System Re-Boot

Distance Traveled:   15,630 kms (BNE-MEL-SYD-BKK-PKT-BKK-CNX-BKK-PP-SR-BB-PP-HCMC-NC)

Time Difference: -3 hours (from Brisbane)

Soundtrack:  I took advantage of being stuck on the bus for hours to put on Pink Floyd's Wall album and listen to it from beginning to end the way I used to so many years ago - properly, with headphones, really paying attention to the music and lyrics... and I couldn't do it!  I kept drifting off and missing three or four songs in a row, and also kept getting distracted.  Why, I wonder?

Currently Inspired by:  This will seem random until you read the blog, but: The journey that sand has taken to get where it is, and also dragonflies.  They are everywhere here, big, fast, agile and shiny.  My imagination turns them into fairies.

Stacks:   Such a stupid one. I had this desk in HCMC that I kept bashing my quads on every time I got up, like six times I did it!  Now I have all these horrible bruises all over my legs, just in time for the beach tour up north.  Noice.  I have no idea why I didn't learn.

Words written:   13,899.  I have done no writing this week.  However I have a made a deal with mum and you will see this number is significantly higher this time next week!

*sings* Here I am , in Vietnam.  As promised in my last blog, you can click here to access the photos I have finally managed to upload from Kampong Chhnang in Cambodia.  They are in my Tonle Sap album so if you have already looked at those just skip to the end and go backwards.

I only have 19 more days in Asia before I get to London in winter, so I am very happy to be traveling north in Vietnam along the coast, to make the most of the heat and beaches before I freeze to death for nine days.  Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) was pretty cool.  More cosmopolitan than Phnom Penh without being anywhere near as filthy as Bangkok.  It does have roads that are absolutely terrifying to cross.  With each of the big cities I have visited, I have thought “well, that has to be the worst traffic I’ve ever seen”.  HCMC blew the others out of the water.  It is a city with 8 million people, and 4 million motorbikes.  They don’t care about lanes or even in many cases which side of the road they are supposed to be driving on.  In fact the footpaths are not even safe from motorbikes who are in a hurry.  There are a FEW sets of lights, but the riders are opportunistic so if there is a tiny gap they will go no matter what the lights are doing and everyone with the green light will just have to slow down or stop.  There are zebra crossings which the drivers and riders completely ignore.  To cross the road on foot in HCMC, you follow the steps below:

1.       Take several deep breaths;

2.       Recount your life’s transgressions to God and ask for forgiveness;

3.       Wait until there are only five or six bikes and a bus coming towards you, instead of thirty;

4.       Extend your arm towards the drivers with your hand up, step out in front of the traffic and slowly but steadily walk forward WITHOUT stopping or going back.

You should survive.  The reason they say don’t stop or go back is because the riders are used to pedestrians walking across the road in front of them and they won’t stop but they will ride around you, sometimes in front of you, sometimes behind you.  If you stop or go back and they are planning to ride behind you and expect you to be a few more steps forward, there could be trouble.  Oh, the heart stopping fun of it all!

I did the Mekong Delta from HCMC in a couple of boats which was a bit “meh”.  I don’t know if I’m generally jaded because I’ve seen so much, or if I’m Asia-ed out, boated out, Mekong-ed out or what, but I could have taken that day or left it.  The best part of both of the days I spent out and about were the cool people I got to chat to and swap stories with.  And the fresh coconut candy, mmmm.   

This one really got to me.

On the day I checked out HCMC and a bunch of things it had to offer from a tourist perspective, I made the mistake of doing the War Remnants Museum first up in the morning.  Again, I think I’m human atrocity-ed out.  Hearing about this stuff takes its toll!  After the killing fields and prisons in Cambodia, and learning about the US carpet bombing that killed all those innocent Cambodian people during the “American” War, as they call it here, I think I need a break from hearing about / seeing people doing awful things to each other.  Particularly America.  It always has to have its hand in other people’s business doesn’t it?  Self Appointed World Police, or World’s Largest Terrorist Organisation?  You decide.  Please understand here I am referring to the US government, not its citizens.  In fact some of the coolest people I have met over here have been Americans.  But the American War, or Vietnam War, however you refer to it, had a ridiculous amount of collateral damage when it came to innocent Vietnamese citizens.  An estimated 2 million were killed by predominantly US soldiers with napalm, phosphorous bombing, Agent Orange, guns. 

I went into the War Remnants Museum knowing that it was going to be very one-eyed in favour of the south and was not disappointed in that respect, (for instance they did not mention American or North Vietnamese soldier casualties, in fact they barely mentioned North Vietnam’s role in it at all which was interesting) but I still walked out of it so very angry at the American government, and with a cracking headache to boot as a result of reading and looking at all the stuff.  This is why it is a mistake to do it first up in the day, and in fact I don’t think it’s for everyone anyway.  They have, in the room containing photographs of the type of deformities created by Agent Orange, real stillborn human foetuses that were deformed, in some kind of preservation liquid.  Really unnecessary in my opinion, and who the hell would donate those anyway?  Sick.  So, if you decide to go when you’re there, take your strongest stomach with you.  WHY ARE MEN SO VIOLENT?????  Seriously.

Design made using thin pieces of mother of pearl

Design made using eggshell

The other things I did that day were kind of tainted, unfortunately.  I checked out the oldest Chinese temple in HCMC which was cool – they have these incense coils that burn for one week, and you can write a wish on a piece of paper at the top and when it burns your wish will come true.  I didn’t do one, which I later regretted.  Do you think anyone would notice if World Peace suddenly came about in a week?  I think they would probably notice in Afghanistan... but ANYWAY... We also headed to Notre Dame Cathedral, nothing like the one in France but still interesting to see after months of endless Buddhist Temples.  The government here has a really great initiative called Handicapped Handicrafts which provides employment for scores of people who are deformed either through direct or parental exposure to Agent Orange.  They teach them skills in painting, creating designs out of eggshells and mother of pearl, and some of the stuff is just beautiful.  For about the sixth or seventh time I found myself faced with some of the most gorgeous artwork that I wanted to buy, but even if I shipped it home so I didn’t have to carry it, I don’t have a home to hang it in!  So I’ve had to leave it all so far.  At any rate I probably should save my money for things like, you know, food and places to sleep, rather than art ;) Reunification Palace was an interesting building, particularly the ancient looking communications equipment that was down in the war rooms of the basement.  It's incredible how much technology has advanced in just forty odd years!

Click here to see the rest of my photos from HCMC

I worked out how long I had before I had to be in Hanoi (which is where I am flying from) and plotted a course from south to north accordingly, using some personal advice (thanks, Danielle!) as well as Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet.  Not reading all that information properly made me think that a little place called Ninh Chu was close and / or suitable for me to go, and is where I currently am, after MUCH palaver.  I had already booked and paid for my accommodation here and went downstairs at my hotel in HCMC to get them to book a bus or train for me to get there, only to be met with a look of bewilderment.  “Why you go to Ninh Chu?  No western tourist there.  Only local.”  As a result, it took several phone calls for him to find a company that would actually bring me here, and even then they would only drop me at the highway on the way to Nha Trang and I’d have to make my own way to the resort.  I asked the guy how long it would take to get there and he said “about three and a half hours”.  I wasn’t actually too bothered as I like to go off the beaten track a bit and the only thing I was worried about was if the locals would resent my presence or not, but I thought “I’m not some group of nineteen year old drunk Aussie guys”, you know, I’m quiet and respectful and keep to myself when I’m in new places, so I was pretty sure it would be fine.

Well!  I and my fellow travelers climbed onto the Oldest Bus In The World, which had these weird tiny reclining beds made of foam and smelt strongly of feet, and headed north east.  The suspension in the OBITW had presumably fallen out about a hundred and seventy five years ago, so even the slightest bumps in the road had us all shaking and lurching about like a bunch of drunk wind up toys.  We just laughed.  What else was there to do?  About four hours in I became nervous that they had forgotten they were dumping me off on the way so I had an EXTREMELY difficult conversation with the driver, and surmised that would not be arriving near Ninh Chu until 4pm, making the bus ride 8 solid hours rather than three and a half.  I think mainly it was because the OBITW had to crawl so slowly due to the lack of suspension.  The whole thing was a highly comedic experience.  Finally, at around 5.30pm, they pulled up at  dusty stretch of highway and booted me unceremoniously off the OBITW.  A swarm of motorbikes converged on me.  I was actually looking for a car because a previous and also funny experience taught me that despite their Tetris-like over-stacking capabilities on bikes here, for some reason a driver, my suitcase and I do not fit well on a motorbike, so I had to end up taking two – one with my case strapped on and one with me.  Well, what a beautiful fifteen minute ride it was to the resort.  Almost the entire way to my right was an unobstructed view of the most gorgeous mountains with a pink and finally red sunset behind them.  I just kept getting these waves of pleasure watching it, and of course motorbikes are heaps of fun as well.  That fifteen minutes completely justified the crazy nine and a half hour bus ride in my opinion.  This is why it is worth getting off the beaten track.

The resort is here is still nice the way that Melanie Griffiths is still attractive.  You can tell it used to be really beautiful, but it hasn’t aged well.  The grounds and pool however are still absolutely stunning, and it is ON the beach.  Literally, not in a Gold / Sunshine Coast way where on the beach means across a road.  The restaurant leads directly onto the sand.  I went for a walk this morning and sat in the sand to watch the water.  As far as I could see in both directions (and this beach is a giant, kilometres-long curve of coastline) I could not see a single other human being.  To be fair it stretches so far that from a certain point people wouldn’t be visible, but still!  That’s a looong stretch to have as my own personal beach.  The sand here is a lot coarser and darker, and I literally sat for about twenty minutes running it through my hands and inspecting all the different colours and shapes of the grains, and making up little stories about them.  Like “You were once at the bottom of Everest and got all the way to the top, and then the wind blew you off and you sank to the deepest part of the ocean.  You were a rock that was walked on by dinosaurs, and you had lots of adventures in the belly of a giant squid!”  I kind of mentally shook myself, you know you have these moments where you realise what you’re doing and going “oh dear”.  My specific thought was “I think I need some friends”, and I kid you not, a tiny little white crab no longer than my thumb came and sat, just chillaxin’ next to me, watching the water like I was.  It was a very cool moment.  

The resort here is virtually deserted.  I have seen one Vietnamese family and that’s it.  I don’t understand why, but I have to tell you I am incredibly glad I came here.  I didn’t realise how much it was beginning to shit me to tears to have people constantly in my face trying to sell me stuff, until it stopped happening.  I knew it was annoying, but WOW.  After two months, I'm starting to get really angry.  I am appreciating the silence and the unobstructed, unspoilt nature of this place, very very much.  I hope tourism doesn’t go mad here, I really do.

Off to Nha Trang tomorrow, which is actually a bit of a tourist trap by all accounts, however I feel refreshed in the soul and ready to take on the mad mad world again after this little bit of time out, so it’s all good.  Everything has balanced itself out.  I don’t think I’ll be going to any more war museums though, although I’d be curious to see if there is one in Hanoi which is as one-eyed in the other direction as the one in HCMC!

Til next we speak
*LOVE*
N

p.s. Facebook is blocked in some places here, so I have to use this IP hidey thingy to use it.  I completely forgot this was a communist country until that happened.  I thought there was something wrong with the computer.  Can anyone with some political knowledge tell me what is supposed to materially different in a modern communist environment?  So far I can’t tell.