Back in South East Asia
Trip Start
Jun 21, 2012
1
2
10
Trip End
Jul 10, 2012
Where I stayed
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Blog time everyone! Get comfortable, I've not got anything planned,
and am sitting here on the soft sofa of my 5 star hotel room, tapping
away happily on my iPad.
We flew from Sydney on Thursday, and it feels like we've been here ages. It bizarre how the
first few days of a holiday seem to stretch on forever. I guess it's
the sudden feeling of release from having to be stuck at work all day
long. The only drawback is the reverse tends to happen with the last
few days going very quickly as you know the holidays drawing to an
end.
I'll run as briefly as possible through the days so far. Thursday
we arrived at 4pm and as we were right up the front of the plane we
got out quickly and the friendly Travel Indochina man was waiting for
us with our names on the board as expected. He then rushed off and
came back with a brand new Toyoya Lexus SUV which makes a good first
impression. He didn't get it out of 3rd gear though as travel here is
world famously manic. It's a city of 5 million motorbikes and 12
million population. You do the maths, but it adds up to unique non
stop flowing streets, teeming with energy, horn honking, swerving and
eyes in the back of your head. Somehow we got to the hotel by 5:30
unscathed which is much quicker than I imagined.
Just time to freshen up in our enormous Premier Deluxe room at the Caravelle, then our
friend Thu was meeting us for dinner. She's a local and we worked with
her 7 years ago at STA Travel Auckland. She really blossomed since she
moved back to Vietnam and is doing really well with her career, plus
looks so good I hardly recognised her. Go Thu! Must be doing wonders
being back on home ground. Thanks for showing us the local restaurant
that night. It was DElishious! I loved that we had to run under street
stall covers through the warm Asian nightly rain across streets and
down dark alleyways to find the restaurant. Great adventure to start
the trip.
Friday was planned out already as a half day city walking
tour,, then I'd visit our company office, and do some hotel
inspections in the afternoon. It didn't quite turn out like that.
Firstly on Rachelle's smart request I phoned our office and changed it
to a half day private tour with vehicle due to it being way too hot to
do a walking tour. We've come straight from mid winter to mid summer,
not that Sydney winter is particularly scary but the temperature and
humidity has more than doubled so she's probably right, as usual. We
got to see a lot more of the city this way. There's quite a bit to
see.
It would take way too long to describe everything so I'll just
list it, Notre Dame Cathedral, (copy of French one, built with bricks
imported from France!) Post Office (very French again, and highlight
was meeting little 82 year old local man who worked all his life there
and now retired but still sits there every day to keep his mind
active, just helping tourists with translations) Presidents Palace,
(very impressive building of past power, now left only for tourists to
amble through) War Remnants Musuem (lots of old tanks, planes, guns,
photos of death etc but one positive note was children's drawings of
peace for the future) Chinatown (like Paddys markets on steroids we
both bought very cheap knock off copied stuff) Darn, I thought I could
get each day in a paragraph but just too much to get through. Our
lovely local guide took us for a Pho lunch were Bill Clinton once ate.
It was ok, but just basic.
Then to our office, and I got to meet all the girls I email each day about bookings. I did get to meet the Tour leader manager and a few Aussie guys who work in Products so they
invited us for a drink later on. Half the office was away on famil and
I realised they had stuffed up my afternoon as the driver went home
and nobody was around to show me around the hotels. Rachelle was hot
and bothered by this point anyways so I said I'd just walk her back
then go by myself with my business card and just ask all the hotels
receiptionists to show me around.
Travel Indochina is a big deal here in Vietnam so they all took one look at my card and pulled out all the sweet customer service charm they could go show me every part of the
hotel they could. I did drag Rachelle around one then walked her home
and did the rest myself. I know I'm on holiday and all, but I found it
incredibly useful for my job. Friday Is still goin omg.. We did meet
up with the guys from the office later and they were knocking the
beers back like water. It's so warm here it just goes straight down
and doesn't touch the sides. It could have turned into a huge night,
but we sensibly called it a night after a few hours as we had someone
meeting us the next morning for a full day Mekong Delta day tour. It
was good fun meeting some ex pats living in Asia and they all love it.
It's a lifestyle thing of having heaps of spare many, low rent. No
pressure living with no pressure of social standings etc. They said
its very easy to just be yourself here, no worries. Kinda made me want
to move here myself! Oh oh... Nah, I think Sydney has the fresher air
to breathe and I might get sick of it after a while.. Maybe
Saturday at last.. A different guide picked us up and we had 2 others on our
little tour group. Aussies from Brisbane. Luckily they booked with a
travel agent, not me personally as I'd hate it if they didn't like the
tour.. They were salt of the earth decent couple from Queensland and
we got on great after a while. It's a solid hour and half drive down
to the Mekong where you board a basic old wooden boat to take you out
for the day. The river is massive, and someone I'm getting well
familiar with after all the journeys last year upstream. Even Rachelle
said is this the same as the little cruise we did in Cambodia last
year.
Thankfully this one is quite unique as you get out of the main
highway of the river into little narrow canals inside islands in the
middle of the river stopping at small orchards, locals houses, trying
local tropical fruit and then a horse cart ride through beautiful back
to basics countryside compete with a the smells of nature, including
horse dung! Nothing gets wasted as it goes straight out of the horses
backside into a bag under the cart. I guess they use it for fertiliser
later! Great authentice experience smells and all.
We then changed transport again to a small row boat Vietnamese style with a lady
standing at the back paring us along. What they didn't tell me as I
was at the from I'd have to row myself! Hard work in this heat. I
guess I won't mention that to my customers.. It worked up an appetite
which was great as when you get shouted lunch here the courses just
keep coming and coming. For starters was fresh made spring rolls. When
I say fresh made I mean they put a full fish in the middle of the
table, then stand there and cut it up in front of you, and roll it up
with some lettuce and rice paper to eat straight away. It goes without
saying we love the food here, and it's worth a trip to try the cuisine
alone.
Back in the city after a big day we thought we might chill out,
but time is short so basically we just had a cat nap, then headed out
again. Rachelle had a list of recommended restaurants to try so we are
ticking them off one by one. It's been great, and most have been
refreshingly free of tourists with us being the only whiteys in there.
The only exception was the Saturday one as the secret is out because
Angelina Joilie eats there when she's in town before jetting off to
her private island. The place was full off tourists, despite being
down a quite side street far from all the main hotels. We just got the
waiter to recommend stuff, and it was all absolute yummy with more
flavour than anything back home. Why? I guess because it's farmed
fresh produce, not mass produced. The other thing is service here is
unreal. You order and literally 2.1 minuted the all the the courses
arrive. In and out, and then they are trying to clear your plates
before the food has hardly had a chance to go down. We needed to make
a point to stop and just sit before getting up and out again.
After dinner we hit some of the famous roof top bars in the hotels around
the city. This is a must do when here if you want to experience old
Saigon. The Rex hotel is great for that, with live music performed
very enthusiastically. I loved the Tom Jones cover in the Asian
accent. Fry, fry fry Deliala! Hotel California got a good going over
and many others. We tried the Sheraton, which more more like a pick up
joint nightclub, then ours at the Caravelle which was my favourite as
its Cuban themed and the music pulsed with real Latin rythyum through
the late hours of the night.
Today we have tried to take it easy and chill, but woke up feeling so bloated from all the eating and drinking we both decided to do a good hard workout at the gym before breakfast.
It was painful but worth it, as we ended my refreshed and actually
hungry again. After breakie we got the staff here to show us around
the Suite rooms in this hotel which are absolutely massive, then off
for a walk to the markets for last minute bargaining. I got a new Mont
Blanc wallet (yeah right) even the label said made in Germany . They
have this fake thing down to a fine art now. Rachelle got some fresh
coffee beans which she had ground right in front of her. They small
great so hopefully taste as good.
We went for lunch at yet another hotel I sell called the Liberty Central basically because I walked
past it, and it was nice a cool inside. While I was there I got them
to show me the rooms as I've sold this count less times without a clue
what it's really like. Pretty empty on character, brand new but faded
already kind of hotel. I prefer something a little older with style
but I guess that's just my tastes. I think they just about brings us
up to date.
Thanks for reading, hoped you like it. I can't really bring the reall chaos of Asia to you I know but do my best. I feel at home here now, and can happily say with truth Vietnam is well worth a
visit. I even like it that the steets area smelly sauna. Saigon seems
smaller than i thought, as uou can ealk anywhere in 15 minutes. I
didnt feel the need to jump on the back of a motorbike like most
tourists do, and was confidently crossing the road in no time. I knew
they were going to curve around me.
Seeya in Europe Ian
Comments
You have set the bar high now as this blog was great and really gave us a great taste of what you have been up to and enjoyed. Certainly makes a visit sound like it is a must.