Farewell 2008, a.k.a oh god its 2009..

This must be the most unanticipated new year in living memory.

Anyway - for me, 2008 wasn't actually that bad. Each new year I cringe a little bit and think well, god knows what will lie in store for us this year. The powers that be have their little master plan worked out for us, day by day like a filofax, and we're just sitting ducks waiting to live it.
Really, i don't make a big deal of new years - its a marker of time where we sit and take stock of whats happened in the last few hundred days, similar to birthdays, only with birthdays you deal with the added stress that you've officially AGED.

In terms of resolution, well i only really have one - short-hand, splurge more. In detail, this means using my money smartly on the necessities but spending more on tangible, fun, memorable stuff. Locally, that will mean checking out more bars, clubs, restaurants (since London is so good for this stuff i might as well see what the fuss is about). More ambitiously, its yet more holidays, experiences, trying new hobbies... i guess this resolution sort of encompasses a lot of things. Think of it as last minute fears of turning 25 (quarter century!!) hence packing in as much 'youthful' stuff as possible, whilst laughing in the face of the credit crunch..

Speaking of which, I heard that the grand opening of the Atlantis Hotel at the Palm, (man made island in the shape of a Palm tree - oh c'mon!) Dubai cost about 7 times more than the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony? 15mins of 10,000 computer controlled fireworks, every celeb on the face of the earth and a lavish light display, stretching 520km and all visible from space - thats what £12m buys ya..

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: Pho Pho Tasty

And finally i think I may decide to blog on my little travels over in Ho Chi Minh City..

Ho Chi Minh - big, stinking, bustling, psychotic megalopolis of a city. Well, thats how it felt. Imagine the streets of Rome, ducking and diving all the cars on the roads, only instead of cars its mopeds and instead of roads its EVERYWHERE. Those pavements aren't safe I tell ya. I distinctly remember spending most of my walking route on the side of the road by the kerb, next to all the muddy puddles of dirt and dead rat which piled up rather nicely after a bit of rain. (Ok the dead rat i exaggerate on- i only saw one but it was hefty.)

This is not to say I did not enjoy HCM. The food (if i excuse the bout of FP for the time being) was fantastic, as you expect it to be, and i really couldn't get sick of the Beef Pho, it was sooo good. The Mekong Delta tour was really fascinating too and i got to hold a python! Also, it was really interesting twisting in and out of the nooks and crannies of the indoor markets - theyre very similar to the HK and Bangkok ones only somewhat mankier and even more crammed with crap. Gesturing furiously with fingers and with the god-given gift of calculators displaying numerals EVERYONE can understand, i managed to buy a few small items but i was never that great at the haggle.

Left - With bloodshot eyes at 6am, a steaming mug of extortionally priced tea whilst we wait at Singapore's budget terminal. So budget they actually just named it 'Budget Terminal'.

Right - EK can't handle it but I await with glee in Departures. Check out the festive lollipop themed lobby. Even though its budget, trust Singapore to make it squeaky clean with free internet access.

I do recommend Tiger Airways - they don't faff around and offer you bingo tickets in flight (like Ryanair), they don't plaster the lining of the overhead baggage compartments with tacky advertising (like Ryanair), they don't parp a horn at you if the flight lands on time (like Ryanair, i'm told - it appears i've never taken a Ryanair flight that landed on time) and they don't have an annoyingly camp Irish tannoy message blaring out at you every 10 seconds. (you get the picture). However, I must say (and I will in upcoming Bali blog) that Lion Air beats them all hands down. Free check in luggage PLUS a meal on board - i'm a fan.

The flight to HCM took around two hours, and culminated in me getting rather giddy and whipping my camera out at the seat window when in sight of the vast, winding Saigon River. "Vietnam. Coooool."

Anyhoo, we got a cab out to the hotel and I stared avidly out the window the whole time. Really there wasn't much to see except for a sea of mopeds and a hearse up ahead of us (see right)- compare this vehicle to the sombre, morose sight of our old fashioned miserable looking things and it tells you a lot about how Asians view funeral processions (lets celebrate this guys' life and give them a lavish reception for the afterlife) compared to Westerners (this sucks. lets drive really slow and stop traffic so everyone knows we're mourning). OK thats harsh, but its pretty cool how once you kick the bucket you'll be assured of your last ride in a pyschedelic party van.

Since i'm writing this darn thing so long after I went I'm not going to try and remember what order I did or saw things. Nor do I think anyone cares. Ergo.. During our time there we frequented Ben Thanh market on several occasions. Conveniently situated between our hotel and everything else, it was a typically jammed market chock full of clothes, kitchenware, food, counterfeit DVDs, jewellery and other assorted knick knacks. Here's me and EK sitting down for my first of many bowls of Pho - and it was bloody good too. So good it warrants its own slightly-larger picture on the right. I think I had maybe four bowls of Pho during my stay - the beauty is in its simplicity and its humble appearance, which hides the sheer awesomeness of its taste. I hear the prices are actually slightly jacked up nowadays, maybe when they smell a tourist coming. But a pound for a decent meal or whatever it cost is still damn justified in my books so I won't complain.


Another more famous market we popped into was the larger Binh Tay market, which was actually a wholesale market. We had to take a bus to get to this one, as I am so proudly demonstrating on the left. It was more of the same, albeit on a slightly bigger and more hectic scale. I bought a couple of things, like a 70p mini pestle and mortar for the housemate (who is now using it as a storage device for other useless bits and pieces i got him) and some cheap pieces of jewellery which had to be bought in bulk in order to convince the Vietnamese we were worth their time. The thing I remember most about this place was the big muvva of a cockroach I saw quietly encroaching on my space but thankfully I shrieked and legged it before it got too scary.

BINH TAY MARKET: A MAGICAL WORLD OF CRAP YOU REALISED YOU MAY NEVER HAVE NEEDED

Amongst our other escapades, I did the obligatory poses against the obligatory tourist sights, and because they weren't all that interesting but because I want you to know that i did them, here they are all together:

Clockwise from top left - In front of People's Committee building, inside Saigon's Central Post Office, outside the Notre Dame Basilica, outside Doung Dong Khoi street, the exterior of the Post Office in all its pompously French gothic grandeur.

Can't mention HCM without mentioning there was a ton of good food there. And, even though I would have vehemently disagreed at the time, it was probably worth it for the Salmonella. Who knew poison could taste so good?

A selection of food - Above: Science of consuming a Vietnamese spring roll. Classic tiger beer to wash down a bowl of garlic BBQ grilled scallops. God that was tasty. Pigeon heads for lunch (taste like small duck) and some rather dubious Coconut candy. Also, is it me or does it look like my hairline is receding?

Since i was a complete newbie to the area, we spent one whole day on a river tour on the Mekong Delta which I actually recommend. Although yes you're part of a tour group and all, there's no realistic way of seeing the islands or handling a python without doing it. (Unfortunately for me this coincided with the day after the poisoned bowl of noodles, so it must be a tribute to how much i enjoyed the tour that I still think positively of it when it was so frigging blighted. Let that be a lesson to anyone who sneaks out past midnight for a cheeky snack across the road.)

We had to take a 1.5hr bus ride in order to get to the port. At this point I barely felt like I could get out of the hotel and was seriously considering crawling back into bed but chickened out. My stomach was doing backflips but I'll gloss over such details. When we finally got out of that godforsaken minibus and onto the boat (poor tourguide, trying to be all smiley and funny for everyone whilst I scowled and ducked under the seat to minimise the nausea), I felt better with the breeze. That didn't last all that long once the boat started chugging and rocking. Can you see the strain on my face? What you don't know is that EK was also ill but kept it together much much better then me, until we got home and she pretty much collapsed and felt it twice as hard as I had. Anyway, at this point I had still managed to retain my dignity and not chuck up by the side of the boat, although I was seriously considering it. out to crawl up and die. There were quite a few islands on the way to ours - Unicorn, Phoenix and Tortoise. Well with those names, of course we didn't manage to reach Tortoise Island. Haha. Ha. The one we wanted was Dragon Island. Anyway, we hopped onto dry land, and it was pretty cool - you could see the island had been converted to tourist territoru but I enjoyed it because it was a big contrast to HCM city - so much more green, the patter of earth beneath your feet, tree trunks and branches in every direction. The tour guide tThe tour group was pretty small, perhaps ten or so people. The tour guide (with the baseball cap) was pretty young, mid 20s I'd reckon, and it was his brother's company who ran the tour. He knew his stuff since he'd done his tour a millions times over but enjoyed it quite a lot and it paid his way through studying. I wouldn't have known this had he not been social and proceeded to talk to me, when I wished he would just go away cos I felt like I was abook us to the 'Coconut candy factory' which was not so much a factory but a hut with a few tables, a coconut grinder and mixer. EK was not too excited at the Coconut grinder (right) despite best efforts of tour guide. It was interesting for me however - I now have come to appreciate the value of Coconuts to the indigenous rural communities. Nothing is wasted - the husks of the Coconuts are used as fuel, and in the olden days the tough little things served as rice bowls.

After sitting down for a cup of honey tea and a smidgen of banana wine (it tasted like whiskey - i regret not buying some), a local brought out a python to the dining masses and there was a flurry of activity has everyone ran as fast as possible away from the big scary snake. Except me, who made a beeline for the python after being told it had been defanged and hence was very cool but very docile. The best way I could describe its texture is like handling one of those crocodile-skin handbags, loaded with rocks, cos it was pretty heavy. When they put it around my neck, it kept wriggling its head or neck or waist whatever body part it equated to, so I stuck it out in front of me as demonstrated in the first picture. See my pride at having tamed the wild, ravenous beast in photo no2. And to prove that I was really there, here are a couple of snaps of me on the island, just before another nausea attack.

It was about this time that we hopped onboard the boat again onto another neighbouring island, that the food poisoning hit me again and once I stepped off that boat I took a few wobbly steps and paid my respects to the great river the only way Salmonella knows how. When you're that sick, we all know we don't give a damn about dignity or shamelessness or anyone else around - its all about bending over the Pier and getting all that evil out of you. Luckily the tourists had the decency not to look too digusted and just hurried along. I didn't spot any dirty looks afterwards either.

That queasy feeling lasted for the remainder of the trip, so about 2.5 days. It was needless to say, a real b*tch, especially as we were worried we wouldn't make it to Bali if we stayed so ill. Anyway, after that little incident, I declined to sit down and eat the Vietnamese lunch on offer (grilled fish or something else that made me want to gag) and instead opted to lay a while in one of the hammocks nearby. This was the moment the tour guide decided to come over and tell me his life story. Really nice guy, and he was totally flirting ("ah you should date a tour guide, then you can see the world!") but fortheloveofgodman can't you see I'm ill and am making short closed-answer sentences in order to signal to you to go away and let me sleep?

Anyway, I had pretty much recovered to a state of 'Quite dead still but won't throw up' at that point, so on we went. We walked to another terraced dining area, where we were treated to some fruits (watermelon, papaya, dragonfruit, pineapple) which I suspiciously eyed and tenatively picked at, and a little traditional singing from the waitresses who obviously had done this many, many times for the gawping sunburnt tourists judging by the boredom on their faces. It was very charming though, and I was uber impressed by the old men playing the instruments with them, one of then being an Erhu or Zhonghu..? ( i couldnt count the number of strings)
Check out me and my market fruits on the left. Don't I look like the proper local eh? Ok fine its totally cringeworthy but I figured since I lost all dignity about an hour ago by the side of the pier I might as well continue looking like a numpty and take a Kodak moment at the same time...

Lastly, to end my misery, we took a long winding boat ride through the narrow canalways, back to the boat we arrived on. There was a lady who rowed at the front and one at the back who i guess controlled the direction of the boat more. I'd just like to say these rowers are freakin heroic for doing this day in day out for tourists, cos I sat at the front and felt exhausted just watching her row. There needed to be 4 to a boat (not including the rowers who sat perched on the flat panels on the ends) so the tour guide sat in with us and distributed conical hats for us to wear, just in case we didn't look enough like dumb tourists.
I really enjoyed this part of the tour, largely because I had recovered to a half decent state at this point but also because it was so tranquil and you felt like you were really experiencing something that locals experience on a daily basis, as part of their everyday life. Plus it was just generally really cool to get paddled up a canal in Vietnam.(Apologies to EK for featuring her in this rather unflattering pic.)


That was pretty much the tour. Once the canal widened into open water, we transferred back onto our original boat, zipped across the water and took a crappy minibus home. Not much happened during that time, since I blocked most of it out by sleeping and praying that I'd make it back without anymore gastroinstestinal somersaults.

The rest of my Vietnam trip was a blur of market shopping, panicked dodging of mopeds, Beef Pho (bless that bowl of steaming noodles) and iced coffee. Boy, do they love their coffee. For them, nothing beats sitting on the sidewalk with a glass of iced coffee, watching the traffic go by. A strange activity but these guys don't have the luxury of Starbucks and Wifi so i guess its the next best thing.

I'll finish by posting a photo of my daily breakfast - a freshly baked bread bun with egg and ham, lovingly prepared by a woman who sits on that street corner every morning for at least the past five years serving passer bys. A simple meal you may say, but it was the best ham sandwich I ever had, even if it was wrapped in newspaper with an elastic band, and even if it did possibly contribute to my downfall.

Oh delightful ham sandwich - were you the one who brought me down?

Last words, I think Vietnam is a more interesting city to visit then what HCM has to offer. Given a choice I'd much rather check out Hanoi or Chiang Mai but I can't complain to visit the capital. If it wasn't for the Mekong Delta trip I'd have been less impressed with HCM, because as it stands I see it as another hustling, bustling Asian city typical of South East Asia - great food and good shopping, with huge dependency on tourism.

Nervously arriving back in Singapore and popping charcoal pills (for those who know what they do) we had about 5hours of sleep before we aimed to head back to the airport - destination, Bali!