I'm Guessing Maybe They Won

In a previous post I mentioned stepping off a bus in the backpacker district of Saigon and being swept up in a torrent of raucous, scooter riding, flag waving humanity. I found out later it was all due to a soccer game that Vietnam had won in the SEA (southeast Asia) games that are still going on in the region. Last night I saw there was another game on, Vietnam vs. Singapore, and thought to myself 'Maybe there'll be another little street free-for-all tonight after it's over. Well, if they win the game, that is.'

It started rather quietly like a gathering storm. A few pots and pans banging, some yells, a few scooter engines revving at their upper limits of 4 or 5 thousand RPM's. And then it gathered momentum like an unstoppable tornado spinning through the streets of Saigon. So of course I had to abandon the safety of my hotel room and, like one of those storm chasers of questionable sanity on Discovery channel, allow myself to once again be swept into the maelstrom. And this time I brought my camera!

Crossing the street in front of the Ben Thanh market was actually physically impossible unless one was OK with literally climbing over stationary scooters jammed wheel-to-wheel and seat-to-seat that were packed from curb to curb, no curb to sidewalk to park lawn, and that seemed to be going nowhere until they could somehow be forced forward like a cloth lodged in the neck of wine bottle. I take it this eventually happened because today they're gone.

I ventured up to the heart of District 1, Dong Khoi street in front of the opera house, and it was non-stop mayhem the whole way up, close to a mile. Little pockets of amplified cheering would periodically erupt when an (overly? no!) enthusiastic individual would achieve a new plateau of fanaticism by gaining a high tree branch or the upper reaches of a lamp post or the top of a mail box amidst an explosion of camera flashes and pumping fists. I came a little too close to being mowed down by a scooter whose driver felt it was appropriate to adopt an s-shaped path down the street at a high rate of speed. Police were out and did what little they could to keep the chaos somewhat contained.




Video of the area in front of the Ben Thanh market. I did not cross here!






I liked these little guys. After I took the photo, they made sure I understood that they felt Vietnam was #1. I sort of had that impression already!










Though a little dark, this captures a lot of present-day Saigon. The street celebration, the august Saigon Continental Hotel (The Quiet American, etc.), and the cranes in the background working non-stop through the celebration and the night on yet another new high rise building in the central business district.

Nha Trang and Back Again

Spent a few days up the coast in the laid back little town of Nha Trang and found my first nice beaches in Vietnam. I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of litter and the overall clean condition of the main Nha Trang beach, which is a white band of sand extending for a few miles along the South China Sea. I later discovered a big reason for the clean condition is the raker that gets employed in the early morning hours on a daily basis to scoop up the vast majority of litter that may find its way onto the sand, i.e., this is a special effort made purely for the sake of tourism. But I don't mind and the desired effect is achieved. I have to add that I visited other beaches not far from the main Nha Trang beach and they were fairly clean without the use of the tourist sand raker, so the beach conditions are not all bad here even left to the locals. There are a lot of tourists in Nha Trang, the majority seeming to hail from the land of Oz (Australia), and many of them are there to party, so there are a lot of bars and other diversions for short-term tourists there.

Another popular pasttime in Nha Trang is diving. I'm a certified scuba diver, but haven't done it in many years and so chose to stick to snorkeling. I like snorkeling because it's simple and easy, doesn't require all the heavy scuba equipment, and you can see probably 75% of what a scuba diver can see if the depth is 25 feet or less. I did a half day trip on a dive boat out to Hon Mun (Moon Island to the rest of us) and had a good time checking out the reefs and aquatic life around the island's edge. I didn't see anything breathtaking (good since I was underwater), but the submarine scenery matched that of the Caribbean and Indonesia where I've dived before.

I also took the opportunity while in Nha Trang to rent a bicycle and do the first riding I've done since I arrived in Vietnam. I have to say it felt pretty good to feel the wind as I cruised down Nha Trang's main street. I got adventurous and visited one of Nha Trang's main attractions, the Po Nagar Cham towers, by bicycle. Like elsewhere in Vietnam, the motorbike is the main mode of transport here, and my bike was the only one in the parking area at the towers. Made it easy to tell the attendant which one was mine when I returned! The towers were built between the 7th and 12th centuries and have been through a few different incarnations, owners, and uses and are still used today for religious purposes by Buddhists and others. They're constructed primarily of very small red bricks.







This is the main tower. There are 4 towers in total, all grouped together on a raised flat area. I removed my shoes and ventured inside this one where I found a Buddhist shrine and a couple of worshippers and smoky air tinged with incense.















This, according to my Lonely Planet guidebook, is a dancing Shiva goddess with her foot on the head of a bull, apparently letting eveyone know who's boss around here!



















There is an abundance of intricate detail on all the towers. This is an inscription in the doorway of one of them in some sort of ancient script I've never seen before, so sorry, I can't translate, but I doubt you'll find any website URL's.









I left the towers which are just north of main Nha Trang town, and proceeded further north up the coast since it was a nice day and I felt good and the road was good and the traffic low (by Saigon standards!) and the air clean and wanted to take advantage of this confluence of good circumstances and get some biking in. As I proceeded, I even encountered a few small hills to give me a little aerobic challenge as I made my way. I finally reached a junction where I could see a long row of thatched roof huts lined up along a half mile stretch of coast and went down towards them just to investigate. I was astonished to encounter another foreigner on a bike on the access road! He was from the Netherlands and was doing the same as I, just out biking up the coast. We chatted a bit as I'm sure he was just as surprised to see me. It was apparent the huts were part of some planned resort that was never completed and the area looked to have been abandoned for at least a couple of years. There are numerous other resorts in various states of completion around Nha Trang and it seems to be becoming a destination for tourists and expats who like the area. There's now an airport at Cam Ranh, south of Nha Trang, and I imagine the area will be seeing an influx of m more well-heeled visitors in the near future. So maybe this resort will be resurrected. The road I was biking must have been built to serve these new resorts.




This is a very nice bit of coastline and I doubt this resort will remain in its unfinished state.







I enjoyed by bike ride so much I rented another a couple of days later and went even further (can you believe it?!) up the coast road until it merged back with the main north-south highway (1A) that runs most of the length of Vietnam, about 15 km north of Nha Trang.



I stopped and enjoyed the view a few times. There are many islands right off the coast and the sea is plied by the old wooden Vietnamese fishing boats. Very peaceful. That's my rented bike. Not bad for $1 US/day, but it's not exactly a high-end state of the art racing machine either!






One thing I didn't so in Nha Trang was surf, but I found out there is allegedly some decent surfing near Cam Ranh, so I want to go back and check it out. Nha Trang is almost a full day's bus ride from Saigon, but that's good in that it keeps the teeming throngs away. The beaches nearer to Saigon are all perpetually crowded.












On the bus ride to Nha Trang, one of the staff decided to get in a little downtime by slinging a hammock between the seat rows! We passengers were generally amused and a little impressed.






When I returned to Saigon, I stepped off the bus into a swirling melee of boisterous Vietnamese clogging the streets and sidewalks and circling the area on motorbikes and waving Vietnamese flags in the air. It was absolute pandemonium and I had no idea what was going on. Turns out that Vietnam had defeated Malaysia in soccer and this was cause for celebration on a grand scale! It was a refreshing display of good clean safe public fun, which is something I've seen a few times in my stay here.

Scooters, Motorbikes, Rivers and Oceans of Them

Nothing new about the topic of scooters and motorbikes in Vietnam. It's been flogged to death, but pardon me while I resurrect it just briefly.

When one initially arrives here from somewhere such as the United States, he's overwhelmed and a bit amused by all the scooters. 'Do people really use these things as a primary and even sole mode of transport?', he'll likely think to him or herself for many days on end. Stage 2 is realizing the answer to this profound question is a resounding 'Yes!'. Stage 3 is annoyance. Well, I can't speak for the general foreign population here, but that was my sentiment, and I don't think I'm so many standard deviations off the mean, at least in my opinions about such general matters. Annoyance at the noise and exhaust and the presence. The neverending presence. Naturally one expects the presence of scooters in the streets, but that's not the extent of it.

In the United States sidewalks are a sanctuary for pedestrians and the pedestrian holds dominion in the eyes of the law over all mechanized and motorized modes of transport. But here scooters make frequent and liberal use of the public sidewalks (THEIR public sidewalks in their eyes no doubt) and pedestrians must keep a constant vigil to remain uninjured. Thus stage 3. I think I've reached a new plateau in my understanding and acceptance of scooters and I think I'll call this new redoubt.... Let's see, how about stage 4? Stage 4, the domain of those who've learned to see scooters as both necessary for the development of Vietnam and the improvement of its peoples' standard of living, but also as imposing a tax of the aforementioned negatives. I imagine nearly 100% of Vietnamese touch down immediately in stage 4, either bypassing the previous 3 altogether or experiencing them while in the womb bouncing and swaying comfortably along with Mom, soothed by the prenatal buzz. But now I feel there is something beyond stage 4, meaning I see a certain beauty, not in scooters themselves individually or collectively, but in their motion, especially their collective coordinated motion. Much of the mores of a society can be seen in the conduct of its drivers on public streets (and sidewalks!) I believe. In Vietnam, as contrasted to the United States, scooter drivers see themselves as part of a flow with each individual having the responsibility not to disturb it and it's a system that works amazingly well here. I'm not trying to say it's a system that should be adopted elsewhere, as Vietnam has its own set of physical and economic constraints it has to live with, but there's a general sense here that the roads (and sidewalks) are truly public. Most drivers in the United States have a sense of temporary private ownership of the pavement in front of their moving vehicle and the laws reflect this, or maybe vice versa. The idea of 'right of way' is not so strong in Vietnam and it no doubt stems from their history and government, past and present.

And it's really nice to watch in action! I've found myself mesmerized after dark on numerous occasions by the confluence of lights that enter a Saigon traffic circle and then mingle and disperse with the perfect fluidity of flowing water, each driver a drop in the stream. Traffic circles don't exist except at a few intersections in Saigon, and the modern traffic control device called the traffic light, like a dam blocking a wild and free river, is becoming more prevalent here. But even a traffic light imposes a certain rhythm by pausing the flow and introducing a rising and falling heartbeat into the traffic that a pedestrian can see and hear and almost feel as he or she approaches an intersection. It's hard to see the traffic lights here as a pedestrain and there are not many pedestrian signals, so the predestrian often has to figure out for himself if it's safe to step off the curb and attempt to venture across. It's not completley up to fate, however, as it's possible to develop a sense of when the cross-traffic is about to erupt from its stopped condition, like sensing an impending stampede in a herd of restless animals. Perhaps the Saigon traffic engineers are superlative in their traffic management abilities or it's the just the continuation of the more natural rhythm mildly constrained, but you can supplement your basic senses of sight and hearing with another predictive sense of traffic flow at traffic lights here and thus improve your chances of another day unscathed. This predictive sense derives from the sight of traffic slowing in one direction while a restive jostling and a rising motor crescendo following a brief trough begins in another and it serves as a the beginning of a grace period in which the pedestrian already in the street can quickly scamper out or as a warning to one about to step off the curb. In any case, it serves one well to pay attention. Below is a video of a busy intersection controlled by a traffic light.

There are more and more passenger cars appearing on Saigon streets and I fear it will change the nature of the traffic here, both for motorized vehicles and others. I can see the different attitude of most car drivers and it's a familiar one unfortunately, the attitude of forcing one's car where one desires to go in a 'move out of my way or else' tactic. Where this will lead is hard to say, as the streets here are already choked with vehicles other than passenger cars, and this is a problem almost everywhere in Asia ex-Japan. It's just one of the many changes and choices facing Vietnam in the not so distant future.

Departing Saigon for the beach town of Nha Trang tomorrow and will stay there for a week or 2. I've heard it's very nice.

Bansch & Lomp

Just purchased a nice pair of sunglasses from a shop down the street. They're Ray Bans and I know beyond any hint of a doubt that they're the real and genuine article because it says right there on the leather (or is that pleather?) case they came in 'Sunglasses by Bansch @ Lomp'. Go stick that in your IP (intellectual property) pipe and smoke it! Or perhaps it's all part of a joke. Sometimes humor is where you absolutely insist on finding it.


Speaking of humor, I took my second tour down to the Mekong Delta area last week along with my friends Ethan and Leah Elder from San Francisco who were here on business for a few days. It was really nice seeing and spending time with them. We took the tour with the same company I took it with last year and had the same tour guide. He's a real character and his tenuous grasp on simply being able to convey to us in English the tour's highlights didn't deter him in the least from attempting to regale us with jokes. Yes, the same jokes I heard last year. The jokes with the long painful set-ups followed by the anemic punch lines that evoked more of a puzzled and confused response than anything resembling a laugh. But he soldiers on, year after year, a warrior comedian who must think to himself that if he weren't getting paid to do this he wouldn't bother trying to amuse these foreigners, none of whom seem to have any sense of humor whatsoever. Taking the tour again was still well worthwhile however, because I was with my friends Leah and Ethan and also because I missed some highlights the first time around such as the crocodile pool where one could not only view these fascinating primordial creatures, but also torture, I mean feed, them with chunks of rotting meat hanging from a string on a bamboo pole. See video below.

Ethan remarked, and I have to agree, that the countryside between Saigon and the Mekong is reminiscent of the same in Mexico. As much as I admire and enjoy the people of Vietnam, their treatment of the environment leaves a lot to be desired. This is not entirely their own fault of course nor is this any news flash for them and I imagine (and hope!) this is one part of the Vietnamese way of life that will improve as their economy does. I remember the campaign in the United States in the 1970's to persuade Americans to stop littering. Who could forget the American Indian with his creased face moistened by a tear after a passing car discarded a bag of garbage at his moccasined feet? The mind runs wild with ideas of a similar Vietnamese campaign.


I know I've been in this backpacker district too long because I'm getting hassled less by the touts on the street who peddle everything from motorbike rides to sunglasses and hammocks. Either they now recognize me and know not to waste their breath or I'm carrying an expression on my face that broadcasts 'leave me alone'. Either way, too long. But I enjoy not being hassled.


Crossing streets has become routine, but there are still some harrowing moments on wide busy thoroughfares with lots of truck and car traffic. I still haven't set foot on the island in front of the Ben Thanh market, but I hope to someday as I know it can be done. It's a bit intimidating as you can see from the pic below.



I'll finish this post with an amusing sight I observed on the Saigon River a few days ago: a small boat with 2 men aboard, the one in the back operating the oars with his feet and legs. And what was the man afore doing? No free rides on the Saigon River, as he was busy bailing the moving boat with a plastic bucket! It seemed to be a well matched partnership and well thought out division of labor as they glided merrily along.

Apparently crocodile mothers consider the teaching of table manners as way down the list. Or maybe these are all scruffy swamp orphans.

Observe the promised land across the wide gulf fraught with peril where sits the the god Trafficus on his proud steed. I want to someday set foot on that hallowed ground, but so far lack the courage.

Owls, Bats, Shuttlecocks

The daily weather pattern is thus: sunny and temperate in the mornings, hot as hell and sticky in the afternoons, and heavenly once the sun goes down. Saigon has numerous beautiful parks scattered throughout the city and its citizens make good use of them especially once the heat of the day has mercifully broken. You'll see many different forms of exercise and diversion from the usual jogging and calisthenics and tai chi to dancing and shuttlecock. The dancing is done under the roof of a gazebo complete with speakers and music and I've seen tango and waltzing and swing. Often 2 female partners join up for a dance since there seems to be a dearth of male participants. I believe this is a common global problem! Many of you may be sitting there asking yourself wtf is shuttlecock?! See video below. It's played with a plastic springy device that's kicked with the foot. I don't know if there are rules in force when 2 people are just kicking back and forth, but I do know that many of them are impressive to watch. The video shows 2 guys doing the back kick style in which the shuttlecock is kicked with the bottom of the foot from behind. I can only imagine this takes a lot of practice.

Bats also love the parks. At dusk they can be spotted flitting about overhead. A few nights ago I was hanging out my hotel window and saw a large bird approaching below. As it flew by underneath my window I was able to get a good look at it and it was an OWL! I was surprised to see it in the middle of Saigon, but it has obviously found a way to survive here. Perhaps it's lost its characteristic of silent flying since it wouldn't need that in this place. As a matter of fact, having wings that produce a motorbike throb would be the best possible cover it could have!

Between the main streets that form the grids of Saigon are many labyrinthine alleyways where one will find street (alley?) markets during the mornings and shops and apartments. Walking through these is a good way to see how native Saigonites (not sure of the demonym here!) live as many will be lying on a sofa watching TV or listening to music as you go by. I think many of them are still caught a little off-guard by seeing a foreigner wending his way by their front door.

I've discovered that prices are actually quite good here in the backpacker district, often less than what you see real Saigonites (there it is again!) pay, at least for basic necessities like bottled water and canned drinks and hotel rooms. I assume this is because of the density and volume of vendors that line the streets here and the density of buyers walking about. And there seems to be a provider for all the basic services like laundry, apartment hunting, etc.








View out my hotel window on a typical Saigon morning for this time of year. It's a very nice time of day. That's a cathedral in the background.
















A view down an alleyway in the morning. Lots of activity, lots for sale. But watch out for motorbikes! Hardly any place in this city is safe from them. They'll even cruise into a hotel lobby.

Jet Lag Schmet Lag

Perhaps I shouldn't be quite so arrogant yet. Maybe it's too early to really know, but so far I've waltzed through the past few days with very little in the way of my usual severe jet lag symptoms, the feeling tired all day, inability to sleep except in the middle of the day, which I don't allow my self to do because.... I don't know because they say not to let yourself do that because you'll end up feeling tired! Well, it's a moot point so far this trip because I arrived in Vietnam in the morning and stayed up until the early part of the night and slept until 7 the next morning and have been doing pretty well ever since. I've read many accounts of how various individuals were able to avoid the effects of jet lag, everything from pills to shining a light behind the knee. I'm not making that up. I'm trying to recall exactly what it was that I might have inadvertantly done this trip to blithely and seamlessly step into a time zone 15 hours removed from the one in California. Perhaps it was the dark blue socks. I can imagine encasing ones feet in that particular color causes certain chemicals to be released into the bloodstream that allow the body's internal clock to reach new heights of adaptibility. Also one shoe was untied for a large part of the journey. The right shoe if I recall correctly. I obviously have no idea and as I mentioned, it's probably premature to begin trumpeting my jet lag victory just yet. In the past, it's always taken me at least 5 days to feel re-calibrated.

While on the subject, let me put in a voluntary plug for China Airlines. I think they're fairly new. I would rate their quality of service in the cockpit and the cabin as top notch, right up there with Singapore Air. And the food was actually really good, even in coach! Our landing in Taipei after 13+ hours in the air from San Francisco was almost perfect, so much so that I wasn't exactly sure of the moment the wheels hit the runway. I was thinking that perhaps it's time for a new quality of life index called the 'landing metric', a scientific measure of how jarring the average airplane landing is for each airline and each country, the lower the value the better. I say this because I believe it can be statistically proven, and we all know statistics never lie, that the landing metric is a good barometer reading of how well people are doing and feeling. I would venture that China's is low and going down while for domestic US fliers it's not. Take it for what you will.

Nothing too big to report on here. Everything seems basically the same as it was last year. Some of the same locals are still hanging around the backpacker district! They're probably writing the same about me at this very moment. The 3rd annual Asia Indoor Games just wound up here in HCM City. The Chinese took the most gold medals with Vietnam close behind. They compete in some sports most Americans have never heard of. Shuttle cock comes to mind. It's played a lot like badminton except with the feet, not racquets. Also a lot of billiards and even something called speed chess! The Chinese won that one, both the men and the women. I imagine that competitive chess had to institute their own version of the basketball shot clock to keep the match moving along. But the little park next to my hotel here was fully festooned with electric lights, stages, stands, and booths and a carnival atmosphere. It was a lot of fun just walking around taking it all in.

Today will venture into the mysterious world of cell phone SIM cards as I try to properly equip my $10 phone from the states to function in this part of the world. I figure if the people here can't make it happen, it simply can't happen. If that's the case I'll just pick up a new phone to use here. Then I'll really feel like a part of the action!

I'm Back in Saigon!

Well, it's about 6 weeks shy of a year since my departure from here. I arrived just about 3 hours ago and checked into the same hotel I checked out of then! A bit surreal, to say the least. And the price is exactly the same. And I even got the same room but on a different floor if that makes any sense. Meaning each floor has the same room layout, so I'm exactly a few floors above where I was before.

I've already fallen right back into the Vietnam way of doing things. I skipped the taxis at the international terminal at the airport and walked about 100 yds to the domestic terminal. Prices fall in half just by doing that. A little traveler's tip I discovered. When we arrived at the hotel, the driver held up some airport toll ticket he had to pay and wanted to add it to my fare. It was 5000 VND, or less than 30 cents. I gave him a tip that covered it. It was well worth it because the ride in from the airport was more exhilirating than the last time I was on a roller coaster! I just don't understand why there aren't more traffic accidents in this place.

Then I went to a bank to get some VND from my US dollars. The doorman let me in and escorted me to the counter. On the way out he again opened the door and walked out with me and told about the place around the corner that offers a much better exchange rate. Yes, welcome back to Vietnam my friends!

Well, this is just a quick post to get things started again. More to come. More to come. I'll be here longer this time, at least 3 months, hopefully at least 6.