start we'll be having tomorrow.
Friday, 2 January 2009
Day 9 – Ho Chi Minh City
January 2nd 2009
Surprisingly good sleep last night, must be acclimatising well to the heat – it certainly got hot in here with the air con off – and desensitising to the constant honking of horns from the street below which appears to be in total chaos for at least 18 hours a day – brilliant chaos though, absolutely compelling to watch.
Quiet day today, went back to the room after breakfast, Sarah still not the best and with a 2 day Mekong Delta excursion tomorrow it just wasn't worth the risk of trying to do too much. Breakfast, while standard stuff, was amusing as we'd finally remembered to take up some of the (legendary) decaf teabags we'd brought with us. On seeing us drinking tea a gentleman from another table, the conversation was brief but I think he was Scottish, asked us where we got that from, the answer of course “we brought our own, the English abroad eh?” - well, we all laughed anyway...
Caught up on where the money's going, or surprisingly not going – expect a massive splurge in Hong Kong! - general pottering on the internet and have got seriously into the Dean Koontz Sarah bought me for Christmas.
Round about lunchtime we venture out onto the streets of HCMC for the first time and it is surprisingly relaxed. Not laid back relaxed, but the guidebooks lead you to believe that the moment you step out into the street you'll be pounced on by petty thieves, marauding gangs of children trying to sell you anything and everything while drivers will be dragging you into taxis. Well there's none of that, I think people here are far too busy getting on with building their businesses than worrying about tourists – yes, they need our money in general but so far it seems that the influx is being invested into things new. On a 2 hour walk I genuinely believe we are sold to less than the number of Big Issue salespeople you encounter walking from Piccadilly to Deansgate (if you pick the right/wrong route!).
Sarah wants something bland for lunch so, sorry Colonel Saunders, we head for KFC!
Our walk takes us down to the river, which to be brutally honest is not a pretty sight at all. Maybe after dark – i.e. when you can't see anything but a few lights! Later we walk up to Notre Dame Cathedral, which although yes the French did build it, it's late 1800s, brick, and while pleasantly familiar looking in this alien environment is instantly forgettable. The highlight architecturally is the Post Office – wait for the photos.
Finally we walk the length of Dong Khoi, of Graham Green then American Soldiers fame, returning to its former, more pleasant, glories back to the river before turning back up Nguyen Hue to our hotel. Without going too far we've experienced quite a bit of what HCMC has to offer and are reminded of the words of our travel agent James who said that HCMC was an experience rather than a sight seeing fest – and he was of course right.
Evening in the hotel with dinner at the 11th floor restaurant which has great views down to the street where you can get a real feel for the flow of the hundreds of motorbikes that travel up and down every minute – the neon and fairy lights really complete the picture of this energetic place after dark. Looking forward to getting back here after our excursion and hitting the streets at night.
Early start though, 8am pickup, so it's early to bed tonight...
Surprisingly good sleep last night, must be acclimatising well to the heat – it certainly got hot in here with the air con off – and desensitising to the constant honking of horns from the street below which appears to be in total chaos for at least 18 hours a day – brilliant chaos though, absolutely compelling to watch.
Quiet day today, went back to the room after breakfast, Sarah still not the best and with a 2 day Mekong Delta excursion tomorrow it just wasn't worth the risk of trying to do too much. Breakfast, while standard stuff, was amusing as we'd finally remembered to take up some of the (legendary) decaf teabags we'd brought with us. On seeing us drinking tea a gentleman from another table, the conversation was brief but I think he was Scottish, asked us where we got that from, the answer of course “we brought our own, the English abroad eh?” - well, we all laughed anyway...
Caught up on where the money's going, or surprisingly not going – expect a massive splurge in Hong Kong! - general pottering on the internet and have got seriously into the Dean Koontz Sarah bought me for Christmas.
Round about lunchtime we venture out onto the streets of HCMC for the first time and it is surprisingly relaxed. Not laid back relaxed, but the guidebooks lead you to believe that the moment you step out into the street you'll be pounced on by petty thieves, marauding gangs of children trying to sell you anything and everything while drivers will be dragging you into taxis. Well there's none of that, I think people here are far too busy getting on with building their businesses than worrying about tourists – yes, they need our money in general but so far it seems that the influx is being invested into things new. On a 2 hour walk I genuinely believe we are sold to less than the number of Big Issue salespeople you encounter walking from Piccadilly to Deansgate (if you pick the right/wrong route!).
Sarah wants something bland for lunch so, sorry Colonel Saunders, we head for KFC!
Our walk takes us down to the river, which to be brutally honest is not a pretty sight at all. Maybe after dark – i.e. when you can't see anything but a few lights! Later we walk up to Notre Dame Cathedral, which although yes the French did build it, it's late 1800s, brick, and while pleasantly familiar looking in this alien environment is instantly forgettable. The highlight architecturally is the Post Office – wait for the photos.
Finally we walk the length of Dong Khoi, of Graham Green then American Soldiers fame, returning to its former, more pleasant, glories back to the river before turning back up Nguyen Hue to our hotel. Without going too far we've experienced quite a bit of what HCMC has to offer and are reminded of the words of our travel agent James who said that HCMC was an experience rather than a sight seeing fest – and he was of course right.
Evening in the hotel with dinner at the 11th floor restaurant which has great views down to the street where you can get a real feel for the flow of the hundreds of motorbikes that travel up and down every minute – the neon and fairy lights really complete the picture of this energetic place after dark. Looking forward to getting back here after our excursion and hitting the streets at night.
Early start though, 8am pickup, so it's early to bed tonight...
Thursday, 1 January 2009
Day 8 – Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh City
January 1st 2009
Happy New Year to everyone, we ended up staying at the hotel and enjoying the party last night. Was all a bit strange, a 2 piece band from the Philippines – who'd obviously got the gig because of their vast range of English language pop songs, ahem – a 2 piece Cambodian “pop” band, with a female vocalist who genuinely hurt the eardrums, and some much more appropriate Cambodian music and dancing.
Sat with some more pleasant Sydneyites – a made up word I'm sure but gets the gist across I hope. Cut a long story short, a strange evening ended with some good fireworks, incredibly excited hotel staff, and lots and lots of noise!
Onto today and unfortunately Sarah's the one not too great at the moment. Nothing that won't straighten itself out soon enough, but we've been quite lucky in getting a day and half at the temples, if we'd overlapped with our illnesses we'd probably have seen nothing but the pictures in the guidebooks!
We leave the hotel around 11:30am to head for the airport. Sitting in our hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City, Siem Reap seems almost like a dream, just a few dusty streets, locals on motorbikes, and the odd luxury hotel dotted around. I don't think it'll stay like that for long, one of the Aussies last night said Cambodia was like Vietnam 10 years ago, well I've had a trip from the airport to show me that the current charm of Siem Reap is going to be replaced with, well, something different that's for sure.
Can't remember what strange quirk of Asia number we're up to. Having arrived a good 2.5 hours before our Vietnam Airlines flight to HCMC (guidebook coolspeak for Ho Chi Minh City), check-in is again a 2 minute painless experience, no queues, our boarding passes say we're due to board at 13:55 for our flight at 14:25 so all's well. $50 departure tax for the 2 of us is a bit steep I have to say, and they may say they take credit cards but don't believe a word of it, carry cash! By the time we get through security, about 10 minutes later our flight's on the board. 14:55 – eh? Not 30 minutes delayed, the timetable has actually changed to 14:55. Don't ask, I've no idea...
The flight, our first turbo prop of the trip but I suspect not our last passes quickly enough and after some glimpses of rivers and delta (it might be hot, but it's tropical so often very cloudy of course) we land at HCMC. First impressions of the runway area are like someone's painted over a 'Nam war film (the guidebooks call it “The American War” by the way, which I found amusing!) - rows upon rows of steel reinforced concrete arches – they'll be called something specific, but I can't bring to mind what. I'm therefore not expecting much when we hit the terminal but it's brand spanking new and, surprise surprise, not only are we through immigration in about 5 minutes but our bags have already done a circuit of the luggage belt waiting for us. Our driver is waiting for us at the exit – keep on saying phew and meaning it!
The drive to the hotel is interesting to say the least. Even less road rules than Cambodia it seems but with seemingly a million more vehicles. Nobody seems to get in the slightest bit stressed though as push bikes, motor bikes, cars, buses all jossle at major 4-way junctions with no traffic lights, Sarah comments that this would never work in Europe and of course she's right, no chance.
Our hotel is very good, perhaps what you'd describe as the first truly functional or “city” hotel we've stayed in, but if I had a room this size in London half the time I'd be very happy.
I think we'll be spending the evening here tonight so we can both fully recharge and get back on our feet for some sight seeing tomorrow. Our hotel is perfectly positioned right in the centre of District 1 and appears to be just a few minutes walk from the River Saigon itself – well we'll see about the few minutes anyway.
(Thank you to everyone who has said nice things about this blog either through comment or email, it makes the writing so much easier. I've just added a small selection of Bangkok photos which can be accessed through the Flickr badge on the right hand side. I've got many many more of course but for info the camera really struggled with the light conditions, while it was cloudy the sun was still very bright so my camera wanted to use flash even for distant shots which was obviously useless, sometimes then they might look a bit “gloomy” - which is a shame)
Happy New Year to everyone, we ended up staying at the hotel and enjoying the party last night. Was all a bit strange, a 2 piece band from the Philippines – who'd obviously got the gig because of their vast range of English language pop songs, ahem – a 2 piece Cambodian “pop” band, with a female vocalist who genuinely hurt the eardrums, and some much more appropriate Cambodian music and dancing.
Sat with some more pleasant Sydneyites – a made up word I'm sure but gets the gist across I hope. Cut a long story short, a strange evening ended with some good fireworks, incredibly excited hotel staff, and lots and lots of noise!
Onto today and unfortunately Sarah's the one not too great at the moment. Nothing that won't straighten itself out soon enough, but we've been quite lucky in getting a day and half at the temples, if we'd overlapped with our illnesses we'd probably have seen nothing but the pictures in the guidebooks!
We leave the hotel around 11:30am to head for the airport. Sitting in our hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City, Siem Reap seems almost like a dream, just a few dusty streets, locals on motorbikes, and the odd luxury hotel dotted around. I don't think it'll stay like that for long, one of the Aussies last night said Cambodia was like Vietnam 10 years ago, well I've had a trip from the airport to show me that the current charm of Siem Reap is going to be replaced with, well, something different that's for sure.
Can't remember what strange quirk of Asia number we're up to. Having arrived a good 2.5 hours before our Vietnam Airlines flight to HCMC (guidebook coolspeak for Ho Chi Minh City), check-in is again a 2 minute painless experience, no queues, our boarding passes say we're due to board at 13:55 for our flight at 14:25 so all's well. $50 departure tax for the 2 of us is a bit steep I have to say, and they may say they take credit cards but don't believe a word of it, carry cash! By the time we get through security, about 10 minutes later our flight's on the board. 14:55 – eh? Not 30 minutes delayed, the timetable has actually changed to 14:55. Don't ask, I've no idea...
The flight, our first turbo prop of the trip but I suspect not our last passes quickly enough and after some glimpses of rivers and delta (it might be hot, but it's tropical so often very cloudy of course) we land at HCMC. First impressions of the runway area are like someone's painted over a 'Nam war film (the guidebooks call it “The American War” by the way, which I found amusing!) - rows upon rows of steel reinforced concrete arches – they'll be called something specific, but I can't bring to mind what. I'm therefore not expecting much when we hit the terminal but it's brand spanking new and, surprise surprise, not only are we through immigration in about 5 minutes but our bags have already done a circuit of the luggage belt waiting for us. Our driver is waiting for us at the exit – keep on saying phew and meaning it!
The drive to the hotel is interesting to say the least. Even less road rules than Cambodia it seems but with seemingly a million more vehicles. Nobody seems to get in the slightest bit stressed though as push bikes, motor bikes, cars, buses all jossle at major 4-way junctions with no traffic lights, Sarah comments that this would never work in Europe and of course she's right, no chance.
Our hotel is very good, perhaps what you'd describe as the first truly functional or “city” hotel we've stayed in, but if I had a room this size in London half the time I'd be very happy.
I think we'll be spending the evening here tonight so we can both fully recharge and get back on our feet for some sight seeing tomorrow. Our hotel is perfectly positioned right in the centre of District 1 and appears to be just a few minutes walk from the River Saigon itself – well we'll see about the few minutes anyway.
(Thank you to everyone who has said nice things about this blog either through comment or email, it makes the writing so much easier. I've just added a small selection of Bangkok photos which can be accessed through the Flickr badge on the right hand side. I've got many many more of course but for info the camera really struggled with the light conditions, while it was cloudy the sun was still very bright so my camera wanted to use flash even for distant shots which was obviously useless, sometimes then they might look a bit “gloomy” - which is a shame)
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