Hoi An - Mui Ne - Saigon

Two local girls by the lotus lake at the sand dunes, Mui Ne



Have just discovered that computers in most internet cafes here have no CD drives so while I have 2 CDs bursting with photos, I can't look at them nor can I post them on this website.but will try and do so whenever I do find a computer with CD drive..........

Anyway! Am in Saigon - not the capital city of Vietnam but certainly where it's all at. Arriving in Saigon from Mui Ne (quiet beach resort) I could feel the buzz of the place even in the confines of an air conditioned bus. It's a proper Asian metropolis with all kinds from trendy blond-highlighted camp characters to conical hatted, pyjamaed fruit sellers, from rich businessmen to impoverished newly arrived migrants, from fashionable locals to sweaty backpackers... This city has it all. Add on the thousands of motorbikes. I thought the roads of Hanoi were busy... Pah, children could play on them.... It's in Saigon that you see what busy really means. As Trich approaches roundabouts on her moped, she negotiates mopeds coming from her right, her left, from in front of us and behind us... Thousands of them. Throw in the odd bus and a handful of cars. Not forgetting having to deal with her wide-eyed petrified friend clutching onto her for dear life.... However, you do relax after a while because, as I said about Hanoi, the moped system does somehow work....
Staying with Trich in the gorgeous house she shares with 2 fellow Christina Noble workers and taking advantage of the domestic comforts while I can - crashed out on the sofa watching Sex and the City all night. I would have watched a movie but all the ones I tried had the most atrocious English subtitles - you know the kind you get on Asian pirated DVDs... 'I go shop out with for food alien walk invasion killign home goode'... In other words, completely indecipherable. In fact, that'd be a good gameshow question. Put on a DVD with these subtitles and ask people to guess what’s really happening.

The Clothes-holic Nirvana
Rewinding a few days, Trich and I went from Hue to Hoi An, an absolutely delightful town a few hours south. A former port, its architecture shows Chinese, Japanese, French and Buddhist influences… It has several good restaurants, including the Café des Amis overlooking the river, where the former South Vietnamese army chef cooks two set menus a day depending on what he feels like cooking and what’s in season… The options are ‘seafood’ and ‘vegetarian’ and you get 5 different dishes of the most delicious Vietnamese fare… Wontons (some kind of dumpling using rice flour, I think) with shrimp, fish cakes, Cau Lao (local noodle dish…?) with lots of leafy herbs, rice cakes, spring rolls and so on…
But, for a clothes-holic, the best thing about Hoi An is its tailor shops…………… oh my god…… Everywhere you go, shops full of all kinds of fabrics just waiting to be moulded into fabulous outfits… After initial shock at the realisation of what this town had to offer, I was like a child at Christmas… Pulling out all kinds of fabrics in different colours and patterns and dreaming up outfits. Trich wasn’t much better – she tried to restrain me, but being as excited as I was, failed completely. But, as we sat down to discuss prices with the tailor, our come down hit, and did it hit big… We realized we’d both been robbed – I had nearly 80 euro in Dong (the local currency) taken while Trich was missing dollars… We were furious both at being robbed but also at being so stupid at allowing it to happen. However, after the shock subsided, we realised it wasn’t as bad as it initially seemed – the cash was taken from our wallets so still had our bags and cards. Also, the experience gave us an insight into how things are done in Vietnam. We asked that the police be contacted but the police said they couldn’t come if it was just a robbery(!) but that we could search the shop and its staff… Erm, maybe not… So we sat down and negotiated a deal in which they made our clothes more cheaply than first agreed on. All very informal… We then went and cheered ourselves up with good food and cocktails.

Tropical beaches and tropical storms
After Hoi An, Trich headed back to Saigon and I went down to Mui Ne, a beach resort for a couple days on the beach. Relaxing isn’t the word to describe my first evening… A huge tropical hurricane hit just after dusk - it was really spectacular with flashes of lightening highlighting the outlines of thatched roofs and tall palm trees. But the electricity in the place I was staying in went out rendering the place into complete pitch, and I mean pitch, black darkness… Tropical storms, I can deal with (and enjoy), but pitch black darkness, now that's asking too much. I was just like ‘fuuuuuuuuuck’ and started groping around my bag looking for my torch which, on discovery, provided a small dim but very very very comforting beam of light. After panicked demands under the dim glare of said torch, the proprietor assured me that he’d have the electricity back up and running ‘in a minute’. As a Vietnamese minute can be anything from a minute to an hour, I hotfooted it to the bar in a resort run by an Italian couple and attended by a German couple. Never have I been so so happy to see English speaking Westerners. Had a couple cocktails and found out how the Italians came to open the bar (they came to Mui Ne from London, loved the peace and quiet etc etc) and discovered that doing a BA in psychology in Germany takes up to 6 years (Fi, you’ll be happy to hear…!!) The storm subsided and I gingerly made my way back to my room but the following day moved to the resort with the bar – it had a swimming pool and direct access to the beach. Went on a tour of the sand dunes, red canyons and trekked up a stream for 4 km that day but Mui Ne, despite its recommendations from several people, was boring… It was completely dead and doesn't have much to do apart from sunbathe... Rather than having a town with a definite 'centre', it's just a long road with resorts so its hard to see where one can meet people. The beach, while nice and tropical with its palm trees and white sand, is actually quite dirty… In short, Mui Ne wasn't for me so I cut my stay there a day short and came down to Saigon.

Typing up this blog has been an interesting task. The keyboard keeps switching and producing Chinese or Vietnamese characters on absolutely no encouragement from me. In addition, it keeps changing to the ‘Dvorak’ keyboard layout – Google tells me that this is a new layout, so developed because the one we use (called the ‘QWERTY’ layout in an almost sneering manner) is not a 'comfortable' layout. Well, let me tell you, Dvorak, whoever you are, that I am comfortable with it and would appreciate being left to type in it in peace…

Adios for now! xxx