Mui ne and Mekong

Back in town, we jumped on the “sleeper bus” to Mui ne, the kite and tourist paradise just 200 km from Saigon. I am still surprised that neither of us got bitten by bed bugs, or something worse, as it was one of the most nasty looking beds I ever tried to sleep in. Sleeping however proved difficult, the bad road, and the drivers fascination over the powerful horn installed on the bus, kept me and probably everyone else not on drugs, awake for the entierority of the trip.
Well in Mui ne, we woke up the night guard of “Song Huong hostel” and got to lay down and close our eyes for a couple of hours. Later that morning we loaded the kite gear in a taxi and took off towards the kite beach, which proved to be really good and full with people. The wind wasn’t really with us that day, but I managed to plane with my 8m kite, though pumping like a maniac. It felt great to finally get some time on the water again! A couple of spring rolls and a a coffee later, we got back to prepare for the night, which we started at a sea food restaurant. Man, there’s nothing like fresh seafood! And it was extremely cheap too! :-) Later on we ended up at a club located directly on the beach, full of russian people. Almost none of them spoke any english, so I got to practice my long gone russian skills, which stretched about as far as “hi, how are you doing?” and “have you seen the swan lake opera?”. Not really enough for a meaningful conversation, but anyhow, this was definitely the best night out yet!! It was a great feeling to have a drink in one hand, a warm breeze from the sea in the face and scores of people around having a great time without any fuzz. That, combined with some great music and a great location completed the perfect night out.
The day after, the wind was really crappy so we passed most of our time at the beach. Later on we tried out a different bar and some kind of kitesurf party but it didn’t quite reach the hights of the night before. After all this, we went back to Saigon to join an excursion to the Mekong delta.

The mekong delta was a pretty nice experience, we went by boat around all the rural houses set just along side the canals that made up the river outflow towards the sea, watched the floating market with boats loaded to the rim with merchandise and then got on smaller paddle boats to get deeper into the canal system. There we saw and tried rice puff making, coconut candy and also had the chance to bike around the whole thing after enjoying some local food, and fish, for lunch. The classic tourist tour, but it was really worth the trip. In the evening, we tried our best to kill off the last vietnamese dongs we had in our pockets, which bought us exactly one dinner in an indian restaurant and two teas at a café, before catching the night flight to Manila.

Yeah! Sleeper bus! Juan Carlos accidentially sat down on his dinner, a club sandwich. It didn’t look like much before, look how thin it turned out after!

Our sweet hotel.

Really? Seems like the road can’t get much straighter than this..

The kite beach.

Having a go with my 8m slingshot rally.  

I was amazed of how well this went with the 8m kite, the wind was really light that day and everyone else were sporting a 12 or more.

This is what a “fresh spring roll” looks like. It dawned on us later that this was another means of saing “not deep fried” spring roll:-)

One of the establishments at the kite beach

Hard life at the hotel

Having some seafood :-)

 
Party by the beach!

 
What??? What is a Swedish massage? Can someone tell me? And coffee oil and hot chocolate?

Arrival at the Mekong river.

One of the boats in the “floating market”. A place where people got together and traded their things directly off the boat.

More from the market.

Some dried rice stashed up by the canal

I really came to understand the use of these funny looking hats. It is really comfortable in the scorching sun.

Paddling in the canal

 
The crew of our boat

 

Eventhough we were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by water, and with virtually no roads, people still went around on their scooters.

Eating some fish from mekong

We took a bike tour as well

Would you dare to get a hair cut at this place? You might just end up with an 80ies look like the guy on the sign…

A star fruit tree! The first one I’ve seen in my life :-)

A town near the mekong, full of hustle and bustle.

Saigon and the Cu Chi tunnels

Finally, after having endured 10 degrees and drizzling rain, two hideous hot dogs at the Hanoi airport (man, were they disgusting!!) and a flight with a Boeing that looked like something taken from a museum, we touched down in Ho Chi Minh city (Saigon). It was a relief to change from jeans, thick sweather and jacket to shorts, flip-flop and t-shirt. This time, we made our arrival in super tourist style, having the hotel staff pick us up at the airport outside the terminal, and there he was, our driver with a sign saying “Juan Carls”.
Well at the green suites hotel, we found that we got the “deluxe” room. Great! However, it was difficult to understand how it compared to the “VIP”, “Premium” and “Superior” rooms. Kind of funny. :-)
Anyways, our room was well above the standard we had in Hanoi, for the same price, and had no unwelcomed guests apart from a couple of spiders that we chased off. I was totally beat after catching a cold in Hanoi, and therefore left the reconnisance to Juan Carlos who went out to have a beer in the neighborhood. The morning after, he had a different look on his face, it seemed like we were situated right in the war zone, people chasing around trying to sell everything from crappy souveniers to drugs and female company. What a place..

We started off our first day in Saigon with a power breakfast at the hotel terrace, some toast and eggs, and spent the day exploring the city, going to the reunification palace, war remnance museum and the river. It was easy to tell that this city is the economical centre of the country as opposed to Hanoi. More cars, higher buildings, and higher tempo. On our way to the reunification palace we passed a market filled with fake stuff. I have experienced some pretty agressive selling in China, but this was yet a bit more intensive. People grabbing us by the arms, shirts and whatever sticking out, trying to drag us in to their shops.
Well at the reunification palace, we took a walk around looking at all the structures of the building which held the old government that controlled what was once south vietnam. A lot of stuff from the 60ies, which made the the cold war feel very present. There were some stuff left from the Americans as well.
Coming out of the building, hungry as wolves, we spotted something that looked like a restaurant just one block away. We went over there to have lunch. My first in a while to roaring techno music, which for some reason they considered to be apropriate, maybe it could have a good effect on people with costipation. It looked like we found the place where the hipsters go to show off. Kind of strange to have your chicken and rice to a 135 BPM track pumping at high volume with a DJ and all, but anyways, the food did the trick, and we got away happy.

The war remnance museum was a quite depressing sight. Scores of weapons, helicopters, planes, fotos and packed with stories from all the craziness that went on back in the day. It was clear however that we were in Vietnam, so it was no question about which side told the story this time, as opposed to all the american movies and documentaries that I have seen about it so far that have a different angle. Strange however that noone seemed to bother about all the americans that were there. There were absolutely no sign of hostility towards them from the locals.
After fighting our way through the afernoon traffic, we got to the old post office and settled down to have a coffee for approximatly 2 or 3 times the price of a normal lunch. It still affects me that there can be such a big spectrum in these places under heavy development from the regular guy on the street and the people that are well off.
We made our way down to the saigon river, and then back to our hotel. On the way back a guy helped us to cross the street, under our protest of course, and then asked for money for the service. It is really incredible in vietnam, the way people try virtually every possible way to get ahead.

In the evening we went out to do the town, started off at seventeen club, a two storie place with two filipino live bands and scores of mean looking people you don’t want to mess with. We continued on to “Apocalypse now”, a place recomended in the lonely planet. Bad idea. Consequently it was full with tourists and prostitutes and inflated prices. We quickly refrained to follow our instinct and moved on down towards the river and stumbled across a club where we turned out to be the only big-nosed, pale skinned guys in the whole club. There it was party, vietnamese style, which meant standing around a table, ordering in drinks, snacks and fruit platters while watching the DJ and the totally empty dance floor. The sound, light and setting though was perfect. Incredibly good actually. After a while we continued on to yet another place in the same style, and got invited to the table of a group of vietnamese kids in their 20ies, to drink whiskey shots. It was really fun to talk to the locals, we had a great time! One thing about these places that really struck me was the amount of “security” guys running around. It seemed like the number of security staff was around 1 per every 3 guests, incredible. There were absolutely no problems though.

The day after it was time to visit the Cu Chi village and the famous tunnels that the north vietnamese side used during the war to escape the heavy bombing from the american armada. We had a really good guide that explained the uprunning to the war, that had been raging for several years before the americans came along, and that there still was quite a lot of tension between the people of the north and south even today. Of course, I can imagine, a conflict of that magnitude will take a lot of time before it cools down completely.
We saw all the booby traps, left equipment, and of course also squeezed ourselves through a section of the tunnels. I still got dirt stains on my shorts and t-shirt from that day that didn’t come off. And yes, it was not something for people tending to being claustrophobic. An interesting, but not very pleasant experience.
So there they lived, 16.000 people under ground, some for as long as 20 years! I would go nuts, and I am pretty sure many of them did. At the end of the tour, we tried out the weapons used during the conflict, an experience in itself, however I am not that keen on guns, I had my share in the military and would rather see that all that metal would be turned in to something more constructive.

 

Finally, some sun and warm weather!! :-)

 

Some guys playing a board game in the street.    Getting attacked at the market :-)

The reunification palace. This is where the government of the south was based.

 

 
To the left, one of the tanks that penetrated the gates and ended the war. To the right, Juan Carlos taking an important call.

From the inside, all the furniture and decoration intact.    

The vietnamese are experts at sleeping on their motorbikes. Here’s one.

A couple of hours later we passed him again, and he had changed his position a bit. This actually looks more comfy, don’t you think? :-)

There’s a lot of motorbikes in Saigon as well!

Massive traffic..

 
Some pictures from the 1102 club.

 
A cool painting on the wall.

 

Family transportation, Saigon style :-)

One of the entrances to the tunnels.                   This is how the people recycled the bombs(!)

One of the traps set up for the enemy

  
Down in the tunnels.