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Published: June 23rd 2011
Meekong Delta
Floating MarketHello! Mark here, First of all I have to tell you that I'm not in a blog writing mood today. I'm grumpy, I woke up grumpy this morning, decided to cheer myself up by going to the number one pizza restaurant in Siem Reap for lunch, hunted for about 20 mins for it, got hassled by Tuk Tuk drivers and street vendors the whole time, found it, only to be told the pizza oven wasn't hot enough for another hour...........
I'm currently sitting in a slightly musty smelling Hotel room that hasn't been serviced today, with no clean towels and running low on toilet paper. HAHA! What do you know as I typed that, having been back in the room for 5 minutes, and getting half naked and comfortable, the door went "hello? room service”. At least we have bog roll. In addition the power cable to my laptop is playing up; I'm sitting with my laptop wedged against the fridge, to keep the charge going in.
I've loved this holiday like no other I've ever been on, it's been amazing and we are so so lucky to have this opportunity. I don't mean to be grumpy, it just happens,
as I've said to Verlie many times, "Grumpy isn't a mood, it's a state of mind"
She takes my grumps pretty well, I say pretty well, what I mean is she pretty well ignores them.
OK, now I've shared that with you I feel a bit better. What is it I'm supposed to be blogging about........Oh yes, Vietnam!
Well we'd had a bit of a big night, our last night on Koh Samui, not a great idea as we had to take a taxi-ferry-taxi-plane-taxi, to get to our overnight hotel in Bangkok before flying onto Ho Chi Minh. We got up a bit late and Chris the owner said he'd take us to the ferry port. We got there with 5 minutes to spare, but before I'd bought ferry and taxi tickets from the slowest ticket seller in Thailand, the boat was about to leave, with horror I realised the pier was about 1km long and the boat was about to leave, luckily the taxi company we had booked with had 2 mopeds on standby, so picture this scene if you would. Me and Verlie with backpacks on our backs, and rucksacks held to our fronts, riding pillion on
Meekong Delta
Making Rice Paper two mopeds, speeding up the pier to catch our ferry, we made it with literally seconds to spare, if we'd missed the ferry, we'd also have missed our flight, as they are only hourly ferries. We picked up our driver the other side and made it to Surat Thani airport with just 40 mins to take off.
I've just realised how the Vietnam story starts, this is a great example of things that make me grumpy.
This tale is like something out of One Foot In The Grave...............
Vietnamese Immigration require you to be "pre-approved" for a visa, unless you are an expert, you need to take on a visa application service, who for $28 per person will arrange your "pre approval" and give you a letter to show at immigration. At first I was sceptical but every reputable travel website said that this was the way to go, so I took on a visa service and paid for our letter, which I printed off and stapled to our plane ticket.
When we left Thailand I found myself without any cash. I thought about paying the fee either with a card, or failing that I could always just draw
Meekong Delta
Cobra Infused Medicine, good for your joints apparently! out cash from an ATM. No worries. When we arrived at the counter I presented our letter along with our passports, "Where's your photo's?" demanded the immigration officer, who incidentally make US immigration officers look friendly and welcoming! Photos? what? Well I haven't got any. The visa service had neglected to tell me, that we would need a passport sized photo each. it was ok though because as the guy explained in broken English, they could take one digital photo of me and Verlie and attach it to our application......for $10 per person; they didn't even need to print it..........
When I'd originally booked our trip, we were going to go to Cambodia after Vietnam, and then back into Vietnam to fly to Malaysia, which meant we'd need a multiple entry visa ($50 per person) Since booking we'd changed our plans and decided to stay longer in Cambodia and fly to Malaysia directly from there, meaning we didn't need a multiple entry visa and could save ourselves $50 by changing to a single entry. I asked our friendly immigration officer if we could change visas, and again he just looked at me and laughed, multiple entries it is then.
The
Meekong Delta
Popped Popcorn next problem I faced was payment, they did not take cards and there were no ATM's anywhere, not a single one. Reluctantly they let me through immigration, past the baggage claim area to where the taxis are to draw out some cash. (taxi sir? taxi? you need tuk tuk sir? transport sir? you need transport?)
I withdrew 2 million Dong which was the maximum allowed in one transaction, and made my way back to the immigration counter, through the baggage reclaim and back up the four flights of stairs. We waited around for about 10 minutes before I started to do the maths and realised that 2 million Dong was about $100 and not enough for the visas and the photo's, so past immigration and down the stairs I went again, another 2 million dong and another chorus of "taxi sir? taxi? you need tuk tuk sir? transport sir? you need transport?" I ignored them again.............
I got back to the immigration counter, by now my shirt stuck to me with sweat, and becoming angrier by the second, both at myself for not planning properly and at these flipping idiots at immigration who couldn't speak a word of English. Another
few minutes waiting for them to process the visa (surely it's already been processed hasn't it, I paid $28 per person for a pre-approval letter) and I realised that all prices quoted were in US$ and not Dong, I asked the officer at the counter if I could pay in dong and not in dollars, he didn't have a clue what I was asking about and just laughed at me going "DONG!, DONG! can I pay in Dong?" to be on the safe side and to avoid further delays I decided to exchange my Dong for US$, have a guess where the foreign exchange counter was? Yep, that's right next to the only ATM in Ho Chi Minh City........I passed immigration and the baggage claim for a third time, spotting our backpacks laying on the floor next to the baggage carousel that had stopped going round about half an hour previous. I got to the foreign exchange counter with the same voices, shouting, calling, clapping, whistling, and trying to catch my attention for a taxi. I exchanged 3 million dong for US$ and for a third time, made my way back through baggage reclaim, by now on first name terms
Meekong Delta
Brave Mark!!! with everyone who worked in the airport from the customs officials to the guy sweeping the floor around our lonely looking backpacks. Again I went up the stairs past immigration to the visa counter, out of breath, sweaty, tired, pissed off and about ready to just give up and go straight to Cambodia when finally, mercifully our names were called and we collected our visas. I noticed as I paid that the guy next to me was paying in Dong............
Total cost for 2 visas, for four days in Vietnam $176, which was more than we spent on our hotel and food for the four days we were there......
We'd booked a guest house in District 1, Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City as it is also called; there is some history about why the name change, I'll give you the condensed version. It was called Saigon until the communist forces from the North of Vietnam took over the city at the end of the Vietnam war, and re-named it Ho Chi Minh City after a pre-eminent leader of North Vietnam. Today though most people still refer to it as Saigon, particularly District 1.
I'd used trip advisor
a lot during the planning of the trip and I chose the Diep Anh guest house as it was the number 2 place to stay in HCMC and was located in backpacker central and the old couple who run it were very helpful and friendly, and could arrange tours for guests at 2/3 the price of local tour companies. The reviews were accurate, and the couple running the place were awesome, they gave us a map, pointed out all the places of interest and gave us hints and tips for getting around, and some great places to eat. We booked our onward bus trip to Phnom Penh in Cambodia, and also a one day tour to the Meekong Delta.
Our first port of call that afternoon, after an excellent lunch of course, was the Vietnam War Remnants Museum. Most of what I know about the Vietnam war is the Hollywood version. Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Tour Of Duty, Good Morning Vietnam and that one starring Michael J Fox, as a completely believable soldier in the 21st Airborne Midget Battalion. Casualties of War I think it was called.
So I was looking forward to educating myself and seeing the other side of
Meekong Delta
Verlie eating some weird fruit that looked like an eyeball the coin so to speak. Before I go on, let me state a few opinions of mine. War is sometimes unavoidable and there are never any winners, only people who come off badly and people who come off much worse. There are always two sides of the story. Propaganda is as important in wars as guns, tanks and bombs. Finally (and this will all make sense in a second, so bear with me) I don’t want you to think I’m judging a whole nation, because every country and culture has people who believe everything they see and hear, people who never question anything they are told and who shouldn’t be allowed to vote or pro-create. It just so happens that in this part of the story, these people happen to be American.....
So we walked past a few American tanks and helicopters displayed outside and into the actual museum itself. There were exhibitions of some amazing photo’s taken by foreign journalists during the war. One series of photos followed a day in the life of one particular private, I think it was a pulitzer award winning series in Time magazine, anyway, the first pictures show him smiling happily loading guns
and ammunition onto a helicopter. (his job was to man the gunship) later action shots showed him firing the guns, then comes a shot of him panic stricken cradling his colleague in one arm, still trying to fire his weapon as his colleague bleeds out in his arms, a final shot showed him back at base, head in hands trying to comprehend what had happened. There were many accounts of US soldiers committing atrocities against Vietnamese people. Burning villages, torturing and murdering entire communities. Along with photographs of grinning GI’s water-boarding (torturing) a local man, pictures of children cowering at the feet of American soldiers. There were pictures of deformed children and documentary evidence of the millions of tonnes of Agent Orange chemical weapons used by the US against the Vietnamese people. This sectioned contained the most harrowing exhibit, a preserved, badly deformed baby who had died at birth, after (so the plaque said) its mother had been exposed to Agent Orange. Another section was devoted to propaganda with comments and newspaper articles condemning the US involvement in the war, comments from eminent politicians, leaders and religious figures. It was one sided, but it’s going to be isn’t it? One
of the most surprising things I saw was the 1997 account given by a now (obviously) retired US senator who, unable to live with his conscience any longer, went public with his story, stating for the record that as the leader of a platoon of soldiers during the Vietnam War, he’d ordered and participated in the massacre and destruction of an entire village of men, women and children. I have to say it was all pretty compelling, harrowing stuff. So we were standing there, taking all this in, a new perspective on a period of history that I’d previously not been exposed to, when we overheard the following conversation between two American girls, I’d say were in their very late teens or early 20’s.
“It’s a bit one sided isn’t it?”
“Yes, you could almost say it was racist”
I have two words......OXYGEN THIEVES. Even now 2 or 3 weeks after, I’m stunned by it.
The museum is a very worthwhile, educational, understandably one sided take on the Vietnam war, and I wholeheartedly recommend any open minded, free thinking people to go there and experience it for themselves.
The next day we’d booked a tour of the Meekong Delta by
3t BBQ
Prawn Murderer!!!! boat, it was a one day tour, unfortunately it was 3 and a half hours on a coach, 2 hours in a boat and then another 3 and a half hours back on the coach. However the Meekong Delta was awesome, we saw some great stuff and I took some great video. The best part of the day was just after lunch when I got to hold a 10ft Python. I was shit scared, being scared of snakes and all that, but I decided that I would never get another opportunity to do something like this, so I seized the moment, and the snake! We also visited a coconut sweet making place, saw how rice paper is made and rice popcorn. We bought 4 packets of coconut sweets for the children we were going to visit at the Cambodian orphanage the following week, supporting 2 good causes with one purchase! We also saw the floating market where boat loads of pineapples are traded. It felt a bit tourist trap, but we enjoyed it all the same, seeing how people go about their daily lives living on the river.
After a very long day, we needed somewhere nice to eat and
3t BBQ
Chopstick Skills the ever reliable trip advisor site had thrown up an interesting sounding restaurant in HCMC. Quan Nuong is a cook your own BBQ place, its chaotic, busy, and great great fun. We were lucky to get the last table. The table has a BBQ in the centre and you order your food raw, and cook it yourself. Among the specialties are Eel, Frog, Wild Boar, Prawns and the usual Chicken and Beef. Each can be flavoured in different ways, five spice, garlic, chilli etc. We ordered 2 mains and then 2 more afterwards as it was so much fun and there are no sides as such, just a couple of veggies. The prawns came and they were still wriggling on the kebab stick! Fresh or what?! We had great fun here and the food, atmosphere and beer were all amazing.
I’d been getting a lot of attention in Asia, on account of my size, people would brazenly come up to me on the street, “Happy Buddha, Happy Buddha” Street vendors and Tuk Tuk drivers often use it as a conversation starter, thinking that pointing out my hugeness would secure my custom........It was much more prevalent in Vietnam, people would
just look at me and point, or just shout out. Once outside our hotel, a little street kid ran up, rubbed my stomach with both hands and shouted “Lucky Buddha, Lucky Buddha” Verlie was in stitches, but ever the sceptic, every time it happened my hands/eyes went straight to my pocket with my wallet in. The worst occasion happened as we left the Ho Chi Minh Cathedral, we appeared from behind this big statue where an Asian woman was having her photo taken with her daughter, she looked at me and said “oh my goodness, I can’t believe it, I must have a photo with you” so me and Verlie posed for a photo with her and her daughter, I had one eye on the kid of course, checking my wallet. Then the woman goes, “Can I have another photo, just you and me?” so I posed with her for another picture. She said “I’m so happy to meet you” At first I’d thought she’d mistaken me for someone famous, then she said “where are you from?” ok I thought, this is another happy Buddha sighting. I told her where we are from and we had a quick chat, all
the time her not being able to believe she’d met me.........Bizarre.
The next day was a travelling day with the coach to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Where we would visit the killing fields and S21 prison/genocide museum, go quad biking, visit an orphanage and the Ancient Temple ruins of Angkor Wat, where Tomb Raider was filmed.............I’ll give you a break until the next blog, considering I started off not in the mood for blogging, I’ve done quite well, thanks for listening...............
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Rat on the Road
Kris and Kate
"Oxygen thieves"
What an amazing insult. I love it. I'm going to steal it if you don't mind. Since we live in Ho Chi Minh there will definitely be opportunities to use it!