Tales Of A Nomad

HO CHI MINH (Saigon)

Good moooooorning Viet-naaam
Waking up in Saigon with the sound of rumbling traffic and beeping horns, was yesterday all a dream?
A short flight of around twenty five minutes last night and the world around me has changed. Saigon is a giant of a city with a more cleaner and modern appearance.
I arrived at my hotel at 22:00 and to my dismay I discovered that my reservation had not been recieved, luckily, the manager was a friendly lady who spoke good English, she was simpathetic to my plight and let me have a three bed room on the top floor at a reduced rate.
Somehow, I had managed to choose a hotel in one of the cities party streets! I headed straight out for some food and drink. Its all here, sports bars, girlie bars, nightclubs, tattoo and massage parlours. Vendors accost you in the street selling cheap watches and books and pretty girls attempt to drag you into the bars to share a drink. This place is insane!

Well! Hostelling doesn’t get much better than this. I have been booked into a six bed mixed dorm. All day it was only me to the room so I thought, great, I have it to myself. I got back tonight to find five, friendly, Texan girls had joined me!!

Hostelling is such a wonderful experience, People of all ages, from all over the world and from all walks of life converge on the Hostels and share maybe only a few hours or days together before moving on, enriching each other with moments of friendship, sharing tales of their travels, offering a glimpse into a life many miles away back home. In Ayutthaya i shared Whisky with John, who played professional football for QPR and Brighton in the 1960’s. In Battanbang I attended a cooking class with a Swedish student and spent an evening at the circus with a young English couple who had sold everything they owned to journey round the world. In Saigon, I ventured into the city to experience my first vegan meal with a marine biologist from Hawaii. The world is blessed with some wonderful, friendly people, I wonder who I will cross paths with next?

WAR REMNANTS MUSEUM- SAIGON

The Vietnamese really have a bash at the Americans in this museum but it is an extremely good collection of photographs, media and memorabilia charting the entire history of the Vietnam conflict, the section devoted to war correspondents photography is especially of interest, their photographs remaining as a permanent, visual record of a turbulent and brutal conflict. The war crimes section graphically depicts the brutality of warfare, it is a rather one sided account but it illustrates how young, naive American soldiers were warped into
heartless killers, no doubt bent by the horror they witnessed and endured.

Cat Tien National Park

Two days were spent indulging in my favourite pastime in this beautiful national park, renowned for its birdlife. A full account is on my ‘For The Love Of Birds’ blog.

DA LAT

Beautiful Da Lat, set in the mountainous region of the Southern Highlands, some of us likened it to a town which has been plucked out of the Alps and plonked down on a mountain in Vietnam. The air is cleaner and cooler here, people wear long clothes and light fleeces at night. It is obviously a wealthy city, the streets are clean, public gardens and roundabouts are well manicured and clothed in flowers and tall coniferous trees spread the sweet smell of pine.

On my second day in the city I hired an ‘Easy Rider’ (a man and his motorbike hired for the day) to show me some of the local sites. The guide books warn that not all tours are safe and it is virtually impossible to walk the streets without one of them approaching you and offering a tour. After hearing conflicting reviews from other people I had made up my mind not to bother with a tour but a chance meeting changed my mind. I got talking to a friendly gent on the street, his name was Mr Hiep and it turned out that he was one of the original Easy Riders who he had been taking people on tours for nearly 30 years, I arranged a short 4 hour tour, negotiated a reduced price and spent a wonderful afternoon perched on the back of his motorbike taking in the sights around Da Lat.

DA LAT IN PICTURES

CABLE CAR TO CHUAR CHUC LAM MONASTERY

‘EASY RIDER’ – MR HIEP

Contact Info:

E mail:

Ngochiepmap@gmail.com

Tel:

090 9506684

During my stay at Cozy Nook Hostel I met two people from Bath and students from Yate, Stroud and Chipping Sodbury…the world just got smaller again!

HOI AN

I pampered myself on my first day in this quaint little coastal town. In the morning I had an extremely relaxing massage and followed this up with my first visit to a barber shop in over twenty years! The full service included fine work with a razor blade and extracting wax from my ears!
Hoi An is famous for its fine tailor shops, which produce quality made clothes at very good prices, not wanting to cart a new suite about in my backpack, I chose to have a couple of new shirts and a pair of shorts tailored. They also offered to alter one of my owned shirts which is a bit on the large side.

I had intended to visit the local beach on my second day in Hoi An but I only made it as far as the local rice fields, the birding there was exceptional.
I also had some interesting encounters with the local rice farmers.
Phom (below) introduced himself and insisted that I take a picture of him and his Buffalo.

Another farmer ushered me over because he was keen to show me the tomb of a Japanese sailor, set in the middle of his fields.
The plaque by the tomb relays the story of a Japanese merchant sailor who visited the port of Hoi An in 1647 and fell in love with a local Vietnamese girl. He was so besotted that he returned from Japan a year later to find his love and set up home in the town.

If you look closely at the tombstone there are bullet holes in the stonework. The farmer claimed that American soldiers had used the headstone for target practice…

While on an organised tour to some temple ruins I got talking to Konstantina, a loveley Greek lady. We were both in Hoi An, travelling alone and got along well so I was pleased that she agreed to share some time together. We had a lot of fun the next day riding hired scooters around the local city and up in the mountains around the Hai Van pass. Tackling the local traffic was at times, a challenging experience, anything goes on the roads of Vietnam and mopeds come at you from all directions. The twisting mountain roads were quieter and gave us relief and beautiful views away from the chaotic city highways.
Konstantina has also encouraged me to try some different food, eating at local street restaurants and buying exotic fruits from a market were of interest.

DONG HOI

I have been on several sleeper buses during my trip but the midway stop to Dong Hoi was particularly interesting. Having failed to secure a ticket for food, I slumped into a chair in the dining area of the cafe we had stopped at and got out my phone. I must have looked pretty dejected, almost immediately, a middle aged Vietnamese man approached me and set down what looked like a cup of tea. I thanked him and sipped the liquid I had been presented, it was immediately obvious that the drink was alcaholic and quite potent! After several sips the man and two colleagues he was sat with toasted me and downed their shots, encouraging me to do likewise…bottoms up! Several minutes later I was joined at the table by three girls from Chile, again the man came over, set down more glasses, poured out some more ‘tea’ and toasted everyone…Bottoms up!! I returned to the bus feeling rather tipsy…

Sleeper bus to Dong Hoi

I used a scooter to explore the coastal roads around Dong Hoi, sand dunes dominate the landscape on the edge of town.

But the dunes are disappearing fast due to the building of new roads and housing development.

Behind the dunes are a network of dirt tracks through the local farms, the birding here was pretty good and it gave me a chance of a little ‘off road’ fun on the scooter.

Bringing my binoculars has not only been an asset for birdwatching, they have also provided opportunities for meeting people during my travels. It appears that many Asians have never seen a pair of binoculars, let alone looked through a pair, on offering the binoculars to their eyes, seeing the wide smile that appears on a person’s face and hearing the words of incredulation brings enormous satisfaction.
I offered my ‘bins’ to the students below so they could observe some distant Storks nests and immediately made seven new friends. They bought me a bottle of water to say thank you and invited me to join them for Sunday Mass at their church.

If there was one place in Vietnam I could recommend a person should visit, it would be…

TAM COC

An area that is unquestionably stunning and beautiful.

The lady below rowed me through some of the water channels and grottos using her feet on the oars.

HANOI (Motorbike Metropolis)

The motorbike is still the most favoured form of transport in Hanoi, they even rule the pavements! Most pedestrian walkways are blocked by parked scooters and those which are accessible are used by riders to cut corners and traverse traffic lights, travelling at the same speed as they would on the road! There is nowhere safe to walk on the smaller streets of Hanoi.
Vendors of certain goods and services tend to occupy the same area of a street, it is not unusual to find four or five consecutive shops which are selling exactly the same products. I had been wondering where all these scooter drivers went to have their vehicles serviced or fixed and then in one street I chanced upon a row of around twenty repair shops. Each unit was barely 10ft wide by 20ft deep, crammed full of tools and machines and every one had at least three or four scooters lined up outside. The one pictured below was obviously a more specialised outfit.

Having had enough of long bus rides and tourist venues, I have decided to book myself into a hostel and make this my last destination in Vietnam. This will give me a chance to explore Hanoi in depth before I fly back to Bangkok. I won’t be visiting Halong Bay or some of the other famous sites in the north, which may surprise some people, I suppose I will have to return another time.

The main train line runs straight through the heart of Hanoi, cutting through a residential area with only a few feet to spare as the train shuffles past the houses and shops, I even saw a scooter parked up across the tracks. There are no barriers at the crossings and there is a very primitive system of warning lights and bells in place.

Motorbike tours around Hanoi are very popular so I booked an evening tour which explores some famous sites around the city and includes stops at some popular street food venues. My guide, Tom, was an excellent host. He picked me up from the hostel, rode at an easy pace and skillfully negotiated the busy roads.

The tour took in many notable sites of interest, in particular, from the time of French occupation we visited a Cathedral, built in a simular style to Notradam, a bridge, once the longest in Asia that was designed and engineered by Gustav Eiffel (it survived three bombing attempts during the Vietnam war) and the ex Governers mansion which was later occupied by president Ho Chi Minh in the latter days of his life.

During the last hour of the tour we visited a number of street food vendors to sample some delicious Vietnamese cuisine. The first two venues were popular with the locals and I enjoyed eating chicken noodle soup and bread rolls filled with spicy pork and herbs.

The next two venues were smaller, these people sold food directly from their homes. Tom explained that they often shared these tiny premesise with other family members with very little room for privacy, I was also shocked to learn that there are no bathrooms in the houses. Up to ten houses share a communal bathroom which is situated in an alley off the main street. At one house I sampled some freshly prepared spring rolls, we then moved nearby where we were served up rice pancakes stuffed with mushrooms. Here, I was also given the opportunity to sample Loa tobacco from a pipe. The locals took great delight in watching me splutter and cough as I inhaled to deeply, I felt slightly dizzy and nautious for a few minutes but the affects soon passed.

Finally, I was taken to have a cup of Hanoi’s famous egg coffee. A black coffee is prepared and then the yolk of an egg is beaten and poured on top and served. Using a spoon, the egg ‘froth’ is mixed in before tasting, the result is a lovely smooth coffee with a unique flavour, absolutely delicious!

Ho Chi Minh Mauselium

Resting place of Vietnams national hero.
At a time when Vietnam was in a desperate state, Ho Chi Minh called for all Vietnamese citizens to come together as one and make the country great again, he was instrumental in gaining independence from prolonged French occupation, resisting Japanese occupation during The Second World War and the fight to create a United Communist State. From the noblest of dignatories to the poorest peasant…all citizens were equal to the cause of making Vietnam a free, independant country, he even created an awards scheme to honour people of any stature who showed courage, skill and initiative in service to their communities and country.
Ho Chi Minh had expressed the desire to be cremated after his death but the authorities at that time made the decision to go against his wishes and a team of Russian scientists were commissioned to embalm his body.
The mauselium is open just a few hours a week to allow visitors to file past ‘Uncle Ho’, his perfectly preserved face and hands are all that are visible.
The body is transported to Russia once a year so that the embalming process can be renewed.

My time in Vietnam is at an end, it was a fascinating country to visit.
I sensed a slight innocence in the people when traveling through Cambodia but in Vietnam there was a real feeling of purpose, things seemed more organised and structured, a country which has moved on from recent conflicts and is keen to progress. New Road networks and housing developments are prevalent and a fairly organised infrastructure seems to be in place.
The number of cars on the roads are still relatively low, the scooter and motorbike being the preferred mode of transport, even for commercial and farmed goods! However, as in Europe, the Vietnamese have started their love affair with the 4×4 which accounted for nearly 50 percent of the cars seen, i fear that the little streets of Hanoi’s Old Quarter and Hoi An will become more congested as the motor car becomes more common. The main difference in Vietnam is that the car owners do not drive as aggressively as we do in the UK, there were no angry confrontations seen on the roads.
The only time I witnessed any anger in Vietnam was an English man complaining about an unsatisfactory meal he had been served, demanding money off the bill, shouting at the top of his voice and swearing profusely. He must have been aware of the non-confrontational society that exists in Asia, the only person losing face (on behalf of all English citizens),was him…his Vietnamese wife looked highly embarrassed.

The Vietnamese people seem to have a harder exterior than their neighbours, particularly towards Westerners, I suppose you can’t blame them considering the past history. Once that barrier has been broken down they can be extremely friendly, generous and hospitable, and they are a picture of health and vitality, there are no overweight people evident in Vietnam.