Hanoi Days

That's all folks!

2006-10-04T23:10:00.000+07:00

Sorry I haven't had a chance before now (or rather I've been lazy) but I'm now back in England so this blog won't be updated anymore.

To see what I'm currently up to visit: www.flickr.com/photos/hanoidays instead - it does have additional photos from Viet Nam and Hanoi...plus stuff I've been up to since I've returned to London

Please feel free to carry on commenting, writing to me and reading what's up here so far, and hopefully some time in the future I'll be waking up to many more Hanoi Days...

Left Bank

2005-11-19T18:41:00.000+07:00

Day one

This month has been a bit of a tight one financially, a product of two consecutive months of friends leaving Vietnam and having to party, and me perhaps *cough* not budgeting correctly...anyway to cut a long story short I ended up having to organise a money transfer from England. After initial scepticism from my mother, we managed to sort out a transfer.

So first I had to go to a branch of the Saigon Bank in Hang Ma street, but due to the vagueries of the time difference, it was going to be a tight schedule. British post offices open at 9am while the bank shuts at 4.30pm. This left us with a half an hour window to complete the transaction. The night before we agreed a list of codes or passwords we would use for security reasons...neither of us had done an electronic transfer before and we didn't know that they provided us with the number once the transaction was underway. So the next afternoon, I dragged myself off my sick bed (I've been down with the annual flu dose I seem to organise whenever British Summer Time comes to an end), and made the short way to the Saigon Bank.

Interesting looking place, the Saigon bank branch that I visited, an almost completely empty room with a cash machine and a counter with no protective glass, another sign that Vietnam isn't familiar with violent crime. I parked my bike up and hopped off. As I walked towards the bank's entrance a man shook his head and after a few abortive attempts managed to explain that I could only use the cash machine, and that if I wanted to do anything else I would have to visit the Vietcom bank just around the corner...at this point I was a bit perplexed as I had definitely been told that this was the branch that the transfer would take place at.

Thankfully for once I managed to bring my trusty pocket guide to Vietnamese with me. I rapidly flicked through the pages, dreading the thought that it wouldn't have any references to electronic transfers, but there it was! "Toi co the rut duoc tien chuyen tu ngan hang cua toi den day khong?". No, dear reader, I'm sorry to say that my spoken Vietnamese isn't that good, so I pointed desperately at the sentence, my eyes darking to the clock showing it was already 9.10 in England and my mother had already begun the transfer. The man relented, as smiled, opening the door for me as I darted into the spartan room.

Three Vietnamese peered up at me from behind the low desk. The man who had waved me in quickly explained my request, and they then asked me... "have you got your reference number?". Oh. No. They apologised and said it wouldn't be possible to let the request go through without the necessary number, so at this point – 9.15am in England, I raced out of the door and tore back to my house, hammering away on the keyboard to my mother's email address urgently asking for the number...seconds ticked away, as I continually refreshed the screen of my yahoo account waiting for the return message...9.20...9.22...9.25....Bing! The message turns up...I race out the door, slam on the bike and zoom back to the Saigon bank....I ramp up the pavement, and crash through the doors...hastily handing over the reference number scrawled on the back of a pizza delivery reciept...unscrewing the piece of paper, the woman who had seen me 10 minutes or so previously goes to check her files...comes back to the counter, and then points at the clock... "sorry, too late..." I peer up...4.35...damn.

The staff are most apologetic and give me the address of the head office of the bank where I can collect the money the following day, even being so kind to tell me that the bank opens at 7.30am (yeah, right! Like I'm going to be up at that time!)...I smile, thank them for their efforts and make my way home...

Day two

Right, so I haven't risen with dawn chorus, but at least it's still morning...as I make my way southwards to the headquarters of the Saigon Investment and Development Bank...there's something still kind of old skool about them...there's actually an army bank still (which apparently is very highly regarded), and the snappily named Vietcom bank which when I first arrived thought was called the even cooler VietCong bank but alas no.

Anyway, this time I go in the front entrance and it definitely has the feel of a bank, again a slightly relaxed security one at that. Behind the low plexiglass counter about a dozen people are working, a few have computers, but most rely on handwritten scraps of paper and crotchety dot matrix printer for statements and receipts.

Predominantly young women, dressed in casual clothing (no daft looking nylon corporate clothing here...yet) in the early twenties they look up at me blank faced. One kindly manages to explain that I need the other office just around the side of the building...I thank them and make my way around the outside of the building, finding another almost identikit looking room, with an even larger contingent of staff beavering away.

Again I am faced with a minor language hurdle which thankfully is overcome by a staff member speaking English. I'm told to wait ten minutes while they process the transaction. At last my passport is requested and I hand it over, feeling as though the process is actually getting somewhere...I'm not so keen that my passport then leaves my sight and my only piece of official documentation in the entire world is no longer in my possession...ten minutes starts merging into a quarter of an hour, when the woman returns with my form and passport and shunts me onto another member of staff, who fills in another form, which I have to sign - without any idea whatsoever I'm agreeing to – Is Ho Chi Minh cool? Yep! Where do I sign!? Am I a fat westerner? Yeah! That's me!...well that's just some of the guesses, I think it was just a receipt actually.

Finally, I was told to go back to the front office where I could collect my hard won shekels. Again my passport makes a break for freedom as I forlornly watch it disappear again behind closed doors. I return to the front office again, now over flowing with security guards tucking into huge plates of food at what is now 11.30, and pretty much the beginning of lunch time. Counter-intuitively going to the bank around lunchtime (well before they actually SHUT for lunch at 12 is pretty much the best time to visit a bank in Vietnam), means that I'm the only customer left.

My passport and it's courier enter the room from behind the counter, the women who had previously been busy now have plenty of time on their hands...and so begin passing my passport around between themselves...each one in turn looking at the photo of me from 1997, then squinting at the older, heavier more grey haired version now standing at the counter...after the discussion about where I am from and how decrepit I look has finished, a detailed examination of my visas begins, with the odd laugh and giggle as they analyse my adventures abroad...these women shouldn't be working in a bank, they could be top officers in customs or immigration!

Eventually the matriarch of the group has a look, and solemnly announces something to the giggling hordes...and I am put out of my misery as they do a final, and at this point, semi-serious attempt to compare the photo in my passport with my current apparence...then the notes are totalled and finally I escape the Vietnamese inquisition with my loot...quite fun actually, I might do it again someday just for the entertainment value!

Hanging on

2005-10-20T13:21:00.000+07:00

As I meandered into work on Monday I stopped at the juction I stop at everyday. Nothing of interest ever happens here, and on the surface of it, nothing interesting was going to happen on the Monday either. Negotiating junctions can sometimes be a little hard work - and no, this isn't a Vietnamese bad driving story or one of those 'oh! How difficult it is to the cross the road' stories we've been plagued with in expat magazines for the last few months - we live here! Get over it!.
No this incident was just a funny and unfortunate combination of innocuous events. As I pondered life, the universe and everything waiting for a sufficient gap to open up to nose my bike into the torrent, I caught sight of a young Vietnamese with a carrying pole and baskets, an everyday sight, which you become immune to how interesting you found it all when you first arrived. Mind now focused on the real life Frogger game I was part of, I pulled into the middle of the junction - quite acceptable behaviour I hasten to add - and sat there waiting for the other lane to clear sufficiently. For some reason I felt the bike was acting slightly sluggishly and began wondering whether it was time for a checkup. I began to pull away again, when for some reason in the noise around me I picked up a tiny voice "hello?", don't know what that was, so I paddled my bike a yard further forward. Again the diminutive: "hello?" this time in a slightly more urgent tone. Now at this point the road had cleared to my right and I was just about to put my foot down and zoom off, when I decided to look around, and saw the poor young woman, peering up from fiddling around with my bike her conical hat tipped back, her yoke and baskets all asunder, as she'd managed to slip the strings supporting the rear basket through the back of my bike! I'd been physically dragging her across the road, and she was now slap bang in the middle of the junction! After first not realising what she'd been up to, fiddling with my bike I exclaimed: "Oi!", which thankfully just means "hey!" or "oh!" in a polite way, I then couldn't help but start laughing as I realised what had happened and it could have so much worse! I also looked around the junction and realised that everyone was cracking up with laughter, and for once my driving wasn't the butt of the humour! Thankfully the woman wasn't carrying a lit charcoal brick, oranges or anything like crockery and so she soon wended on her way, none the worse for the experience. Me? I had a grin on my face for the rest of the day. Ah Hanoi, I love you!

From Hanoi/Thang Long to Ha Long in one night

2005-10-20T12:34:00.000+07:00

The Sunday before last was the 995th anniversary of the foundation of Hanoi. According to legend Hanoi or Thang Long as it was then named, was chosen as the site of the nation's capital when a Vietnamese King saw a dragon ascending to heaven, the name Thang Long literally meaning Ascending Dragon, just as Ha Long means Descending Dragon. How the particular day this event took place on x many hundreds of years ago was remembered is anyone's guess.

As part of the festivities a whole series of events was organised, including a huge dragon dance meet which took place outside of the Opera House at August Revolution Square. Hundreds of truckloads of dragon dancers from the districts of Hanoi converged to produce a dragon that measured almost a kilometre long. The dragons shook their stuff and put a performance on at the Ly Thai To statue garden on Hoan Kiem lake. How this event went is anyone's guess as I've yet to meet anyone who isn't Vietnamese who knew the time it was taking place!

What we had actually heard about - although the time was suitably vague - was the evening event that was to take place at Truc Bach lake, the little brother of neighbouring West Lake.

Feeling exhausted from three nights worth of partying at the Toilet bar, the Ilubar and a rather snazzy new place below the Business Club on West Lake, I was almost tempted to give it a miss. After some persuasion - and having given up responsibility for finding the perfect spot - I rendevouzed at a cafe Mark and Kate had previously visited before.

The omens for the night were good, huge searchlights swept the skyline, while two stages sat crouched at either end of the Youth Causeway (unfortunately facing away from our position), their lights bathing Truc Bach in a yellow glow. Dragon headed boats prowled across the lake depositing floating candles across the water, while the humid air seemed to grow thicker as the lights gave it form. Now and again a giant multi-coloured air balloon would gently ease itself into the sky, it's interior glowing like a low wattage lightbulb.

Beyond the buildings opposite to us, three large balloons could be seen peeping from behind, now and again they would bring their lumbering load into view - a giant dragon.

Alongside the lake the cafe's began to fill, an excited multi-generational gathering of Vietnamese, with a few ex-pats thrown in for good measure, and at 8pm the festivities began with a bang. Quite literally just around the corner from us, a huge barrage of fireworks was let off, some of them seeming to streak just above our very heads.

Music echoed across the watery expanse separating us from the stages, and for a while we took in the ambiance as little could be seen from where we were sitting. Then at last the moment of truth was at hand. The three giant balloons slowly wafted up on their wires revealing a huge golden and red dragon, squiggled as though in upward movement, it's tongue sticking out.

As the pageant unfolding on the stage came to a climax, almost a thousand rainbow hued balloons were released, picked up in the searchlight beams. As this stream of balloons wafted upwards, small flickering bluish lights could be seen attached to some, producing a sparkling trail into the night sky. At this point the dragon's balloons were liberated and the majestic beast (albeit attached to the equivalent of waterwings) meandered it's way skywards. Mark and me agreed that so far it had been one of the most impressive events we'd yet seen in Hanoi as we took in the scene. We joked at what a small central highlands village would make of the dragon when it eventually lost buoyancy and sunk to the ground, or whether we'd be lucky enough to snag a balloon with a blue flickering light.

Then the fireworks began. Just like the ones that kicked off the event, these weren't just a symbolic few zipping into the darkened sky, oh no, more a blossoming boom of flame, just that little bit too low for comfort. This time the fireworks were positioned to the front and left of us, again across the lake. The rushing white lights careered across the sky, amusingly enough now and again hitting a couple of the balloons in the still upwardly moving column, veering off in new directions and causing a frisson of excitement. The crowd was enjoying the spectacle as it entered it's final stages, when an errant firework was deflected off course by the trail of balloons and scored a direct hit on the dragons head! Boooom!! The dragon's head took the full force of the missile, the firework sending out silver sparks as the head spitooned away from it's body. The now decapitated dragon began to float up at a faster pace with some of it's ballast now gone...all was not lost, the dragon representing Thang Long/Hanoi was still floating majestically into the night sky...until....a second firework scores a direct hit on one of it's supportive balloons, which blossoms into flame in a quite impressive piece of pyrotechnics in it's own right! Now, with it's middle balloon gone, there's nothing to save the once proud creature from disaster.

After initial shouts of dismay, the surreally bizarre nature of the event begins to tickle the collective funny bone of the crowd. Laughter ripples along the lake side as the doomed dragon dives headless into the ground behind the buildings to our left. We discussed the issues later as we finished off our beers and waited for the traffic to clear. My view was that they had put a former army veteran in charge of the fireworks, and that he'd experienced some kind of war flash back, what with all the searchlights and everything my belief was that he'd remembered his anti-aircraft training and had deliberately taken out the lumbering low flying B52/dragon. Mark had a more realistic view of the event and put it down to poor health and safety in putting the fireworks too close to the balloons. Bah! I know which explanation I prefer. So from Thang Long - Ascending Dragon to Ha Long - Descending Dragon in one night!

Hannnnnnoiiiiii oi boyeeeeeeeeee!

2005-09-25T00:04:00.000+07:00

Well, what would you expect to make up the programme for a South African cultural week? In the past it must have been a fascinating list; how to construct a laagar using three wagons or less, how to dry meat to the point where it takes you half an hour to chew a piece, 1001 uses for an electrical flex and a unwilling companion, or staircase safety lessons for police stations...but that is soooo passe. Come to think about it, I don't think South Africa even had an embassy in Vietnam prior to majority rule, and certainly wouldn't have put on a night like I have just experienced.

Picture the scene. A balmy night in Hanoi, a big fat orange half moon leering over the city, insects flickering like sparks in the headlights, the streets teeming with motorbikes on the roads leading to the Giang Vo exhibition centre. An excited air of anticipation could be felt as we pulled up at the entrance, driving through to the motorbike parking lot via a gigantic red and yellow star shaped gate. Having received complimentary tickets (I put it down to my heartfelt commitment to South African culture...or maybe it's payback for attending those ground-hog day Anti-Aparthied rallies in Trafalgar Square), we skipped the 50,000 VND fee, and entered the hall.

BOOOOM!!
Yep, it was going to be a good one.

BOOOOM!!
Now we're talking.

BOOOOM!!
My ribcage for the first time in Vietnam is feeling that familiar tickle of the subwoofer.

South African Hip-Hop is definately in the house - along with 2,000 Vietnamese and a smattering of ex-pats getting on down. On the stage, DJ Rudeboy Paul was just starting his set, dueting with an old geezer in traditional dress who is hammering his percussion kit like there's no tomorrow, but that's just part of what's going on.

A single South African woman is dancing centre stage, while Vietnamese comperes stalk the stage whipping up the crowd - that to be honest, needs no encouragement whatsoever. One of the compares leans next to the dancer, and exclaims to the crowd 'Oi gioi oi!!!!' (Oh my God!!!!) as she starts rotating her hips in a provocative manner.

Hanoi B-boys and home girls roar encouragement, a female Vietnamese MC steps to front of the stage and begins her interplay with the crowd. 'HAAAAANNNNNOOOIIII OI!!!!' she screams - literally 'Hey, Hanoi!', but in this case a call for more noise. The sound of the crowd increases, as the nodding heads are joined by thousand of hands in the air, lit up by streaks of gold and green as the lighting rig spews colours across the masses.

As the stage is cleared of superfluous MCs, comperes and hangers-on, the real business of the night begins. The South Africans have brought a break dancing crew and a proper old skool battle is just about to begin. The SA boys do their stuff for a bit, the crowd delighted by their skills, and then the Vietnamese crew step up to the challenge, and despite a few indiscretions (like interrupting the SA boys doing their thing) kill the visitors, their muscle to fat ratios meaning they leap like salmons, at some points seeming to press the gravity defying pause button while supporting their entire body weights on one hand. Seconds later one of the Vietnamese calls for a re-examination of the laws of physics as he slides five feet on the palm of one hand. Having got the opposition beat, the Vietnamese whip the crowd to a frenzy with a lilting 'Vietnam' football chant...and then it's all over. Mutual respect is given after a few humourous hip thrusts, and the boys leave the stage...

While the main stage is the centre of people's attention, at the back the younger Vietnamese have their own entertainment going on, as a circle is formed and they chuck themselves around like spinning tops attempting to ape the moves they've just seen on stage, reputations are being won and lost in the blink of an eye, but every participant be they successful or not are well received.

Finally we twig that our complimentary tickets allow us entry to the VIP area where apparently beer is available (no alcohol is being sold in the main hall), so as the night draws to a close we end up on the balcony looking down on the activities below, while tucking into spiced meat balls and 7UP (the beer was off by the time we got there).

It's the sort of night that puts a smile on your face, and you can't help but think that the enthusiasm of the crowd for the performers - who in truth were competant but not amazing - would be something else if they ever got to see any of the bands or DJs we take for granted in Britain.

Getting there

2005-09-06T00:52:00.000+07:00

Here's a quick picture of me on the way to Bar 69 on Independence Day...bit busy. I'm the one circled in white...somewhere...

Thanks to Tu for the pic

It's a beautiful day

2005-09-04T04:29:00.000+07:00

September 2nd was the 60th anniversary of the 1945 August Revolution, that threw off the shackles of French colonialism and opened a new period in Vietnam's history.
The big issue about this year was the fact that there was a giant parade in Hanoi (normally Ho Chi Minh City seems to get all the best ones).
Managing to surface at 6am was a sign of my dedication in catching this rare event, and I wasn't dissappointed...amazingly enough I managed to persuade Jon, Hemma, Nicola, Sarah, Jo and Shev all to forsake the pleasures of a relaxing national holiday spent in bed and we met at the corner of Dien Bien Phu.
The first indications weren't too hopeful, until luckily we found out that the parade would actually be running down the street only a couple of minutes away...as the temperature rose, the anticipation began to build and there was a fair number of people lining the street. Around 7am cannon fire could be heard and two helicopters swept over us carrying the national flag...and then the parade began.
Despite the fact there were over 10,000 participants in Ba Dinh Square taking part in the celebrations, the parade itself was a stripped down version, which was just as well as we were all beginning to melt by the end. By 8 we all trapsed over to a cafe which used to be frequented by Katherine Deneurve, and then home to bed...
Later that day I had a phone call from work calling me in, so I nipped in and prepared myself for the evening meal ahead. For some reason I decided that I'd eat dog again, so at 6pm Mark and Tu popped over on the way to the dyke road stretch of dog restaurants. Tu managed to order six dishes, and while I didn't really fancy the sausages(dog offal and blood...nah sorry), I tried pretty much everything else. The most gruesome looking dish actually turned out to be the nicest of all - the dog legs. Once you stripped away the rather dark, tough looking skin and yellow fatty part, the meat was suprisingly tender. As I've previously mentioned, dog pretty much tastes like lamb, but the legs were more muttony I think, although I am far from an expert...Read more about the experience here
Having finished up at the dog restuarant we zipped back into town to meet up with Kate and Mark just as the streets began to fill with eager firework goers...At one point it became complete gridlock, it taking about ten minutes to get across one junction. At Bar 69 we met Mark, Kate, Bin and Connor, two friends of Mark and Kate's from Australia. By the time the fireworks had finished the streets had pretty much emptied out and it was easy enough to finish up at the Maquis for a nightcap.
Good day all round!

2005-09-04T04:28:00.000+07:00

I think this cool looking lot might be the honour guard at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum

2005-09-04T04:26:00.000+07:00

Yep, Vietnamese soldiers all right...come and have a go if you think you're hard enough is the message I think...

2005-09-04T04:24:00.000+07:00

After the obvious, and slightly drab colours of the official parts of Vietnam's armed forces...came this. They look as though they've stepped out of a 1968 propaganda poster, guns over their shoulders, wearing the costumes of every Vietnamese national group, and some rather snazzy white gloves...

2005-09-04T04:20:00.000+07:00

A riot of colour with the ethnic minority women's unit

2005-09-04T04:19:00.000+07:00

Vietnam trade union federation float

2005-09-04T04:17:00.000+07:00

Up the workers!

2005-09-04T04:15:00.000+07:00

Cu Chi district women

2005-09-04T04:14:00.000+07:00

Ho Chi Minh Youth Union with slightly suspect hippie deviation?

2005-09-04T04:12:00.000+07:00

Technicoloured Ao Dai's on show

2005-09-04T04:10:00.000+07:00

So wave your hats in the air, and wave them like you just don't care! Say yeah!

2005-09-04T04:08:00.000+07:00

Vietnamese army veterans

2005-09-04T04:07:00.000+07:00

Yay! Nuns and monks with Communist Party flags! Stay strong sisters!

Three of a kind

2005-09-04T03:35:00.000+07:00

Well, we arrived back in Hanoi from our month long trip on a Sunday, and Jayne and Bharti had already landed and settled into their hotel in Hanoi...no rest for the wicked then!
After a couple of days of dislocated timings (none of us seemed capable of eating or drinking at the same time!), Cath arrived...having made a reservation for a non-existant room at the Taramind Cafe...to add to the fun, Bharti, Jayne and Cath's mobile phones seemed to work on an intermitant basis, allowing all sorts of cock-ups and missed rendevous to take (or rather not to take)place...
After being given a whirlwind tour of Hanoi (and Bharti getting a liking for motorbike rides) the dynamic threesome headed up to Sapa for a few days, and like everyone before who has visited the place, came back with amusing tales of being bargined with to within an inch of their lives...then there was the H'mong baby which we'll leave for another time.

Cath come home...London's Calling!
After a brief trip to Ha Long bay, Hoi An was next on the list with Cath deciding to stay for a couple of days extra in Hanoi before joining Jayne and Bharti in Hoi An, during which period she revealed her love for all things London related, and could be heard singing along to London's Calling at 3am in Half Man Half Noodle - Good on yer Cath - nothing better than a scouser falling in love with the big smoke, eh?

After copious amounts of shopping the visit seemed to be over before it started.

2005-09-04T03:30:00.000+07:00

A bit of a blurry one, taken in the I-Box next to Hoan Kiem lake. Felicity, me, Jayne and Bharti taking it easy...

Hoi An and Hanoi bound

2005-09-04T03:19:00.000+07:00

We didn't get up to much in the few days we had in Hoi An before we returned to Hanoi...the only thing of interest we managed to squeeze in was a cookery course at the Red Bridge restuarant, down the river from Hoi An town.
The tour started at 8am and it was a bit of a struggle getting to the designated meeting point of the Scout Cafe on time...after everyone had arrived we trapsed down to Hoi An market and were shown around the gigantic piles of fresh ingredients - plus a heads-up on the over-whelming quantities of MSG that are regularly sold in Vietnam!

We then boarded a boat down the river to the restaurant, bizarrely enough, we ended it up sharing the boat with my work colleague Pho and his wife and child, who quite by chance happened to have been in Hoi An for a long weekend, I actually did a double take thinking it just couldn't be him...so that's the second time I've had a weird 'are they really that person or am I going mad, as there's 82 million people in Vietnam, it surely couldn't be them, could it' moments...

The cookery class was pretty easy going and I think Felicity was very relieved to find that cooking isn't all that stressful. If anything she discovered a latent talent in food decoration, as I'm sure the pictures show!

Then it was all over, and Hanoi loomed again...

2005-09-04T03:18:00.000+07:00

Chilling out while waiting for the ferry

2005-09-04T03:16:00.000+07:00

Felicity's tomato rose with cucumber...errr...thing

2005-09-04T03:15:00.000+07:00

Felicity showing great pride in her food sculpture skills

2005-09-04T03:13:00.000+07:00

watching the cooking class from the mirror above

2005-09-04T03:11:00.000+07:00

A quiet day in Hoi An

2005-09-04T03:09:00.000+07:00

Shopping time down the Hoi An market

2005-09-04T03:08:00.000+07:00

Fisherman throwing net on the river at Hoi An

Onto Laos

2005-09-04T02:37:00.000+07:00

At last our time in Cambodia had come to an end. After the gritty experience of Phnom Penh and the idyllic character of Siem Riep and Angkor Wat, it was now time to move onto our third country on our Indochina tour - Laos...

Scratch all that...Laos decided to close the capital Vientiane a whole week before an ASEAN conference...of course they had gone ahead and sold us the flights already, so after a short conflab we decided to return to Vietnam and spend the last few days relaxing in Hoi An...

Dancing in Outer Space

2005-09-04T02:33:00.000+07:00

Two facts about the Celestial Dancers. Firstly the Thais kidnapped loads of Celestial Dancers when they invaded in the middle ages, which is why their dances are so similar, and secondly the tradition was almost lost during the Khmer Rouge period, with only a few teachers escaping the genocide

2005-09-04T02:30:00.000+07:00

Kneeling Celestial Dancers

2005-09-04T02:29:00.000+07:00

Real life Celestial Dancers

Tonle Sap river and lake

2005-09-04T02:25:00.000+07:00

For a change of scene we took a break from the temples and headed down to Tonle Sap to see a floating village. Everything you could imagine could be found in the floating village, pool bars, churches, and schools. A larger Vietnamese minority also lived there, their boats often featuring a red star on the prow.

2005-09-04T02:24:00.000+07:00

Lads hanging out in the late afternoon

2005-09-04T02:22:00.000+07:00

Crocodiles are seen as an important source of income and status

2005-09-04T02:21:00.000+07:00

People can be found floating in the strangest of things...

2005-09-04T02:20:00.000+07:00

A typical floating house

2005-09-04T02:19:00.000+07:00

Travelling fruit and vegetable sellers ply the river, visiting boat houses.

2005-09-04T02:17:00.000+07:00

Hair wash time

2005-09-04T02:15:00.000+07:00

Young children are completely at home on the river

2005-09-04T02:14:00.000+07:00

Even floating churches could be found

So that's Wat Cambodia's about...

2005-09-04T01:08:00.000+07:00

Temple tower at East Mebon

2005-09-04T01:06:00.000+07:00

Girl in doorway at the Lady Chapel

2005-09-04T01:05:00.000+07:00

Three girls at Baphuon

2005-09-04T01:02:00.000+07:00

Buddhist monk at Angkor Wat

2005-09-04T01:01:00.000+07:00

Another Ta Prohm tree and wall pic...the buildings are likely to collapse if the trees are removed

2005-09-04T00:59:00.000+07:00

Three Celestial Dancers at Angkor Wat

2005-09-04T00:57:00.000+07:00

Tree and wall at Ta Prohm another King J7 production

2005-09-04T00:54:00.000+07:00

Old bloke who's on the front of the Lonely Planet Cambodia book

2005-09-04T00:50:00.000+07:00

The steep climb to the summit of Angkor Wat

2005-09-04T00:48:00.000+07:00

Intricate carving of a Celestial Dancer at Angkor Wat

2005-09-04T00:46:00.000+07:00

Bayon Temple with the faces of Buddha bearing a remarkable resemblence to King Jayavarman VII

Arrival in Phnom Penh

2005-09-03T23:47:00.000+07:00

Phnom Penh came into view as we eased around a bend in the river. It looked from the water front pretty well developed, with lots of building work taking place. On closer inspection it looked as though it was another luxury development rather than anything of immediate use to the Cambodians. In contrast to Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, there appears to be little, if any home development or improvements under way. Cambodians live in large appartment blocks, but although crumbling on the outside they appear pretty sturdy, and many of them sport flower pots and creepers. The people are taller, darker, broader and generally more stocky than Vietnamese and wear predominately western style clothes. Country folk making a living in town wear distinctive red and white checked scarves either on their heads or as sarongs. Compared to Vietnam there's far fewer bicycles, with cars being so much more common. Tourists and locals alike seem to use tuk-tuks - three wheeled motorbikes with rudimentary covered back section. A suprising number of people speak English. The locals seemed to exceed the Vietnamese in their abilities to carry objects on their heads while walking, and facemasks are a rarity - although I've already noticed a lot of the city women possess lighter coloured skin. I'm also pretty sure there's some really rough parts to the city, as some of the streets within but a few minutes walk of the trendy waterfront remain unpaved.

Check the last line on the keyring for our hotel room

Another distinctive difference between Vietnam and Cambodia seems to be the type of tourist who visits the country. Along with the family friendly tour groups and young backpackers, there's a more seedy group of older western men and it wasn't that suprising, I suppose to find condoms on sale in our hotel lobby and a full page advert in the Phnom Penh tourist guide stating that having sex with children is a criminal offence. Another issue is the large numbers of beggars and child vendors, which dwarfs anything you're likely to see in Vietnam.
After spending a quiet afternoon in the On the Corner cafe looking out across the Mekong, we took in the sights and sounds of Phnom Penh eventually settling into the Foreign Correspondant's Club on the riverside. Set in an old colonial building over three floors it proved the perfect place to watch the sun set over the towering stupas of the nearby temples.
We returned to our hotel to try and catch up with our email. A minutes later, people began returning from their evenings out in Phnom Penh; and what a sordid and seedy bunch they were too. An old derelict of a man with a face Albert Steptoe would have been ashamed of was accompanied by a respectable looking Khmer woman who looked young enough to be his grand daughter; a spindly, bespectacled sunken jawed Frenchman with a barbie doll, and a most unpleasant mittel-european with sweat stained vest, bleached receeding hair, fumigating the lobby with the stench of stale beer, with teenage woman in tow. We retired to bed in a depressed state of mind.

We had agreed to meet up with the driver who had collected us from the quay the day previously. Doan would meet us at 10am. We headed down to reception to have breakfast, which was pretty good until the derelict European we had seen the night before sat at a table within earshot. He a grabbed a mobile phone from his pocket and began speaking loudly about how he wanted a young woman, demanding from the person at the end of the line 'how old is she?' At that point our breakfast took on a rather rancid taste and we quickly left to join our driver.

The Killing Fields

It proved to be an emotionally grinding morning as our first stop was the killing fields just outside of Phnom Penh. The journey was really strange as this site of national signficance was found at the bottom of a rutted and flooded road, a depressed looking village dotted with highly secure compounded houses and grazing cows, sitting in scrub and ill tended fields, the Killing Fields only companion.
The Killing Fields themselves are mind numbing in their brutality. You stare across a pocked landscape comprised of brush and water filled holes. A truly depressing scene, it's as if life struggles even now to gain a foothold.
A spired monument dominates the site, comprised of perspex boxes full of human skulls, teeth missing, crushed jawbones, splintered eyesockets, cracked craniums. The only labels are descriptions of gender and age.
You begin walking along paths between excavated mass graves, past a tree used to batter babies to death. Here even nature can be found guilty, as we are shown how the serrated edges of a palm leaf were used to cut people's throats and wrists. Bamboo poles, hammers and hoes were used to murder people, men, women, children, even babies with no discernable point. Beyond the flooded graves hie undisturbed patches of land, even now still waiting to reveal their bodies. Worse yet, as you walk along designated paths you start noticing coiled pieces of cloth, knotted scarves, wisps of a blindfold, strands of rope used to bind somebody's hands, then a shard of bone here and there, your eyes become accustomed and you realise the pebbles are human teeth, the roots, more bones, the entire area an open cemetry.
Our car journey back to Phnom Penh through the blighted landscape is a quiet one, as having returned from the Killing Fields now were to visit S-21.

S-21
S-21 was probably where most of the victims in the Killing Fields originated from. S-21 used to be a school until the Khmer Rouge took it over and turned it into an interrogation and torture centre. Just as with the Killing Fields, this complex - Tuol Sleng (whose name in Khmer can be translated as poisonous hill or place on a hill to keep those who bear or supply guilt) - can be found tucked away off the main roads, down a muddy track in the Phnom Penh suburbs. It was originally a primary school, but from 1976 it became Security Office 21, enclosed in two walls of corrugated iron sheets and electrified barbed wire. The Khmer Rouge used children aged between 10 and 15 to act as wardens who became increasingly vicious in their treatment of prisoners.
It is estimated that over 15,000 people died in S-21 alone, including an estimated 2,000 children. When the Vietnamese liberated the city in 1979 the prison was empty, the guards had fled and all that remained were 14 corpses who had been murdered in their cells.
The most emotionally powerful part of the complex was the rooms containing photographs of the prisoners powerfully counterposed by the pictures of their guards gazing back at them from across the same hall.
Finally we entered a room with the now bizarre images of the Khmer Rouge entering Phnom Penh on April 17th 1975 with trucks driving down Monivong Boulevard with cheering crowds greeting them. A week later and the KR were forcibly expelling the city's inhabitants to the countryside. Other pictures show Phnom Penh deserted with street after street of houses with their roofs ripped off. Another picture shows trees and grass growing on major roadways.
As we finished our tour, our guide talked about the Khmer Rouge escape from Phnom Penh on January 7th 1979, as the Vietnamese army swept them from power. Unfortunately this proved too late for her husband who died somewhere in the country on January 22nd 1979.
A truly harrowing morning.
Now we sit in a cafe on the riverfront and ponder why did it happen? What was the point? How was it possible to have been among those cheering crowds on Monivong Boulevard in 1975 and not have an inkling as to what was to come? A genocidal, secret leadership with an enigmatic leader in Pol Pot had already begun purging more moderate elements within the Khmer Rouge, a road that eventually would lead to the execution of ordinary Cambodians on the basis of 'Cambodians with Vietnamese minds'.
Perhaps this horrific history explains why Cambodia is the way it is today. The sleazy, murky sie of life in Phnom Penh, the paralysis of the state with two prime ministers, one pro-western, the other pro-Vietnamese, the digusting backing of the Khmer Rouge by the Chinese and US, a society trying to ignore the past, yet unable to see the future. This history runs deep in the Cambodian psyche, the Thais and the Vietnamese are still to this day resented by the Cambodians; the Thais for the invasion of Ankhor Wat, the Vietnamese for the Cham invasions of the 14th century and the later absorbtion of the Mekong Delta. Some still accuse the Vietnamese of having their own agenda when it comes to Cambodia, but while the west turned a blind eye to genocide, no other country in the world had the nerve to do something about it. When the Vietnamese troops withdrew from Cambodia in 1989, their tanks were covered in garlands of flowers by a greatful population.

Chau Doc side

2005-09-03T22:57:00.000+07:00

Our hotel in Chau Doc was excellent. A strangely modern block, styled in an art deco fashion perched on the corner of the street overlooking the main market place.
The next morning we surfaced at a respectfully late hour, missing breakfast, so set out to find a café to take in Chau Doc. After settling for orange juice and coffee we had enough time to get a feel for the place. Unlike the other parts of Vietnam we’d visited, Chau Doc doesn’t really seem to have embraced the tourist invasion, and we pottered around the town like strangers in a strange land. The truth is Chau Doc is primarily a working fishing town and provincial market place, the fact that it sits on the border with Cambodia is about the only reason that anybody would really choose to visit.

We eventually began to frequent a restaurant that looked out onto the Mekong (or a tributary), wide, alluvial, dotted with branches and whole trees sweeping past on the current. To pass the day we decided to go on a tour of the river and surrounding countryside. After being collected from our hotel, we caught a small boat, and began the tour by visiting the floating market, unfortunately it was pretty dead by the time we arrived as it was mid-afternoon. The boats themselves were large hulks, their masts decorated with the produce they sell. A whole village revealed itself on the water, bustling with activity, the river belied the town’s more sedate atmosphere with fishing nets being flung, engines being repaired, boats filled up with petrol, an old woman on all fours supplicating herself to an alter on her boat roof.

Another interesting feature was the presence of the Cham minority people on the river bank opposite Chau Doc. As we wended our way up river, the bamboo trees parted and the brilliant white onion dome of a mosque came into view. The Cham here are a split from their Cham relatives around My Son. There the Cham practice a type of Hinduism, while here in Chau Doc they are Muslims. The Cham are generally larger built than the Vietnamese, with more sallow, flatter faces of an almost middle eastern appearance, their clothes brightly coloured tunics, long skirts and scarves.

After the brief stop at the Cham village, we boarded the boat again and visited a floating fish farm, which luckily for us was in the process of emptying it’s stock, by sorting the fish into size and species for sale. Huge bamboo baskets carried by two men would be dumped onto a canvas sheet, then a succession of boats moored alongside would collect the sorted fish.

The journey finished with a short trip up a canal that seperates Vietnam from Cambodia. Strangely, the French decided that the canal wouldn't be the actual border between the two countries, and even now Vietnam stretches another 500 metres over the far bank...something the Khmer Rouge didn't appreciate particularly, as they spent most of their time shelling Chau Doc.

Having trailed the Intrepid tour groups for the entire length of Vietnam, it came as no suprise to find ourselves on the speedboat to Phnom Penh with another batch on our last morning. A short xe om ride and we found ourselves next to the Victoria Chau Doc hotel (a strange break in the space/time continuum must have been responsible for placing the Victoria hotel here - it was so ludicrously out of place in a working fishing port...), as we waited to board the boat we were able to grin to eachother that the tour we'd taken the day before cost an extra $20 for the priviledge of having it booked by the Victoria! The speed boat looked a bit smaller than the one we'd seen in the pictures in the hotel, but it was reassuringly firm underfoot, and the upholstered seats were actually very comfortable.

The Intrepid guide said that the first hour of the trip would be the most interesting for riverlife, so I happily snapped away until we hit the very relaxed immigration check. A perfunctory passport check and x ray and then back into the boat and up river again for a kilometre until we hit the Cambodian border check. It felt strange leaving Vietnam, no longer ex-pats, but tourists. No more entertaining moments where we could suprise people with a smattering of Vietnamese, instead a reversion to the wide eyed innocence and a massive sign over our head screaming 'SUCKER!'.
The Cambodian passport control did look that little bit more tidy, but the immigration officials proved to be the a stony faced bunch (the sought after look,I suppose).

After that the speedboat ramped up and we were off.

The most noticeable thing between Vietnam and Cambodia in relation to the Mekong was the lack of activity on the Cambodian side. Chau Doc was a swarming mass of junks, fishing boats, ferries, canoes, fish farms, trawlers, and floating houses, while in comparison the Cambodian water remained empty bar a few very small fishing canoes or a brand spanking new western tug or fuel vessel. It seems it's a relatively recent return to the water for the Cambodians.

Don’t Miss Saigon

2005-09-03T17:52:00.000+07:00

Ah Saigon! So much has been told to us about Saigon – the noise, the corruption, the traffic, the seediness…I don’t know why but I really liked the place. It just seemed like a big modern city. Unlike Hanoi, Saigon is dominated by wide boulevards, modern office blocks in places, thousands of restaurants and a more dynamic nightlife than anything you’d ever find in Hanoi.

While Hanoi has the cream of old French architecture, and the winding streets of the Old Quarter, Saigon reflects a different style of town, laid out and built later, it seems to be able to cope with the increased use of motorised vehicles, while still giving a hint of a French provincial city. The L’hotel de Ville is a truly beautiful turn of the century wedding cake of a French building, with the art deco Post Office being the only other building to be able to compete in terms of style.
Our first night had a slight French theme about it as we tucked into fish soup followed by steak and frite at La Forchette, followed by an evening drink at Allez Boo, a popular bar in the backpacker area. It was quite a contrast to Hanoi, with buzzing Vietnamese barstaff, quite obviously enjoying their night’s work, while fashionably dressed Vietnamese young women drank vodka and Orangina (not a likely sight in Hanoi where the hardest thing a Vietnamese woman drinks in public would be a double expresso!). This easy going attitude was reflected in the attitude of people in Saigon and the south in general, easy to chat too, more outgoing, not so phased by western behaviour. The southerners are also a bit more chunky, whether this is just because they were the product of pioneer stock and harder living or due to a superior lifestyle in the south over the last 30-40 years I don’t know.

The next day we met Kris who’d travelled down to HCMC for a city break, so after breakfast we leisurely took in the sights, the post office, the cathedral, a swanky new shopping centre and the Caravelle bar, with panoramic views of the city (no culture for us!). The evening was spent in the Allez Boo again. Unlike Hanoi the bars in HCMC spill out onto the street, with cooling air provided by misty water sprays cascading down from the windows above. This al fresco lifestyle does reveal a less pleasant aspect of Ho Chi Minh City to the visitor, as you are continuously hassled by street vendors, often aged no more than six or seven. It’s a bit depressing when you end up buying cigarettes off a fourteen year old. On one occasion while eating dinner, a five year old ended up sitting next to me while trying to shift some postcards. After being politely being told by us ‘no thank you’, she then proceeded to start sucking on my arm which was most odd, while she muttered ‘no thank you, no thank you, fuck off! Fuck off!’ I can’t guess where she picked up such charming expressions. Another soul who seemed to live in the packpacker district was a Vietnamese boy called Phu, who with no discernable source of income, living off the generosity of visitors. Sadly he seemed to have some kind of disability, which gave him a distracted air. He seemed to be a familiar face to all the bar and restaurant staff who treated him very politely. He took great pleasure in drinking copious amounts of Coca Cola (which on our first meeting he paid for himself), while on the next time we bumped into him, he accompanied us to a restaurant and copied my choice of vanilla ice cream with coffee poured on top – something which he didn’t really seem to enjoy. He was quite a one for money too, in a completely innocent way, often trying to grab Kris’ purse while attempting to add up the bill, which I think made Kris a little bit nervous as it had all her money in it.

After achieving nothing of any cultural value on the Friday, we went mad on the Saturday by booking a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

Bow down to Cu Chi

You know about it before you come to Vietnam, but nothing prepares you for the reality of life in the Cu Chi Tunnels. They feature often in the literature, films and first hand accounts of the war, but a visit dispels the junk accumulated by years of watching Tour of Duty or any of the US Vietnam war films. No more stereotypes of mindless ‘gooks’, faceless ‘Charlie’ or evil ‘VC’. Instead you see at first hand, a place where a people stood resolute in the face of the enemy within an hour’s drive of Saigon. A place where people for over a generation refused to surrender or give ground.

After a drive for about an hour through the Ho Chi Minh City suburbs, we began to leave the urban sprawl behind. A few new planted forests later, and a drive by a former US army base and we were at Cu Chi. Or rather we were at one part of a gigantic complex, which stretches from the Saigon river to the Cambodian border. The tunnels are a gigantic monument to the ingenuity, bravery and stamina of the Vietnamese people. The complex stretches for miles below ground, while the district of Cu Chi above remained in general a thorn in the side of the US and the Saigon regime for the whole period of the war.
Travelling by night, the villagers of Cu Chi were able to let bombs off in Saigon, while being able to return to Cu Chi by tunnel during the day. Through the tunnel complex and it’s stretch to the Cambodian border linking it to the Ho Chi Minh trail, the Cu Chi district remained a flank controlled by the Communists throughout the war, unbelievable considering the proximity to the huge US military presence.

Our group and guide got out of the minibus once inside a large compound, the sharp cracks of gunfire could be heard, while the overgrowth and jungle surrounded us. We followed our guide into the undergrowth, to a covered pavilion where three dummies stood. The three figures wore different uniforms, which the guide helpfully explained the significance of. One of the women figures wore black pyjamas, camouflage cloak, a floppy wide brimmed jungle hat, carried an AK47, wore tell-tale ‘Ho Chi Minh’ sandals, the soles of which were made from car tyres and finally had the famous Cu Chi checked scarf, which was worn for purely practical reasons, doubling up as it did as a towel or flannel. Another male figure was dressed in green combat fatigues, wore canvas shoes and represented a regular North Vietnamese Army regular, who apparently were able to travel the Ho Chi Minh trail all the way down to Cu Chi from the north. The first exhibit we visited was a small shack which showed piles of military hardware. Helicopter gunship rocket launchers, missiles, B 52 bombs, artillery shells and mines. All these had been recycled by the Cu Chi people to be used against the Americans and the AVRN (southern army).

Next up was a short propaganda film. Amazingly naïve in it’s making, black and white, all crackly sound and bizarre English, I couldn’t but think of a darkened Conway Hall in 1967, packed with people sitting in the dark, the silver light glistening off their eyes as they watched tales of Vietnamese heroism at a meeting of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. Perhaps such a film these days wouldn’t be quite so heavy handed, and it would probably be necessary to tone down the awarding ‘medals of ‘American Killing Heroes’, but hey, that’s the way it was.

And then, the jungle.

The canopy cooled our bodies, visibility dropping to a few yards. Now and again the guide would point to B52 bomb craters to either side of the path. Eventually we entered a clearing, and the guide stated: ‘You are now within a metre of the entrance to the Cu Chi tunnels. Can you find it?’ We looked around the deserted clearing and eventually the guide stepped into the middle of our group, scuffled around for a few seconds and opened a hole into the ground which didn’t look any bigger than a postage stamp – the journey was about to begin. I opted out of the ‘get down a hole that’s smaller than one of your legs scenario’ and snapped a few shots of Felicity and Kris squeezing through the hole. An innocent termite mound nearby turned out to be a gun position, while another small hillock represented the exit point for smoke from Cu Chi tunnel kitchens. The smoke from chimneys below ground were slowly allowed to escape by the use of multiple chambers, slowing and dissipating the smoke and smell of cooking over many hours. Initially, to throw American troops off the existence of the tunnels, the villagers would employ pepper or chilli to confuse their dogs, but once the Americans twigged that the dogs had started developing runny noses at certain points, they then became more sophisticated, by using stolen US uniforms or personal affects to make the tunnels smell of Americans and thereby ‘normalising’ the smell of the tunnels from the dogs. Even if sections of the tunnels could be found, the size of the tunnels were too small for the US soldiers to get down, and deadly booby traps awaited the insane.

I braved the first short tunnel, which dropped to three metres below ground. I have to say this probably gave us a false sense of security about what lay ahead, but it proved interesting to see the hospital quarters, which must have kept in utter silence. The tunnel itself just required you to bend your knees slightly, and although uncomfortable due to putting all your weight on your thighs was quite doable. Of course we were in a section of the tunnel that had been widened to cope with the * cough * more ample frames of us westerners.

Next came the big one. Yes, the three metre below ground tunnel had been slightly uncomfortable, but we’d done ten metres without any real problems so a hundred and ten metres didn’t sound like much. To be fair, the guide did issue a health warning in his own way: ‘now it’s time to rock and roll! This tunnel drops to the second level at six metres, and I should warn you that those of you with breathing problems or a history of heart problems, should not do it’. Considering this is the first health warning we’ve received in Vietnam, we probably should have taken it more seriously in retrospect.

The descent into darkness

Once again it seemed to be not too bad. Although your back begins to ache, and your thighs are now beginning to have a slight burning sensation about them, the first ten metres or so passed off without incident. The way ahead lit every few metres by electric lights – a luxury I doubt the Cu Chi people had.

10 metres

After a couple of minutes we could stand up in what turned out to be a dimly lit concrete chamber, a group of four dummies sat around a table, one of the dummies gesturing at a map of Cu Chi behind them. This was one of the command bunkers. Each of the figures represented a different section of the Cu Chi leadership. A Ho Chi Minh Youth Union member, a Communist Party official, a Cu Chi woman and a NVA regular officer. Well that was easy was the thought at the back of my mind…it’ll only take a few minutes to knock off the other hundred metres…I mean people can run the 100 metres in less than ten seconds it’s not that far, is it?

20 metres

So the trauma began. Again, I stared off on my feet, but my back was beginning to aggravate me. This was coupled by my head now scraping against the tunnel roof, as you had to fight the mental imperative to stand up. The tunnel floor began sloping gently down towards the six metre level.

30 metres

The passage began narrowing, my elbows and forearms scraping the rough hewed walls. Felicity was a few yards in front of me. she had already descended onto all fours. No panic yet, although my breathing began to be laboured as I attempted to suck in more of the moist dead air. Sweat began to cascade off my face, my arms already puckering with rivulets of moisture, my trousers slowly absorbing the damp salty drips from my legs. But this was keeping it real…I only had to do this for a few minutes, while people had lived for decades like this…

40 metres

The floor appeared to bottom out, as had my enthusiasm. There was now just enough space to adopt the lotus position as I rearranged my now tangled limbs into a new configuration, now crawling on all fours, my knees became the main problem, while the thighs still throbbed away.

50 metres

What is it about the human mind, that when enclosed in small spaces, suddenly demands that the body that carries it should now stand up? Why is it now an issue, I thought. The dark way ahead now rarely punctuated by lights. Breathing was becoming increasingly haggard.

60 metres

It’s all dark. Felicity is ahead somewhere in the black before me, a disembodied voice informing me that ‘it’s wet here!’ Nothing can be seen, so your eyes begin entertaining themselves with green and pinks swimming in front of your retinas.

70 metres

Another change in position, another ludicrous angle to negotiate. The tunnel is now twisting and twirling, as we seem to be trapped in some kind of insane giant hamster cage. I am now totally soaked by a combination of my own sweat and the flooded floor of the path.

80 metres

Passageways open to the left and the right of us. Our bodies are now screaming in agony, my knees bruised and the scratches on our arms and backs now reaching bleeding point. Felicity is now shouting: ‘Hello? Hello? Which way is it?’ A disembodied voice ahead replies helpfully ‘this way’. Felicity calls after them ‘can you wait for us?’ silence is the response. We all want to get out as soon as possible, every person is absorbed by this thought.

90 metres

God. It can’t be any longer can it? I am now on my arse, waddling along. I am not enjoying it. Now the floor drops and I have to slide my way down a gentle slope around a slight corner.

100 metres

Is it my imagination or is the floor now gradually sloping upwards? The lighting seems to be improving too. My crab-like movements are slowly eating through the centimetres to the surface.

105 metres

Yes! The floor is now on a distinctly upward slope and my creaking joints and aching limbs make one last stumble towards daylight

110 metres

I blink at the light, as we crawl out of the tunnel to find ourselves in a small canteen area. A long table is piled high with Cu Chi delicacies. Semolina and bread fruit. Christ, after spending days in tunnels with would drive me mad, they then ate this stuff! Both Felicity and me are shattered. We cast evil glances at those members of our group, who having decided not to do the tunnel are now posing at the exit hole pretending they’ve just completed the 8th task of Hercules. Humph.

Heading south
After our exploits in Ho Chi Minh City we awoke the next day to catch a bus to Chau Doc, a small town on the Cambodian border. At 8am a small bus pulled up to transport us to the ‘bus station’. After a fifty minute ramble through Ho Chi Minh City’s suburbs, picking people up from their houses we eventually arrived at the bus station (a hole in the wall with just enough room for everyone’s luggage) for the connection to our ‘big bus’. Come back An Phu all is forgiven! The ‘big bus’ turned out to be the miniaturised version that Mercedes seem to have developed for the Vietnamese body frame. Us big ‘uns got shoved in the back as a concession to our slightly larger bodies – not that this made a difference as they then proceeded to squeeze another three people into the back, later on topping this up with a random traveller making the total six on a seat that a Ford Cortina would have been proud of. To add to the cosy seating arrangement the air conditioning seemed incapable of coping with so many people and by the end of the journey from hell it was with great relief that we found ourselves dumped off in what looked like waste ground on the outskirts of Chau Doc. Actually to be fair, the other four people we shared the back seat with were great, one young boy, a tiny baby and mother and a teenage girl all were very friendly and the time was passed with the baby experimenting in touching and pulling the hair of my arms – obviously bemused by its hairy neighbour. Despite the six hour journey the countryside also provided a distraction from the cramping limbs, as the vista began to expand, revealing criss-cross water ways, bamboo bridges, stilt houses and a plethora of water activity.

Mui Ne

2005-09-03T17:51:00.000+07:00

The Sailing Club at Mui Ne was everything we’d been hoping for. A very relaxed few days sitting next to the pool, eating copious amounts of food and drinking a little too much. The hours were whiled away by sleep, reading and a full body massage. While the hotel restaurant was excellent, we braved the beach strip road and ate at Atumno Attono – an Italian chain who now top the previously excellent Picali for their pizzas.

Apart from the sea, Mui Ne is also famous for it’s gigantic sand dunes, which if you choose the right angle for your photo makes you look like you’re standing in the middle of the Sahara. The classic photos of women with carrying poles meandering across a sandy landscape while the sun sets are unfortunately posed, as there’s no apparent reason why you’d actually choose to wander about them looking for random sales of fruit or household goods…

Sticky post

2005-07-31T18:35:00.000+07:00

Just a quick realtime interlude...new things are happening in the world of Vietnamese food blogs!

First there was Noodlepie. But now to redress the north/south ying/yang thing, Hanoi's got it's own thing going on...

Check out the excellent Stickyrice website for all your streetfood needs, oh yes, highly recommended it is...

The Motorcycle Diaries: Part 4

2005-07-27T14:47:00.000+07:00

Refreshed after a night in Dambri, we headed back into Bao Loc for breakfast.

It's beginning to become a bit of a habit during this trip, tucking into a steaming bowl of pho for breakfast, and I have to say it still doesn't feel completely natural, first thing in the morning. The pho place we ate in was a cavernous place, neatly tiled and dominated by huge cauldrons bubbling away with stock, three women adding fistfulls of herbs, beansprouts and thinly sliced beef to the broth.

Back on the road
The weather began closing in, so I was given a pair of waterproof trousers to wear. Unfortunately they were too short. A both ends. It requires some quite frankly painful gyrations to be able to cock my leg over the baggage on the back of the bike, often eliciting a muffled squeak from me as it got a bit too tight for comfort. Strangely though, I mere threat of me wearing plastic trousers proved enough to drive the storm clouds away (probably due to being so embarrassed at my get-up).

Framed
We began our descent down from the Bao Loc plateau (don't think I've ever been anywhere called a plateau before) to the levels below. The countryside whipped past as we nonchalantly curved around mountain bends, the now familiar landscape of mulberry, tea and coffee zipping by.
Duong pulled up abruptly on a mountain road and did a quick u-turn. We foundourselves standing outside a small farmhouse investigating wooden frames lying propped up against the side of the house. We peered closer, and it became apparent that is was a foster home for orphaned silkworms. Once the silkworms have been enticed by the mulberry (or kidnapped if you prefer), they are harvested and brought to live on these frames. There, the worms cocoon themselves in silk. The beggars are then drowned in hot water and the silk thread is then processed. The worms actually looked pretty cool sporting Zorro eyemasks. Once they've been dunked in water, they can be found on sale in Vietnamese markets, generally for pig feed, but it's not unknown for poor families to buy them for their high protein count.

Tofu
We screeched to a halt, dismounted and peered into the darkened room. A mother cradled a baby while two teenagers busily worked away - a tofu factory apparently. I generally find tofu to be a bland, missable prospect, but this stuff was silky fresh, we gripped our freshly fried cubes, blowing on our fingers, our breath steaming as we attempted to cope with the creamy semi liquid centres. A few burnt fingers later, we were back on our way.

Top marketing

Kids willing to have their picture taken, yes...smiley woman with amazing fruit stall no...*sigh*

Duong pulled up in a small town at about 10am, as in commonplace in countryside Vietnam, we were at once greeting by hordes of screaming kids, never shy to have their picture taken, but this stop was for a sweet buying mission for our visit to a minority village later in the day. Our attention was drawn to a fantastic looking stall full of fresh fruit, so we asked the smiley woman whether we could take her picture, as she sat behind the table, conical hat tipped back at a suitably photogenic angle. Typically, she decided that she was too shy and hid behind the stall until we had gone...

The miles ticked over, and the heat began to rise off the tarmac. I was starting to melt in my waterproof trousers, and I could feel the sweat beginning to collect behind my knees - you start discovering parts of your body in Vietnam that you never knew even had sweat glands - I mean your knees? forearm? elbows? I asked Duong about stopping, he shook his head 'Soon, soon, it's almost 11.30!' he replied...

Chop, chop

Duong breathlessly dismounted from the bike beckoning me to follow, once again my crotch-grabbingly tight waterproofs hampered my dismounting. I suggested as it was now baking hot that I could remove them 'not now, later, later' Duong chided me.
Duong headed off down a path to a set of low-rise workshops, where a mechanical clattering sound could be heard reverberating across the dip in the valley. As we approached we could see figures hurriedly beavering away over a variety of workstations. My head swam as I was suddenly taken back to woodwork lessons at secondary school - the horror, the horror! Bamboo lay piled up at one end of the workshop, where women sorted through the piles separating the differently aged stock. Depending on the age of the bamboo it was sent down a different line where it was chopped into 20cm tranches, next they were propelled onwards to what seemed to be a (technical term coming up) woodsplitter. The machine splintered the bamboo into shafts - instantly it became apparent what we were watching - a chop stick factory! The chop sticks were collected from the tray they been spat into and then were bundled up into huge reel, then wrapped in thread dependent on quality and age...to be sent off to another mountain top workshop where they would be 'finished'.
This hive of activity was overseen by a rather unfortunate one armed chained monkey, who seemed to hold the highly esteemed position of company mascot (it obviously knew it was important as it spent most of the time we were there bearing it's arse at us).

High top fades
As the altitude dropped, we watched the valley next to us unfurl. The land below was supposed to be a massive reservoir, but due to the dessicated wet season it lay empty, muddy banks revealed to the sun, islands standing out like hip hop artists sporting high top fades. The greenery a strange mixture of alpine trees and tropical shrubbery.

Lowlands
At last we hit the coastal plain, the highland fields of tea, coffee and mulberry left behind. Instead intensive cultivation spread out, primarily fruits and rice fields.
Duong had habit of impromptu stops if anything took his fancy and this happend twice on our way to the coast. The first stop was at a non-descript farmhouse, almost hidden by the tarpaulin sheeted frames standing in it's frontyard. Duong began poking around the sheeting and eventually the home owners came out to greet us. As they stood on their porch, Duong pulled back the sheets to reveal a mushroom farm. Plastic bottles hung from beams full of compost and seeded with spores bought from the local market. The plastic bottles had slices cut out, and from these slits grew different varieties of mushrooms, cat's ear, buttons, shitake, a veritable forest of fungi.
Our next stop was at a farm set a few yards back from the main road. The spiky low growing bushes concealed their crop under old editions of Nhan Dan. Nobblely green objects could be seen peering out from their black and white paper cones. The farmer's wife brought out a mat and draped it onto a bedframe on the veranda of the house, sitting crosslegged she proceeded to unwrap some of the twists of paper to reveal bulbous bright pink fruit with spiky points growing vertically along the body. Dragon Fruit.
Dragon fruit in Hanoi is often a disappointing experience. The amazing skin promising a delicious and exciting interior, often flatters to deceive - a passion fruit in reverse as it were. Often the flesh of the fruit - a negative image of the sky at night - creamy flesh pitted with tiny black seeds - can prove a watery and tasteless experience. For once, the Dragon fruit exceeded our expectations, firm, sweet in flavour, it's white flesh contrasting with the vermilion pink of it's skin.

Next the sea

Duong and Thai saying goodbye at Mui Ne

Service stations in Vietnam vary in quality just like everywhere else in the world (Britain excepted - they're all over priced and terrible). Some are just little shacks with a few banh mi and a packet of Laughing Cow cheese, others have huge canteens offering a whole range of culinary experiences to the weary traveller. Another driver friendly feature is the number of hammocks strung up to pass away the lunchtime heat. The service station we stopped at on Highway one was a veritable Ritz of a place. It's not often that you can tuck into tuna steak and fresh shrimp on the M1 and it goes to show you those little things an easyrider tour can bring to your attention. I think the possibility of blowing 70,000VND at lunch is probably one of the perks of an easyrider lifestyle!

Dambri Falls

2005-07-27T14:44:00.000+07:00

Another classic tourist resort, Dambri boasts a 50 metre (I seem to be going all metric since I’ve been in Vietnam for some reason) waterfall which was impressive in a ‘that looks good’ kind of way. But Dambri doesn’t just have a waterfall, oh no, there’s so much more. At the top of the waterfall there’s a small theme park, with mini replica minority houses, giant fibreglass t-rexs, lions, tigers and elephants and to cap it off some fibreglass minority people who looked like they were a job lot of Native Americans who’d been shipped out to rural Vietnam by accident. Scandalously one of the women was topless. Next to our hotel was a small boating lake with regulation swan pedal boats and a tiny electric car racetrack.

Our hotel, the imaginatively named Dambri, is described by the Rough Guide as having ‘smart rooms that could make a good place to rest up in the countryside for a few days’. How on earth they can even mention ‘smart’ and Dambri in the same sentence remains a mystery to us. The room seem to have last seen a lick of paint when the Vietnamese were fighting the Chinese in 1979!

The hotel also seemed to have some ritually symbolic meaning to moth-kind as it was covered in the blighters as they made their haaj to this moth Mecca. On top of the faded paintwork, there was the tastefully cigarette burnt nylon sheeting and 20 watt electricity bulb in the bathroom. The bedroom was lit by a pleasant fluorescent strip light and our bed possessed cobwebs.
The Lonely Planet is often highly negative about any place it mentions, famously repeating the mantra ‘this place was so much better before backpackers discovered it’. However the unmitigated gloom of the Lonely Planet in this case would have been preferable to the whitewashed version the Rough Guide gave us for Dambri!

As we had been warned by Duong and Khai, the food was poor, but thankfully our kilo of beef went a long way and the insipid instant noodles and stirfried veg pretty much remained untouched.

The Dambri is a state run hotel and it’s a shame about the state it’s in as a little bit of love and attention could work wonders for the place.

Tiger, Tiger burning bright
That evening we settled down for dinner with Thai and Duong, we chatted about life in Vietnam and stories about their lives as easyriders. Thai then went on to talk about his family. His mother in law, it turns out has 15 children! He says that when he goes to visit he can’t tell them apart, and that meal times require a bell to be rung to call the brood to the table.Thai also gave us an account of Vietnamese married life, describing his wife as the ‘Tigress’ who definitely seems to rule his domestic affairs. Thai jokingly said that there are only two days in a Vietnamese woman’s life when she is truly happy. One is her wedding day, the second the day her husband dies! He also said that marriage is like a nice prison, all Vietnamese men wanted to know what it was like on the inside. One bottle of Da Lat red wine and one bottle of rice wine later it was time for bed, and an early start the next morning.

The Motorcycle diaries part 3: The open road

2005-07-21T13:21:00.000+07:00

Dung and Thai - our Easyrider guides

Our second night in the hotel was slightly quieter, but a toddler decided it wanted to practice the 100 metre sprint in the room above us and then the tricycle dash the following morning.

Southern Pho

Both mornings in the Fortune meant I had the chance to sample the southern version of Pho. I've always loved the version in Hanoi so I thought I'd give it a go. The southern version is a different kind of creature. The most important difference is the stock. in the north it is a rich aromatic beefy flavour, while here it seemed to have been highly sugared adding a odd taste to an obstensibly savoury dish. Another difference was the type of herbs used, the emphasis shifted from mint to coriander, with additional beansprouts. The major plus point for the southern version seems to be the quality of the beef - much nicer. Still, on reflection I think I prefer the Hanoi version.

So at 8am we found ourselves sitting on the steps of the Fortune hotel waiting for our easyriders. The last we'd seen of them had been the night before we had parted with $20 each as a deposit. Then Thai and Duong's heads popped round the corner and they began taking our lugguage to the bikes. Huge pieces of plastic sheeting were used to wrap our gear in. There would be no access to our stuff until the evening, wrapped as they were in 'elephant condoms'.

So began our mini-adventure, two days on the open road with Duong and Thai as guides.
Our motorbikes were suprisingly comfortable with well padded seats, and distintly superior suspension. They were pretty powerful beasts as we whipped past more conventional mopeds and scooters as Duong opened up the throttle.

Trading places

The first day's tour was a whirlwind trip through the lifestyle of the Vietnamese country folk. Once again the differences between north and south became apparent. The south has three distinct groups of people living there. The first group are southern Vietnamese, who have been living here for generations. Many remember the war period and the hard times that followed. The second group are new settlers predominately from the north who moved southwards searching for land or work after 1975. Many of the places we visited had newly built roads and schools, fresh paint could be seen on the pagodas and churches.
The third group predates the Vietnamese - the Cham and other ethnic minorities. Many minorities live happily in parts of the southern central highlands, some have become assimilated, wearing western style clothes, while others still possess more basic lifestyles.

Old scars

Our descent from Da Lat began with a short ride and stop along the mountain road leading to the plains below. Thai described the affect the American war had on the countryside. Pointing across the valley at the mountainous slopes opposite, he described how the bald, scarred hilltops were just starting to recover from the effects of being napalmed by the Americans, as they had played an important role in the distribution of supplies to the Cong Sang VC guerillas. He also went on to talk about the terrible affects of Agent Orange on the people of Vietnam today.

50 Scents

If ever you needed an indication that Vietnam's economy is changing then this was it. Once, people struggled to have enough to eat, now farmers on the outskirts of Da Lat are digging up their vegetable patches in order to build plastic sheeted sheds to grow flowers. The economic returns are so much more lucrative.

Swords into ploughshares

Our next stop was a visit to a local blacksmith. It's still a common sight to find a blacksmith slaving over a hot furnace, constructing useful farm implements such as hoes and machetes. What was different about this blacksmith was his ingenious use of old war materials. Two of his anvils were constructed from old US army shell cases, and I imagine some of his metal probably came from the same sources.

The blacksmith, ably assisted by his wife had a pretty large family and two of the smallest girls quite spontaneously gave Felicity a bunch of wild flowers.

1001 things to do with rice

Half an hour later we found ourselves outside a stilted wooden farmhouse, standing on the edge of a hill overlooking a valley. It was here that we spent a bit of time going through the rice wine making process - very straight-forward it was too. Rice plus water, left to ferment in the sun, then heated and distilled. We ate some of the fermented rice which had that distinctive starchy taste plus a kick similar to vodka. The basement of the house also contained a pig pen teeming with piglets and what must be the most gigantic pig I've ever seen.

Basket cases

Bamboo and rattan play a vital role in Vietnamese country life. So our visit to the basket weavers showed an important aspect of agrarian productivity. Huge baskets, silkworm frames, and backpacks were all made at the small house. The family business consisted of mother, father and teenage daughter all dextrously weaving and platting strands of bamboo before attaching hoops to create the basket shapes, woolen gloved, crouched over and using their feet, it looked backbreaking work.

Following the thread

Vietnam is rightly famous for it's silk, a trade that goes back to pre-Christian times. I have up to this point remained ignorant about how you get from worm to beautiful garment, so the visit to the silk factory proved to be an eye-opener.
Large baskets full of silkworms cocoons were racked up, ready to be used in the process. These cocoons which still contained the live larvae were plunged into hot water trays sitting just below the spinning wheels. The workers would would then tease the threads of silk onto the highspeed bobbins, creating silk thread. I can only look back in awe to the time when this was done by hand. It must have taken ages and the expense would have been staggering.
After the thread was created, the silk is then dyed and eventually added to the loom. The loom we saw was electric, it's patterns determined by what looked like punch cards on a continual loop.

Elephant falls

By now it was a blazingly hot day, so what better thing to do than take a trip down a steep slope, while clambering over rocks? To be fair it was worth it as the waterfall looked pretty nice at the bottom (unfortunately I did have to suffer a mild dose of vertigo for the pleasure). The Elephant falls unfortunately have nothing to do with the giant pachyderm and are just named after the nearby mountain.

Bricking it
After a spot of nature it was onto light industry. Vietnam can sometimes feel like a gigantic building site, so the bricks have to come from somewhere. Now this isn't something I normally would consider doing in England - it doesn't sound very interesting does it - a brick factory? The thing in Vietnam though, is the small scale nature of production. There are no extended lines of distribution between raw materials and production. The brick factory sat in the middle of clay pits and the surrounding bald countryside vividly attested to deforestation on a pretty wide scale. Khai frowned about the environmental damage, as he seemed pretty keen on the government's commitment to repopulating the barren landscape with trees.

Tea as far as the eye can see

Coffee roasting

The climate in the southern central highlands is ideal for tea and coffee growing. You can pass for miles with coffee and tea plantations stretching out to either side of you. Vietnamese coffee is excellent, and I'm at a loss explaining why I've read bad reviews of it before our arrival here. I think the reason people are so unfamiliar with with it, outside of Vietnam may be due to two factors. Firstly, a large amount of coffee is sold to large international firms who use it in their own blends, without really crediting it's origination. Secondly, I think the Vietnamese need to think about their branding. South American coffee uses English brandnames, such as Blue Mountain, while Vietnam uses the frankly almost unpronounceable Trung Nguyen which doesn't exactly trip off the tongue. The tea is equally as good - fresh green tea is a speciality and tons are shipped to top tea slurping nations such as Russia and Turkey. I have to say though that I'm not sure the Vietnamese passion for super strength boiling hot tea will necessarily catch on, as it leaves me as a sweating, twitching wreck as my nervous system tries to cope with the caffeine rush.

Stocking up at Bao Loc
Our day was punctuated by a stop off at Bao Loc. The Rough Guide describes it as a 'sheet of paper that's been first crumpled, and then flattened out again' which I think might over romanticise the place. A medium sized town it sports a good sized market where we stocked up on provisions for our evening barbeque, as we'd been warned the food at our hotel that night wouldn't be up to much. It strikes you when you visit a place like Bao Loc just how friendly the Vietnamese can be. As we meandered through the stalls, Duong was assailed by shouts from the stall holders 'where are they from? Who are they?' massive smiles splitting their faces. After buying sesame seeds and rice paper, we moved on to the meat section. A cheerful woman sat cross-legged on the counter, her wares placed in front of her. Duong obliged her with some traditional bargaining, complaining the price was too much (75,000VND a Kilo or just over 2GBP!), and she hadn't put a kilo of beef on the scales. In response she cut a nobbly bit of beef off the haunch in front of us and tossed it on, tipping the balace in our favour. Once again grinning broadly she asked where we were from, happily responding that Britain was nice and that Felicity was a 'Dep Gai' a beautiful woman (Duong had already said that Felicity was 'same,same as Vietnamese women' refering to her shape and that she should get an Ao Dai - it's a wonder she managed to get her head inside her motorbike helmet!). After the compliments we mounted up and headed out of Bao Loc.

Later that afternoon we arrived at Dambri Falls. Our stop for the night.

Taking it easy

2005-07-19T14:21:00.000+07:00

Mildly reinvigorated after our night we trekked down to the lake and had a coffee, then we began our search for an easyrider to take us over two days to Mui Ne.

Easyriders are a Da Lat phenomenon. A group of older men (usually in their late 30s to 50s), with heavy duty bikes have become famous for offering tourists a more authentic approach to travelling through Vietnam - on the back of their bikes.
Formed as an unofficial group in the mid-1990s, the easyriders were christened by the editor of the Lonely Planet guide, who came to Da Lat to investigate this unique group.
After listening to the group's story, he dubbed them the easyriders after the famous 1970s roadmovie starring Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicolson. So a legend was born.
Now the easyriders comprise of about 70 members based out of Da Lat. Imitators are rife - accept no substitutes!

Ten minutes walk around Da Lat will guarantee you some one offering their services as an authentic easyrider. There some tell tale signs to look out for. Firstly dismiss anybody who's on a small bike, all the easyriders have hefty lowslung Honda numbers. Secondly, they are generally older than most Xe Oms. Thirdly the real easyriders generally have pretty good English and a 'feel' for their environment.

We found our dynamic duo, but visiting a hotel that the riders are known to hang out around. The woman who worked on the counter had an easyrider brother (again, beware of imitations - everyone and their dog in Da Lat claims to be an easyrider - just like everyone in Hoi An can reccomend a tailor).

We were cheerfully told to wait in the cafe next door for our drivers, and half an hour later Duong arrived, map in hand to give us a little run-down on our route.
Duong had a really nice aura about him, perhaps now in his early 40s, slightly chubby faced, bronzed, with teeth a chipmunk would have been proud of, he exuded cheerfulness and professionalism. He suprised us on numerous occasions with his command of English and extensive vocabluary. He also possessed an endearing vocal tick, ending every sentance with a 'nyerr'.

We sat waiting for a bit for his driving companion and 'leader' Thai to turn up. Thai was still on the road back from Nha Trang.

Thai in comparison to Duong, was a slightly gaunt looking man, but his face when he grinned crinkled, his eyes often with a playful twinkle. He had classic motorcycle helmet hair, plastered flat to his head, good English and a cheeky sense of humour. This look was completed by his weatherstained Harrington jacket. Thai is 50 though it's hard to credit it as he could easily pass for something short of 40.

We agreed we'd spend a half day touring Da Lat with them so we could decide whether we wanted to use them for the following two day trip.
We immediately took a liking to the pair, and they showed us all the sights around Da Lat for the rest of the afternoon. Again the difference between the north and the south in terms of the war became apparent through the time spent with Thai and Duong.

Da Lat was relatively unscathed by the American War (apparently both sides agreed that there would be no large scale engagements or bombings in the area). The only major attack on Da Lat occured in 1968 during the Tet Offensive, and the Cong Sang VC held the town for a few days. The Americans had a small helicopter base in Da Lat and had attempted to establish radar stations in the surrounding hills to dominate the area. It doesn't appear to have been too successful as a large number of the high peaks surrounding Da Lat appeared to have been Cong Sang VC strongholds. Even today some of the hills bear the scars of napalm attacks.

Thai lived in Da Lat during the period and spoke about the guerillas entering the surrounding village at night to get supplies, which was not always popular with the local farmers.
The general impression we got was that people just wanted to be left alone during the war and didn't really care for politics.

In terms of economics, Thai pointed out the extensive vegetable farming was changing, and more farmers were moving over to the more lucrative flower growing.

He also spoke about the economic crisis following the end of the war, and said that during the war the south had economically been on a par with Thailand. By 1975 there were major shortages.

Thai thought the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 - had led to a change of policy by the government (interesting theory - a break with Soviet economic orthodoxy, but the new economic policy predates that, with Doi Moi being adopted in 1986 - maybe it took a good few years before it had an affect?).

He also seemed to make a distinction between the communists of 1975 and the current leadership, describing them as 'clever communists'. It reminded me a bit of the Bolshevik's relationship with the peasants just after the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks gave the land to the peasants and were extremely popular. After changing their name to the Communist Party, they introduced War Communism, which tried to nationalise the land. This meant you could meet peasants who loved the Bolsheviks and hated the Communists!

Ultimately, Thai struck me as a pragmatist. He said it didn't matter, capitalism, communism, what matters is whether the people are happy. He would often say I don't know what will happen tomorrow, but today things are getting better, we are a lucky country - his face cracking into a grin.

Da Lat's all folks

2005-07-17T22:27:00.000+07:00

Hmmm...

Da Lat has taken an almost mythical position in the Vietnamese psyche (and one westerner we know - eh Kate?). It is portrayed as the land of eternal spring (and to be fair the weather remains within a respectable 10-30 degrees bracket), overflowing with bounteous fields of flowers and vegetable gardens.

My work colleagues rave about the place, and it's the top destination for Vietnamese Honeymooners apparently. In fact 'Oh Da Lat!, it's sooooo romantic' is the considered opinion of my fellow workers.

Well. Now we've dealt with the myth, let's look at the facts.

Da Lat has only one good thing going for it. The road out of it preferably seen from the back of an easyrider motorcycle tour bike.

Don't get me wrong, and there's lots of evidence on this blog to prove it, I absolutely love Vietnam.

I love every small town I pass when travelling, I think about what it would be like to live in a H'mong village nestled below mount Fanzipan, I daydream about living as a fisherman, using one of those brightly painted boats with the giant eyes on the prow, a Vietnamese flag fluttering in the sea breeze, or bending low, up to my knees in muddy water as I bring in the rice harvest...all very romanticised I know.

But I will never, I repeat never will consider living in Da Lat.

From it's garish amusements (Vietnamese dressed up like cowboys driving pony traps? Please!) to it's lake (read muddy pond), I just cannot see the attraction of the place.

Da Lat itself is a very diffuse settlement, with the accommodation snuggled around a low rising stretch on land on the north side of the pond, mostly consisting of grey Soviet style unpainted concrete blocks. Even the much vaunted market is a disappointment, consisting on it's ground floor of identikit stalls selling the same stuff - sugered dried strawberries, tea and coffee.

Above the market is a row of brightly lit cafes (there's no real nightlife to speak of), and we passed a few hours in a place that did a half decent attempt at pizza. What is it about mountain resorts in Vietnam that ensures the food is so poor? It's one of the few things that takes the shine off Sapa too.

Da Lat supposedly is brimming full of interesting tourist attractions, but I think we must have missed them, so instead we went to the 'crazy house' and the 'railway station' - sounds good already eh?

The Crazy House to be fair is actually pretty remarkable. It has been designed and built by the daughter of a former President of Vietnam, which explains her blatant flaunting of any planning regulations. It was however the one highlight of our time in Da Lat. It had the air of something from Alice in Wonderland about it, all curling staircases, concrete toadstools and animal themed bedrooms (you can actually stay in the house). A veritable temple to the versatility of concrete.

The other highlight - and it had good reviews in the Rough Guide - was the art deco railway station, finally put out of action by the Cong Sang guerrillas in the mid-1960s, cutting Da Lat off from the rest of the national rail network up until this day - another triumph for the VC then! ;-)
Ultimately the art deco station was another disappointment. It's architecture smacking of suburban tube station (for once the French architect had an off day). I actually think Hanger Lane tube station might have more original art deco features.

Of course, I'm quite willing to admit that this view of Da Lat may have been coloured by other factors. Firstly our friend Kate has been absolutely raving about the place since we've known her, and as she has impeccable taste we thought we'd be on to a winner. Secondly it pissed down with rain for most of the time we were there, giving it an atmosphere akin to off season Blackpool according to Felicity, and thirdly our hotel the Fortune was a disaster.

Looking at the hotel from the outside we were happy with it. A giant block perched in one of the streets leading down to the mudhole (lake).
It makes a pleasing impression on the eye, with rose frontage, neon pink 'FORTUNE' on the front, and a nice use of white fairy lights down it's extensive window frontage. The reception was a gigantic space and the young woman working on the reception was very efficient and helpful. It felt clean and modern, including a smart looking lift, which chimed pleasantly when you reached your floor.

Our room was on the fourth floor, with a view onto the street below. The bathroom was nice and clean and there was plenty of hot water. It was strange staying in a room where air conditioning wasn't necessary, so much so that we needed a duvet.

I suppose you're beginning to wonder what the problem was. Well it only became apparent later. At this point we nipped out to meet Mark and Kate for a drink as they were in town waiting to start their week long easyrider tour of the central highlands.

After eating at the completely adequate V Cafe we joined Mark and Kate for drink in the dingy Saigon Bar - described in the guidebook at being Da Lat's only 'western style' bar. The bar was so low lit that we thought it was shut when we went past it the first time. Soon we found ourselves BGI beers in hand, pondering the fact that there doesn't appear to be a single comfortable seat to be had in the whole of Da Lat. After a swift drink it was back to the hotel after wishing Kate and Mark good luck for their forthcoming motorbike tour.

So return to the hotel we did, exhausted by our brush with death earlier, ready for an early night.

Now the problem with the hotel became apparent...

The Fortune is basically a gigantic concrete shell, with the rooms built around a central shaft containing the lift and stairwell, the unfortunate by-product of this design is that all sounds, be it a sneeze on the ground floor, or a child walking on the floor above reverberate throughout the entire hotel as though it's happening just outside your door.

The hotel had also decided to cover almost every surface in ceramic tiles adding to the swimming pool acoustics. Much of the following hours were therefore filled by cheerful Vietnamese tourists coming home and whispering good night to each other at 50 decibels, a baby being taken out into the corridor somewhere in the hotel, because it was keeping the inhabitants awake (what about the rest of us!?), and a man who had been exiled to the corridor because he had only managed to cough up half of his lung and had to spend the next three hours getting the second half up out of his windpipe.

What a contrast the next morning was...as I removed the plump pillow from on top of my head...maybe it was the heady mountain air, or had I developed appalling bad taste overnight, as it sounded like I'd been transported to the set of 'the Sound of Music'...was it my imagination or could I really hear teenage girls singing alpine songs presumably about goats, milking and other healthy outdoor pursuits just outside my room? My brain slowly clicked into gear...no it's not Switzerland and it's not 1939...they're singing in Vietnamese, a song about cats apparently, as the ditty ends with a giggly 'MEEEOOOWWW!!' from the alpine chorus.

Ah yes. I forgot. In addition to the murmurings from the other hotel guests the other night, the lift made a revenge appearance, it's sleek modern look and helpful cheery chime came back to haunt us as it appeared to be irresistibly drawn to our floor throughout the night - DING DONG, DING DONG, DING DONG returned again and again, as the phantom lift caller ensured we would always be on our edge.

Things that go bump in the night

2005-07-17T21:57:00.000+07:00

Today was a bit of a long distance haul, with a taxi to Da Nang (no, still not worth visiting), flight to Nha Trang and a car ride to Da Lat.

What would have been a pleasant hanging out in the smoking room at Da Nang airport rapidly took a turn for the worse, when a walking cliche interrupted our smoking time.

One bloke, in his late 50s, wearing chinos and polo shirt with a military logo and sporting a buzzcut, and a younger tall black guy in his early 30s joined us in the smoking room.

Both had that definite services look about them. The older man had the air of somebody travelling around his old stamping grounds, dreaming of the times he gave 'charlie' a good kicking. The younger man perhaps an eager hanger-on or desperate for promotion...Unfortunately for us (they unsuprisingly spoke loud enough for everyone to be able to hear), they came out with the usual prejudiced claptrap:

Old Guy: 'Only in a communist country would you use a bus to take you to your plane sitting on the airstrip' (er no, actually it's pretty common in the rest of the world, perhaps you ought to get out more?).

Then they proceeded to complain about their lack of time devoted to exercise, while ironically smoking themselves stupid:

Old Guy: ' I managed to clock up a good parallel swim and thirty laps before breakfast' (*cough*)

Young Guy: ' Man, I like, you know, really miss my fitness regime' (while tugging on a Malborough Light)

Yawn.

A short flight later courtesy of Vietnam airlines PROPELLER driven plane (and a more dangerous looking lunch roll stuffed with unidentifiable meat paste) we arrived in Nha Trang and met our driver for the three hour drive up 1,500 metres to Da Lat.

All was going well as we wended up way, higher and higher up via a twisting and scenic route. We had just past the sign welcoming us to Da Lat as night fell, when our driver eventually lost his patience and let the frustration of the slow ascent get the better of him. We veered into the other (incoming traffic) lane to overtake a slow moving lorry in front of us, a bit risky as it was on a blind corner and a cliff dropped to the other side of us.

****LIGHT*****

****BUMP******

****LIGHT*****

Headlights flood the car, we screech to a halt as a gigantic truck brakes in front of us, just stopping short of our bumper. HYUNDI glares at us in what looks like 10 feet high silver letters from the front of the truck's grill,

As we sit there in disbelief, the truck we tried to overtake a few seconds earlier then gives the front quarter of our car a good bash as a big 'up yours' for attempting to overtake (they don't bother stopping either, despite the fact they know they've just crumpled the car).

Our driver - the lunatic that he is - is a quivering wreck, and we heard burbling and murmuring from him for the last ten minutes of the ride (plus a few smacks to his forehead). We eventually arrive in Da Lat without further mishap.

Hoi An again

2005-07-16T22:18:00.000+07:00

Hoi An just can't disappoint. Although this time it was busier compared to our last trip during Tet it still is one of our favourite places in Vietnam.

Alright, I know it's not exactly authentic in terms of 'keeping it real' in a backpacker kind of way, but there's some thing really great about the way the local authorities have ensured that its past has remained intact - something which I really hope Hanoi remembers when it comes to renovating the Old Quarter.

This time we eschewed the more cultural activities (of which there are plenty - Chinese clan halls, merchant houses and My Son) and concentrated on the good life, visiting the beach twice and indulging ourselves with seafood platters and local food specialties.

On our first night we visited the Scout Cafe and tucked into the local favourites of Cau Lau and White Rose - parcels of minced shrimp and crab wrapped in steamed Manioc flour parcels, topped with crispy fried onion.

Cau Lau is the local noodle dish comprised of long, firm wheat noodles, bean sprouts, mint, star anise, rice flour crackers and topped with delicious slices of marinated pork. This dish is such a local specialty that it requires the use of the water from a local well - nothing else will do - hence it not being available anywhere else in Vietnam! Unfortunately for the Scout Cafe that night, somebody must have been half asleep when they served us as we found fish herb instead of mint in our Cau Lau - bleugh!

We eventually settled into a routine of visiting the Hong Phuc, a truly fantastic family run place sitting on the side of the river and staffed by a pair of cousins, who by the time we left, treated Felicity like a long lost family member.

The Hong Phuc is in the Rough Guide and by early evening it can often be hard to get a table. The same can't be said for the place next door, and you have to feel sorry for them as I'm sure the food is just as good, it's just that they haven't been anointed by the Popes of the travel guides.

On top of the food, Hoi An also possesses a great beach and we spent two wonderful afternoons there catching the sun. Just as before, there was a regular troop of beach vendors with classic sales pitches including: 'Open your heart...and your wallet', which for the first time can be pretty entertaining but by the end of the afternoon can be a bit wearing. The exception to the rule was Binh, a nine year old boy who sported a sun hat at a raffish angle and whose salespatter was straightforward enough: 'Pineapples, 15,000' (they normally cost about 3,000 VND in Hanoi!), but his cheery grin and the steely look in his eye when he insisted that we only buy pineapples from him won us over.

Hoi An proved to be the only place on our journey where Felicity felt brave enough for us to hire a motorbike, so we used it for a couple of days to have a jaunt around the surrounding countryside and few shuttle trips down to the beach. After crossing over the main bridge in Hoi An we drove past the monkey and Bia Hoi me and Mark had seen a few months previously.

Hoi An has suprisingly large suburbs and the road went on for about 15 minutes before finishing abruptly at the river. As we engineered a classically executed seven point turn, we were accosted by a group of small children screaming:'Coca! Coca!' we paused and a young girl ran over to a deserted stall and proceeded to rifle through a very battered looking Coca Cola cooler box. Felicity dismounted and joined her, peering into the container - false advertising! No Coca! So we decided we'd have a water anyway. While I parked the bike Felicity shrewdly negotiated the price. 3,000VND a go, by this point it was as though we'd stuck a stick into a termite mound as we were inundated with the neighbourhood kids excitedly watching the strange westerners drink water.

Shortly later, one of the girls who had sold us the drinks returned to us solemn faced. She muttered to Felicity: '5,000, the water is 5,000'. We had spotted her going back to her house just before and had obviously been told she'd charged us the local's rate, not the tourist price. We were for once in a strong negotiating position and knew that we could quite correctly stick to our guns. A deal's a deal in Vietnam once you've agreed a price. As we prepared to leave, Felicity picked up her bag, the eagle eyed children missed nothing and one of the spindly boys grabbed her pen, dancing a jig of delight as he held aloft his prize. The children began chorusing: 'Pens! Pens! Pens!' but unfortunately we had no more to give and with a cheery wave we made our way back to Hoi An.

Hoi An, had the architecture, the beach, the food, the small town atmosphere but on top of all that it also has some of the best bars in Vietnam. We frequented Treats most of all, finding its strangely kitsch decor more homely than the painfully trendy Mango Rooms, where you had to wonder whether it was a modern art installation in front of you or an ash tray. For a colonial style G&T nothing beats the TamTam, with its cream walls and dark wood interior, palms and red dressed staff. However our latest discovery was the Lounge Bar, which on our previous visit had been so full we'd given it a miss. The Lounge Bar was great, all simple modernism, cool lighting and casually dressed staff.

Typically, the weather cleared on our last morning as we sat around the pool waiting for our taxi to Da Nang to get our flight to Nha Trang and our journey that afternoon to Da Lat.

Hue to Hoi An - we'll get by with a little help from our friends

2005-07-14T21:15:00.000+07:00

I've already mentioned the former southern Vietnamese army war photographer, but how could I forget our other official guide on the An Phu bus?

The other person can only be described as a charismatic blackhole, all colour and interest were drained by this poor students inability to inject any life into proceedings.

In short, she was long on preamble and distinctly short on FACTS (we could be going past war monuments, French buildings, old US pill boxes and bases, but all she wanted to talk about was her brother's primary school). As a student doing work experience for the summer she appeared to have been fast-tracked onto public relations. Unfortunately for everyone on the bus this meant we were subjected to two lines of questioning.

One was 'how many bags have you got?'- not that our answer led to any stunning revelations; and secondly, whether we had 'an open tour ticket?' - which apparently no-one on the bus had.
Despite the fact that nobody, including ourselves possessed such a ticket (and if they did have one they were keeping it very quiet) she then proceeded to tell every single person on the bus that hypothetically we would have to inform her one day in advance of our future travel arrangements. Thanks for that singular FACT.

Another couple on the bus shared the back seats with us, and had been told by the bus driver to take their luggage with them to the back of the bus as he knew they would be getting off early (they had bought a ticket for a small resort halfway between Da Nang and Hoi An). This caused our little helper no end of consternation as she scanned their ticket, almost in disbelief exclaiming: 'have you booked accommodation? No? Let me check the ticket. Does the driver know you're getting off? How much luggage do you have? I must check with the driver that he knows you are getting off. Do you have an open tour ticket?' Thankfully for all involved, the An Phu bus always stops at the resort and to everyone's relief the couple escaped and the bus returned to a much needed sense of calm.

Finally, as we neared to Hoi An, the hard sell began. An Phu doesn't just run buses, it has a veritable tourist empire. Our war photographer, turned tour guide (did I mention he'd been shot in the head?) began extolling the virtues of An Phu and the various services his company offered - including their bloody open tour ticket which he used as an interrogation technique: 'We also offer an open tour ticket (thanks for that, I didn't know), all you need to do to use it is inform me one day in advance of your travel plans (Oi! That's not right, we've got to inform our little helper - not you!)'. It then turned all a bit sinister as his voice took on a tight, Teutonic air: 'I zink I know zum of you af ze open tur tikets. Ve af vayz of finding zis aut Tommy Inglander, don't yu vorry!' I obviously made the last bit up, but I'm convinced he was fiddling with the thumbscrews in his pockets as he ended the speech.

It was with distinct relief that we had arrived in Hoi An so that we could swiftly exit the bus and find safety in our hotel around the corner.

Hue ahead

2005-07-01T18:36:00.000+07:00

It's been easy so far...a taxi, a plane, a taxi and here we are.

First on our list was Hue. Once imperial capital of Vietnam, Hue is comprised of two cities, distinctly different in character.

The old city is encompassed by brick city walls, quiet leafy streets and an easy going attitude (not that anything is particularly stressful about Hue). The new city is a bit more of a bustling place, but retains some beautiful old features, that out of all the places we have visited in Vietnam so far, reminds me of France. Wide boulevards dissect districts comprising of art deco style blocks cheek by jowl with older structures made up of one story wooden houses similar to those found in Hoi An.

The old city also is home to the Forbidden City, home of Vietnam's emperors up until the early part of the 20th century. To be honest it was a little dissappointing. A large number of the structures had been constructed from wood, and no longer existed. The one's that were still there didn't really have anything amazing about them...even the throne room, decked out in gold and red just about passed the 'that's nice' test, in terms of interest. It is a truly huge expanse, but you have to wonder about what it was like as Emperor sitting in the rotting wooden buildings as it went to rack and ruin around you.

A large part of the Forbidden city by the middle of the 20th century had become farmland for the city people, and only a dozen of the structures were still standing when the American war rampaged it's way through...with the citadel being taken by the Cong Sang Viet Nam soldiers during the Tet Offensive and then retaken at huge cost by the US a few weeks later...

The new city is a little more rough around the edges, lacking Hoi An's polished lustre, but the important point is that the old buildings still remain, giving you a taste for what Hue must have been like on that fateful day in the late nineteenth century when the French Expeditionary Force landed a few miles away.

The Hue town planners/People's Committee deserve fulsome praise for the place that Hue is now. The modern architecture is a wonderful compliment to the traditional, with a dash of French flair added to the mix.

Like the old city, the streets have ample tree cover, and wide pavements. Life is that little bit slower than anything we've experienced in Hanoi, partially due to a lack of motorbikes. Locals still use cyclos here for everyday travel, often piling two or three up into the distinctly one person version popular in Hue.

The two cities are seperated by the Perfume River, although I can't confirm that the river exudes a positive aroma, it certainly isn't noxious, adding a sense of space to the town.

The French left behind their turn of the century colonial architecture, but also a modern sensiblity with art deco styling still popular with modern developments - Hanoi are you listening?

However there are a few problems. Our taxi driver who met us at the airport told us that one of the problems with Hue has been the lack of jobs. Fundamentally Hue relies on income from tourism, he added that many students leave Hue for work in Ho Chi Minh City as opportunities are limited.

Food and drink
Hue possesses a good number of specialities, so we thought we'd try them out.
I had already researched some of them at www.noodlepie.com, and pieman hadn't been too positive about Hue cuisine, but we thought we'd give it a go anyway.
First up we started at the Mandarin Cafe and gave the Banh Khaoi a go. Bank Khaoi is a corn yellow coloured fried pancake stuffed with carrots, beansprouts, and pork slices and was served with a sweet, salty peanut and seseame dip called nuoc leo. I have to say it was a poor effort and to be honest didn't really fancy another go at the grease feast...of course we did try again at Lac Thien a restaurant famous for it's own take on Hue food. There it was a completely different beasty, packed full of fillings and served with the all important herbs and unripe banana and cucumber, that cut through the oily taste. The greens weren't the only difference, the whole pancake was then wrapped in ricepaper and dunked in a far superior version of Nuoc Leo.
Next up was the Nem Lui, a similar combination of the ingredients above, but this time lacking the crispy pancake.
We also had My Xao Bo, crispy noodles with papaya and green beans. We also sampled for our lunches Bun Bo Hue, which was a soupy concoction of beef, pork, glass noodles, cabbage, bean sprouts, herbs, and green beans with a good kick of garlic and chillie and a bowl of Bun Bo at Lac Thien, which was pretty much the same as the Bun Bo Hue, minus the cabbage and with rice noodles instead of the glass noodles of the previous day - really good stuff, with a nose wateringly powerful kick of chillie - food's definately spicer down here!

The next day we plumped for a motorbike tour of the surrounding area with our guides Mr Thanh and Mr Thanh (one's got an accent).

The two guides zipped us around Hue, stopping off at a conical hat maker (Felicity bought one) and then off into the countryside, visiting an 18th century covered bridge (predating Hoi An's), had our fortune told (I will have 5 children and be very happy and rich for the rest of my life, in case you were wondering), saw incense being made (didn't know it was a glutinous resin before it was rolled onto sticks) and then off to a Buddhist training school set in pine scented woodland and then a quick dash up a ridge to a US firing position overlooking the Perfume River. It seems that everywhere we went we passed through large graveyards, tombs or war monuments. It was strange to think when you looked at the craggy tree covered landscape that thousands of people died here. After a short break we ended up at a circular brick structure. We had no idea what it was for. It looked Victorian in period, but I couldn't swear to it. Eventually Thanh explained it was a tiger arena. Apparently it was built for one of the Vietnamese Kings. He had been in a foul mood for a period of time, so eventually King Minh Mang's concubines (all 104 of them!!), clubbed together and built him the Tiger Arena. The Arena hosted fights between elephants and tigers. Just like the colluseum in Rome, one could say that there was a prefered outcome (I wondered how the betting must have worked, as I'm sure no-one was betting on the Christians V Lions match). Apparently King Mang liked elephants, so to ensure the 'correct' result was obtained, the poor tigers had their claws removed!

Finally we finished the tour by paying a fleeting visit to Ho Chi Minh's old school (he was expelled for revolutionary activity) where a stutue on the man stands outside. Unlike all the other statues of Ho, this one is him as a young man, a clean shaven jaw jutting out, traditional clothing and a distance gaze in his eyes.

This part of Vietnam has a different take on the war it seems. One of our guides during the time we were in Hue, talked about how his mother had to leave her village because it was unsafe due to the VC being around, also mentioning how he sat as a youngster on Le Loi street breathing the stench of death as US army trucks brought back corpses from the DMZ.

Another guide on our bus to Hoi An spoke of his time as a war photographer and talked about his American, Thai and Australian colleagues...just yesterday in Hoi An we spoke with an elderly man who had lost a leg in an US bombing raid...here the war seems more muddy and confused, more a civil war, with the shadow of war cast over both sides...but it's all done and dusted. What's happened, has happened, and people are happy to make money and earn a living.

next...the An Phu express, Hoi An food, demon pineapple sellers and much, much more!

Deja Vu

2005-06-25T11:58:00.000+07:00

Weird is the only word to describe it. In a country of 82 million people it’s not often you bump into somebody you’ve just seen in another province hundreds of miles away.

Felicity and me were on our way to see our motorbike hire guy, and pay up for a few extra days before our trip begins. We turned onto Din Liet as his house is on an alleyway just off it. As we wiggled our way through the lunchtime traffic I was momentarily distracted.

‘JC!’

I turned around trying to spot who’d called my name. I assumed it was one of my work colleagues…

‘JC!’ It was definitely my name being called, so we did a quick U-turn.

Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be Vu, the H’mong teenager we’d last seen two thousand metres above sea level in Lao Cai province. She now was wearing jeans and a red top (though still sporting her necklace of pearls).

In turns out she’s been in Hanoi for two or three days on an H’mong teenage girls city break. After we picked our jaws up from the floor, we arranged to meet Vu later. She is by all accounts a demon pool player, and she wanted to play tonight. We met her later in the Polite Pub. Now, Hanoi is a multi-cultural place of a kind. It welcomes people from all over the world, although it’s obvious that curiosity often gets the better of the locals, but a H’mong girl in a bar in Bao Kahn street was something that the local Vietnamese found very hard to get their heads around. The Carlsberg women sported bemused grins, other staff peered over at our table, excitedly whispering to each other.

It is extremely difficult to get your round what it must be like for Vu on her first visit to Hanoi. People are friendly, in a kind of 'did I really just see a H'mong girl buy a drink, I don't believe my eyes' way.

She wanted a drink and asked for the menu. One of the Tiger women provided it and stood waiting for her to choose. Vu leaned over and said to Felicity in a cracked voice, 'tell me something nice to drink'. Felicity replied: 'Well the Carlsberg is nice'. A minute later an ice cold glass of beer sits in front of Vu. She takes a sip and exclaims 'Beer! I don't like beer!'.

At this point I assume the marketing department in Carlsberg meltdown as they realised there was a distant patch of planet Earth that didn't know that (a) Carlsberg is a beer and (b) it's probably not the most famous brandname is South East Asia afterall.

Vu continued peering around the room. God alone knows what she made of the Carlsberg and Tiger women with skirts just above the knee (shock!).

To add to the surreal nature of the evening, Carlsberg decided that they'd introduce their new bar women to Hanoi's bars.

In Terminator 4 Arnie plays an obsolete terminator model, while the baddie is a new sleek female modle capable of reconstituting itself despite being being blown to atoms.

That model must have been based on the new Carlsberg women.

Dressed in black sprayed on dresses with silver trim and towering over all of us in heels, they were quite frankly scary. I suspect they'll become known as the Carlsberg SS (after all they always got the best uniforms!).

Energy sapping Sapa

2005-06-22T18:28:00.000+07:00

The journey down to the valley bottom

Having first visited Sapa in November last year when it pissed down continuously and we waded through mud-baths we thought that mid-June would be a far drier experience…but this time was no different…ah well, you can’t have it all I suppose…

I think my mother found it an exhilarating experience(that’s the word being used now – I think other words might have been used while half way down a mountain slope) , and a welcome change to the heat and humidity of Hanoi.

Mum visited our house and we caught a taxi in front of the Galaxy Hotel round the corner from home. Interestingly, the taxi driver recognised us and said that he knew we’d been in Hanoi for almost a year and even knew which house we lived in! The bush telegraph is definitely functioning in this part of town. As we are considered semi-locals we got the short route to the train station, meaning we saved about twenty minutes travelling time and a handful of Dong.

The carriages in soft sleeper that we previously took had been pretty good, and to be honest the upgrade we got this time was only a marginal improvement. The main difference being a wood panelled compartment and nicer bedding (including hand embroidered pillow cases). There was the same chewy bread and dull bottled water as previously.

The next morning we arrived in Lao Cai. The main difference to our previous visit being the completion of some of the major road works that seemed to have managed to cake the entire town in mud during our visit in November. It still remains a pretty dull and uninspiring place to spend any time in.

I began to fear the worst about the weather as our bus wended its way up the hairpin bends on the mountain side, as much of the landscape lay hidden by mist and rain. Sure enough Mount Fanzipan remained unseen behind a wall of cloud. The Green Bamboo was just as we left it. Really nice rooms, yet lacking the all important heating (trying to try my suede trainers overnight with a hair dryer proved spectacularly unsuccessful). After having breakfast we met our tour guide Toan who shares a flat with Chien who Kris had used when she had taken her dad to Sapa a few months previously. Toan was an absolute star, though he was suitably vague about some of the challenges that lay ahead.

Our journey started with a short walk along a tarmac road overlooking the valley below the Green Bamboo hotel. After about twenty minutes we stopped at a way station on the side of the road and Toan asked us what we would like to do as there were two options.

Option one included an 8 kilometre walk along the tarmac road above the valley, with a short walk down the mountain to the three ethnic minority villages we intended to visit.

Option two was the walk down the mountain track which Toan thought would take about an hour to reach the bottom of the valley. He thought the second option would be both more interesting and picturesque. We had a short exchange and decided it would be more fun to take option two, after all it would only be an hour.

It turns out that a day later we met an English woman who had been doing Vietnam with Intrepid Tours, they were not so intrepid and decided to take the road…

I suppose the warning signals should have begun flashing when three tiny H’mong girls offered to sell us some bamboo walking sticks. After a quick round of bargaining – Toan thought they should have cost 2,000 VND, but that turned out to be the price for Vietnamese and they would only sell it to westerners for 4,000VND – we began to make our descent.

The plan was to visit three villages Y Linh Ho, Lao Chai and Ta Van. The first village was home to the Black H’mong who wear very dark clothing in blacks and navy dyed with indigo (often seen on the hands of older H’mong women). The second village was populated by members of the Zay people, who unlike the incredibly outgoing and business savvy H’mong, pretty much ignore tourists, and the third village was another Black H’mong village where we would meet our jeep. According to Toan’s schedule we would be eating lunch at the Zay village…

I won’t bore you too much with the details, but Toan was rather optimistic with his timings.

All of us wore pretty much unsuitable footwear, and soon we were completely splattered with mud as we proceeded down the track, precariously balancing on slippery stones with a steep drop to our right.

At one point my mother decided that perhaps she would prefer to go back, but it was a little late in the day as we were about three quarters of the way down the slope. Another joyful experience included balancing oneself as you walked along a narrow path dividing the terraced rice paddies, the H’mong are famous for.

Eventually we hit the bottom of the valley with the first village in sight. It had taken three hours to manage a descent that on a good day should have taken an hour.

Despite us now being on the valley floor, we then had to proceed along the edge of the now swollen river, picking our way over rocks until finally we arrived at the suspension bridge that marked the entrance to the village. A couple of H’mong girls decided that they had taken a liking to us and from that point onwards kept us company.

A bruised and sweaty party sat down for our lunch of bread and Laughing Cow cheese (we had missed our appointment for lunch – it’s probably why the Zay can’t be arsed with foreigners as they always promise to come over for dinner but never turn up!). My mother experienced the thrills of twenty H’mong trying to sell her brocade for the first time, which was a bit overwhelming at first. Along with the Black H’mong a group of Red Dao (pronounced Zao) women were also present and they used the time honoured selling line of: ‘you’ve brought something from the Black H’mong now buy something from the Dao’. This very mild emotional blackmail, is of course very successful!

After lunch the weather and the terrain improved and we began to really appreciate our surroundings. Mists swept over the valley, writhing over the green terraced rice fields that swept down from the mountain sides. Brooks bubbled alongside us and our new H’mong girl guides kept us company as they monitored the strange Tay (westerner) behaviour. Water played an important role in the life of the village. It was used to power an electrical generatorand a rice pounder (a giant pestle and mortar smashing kilos of rice husks off the crop). Boys could be seen paddling in streams, and one particularly happy toddler was up to his knees in his own mud bath, squelching his feet contentedly in the mud. Giant butterflies and dragon flies whirred by.

Eventually we passed through to the next village of Lao Chai, home of the Zay. Zay women predominately wear bright tartan like headscarves in almost fluorescent greens and pinks. Their blouses are in a brilliant rich blue, often worn with white trousers. As Toan had said, they exhibited no interest whatsoever in our passage. Finally we reached Ta Van and the end of our trek. The only chatty people we met were a large group of Red Dao who wanted to do more bargaining.

We had apparently walked around 13 kilometres so we were looking forward to our trip back to Sapa in the jeep.

As we were so late, the jeep had not bothered to wait around at the bottom of the hill, after a short walk up the slopping tarmac road we eventually found it. At last, some respite for our poor feet and knees! Sapa was only fifteen minutes drive away so soon we would be luxuriating in a nice warm bath…

BANG!

the jeep cabin begins filling with smoke and an electrical burning smell, I immediately grab the door and bail out, Felicity exclaims ‘quick! Get out it’s gonna blow!’ (I’m of the opinion that she’s been saving up that line for years until the right moment), and we dropped out of the jeep, scampering a few yards away. The unconcerned jeep driver, slowly gets out and then comes over and asks me for my lighter. A minute later he returns with it and says all’s well and we can proceed. By now our nerves are slightly on edge, particularly as we are about to hit a rough patch of road, with nearby evidence of rock slides. As we leave the tarmac and begin to negotiate the gravel section of the road, the engine cuts out, restarts and cuts out. Once again we descend from the jeep, but are convinced minutes later to get back in and start again. What began to concern us with each of the stops was the driver insisting on putting rocks behind the rear wheels to stop us careering off the edge of the precipice next to the road. Once more we began to traverse the rocky section, and this time the gear box seemed to fall apart and the jeep began rolling backwards! Enough was enough by now and we started the long plod back to Sapa on foot, vowing never to set foot in the jeep ever again.

After about fifteen minutes walk, the jeep came trundling behind us and the driver gave us a cheery grin, gesturing us to get in. Toan, Felicity and myself decided that we’d had enough excitements for one day and carried on walking, but my mother decided she’d risk what now looked like a death trap!

Again we carried on walking up the incline wondering when the torture would come to an end. Toan eventually managed to flag down two motorcyclists and a weary group at last found ourselves outside of the Green Bamboo.

Later that night we went for dinner in the ‘Posh’ restaurant, which although friendly and warm, lacked a little flair in it’s cooking. I did enjoy my very western style goose stew though. We also caught the ethnic dancing in the Bamboo Bar which was on the bottom floor of our hotel (how on earth we managed to miss it the last time we were in Sapa is a complete mystery).

Saturday was a much milder affair, beginning with a walk down to Cat-Cat village just below Sapa, once again home of the Black H’mong.

This time the whole route was paved with stones and it felt quite leisurely in comparison to the previous day’s excitement. My mother’s knee however wasn’t up to the task and so she took a break at a café in the upper reaches of the village, while we walked to the bottom of the valley to see the early 20^th century French built hydro electric station.

Toan again offered us two options. A short jaunt up the rice terraces (through mud), or back up the steps, the same way we had come down. We decided to choose the easy option. Mainly because we had run out of dry non-muddy clothes by that point.

We picked up mother along the way, but with her knee still troubling her, we decided to take advantage of the Black H’mong Xe Om team who got us back up the hill without further mishap. The rest of the afternoon was spent touring the market and town. While in Cat-Cat, my camera had given up the ghost due to the extremely high humidity, so I made a quick dash back to the hotel to collect my backup. Along the way I was accosted by a teenage Black H’mong girl who asked me where I was from, what was my name, who I was with and how old I was. She then asked me to wait for a second while she nipped over to her friends, returning with three ‘friendship bracelets’, one of which she tied around my wrist and the other two were for Felicity and my mother. It turns out was her name was Vu and eventually I was brow beaten into meeting her at the hotel before we left to buy something from her. Amusingly enough we found out that Luke our New Zealand friend, while touring Sapa a few months ago had met Vu (who also uses the name Mimi) playing pool in a bar wearing a sun visor and trainers! She also spanked him on the bottom at one point and after having whipped him at pool, branded him a loser! I found it really hard working out how old Vu was as she seemed very naïve but it turned out she was nearly 17 (veritable early middle age for the H’mong), but she was still capable of sulking and minor tantrums as I found out when she tried to sell a lovely blanket for twenty dollars when really it should have cost around 100,000 VND ($6). I ended up paying 150,000 but it was good fun chatting with her. The H’mong are also much more tactile than the Vietnamese. It is extremely rare to touch somebody of the opposite sex (though my male friends are often seen hugging or resting random limbs on each other), so it’s quite a shock when you’re given a huge hug by a H’mong teenager. My mother also got the same treatment, which was quite a surprise to her!

Eventually it was time to leave and so we boarded the bus back to Lao Cai. Thankfully the weather had cleared and we had amazing views as we dropped to the plains below. Once again we had three hours to kill in Lao Cai and having seen the ‘sights’ of the town on our previous visit we decided to remain in a café until it was time to get the train.

I was lucky enough to spend a few dong on one of the travelling weighing machines that are a common sight throughout Vietnamese cities. My previous experience during Rachel and Andy’s stay had said I was 88.8 kg and 7 kg overweight, this time I hit 74.5 kg. Get in!

We entered Hanoi over the railbridge just a dawn was breaking, and as is always the way with Hanoi when returning from the countryside, it’s a welcome site. Joggers could be seen running along the side of the railway track, old women doing fan dancing in the cool of the early morning, the rich mustard of the buildings glowing in the morning light, a market place packed with the most vivid of greens…

2005-06-22T18:27:00.000+07:00

Our unofficial guide during our village visits

2005-06-22T18:26:00.000+07:00

Y Linh Ho village. The first village we managed to reach

2005-06-22T18:25:00.000+07:00

H'mong child hawker

2005-06-22T18:24:00.000+07:00

Another H'mong child seller

2005-06-22T18:21:00.000+07:00

H'mong boy taking a sip of water

2005-06-22T18:20:00.000+07:00

Our H'mong girl guides

2005-06-22T18:19:00.000+07:00

Black H'mong woman working in the rice fields

2005-06-22T18:18:00.000+07:00

Felicity bargaining with Red Dao in Ta Van village.

2005-06-22T18:16:00.000+07:00

Black H'mong woman sewing in the daylight

2005-06-22T18:14:00.000+07:00

Our deathtrap jeep. Note the rocks stopping it plummeting off the nearby cliff edge!

2005-06-22T17:57:00.000+07:00

The long march back to Sapa begins

2005-06-22T17:55:00.000+07:00

2005-06-22T17:54:00.000+07:00

My mother and Vu

2005-06-22T17:53:00.000+07:00

Red Dao on motorbike

2005-06-22T17:51:00.000+07:00

Red Dao and Black H'mong socialising

2005-06-22T17:49:00.000+07:00

Black H'mong girl and boy in traditonal clothing

2005-06-22T17:47:00.000+07:00

Red Dao in Sapa

2005-06-22T17:46:00.000+07:00

Black H'mong women browsing for bargins in Sapa

2005-06-22T17:24:00.000+07:00

H'mong woman shopping in Sapa market

2005-06-22T17:22:00.000+07:00

Mount Fanzipan, South East Asia's tallest mountain. Seen from the Green Bamboo hotel

2005-06-22T17:19:00.000+07:00

The valley below Sapa

2005-06-22T17:14:00.000+07:00

Terraced rice fields below Sapa

2005-06-22T17:13:00.000+07:00

Sapa town on our arrival

Mother's Day

2005-06-22T17:08:00.000+07:00

My mother and Felicity at Hoan Kiem lake.

On June 13^th my mother touched down at Hanoi International Airport, and we met her at the gate.

A couple of busy days followed her arrival, and we enjoyed walking around Hoan Kiem Lake in the sweltering heat, visiting its pagoda and seeing the gigantic preserved turtle. The following day also featured my first visit to the Museum of Ethnology – Vietnam’s swankiest new museum, with reconstructed ethnic houses of all shapes and sizes in its outdoor plot. It also showed my mother just how hot Hanoi can get as we looked like we’d been for a shower with all our clothes on by the end of the morning.

The first night’s dinner was had at Bar 69 which seems to have at last sorted out it’s staffing/kitchen crisis and provided an excellent introduction to Vietnamese food, immediately dispelling the myth that Vietnamese food is Chinese food without the spices. Another visit, another rave review about their fresh spring rolls with prawns.

Over the next few days we went to our local restaurant and had Satay barbequed squid, Morning Glory, spicy tofu and crab and asparagus soup. We also visited Bia Minh as it’s balcony looking out onto Din Liet provides a good vantage point for observing Hanoian streetlife. Other visits included Com Viet (not great this time – you have to think twice about being given clams that didn’t open on the first occasion they arrive on your table!) and the staple Com Bao Kanh.

After meeting up with Tu and Mark, Tu suggested a visit to Wild Lotus for an aperitif (as we have heard the food really isn’t that good) and then on to Wild Rice for dinner. Wild Lotus is an absolute must for a visit, but only to absorb the truly magnificent interiors. The front courtyard is a beautiful modern take on Vietnamese elegance, while the first floor boasts an interior pool, with luxurious fixtures and fittings. The lighting is provided by what appear to be balls of silver candyfloss hanging from above. The light shines through the threads creating a cracked effect across the walls and ceiling.

While Wild Lotus is opulent and rich in colour and style, it’s sister restaurant Wild Rice, is a light minimalist lightly toned interior, touched by green ornaments and trim. The food yet again failed to disappoint. A special platter was constructed by the ever helpful Tu, who provided us with prawns the size of a young child’s forearm, rice crispy coated prawns, the best tofu in the world (I normally can’t stand the dull, tedious, slimey texture), a lightly battered soft shell crab each, and delicious fresh spring rolls containing prawns, rice noodles and herbs wrapped in rice paper, all for $12.

My mother took to the Hanoi bar/café culture and we visited Puku, Moca, Culi, the Polite Pub, Le Pub, and Highlands Coffee, invariably bumping into familiar faces at all of the places. The Hanoi ex-pat scene can be a bit like that giving it a small village feel…After a couple of days mooching around shops and cafes and struggling with the heat we eventually organised a day trip to Ha Long Bay. I unfortunately couldn’t go due to work, but Felicity and my mother headed out for a day trip. Apparently the weather was very misty and it rained but as usual it proved a popular choice.

Our next big adventure was a three day visit to Sapa (organised by the really excellent Hung from Vietnam Pacific Travel 30 Hang Be St), which I had been eagerly waiting for following our previous visit.

A birthday joint

2005-06-22T16:59:00.000+07:00

A sensible early start to the festivities

Mark’s birthday fell at the start of June and mine was on the 19^th, so it was decided that we would have a joint do. We looked for something a bit different, as finding a bar that would offer good Vietnamese food and an outdoor space in picturesque surroundings is a tall order (for us anyway) to find in Hanoi.

After an abortive adventure across the Red River to a lovely stilt-house (the scouting of which took place during a power cut induced by flooding which at one point meant us having to surmount a dyke and drive down a pathway around blind corners, with people overtaking on the inside), we plumped for a place a bit closer to the town centre.

Mark and Kate had previously found a wonderful beer hoi overlooking a small lake, just to the north of West Lake. We have visited it before on one lazy Monday afternoon, where we watched Hanoians swimming and playing football in swimming costumes that Kate described as ‘Budgie Smugglers’. Thankfully on the late afternoon of our do we were largely spared on the skimpy speedo front!

We met around 5pm and slowly the place, which had once been almost completely empty, began filling up. By the height of the night there must have been near on 800 people packed under the roof. We were also treated to a spectacular light show provided by Hanoi’s wet season, as the heavens opened and the building was deluged in water, the bamboo blinds that had hastily been brought down just about coping with the squalling wind. A few hours and 60 bottles of beer later we had polished off the mounds of food (the highlight being honey roasted chicken) and dashed on our motorbikes through the tail end of the storm for a late one at Half Man Half Noodle. A fantastic night out had by all.

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The sun sets and the fun begins

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Michelle, Tu and Mark

2005-06-22T16:55:00.000+07:00

Still just about sober

2005-06-22T16:50:00.000+07:00

*cough*

Out to lunch

2005-06-22T16:21:00.000+07:00

The hot wind gusts across the square outside of the cathedral. The bright yellow and white pennants hanging from it’s front seem too lethargic to make the effort to respond. The parking attendants cower beneath the little shade provided by their homemade sun-break. Shop workers slump over their cash registers, gazing out onto the street, silently pleading that no customer will break their reverie. A lone man, noticeable because of his activity, pulls a hose pipe across the pavement looping the water over the footpath in an effort to dampen the heat rising from the stone slabs.

The football playing school children are noticeable by their absence. Even the most chirpy of Xe Om drivers can’t be bothered to shift from their cool places in the shade. It’s a summer lunch time in Hanoi.

For a country that seems to be in a permanent state of snacking, the quiet this lunch time almost takes on an eerie nature. From the first sound of the dawn chorus, the streets of Hanoi are busy with street stalls, fruit vendors and coffee shops. The Vietnamese love nothing more than to spend time with friends, family or a stranger sharing tit-bits over a plate of roasted baby birds, or tucking into steaming bowls of pho or the smoky bun cha. The eating never stops. If one was trying to find a distinctive difference between Vietnam and Britain, the approach to food would be one to choose. Crisps and chocolates are some of the least likely things you are likely to see being tucked into; instead there’s a continual diet of fresh fruit. The heat at lunch-time however puts an end to much of the street life. It’s as though somebody has pressed the pause button for a couple of hours, as the streets fall silent and it’s racing pulse slows. As the regulation two hour lunch break ends, the roads cram with racing motorbikes as people stream back to work after their siestas. However, it’s not uncommon to return to work only to find the blinds down, the lights off, and groups of chairs lined together to provide a sleeping place for work colleagues. As you creep around the office, you try and dampen the sounds of your feet as you circle the precariously balanced forms curled up in nocturnal bliss. A creaking door will bring a murmering of discontent from the huddled masses, the door spilling blinding sunshine into the dark, cool interior...Eventually the titans rise from their slumbers, only to start unwrapping a plastic bag that contains their latest hit of fruit.

Model making

2005-05-29T03:22:00.000+07:00

Fashion comes to Puku. Note random hanger-on in foreground wearing army style cap - seemed to be part of the necessary 'lounging, but doing nothing' quota necessary at such events

Puku is already known for it’s art and photography exhibitions, but today as I sit on it’s roof terrace it is now acting as host for a jewellery fashion shoot. Male and female models are crowded in, along with stylists, photographers, film crew, make-up artists, general liggers and hangers-on. The place is cluttered with video cameras, lighting rigs and people wearing self important neck badges, frowning at the light, tweaking folds of clothing, and chattering into mobile phones on speaker setting while models waiting their turn gaze blank faced at the chaos surrounding them. I’ve now got a bloke wearing a stripped shirt with a floral pattern undone to the waist sitting just to my right as the camera man sits precariously on the edge of the balcony. All very strange – the whole shot seems to revolve around the every day existence of Puku as kitchen staff and waitresses clamber over silver boxes carrying iced coffees and toasted sandwiches. I remain ignored and unmoved in the centre of it all, as though I am a lump of inanimate matter (not entirely ignored, as just about everything else up here has been turned into a prop, no matter its previous function – I’m just waiting for the laptop to requisitioned). They’ve yet to ask me to move, but it must be just a matter of time. The shoot is being organised by the one of the owners of Puku, who also owns a jewellery shop, and it’s her items that are being advertised. Quite handy, I suppose to have a café that can double up as a fashion shoot venue. They now have perched a female model on a high stool just behind me, while a whole camera crew looks just past my shoulder – it’s quite disconcerting! Especially as they’ve just turned a massive lighting rig on, with it’s sudden increase in brightness and temperature…they’ve changed angles again, I’ll put that down to the light – I have to worry about health and safety as the model looks like light breeze might knock her over the edge! Oh well, makes a change from the usual I suppose…