The last day in Vietnam

The new day dawned with a beautiful red sunrise through the fog caused by yesterday's rain.  I'm familiar with the sunrise because we had to get up extremely early in order to get to the floating market, however it was definitely worth the effort.

Unlike other countries, the floating market here is a real market selling fresh produce to locals.  The only allowance for the tourist trade is that there are plenty of small boats selling cold soft drink and coffee, however they are also selling them to the locals.

Petra buys a coke from the floating market

We jumped in another boat and cruised up the lower Mekong to the market.  It was fascinating seeing the people trading, and seeing how they live their lives on those small boats.  After a while of cruising we pulled up next to a largish boat and were able to climb up on top for a long view of the market in general.  They also cut up pineapples into pineapple "lolly pops" for us.

Cruising along the river lined with shanties, boats and palm trees was really nice, but Mikey did comment that it is a country with industrial deafness.  Everywhere you go the diesel engines roar, music is played at major decibels and the people end up yelling at each other.

We moored back in town, a distance away from our hotel so that we could walk through the street market.  It was just what you think of for an Asian market, open air butchers, live fish and prawns in open air tanks and mountains of every type of fresh vegies.

Next up was a nice long bus ride towards Chau Doc.  To break up the journey we stopped at a crocodile farm where we got to view the crocodiles, then we had lunch (not crocodile).  It was very tasty, but much amusement waas caused by Mikey.  He loves drinking coconuts, and today he managed to drink 4 of them at lunch.

The Coco "Nut"

Back on the bus, we all snoozed our way to Chau Doc.  It is a famous pilgrim town built at the bottom of a lone mountain in the middle of the paddy fields.  The largest temple in Vietnam is located here.  It is built around the statue of a lady who the story tells was found 300 years ago on top of the mountain.  The story goes that the people carried her down the mountain and at the base she suddenly became too heavy to carry any further, so they decided she wanted to stay here and they built a temple.  She is very good luck and huge numbers of Vietnamese travel here every year to worship.

Fu suggested we go up the mountain.  Petra, Mikey, Jules and Rob decided to go up on the back of motorbikes.  Oren, Kieran, Megs and I walked up with Fu.  It was stone steps the whole way up the mountain and the air is smokey from burning off the harvested rice paddies mixed with fog from yesterday's rain (and a little bit of rain today).  However the view was fantastic.  We could see all the way to Cambodia.  This area saw some awful fighting, both with the Americans and also with the Khmer Rouge.

We made our way back down the mountain and visited the temple of the lady.  It is a massive complex, but the amazing thing is really the offerings people have given.  People do the usual thing of food, incence etc but people have also donated thick strings of pearls, gold embroidered robes, hats, etc.  It was quite amazing.

It is peak pilgrimage season and the town is packed, but Fu took us for dinner at a local place and we had Pho and pork with rice for dinner.  It was great.

The heat was still pretty oppressive out, so we have all retired to the (somewhat pathetic) airconditioning of Mikey and my room for a catch up to the raging sounds of a fair and karaoke below.  Fingers crossed it doesn't go too late because we have another early start tomorrow to go to Cambodia!!!

And the rain came down...

One day it started raining, and it didn't quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night...

Forrest Gump

Yes, it rained today even though the monsoon isn't due for at least another month, but more about that in a minute.

This morning we packed up and headed out of HCMC.  We headed back the way we had done Thursday over the Mekong, stopping again at the "happy place" then continuing on to a temple of the Cao Dai religion.  It was started after the French introduced Catholicism.  The people who had been Buddhists were confused about who they should be worshiping, so they created a religion where you can worship whoever you want.  In the temple are images of Jesus, Budda, Confusious, and other deities. The place is highly decorated and brightly coloured, plus offers numerous worship times for the time poor.

 We got back on our bus just short way, then we met our boat.  It was everything we could have wanted, a low wooden boat, with a bamboo roof and a hammock in the back.

We headed across a wide stretch of river to an island where we boarded tiny canoes and were rowed up the small canals that intersect the island.  Unfortunately the tide was low so we didn't get to go into the real tight ones where the palm fronds cross over your head but it was still exciting.

Back on the larger boat we went for a cruise around the floating market.  It is a real market, not a touristy thing and by then it was late morning so it had mostly finished, we will see another one tomorrow.  Each boat sells one type of thing and they advertise by hoisting that thing on a bamboo pole above the boat so it can be seen from a distance.  So for example if they sell yams, they have yams up there, if they sell watermelons, there is a melon up the pole.

We went on to a candy making place.  We saw rice "popcorn" cakes and coconut candy being made.  The whole family is part of the venture, with the men generally doing the heavy hot cooking and the women packaging the results at the speed of light.  It was very tasty and while obviously set up for tourists to watch, still a good idea of how family industries work.

Back on the boat we headed up the Mekong.  It was exactly what you have seen in all those movies about Vietnam.  The wide river dotted with water hyacenth, the palm tree covered river banks lined with small villages and boats moored.  The river itself is teaming with activity, boats carrying loads of everything from an entire boat of rambutan, to one of pineapples, to loads of dirt.  We saw someone diving for the river mud to take back to fertalise the fields, other people were fishing.

We headed into a canal that divides a massive island.  The going was slow as the tide was low, but it was very pleasant heading along the river.  We took turns in the hammock, drank coconuts (Mikey finished about 5 of them) and ate the gorgeous basket of fruit which included rambutans, bananas and longan.

Our next stop was to hear some local music.  They were really cute in how they acted out the songs and it was very interesting learning about the instruments, but it sounds somewhat discordant to my ear.

A few minutes further up the river and we came to our place for lunch.  We had been eyeing off the looming storm clouds for a few hours and just as we arrived, down came the rain.  Still we were under cover and being fed mountains of delicious food so we were happy.  There were a few things which our tour guide seemed particularly excited to feed us, water chicken and an unidentified meat to be precise.  Some of us (me included) pretty quickly worked out what we were eating, but the look on Meg's face when she realised she had just eaten frog and coconut rat was priceless.  Her discomfort was truly hilarious, however they were very tasty so I don't know what she was worried about.

There had been an option for another bike ride, but with the rain still coming down we retired to hamocks, theoretically for a rest, but mainly for gossip and more teasing of the still mortified Megs.

As it turned out that teasing would continue.  Eventually there was a break in the rain, so it was back on the boat, over to the mainland and onto the bus for the journey to our hotel.  It was slow becuase of the pouring rain and as we drove along Megs began to feel a rather urgent need for the "happy house".  We stopped at a petrol station and she bolted out into the pouring rain.  We were laughing as we watched her make her way across the flooded landscape, however when her feet disappeared into the mud we did start to worry.  She made it and came back, muddy and sodden, but much relieved.

As we drove on the rain continued to pour down.  Everyone had donned ponchos on their scooters.  We saw small children almost completely enveloped and one guy riding along with about 20 ducks sticking their heads out.

As we arrived into Can Tho city, the puddles seemed to be getting extremely large.  They were laping up the car wheels till they were half deep and flooding across the entire road, but it was when we noticed that it was actually lapping into the shops that we asked if this was normal.  The answer was a defiinite no, we had arrived in a city that was flooded.  We made our way through the streets, having to detour through the back streets at times to avoid flooding the bus, but eventually we made it to our hotel and through some brilliant driving and parking didn't even have to wade through the water.

Of course the first thing we checked (even before we checked in) was the massage situation.  We had to go in shifts but we scheduled it!  Unfortunately the masseuses were universally panned by Kieran, Petra and Megs who went first.  Their assessment (which the clothing those girls were wearing appeared to back up) was that if you wanted a happy ending it might be the place to go, but for actual massages, not so much.

After a few hours the rain had stopped and the floods had drained away, so we went out looking for dinner.  Because of the rain the usual night market wasn't really running but our guide had told us of a good restaurant.  We should have noticed the complete lack of Vietnamese people eating there and the large numbers of very white tour groups, but we were hot, hungry and tired, so we sat down for a very ordinary meal.  I'm pretty sure standard food court fare in Australia would be tastier.

Tired and a bit disappointed we are aiming for an early night.  But the tour continues tomorrow and I'm sure it will be fab.

Shopping, Massages and a Super Dinner

Today was another day where we split up for different activities.  Petra, Jules and I decided we needed to exercise our shopping muscles while the rest of the crew took a cruise up the Mekong to visit the Cu Chi tunnels.

The tunnels used to stretch for hundreds of kilometers and were used by the Viet Cong first in the fight against the French, then in the Vietnam war.  The team said it was interesting but a bit of a rushed tour.  However Mikey, Rob and Oren also took the opportunity to fire some major automatic guns, then Mikey smoked a cigar.

That was all a bit macho for me so in contrast the girls and I had an exceptionally relaxed day.  We began by wandering up to the posh end of town, around the major hotels where we discovered just what a markup can be found on the same items we were looking at in the markets.  We found a cute cafe run by an Aussie and had a drink which was nice (although going up the stairs a chunk of plaster from the ceiling fell off hitting Jules which wasn't so nice).  It was great being out and about early, the streets were quieter and the pavements were full of tiny stalls selling produce to the locals.  We figured as most of the sellers were older women, they were probably selling the day's harvest from their farm where the younger people were working.

After while we wandered back towards our hotel and having walked a fair while thought we should in all fairness give our feet a break with a foot massage.  For $US7 we got an hour foot massage which included up to our knees, our hands and arms and a quick shoulder massage - very thorough!

Refreshed we hit the Ben Thanh markets.  This is a massive market complex where you can buy really just about anything from the clothes and lacquer ware we were interested in to fresh food, toiletries, kitchen supplies, you name it, it is probably in there.  It is an absolute Aladdin's cave of narrow passageways filled with hawkers.


Most of the time you barter, but there is also a fixed price government run section around the outside which allows you to get a good idea of what things are worth before you go and haggle.  We bought loads!  We have clothes, decorator items, presents and more.  I actually had to come back to the hotel and drop stuff off so I could shop more efficiently.  The markets also have a large number of food stalls, so we had a great lunch there.  It was delicious.

Lunch at the Ben Thanh markets - they all sit on tiny stools which means we eat at roughly crotch height.

However today was also REALLY hot.  41 degrees according to one side and intensly humid.  Eventually I faded, I just couldn't take the heat anymore and had to have a break in the hotel's airconditioning.  The humidity continued to build outside till the heavens opened with a heavy rain storm complete with some spectacular thunder and lightening.

We had a bit of time between shopping and dinner so Petra, Mikey, Rob and I filled it in with a back massage - what else would you do?

Dinner was brilliant.  Meg's has a Vietnamese friend who she met through world youth day and she took us to a real Vietnamese resturant and ordered for us.  It was literally only a dollar or two more than eating in the markets (apparently no locals would eat where we have ben because it is too expensive and not good enough quality!!!) and the variety of food was amazing.  It was a huge place and very interesting because instead of having a kitchen hidden away as we are used to, there were heaps of small stoves down the side of the place which served as the kitchen.

Tomorrow we start our journey up the Mekong.  I have to say that HCMC has been a revellation, we have really loved it.  Our hotel, the Tan Hai Long Hotel and Spa was brilliant, especially for its proximity to the Ben Thanh markets, not to mention its great day spa and generally excellent facilities and cleanliness.

This part of the journey has been great, can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

Going to the "happy place"

One thing I forgot to write about yesterday was the new euphamisim we learnt for the toilet.  As we drove along our guide asked if we wanted to stop at the happy place.  It took a bit of explanation to work out what this was but we figured it out and pulled up to the fanciest rest stop I've ever seen.

The facilities themselves were very good but to really encourage you to stop, revive, survive there was a gift shop (of non-toilet related handicrafts) a cafe, outdoor seating and a gorgeous lotus pond.  It truly was a happy place.

The garden at the "happy place"

And as such we now have a new measuring stick for toilet breaks.  Someone returns from relieving themselves and is generally asked to rate the experience on the happiness scale.  This is a term that will no doubt live on!

Bike riding through Vietnam

The last time I rode a bike I was on holiday.  It was Lord Howe Island where bikes are the predominant form of transport - it was also 1997.  This did not stop me today climbing on a mountain bike to head off through the Vietnamese countryside.

The journey began early, at 7.30 when we met our tour guide for the next few days (other than tomorrow) Fu - phonetic spelling, I've got no idea of the actual spelling.  We took a 1.5 hour bus ride out of the city on very modern highways and bridges which Fu explained the Government is building to try to keep up with the growth of HCMC and Vietnam in general.  It was an interesting ride learning all sorts of things like they manage to get 3 rice harvests annually in the Meekong Delta and tidbits about the way of life.

The team about 10km into the ride and ready to cross the river

We arrived and I watched with trepidation as the bikes were offloaded from a boat, would I remember how to ride?  As it turns out the answer is yes, but I must admit I would have preferred to practice on some nice flat footpath, not a potholed road which is also home to cars, trucks, numerous scooters including ones with considerable trailers.  There were several times as we were buzzed by much larger vehicles that I thanked the crew for yesterday lighting some incense at the pagoda for us to have safe journeys.  It had also been a long time on a bike for Jules and Rob, so the three of us progressed during the day from some serious wobbles to reasonable competence.

Mikey loves durian!

We made plenty of interesting stops along the way.  We ate fruit of many varieties including jack fruit, durian, dragon fruit and tiny bananas.  We drank sugar cane juice and copious amounts of water because it was really hot and extremely humid.  All of us were dripping with sweat - well not us girls but we were "glowing" furiously.

Sugarcane juice

At the sugar cane stop we were taking a rest in the shade when they decided to do a bit of cock fighting practice for our amusement.  It isn't very amusing to see the cocks going for each other, but at least it was only practice so they didn't have the metal spurs on.  Cock fighting seems to be the national pastime.  In every village and at almost every house there was at least one cage containing a fighting cock.  Being the countryside there were also plenty of chickens just roaming around along with dogs and cows.  We saw horses pulling carts, a trailer full of pigs and at least one cat haunting the shadows.

We also came across people husking coconuts.  They do it by impaling the coconut on a sharp metal blade.  Seeing this Oren and Mikey decided to have a go.  I had visions of them impaling themselves, but they managed it eventually and now have massive respect for the guy who does 1,200 per day.

Many of the places we stopped or just rode through we became the attraction.  Very few white tourists apparently do this tour, so seeing a big group of very white (well actually very red and sweaty) people was a real novelty.  Fu also told us that the paragon of beauty was apparently white skin and a long nose - who knew!

Megs makes a new friend

At one point we had to take a ferry over the Meekong to continue on our journey and I did wonder how we would get back, as it turned out it was by joining the highway and riding over a massive bridge.  The final trip down the highway with traffic roaring past was - for me at least - somewhat terrifying.

But we all made it the 25km.  Rob had a dodgy bike which had its brakes break, then lock up, so he was particularly done in, but it was a sore and sorry lot that made it back for lunch.

Almost there, the 25km mark

However lunch was worth it.  They served us fresh spring rolls made with elephant ear fish, fresh rice noodles and basil in front of us.  We had deep fried spring rolls, prawns, a Singapore noodle type dish, a fried rice type dish and a soup.  It was brilliant.

At that point we hauled our weary (and sore) arses back on the bus and into the city for some much needed showers.

Since then everyone has managed to get a massage, Petra, Mikey and Rob have squeezed in two!  Everyone except Oren went to the Sheriton hotel for drinks in the bar on the 23rd floor  This is a must do for tourists in HCMC as the views are spectacular and amazingly the cocktails are still less than Australian prices, although significantly more than you would pay elsewhere.

We headed to dinner at the night market, fantastic again then headed in directions of shopping and massages.  It has been an epic day.

Our table at the night market was behind the "kitchen" it was great seeing how the magic happens

Ho Chi Minh City

Our first day in Vietnam dawned grey and muggy.  Despite the extremely long day yesterday, my body clock wanted me up on Australian time.  I resisted and managed to snooze till about 6.30am.  I was a little confused when I awoke but the constant sound of roosters, but later investigation revealed the 4th floor balcony opposite to apparently be a holding pen for what we assume to be fighting cocks.

Once up and after an excellent breakfast, the crew decided to head off in different directions.  Megs, Jules, Mikey, Oren and Rob took a tour of the city, while Kieran, Petra and I went off on foot.

The first move for Petra, Kieran and me was to check out some tailors but being early they weren't open yet.  Still the early morning walk was a great introduction to the art of negotiating the city's roads before things got too busy.  While there are cars, buses and trucks on the road, the vast majority of traffic is scooters and motorbikes.  There are quite literally thousands of them at every turn.  Great crowds streaming through the city, row apon row parked on the footpath, occasionally some driving on the footpath!  Where there are traffic lights you can wait to cross, but generally, you simply pick a moment of light traffic and walk at a constant pace across the road.  They will swerve around you, or beep if you need to slow down or speed up.  Amazingly it all seems really quite ordered and far less chaotic that we would have expected.

Early morning traffic - it at least doubled or trippled later in the day.

Our first stop was the Notre Dame Cathederal.  It might have been built in the style of the great Paris icon, but it isn't really the same thing.  Still it was interesting and we got to watch a bridal photo shoot out the front.

The official banquet room at the Reunification Palace

From there we went on to the Reunification Palace.  It was built by the French in the mid 1800's and has had a chequered history throughout Vietnam's turbulent past.  Upstairs there are many opulant state rooms, but downstairs in the basement are the stark bare walls and maze of rooms from which the South Vietnamese ran their war.  It was close and claustrophobic and you could almost feel the emotion coming from the walls about what they had witnessed.


Petra in the basement of the Reunification Palace

You might be familiar with the Reunification Palace from the famous photos of the North Vietnamese tanks smashing through the gates as Saigon fell.  There are replicas of those tanks in the grounds.

We then continued on (Kieran and I parting a sea of school kids in awe of the giants in their midst) and made our way to the war remnants museum.  It is very interesting to read about and see the war from the "other" perspective.  There is a lot of emphasis on the "American war of agression" and the atrocities committed by the Americans.  There is no doubt that it happened but there is no recognition of the North's own actions.

The museum is quite detailed on the war, but also on things such as the residual effects of Agent Orange.  The photos of what it has done to people are just appalling.  The top floor contained a fantastic exhibition of photographs where every photographer represented had died during the war.  It was very moving.

It was quite an emotionally draining visit, but well worth it.

The other crew also went to an annexe to the museum which described the torture inflicted during the war and had exhibits such as a guillotine and barbed wire cages in which people were kept.  I'm really quite happy that I didn't see that exhibition to be honest.  There are some dark elements of people's history that I do not need to know about.

Kieran and Petra wander through a street market

We then headed off, wandering through small markets, parks and wide avenues until we found ourselves some lunch before Kieran went to find a tailor and Petra and I went for massages.  We each had an hour long Thai massage - lots of pummelling and stretching of muscles to get rid of that plane stiffness.  Like other places in Asia we were given extremely glamerous PJ's to wear during our massage.  They were hilarious and there is a photo, but it isn't going on the Internet!!!  We felt great, so then headed into the markets.

Petra and I were very restrained and didn't purchase anything but we do have a list of things we are getting!  The other team weren't quite so controlled - but they have found some lovely stuff.

Everyone met up again and we headed to see the "Golden Dragon Water Puppets".  Water puppets are a Vietnamese tradition and are designed so that the puppetiers are hidden behind a screen and the puppet workings are below the water.  The puppets themselves are all sorts of things, people, fish, dragons, ducks, etc and are laquered so they are brightly coloured and shiny, plus are jointed so that the puppetiers can control their movements.  It was very impressive - for about the first 10 minutes.  By the 40 minute mark, I was struggling to keep my eyes open in the hot humid atmosphere.  I guess there is only so long a flailing doll on a stick can hold my attention.

We left, walking back through the crazy streets (we have now also located the flower sellers, the lighting district and the street of sports wear) to the hotel.  The team had dinner included in their tour package so Kieran, Petra and I headed back to the night market to get dinner.  And what a BRILLIANT dinner it was.  We ordered BBQ "Vietnamese style" beef, salt and chilli squid, deep fried prawns, prawns on a stick and another BBQ squid dish that we had no idea what it was - but it was delicious.  We ate till we were way past full, drank fruit drinks and coke and had to fork out about $7 each at the end.  It was a fantastic meal.

The first hours

We have arrived!  After many long hours in airports and on planes our super cheery bunch had somewhat wilted.  Jetstar may provide some fantastic rates, but they don't provide any inflight entertainment or space for long legs.  Darwin airport boasts a Qantas Club - which isn't open, so we ate some Red Rooster and headed out of the country.

Petra had developed a bit of a head cold, I had some cramped muscles, Megs and Jules actually managed to sleep and it wasn't exactly a bright and chirpy bunch that left the plane.
 
We made our way through immigration, collected our bags and headed out into the warm humid night.  The night was filled with massive neon signs in all directions.  The boys quickly spotted their new desired TV, it is roughly the size of my house but with amazing resolution.

Our driver arrived and we piled into a minivan and headed off through the traffic.  It was actually slightly less chaotic than I expected but there are phallanxes of motor scooters everywhere.  We drove past a park which seemed to be a lovers lane of neatly spaced scooters each with a loving couple with their backs turned to the 6 lanes of traffic.  We scooted under massed electric wires, around building sites.  Just as we were feeling quite confident about the traffic, our mini bus ran up the back of a taxi.

Relax Mum - it was extremely low speed and was more exciting from the experience perspective than there was any likelihood of injury.

Finally we arrived at our hotel.  It is really nice, very spacious, extremely clean and best of all has fantastic air conditioning.

Once checked in, even though it was after 10pm, we headed out for food.  Less than a block away from our hotel is a night market.  Full of the usual t-shirts, Louis Vuiton rip-offs, shoes, etc and food stalls.  We picked one at random and had the most fantastic meal.

Beef Pho

I had Pho, sort of the national dish of Vietnam.  It is a broth with rice noodles, thinly sliced beef, fresh herbs and as much chilli (in multiple forms) as you wish to add.  It was truly delicious.  The others had a range of things including Oren enthusiastically trying frog which he really enjoyed.

Sated we got our bill, 600,000 dong, roughly $30 for the 8 of us which included drinks and beers.

Oren eats frog!

It is now very late and has been a long day but Vietnam is proving brilliant already!!!