Việt Nam

I’ve been mandated upon leaving the country to give one final salute to glorious, all knowing, wise and radiant revolutionary father, Ho Chi Minh. The man’s face is plastered all over the country. I’m pretty sure he died before the country was even finished with the Americans. Tough break for the man, not knowing whether they would achieve the glorious “reunification” before passing. Ironically the south seems more developed than the north despite the north being victorious, some lasting legacy of the meddling or perhaps some sympathies still existing for the west. Of course, McDonalds and Coca Cola are there as well, so who really won in the end? I don’t know really what constitutes a “communist” country but whatever the Vietnamese style of communism is looks fairly similar to a standard capitalist country in the west, scooters aside. You pay money to private organisations and in return you receive goods and services equivalent to the money you paid as dictated by the merchant. 🤷‍♂️ The country is clearly more developed than Cambodia but still visibly poor.

Arrive to saigon by bus from phnom penh, three stragglers on a bus that seats 50 and a driver far too concerned with smoking cigarettes and buddhism, a full shrine set up around the driver seat. soon understand why the holy altar was situated and set up the way it was.

Great chats with a northern Irish fella, an untethered soul wandering through the asia, tatted and bearded and attempting to get to japan for a single day and then back to laos for affairs of the heart. bus took us swiftly out of built up phnom penh along a single lane 'motorway' with a hard shoulder that was stuffed the entire way with mopeds and scooters and walkers. the bus driving well over 100 kmh bombing it through the evening haze. The driver, extremely fond of the horn, navigated his way through the masses of mopeds and slower vehicles, swerving in and out between the lanes, the hard shoulder and in the most extreme situations the ditch - never really using the brakes and just letting the bus fly along and find its way around whatever obstacle appeared next. unusual style, kind of like jazz driving. Roll through customs, hop back on the bus and power through to Saigon saying farewells at respective stops.

Saigon Sweats

Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) is a megacity. Home to roughly 14 million people, it is carved up by rivers and canals. It is extremely humid there, and there is a distinct lack of a breeze. the city is very built up in certain sections and then slummy in other sections. There is an unusually large Japanese influence there with shops directly from japan filled with japanese products alongside the local brands. Some interesting places and an interesting city layout - small, self-enclosed neighbourhoods that have only 1 or 2 entrance/exits back onto main thoroughfares. they all have little arches with their name and address over them. the city is full of big bars , quite a lot of empty clubs, war museums and a lot of sweat mingling with diesel fumes. There is a constant drone from the mopeds and cars, which seem to move endlessly from place to place, at all hours of the day. you have to wonder about the lives, stories and motivations of such a huge concentration of people in one place.

Manage to procure a sim card from a kindly man from danang, cash in hand. Joined by a comrade after a few days here and we plan the route to take through the country. Around this period eat something that leaves some sort of gut bacteria disturbance which will rear its head at the most inopportune moments at various points over the coming travels. Severe lack of planning begins now and there is a distinct lack of urgency or timekeeping. Spend the days and evenings mosying along, wandering from place to place absorbing all of the distinctions and becoming increasingly intrigued by the demigod status that seems to rest on the citys namesake, ho chi minh. Night falls and go find places to see what the locals are up to, if theres any free decks anywhere and try to defeat warm, sticky beer with chunks of ice- later realize the ice is probably considerably contaminated. Saigon and hanoi beer is not good for the belly, compounded with the ice and you can expect a reckoning, sugar cane juice unique but probably not great for belly stability either.

Take a stroll through the less central areas and see a different side of the city, a few areas that are little more than shanty towns and arrive at our destination for one of the evenings - a small bar full of greasy expats and a set of dj decks. the owner is clearly completely off his rocker but makes lovely bit of food and even free beers and his own concoctions served with ice - some sort of strong fruit drink in a can.

Have to learn the road etiquette from a kindly coconut water seller. Crossing any street or road without lights on it requires a leap of faith and a hand raised high to alert the swarms of mopeds that you are indeed crossing. While waiting for a natural break in the traffic our good coconut seller sidles up and tells us to follow him, explaining the rules as we weave in around the bikes and rare car, hoping they slow enough to let us scurry through. Followed immediately by handshakes and a price quoted for the coconuts which were thrust into our hands. Have a look around the war museum, best not to describe in too much detail but there is some truly horrific images in there, whatever way they arranged it, it really left a lasting impression and they captured the horrors of war in a very succinct way - the americans were certainly the villains in this particular version of the story, some gruesome stories and even worse images. essentially they cinducted a 20 year long weapons testing experiment on the vietnamese and then fucked off home. absolutely brutal and certainly completely unneccesary - considering the end result and the clear lack of any willingness/ability to fight on the side of the south vietnamese, the war might have been over in a couple of years with a fraction of the damage. it is an argument for the idea that ideology was the greatest enemy to humanity in the 20th century - slaughter carried out on an industrially and increasingly technologically large scale based on the premise of ideas - how the world should look/operate, who should make the rules and what ideas should be preeminent in which sections of the world.

Plan the escape from the big smoke into the mountains via bus on the advice of an irish pub owner who recommends Da Lat . With mini sleeper bunks the bus is an upgrade on the previous one but the driving is no less erratic or freeflow and the operation appears to double up as some sort of cargo moving operation as well as an extra service, with some impromptu stops and bales and people loaded in. Unfortunately get stalled about 20 minutes from Da Lat for at least an hour due to some locals having a chat. Unfortunately for the author, there was no toilet on the bus and whatever the last thing dear author ate decided to race through the digestion system at an unprecedented pace. What followed was an attempt to intervene in the chat, investigate what was going on and possibly spur things along, which failed miserably and was rewarded with a complete blanking. I thought it might have been that the bus hit someone or something but it just seemed to be the driver talking to his mate or something. Arriving in Da Lat in a rather rushed, undignified manner one might say.

Da Lat Deluge

Da Lat is a beautiful small town/city nestled in the countryside. they made an artificial lake which is sort of the middle of the newer part of the city but the older town is cut into the hill and little windy streets wrap around the higher points. The streets are steep and cobbled in places, cut into the mountains and hills, in little spirals spanning out into the flats of rice fields etc. We were lucky to arrive in the middle of some sort of

There is a very large reclining buddha up there on one of the hills with little temple around it and quite a few dedications from Russian, Uzbek, Kazakh and other ex-soviet nationalities families in the form of sponsored benches, which was quite a bizarre finding, there was no explanation for their presence there but we also noticed a few tour buses with what we thought were Russian groups. Possibly some sort of ties between the communists in the respective countries but why sponsored benches in a seemingly random Buddhist temple? apparently it is custom to put plaques on donated pieces in pagodas and there are strong expat links, study abroad links and so on between the old commie comrades.

Find a nice Szechuan soup thing to eat which, despite the spiciness, was very delectable indeed and made fresh as can be. Take the opportunity to venture out into the countryside here in Dalat, head out for a stroll to a viewpoint but forget to bring any sort of raingear, classic blunder. run for shelter under some farm awnings as the rain comes hammering down with serious intensity at first in the distance then rapidly catching up and drenching the unprepared rats. wait for it to pass and venture further into the countryside, aiming for the lightly forested hill. crest the hill and get a great line of sight down into the valley, the vast array of rice paddies and interlocking mountains. sun is beginning to set on the horizon throwing hues of orange and gold through the valleys. On the stroll back, get equipped with some ponchos but the next deluge is even heavier and the ponchos prove almost useless as the rain comes down in torrents so heavy that the splashing from the rain hitting the puddles is enough to soak the lower half beneath the poncho while streams seep down through the neck hole to soak the other half, combined with the sweat which remains constant throughout the day and most of the evening. Take refuge once more in a restaurant with even spicier szechaun soup and wait for the clouds to finish their business.

Da Nang Dip

Make it to Da Nang on another extremely rowdy bus journey - adrenaline running high bombing out through the mountains and down into the plains, picking up extra stragglers and cargo again along the way. get dumped out after 16 hours and get a mini van for the final stretch. Sit in for iced tea of some description as we wait for the hostel to let us in. it is early morning and the fellow customers all look on with smirks as we fumble with the 3 words of vietnamese we hastily learned on google translate to say please and thank you.

Danang is a dusty hot coastal town with a great amount of vehicles constantly milling around, theme beginning to develop. The city is definitely not walkable. Not a fan of danang so here are the bullet points:

The English chap milling around on the moped with a baby in some other country that he basically abandoned, what was his name - Greg, the chap was locked everytime we met him and was extremely sound .

Wandering around, cheap decent food, beach was fun, nice and warm water and all that.

Apparently missed the best thing to do here - nha trang or something, the old town. There was a sever lack of planning and research just a lot of wandering along.

nice thick noodles, delicious

force our way onto some dj decks to a crowd of extremely displeased locals - they did not like us or the music but they somehow stayed and listened.

flake out on the beach at night watching lightning in the distance off the coast.

Railway journey

Big decision to make as time is now running out on the visa, opt to ride the rail the whole way up to hanoi and make a final stand there.

accidentally sit in the staff lunch room, first thing they ask is 'beer?' promptly respond yes and enjoy warm tigers with the staff and get some food, ropey food, as well as a breakfast and some chat with the staff who have ridden the train all the way from saigon. enjoy the little beer snacks they generously share with us and thave a bit of a laugh trying to translate for each other. views along the coast fade into jungle and hills as the evening closes in . Sleep in the cabin with some frustrated looking german/dutch family who are not pleased by clumsy climbing to reach the top bunk - a 3 tier bunk bed. somehow sleep through the rest of the 18 hour journey but upon waking and post breakfast some sort of fever or brain fog has descended. the time from disembarking the train to arriving in bangkok is somewhat of a haze , memories a bit jumbled up and head is completely dazed by the pestilence .

Hanoi Haze

Hanoi is a cool place, another 8 million residents and completely different in terms of architecture to anything seen in the south. The buildings are older, the trees are higher and as much, if not more, a part of the city as any person or structure. The temples are old, beautiful and the history of their use well documented. Apparently there is a lot to do here that was missed - oh well. I've been told by my dear sister that i did in fact not do 'the best thing in asia' apparently, the ha giang loop. another time perhaps

While searching for the hostel come across a stark edible surprise for sale - the bottom 50% of a dachsund/jack russell, peeled and roasted available for your culinary pleasure. Despite the overwhelming curiosity to taste it, whatever fever is running through me advises against it - enjoy being laughed at by the locals as they watch our shocked faces and pointing fingers.

Upon searching for more decks to abuse we find ourselves on a nice rooftop and enjoy some ballons and beer. having not enjoyed balloons for quite a number of years, one forgets the mind blanking effect they have and nearly fall directly into a large bass blasting speaker. Here we meet an extremely interesting american character by the name of corey who is on several missions, primarily to find extremely good looking women but also cocaine but also shopping across all of asia? and of course he previously worked for the cia and is now retired at the age of 28 or something. who knows what this chap was doing, but he was good craic and had a whole load of stories. It's quite a haze when i try to recall corey, but he had some strange haram of asian women that he was cultivationg, quite the fellow. cia?

Evening following arrange to meet good old corey again. instead of walking the 8km to wherever corey is leading us, arrange for a taxi, wow what a deal only 20k dong which is 2 euro or something, it is a taxi app or something. anyway, lo and behold the taxi rolls up almost instantly wow what a service. about 5 minutes into driving taxi driver asks where are we going. show him map - no problem apparently. arrive there anyway - 250k apparently. apparently not the taxi driver from the application. have to haggle down. Run into good old corey who takes us to only the worst place/event in an attempt to boost the numbers for events his local woman is running - no chance of getting in for free corey? no chance, tenner in. free beer corey? no, goosed once more. upstairs the music is so bad one is forced to stand on the balcony which looks out not on the city but into the some sort of rural suburb, completely blank nearly. music downstairs not much better but get one decent song out of it and a few marlboros from dear corey. was cory real? who knows, a figment of ones imagination perhaps, hard to recall now. cia? The weather is nice in the evening in hanoi, muggy but comfortable like swimming in a warm bath. the trees inside the city itself certainly aid in cooling the place off. despite being in a complete haze hanoi probably my favorite of the lot. nice authentic feel to it.

Crowning moment of the entire journey- finally reach supreme leader Minhs grave. Massive fuck off plaza all around it, nice big communist buildings and flags and all the rest. we are in the city at the same time as the 50th anniversary of the end of the war so it is all cleared and ready for a parade. Security checkpoints to get into the plaza. Cannot go anywhere near the mausoleum itself, it is well guarded by some well dressed folks with weapons - men and women soldiers. Such a resplendent and glorious communist site - so resplendent and glorious and so proudly communist that you can get your very own ho chi minh fridge magnet/hat/tshirt to remember the day you were in the vicinity of the lord and saviour for only 5.99.

Another highlight of Hanoi is of course it's very own 'Moneygall Plaza'. For those unfamiliar, Moneygall is apparently where one side of barack obamas family (i wonder which side) is from in offaly in ireland. After he graciously visited ireland in 2008/9 (middle of globabl financial crisis, he came over to give ireland a pep talk as we went bankrupt, gave us an 'is feidir linn' and then sicked the imf on us) we lovingly dedicated a filling station to his visit to moneygall - now called the moneygall plaza, with a beautiful supermacs there and a shop and several petrol pumps - and of course pictures of barack and the storied history of moneygall. Anyway we visited the vietnam equivalent and had a nice meal there, sat directly beside the now famous stools where Obama and Bourdain sat and talked about something or other - what did they have in common realistically. And also how is everyone else in the restaurant not a bodyguard or secret agent.

Along the way home stop to watch a match or something and get some food at a more local type of place and get some free tiger beer + merch. intention just to eat and perhaps one beer but the waiters are extremely good at their jobs and end up having closer to 6/7 and a good bit of translation madness with the youngest chap in there who was definitely going to be an excellent salesperson in his future. Not sure what else we did in hanoi, hostel had a pool so lay about in a haze in that as well for a while. It was here i lost my trusty blue shorts, left on a windowsill in the hostel. Those shorts had been used since age 21 on prettty much every bit of sun, swimming, warm weather and beach for the intervening 5 years, sad to see them go but hopefully they are in a better place now. they had great sturday material for the pocket lining and outer lining but also dried extremely quickly and the string held up right until the end, very disappointing to see them go. continue feverishly along the journey - to thailand next.

comments

Cheeky

The Vietnamese are cheeky and have no problem with being rude, proud to be vietnamese. Generally a grand bunch of lads but probably a bit sick of tourists, who can blame them. they love to sit out and eat alongside the street and just flake out there until well into the night, the streets always seem to be filled with people. it is a very different feeling compared to cambodia where there is a lot more visible poverty and a bit less of a relaxed feeling about the place and to thailand where it is a bit more hustle bustle .

Casualties

Having been on two extremely dodgy bus journeys with (miraculously) no casualties, crossed six lane roads with only a raised hand for protection and scuttled through hordes of mopeds ignoring traffic lights, it was only natural to wonder how many people got flattened in the nam every year. the number is roughly 10,000 which is not great. a little bit jarring. but not really a surprise. tough people.

Horrific beer

They have no idea how to make or serve beer - warm beer served in a bottle or can, glass with ice alongside. saigon beer makes the stomach turn often. hanoi beer even worse. tiger somewhat redeemable . there was another decent one in a small green can, forgotten the name. it is really not great but they do everything else pretty nice in terms of food. banh mi, pho all the noodles/meatball things and so on. very tasty but there is something sweet about a lot of it, not to my taste particularly. spicy stuff is nicely done though.

Conclusion

The only way to do vietnam properly is probably to get yourself a bike or moped and drive the whole way up the country, bussing it and railing it is grand but you miss so much - people, towns, villages, food, temples etc - that you just sail past and only catch glimpses of from behind a window.

They still dislike the chinese and other asians more than the americans (americans considered losers essentially), french (gave them baguettes/some western architecture as well as the colonialism) and british or at least that is the impression from the outside looking in. Would be worth doing a much longer trip here.

Photos to follow