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YOU DON'T NEED EYES TO SEE YOU NEED VISION.....
A skydive over lake Taupo, Snowboarding in New Zealand, walking Franz Joseph Glacier, Arriving in Peru in the middle of the night....and for all the scary things I've done, finally I have been defeated. I found something, that no matter how hard I tried, I simply could not do. I tried to find a Pro (that's a professional OK!) whom I could simply 'slip in behind' but alas, it wasn't meant to be, not tonight, I was NOT going to be able to cross the road.
I kid you not, I simply couldn't get across the road for the wall of mopeds and other 1980's style motor machines in Saigon Vietnam.
The trip from the airport into the city centre was...well.....f**king mental to be frank. A zillion motorbikes and a zillion people. No one direction, no apparent road rules, it was every man for himself and it was crazy chaos, like nothing I have ever seen.
My hotel was situated in 'mini hotel ally' and is a backpackers choice. Well the clue is in the name so at point whereby the cabby got out of the car for the 2nd time in order to physically move a parked moped with his bare hands I sat back and thought 'oh how I've left the relative civility of Singapore behind, my next adventure has certainly begun.'
Thankful for a lovely hotel at the dizzy heights of 9 pounds per night, I settled in lovely (even without reaching a super market for water etc). The next morning my sensory bank was on meltdown. I wondered a little to see women and children sitting on their heels on the street, scrubbing and preparing meat and veg for their days work, I saw cats and dogs chained to fridges, men squatting in groups playing what looked like draughts, tables with freshly cut meat slabs thown onto it waiting for their preparation and pots of boiling meat. The smells, sights and sounds were just amazing. So spectacularly diverse, I loved it and just wanted to stand and stare....
"You damn Westerners all look the same so don't wonder off" the tour guide bellowed at us. A comment which is so beautifully unpolitically correct, I loved it.
After a visit to a Cao Dai temple on the boarder with Cambodia (a following that is a mix of Buddism, Taoism and Conficianism), which I thought was fascinating, we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels in the jungle. This is where the Viet Con Gorilla network was set up. They built a massive network of tiny tunnels to both hide and set traps for US soldiers in the war.
A visit to the War Museum was both harrowing and soboring and in my opinion an education that everyone 'should' have. Despite the awful atrocities that were taking place during the war the visit to the presidents palace showed that he had a cinema, a dancefloor lounge to entertain, all the plushness you can imagine. Beneath the building was a network of protection tunnels, map and radio rooms and from every presidential suite was a secret passage to the protection rooms, taking him to safety in case of attack.
The Vietnamese in general are lovely caring people, despite their habits of honking up great big greenies (and I'm sorry for using such a crass term but there really is no other way to describe it), it's f**king vile! The little old ladies wear pointy straw hats with big ribbons under their chins, they stand knee deep in water and scatter seeds in the rice fields, the street vendors cook wonderful meals with a pan and a simple stove and charge less than the price of a chocolate bar for the feast, the children play and say 'hello' and the locals are genuinly interested in what the Westerner has to say but without the hard sell. These people are so poor but they are so so happy.
The crazyness of Ho Chi Minh City was way enough for me after a few days however so I got the bus to Nha Trang. 9 hours up the East Coast. Being on the bus was like being in the movie Speed except Keanu didn't make an appearence sadly. Regardless of the state of the road, the bus remained at a constant speed of around 50MPH and never used the brakes, it simply 'honked' the horn, every...well.....NANOSECOND and it drove me INSANE. By the end of the 9 hours i was rocking back and forth in my seat with a vacant stare, dribbling a little (that'll be me most Monday mornings at work then!)
Nha Trang is lovely, a sweet beach resort with a little luxury but sadly, still as many mopeds (though I am now a pro at getting across the road). After a minor miss-hap of getting very very lost in the dark in a new town and starting a panic (only a tiny bit) I got myself settled in. As I did sod all for my birthday (apart from have a ruck at the commissioner of the Indian Embassy) I decided to treat myself to a day at a 'luxury mineral mud spa'.
Well, I arrived and was told 'wash then bath! wash then bath'.... Little English was spoken so it was hard work from the off. I just sort of ambled along feeling a little vulnerable in my bikini and my disney towl (which they'd given me) but soon found the pool. I was just about to dive in and have a swim when I noticed a sign saying '38 degrees'. 'Surely not' I thought. Well b***** me it bloody was. I dipped my legs in and nearly scoulded myself. I later realised it wasn't for doing a 100 laps in but for soaking in and opening the pours inorder to get my skin ready for the muddy delights that lay ahead.
After my scoulding bath I found my mud bath and was once again instructed to get in by a small Vietnamese man who got himself an eyeful as he refused to move until I'd dropped my towl and submerged my body into the mud.
I lay relaxing....actually I wasn't relaxed at all, i felt strangly 'watched', even though I couldn't see anyone else around. After 15 minuntes you're supposed to layout and allow the mud to dry before the 'invigorating salt shower'.....After about a minute I opened my eyes to see a builder walk by me carrying a whole brick.... Well I knew there was some building work going on but..... A minute later saw another builder, then another......
Deerrrr, I felt so stupid. I quickly realised that they were doing a loop and wondering by to get themselves an eyeful of me laying there in a bikini covered in mud. 'Fu**ing pervs' I thought, 'I aint having this'. So quickly got up and headed for the shower. Scouring the mud off me, I looked around and saw no-one, so I very descreetly and slightly opened the top of my bikini top to get some water in to get rid of the clumps of mud that had formed. Feeling uneasy I happend to glance up to see a gang of sweaty builders and spa staff (all male obviously) all having a good old oggle. Not even being descreet about it. I wanted to give them the finger but didn't think that would be sensible given my state of undress.
I left quickly.
Today, a more sadate day I hope, by the beach, before a 12 hour over night bus ride to Hoi An (nice, not)
I'n case anyone is wondering, I haven't been drowned by the typhoon that has bashed Vietnam, thanks for your concerns though....hhhmmmmm. :-)
We'll meet again in Hanoi no doubt. :-)
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