Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh

Wednesday 29th September 2004

The miracles of planning in Hong Kong were such recently, that we had two bank holidays scheduled within three days, and as a result the whole town decamped somewhere less humid.  For me, I took the opportunity to make a first visit to Vietnam, in particular to Ho Chi Minh City (“HCM”), which encompasses the old Saigon.  There was a group of six of us who made the trip, including one, Donna, who rather helpfully was originally from HCM & so knew her way about.

Despite travelling with someone promising to show us all around, before leaving I still swotted up on the guide books to find out what Lonely Planet thought I ought be doing and seeing whilst I was there.  One thing I noticed in a couple of books that there are references to the hazardous traffic in HCM, and that road safety was a bit of an oxymoron.

After previous experiences in China I was fairly confident that I could negotiate this without too much trouble, but HCM did seem to have a fairly unique traffic system going on.  Cars were fairly light on the road, but the streets were teeming with motorbikes and scooters, naturally with not a crash helmet to be seen, and often with more than one or two people on each bike.

I didn’t think that the bikes would have been of too much concern, on the basis that it’ll be a cold day in hell before I ever get on the back of a bike anywhere, let alone with hordes of carefree chatting bikers riding along two inches away in every direction; however I soon realised that whilst travelling on those roads in a car was easy, crossing a road on foot was somewhat harder.  There seemed to be a never-ending stream of bikes coming at us, and the chances of anyone stopping to let you out, even on a zebra-crossing, were next to zero.

It turned out that there is a special technique for crossing the road in Vietnam, and that was known as blind faith.  You simply stepped out into the street, and walked in a straight line across the road.  With your faithful invisible forcefield surrounding you, the bikes weaved either side of you and you got to the other side without any trouble at all.  It took a couple of goes to master this, but once I got the hang of it I was well away, and was taking on the traffic with the best of them.

The plan for Wednesday was to have lunch at a beautiful restaurant that backed onto the Saigon river, before doing some sightseeing a bit later in the day.  At the restaurant all the tables were sat outside in small open-air pavillions, with a garden and a pond in the middle.  We had some excellent food, some beer and some wine, and generally decided that it was a pretty good way to spend an afternoon.

The pavillion that we were sitting in was literally right next to the river, and as the afternoon wore on we saw that the water was rising a little.  We all found this quite intriguing so decided to stay a bit longer, as it rose a little more and seeped into the garden.  Another bottle of wine or two kept us fortified, and the water kept rising and coming into the restaurant.

It wasn’t that long before the water was covering most of the floor, which only seemed to increase our amusement, and maybe the annoyance of the waiter who had to wade out to us whenever we wanted another drink.  Soon after, the pond in the centre of the garden had risen by a foot, and the waiter trudged out to see us again to suggest that we move to another seat.  We weren’t too keen to do this, until he pointed out that the pillars of the pavillion had electrical sockets in them, and the water had only another inch or so to rise before we all got electrocuted.

So we reluctantly moved to a more central, slightly higher pavillion, and watched as the water rose.  And rose.  And rose.  Whilst we were never in danger of getting our feet wet a second time, we conservatively estimated that the water rose about three feet in the time that we were there, flooding not only the entire garden, but also the front drive and the road, meaning that now we couldn’t leave even if we wanted to.  Thus it was only for necessity that we shipped in some more wine and had dinner there as well.

We checked with the owners and they reckoned that whilst the water always rose at high tide, and especially at the time of the equinox, they had never seen anything like this before.  The technical description was that in 15 years this was the ‘floodiest flood’ that they had ever had; hopefully the before & after photos do it justice.  After the best part of 6 hours, 12 bottles of wine, and 2 meals, the waters edged down a bit, and we headed back to the hotel.

Thursday 30th September

It is pretty much impossible to think of Vietnam without associating it with the war, and so we decided to visit the Cu Chi tunnels, which is a huge network of tunnels that the VietCong used during the war, partly to hide from the Americans, and partly use as a base in order to conduct raids into South Vietnam and Saigon.  The tunnels stretch for almost 200km, and even used to lead right up to the perimeter of an American military base.

We began to get a perspective on the tunnels when our guide showed a five square metre piece of ground, and asked us to find an entrance to the tunnel.  We hunted around on the floor, but couldn’t find anything; eventually the guide showed us a tiny manhole cover covered by leaves, and then showed us how to squeeze into it to get down in to the tunnels.  You would not have believed it was possible if you hadn’t seen it done.

Slightly at odds with the anti-war stance of the tour was the fact that halfway round the tour was a shooting range, where you could buy bullets and use a rifle to take down a target.  Sounds like fun to me!

So I grabbed the nearest AK47 and had a couple of shots; the picture is a second attempt, as the camera went flying on the first as the shot was so loud.  After a couple, the instructor said “automatic?”  Oh yes.

So he flipped a switch, I pulled the trigger, and just sprayed bullets everywhere. I have no idea what I hit or where I was aiming, but all I know is that the 20 bullets that I bought lasted about four and a half seconds, and I walked away with a big grin on my face.

Two other guys on our tour had seen this and decided to raise it a little; they bought a bandolier of 100 bullets and had a crack with a fully automatic machine gun.  Noise.  Bullets.  Smoke.  Flying dirt.  Untouched targets.  It was all good.

Back on the tour, the final part was an opportunity to crawl through a 30m section of the tunnels.  Most people lined up, and I hesitantly decided to face my fears and go through as well.

We went down some steps, and then crouched down to crawl into the tunnel.  After one step I realised the complete idiocy of my decision, and turned round and backed out.  The guy coming in behind me was politely asked to move out of the way as claustrophobia got the better of me and I legged it. Most of the other guys went through OK, but even though the tunnels had apparently been widened to accommodate tourists, there was no way on earth I was getting in there.

After I’d calmed down a bit, lunch was in a roadside café next to the tunnels entrance. 

“Do you have a menu?”

“We have noodle soup”

“Anything else?”

“Noodle soup”

“Five noodle soups then please”

The menu was a bit, well limited, but they did have hammocks in the restaurant (13), which made for a pretty relaxed way of eating.

Back in HCM later in the afternoon, Matt, Sam & myself decided to go on a cyclo tour.  A cyclo is a cross between a bike and a rickshaw, where you sit on the front part and a local tour guide come driver sits at the back and pedals you around.  This seemed like quite a pleasant way to see the city, until we realised that we were slowly ambling along the road, whilst motorbikes were screaming past us on all sides.  After coming very close to a disagreement with a Land Rover in the first minute, I was a bit nervous about this, but after a while we realised that the guides did actually know what they were doing and so took it all in.

One of the sights in HCM is the Notre Dame cathedral, and we dutifully stopped there to take some pictures.  Whilst I was there some kid came running up to me, “hello, would you like to buy a postcard?  Buy a Postcard?”  I said no and walked away.

Within seconds he had caught up me up and was waving books at me.  “Would you like to buy a book?  Buy a book”  He had a guidebook & even the Quiet American by Graham Greene.  Again I shooed him away, and got back on the cyclo for the next part of the trip.

We head off through the traffic, and suddenly all I hear is “Would you like to buy a book?  Buy a book?”  I look to my left and the kid has jumped on the back of a bike, and is riding along next to the cyclo trying to hawk stuff to me whilst we are going through the traffic, at which time of course I had no means of escape.  Credit to him actually, his English was very good; which is why I think he understood the fairly basic words that I shouted at him across the din of the bike engines, and hence he turned round and drove off to pester someone else.

As we continued the tour, I was chatting to the cyclo driver & he was pointing stuff out to me.  He also then offered to teach me some Vietnamese, which I thought would be a good idea.  However instead of teaching me please and thank you, he asked me “ah you like woman?” and the uncertain but guessable “boing boing?”, then proceeded to teach me two phrases to last me through the night:

Xin chao, em yeu              Hello darling

Toi yeu em                 I love you

Well what more could I need?

Friday 1st October

We were surprised a little when it was sprung on us that we were leaving at 7am to travel to Vung Tau, which is two hours south on the coast; my mood on the early start was placated a lot by visiting a Vietnamese bakery on the way, which had used the country’s French influence to good effect by mastering the ability to produce an excellent ham & pate baguette on demand.

The resort was in a fantastic waterside location, with open rooms facing the sea, an effect spoilt only by the fact that it poured with rain as soon as we got there, and continued to do so for most of the afternoon.  In the absence of any further entertainment, we started a poker school and cleared Sam out of most of her cash.

When the weather cleared up we managed to get some jetskiing in, and then I proved my multi-cultural abilities once again by playing football with some local guys on the beach.  It was good fun, although I wish someone could have told me the Vietnamese for ‘man on’ as I kept getting crunched.

Saturday 2nd October

Another early start back to HCM, this time fortified with some Vietnamese coffee.  Vietnamese coffee seems to be about five times the strength of Nescafe, so they only serve it in very small filters, with lots of condensed milk, and also some hot water should you wish to water it down.  We sat down to have the coffees in what could most accurately be described as a roadside shack; I, as ever, stayed well clear and drank Coke, but I did notice that everyone was a lot more chatty on the bus on the way home than they had been on the way out.

By this point my Vietnamese language was improving, helped by the fact that some of the words are very easy to remember, such as:

Thank you          Cam on

One                     mot

Beer                     bia

So with a bit of mispronounciation I was well away; every time I had to thank anyone, I just shouted ‘CAM ON’ and they seemed quite appreciative; I went into a bar and said “MOTE BEER” and someone served me a pint.  Fantastic!

First sight of the day was a trip to the largest market in HCM.  As with many other markets in Asia, it contained all the essentials – local food & produce; traditional clothing and antiquities; and fake handbags and DVDs.  Three guesses which one I headed for. (Don’t say handbags…)

Now buying fake DVDs is not an uncommon thing (allegedly), but this was a bit unusual.  I was negotiating with the stall owner & asking him to demo some of the discs, when a policeman came up and stood beside me.  I looked at him curiously and he just said hello.

I looked back to the stall owner, who carried on unfazed, so I did the same.  When it came time to hand over the money, I did so warily, expecting to be nicked for buying illegal goods as the policeman was still staring over my shoulder.  But again he did nothing.

I turned round to leave, and he said goodbye and walked off in the other direction; I was expecting him to be clamping down on counterfeit products, but it turned out he was just curious to see what movie was showing so he could stand and watch for a minute.

In the afternoon we went to the War Museum, or as it genuinely used to be known, the Museum of US War Atrocities.  There was a section on photo journalism during the war, which I found extremely impressive, but then there was also a section on war atrocities & abuses, which was somewhat harder to take.  This consisted of shocking photos and exhibits of tricks the Americans had used during the campaign, and the effects they had caused.

Whilst I had no doubts about the fearsome nature of the war – Agent Orange looked particularly horrific – neither was I convinced about the one-sidedness that the museum was trying to portray.  At the tunnels on Thursday there had been an exhibit showing the booby traps that the VC had used to trap the Americans, such as trap doors in the ground, falling into a pit with iron spikes covered with cobra poison??  Suffice to say it wasn’t pleasant on either side.

Moving swiftly on, I tried to get to the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City, which was supposed to have a number of interesting exhibits.  However seconds after being dropped off by the taxi, I learned two very interesting but extremely incompatible things:

1.              The museum shuts in the afternoon

2.              When it starts raining in HCM, it rains really hard really quickly

Soaked to the skin in about 10 seconds, I ducked for cover anywhere I could find, which turned out to be the entrance to a tiny grocery shop.  In order to generate some custom, I conversed with the woman in Vietnamese – “MOTE BEER!”, and sat on a stool in her shop front drinking a beer and waiting for the rain to stop, whilst marvelling at how the bikers were still going past, even in the wet.  Although now they were covered in plastic sheets whilst they drove along, in order to keep themselves dry.

Eventually I ventured out, and determined to understand more about local habits, bought my own plastic mac to wear as I was walking along; it was a particularly tasteful bright purple colour.

Next to the museum was the HCM zoo, so in absence of a better idea, and still looking like an over-ripe ribena berry, I wandered around.  Unfortunately the zoo had seen better days, and the animals had more sense than me, staying inside to hide from the rain.

I wandered back to the hotel to dry off, with the idea of maybe having a sleep for a while or crashing out by the pool.  I was a bit surprised then when I got back to my room, when I found out that none of the lights seemed to be working.  The hotel sent up an engineer, who began turning the electrics on and off and testing all the fuses.  Lights go on.  Lights go off.  Lights go on.  Lights go off.  Lights go on…Lights go off.  Lights go on.  Lights go off.

After the best part of an hour of this (no joke), frustration was getting the better of me, and I was about 10 seconds away from chinning the guy when the hotel manager turned up.  She asked me that despite the fact that the engineer had turned the lights on about 50 times, things still weren’t working properly and would I move to another room?  In consideration of the health and wellbeing of the engineer, I agreed.

Later my mood was brightened considerably by an excellent French meal, which included the not inconsiderable merits of an outdoor setting, great fish, the best crème brulee I’d ever had, and the Arsenal game on on a TV in the corner of the bar.  Very cool.

Sunday 3rd October

Any of you who have been to Vietnam know that it is famous in Asia for the quality of its art, and many people who go there end up shipping paintings home again.  I didn’t buy any paintings, but did buy a couple of pictures, and also a print of an old North Vietnam propaganda poster, to go alongside my North Korean one.  In fact if there is any doubt at all that Vietnam is shrugging off its socialist tendencies and embracing the free market, then this shop was it; it wasn’t called “Historic relics of the great socialist republic”, or anything else so grand; it was called “Ho Chi Minh Propaganda Posters Shop”.  And if you wanted an original, they were a cool USD300 each.  Welcome to modern communism.

But if you think visiting HCM might make you want to buy art, you ought to think what living there would do for you.  Donna’s haul from the trip was three paintings, including one that measured six foot by five foot, and that was transportable only by rolling it up and putting it in a tube that could have doubled as a bazooka on the firing range at the tunnels.  Not the easiest thing in the world to negotiate through a mobbed airport on the way back, particularly when it had to go through the x-ray machine about four times, and the woman behind the desk had a bit of a sense of humour failure when I asked her if I could take it on the plane as hand luggage.  Still, it did make it back to HK in one piece; and if anyone has a spare wall or two that they want completely covered, please apply here…

Cam on!