Oli Reveals: XVIII (18)

Another installment of Oli’s round-the-world emails:

Hi to all,

Holy cow, Saigon is one crazy city!! The bus journey across the border was
surprisingly painless, 12 hours on the road seems to be a normal stretch for
me now. Hooked up with a Japanese guy for this leg of my journey, nice to
have company again! Entered this sprawling city right at the start of the
TET celebrations (Vietnamese New Year), so hotel prices were up, traffic was
almost unbearable and paper lanterns/ flowers were everywhere. Stayed 4
nights for my sins and did the usual tourist stuff like checking out a bunch
of pagodas, history/war museums, china town district (which was quite
disapointing as it was quite “diluted” and didn’t feel like the crazy world
of other china towns in NY, Singapore or Bangkok) and the old colonial
district (ironic western commercialised area with colonial buildings flying
communist Russian and Vietnamese flags). The war museum was the highlight
for me, as the photos captured (what I thought) the essence of the Vietnam
war, with cool action shots, casualties and basically painted a very vivid
picture of brutality, desperation and tragidy. The Mekong delta was nice to
see for a day, away from all the cities and temples I’ve overdosed on in the
last few days. Just cruised along the river and explored some local fishing
villages and took in the view of all the rice paddy fields in the area.

Going back to my “crazy” statement, it’s because this city has 4.5 million
scooters conjesting every road (and sidewalk), gridlock at midnight isn’t so
normal?!! Then there’s the street hawkers selling foods of EVERY description
from the roadside, people carrying a family of four/potted trees/ sacks of
rice on their scooters, shops selling silk-pvc
pipes-”massages”-fruit-woodcarvings-bus tickets. Walking across the road is
fun too, you’ve got to slowely walk across 6 lanes of traffic that NEVER
stops and mearly junks around you, if your smart!! I honestly think that if
had the inclination, you could walk with your eyes closed and be o.k (as
long as you go slow so everyone can guage where you’re gonna be).
Everything’s on the verge of spiralling out of control, kept in balance by
some unknown force known as the physche of the Vietnamese. The assault of
traffic fumes, vehicle horns and people shouting everywhere is so
delightable when you combine the smells of rubbish, sickly fruit, burning
stuff and you can’t speak any Vietnamese to unravel the mess. The craze and
confusion then increased for new year’s eve, the fireworks were so pretty
and the whole city was choaked with people, so it was good to leave after
that, I couldn’t take it anymore!!

More driving and I ended up on Vietnam’s east coast, the famous beach resort
of Nga Trang. I only stuck around here for a couple of days, as I didn’t
like how touristic the place was, a kinda Spanish beach resort infested with
backpackers and tour groups getting burnt on the beach and gladly being
overcharged for everything. Nice beach, but it was time to move on. After
a tyre repair and a few of us bump starting a coach at 3am in the morning,
it was nice to finally arrive in the qaint little river town of Hoi An.
This is where I am at the moment, where it seems that the buildings are
stuck in a time warp, with their aging wooden frames and colonial
architecture being up to 200 years old. Lots of little streets to explore,
basically predestrianised bar the odd scooter, with 1001 tailors to measure
people up, cute cafes and restaurants, more pagodas and some really nice
local crafts to buy. At night, this place is ablaze with paper laterns and
the sounds and smells of some great vietnamese cooking on every corner. At
this time, the riverfront is the best place to be, having a coffee gazing
across to the softly-lit buildings on the other side of the river with a
nice gentle breeze taking away the “strains” of the day and the humidity.

The beach is only 5km away, so I spent my first afternoon there, a nice
quiet whitesand beach with locals selling fresh local fruits and seafood.
Dining on the riverfront is another highlight for me, as well as my
motorbike taxi ride yesterday to some cool Cham ruins (these guys didn’t use
mortar to build their religious sites), the Marble mountains (mountain cave
network with temples carved into the marble rock), the port city of Denang
and China Beach (where American G.I’s used to have their R&R). Sights
aside, the journey between these places were so beautiful; driving through
lush emerald green rice paddy fields punctuated with small villages with
livestock running around and farmers wearing the famous conical hats,
working the land without any sign of mechanisation. It gratefully took the
whole day to see all of those places, a vivid sight that is a marked
difference from the west. For me, this was the main reason to visit Vietnam,
to motorbike through the green countryside without a soul around.

I’m gonna collect my suit now and figure out the rest of my day. Also need
to sort out a visa to Laos….

All the best,
Oli