Entry to Saigon

“Heaven on Earth is a decision you make, not a place you find.”

Has long been one of the maxims that I’ve tried to live by. It’s a surprise, therefore, to find myself in an idyllic situation in terms of place. For near to Thailand a nation is rising like a Phoenix at a great rate of knots.

For these are the great days of Vietnam, never to be repeated.

At a guess, the median age now is about 23. A nice age, bubbling with enthusiasm, good natured & fun loving. In ten years it will move to the 30’s and they will be arrogant, thinking they’ve got the world by the ass. Just as we did in our day.

I fled to Vietnam four years ago from the Philippines (Previous Submission). The first hour in Ho Chi Minh was something of a shock, to put it mildly. My perspective was of a war torn nation, surely embittered, communist government, according to the OECD one of the poorest nations on earth. Why then does Saigon have wide open French Boulevards & Parks, beautifully preserved colonial buildings, a plethora of five star hotels & Gucci shops. Gucci shops?

Did I land in Hong Kong by mistake?

Can’t be, for there is a sea of conical hats, very fetching they are too. What’s this? Hordes of young girls ... “Heyyo! Where you fwom?”

Hmm... maybe there’s hope after all.

It was not all good. In the rush hour Saigon is a veritable ocean of motorcycles, millions & millions & millions of the things, swarming all over, down back alleys even. You even have to climb over the blasted things to get out of the hotel foyers in the morning.

So there was your correspondent, desperately trying to cross the road, facing a non stop tidal wave of these mechanical insects, wondering how he was ever going to get to the other side. After 10 minutes, a little old lady simply walked straight into the traffic, calm as you please, without even bothering to look! The riders just went round her. Could this be? It happened again! No brave heart, to this day your correspondent knows where his bread is buttered & looks for Grannies to help him with the death defying business of crossing the road.

On the morn I ventured into Pham Ngu Lao Park at 6am. Packed full of Tai Chi afficianados, badminton, martial arts. Female butts jived away on the railings by the lakeside young & old fat & slim. To this day early morning forays into this park are a treasured activity. Later, in the bank, I was confronted by a breathtaking sight. The sublime Ao Dai’s (national dress) of the female bank staff. I’d never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Long silk dresses over long silk pants. Did I die & go to heaven? No matter that the bank took hours to cash my travelers checks. I wasn’t about to move anyway. A crowbar wouldn’t have got me out. Spellbinding.

Next came the street food. Sticky rice & raisins 10c a pop. Nice. Home grown coffee & condensed milk, (tastes like Baileys), 25c. Some kind of home made spring rolls & hot sauce 25c a pair, home made yogurt 10c, Crème Caramel 20c. Wooo.. after the inedible bilge of the Philippines & Cambodia this cuisine shows real promise.

My hotel then pulled a stunt, the first of many to come. Come with us! Where are we going? Just come! Where? Don’t know, just come! The hell with this, ok why not. We drove for an hour, I don’t know where to. Action! Lights! Studio! I’m to be on a TV ad with a French movie actress. Twelve hours to shoot 5 minutes, very boring day, repeat repeat repeat ad nauseum.. Not an experience I’d like to re-live but part of life’s rich tapestry nonetheless. For a while, I got some strange “don’t I know you” looks in the street.

The travelogues have this place pretty well sussed these days, and one of the delights is the Chinese style hair wash & shave. So in for a penny in for a pound. The girls (eventually) flirted like crazy, playing with my ears, nipples, stroking my hairy arms with fascination and bringing two index fingers together with much hilarity. Marriage!!! In Saigon if they like you they thump you, sometimes quite hard. Ouch!! I duly got thumped. But you’re not allowed to touch them, even a hand on an arm will cause outrage.

One day a female customer invited me for coffee. Why? Where? When!!! Afternoon, 3 pm. Something wasn’t “right” but I sallied forth nonetheless with just a little trepidation. As expected, it wasn’t a “date” at all. I found myself in a University talking to students. The entire Vietnamese nation is hell bent on learning English so this happens a lot.

Kidnap three was more recent, also in Saigon. Sitting innocently in a restaurant I was pounced on by a Vietnamese family. Come home with us! Why? Just come! Where? Just come!!! Here we go again. As it turned out they had a mad Scotsman in their house & couldn’t understand a word he said. Sadly, neither could I.

So in one bound your correspondent found himself out of the tourist loop. Just as well because there is an unpleasant pack of Vietnamese wolves on the circuit, many is the tourist who feels abused & won’t return. A shame, for they never saw what I see. To compound it the backpackers have this lunatic desire to see all of Vietnam. One city, two days, one days travel, two day stop, one days travel again. Crazy, all they ever see is a bus or a plane or a taxi.

The Visual Panorama

In the words of the BBC, “Vietnam has more culture than you can shake a stick at.”

It’s a very apt description. For a start there is the stunningly beautiful Vietnamese architecture, all colors, verandas, and columns. On the ground. No concrete slabs at all, no modern skyscrapers. It’s ubiquitous, spreading throughout the length and breadth of the land at a rate of knots, so someone, somewhere is taking blessed control of planning permission. Where the money is coming from is a mystery. Probably the 6 million who fled to the USA, Canada & Australia 30 years ago. By all accounts, they are now seriously rich.

Then there is the sea of conical hats, for women only. Many carry wooden shoulder poles with baskets either end carrying mainly fruit. Weighs a ton I can tell you. Hernia job just to try picking one up. But these females are half my size and a quarter of my weight. I wouldn’t fancy a bout of arm wrestling with them.

Then there are the school girls, resplendent in their white Ao Dai’s (school uniform). Now & again this turns cosmic when the school teachers accompany them in their dazzling “blue” Ao Dai’s. Yours truly grinds to a halt at such an apparition, paralyzed, transfixed until they leave.

Vietnamese women are unfailingly interesting in their apparel. When not in their Ao Dai’s they sport their Pyjamas in public. In Saigon at least, there is the sacred sight of miniskirts.

They have a unique system of cargo transport. By motorcycle. Armchairs, TV’s, Refrigerators! In Dalat I was stunned to see a rider carrying a 20’ ladder over his arm without a care in the world. In the UK you’d get busted just for walking with the thing. Ten seconds later a passenger was carrying a 10’ pane of glass! And then, and then, came a giant moving mountain of cabbages. Somewhere inside was a motorcycle & rider.

It’s not all beautiful on a visual plane. They really love their kitsch, the place is overloaded with the stuff. Concrete swans by the bucketful. Yuk. Can’t stand Disneyworld.

Vietnam is truly amazing, beautiful, enervating. But it doesn’t have the laid back charm of Thailand. Or that devastating smile. In Chiang Mai I decided to push the boat out and Wai a pretty girl in the street. She flashed back that traffic stopping smile, even now it warms my heart just to think of it.

On to Dalat

Saigon (A district of HCMC) is a dynamic, thrusting place, full of energy & go go go. But in the summer its way too hot & the traffic pollution is choking. You can’t escape for a breather as any exit takes 6 hours. So, with much regret, on to pastures new.

The mountain retreat of Dalat, where I live now, is a good 20f cooler than the rest of Vietnam. When the sun goes in, its anorak time. Very conservative, a little uptight even, no night life to speak of. But it’s the most beautiful city that yours truly has ever seen. By far: and I have traveled the planet. Set around a mountain lake, it has the most gorgeous buildings, both Vietnamese Modernist & French Colonial, lovingly preserved. Its life blood is the massive university with 1,000’s of bright & breezy youngsters with whom your correspondent spends his days.

It’s a farming area, full of all manner of fruit & veg. and flower district which would give Chiang Mai a run for it’s money.

Set in a pine forest, surrounded by lakes & waterfalls, the oxygen is overpowering.

The central market is a wondrous thing to behold, a cornucopia of every produce, & meals, known to mankind. I mostly eat there or even from the street. Straight out of my childhood, the street features horse chestnuts roasted on a brazier on which are also cooked large rice papers with herbs, like a giant potato crisp. Your correspondent is addicted.

There are shedfuls of western restaurants, too pricey for me at $2 a pop. But on a site overlooking the lake there is an Artists Café, serving crab soup, garlic bread, hot honey & lemon for just over $1.50 Gorgeous. So now & again I treat myself . It has an ageing hippie from the US of A who sometimes plays piano. He speaks perfect Vietnamese, learnt from his native wife.

When it gets REALLY nippy the café occasionally lights it log fire.

God. Life is tough sometimes.

Traffic Nightmare

In the UK there used to be a TV program called “Neighbors from hell”, “Garages from Hell” etc. Well your correspondent came straight from a Philippine “Wife from Hell” into a Vietnamese “Driving Hell”.

If you think Thai driving is bad you haven’t seen anything yet The Vietnamese are raving f…. mad. Lunatics.

Even in one way streets “contra” direction traffic is allowed on the inside lane so that on any two way road it goes in 4 ways at all times. Traffic lights are “cautionary” only, normally blithely ignored. In Dalat crazed trucks routinely blare their horns, driving on the wrong side of the road. GET OUT OF MY WAY. Or else. I won’t scare you, my dears, with what happens on mountain passes.

One time a Kamikaze came through the town centre at 100 kmp +, ignoring plastic warning bollards. His Honda went straight down an open manhole. He flew through the air for at least 30 ft. Your correspondent was too squeamish to see the result.

I ride a Honda myself, but am often forced to dismount. On occasion I’ve been surrounded & stopped by hordes of female kidnappers. “Heyyo!” “Where you fwom?”

The Vietnamese are Exceptionally Intelligent

Hardworking, highly intelligent, determined, the Vietnamese are in a different universe than any of their neighboring countries. There is none of the wangling sleeping cheating begging or plain laziness that goes on in all of its neighbors.

My community is as competent & trustworthy as it was in the UK. I’ll say that again, “my community is as competent & trustworthy as it was in the UK”. But I’m not in the tourist circuit or shopping for a wife.

To keep my mind in gear I set up an English Club in Dalat. Here are the first exchanges.

Me - What is your job?

Student Answer - I am a Nuclear Physicist!!!!

Me - I beg your pardon!

Student Answer - I am a Nuclear Physicist!!!!

That he is, Dalat has nuclear power plant & he is a scientist.

Me - Why do you want to learn English?

Answer (next student) - Because a whole new world of literature will open up if I improve just a little bit.

Student Question - What are the Americans going to do about Iraq & Iran?

Me - Gulp.

Student Question - How do you British take care of your old people?

Me - Gulp.

Student Question - What are your dreams?

Me - Why do you ask?

Student - Because as you dream so shall you live (Power of positive thinking).

Admittedly these are the intelligencia, but even a Hotel Receptionist will work out multiple exchange rates at the speed of light. You have to get up very early to catch them.

That being said they are still Asian. Haven’t got a clue of where anything is located, but will take a pot at it anyway. Here we go to the “all day” dance. Grrr..

The Vietnamese Economy

According to the statistics Vietnam is one of the poorest countries in the world, with an income of just $500 per person.

Now your correspondent just came out of Mindanao, Philippines, where most native housing has no electricity, running water or sanitation, but their income (stats) is ten times this.

So how come everyone I know here has a motorbike, cd player, cell phone & is exceedingly well housed & fed?

I live on the comfortable “first world” tourist trail with no access to rural poverty. There are thousands of Vietnamese sex workers in Cambodia to testify to great hardship somewhere. But even so. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

Vietnam is going from rags to riches in one leap.

I wouldn’t want to compete with the Viets in business. They are highly competent & totally committed. Equipped with western levels of intelligence & oriental teamwork. Unstoppable.

But they are obsessed with money, all of them, not so good. Not at all. Methinks that eventually this will rot their social fabric & take away their good natured, fun loving ways.

Going to be some kind of economic superstate is Vietnam. They’ve set their sights on overtaking Singapore & South Korea by 2020. Might just do it if they can get rid of all the horrendous red tape which bungs up their works.

Watch this space.

Whether this brings them happiness or not remains to be seen.

Its not everyone’s cup of tea, there is sport to be had, as in any country, but sex tourists wouldn’t like it. Your correspondent is reassured that Cambodia & Thailand are just a hop & a skip away for an occasional party.

Grumpy

© Grumpy. All rights reserved by the author.