After signing off yesterday I decided to have a night-cap before turning in and so popped into a little bar just near my hotel. The patron was one of the first westerners to set up a business in Nah Trang and seemed to be a little war weary. I stayed for a while then took up his recommendation of a stop by the sailing club which is by the coast. There I bumped into some Geordie’s that were good value – it was the birthday of one of the lads so we sank a few jars and jawed a while. Later on I ended up in Mama’s roadside stall for one of the local specialities, a late night snack that included an egg and some Vietnamese style beef. Mama is a bit of a local celeb, everyone stops by here for a late night snack and the chatter is cheerful around mama’s stall. It was sitting here that we saw the sun rise, so I packed my stuff up, paid my hotel and took a taxi to the airport.
(more…)Category: Travel Blog
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Double Decker
Getting up at 7am after coming home at 5am was like swimming through a bath full of mud, but I got on my bus. I had an argument with the driver as he was trying to put me in the middle of a huddle of people at the back of the bus – it’s a large array of what looks like bunk beds with a platform of 5 aside at the back, being in the middle of there with a hangover would have been hell on earth, so I negotiated a bunk by a window that I could open for some fresh air.
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The Purple Turtle
So I can’t sleep, I put my head down like a good boy at 10pm then just listen to the fan whiring on which is a bit of an apocalypse now moment, so I head on out at 2.00am to catch a beer to send me to sleep. I meet bunch of blokes at a bar, one of whom is from Henley and knows Reading very well so he starts going on about an old bar we used to frequent. It’s a small world (but I wouldn’t like to paint it).
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Birds Nest Fungus
I grabbed a tin of what looked like energy drink from the hotel lobby, but when I poured it into the glass it had lumps in it and looked a little like snot. I turned the tin around to find the English translation and found that I was drinking birds nest fungus. Now I’m not used to supping on a glass of gloop and I have to say it didn’t even taste very nice. I’ll read the tin a little more carefully next time…
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War and Peace
So, a trip to the ‘war remnants museum’ brings it home to you how these people suffered during the war, then a trip to the ‘apocalypse now’ bar shows you how r&r the GI’s made their Vietnam experience, but I’m not going to go on about it because that’d be the obvious things to do. What made the day more poignant is reading in the Guardian today that American intelligence predicts a nuclear or biological attack in the next five years, we just don’t stop as a species do we.
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Cluster Bombs
This article is a sombre read – Laos, the most bombed country on earth, was never actually at war with the USA.
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Saigon Sunsets
I arose early and booked out of the strangely posh Hong Thien Loc hotel, because a room the width of the whole of the edifice was a bit of an extravagance, so I bounded out of bed at 8.30 am to search for another room. My first choice, the Bich Duyen, was just around the corner, but they were stocked up with Gypsies of a less technological bent so I eventually ended up at the Phieu An Sang where I get free wifi in my room.
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Phnom Penh to Saigon
Travel around about’s these parts is not too much of a problem as long as you happen to be on the biggest thing on the road. Other than that it’s a bit of a lottery, people will ride motorbikes the wrong way up the stream of traffic, pedestrians dance across the road with surprising confidence and most people get where they are going.I paid $17 for a ticket all the way to Saigon, I was given an alarm call by the hotel staff and nipped onto the 8am bus. We stopped in one of those roadside eateries for lunch where all you can do is point at buckets of delicious looking food and recieve some welcome surprise, but by early afternoon we were in Saigon already, looking for a hotel.
The first hotel I found that said it had an internet connection was speaking with forked tongue. I had a shower then tried to connect but not a sausage, so I packed my bag up and went up the road to yet another expensive hotel, so right now I’m tapping away in a room built to house a family in semi luxury – they even have two packets of smokes on the table neatly balancing in an ash tray.
My first impressions of Saigon – and I have only taken a walk around the block and eaten – is that it is a very busy colourful S.E.Asian city that I could grow to like a lot. The food seems to be the best in the region and people are full of energy. I had a run in with one feller though as, to get my financial radar adjusted, I ask a few people what prices things are, then compare with other places for similar things. So to this end I asked about the price of a book, which he then ran up the road after me making the price smaller and smaller until, frothing at the mouth, he stated that ‘foreigner want everythign for bleedin’ dollar’.
The internet connection I have here in my room seems to be as fast as back home in London. Cambodia could be slow sometimes because they tend to pay for bandwidth a lot more than here, so only the better internet cafes had fast connections, I get the feeling that from here on in things will be pretty much up to European speeds. -
Phnom Penh
I’m in a bar making the most of the wifi yet again, I am with the Cambodian president of the football federation, and a couple of fellers from Hertfordshire who are making the most of five jars of Sangria. One of them I met on the boat the other day, he’s a breath of fresh air with that foul mouthed British whit that leaves a vew raised eyebrows around the table. I was gently coerced into making a free website for the Cambodian Football Federation, I don’t mind, they don’t have two pennies and apparently even have to pay TV stations around here to broadcast matches so they need a punt, I might as well help spread the word.Tomorrow I am off to Vietnam, apparently the internet connections are faster and the food is better, but I have enjoyed my stay around here. I’ll come back and have a better look around, but for now I’m motoring.
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From Baphuon to Phnom Penh
The Baphuon is a temple inside Angkor Thom that is not fully open to the general public because it is still being built. Or re-built should I say, I was lucky to be given a guided tour by Maric, a French architect who has been working on this temple.
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