Saigon;Birthdays, Booby Traps and Loud Bangs

Craig Writes: One last stop to Marble Mountain on our way to Da Nang airport. We were expecting, well, a mountain... made of marble, instead we pulled into a factory that made and sold a mass of marble statues. Close enough I guess. Gotta say, every piece was a wow piece. The size and detail of the statues was staggering. There to greet you at the entrance was a four tonne gleaming white marble Buddha. The towering bulk of it staring down at you, daring you not to be happy. Yours for only US$15000, including freight and insurance anywhere in the world. Back home that might get you a few thin slabs to throw on top of your kitchen cupboards.  There were magnificent roaring lions with razor sharp teeth, crouching tigers with ferocious claws, fierce towering dragons with piercing eyes and a selection of happy Buddhas from truck size to pocket size.

I've got just the spot for it.

Callum, looking like he's been thrown to the lions

The sales girls, all glammed up in their designer outfits, are very very tenacious. They are on you the second you're off the bus. A grafting wouldn't get them any closer.  They must work on the old Genghis Khan principle of divide and conquer because within minutes Christina was whisked in one direction by her 'personal shopper' and mine was wrapped around me like a Gucci python and we were heading off in the other. Seriously, she was that close I put my hand in my pocket to grab a tissue and I pulled out her hanky. We gave the four tonne Buddha and the Crouching Tigers a miss but did pick up a couple of jade marble apples, a small tiger for Callum and a pocket size dragon for Charlie.

The flight down to Saigon was short and uneventful. Here we were met by Te our new guide for the next few days. Saigon is the largest city in Vietnam, population over 9 million. First thing I notice is that the roads are wider and cleaner and there are some beautiful little parks with modern children's play grounds. The roads and boulevards are just as crammed with fearless riders and their bikes, cars and taxis, all with the same casual disregard for life and limb. But unlike Hanoi, here there are large glamorous shopping centres with billboard size ads for Zenga, Choppard, Cartier etc etc. It has a post office design by none other than Gustaf Eiffel. A magnificent feat of architecture and imagination.

No road side barber chairs here or couples sitting on crates on the road verge picking for nits. I did see an old lady in a bright purple jump suit hand feeding crumbs to pigeons from a plastic bag. Here women are wearing skirts and short shorts. There are chicks and guys with tatts.  As far as a major city in a communist country goes the place is more Melbourne than Kremlin.

Hanoi, this is what a capital city should look like

Opera House

It makes sense that Hanoi is the capital because it's the biggest city in the north and the north won the war.  But if a capital city was meant to represent the country it's a poor example. It has an antiquated and dingy feel to it. The streets for the most part are narrow and in need of repair and the buildings old and unsightly. It screams third world where Saigon is exciting alive and impressive. We finally arrived at our hotel, The Family Inn. It was fine after a room change from the 11th floor directly under the restaurant kitchen down to the quieter third. We had the afternoon to our selves.

30/01/13

Charlie's birthday.  The big 09.  We blew up balloons and had some cards for him. Charlie had five different kinds of pastries for breakfast with a coco pops chaser. While I'm sure he would have preferred a day at Adventure world, we were off to the Reunification Palace, The Vietnam War Museum and the Chinese Markets with a lunch in the middle some where. Sorry Charlie not Sizzlers.

Happy Birthday Charlie

The Reunification Palace was interesting in that this is where the Viet Cong finally closed the war in 1975. After dropping a couple of strategically placed bombs within the palace grounds the VC stormed the gates of the palace with tanks and literally drove right up to the front door. The President surrendered unconditionally, handed over the keys to the South and with that, it was over. Hundreds of Billions of dollars,1 - 3 million lives lost, countless more shattered and a country and people in total disrepair.
After the Reunification Palace, or "The White House", as they refer to it, Eiffel's Post Office and then the Vietnam War Museum. 

The Post office - exterior,

The Post Office - interior, this doesn't do it justice

The "White House"

The House Of Horrors

A disturbing and provocative place. While I have no doubt that the pictures, depictions and reports were presented in as anti American fashion as possible, neither side emerges from this atrocity cleanly or covered in glory. Eiffel's  Saigon post office, a magnificent example of how creative, audacious, inspiring and brilliant man can be at his best left me feeling inspired, uplifted and a little in awe . The war memorial left me feeling hopeless, disturbed, angry, and sad. As human beings we have this amazing capacity for good. To lift the spirit of man to dizzy heights with our generosity, creativity and tolerance.  But it seems we are as easily swayed to plumb the lowest depths of depravity and sheer bloody evilness. I could go into explicit detail about the methods of "persuasion" used to control and extract information that one side would use against the other. But I won't. You could not imagine more diabolical methods or contraptions. Try if you like. And there are no innocents here. Regardless of propaganda and convenient omissions from both sides. There is no generalising when I say mankind can be the most evil, callous, depraved creatures walking, crawling  or swimming this planet. It would seem that as far as our species is concerned, when push comes to shove, no one is safe, no one is spared and there is no where to hide. Enough of that.  We're off to lunch for a lovely bowl of Pho and a tasty pork stir fry.

We cut the afternoon short after lunch and a quick trip to the markets to buy a new back pack for Callum and a couple of t-shirts for the boys. Just what we need, more clothes. Back at the hotel for a rest and I dropped next door for the best massage of my life. $12 got me 90 minutes of reflex, shoulder arms and back with a hot stone massage and a cucumber poultice on my face to finish. The small slip of a girl could crack walnuts with those hands.  I asked for her name so I could ask for her again and I got "number 15". Yeh I know, their idea not mine. We took a cab to Vincom, a large very modern shopping centre with a couple of floors of restaurants.  It was Charlie's pick.  We ended up at a US burger place, Carls Junior. Not bad as far as burgers go. Not my choice but hey I wasn't the one celebrating my last single digit birthday.

31/1/13

Today a 7.30 am start and a 2 hour ride to Cu Chi tunnels. Geez Govt of Vietnam, spend a coupla Dong on your roads. 10kms out of the city and the roads turn to poo.  All the good work number 15 did on me yesterday is shot. The tunnels were originally started  in the late 40s to help fight the French. Later in 1960 when the Americans came they started to expand them and by the time they had finished there were over 250 kms of these ingenious rabbit holes stretching into Cambodia and to Saigon.  They were built on 3 levels with a kitchen, sleeping quarters, weapons hold and a bomb shelter that was up to 10 metres deep, enough to withstand the impact from a B52 bomb.

These holes are swimming pool size

They built ventilation holes cleverly concealed in fake ant hill mounds, The Americans would drop grenades down them when they could find them so they build false ones and booby trapped them. There were clever little trap doors to pop out of or disappear into. They were tiny, I couldn't get past my shoulders and Callum managed to just squeeze in. 

If I got in, fair chance I wouldn't be coming out

Callum only just squeezed in

There were a range of the most medieval and horrific forms of traps. They concocted a dozen different ways to jam a long steel spike into various parts of your body. Your arm pits, your groin, your feet, your head.  All very effective and very primitive in the making using simple counter balance or body weight trigger devices.

How freakin nasty would this be.

Or this...

In the distance we heard the loud crack of gunfire. First single shots then occasionally the staccato of a fully automatic. They had a firing range. Oohh yehh. There was a range of weapons to choose from. All used in the war.  Both the boys were keen to try but alas the minimum age was 18. And fair enough. These were not Tonka handguns or pop pop 22's. I was deciding between an M14 or an M16. I chose the M16. These are big boys toys. I paid my $20 for 10 rounds and we all headed down to the range. Ive been shooting for about 7 years and been in a booth next to a 44 Magnum going off but the noise these bad boys were making, on an open firing range, was deafening. The targets were about 100 metres away. The trigger was tight but very sensitive. Not much room for a soft squeeze as you site your target. First thing that gets you is the recoil. Its a real punch in the shoulder. You've got to hold it snug. Second is the noise. They fired these in battle without ear muffs and hundreds of rounds at a time, next to several guys doing the same thing. My ears were ringing for 15 minutes afterwards.  Those poor bastards must have been stone motherless deaf.

Big boys and their toys. M16 in action

Its back on the road for another couple of hours to Cao Dai temple. A clever fella back in 1925 got a bit fed up with the three major religions in the area, Buddisim, Taoism and Christianity all claiming to be the one true religion so thought bugger you all, I'll make my own. So he combined the best elements of the three and created Cao Dai. It is really only known and celebrated in it's region but it has over 2 million followers. On our trek back we had lunch in a tree house. 

A beautiful temple

Stunning, not for my place, but still... stunning

Lunch in the tree house

Hoi An and the Veggie Patch

Craig writes: Today was meant to be a bike ride from our hotel to a village about 3kms away. This was arranged before we actually arrived here and witnessed the sheer lunacy of what goes on on the roads. If it was just me, by myself, in a sumo suit, I would probably have had a go. But with two young boys and a wife who's major riding experience has been at Rotto, and the fact Christina is the only person on the trip who knows what the hell we're doing and where we're suppose to be going, we made some slight adjustments. We would catch the bus to the village and ride around the much quieter pathways of the veggie garden.

After a 5 minute mini bus ride we arrived at Tra Que, a large communal organic veggie garden, several hectares in size. The government gives every family an allotment based on 200sq metres per family member. I wonder if the Stirling Council would be interested in that idea? We're all given a bike and proceed to have a very leisurely and pleasant cycle on the smooth quiet pathways. Except Charlie, who may have been permanently scarred by the countless near misses we've witnessed and refuses to get anywhere near anything with two wheels. To his credit when we return after our first lap, intact and happy, he does concede to a dinky ride on the back of my bike for a slow second lap, but he's huggin' me like Quasimodo's lump.

Here we are for a tour and lunch and Charlie doesn't eat greens

Quasimodo and his lump

We're here for the job interview

We had lunch overlooking the garden. Must say I'm a much bigger fan of eating organic veggies than seeing how they're grown. Christina enjoyed it though and Charlie found it fascinating to pick a pot pourri of different herbs and mash them all together to create his very own unique herbal fragrance. He thought it smelt great and I should rub it on myself as a cologne. I said if it went to market we could call it "POO", "For Men Who Like Their Own Company".

Earlier we visited a pottery factory run out of the back of someones home. The government pays these folks to maintain the traditional ways of pottery making. We watched as this old woman stood on one foot clinging to a post while using the other foot to spin a large smooth wooden pottery wheel. Another woman sat opposite on crunched haunches, moulding and caressing the clay, freshly pulled from the nearby river. Where once sat a spinning mound of wet mud suddenly appeared from between two ancient cracked hands the most beautiful pots and bowls. We all took turns squatting down next to her to have a go. Her gentle expert hands on ours assured we all made little master pieces.

Vietnamese pea game,"It's under that one"

The very latest in antique  kilns

D.J spin that wheel

A master piece in the making

Destined for E Bay, let the bidding begin

Back to Le Bellamy for some rest then a return to Cargo for dinner where, for very little coin, we ate and drank like Kings, Queens and Princes. This is indeed a place of extreme contrasts.

"The" Cargos

Charlie trying to inhale his Chocolate Mouse Truffle.

"Trust me, this Cargo's is quite the find."

You seriously expect me to choose just one

27/1/13

Today was ours to do as we wanted. Slept in, late breaky and then back to the rooms for some hangin' out time. Not wanting to sludge the whole day away we headed down to the pool for some piggy back races. Christina is current reigning champ. Then, a very dodgy attempt at some badminton. No self respecting shuttle cock should have been put through what we put that poor thing through. The locals were pissing themselves. Charlie and I then had a crack at a bit of beach volley ball. Hard yakka for a little fella but man he gave it a solid go. Hungry after all the jumping around, it was club sandwiches and watermelon juice then Callum and Charlie decided to hit the beach. 

Left foot in the top right pocket

It was like this the whole time we were there

Light lunch before hitting the badminton court.

Read the sign people, It's official, we were at China Beach

While the beach is long and beautiful the South China Sea is snarly and treacherous at this time of year. I was standing vigil on the shore watching the boys play in the breakers. The sky is a constant dense curtain pulled across the sun, dove grey with a light steely blue tinge to it. The mountain ranges to the left and the scattered islands to the right are just a vague silhouette. Vacant deck chairs are scattered up and down the beach. All sitting under faded thatched roofs, their long white cushions long packed way. Four life guards behind me run up and down the beach trying to thread a volley ball through a life saving ring dug into the sand. Yehhs ringing out to celebrate a goal and long ooohhs for the near misses. Two homeless dogs sniff and paw there way along the beach, one stopping to take a piss on one of a cluster of what I think are life saving pods. Large thimble shaped craft, thatched and laquered thick against the water. They were bone dry and pulled well back from the seas groping reach. Further down on the shores edge sits what may be an old man and his son. Their long rods cast well out past the breakers. They sit hopeful and in silence. Soon they uproot themselves and move off further down the beach. Either done for the day or just restless, I'm not sure. My two young princes bounce around in the rough wash. Their sitting, holding hands with their eyes closed, shoulders tight in anticipation of the next series of waves about to crash and roll into them. First one then another. They laugh, they shriek and I stand there glowing with pride and bursting with love. I'm a very lucky man.

Me getting disqualified for catching Charlies spike.

Baywatch, "The Senior Years"

Life should always be this much fun

Hoi An , Just one Surprise After Another

Craig Writes: This enigmatic country continues to surprise and intrigue. For over 2000 off their 2500 year history they've been at war either with themselves or some belligerent neighbour wanting a slice of the Vietnam pie. They've fought of the Champa, Chinese, Russians, French and countless other marauding invaders. As Zwayne our invaluable guide has said, the government may be easy to defeat but the vast spread of the village network makes the people very hard to conquer and control. You remove an "arm" here and it will appear again somewhere else later. For a culture with a history so steeped in centuries of warfare they seem such a humble, kind and peaceful people. They bump and bounce of each other all day long with not a word or gesture of anger or arrogance . Where there would be fights and blood shed in western cultures, here there is only calmness, tolerance and extreme flexibility. But, as you talk to them about their history, their culture and their day to day life and aspirations, you can sense lying just beneath the surface a tempered steely resolve to endure, to make the most of whatever life and opportunity afford them. Vietnam is like the small quiet kid sitting in the corner of the play ground, content to keep to himself, not seeking attention or fuss. A perfect target for any bored bully who fancies a soft target for a bit of fun or some easy gain. Its only after he picks himself up off the ground, bloodied and dazed that the bully realizes his mistake. 

Zwayne , Zwayne, Zwayne, we thought we may have had to adopt him. We've now had five different guides and he is hands, feet and chop sticks way above the rest. The tradition is to tip your guide and driver. We kept doubling his because he continued to blow us away with how far he would go to make us happy. We may have had to cut off a month at the end to pay for his tip but we just wanted to make him happy, and realistically, adoption wasnt an option. There were genuine hugs and exchange of email details when he finally left us at Hanoi airport. I'm sure if security would let him he would have followed us onto the plane to make sure our table trays were upright and our buckles nicely secured.

In the city of Hanoi you're taxed according to the width of your house. I know, strange but apparently true. Consequently you find they are all between 4 to 5 metres wide, 3 to 5 stories high and looong. So, side by side you have these enormous Lego blocks of apartments peeling off into the distance. The odd thing is that in the country areas the same tax does not apply but as life in the city is revered and the country folk think its cool to be like their city cousins you'll find standing in an open paddock with enough room for an opera house, this narrow shoe box of a house. Odd! 

There stacked high but not much wider than a parking space

We left behind the beautiful little town of SaPa and those naughty Black Hmongs and headed back down to Hanoi on the sleeper train. No vomit runs this time just a nice relaxing trip. A few hours lay over in a forgettable little hotel and a one hour plane ride down to DaNang. A big US air base during the Vietnam war and more pleasantly the home of China Beach where the late '80s show, China Beach, with the yummy Dana Delaney was set. Good series with a killer sound track. Met by our new guide Vu. On the downside, he talks in short clipped sentences with every second one finished with a rhetorical, yes! and a funny little laugh at the end of every other sentence like he's just said something funny. "..and this hospital was where a bomb drop in the war and everyone die, "hee hee hee". I don't get it. 

On the upside we're going to save on a big tip. It was only a 20 minute bus ride to our resort, Le Bellamy. Huge open plan rooms. Two toilets, separate shower and bath, four poster king size bed, and a 20 metre balcony across the front. The South China Sea pounding clear and sweet. So removed from the simple lives we have seen over the last few days it borders on surreal.

Le Bellamy is only a short cab ride into Hoi An so we popped in for a look around and to find Cargo. A french patisserie recommended by a Sydney couple we met on the way down from Hanoi. Such was the extravagant richness and sheer size of the servings that afternoon tea was to also serve as dinner. Hoi An is a gorgeous little town. Population is only around the 100,000. 

Pretty little town

Boys on the avenue

Oh get thee behind me Satan

From the 13th to the 19th century Hoian was a major trading port and only diminished in importance once the silt washing down from the mountains finally made it impossible for the big ships to enter the harbour. Many of the old buildings are still in use today and beautifully maintained. UNESCO has recognised the town as a World Heritage site. The streets are clean, the shops pretty and well stocked with quality merchandise. You can get a custom fitted cashmere suit made for $180 or a high powered laser beam with a 1km range capable of taking out the retina of any pilot for only $5. Every restaurant and cafe has a happy hour two for the price of one if you think paying $3 to $4 dollars for a full strength cocktail or $2 for a beer is too much and you want to wait. The street hawkers still bombard you but they do take no for an answer. Back to the resort and a lie down to let the body work on that chocolate mousse mountain. Next day we're off at 9 to My Son. A one thousand year old cluster of ancient Hindu temples secreted at the base of two mountain ranges and hidden from civilisation for hundreds of years till the French found them in the 17th century. The ancient Champa Kings were anointed there and many of them along with national heroes and important religious leaders were buried there. They were built over many many centuries. On a hunch some Viet Cong may have been hiding there the Americans managed to destroy most of them in a one week carpet bombing raid. Nice one Uncle Sam!

Old fossil with family in front of old fossil

Is that a Linga or are you just happy to see me

One of the great mysteries of the place was how they managed to build these 30 metre high extravagant monuments and grand temples with no cement or mortar. Just one dry brick on top of another. And, the bricks were made so they retained no moisture so even 1000 years later no moss grows on them and they are still strong with little deterioration. Apart from the bombed ones of course. 

It was eerie,intriguing and fascinating. Almost as fascinating as watching a mischievous randy little monkey sitting guard at the entrance to the ladies loos chewing his toe nails one minute and giving himself a little heady the next. The poor Japanese women didnt know whether to film him or ignore him. Some did one while pretending to do the other. 

Back to Hoi An for a bit of a walking tour with Vu. Ooohh a visit to a silk worm farm. That'll be as interesting as watching rice boil. Well, spank me pink and call me Nancy. It was actually quite fascinating. Hands up if you thought the little fellas actually spun silk like a spider spins a web. WRONG ! These creepy little crawlies are treated like bug royalty. Fed three times during the day and twice at night. Then they get to hang out,curl up and nap for a full day. As they fatten up and get bigger their moved to a cocoon rack where they spin their little cocoon. This is where they'll turn into a chrysalis then a moth, fly away and get to spend the rest of their short little lives sitting on a cabbage leaf somewhere. Wrong again. The lucky ones get to go make some babies so the whole wheel keeps turning, the not so lucky ones get to be boiled alive in their cocoons to make it possible to extract the silk from the cocoon. Yes, the cocoon is made of silk. You can get about 500 metres of single thread silk from one tiny cocoon. Bloody fascinating I reckon.

From little things big things grow

Sa Pa Time

Sa Pa is a small town high up in the mist covered mountains of the north. Only a few kilometres from the Chinese border. We caught a sleeper train up from Hanoi, an eight hour bumper car ride. The trip up was a little eventful with me chasing Callum down the narrow corridors in only my jocks. Not once, but three times.  Poor little bugger must have had some Pho that didn't agree with him and as the lightest sleeper and the fastest runner in the family it was my duty to make sure he made the 30 metre dash to the loo without sharing his noodle soup in the corridor.

Three bugs in a rug, and a few in Callums tummy as it turns out.

We pulled into Lai Cau at 5am, sleep deprived and bleary eyed,  where we were met by our guide, the delightful and 4 months pregnant Pamay.  It's dark and the train station is very very busy. An hours ride up the mountain in our mini bus gets us to SaPa. What a beautiful little town.  Its a little Asian Positano. Brightly coloured buildings built into the cliff face but instead of looking down into a sparkling Agean it looks down into a spectacular mist shrouded valley. Lush with jungle vegetation. Every other available scrap of land is terraced for rice and corn.

Could be Positano

It's paddy fields as far as the eye can see

While the boys settled in to the Sunny Mountain Hotel we decided to take the walk to the Cat Cat village.  Home of the Black Hmong tribe. One of five tribes that inhabit the valley. They moved down from China some 500 years ago and bought some interesting traditions with them. One worth sharing is the Love Market. Once a year they hold a Love Market. To put it in the quaint and delicate words of our guide, they believe that, when it comes to relationships of the most personal kind, a person should not be expected to "eat rice" all year long. That if once a year a person should wish to "eat noodle" then they should be allowed to do so. So in the ultimate spirit of the swinging 60's, once a year, no questions asked, they hook up with their favourite "piece of noodle" on the side and basically have a  big shag fest. None of the other tribes have adopted the practice but you cant help but think that come Black Hmong Love Market day some would be considering an honorary membership.

The rice fields here are enormous but every grain produced is strictly for feeding the families that live in the villages. Any money required for purchasing extras has to come from the handicrafts that the women make. It is real subsistence living.  They eat the animals they raise around the villages, predominately pigs and chickens and grow an array of other vegetables.

The following day the boys are rested and feeling good so we take off on a longer 3 hour walking trek through the valley visiting three villages as we go.

Home of the Black Hmong

This one I called" Apple Sauce", not long for the table me thinks.

A real eye opener

We decided to take all of the free hotel toiletries and a big bag of Chuppa Chops to hand out to the villagers and their kids as we walked through. The kids went the lollies like they were straight out of the Wonka factory.  They were really cute and delightfully sneaky.  Ohhh, mister mister one for my sister, then, ohhh, and one for my other sister, ohh and my brother too. Gorgeous. Fortunately there was a little store down in one of the villagers so I could restock. I wasn't sure if the toiletries, shampoo, toothbrushes, sewing kit etc would be a hit with the older women until on our return trip back up from the village we saw coming down towards us one of the  old toothless crones we met earlier. Looking resplendent  in her magnificent traditional dress, a massive beautifully woven basket slung across her slender strong shoulders, filled with exquisite handcrafted objects and indigo dyed fabrics, a gummy smile and a look of pride on her face as she recognized us.  And on her head,  a new shiny placky shower cap pulled down tightly over her ears. Toiletries are a tick.

Our guide, Parmay

Great walk, now, where's that bus?

Christina writes: Sa Pa is a relaxed mountain village, full of backpacker hostels and massage places. We booked into have a massage in the hotel, 90 minutes for $22, which we thought was a bargain. Later we discovered that just next door, 90 minutes was only $11*

Sunny Mountain Hotel

I fell in love with the textiles in the villages. The fabric is woven, dyed and stitched by hand. The dark blue of the dress of the Hmong tribe is dyed from indigo leaves that grow freely on the hillside. 

The loom, all set up for weaving.

Indigo brew, ready for newly woven cotton.

Traditional dress of tribes from surrounding villages.

Parmay with a piece she is working on for her daughter.

Close up of a quilt, hand-stitched.

Everyone in the village is industrious, whether it be in textiles, vegetable growing or incense making. The little winding paths through the villages are peaceful. Animals and children wander freely and there is a sense of contentment in the air.

Incense drying in the sun

More incense drying in the sun

uumm Charlie, about that puddle your standing in

We came , we saw, we left...amazed

Standard housing

* Craig tried out the $11 massage the next day - seems there is a reason it is half price, he told me that most of the time the masseuse only used one hand because she was texting constantly with the other hand.