Email from Vietnam

January 3rd 2006 & 9th July - 19th July, 2006.

After seeing the North at Christmas I'm back in 'Nam now, primarily so I can use the phrase "back in 'Nam", but also to check out Saigon and some of the coastal towns. I suffered couple more traumas this week, as if various tropical diseases and snakes in backpacks weren't enough during my travels… I can afford nicer hostels but find myself with an inherent, hard-wired and masochistic urge to seek out complete dives to save a few dollars - my basement room a couple of nights ago wasn't too bad and even had satellite TV, but I was rudely awoken at 4am. You know the crawling sensation you sometimes get on your skin and it turns out to be nothing? I ignored it too at first, but then shone my phone and noticed a ghastly silhouette - one of my worst nightmares was being realised. I hit the lights to find a dirty big cockroach had been crawling over my delicate sweaty body - a big 2-incher too with massive tentacles - horrible! I stared at it for 20 minutes to scared to throw the empty bin on it, but these things are freakishly fast and somewhat indestructible. It escaped the bin I eventually, bravely, threw on top of it and disappeared, so I spent the rest of the night sleeplessly crapping myself and having horrible, horrible half-asleep-half-awake dreams where I sensed a pair of hands pulling on mine. I guess these things at least give me some hardcore travelly points and something for the postcards - my second ordeal came last night, but I'll save that for later!

I got a bus directly from Phnom Penh in Cambodia to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), the border was a farce just like the overland Chinese checkpoint. They insist that you hand over a dollar for a 'health check' and then give you a piece of paper with the words 'health check' on it, without actually doing anything to you. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't disappointed to miss out on any 'personal' inspections, but I wasn't exactly reassured that they were taking chicken flu and such like seriously! Ho Chi Minh is a huge, sprawling, steamy and polluted city - jam-packed with motorcycles and scooters (since tax on vehicles is over 200% of their value), the streets of the tourist quarter are filled with hawkers, touts and kids selling their wares. A new favourite for the street vendors are counterfeit books - photocopied Lonely Planets and bestsellers, really good re-productions in fact but probably produced by kids stuck in some printing room. Vietnam has no respect for copyright law, it seems if there's a good things going everyone will jump on the bandwagon. If there's a popular or good hotel, tour or restaurant in the guidebook, lots of duplicates will spring up with the same, or slightly different, name.

I checked in to a filthy dormitory (and straight out again the next day), and went to the War Remnants museum. It didn't compare to the museums in Hanoi but had lots of battered old captured American military gear, bombs, tanks, planes etc… on display. It also had a displays on the evils of defoliant which was sprayed on fields and an exhibit on the effects of Agent Orange, some really horrendous pictures I wouldn't want to attach. It's still having an impact today and still the Americans are using white phosphorus and cluster bombs. I reckon travel in this part of the world would soften even the hardest of right-wing, pro-war nutjobs or G8 leaders. I saw a production line in a factory run by victims of Agent Orange the next day - see photo.

In the afternoon I went to a big waterpark on the city outskirts - it was like being a big kid again as I went down all the slides and rapids, not sure they were designed with folks of my height in mind though. On the same grounds were parks, a lake, art installation, a zoo I accidentally wondered into (Asian zoos not recommended) and a 3D cinema (which the locals loved and screamed every other second).

The hassle isn't so bad here and it makes you realise just how awful Cambodia is for tourists. However, the motorbike guys are persistent can leave you feeling strangely dirty and violated - a typical conversation goes "where you go? Want motorbike?", "No thank you", "You want marijuana?", "No!" (I gotta stop wearing the Bob Marley shirt) "You want a girl?", "Fuck off!".

A day later I went on a tour to the Cu Chi Tunnels, a network of underground passages stretching over 200km to the Cambodian border - complete with 3 levels of burrows, kitchens, living areas, wells and air holes. We were shown some of the many different booby traps used by the Vietcong rebels - of the 16,000 who operated in the tunnels, only 6,000 survived, as the American declared the area a free bombing zone. Both sides suffered big losses. Some of the traps were really ingenious and quite brutal, built using natural materials. The methods used to conceal the tunnels, the smoke from underground kitchens and the air holes were also brilliant. I'm not to happy about small spaces, more the prospect of being trapped than being enclosed. I went under anyway, and just a couple of minutes crawling through a few metres of the passages was enough for me, yet these guys spent up to a month underground. Plus, these tiny tunnels had been widened for tourists. The little experience was testament to the fantastic resilience of these people, who had no high-tech resources but defeated the world's only superpower. And the Americans were just a blip in a history of resistance and defiance - these guys had 1000 of Chinese oppression, 100 years of the French and 20 from the US.

Wanting to escape the heat and hearing good things about a cool hill station called Da'Lat, I got a bus to the central mountains. Da'Lat is the Paris of the East apparently, and comes complete with a replica - albeit smaller one - of the Eiffel Tower. The town isn't as touristy as most other places, but is famous for the 'Easy Riders' - a group of 75 guys I heard about months ago. These legendary motorbike drivers have great English, a sharp wit and take tourists around the quirky sights in the area on their chunky old German bikes. The problem, as mentioned before, is that everyone wants a piece of the pie - suddenly, everyone with a motorbike is an 'Easy Rider'. I tried to get hold of one of the original guys but ended up with just a random guy - though, he had an on-board guestbook full of praise and was pretty knowledgeable…

I have a bit of an affinity with fellow eccentrics and first on the agenda was the 'Crazy House', a partially finished home/hostel designed in an Alice in Wonderland / Gaudi / theme park style. The owner was an odd old woman who is descended from the great Ho Chi Minh, so no-one dares to disparage her super colourful and not-so-communist construction. The design was very curvy and smooth, with random giraffe heads and insects sticking out - each room had a surreal animal in it with red light bulbs for eyes.

Our next stop was 'Chicken Village', an ethic minority village which - like many others in many countries - has very much embraced tourism, which partly serves as a means to avoid forced 'integration' by the government. The handicrafts for sale, pestering kids and the obligatory monkey tied to a tree were tell tale signs that they were used to seeing foreigners. The main attraction was a giant stone chicken which has a 4-foot deep arse which you can put your head in for good luck. I reflected on how weird it would be to have a random big stone animal in the middle of your hometown, until I recalled that Walsall - the armpit of Britain, a town that makes you want to travel - is home to a stone hippopotamus. Anyway, the village produced all kinds of crops - the kinder, cooler climate allows the area to grow a unique plethora of fruit and vegetables sold all across the country. I saw incense being made, played with the kids and longed for my chicken suit, currently in storage back in Hong Kong - man, it would've been so perfect. After a couple of temples and some gorgeous waterfalls, we stopped for lunch and my driver, Mr B, told me of his involvement in the war and subsequent years in a 're-education camp'.

We then went to an old train station and a farm. Another highlight, or perhaps lowlight, of our trip was the 'Magic Table'. I was told that if two people put their hands on the table, it would mysteriously rotate - a sign in English nearby reassured visitors that it was nothing to do with 'devils' or superstition. I was impressed at first until it became clear that Mr B was doing the turning - I feigned amazement and remarked on how dumbfounded and astonished I was.

I'm now back in the sticky weather chilling out in Nha Trang, 'Nam's best beach resort which attracts backpackers and Vietnamese tourists alike. Yesterday I went on a 'party boat' trip to some outlying islands - the first people I met at 8am were 3 drunken Irish guys who hadn't been to sleep yet. We went to a beach, an aquarium (which was home to some fish bigger than me!) and went snorkeling along a lush coral reef. After lunch the scheduled 'singing and dancing' began - the sound system was cranked up to 'mindless-distortion-level', pumping out Ace of Base across the clear waters. It was interrupted only for the improtu performance from the crew. The captain perched himself behind a home made drum kit (thrown together with a saucepan lid, biscuit tin and plastic barrel) and was actually pretty mean on it. The guides enthusiastically took to the microphones and belted out some Vietnamese hits much to the appreciation of the other holidaymakers. She went around the boat asking where everyone was from, promised to sing a song about each country - unfortunately she hadn't much on countries like Ireland, Russia, Spain or Hong Kong (which I mischievously lied about hailing from). It was all a bit Mickey-mouse and embarrassing but the trip ended with a heartfelt rendition of the kindergarten hit 'If you happy and you know, clap your hand'. Quality.

As the 'pedophile buster' pink scooter picture attached shows, there's a big anti-pedophille campaign in Nha Trang - mainly instigated by a Canadian woman known as 'Crazy Kim'. Half the kids running around the streets have bright yellow 'Crazy Kim' t-shirts featuring the tag-line 'Hands Off Them Kids'. It's a little odd - I'm skeptical of high-profile campaigns as in Britain stupid scare mongering has led to cameras being banned from nativity plays and Daily Mail instigated witch hunts manically going after pediatricians in Wales. It's a significant issue here, and is obviously unthinkably horrible, I'm just not sure of the approach and reckon it's a shame that the only news out of Vietnam is years is Gary bloody Glitter.

Last night I went to the famous Full Moon Party on the beach - not normally my scene, but it was an experience and the Irish guys had me drinking for the first time since last year. Oddly I bumped in to almost everyone I'd met since Cambodia - everyone on the Southeast Asia 'loop' had seemingly descended on Nha Trang for the legendary party. It made for a great atmosphere and I left feeling a bit worse for wear at 3am. It was during my walk to the hostel that a creepy woman snarling 'massage?' 'massage?' at me started petering around, groping and running after me. She went for the pockets and pulled some near worthless Cambodian notes out, but they ended up on the road - I don't think she got anything, but it'd would've been scary if I wasn't tipsy.

Anywho, next destination - Laos (tips please!) Heading over the border after a night or two in Hue, I've got an 18-hour overnight bus journey booked for tonight… Sorry if this email is a little incoherant - it's sweaty, there are loud techno versions of Abba hits playing, a guy to my right browsing porn and whistling along and the moron to my left is taking a great and blatant interest in my email no matter how evilly I try to glare at him! AAGGGH! As much as I'm loving every minute, I've begun the countdown to home - have a great summer, see you soon!

Tom =o) x

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