December 22 2005 - Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam
Greets from Vietnam!!
Its Thursday in the big city - 8 million people live here - but it doesn't seem that big. Traffic is insane!! Everyone here has motorbikes and cruising around is nuts! At an intersection, there is no waiting to turn left, you just go, and everyone just weaves around everyone else. It wouldn't work with cars but it works with motorbikes.
I haven't gotten on any of them yet - waay to scary dangerous for me....:)
Just got back from the Mekong Delta - what an awesome trip. I was a bit leery at first, as it was some weird organized trip with a guide, and a bunch of foreigners crammed on a bus. I always snicker when i see the tour groups going by, all in line one-by-one, with the guide up front carrying an umbrella or something - but this time it was me!
Well it was weird at first, but not a huge deal. Most of the trip was all sorts of boat tours so it would have been tough not to stick out as a tourist, and really tough to do it completely on your own.
So yeah, the Mekong Delta. Its giant - dunno how big, but it must be thousands of square miles big - and we just caught a chunk of it and the rivers we were on were huge and there were so many of them.
This morning we got up kinda early and hopped on a little boat and cruised to an amazing floating market. We went to a different one yesterday but it was nearly noon and out of steam. The one this morning was amazing. It was a flotilla of boats, all selling stuff to all these other little boats that were cruising around. They have a 30ft long bamboo pole that sticks out of the boat and at the top they hang the stuff they are selling, so poised atop these poles, you'd see squash, or tomatoes, or carrots, or even pineapples! We didn't do any buying or bartering - I think the market is more geared for large transactions, as you'd see people pitching pineapples from one boat to another by the, ahem, boatload :)
The really cool thing was seeing the river culture. River culture is something really really different. And universal. You read Huckl Finn and the same stuff kinda goes on - the boat engineering is kinda the same, the kinda lazy hot and humidness is kinda the same, and the people lounging in their boats in hammocks all kinda seems the same. But its still all somehow different, and lots of these boats were homes for people as well as their storefronts. They have their clothing hanging off the back on hangers, blowing in the wind (and how I'd hate to be the kid that messes with the laundry and causes it to fall in the muddy river water and get smacked around by M&D). Every boat seemed to have a little plant, or baansi tree or mini garden or something - some sort of religious item or superstitious charm or who knows.
It was really cool to see the people and wave at them. I wouldnt be too keen on seeing crazy tourists taking all sorts of pix of me as I sell my wares, but these guys didn't seem to mind too much - some owuld ignore, lots would wave and smile.
Then we took some backwater cruises thru little canalish type areas, thru palm trees and under little footbridges made sometimes of just one bigish bamboo pole, for walking on, and one littleish bamboo pole for a little railing - Monkey Bridges they'd call em. Others were more substantial - but it was a little weird island network. I really zoned out and enjoyed the cruise thru the canals - it was so peaceful (if you could ignore the diesel chug chug chug of our motor...) with the trees and palms reaching over the water. The sun finally came out for the first time since I arrived here, and it was a great day.
We stopped at a few factories and saw how they make rice paper, and banana candy, and rice grains, and even the famous Rice Budda. Well, the rice budda isn't so famous, but our guide had the most awful accent - so bad that we all kinda just stopped listening to him b/c you could kinda understand but even when you knew the words, they didn't make sense. Weird. But he didn't mind - he just kept blabbing away, with his "Ok, Ladeees and Geinteeelmen," and all of a sudden we're going to visit the Rice Budda factory, and it finally clicks that budda = noodle, or noodah as he said. Kinda disappointing - the Rice Budda would have been fantastic, I'm sure...
Been great catching up with my friend Bryan, who has lived here for just over a year. Ho Chi Min City is such a dynamic place - reminds me a lot of Thailand, but also bits and pieces of all sorts of other palces. Food has been awesome - Vietnamese food is really tasty - and the best of it seems to be from little stalls on the street. Cafes abound - a legacy of French colonial days - and they make some seriously tasty coffee - I'm not much for coffee but see myself downing a ton of it while I'm here. They sock it to ya with this super thick cream that you can barely stir on the bottom of the cup, and just a little of it but ya need it all cuz its a seriously potent tasty brew!
Tomorrow I'm off to visit the Chi Cu o Cu Chi (I can never remember the order) tunnels - some sort of war tunnels where rebels lived during the War. I visited the War Remnants Museum (or American War Crimes museum, if you like to be a little less PC). One of my less favorite tourist events - right up there with Auchwitz. Its stuff you gotta see - to remind you how horrific war can be. This was was especially tough as it was about all the horrible things Americans did to Vietnamese. There is no excuse for such barbarism.
Then Sat we're off to the beach for Xmas, and from there up to Hanoi for New Years. I hope to get some Scuba and hiking in.
Merry Xmas!
- Ryan
Ho Chi Min City.
Greets from Vietnam!!
Its Thursday in the big city - 8 million people live here - but it doesn't seem that big. Traffic is insane!! Everyone here has motorbikes and cruising around is nuts! At an intersection, there is no waiting to turn left, you just go, and everyone just weaves around everyone else. It wouldn't work with cars but it works with motorbikes.
I haven't gotten on any of them yet - waay to scary dangerous for me....:)
Just got back from the Mekong Delta - what an awesome trip. I was a bit leery at first, as it was some weird organized trip with a guide, and a bunch of foreigners crammed on a bus. I always snicker when i see the tour groups going by, all in line one-by-one, with the guide up front carrying an umbrella or something - but this time it was me!
Well it was weird at first, but not a huge deal. Most of the trip was all sorts of boat tours so it would have been tough not to stick out as a tourist, and really tough to do it completely on your own.
So yeah, the Mekong Delta. Its giant - dunno how big, but it must be thousands of square miles big - and we just caught a chunk of it and the rivers we were on were huge and there were so many of them.
This morning we got up kinda early and hopped on a little boat and cruised to an amazing floating market. We went to a different one yesterday but it was nearly noon and out of steam. The one this morning was amazing. It was a flotilla of boats, all selling stuff to all these other little boats that were cruising around. They have a 30ft long bamboo pole that sticks out of the boat and at the top they hang the stuff they are selling, so poised atop these poles, you'd see squash, or tomatoes, or carrots, or even pineapples! We didn't do any buying or bartering - I think the market is more geared for large transactions, as you'd see people pitching pineapples from one boat to another by the, ahem, boatload :)
The really cool thing was seeing the river culture. River culture is something really really different. And universal. You read Huckl Finn and the same stuff kinda goes on - the boat engineering is kinda the same, the kinda lazy hot and humidness is kinda the same, and the people lounging in their boats in hammocks all kinda seems the same. But its still all somehow different, and lots of these boats were homes for people as well as their storefronts. They have their clothing hanging off the back on hangers, blowing in the wind (and how I'd hate to be the kid that messes with the laundry and causes it to fall in the muddy river water and get smacked around by M&D). Every boat seemed to have a little plant, or baansi tree or mini garden or something - some sort of religious item or superstitious charm or who knows.
It was really cool to see the people and wave at them. I wouldnt be too keen on seeing crazy tourists taking all sorts of pix of me as I sell my wares, but these guys didn't seem to mind too much - some owuld ignore, lots would wave and smile.
Then we took some backwater cruises thru little canalish type areas, thru palm trees and under little footbridges made sometimes of just one bigish bamboo pole, for walking on, and one littleish bamboo pole for a little railing - Monkey Bridges they'd call em. Others were more substantial - but it was a little weird island network. I really zoned out and enjoyed the cruise thru the canals - it was so peaceful (if you could ignore the diesel chug chug chug of our motor...) with the trees and palms reaching over the water. The sun finally came out for the first time since I arrived here, and it was a great day.
We stopped at a few factories and saw how they make rice paper, and banana candy, and rice grains, and even the famous Rice Budda. Well, the rice budda isn't so famous, but our guide had the most awful accent - so bad that we all kinda just stopped listening to him b/c you could kinda understand but even when you knew the words, they didn't make sense. Weird. But he didn't mind - he just kept blabbing away, with his "Ok, Ladeees and Geinteeelmen," and all of a sudden we're going to visit the Rice Budda factory, and it finally clicks that budda = noodle, or noodah as he said. Kinda disappointing - the Rice Budda would have been fantastic, I'm sure...
Been great catching up with my friend Bryan, who has lived here for just over a year. Ho Chi Min City is such a dynamic place - reminds me a lot of Thailand, but also bits and pieces of all sorts of other palces. Food has been awesome - Vietnamese food is really tasty - and the best of it seems to be from little stalls on the street. Cafes abound - a legacy of French colonial days - and they make some seriously tasty coffee - I'm not much for coffee but see myself downing a ton of it while I'm here. They sock it to ya with this super thick cream that you can barely stir on the bottom of the cup, and just a little of it but ya need it all cuz its a seriously potent tasty brew!
Tomorrow I'm off to visit the Chi Cu o Cu Chi (I can never remember the order) tunnels - some sort of war tunnels where rebels lived during the War. I visited the War Remnants Museum (or American War Crimes museum, if you like to be a little less PC). One of my less favorite tourist events - right up there with Auchwitz. Its stuff you gotta see - to remind you how horrific war can be. This was was especially tough as it was about all the horrible things Americans did to Vietnamese. There is no excuse for such barbarism.
Then Sat we're off to the beach for Xmas, and from there up to Hanoi for New Years. I hope to get some Scuba and hiking in.
Merry Xmas!
- Ryan
Ho Chi Min City.
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5:08 AM
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