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Published: December 28th 2007
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Saigon Moto madness
8 mn inhabitants including old and children, 3 mn moto bikes...! That's the result.. People rise early in Viet Nam, at 6.30 children are on their way to school, houses have been swept and by 11 AM everybody is already hungry and has lunch. Hence when I went to have some dinner on Sunday night upon my arrival in Saigon at 8 PM mostly foreigners were in the BBQ Garden restaurant (the locals either could not afford the restaurant or had gone home to bed!).
What a lovely evening! Imagine sitting in the garden lit by thousands of fairy lights hanging from the big old trees while the waitress starts the gas BBQ in the middle of your table. The food arrives - squid, prawns, beef, vegetables, fish and you grill it to your liking. It's sizzling away and your taste buds are going wild in anticipation of the great taste to come. They are not disappointed and the ambitious spicing (chillies, chillies, we love you) needs to be soothed with a Tiger beer.
At the end of the meal the waitress asks for some /EYE DEE/ which I thought was taking the Socialist State a bit too far to ask for some ID when paying the bill!! A little later she arrives with a
Reunification Palace
and the tank that crashed it's gates in 1975 wine glass and some bitter, flat wine which I found now really strange as certainly I did not want to splash out on some wine, especially when it was not ordered! Eventually the riddle was solved as this was ICED (green) TEA which was on the house :o) Anyway, something did not agree with my stomach and I awoke the next morning with a big old stomach ache and the next 36 hrs were spent in bed and the bathroom.
With enough strength returned on Wednesday I was ready to conquer the city and do some sightseeing. Found a willing cyclo driver to take me to the Reunification Palace. A unique experience to sit high above the madness of motorcycle mega city Saigon where 8 mn people live and drive 3 mn motorbikes are in use. They are actually quite affordable at 150 US as opposed to cars which have a hefty 200% luxury tax on the buying price. That explains why motorbikes carry minimum 3 to 5 people - depending on their size (not the bike's size obviously that is always the same). Luckily they have passed a law on Dec 15th that wearing a helmet while driving
a motorbike is obligatory. It's well and truly madness as traffic is flowing constantly, like blood pumping through the veins of the city and the pedestrians are a blockage where the scooters drive around (I know - great analogy, medicine is not my specialist subject! Eva kannst aushelfen?). ·I suspect that no Vietnamese is actually walking further than 20 m, they simply jump on their xe om (or hug mobile - the literal translation for motorbike!)
The Reunification Palace was the pro-US President's seat of the Republic of South Vietnam until the two Viet Nams were united by the communists who drove a tank into the Palace's gate in 1975. The Palace is a great testimonial to early 1970's architecture and technology as you can visit everything from the President's meeting rooms to the President's wife's reception room (she clearly had more taste for modern interior than her spouse) to the kitchen and the commando rooms, full of maps showing the areas occupied by the Viet Cong.
Talking of Viet Cong (VC) there was a trip to the tunnels dug by the VC to undermine the government of the South - original size is as high as my knee
Mekong River
It's brown, it's wide, it flows actually quite fast! And it's the essence of live here in South Vietnam reaches and people squeezed through these tunnels for several kilometers. I was claustrophobic afte 3 m in the double-sized Western tunnel they dug for illustration.. you can imagine how terrible that must have been. Further there were demonstrations of the traps they had created for American soldiers - long metal nails penetrating either legs, faces, torsos etc etc. A gruesome piece of history they like to show every visitor and emphasiz
Had enough of the pollution and the truly unfriendly people - they are just after their money and don't have either charm or any culture to speak of, the communists and the constant stream of tourists do a great job
to rid this place of any flair - at least to me. Left on Thursday early morning for the Mekong Delta.
Pictures of green rice fields with people harvesting the corps and quaint villages were in my mind when I boarded the bus for this 3 day tour which would eventually spit me out in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Well, it's not quite like that.
There was some green, it's more like jungle with many palm trees where we did a little boat tour on
4 different kind of boats but apart from that I saw just ONE big city sprawling out across the whole delta. For hours of driving there were make shift houses or other really poor housing with a constant beeping from the horns of the cars and motorbikes. Noisy and loud it was the least favourite part of my trip. However, on the last day we made it to Chau Doc, the gateway on the Mekong River to Cambodia and there we saw a bit more countryside, especially from the vantage point on Sam Mountain (a hill for Austrians) where there is a lovely monastery. The nicest thing I've seen in all of Viet Nam.
One really interesting bit were the floating markets in the Mekong Delta - originated from the fact that trading on water was tax free, people sold their goods on boats. There are wholesale boats (these are the ones with a bamboo stick sticking out of their boat without anything attached to it) and selling boats - these have a bamboo stick and a sample of their merchandise dangles high above in the air on the bamboo stick). As more and more people are now buying
goods on markets on the land where there is a greater offer on goods (not only veg and meat) the tour guide speculated that these floating markets will disappear in the next 10 years. Oh yes and the floating petrol station not to be forgotten! A very memorable experience when the guy was filling petrol from a canister into a Coca Cola PET bottle while dragging on his lit cigarette! The ladies in the /cafeteria boat/ next to him were obviously less concerned with health and safety than I was!
When I say we, then I mean my tour mates - that was the best part of the trip. Met really lovely Canadians, Americans and Belgian people. We had great evenings at the home stay bungalow and in Chau Doc where Alain found a restaurant with a great location - directly built on the river, we were sitting literaly 20 cm above the water. (That was this week's Friday Night Piss Up)
Oh and then there was the visit to the laquer fabric - a place where disabled people produce the most amazing laquer ware - that is
Traditional dress in Viet Nam for women are long
trousers and a long top that is split on the sides and reaches nearly to the ankles, combined with the conic hat. For everyday wear they are mostly wearing matching top and trousers in all kinds of designs and colours which makes them look as if they were still wearing their PJ's sometimes!! Very amusing. A great picture are girls in their school uniforms as they are all wearing white and pour to hundreds on to the street when school's out. Mostly they then jump onto their motorbikes ( or mostly called motoby in English with a heavy Vietnamese accent) for some tete a tete with their boyfriend in the park. This looks as follows: the esplanade is full of parked motorbikes with 1 couple each on in, with their limbs intertwined, or the boys showing off their brown flat bellies (somehow Asian men have an inclination to lift their top at every occasion to - I dont not what? Show off their belly? Get some tan?? You tell me! Quite a sight!) or deep in whispered conversation. Very cute and very balanced on the small surface that the seat of a motorbike offers!
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Andre Freller
non-member comment
Freller ?
Hi Mizzi, As you can see, my surname is also Freller and since were so few I wonthered if we are related. Where are your family from? My father was from checkoslovakia and his father from Iuguslavia. We are the only Frellers in South America! Regards, Andre