Singapore: Formula 1

I didn't know it at the time but Formula One happened to coincide with my time back in Singapore.  This made it extremely difficult to find a bed for the night, and practically impossible to find one for cheap.

Bastards.

Out of spite for them I bought a one day ticket to the qualifying race.

Rrreeeeeeoooooowwrrrrrr

Rowwrrrrrrrrrr

I learned three things that night:

1.  Formula 1 cars are very loud.

2.  Shakira is very wiggly.

3.  Shaggy is old.

That is all.

Security

I have been welcomed to the other end of the spectrum of airport security:

It's a full flight from Ho Chi Minh to Singapore, I put my bag through an X-ray scanner, no taking out of laptops, liquids pastes or gels.  I walk through the metal detector with my wallet and cellphone in my pocket, it makes a beep as I walk through.  The security guard waves me on through.

I SURVIVED.

Vietnam: Mỹ Sơn

For some reason I have missed out on writing down a little trip to a historical place called Mỹ Sơn.  It is a complex of temple ruins which predate the famous Angkor Wat complex in Cambodia, but was made by the same people in a similar style.  I travelled there on a pre-dawn tour bus trip from Hoi An - a time when no human being should have to be awake.

Here's some pics for this half-arsed entry (I am catching a flight to India in 10 mins):

Vietnam: Mekong Delta

I only have two days left on my month long visa to Vietnam, so I decide to book myself in to a two day tour of the Mekong Delta.  I met a few people who had been down there, and the general trend was that they ended up staying for a week or two, and their trip likely involved getting lost for a few days.

And of course they loved it.

The tour itself was slightly on the disappointing side - half a day of bus riding, some visits to a honey farm [read - place where you can sample and buy honey products], a sweet factory [read - 5 minute demonstration on how they make the candy, then you can sample and buy product], and a short traditional musical number which has mostly Chinese influences down in that part of the country.

ProTip: Don't drink the bees.  It hurts.

The next day was more interesting - visiting the largest floating market in Vietnam.  Buyers and sellers congregate here and purchase various fruits and vegetables while small coffee and tea boats totter around selling to everyone else.

The sellers put a sample of their produce on a long pole on top of their boat so that you can see what type of goods they are selling.  The tour guide tells us that unlike the floating market in Thailand - this one is very real and a popular way for the boat people to buy and sell their fruit and veggies, whereas in Thailand the floating market exists only for the tourists.

Keeping it real yo

And boats they do use.  The view from the bus to and from the largest city in Mekong delta gives view to countless waterways, all of them with many many boats in them - barges with building supplies, fruit seller boats, and just people getting around.  For some people in Vietnam, these waterways are a serious route of transport - and I find that particularly wonderful in this age of trains, planes and automobiles.

And fixies.  Or is it road bikes now?  I can't keep up.

Some more photographs taken in the Mekong Delta area:

Vietnam: Saigon

Or Ho Chi Minh as you might prefer.  Though the locals tell me they call it Saigon.  Hell, even the public bus and train tickets all have Saigon printed on them.  One man tells me it's because Vietnamese are lazy and there's one less syllable to say in the name.

My first impression after wandering the streets is it's definitely not as romantic as Hanoi - but it definitely has it's fair share hustle and bustle.

Bustle is french for wet

I've heard many horror stories of tourists having their bags snatched, falling for scams, and the locals being generally unfriendly - but I suspect that if you keep your wits about you and don't do anything stupid (like walk home drunk and alone at 3am) then you'll be OK.  Use your common sense people, and keep your wits about you.  Out of the few locals I met in my short time there, they were all very friendly and most helpful if you asked them for help, and sitting down at one of the numerous street cafes for a coffee or tea I had the occasional person strike up a friendly conversation with me about Vietnam, New Zealand, the economy, cock fighting etc.  In fact, that's how I found out what the chickens in small cages kept in the front of random cafes are for - they're for cock-fighting [No Homo] - sometimes for gambling, sometimes for fun.



As my time in Saigon is very brief, I opt only to visit two of the main tourist attractions - the War Memorial Museum and the Presidential Square - which is home to a cool kitschy 60s museum.  I'm quite a fan artifacts from that period of history so it's quite cool to see all these old dial telephones, radio equipment, and pimping gaming lounge.

Come on - the president's office even has a stuffed big cat in it.
How can you say no to that?

The other place I visit is the War Memorial Museum.  Like the War Museum in Hanoi this one also has a selection of planes, tanks and big guns out front, but unlike the one in Hanoi, the inside is a large collection of photographs from the wartime.  This is all entirely fascinating and harrowing all at once - with uncut photographs of the horrors and casualties of the fighting, and plenty of lingering on the many many war crimes committed over here.  I find the room dedicated to photographs of Agent Orange victims particularly sad - all these people who can't live normal lives as they are born with grotesque deformities or have developed them after exposure.

Sorry to end this on a bad note - but Agent Orange is a bitch.

Vietnam: Sleeper bus from Nga Trang to Saigon

I'm waiting at the travel agent office for my bus ride to Saigon.  For some reason when I was booking my ticket, the bookings lady tried all she could to get me to catch a bus at a different time, but the timing was perfect for me - I would leave Nga Trang in the evening, and arrive in Saigon at around 6am - perfect!

It seems I'm the only person catching this bus south to Saigon.  A bus-load of backpackers loads onto a bus headed north to Hoi An.  Funnily enough I swear it's the same crappy bus that I took from Hoi An to here.  Eventually, a man arrives to pick me up and loads me into a small minivan with a TV in it blasting on-stage Vietnamese music.  Secretly I hope that I've been swindled and that this is my sleeper bus to Saigon.  But hey - the van has good aircon and my legs fit in the seats!

My fears are unwarranted though and shortly after picking up an English/Australian couple from a hotel I'm taken to a different travel agent where another bus is waiting outside.  This one actually looks modern and has a tv in it playing a Vietnamese stage show.  One by one customers arrive and board the bus - eventually it turns out that myself and the English + Australian combo couple are the only western people on the bus - the rest are Vietnamese.   The air-con works great, the bus is clean, and we're given blankets and bottles of water.  The best part of all is the driver avoids potholes instead of aiming for them, and goes very easy on the horn, and is more likely to slow down gently than swerve from side to side while braking hard.  He even got us to saigon 30 minutes early with his careful driving.

I guess the moral of the story here is do the opposite of what the travel booking office says.  I'm not going to "Pro Tip" this because it's probably not true.

Vietnam: Nha Trang

To me, Nha Trang is a rather unremarkable beach town - think an under-construction version of the Gold Coast.  I spend the day there on the beach under an umbrella, popping into the ocean every now and then for a swim and to cool off.  Somehow - this is the first day that I've worn sunscreen, and I spent the vast majority of the day under an umbrella reading - when night comes I start to feel the tingling of inevitable sunburn.  Damnit.  It's gonna be an unpleasant bus-ride tonight.

Actually, it's not all bad

PS.  If you are young and Australian you'll probably like it here - it seems to be full of them.  That kind of holiday is just not for me (I haven't travelled halfway around the world to sit under a beach umbrella).