Asia Returns

I realized that, upon returning from Asia, I have very little to say about my five weeks travelling there. Even while I was updating from abroad, all I managed to do was tell you which airport I was currently at and what countries and cities I had just been to. Friends have excitedly asked, "So how was the trip?!" to which I have responded, "It was good" and not much more. It's not that I had a bad time and it's not even that I had such a fantastic time that I'm speechless about it. I suppose I just find it hard to tell stories without something sparking a memory, like going through my photos or journal would. But because I love my bloggy blog and my internet peeps so much, I'm going to put forth an extra effort by sharing some photos, journal excerpts (in italics) and little tidbits here and there. I present Volume One: Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City (henceforth referred to as HCMC).

My brain is reminding me that this is probably a bad place to start documenting my trip. Going through my journal, I remember how we got off to a bad start, Vietnam and I. The HCMC airport is probably the worst airport I've ever been in. Disorganization can be cool and romantic in a spontaneous way and all, but the lack of structure here certainly doesn't have the same charm. Then when we got into the city and settled in...I swear Ho Chi Minh is the city that never sleeps. I've been awake at 2am, at 5am and there are still people on the streets, on their mopeds, in their cars, constantly HONKING. It never stops. If it wasn't for jet lag, I'd never fall asleep. And then there was that time that we paid $15 for a cab ride when it should have been $1.50. And then that other time when we paid $18 when it should have been $1.80....You'd think that my family, having been there before (my parents! having been born and raised there!) could figure out the fares on the meters enough to see through the cab drivers' bullshit when they overcharged us. Nope.

Every time we returned to HCMC I felt that cynicism...I know that there's a local vs. tourist sentiment. As tourists, we get picked on and ripped off - we are prey. And I hate that. I wish I could change the way things worked, if only so that we/I could enjoy ourselves a bit more. I'm just disheartened to find that people aren't that sincere or kind at heart, despite my desperate want for them to be, and even more disheartened at having to live in it for the next little while.

HCMC and I eventually learned to tolerate each other and perhaps appreciate each others' quirks and cultural differences. It got me thinking and writing a lot, which I guess is a good thing - more of those thoughts to come later. Regardless, I enjoyed (most of) my time there and have a feeling that it won't be too long before we meet again.

Okay, picture time. Here's some of what one would see if one were to walk around HCMC (click to enlarge!):

 
Right: The difference between the rich and the poor is staggering.

 
Left: Women shielding themselves from the sun.
Right: I really, really like this photo.

 
Left: This is the oncoming traffic, headed right towards you as you cross the street.

This is what you'd see if you were somewhere high, looking down or around:

 
Left: This is the coffee place where my dad got his caffiene fix in the mornings, and at night. Vietnamese iced coffee is really, really yummy.
Right: Good morning, Vietnam.

 
Left: This was the building that our first hotel room faced. It might have been some sort of hotel once too, but it looks like the weather took it's toll on it.
Right: If you turned right, facing away from the mildew-y building, you saw this.

And this is what you'd see if you drove by:

 
Left: That's totally a moped with about a dozen live chickens tied to it. Live. They were still alive. No doubt he was taking them to some sort of slaughterhouse...I found it very disturbing, especially when one of the chickens lifted its head and started looking around.

Lots of people, lots of mopeds, cone-shaped straw hats, street vendors, lots of tall, skinny and colourful buildings side by side. I particularly liked noticing the remnants of the French occupation:

 

Notes on that French occupation thing: You can see it in the architecture, you can see it in the large number of Catholic churches that pepper the countryside among the Buddhist altars, or in the statues of the Virgin Mary in front of people's homes. But the strangest thing is that the French managed to influence the way the Vietnamese understand English. I was trying to have a conversation with a nice Vietnamese woman and she offered to take a photo of me and my surroundings. I told her that I had already taken lots of pictures. She didn't understand and asked again if I wanted photos. I said I did it already, that I was done. After several minutes of struggling, I noticed that she understood the word "photo", but not "picture" even though they mean the same thing. I later came upon the realization that she understood words with French roots. For example, she understood "photo" but not "picture". She could say "finish" but didn't know what I meant by "done". The Vietnamese know "cinema" and "discotheque", not "movie theater" or "club". Neato, eh?

The city smells a lot like Over Populated. You can smell the heat, the people, the food at the markets, the dried and salted seafood, mildew, rotting vegetables and sewage. The humidity doesn't help either. We, funnily enough, had lunch at a KFC located close to the market that was our next stop. The stairwell smelled sickenly of dried shrimp; I called it "Seafood Sewer". It's a new scent, reminiscent of the streets of Vietnam. The streets were so dirty that I ended up throwing away two pairs of flip-flops at the end of the five weeks.... Daddy took us on a journey looking for toys and we ended up walking on the dirtiest 'streets' I've ever seen. What was once garbage was now part of the street - decayed/decaying and mashed into the pavement either by passers-by or motorbikes. The only good thing was that they evened out the road a bit by filling in the holes. Then there was the compost pile that obviously just started as a garbage pile, and over time, began to compost despite the lack of intent at it's conception. It was bumpy and wet as liquids squished beneath our light-as-possible steps. Mum was lucky that her shoes had a heel, though the elevation didn't prevent a chunk from being stuck to her shoe. I looked for pieces of brick, wood, or anything that still looked solid to step on, lest I be resigned to a similar fate. At one point, I had to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation and asked simply, "Why are we walking through a garbage dump?" Luckily, it didn't smell bad - though I might have been holding my breath. Later on that same day, my dad accidentally stepped on my foot in a fumbly exit from our hotel..."We just walked through a garbage dump! There's a smear on my foot!"...

And this is where I do something special:



YouTube has this nasty server that's a bit flimsy and my video isn't always here...keep your fingers crossed and keep checking?
11:51 pm