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...
Sunday, 4 January 2009
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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