I have wanted to visit Vietnam ever since 1998 when I visited a holiday fair in the RDS and got a brochure for a cycling holiday from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City (Alfred: OK, I wasn't around then but I have it on VERY good authority that Ruairi presumed the tour would go south from Hanoi and not north from Ho Chi Minh City .... because it would be easier cycling down!) Yeah, right. Anyway, the idea has always stuck with me and when I decided to take early retirement from Rathdown I figured this was my chance to finally put my dream into effect, (Alfred: Horrible phrase, come on!) especially as Martine was equally keen to visit Asia. The decision of Martine's daughter Amanda to emigrate to Australia with her husband Dave meant we were able to plan a co-ordinated holiday whereby Martine went to Melbourne for Christmas and then we would meet up in Ho Chi Minh City (hereinafter referred to as HCMC) in January.
So, preparations. I like to be prepared (Alfred: 'I like to be prepared'!! Ha! Ruairi is the one who put the '-anal' into 'travelling'. What, I hear you say, there is no '-anal' in travelling? You haven't travelled with Ruairi!!) so I spent a good while sourcing locations and hotels on the internet and put out an APB on Facebook to former pupils and colleagues who might be able to help. And guess what - there are people EVERYWHERE!! On holiday, journalists in Phnom Penh, film crew in Vietnam, holidaying in Laos and so on. (Alfred: This is where he is supposed to say 'Thank You' to everyone who gave advice but it looks like I will have to do so on his part). So, by Christmas it was all worked out - four weeks in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (and a lot more of it in Laos than originally intended based on the advice from visitors there) and a minimum of travelling by spending longer periods of time in fewer places. New passport, visa, extra passport photos, no inoculations (Alfred: Glad he mentioned that, an opportunity for a massive 'I TOLD YOU SO' later in the blog depending on how events transpire, though we obviously hope it doesn't happen - being around Ruairi when he is sick is a pretty miserable experience for all concerned and both Martine and I deserve better), some new clothes and a pair of walking shoes and off we go!!
Martine's flight had been eventful enough with her original itinerary of Dublin - Dubai - Singapore - Melbourne suddenly including Colombo for reasons far too complicated to get into. I was with Aer Lingus to Paris and then Malaysian Airlines Paris - Kuala Lumpur - HCMC and to my surprise and pleasure my luggage got checked all the way through! As I usually fly Ryanair to Edinburgh and elsewhere, I had forgotten how nice it is to be flying with an airline that makes a little more effort to be civil and helpful! (Alfred: And how come the airport was so crowded? Who in their right mind travels on New Year's D... ah, never mind).
The trip was pretty uneventful, to be honest. Wierd spongy escalators in Paris CDG that made you think they were collapsing under you and an interminable check-in for Malaysian Airlines as most passengers were coming home from Christmas and New Year shopping in Paris and had several kilotonnes of baggage each. Bought an inflatable headrest (which I then never used) to replace the one that exploded when I tried to inflate it (Alfred: Eurosaver quality ain't what it used to be). Twelve-and-a-half hours to Kuala Lumpur during which I watched the following films:
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: good, had wanted to see it in the cinema anyway.
The Losers and Max Payne: both of these are films based on graphic novels. The Losers was a so-so run-of-the-mill film but quite watchable (Alfred: It has Zoe Saldana in it, of course it is 'quite watchable') but May Payne was great - I love films that really capture the graphic novel feel and successfully transfer it to screen.
The Expendables 2: appalling, gave up after 20 minutes
The Campaign: not quite as appalling as The Expendables, I lasted almost forty minutes.
The Bourne Legacy: really good!
Some Korean film based loosely on Top Gun involving defecting North Korean jets. 30 minutes was enough.
(Alfred: Having a ten-year-old Malaysian schoolboy sitting beside us proved invaluable as both Ruairi and his Australian neighbour from Brisbane struggled with the video controls and the trick of rewinding the cord that attached it to the seat. Turns out you press the button that says 'Rewind'. Who would have thought......)
Kuala Lumpur airport is magnificent (the largest in Asia), a lovely, light-filled building of glass and high ceilings, immaculately clean and not crazily crowded. (Alfred:But nowhere to buy water, which our erstwhile hero could really have done with at this stage, having refrained from drinking on the plane because of being stuck in the middle of a five-seat centre section and surrounded by sleeping passengers he was unwilling to discommode - so, no water, no need for toilet breaks. This is what passes for logic in Ruairi's head).
And so to HCMC, arrived on time, luggage also arrived, as did Martine two hours later and we got a taxi straight to the hotel. Same people changed our money and sold us SIM cards and all at standard prices (Alfred: Ah now, the taxi was a bit more than a regular taxi fare would have been but the difference between $7 and $10 when you have just travelled for 30 hours is not worth the hassle!)
Arrived at the Saigon Star Hotel - $30 a night including breakfast, clean, good WiFi in the room, and an amazing range of services. Plus you could buy anything in the room as a souvenir. The high point had to be the health spa - read the ad below to get the full flavour.
(Alfred: Cultural Observation #1: attitudes towards the elderly. Our preparatory reading on customs in Asia had led us to believe that there was a high degree of respect for the elderly .... in the queue for Immigration (which was fairly slow-moving but not crazily so) there was an elderly woman who was finding the standing tiring. So she asked the Canadian girl behind me, and me, if it was OK to skip forward. Of course we obliged but when it came to the two Vietnamese teenagers in front of me, no way. One marched up to the Immigration Booth and when she tried to go next, the second teenager actually elbowed her aside and walked up instead. Not what we had expected!!).
First impressions of HCMC: crazy traffic (80% motorbikes) but that operates with an inherent logic that works - crossing the road takes a subtle blend of courage and common sense: don't step off the kerb if an oil tanker is bearing down or a dense pocket of bikes that will not be able to part to accommodate you, but otherwise walk slowly across and traffic will pass on either side of you.Two people need to cross side by side - one behind the other is too big a target! The noise levels are incredible - constant honking of horns, engines running, can get a bit wearing after a while! A lot of people, especially those on on bikes, wear masks (Alfred: Actually, it is all women. We are still trying to find our first man wearing a mask - though, given that they are masked and all rather diminutive, it can be hard to tell.). Many of them keep their masks on indoors, giving a rather sinister look as if a 1970s IRA funeral has just broken up.
Parks everywhere and people actively using them - as we walked around, there were people doing meditation, calisthenics, playing games (including badminton and a version of keepy-uppy with a cylinder weighted at one end that was new to me), a group of teenage girls developing a dance routine and - in one charming instance - practising the tango (see photo below), all utterly unself-consciously. And trees everywhere - on every possible street there are gigantic trees, with fences cut away and walls rearranged to suit the trunks as they grow out of place.
Old and new completely mixed - nice modern buildings (and there are some very nice ones) mixed in with old, decrepit buildings whose balconys are covered in chickens, ducks and plants. And people ignore you - not rudely, but there is no staring, no sense of being obtrusive and - above all - no begging. (Alfred: To jump forward here. As I dictate this entry to Ruairi, we are actually on Day Six of the holiday: not once have we either been asked for money or seen anyone asking for money. There are people with disabilities selling lottery tickets, chewing gum and newspapers and others selling items of relatively little value from whom you might buy something, but no one is begging. Even one old lady in Da Nang we thought was begging on the side of the road turned out to have a weighing scales in front of her and was charging for people to weigh themselves).
That night we found a simple little cafe near the hotel with only two other customers in it (see final photos). The girl had virtually no English but had photographed all the menu items with her mobile phone and scrolled through them so we could find something we wanted! And this was when we found out just how cheap food and beer are here in Vietnam. Dinner for two with four beers for seven euro. Lucky the food isn't too fattening!
And, as Zebedee siad, time for bed. The hours and hours of travel had scrambled our brains quite a bit so bed was welcome. And that is that for now. Next instalment: Dim Sum in HCMC, the boat that looks like a shark, first Vietnamese breakfast, Hindu temples (Alfred: Yes, he goes to Vietnam and the first thing he visits is a HINDU temple!) and the amazingness of water spinach.
(Alfred: Jaysus - whatever combination of Windows XP and Google Chrome this ancient computer is running has really screwed up the interface for photos - apologies for the mess!)
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