The romance has gone...

...from commercial air travel I have decided. It's just not exciting any more. Once upon a time a flight to anywhere was an event... they wore suits and furs and jewels, they dined in actual dining rooms on the planes... they smoked cigars... now a flight to anywhere is just an inconvenience to get somewhere, and for the airlines you are just an inconvenience they tolerate to make money. The same, for me at least, can't be said for trains. But we will get to that.

The verdict on Saigon after three days was that it is a good town, but slightly confusing. For a town of six million it has a tiny city centre. Obviously your average Vietnamese person living in the suburbs with little money doesn't have a lot of use for a city centre, but for the number of foreigners packed into its little tourist area, there is actually very little to do at night. Most bars, what there are, close at midnight or 1am. Only two, the biggest and most western on the main strip, are open late. And they aren't even good, although Allezboo (hahahah... a-lez-bo) (ok I know it's pronounced Alliboo, stupid French) is not a bad spot to sit and watch the normal Saigon traffic chaos. Rob the Canadian, who I met on the bus down, and I walked for hours trying to find the nightlife. But there is none. We even got desperate enough to jump on a couple of motos (scooter taxis) and go flying off into the drizzly night to a place called Apocalypse Now, which a friend of Rob's had told him was a "bar he had to see"... it was certainly packed out but it only took a few seconds after walking in to figure out all the guys were western but all the girls were Vietnamese, and in very small dresses. We finished our beer and got straight back on motos to the other bar.

Yesterday was mostly walking around again (and some hopping and swearing after I stood on a chunk of concrete with a nail in it and drove it about 2cm into my heel... yet another reason I detest jandals), just seeing what there was to see. My train was booked and I could only get on the late one, 2330, so we ended up back at Allezboo, peoplewatching again, to the tune of a million car, bus, van, truck and scooter horns. If there are two lasting memories I will carry from Saigon, it will be the incessant (I mean incessant, all day and half the night, one on top of another on top of another) tooting, and the constant harrassment from frikkin street hawkers and beggars... it got to the point where you just wanted to punch the little kid trying to sell you gum right in the head, seriously. They come one after the other, regardless of if you are sitting, standing, walking, eating, whatever... Mr want a book? Mr buy some gum? Mister, one dollar? baby hungry... Mr want moto? Mr where you going? Mr what you looking for? Mr, tuktuk? You can literally (this happens) get out of a tuktuk somewhere, and a guy in another tuktuk will watch you get out, and ask if you want a tuktuk. I bought a couple of books for the train trip from one of the book girls, who walk around carrying a stack of books on their hip literally as tall as they are, tied together with white ribbon. There was a long and protracted bargaining session and after much arguing and her standing and pondering and pouting for about five minutes, she decided with much frowning to take what I was offering. She pouted some more, as if I was taking food directly from her children's mouths. She walked away, looking back, frowning, shaking her head. And then she went and replaced the two books I had bought from her stack with two others, and then came back and tried to sell me those two.

So after another long wait I got to the train station via taxi, and nearly ended up punching my driver in the mouth also when he tried to tell me the meter was not working and charge me 100,000 dong. The meter said 40,000. He gave up reasonably quickly though, I guess figuring he was going to struggle to get me and all my gear out of his back seat unless he gave me my change. And I was not in the best mood.

As I said I still love trains... arriving at a train station and walking across the platform to find your carriage as the great hulking beast sits there rumbling and fuming... it's still a cool feeling every time, it's an event... And then thundering off across the countryside, bringing traffic to a halt, watching the world fly by, day and night, roaring on and on, screeching and scraping and rumbling and tooting... The 2330 train north this night was fairly full, in the Vietnamese trains the bunks are in cabins of four (for the best ones) or six (for the cheaper harder ones) and arranged east-west across the carriage rather than the Malaysian and Thai style north-south down each side of the carriage. They also had no curtains, meaning while you didn't have people walking past you up and down the aisles all night, you also didn't have any privacy from the three strangers you were bunking with. And the constant side-to-side swaying of the train, which rocks you like a baby in the Malaysian and Thai bunks, kind of makes you feel like you are sleeping in a cocktail shaker in Vietnam. I ended up bunkmates with a French couple who must have booked early as they got the favoured bottom bunks, and a Vietnamese girl on the opposite top bunk. The Frenchies obviously had a selection of massive suitcases meaning I had to cram (with some effort) my pack under one of their bottom bunks and then couldn't get to it after. Anyway before long everyone went to bed, the Vietnamese girl so disturbed about sharing a cabin with foreigners she slept with her handbag still on and her reading lamp blazing all night. I had a pretty rubbish sleep, I was already a bit sweaty and smelly from the day and I couldn't change my clothes as they were under a sleeping Frenchman (come on, it's happened to all of us right?), and I didn't want to strip down to sleep for fear of the Vietnamese girl screaming rape at the sight of my bare chest, so I slept clothed and smelly and sweated further and woke with the dawn pretty grimy.

But what a dawn it was... by the time the sun tried to peek through the clouds we were on the coast and I awoke to look out from my top bunk onto huge waves breaking over rocks below us. I got up and managed to access the top of my pack for a change of clothes and some soap, and soon was feeling much less gross. Despite the state of the toilets, which is generally best not discussed on any South East Asian train. I had already decided reports of a 29 hour train journey were greatly exaggerated, I finally figured out after much puzzling that the silly cow I got my ticket from was reading the Saigon-Hanoi travel times not the Saigon-Hue ones.
The train journey was by far one of the highlights of the trip so far, not the train so much but the countryside. After the endless palm plantation followed by rice paddies of Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia, the Vietnamese landscape was awesome. I actually spent the entire day standing in the corridor to one side of the carriage, with the window open and my head and camera stuck out (for all the other windows were too filthy to take photos through). There was a lot of flooding around for it is the rainy season here and they have been getting it in bucketloads. But there were also farms and mountains and fog and coastline and waves and cliffs and waterfalls... it was great.

We rolled into Hue about 5, 16 hours rather than 29, and it is pretty cloudy and drizzly, despite not being far above the sea it feels like a mountain town, it is cool enough to be nearly chilly and for the first time I can walk around without sweating like an idiot. All the locals are in puffer jackets and scarves of course, but to me it is just pleasant after a month of raw heat. It seems like a very nice town, my opinions are usually formed fast and probably based on my mood, but apart from anther argument with a taxi driver (this one had his meter covered up as if he didn't have one and tried to tell me 50,000... I ended up paying 29,000) the locals seem truly nice. I got a cheap room and went and had a slightly pricey dinner, but I was sold when they said they specialised in traditional Hue-an food... interesting... unwrapped dumplings... so basically a plate covered in gooey gelatinous goo with various toppings... but the local soup that followed was much better.

I was a little disheartened about two hours after I got here when the first mammoth luxury tour bus rolled past, followed by two more... I was further disheartened when I went for a walk and saw the inferno of neon on the other side of the river... But I think for the most part my impressions will hold. It has a small-town feel, and the people are not pushy or impatient or annoying... except for the moto drivers, who are an infestation spanning Asia... Mr want moto? Mr where you going? Mr where you from? Mr I help you, one hour tour? (and then half-whispered...) Mr, want beautiful lady? Mr want marijuana? etc etc etc...

Tomorrow I will do some exploring and see what there is to see... obviously the nightlife is not huge as I have already done my wander and am back waffling on... I had better pack this up so the old Vietnamese lady who owns the place can sleep, I think I am the only person staying here... Righto, hope all is good, thanks for the emails and keep them coming...

Brief hi...

Thanks to those who have been sending news of the world, no my route doesn't take me back through Thailand, I am gutted I am missing the action though... there was some when I was there but it is definitely picking up. Been meeting a lot of people who were supposed to be going there now or flying home via Bangkok and they are all screwed!! As far as I know there is still not a great deal of danger to tourists etc though, it is just a political thing. Stuff like that can change quickly though

I am heading north tonight, it's a long haul, lot of country to cover. I hope all is well with everyone will check in again soon

Take it easy

Good afternoon Vietnam...

It is day 2 of Saigon and it is sticky and hot and wet and muggy... the rains just came in on schedule, not a downpoor like yesterday, just enough to make it damper and not enough to cool the place down. I have been on the ground in Saigon (for that is what everyone here still calls it despite Uncle Ho's name change) for right on 24 hours and I have to say it seems like a pretty awesome town. It's the right mix of everything for me, history both local and colonial, culture the same, friendly happy people who are used to having foreigners kicking around but also comfortable to run their own place their own way.

The trip from Phnom Penh was painless enough, I decided to go to sleep that night in my scummy overpriced hotel - with a bed made of a single slab of high density foam that I didn't even dent when I jumped on it - and decide what I was doing based on what time I woke up... as it happens I woke in good time to catch a ride to Vietnam and after wandering aimlessly for a while without finding a bus or travel agent I grabbed a tuktuk driver who understood "bus, Vietnam, go now"... he took me to a big travel agent who had a bus going at 0830, which was fine and good, but as we got back in the tuktuk to go to the bus I saw another office with signs for Phnom Penh - Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) and told him to stop... much to his annoyance as he was getting a commission from the other place (as they all do, they take you to whoever they have an "arrangement" with). The second place also had a bus going at 0830 and I just got a better feeling about it so I went with them... as it turned out I saw the first bus, which I would have been on, en route, and it was a double decker packed to the roof with locals and rather miserable looking tourists. Our bus on the other hand was a nice new small bus with good aircon and only about a dozen people on it...

I met a Canadian guy called Rob, since he happened to be in the tuktuk they sent to take me to the bus office, and we got along, so when we got dropped in the city we wandered a couple of budget hotels together (helped by "friendly" locals who grabbed everyone coming off the bus and dragged them to whatever guesthouse was paying them to drag people) and found a pretty good place with a couple of rooms... with the rains coming in and a six hour bus ride behind us we did the only sensible thing and found a bar and drank local beer.

Today I got up pretty early again and started exploring, heading to the War Remnants Museum before the tours got there... it was a predictably disappointing affair with a few tanks and a couple of aircraft and several small buildings with displays of the heroic Vietnamese people fighting off the evil oppressive French and American capitalists... while the war was definitely no fun for anyone, it's certainly interesting to see such a one-eyed perspective, considering how ridiculously pathetically PC all of us western folk are these days. The only redeeming feature was a display of photographs from famous war photographers from both sides, all of whom died during the conflict... but of course yet again, the only attrocities were the ones undertaken by the evil white folk.

That aside the rest of the city was cool, very lively and colourful and interesting. I saw most of the rest of the sights in about six hours of wandering but I can tell it would be a great place to hang around and just chill out. Sadly that is not an option this time around. I have a 29 hour train journey in my not too distant future... Time is ticking and if I want to achieve a few things in Hong Kong and China I will have to skip through Vietnam as I have with everywhere... such is what it is... take care all

Oh yes... and about last Tuesday...

My second post of the day... By popular demand, and while I am without anything to do...

Obviously the story of last Tuesday (it was Tuesday wasn't it?) didn't end with me standing on Hellfire Pass, and while that definitely was a defining moment, there is more to tell... And it led to one of those rare and unexpected situations you don't get unless you are travelling like I am.

As the darkness came in from below and to each side as it only does in the jungle, I had gone there to make my pilgrimage knowing full well I might never get the chance again, and also knowing full well there would be no way back to Bangkok, or even back to Kanchanaburi afterwards. The buses had stopped running south before I even got there and with the departure of the last tour van as I got there, there was nothing else but to walk to the road and sit and see what came past. At that point, to be honest, I was more than happy to sleep on the pass, I had precious little in the way of gear, but I did have insect repellent, possibly the one most vital thing to have... I wasn't going to starve or die of dehydration before the morning... and there was something strangely comforting about the place, despite everything.

With this in mind I walked my way back up to the road on the off chance I may get lucky... the first thing I saw was one of the little rashackle food huts you see on roadsides all over Asia, a thatched roof and no walls, a few tables and basic homecooked food for the locals. I wandered up and thanked the Almighty there was someone there, and promptly grabbed a coke and a bottle of water from the fridge. The lady running the place looked a little bemused and said several times before I understood "No bus Kanchanaburi!!" she led me by the arm and pointed to a clock "No bus!!" I smiled and nodded and tried to tell her I knew that... She watch as I wandered off in the direction of the road and headed south.

Various vehicles passed, mostly locals on scooters heading home, a few trucks and vans... several slowed for a look at me as they approached then carried on their way. I was doing the mental arithmetic, the nearest civilisation I had noted on the way up was about 10km away.. I was planning on waiting until I was out of sight of the food hut before jumping the fence and heading back around to find somewhere to put my head down, but just then I heard a scooter approach and slow behind me. I turned to see the lady from the food hut, and her husband, and their little kiddie of about 5, pull up beside me.. the conversation that followed is a bit hard to explain but mostly involved her talking to me in Thai asthough I understood her, and her husband and I swapping confused looks asthough neither of us really knew what she was on about. I made the international "walking fingers" sign and various others to try to communicate that I was going to walk to a hotel I had seen.. she wasn't having any of this, and started telling me to get on the scooter... I smiled and nodded and shook my head and said I was ok and tried to walk away several times but to no avial, she wasn't having it, and they obviously didn't want me walking down the road in the dark alone. I think I got across the idea that I was going to find a hotel and she decided this was a good idea, but after much to-ing and fro-ing it became clear I wasn't going to be allowed to carry on alone. With significant concerns re structural integrity, and having the deaths of a young family on my conscience, I climbed onto the back of the scooter (it wasn't even a big scooter) and kiddie, mum, dad and I puttered off into the night, weaving disturbingly a bit here and there down the winding roads, and much to the delight of other locals we passed... after about five minutes we pulled off the road and up a driveway. I initially thought they meant for me to stay there the night, but we established they had taken me there as they thought one of the ladies could speak English. She couldn't... but she knew someone who could... kind of... so a couple of abstract cellphone calls later we established they had a friend who had a car who could take me to a hotel. But they didn't. The friend with the car couldn't make it, although I at first thought he said he could, and there was a period of some waiting... EVENTUALLY we established that the dad would in fact take me the rest of the way via scooter, and payment (which I had asked the sort-of-English-speaking guy about) was entirely up to me... I thanked everyone profusely, feeling worse and worse for the drama and wishing I had stayed on the pass.

Dad and I again whizzed off, stopping to top up with gas at a "petrol station" (two pumps with a shelter). I tried to give Thai dad some money and he refused and refused, when he finally relented he tapped the dollar value on the pump, indicating I could pay the 80 baht (NZ$4) in gas... I shook my head and pressed 200 baht into his hand, and he looked at it and his face lit up. He tried to give it back but I refused. Without words to be able to express anything he just smiled and we climbed back on the scooter, and eventually after some time got to the hotel sign I had seen. The River Kwai Village Hotel. Sounded nice enough, and from the sign I guessed was fairly modest, with a cheap room in the sticks for a place to lay my head. Until I saw the bigger sign. The River Kwai Village Hotel Jungle Resort. And then I saw the security barrier... and the guardhouse... but Thai dad on the front turned and smiled and went "Yes, yes?" and I felt guilty so I said "Yes" and tried to grin like I meant it... I knew I was in more trouble when the double laned asphalt drive over the rise and down the hill was wider and better than the public road we came off... and there were signs for ATV tours, riverboats, jungle walks, etc... I knew I was in even more trouble when we passed the six double decker tour buses outside the drivers quarters, which I had from a distance hoped was the hotel... I knew I was in REAL trouble when we wound down a hill to the river through manicured jungle to be greeted by a huge complex, three more shiney tour buses unloaded very well dressed white folk, and a large elaborately lit entrance way into an expansive lobby... Thai dad stopped short on the scooter as the tour bus crowds began to turn and look... I shook his hand and we smiled and said things that neither of us understood a word of, and he rode off into the dark..

I turned and regarded this new and unexpected development. I knew it wasn't going to go well, and considered walking back up the drive, but I just felt guilty, it seemed kind of like throwing the kindness of my Thai samaritans back in their faces... so I sucked it up and turned and strolled casually toward the lobby. You have to paint the mental picture here... It's dark and these folk in very nice clothes are coming off their air conditioned luxury coaches, probably direct from the airport, at a resort in the middle of nowhere, and being handed iced beverages from tables set up outside the front of the hotel as they are directed to the balcony restaurant overlooking the river. A lonely scooter putts up behind them carrying a local chappy and a large tanned white guy, filthy and smelly, with scruffy hair, five days stubble, a sweat and dirt stained tshirt, long pants and hiking boots. The dirty white chap gets off the scooter, shoulders his bag, shakes the brown chaps hand, and then strolls past into the lobby...

And into the lobby I went... I knew I was in further trouble when I saw the gift shop... and the jewellery shop... and the lounge areas... and the somewhat smarmy and condescending guy behind the counter showed me photos of the rooms and asked various questions I will not go into... so to spite him I dug into my bag and pulled out a wad of (almost all my) money and told him I would happily take one of his rooms... and so I did...

I tried to avoid the wealthy clientelle as much as possible, getting many curious looks whenever we crossed paths... at first it was actually good fun obviously, it all felt rather Indiana Jones...... I had no spare clothes so could only shower and put back on my damp and stinking rags, and not being able to afford the food in the plush looking restaurant and being conscious enough of my state to not inflict it on others, I retired to the pool bar where I had a couple of beers, after the staff had quietly gone to the reception to make sure I was in fact a guest and could pay for them... I did of course have a bit of fun, raising eyebrows at one table of French folk who I kept catching looking at me over their cocktails, and talking quietly at the same time... Obviously I was something of a mystery, sitting alone looking rugged and weathered.. or possibly I was doing something to ruin the mood of the place... I eventually tired of catching their looks and decided to take an active part in their indignation by blowing cigarette smoke into the fan whenever it pointed in their direction...

Running out of money all round and conscious I still had to get back to Kanchanaburi... and then Bangkok... the next day, I retired to my nice (though not exactly five star) room.

I had asked the guy at the counter if there were vans going south the next day.. he looked me up and down again and said there were local buses if I walked up to the road... as I thought... So that is what I did, the next morning as tourbus after tourbus thundered past, off on their merry tours, I walked back up the hill to the road and sat on the side and waited til a bus came. Back in Kanchanaburi I searched in vain for a minibus heading back, but they were all waiting til late afternoon for their passengers, so another local bus later, and mid afternoon I got back to Bangkok, and my first meal in 46 hours... and so it came to pass...From Bangkok to Kwai to stranded on Hellfire Pass, to the milk of human kindness from unknown friends.. to a night in a resort.. that was last Tuesday and Wednesday

Okay, it may have been wrong of me...

...to brand Phnom Penh a sh!thole after being here for thirty minutes (note I didn't say I was wrong, I said it may have been wrong of me...)

But having spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the place... well, it's basic at best... which is what I expected but I was in a bad mood getting off the bus from Siem Reap, which I caught this morning, and which was packed full and uncomforable... a Cambodian man fell asleep on me... he didn't even take me dancing first...

Siem Reap on the other hand was a "nice town", I hate to admit but despite it's blatant commercialism (over one million visitors a year go to see the Angkor temple area) it has retained something of itself and its people. And the residents are nice and hospitable and even funny and good to get to know.. they aren't dead in the eyes like I have to say I think the Thais are... they haven't yet sold their souls for the dollars, and I hope, and I think, that the Cambodian government may have caught it in time... The place is gloriously free of the diseases that infect Thailand... McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Starbucks and a 7/11 convenience store on every street. The Cambodians enjoy their visitors, they don't yet resent them, they still see them as people, and it is reciprocated.

Anyway, yesterday I went and saw Angkor Wat, the vast complex of temples and palaces etc dating back hundreds of years from various dynasties and kingdoms... it is impressive indeed, despite obviously being inundated with tour buses of every nationality. There were thousands of people but the enormity of the park is such you can occasionally find a quiet spot, if only briefly, and maybe snap a photo that doesn't feature a fat pasty old couple dabbing their faces and staring in disbelief as their guide tells them they should climb the stairs of whatever attractoin you are at. I hired a tuktuk early in the morning and my driver and I did the rounds at warp speed, the initial tour we did was supposed to take a full day and we knocked it out in four hours, he cutting the traffic queues and weaving in and out of pasty old people to the temple, telling me what the name was, me jumping off and powerwalking up, down, around and through it, camera snapping away, then back on the tuktuk waiting on the other side and Warp 9 to the next pile of rocks... so we got around a goodly number of places in the burning hot sun and after about six hours I was drenched in sweat and ready to pass out, and we had seen all the major sights, so I let 3502 (for that was his number and that is what we shall call him, for I forget his name) knock off early and I retired to a pub for a couple of recovery beers. While fascinating and vast I fail to understand how some people do three day tours of the place... I mean after half a day all the piles of rocks looked the same...

Anyway, worth doing to sa you have and I will be spending months sorting photos when I get home. Today I sorted my Vietnamese visa which has been a bit of a saga (various reports said it took anything from two days to ten) but in the end just involved me walking to the embassy (a LOT further than I thought) after a fairly devastating rainstorm and submitting some details, and obviously they liked me because while they sent all the Brits and various others away and told them to come back tomorrow, they told me to sit and I was handed a nice shiny visa about 30 minutes later. I was planning on a couple of nights here but with time ticking and really precious little more to actually see in this town I may look at a country change tomorrow, if I can find something with wheels going in the right direction... phew... anyway, that's the situation folks... I am going back to my scungy hotel for a cold beverage...