Blogs from Ho Chi Minh City, Southeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 214

so yes, goodbye Cambodia, and hello Vietnam. The farewell to cambodia wasn't as difficult as the one from Koh Tao. Cambodia was a little more challenging, and a real wake up to the developing side of the world. One which is not so apparent in an Island paradise. many a beggar, children wanting to sell you 10 postcards for $1, and then reeling off more stats about Australia than i reckon i could have known. population, capital, national animals, slang sayings...quite impressive really, until you're hearing it for the 5th time in one day, and then speaking to the English tourists later and finding out they do the same for every country. These kids are just taught spiels of various languages to reel of at the tourists to get attention and $$. Anyway, they wear thin ... read more

Hi all, So I've decide to tell all about Vietnam in one blog entry. I can't be bothered to write each entry individually. So here it is: On arrival In Saigon we went straight to our hotel which was right on the Mekong river. It had 26 floors, with the swimming pool on the roof. Tamara and I went to check out the view from the roof top which was trully amazing. The view stretched all along the river and the entire city. Soon after we went to bed as we were quite tired. We did not do a whole lot in Saigon as we only had a day there. There was however a rather scary moment where I lost my bankcard! Thankfully I had forgotten it in the ATM and I was able to ... read more

I decided to take a cooking class on my last day. If anyone is thinking of doing the same, it is well worth it. It is a change from the crazy shopping and site seeing. The cooking school is a bit out of the way from District 1, and most taxi drivers would have trouble getting there. The first time I went there to register and pay, the driver was circling for about 30 minutes around the area. He stopped about 5 times to get directions. The second time, when I went for my class, I saw the sign board for the cooking class and instructed the driver to follow the sign. He still had to stop and ask for direction. Normally, according to the staff at the cooking class, it cost 30,000dng to get ... read more

Here I am alone in Saigon for the first time. PY has returned to Canada and I have 2 days before I set out to Singapore. Seeing that I have been around district 1 for over 5 days, I decided to have a change of scenery and go to Cholon, the Chinatown of Saigon. The experience became my most bitter/sweet experience. Bitter, because I got cheated and intimidated by the motorbike driver going there. Sweet, because I've met locals there that gave me hope that there is more to Vietnam than crazy tuk tuk, motorbike, taxi drivers and incessant haggling.... read more

Sport and the Scoundrel Saint Patrick's Day, 2007. Memories? A sickening last minute heart-breaking try by France against Scotland in Paris to deny the Irish a first rugby Grand Slam in over fifty years. On the same day the Irish cricket team was sending Pakistan out of the Cricket World Cup in the West Indies. At the same time my old alma mater, Saint Macartan's, Monaghan, was gearing up for a McGrory Cup Final with a chance to take a senior title for the first time in over a half a century. They went on to lose in injury time to a flukey score aganst Omagh CBS. Sport, in all it's forms, has a way of taking on a special meaning for the exile. I can watch a match in Ho Chi Minh or Bangalore ... read more