Indochina 2013: Thailand, Laos & Vietnam

Thailand Begins - 16 Nov 2013

A tropical downpour drenching returning from an early-morning market excursion on the Chao Phraya River has put paid to my plans of lizarding by the hotel pool today, so e-mail reporting in the hotel lobby wifi zone is called for.

The trip over was enjoyably broken by an overnight in Sydney, and dinner catch-up with Steve at The Bathers in Balmoral - great food, but they probably won't want me back, as I must have been already getting jet-lag snarky, and was rather tetchy with the wait staff who took three requests to finally deliver our requested two glasses of wine five minutes into our main course. Steve will probably have to go in disguise the next time he visits, or apologise for his mad mother. Qantas is also not about to win a lot of stars from me, as I got hooked on a six-part BBC murder mystery, watching three episodes Auckland to Sydney, but it was the one item missing from the Sydney-Bangkok programme!!! Am I going to have to fly trans-Tasman again to find out whodunnit? Also, on the 9-hour daytime flight, they fed us a light "lunch" two hours into the flight, never appeared in the cabin again, except with an ice-block after four hours, then a slice of droopy pizza and a Crunchie bar an hour before landing. No drinks service, or little trays of water and juice - I think they all popped out on the wing for a smoke for most of the flight.

Bangkok is as crazy as ever, with unexplained traffic jams accompanied by random police and army persons waving and whistling aimlessly, all of which the taxi drivers suffer calmly, as their meagre meters sit motionless. Skinflint me has to get used to the idea that my 30-minute ride is going to cost me less than $4, which highlights the extortion going on somewhere from those Tuktuk mafia characters in Phuket who charged $16 for a 10-minute ride around the bays. I do not think that money was going into their threadbare pockets. I have spent my two pre-tour days meandering to China Town, gawping at the zoo of Khao San Rd (backpacker-central), catching the boat to a morning market (getting drenched),

 eating a Thai-tapas-style dinner of assorted street foods (I did stick to recognisable species), and most importantly, re-setting the body clock. I meet up with the tour group this evening, so stay tuned............

Thailand 2 - "Oooops - we forgot to tell you that........" - 19 Nov 2013

 Have joined the tour now, a very select group of just four of us with our guide, Sue, short for an unpronounceable umpteen syllable Thai name. We met for our tour orientation evening on Saturday, to be told that our overnight sleeper train trip from Bangkok to Chiangmai, would, very sorry, now be a bus trip as the train has been out of service (perhaps deservedly so) for a month due to collapsing rails etc. So after a day of cruising the klongs of Bangkok, and visiting the Reclining Buddha at the Wat Pho Temple 

Offerings made of bread (so the fish can eat them) to float on the water at the lantern festival that evening.

 we arrived at the bus station to be loaded aboard a 10-hour non-stop (except for a 5-minute driver change) overnight trip to Chiangmai - rather gruesome, especially the fear at the beginning that the TV screens above our seats, which were playing loud Thai "comedy" routines were going to be a feature of the trip. Fortunately these finished after about 30 minutes and we descended into fitful bumpy sleep. Ten hours is a LOOOOONG time in a bus seat, even a reclining one, and the resulting cankles are no great objects of beauty.

The scenery around Chiangmai is quite jungly, and misty/rainy at times, so quite a change from Bangkok. After dumping our bags, we dragged our tired little bodies out to a beautiful temple, Doi Suthep, on a mountain-top about 15 minutes outside the town, clambering up the 400-odd steps to it to get our spirits that much closer to heaven. 

 Now I have heard of dragon parents, but this one looks a bit extreme....

Even the gathering thunder clouds could not dim the beautiful gold-leaf-covered pagoda that rewarded our puffing climbing efforts.

Souvenir temple bells have been acquired to tinkle outside my bedroom window to remind me of my search for Nirvana. 

The afternoon was spent napping a little, then another beautiful temple in the Old Town, Chedi Luang. 

We had  arrived in the middle of a festival that seems to involve street parades of exquisite Thai girls in traditional dress, exquisite Thai ladyboys in what I imagine is NOT traditional Thai dress, dozens of girls dressed as manga-type cartoon characters unrecognisable to us, but clearly known to the crowd, 

plus large  quantities of firecrackers, and hundreds and hundreds of enormous flaming lanterns released to float up into the sky. These seem very dangerous, so of course are very popular. Apparently they land and cause fires which is not such great fun if it is your house. We wandered the streets and sampled the usual yummy range of strange street foods from the night market. We chose only items cooked fresh in front of us, so hopefully we will survive unscathed. They are all just too tempting to resist - I suppose one could eat only muesli bars from home, but I think that would be missing half the experience. I may think differently if I get one of the dreaded lurgies that may be lurking within.

This morning we left by minibus, with thankfully enough room to stretch out in, and headed for  Chiang Khong, on the Mekong River border with Laos, via an amazing temple complex near Chiangrai. It is the project over the last few years of a famous-in -Thailand artist who has concocted this Disneyland-on-white-and-silver-steroids place which has every bit of curlicued ornamentation in silver that one could imagine. It is certainly true that the "less is more" mantra is not popular in Thai temple architecture. This modern one seems to be trying to outdo the older golden temples in a frenzy of white-and -silverness. Even Hell is depicted in white and silver.

 But no Thai can resist a bit of gold as well ......

We are now in Chiang Khong, the classic sleepy riverside town, staying in a "charmingly rustic" hotel overlooking the river. It is a stepping stone to winding down my expectations of accommodations for Laos, but I am quite proud that I have mastered the assorted scoops, buckets and hoses of the toileting system - photos definitely NOT to follow. On the road, my slightly wonky knee makes the squat toilets quite an exciting lottery of exactly when I will fall in ......... Bets anyone?? I am not offering very long odds.

Food so far, under the guidance of our guide ( what else....) has been very good, and I have managed to sample different things without having to reach for the fire extinguisher. Lunch usually costs about $2 and a small bottle of beer is another $2. Dinner may be as high as $6. Apparently Laos is a bit more expensive as their own economy is rather undeveloped, and much is imported from Thailand. It is the poorest country in SE Asia, so I will be happy to pay a bit more if it is going into the right pockets.

 We cross the river, and the border, tomorrow morning, and embark on our slow boat for 2 days, meandering down the Mekong. I am working through my backlog of Vanity Fair mags, and hope to start on The Luminaries while watching the jungle slide by. Wifi connections so far have been good at each hotel, and apparently despite its backwardness in other ways, Laos will be OK too, so more instalments to follow from Luang Prabang.

The sun is disappearing over the Mekong, so it is time for a Singha.....

Languid Laos and Ruddy Roosters - 22 Nov 2013

 We are now in Luang Prabang after two days of meandering down the Mekong on a verrrrrry slow boat. We crossed the border from Northern Thailand into Laos at the border with Chiang Khong in a little narrow boat. 

Fortunately we were first in line at the Immigration office, as even so, we had a wait of over an hour since the man whose job it is to stamp the passports had not turned up for work. By the time he appeared there was a rather large queue of people, some of whom would have missed their transport as a result. But it seems that no one is accountable to anyone for anything, so he just carried on oblivious to the glares and harrumphing.

 Fortunately we had our own boat booked, so it was waiting for us despite the hold-up - and I do mean our own boat! 

These long river boats are built to take up to about 40 people, but our little group of four, plus our Thai guide, and now a Lao guide as well, had the whole boat to ourselves. It was run by a couple and their chubby two-year-old who was rather a menace as in the time-honoured fashion of little boys, he loved banging things with sticks - us included. Seeing him racing around the boat unrestrained would give any Kiwi parent nightmares, but compared with the toddlers we see clinging to the back of motor-bikes, it may not be so bad.

The trip down the Mekong is very lazy, as we read and snoozed and chatted as the jungle slid by.

 This area of Laos is almost totally undeveloped apart from a few very subsistence-level villages every half hour or so. 

We stopped at one for a rather awkward (I felt) visit, as it seemed very intrusive and voyeuristic to be wandering around their village and staring at them, and perhaps obviously making judgments of how backward it all is. 

Many of the Lao people are not very ambitious in our eyes, and seem happy to potter along slowly in a way that is totally foreign to us. If I were the colonial type, I would have been marching around the village telling them to build some proper steps up from the river so that tourists (and they)  could get up without slithering all over the place - it would take a working bee a couple of days. Similarly, in Pak Beng, the riverside town where we overnighted, the town market has a large scruffy pile of rubbish strewn all over the place as you enter. A few bossy boots like me could get it sorted out in an afternoon and make the place look ten times cleaner. But it does not seem to bother them, so perhaps it should not matter to me, but as the country has few natural resources, it is trying to build its tourism market, so cleaning up a bit would take minimal effort, and please the money-spending tourists.

So much for the Victorian colonial outburst, but Luang Prabang has a very pretty section where we are staying, much dating to when the French were here. It has attractive, tidy streets, and shows what can be done. The outskirts are not so salubrious, but in true tourist fashion, one can avoid those. There is a lovely Royal Palace,

 all beautifully displayed with the artefacts of the Royal Families' life, involving much gold ornamentation and some lovely teak floors and furniture. What is not mentioned is that these same Royal people whose photos are displayed throughout, perished of malnutrition in the "re-education camps" of the still-present Communist government - other family members escaped to exile, but such things would be awkward to put in nice little labels under the photos. Pretty temples are also in abundance 

and we plan to be up before dawn in the morning to see one of the key attractions, the sight of hundreds of monks walking through the streets seeking alms.

Today we bounced our way for an hour in a Tuktuk to a beautiful jungle park with cascading waterfalls of pale turquoise water - quite stunning. 

There is also a bear rescue centre with several large shaggy black bears who have been saved from an awful fate being milked for their bile for dastardly oriental medicines. I think they have reached Bear Nirvana, as they seem so glossy and well cared for. 

Tomorrow is a visit to a village specialising in handicrafts, and an elephant conservation centre. This is a beautiful place that, with more time, I would have loved to do the "learn to be a mahout" course. We watched others doing this, and it looked magical, especially when the mahouts hopped off, and let them take control by themselves. I only got to feed them!

On the last morning in Luang Prabang we got up before dawn to watch the many monks filing through the streets, seeking alms from the faithful, in the form of food for their bowls. I followed the lead of our guide, and bought a bowl of cooked rice, then squatted by the roadside, wearing a stole, to give each monk a small ball of rice as they came by. Tourists are asked to keep to the opposite side of the road, and only photograph from a distance, without flash. As you can see from my blurred photo, taken when my rice was used up, some gormless twits take no notice. Probably the same ones that galumph around European cathedrals during Mass.

Oh yes, those ruddy roosters! I realise that chickens are a valuable food source, and roosters are necessary for procreation. In fact, I do not even really mind a rooster crowing at dawn, but the ones here seem to be insomniacs, and start warbling away all through the night, with responses from their mates across town. The toilet in my current room has a whole chatty chicken family living under the window, with Poppa Rooster in charge. There is a serious danger that chicken soup may be on the breakfast menu.

 I am coping well so far, despite my little colonial grumbles, and no tummy bugs either. In fact, the restaurant we ate at here last night would go well in Mission Bay, everything was presented so stylishly. There is also a delicious French coffee shop that I may bring home with me.

Laos to Vietnam

 "Winding road next 200km"............

 If there were such a sign I might not have believed it, but let my stomach tell you, it is true. Luang Prabang was left behind, as we set off to travel to Vang Vieng on a minibus. The driver's arms certainly got a workout, as I do not think there was a straight stretch of road of more than about 50 metres for the first 200km. The trip was quite scenic of the jungly variety, and the central portion got quite high in the mountains, literally through clouds, and then some rather dramatic karst mountains of the type that stick up at impossibly steep angles. These would later attractively frame Van Vieng, but my wobbly travel tummy did not enable me to really appreciate it as we wove from side to side. I relented and took a Dramamine (or "copy Dramanine" according to the Bangkok pharmacist) which promptly sent me to sleep, so the last 100km may or may not have happened.

Vang Vieng is a forgettable town, but has pretty surrounding scenery, including the afore-mentioned karst mountains and a pleasant river.

 Until a recent government crackdown it was a Mecca for backpackers who came to float down the river on tubes, and under the influence of various substances. The trouble was, they would then try jumping off swing ropes into the river, or down water slides provided by the riverside bars, and more than 20 of themselves killed themselves in the process, drowning or otherwise doing themselves in in the rather shallow and slow-moving river. This was not quite the tourist scene that the government had in mind to promote to the world, so being an autocratic state has its advantages in that they could just shut most of the bars down, and eliminate swings and slides etc. The town is much quieter now, to the chagrin of many locals who had thriving businesses providing whatever items the backpackers desired. It made it more pleasant for us, however. We pottered around, taking a lovely boat trip up the river for a few dollars, 

and dining overlooking the river, before getting back on the bus for Vientiane.

A day in Vientiane was plenty to see the local Victory Arch, a relic of the French days, sort of emulating the Arc de Triomphe,

 a nice temple, which German archaeologists/artists are helping to restore

 and to visit a rehabilitation centre for victims of all the bombs remaining in exploded along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Sadly, over half the injuries are caused by the dirt-poor villagers digging up the bombs to sell for scrap metal. An exploded bomb casing, sold to the scrap metal dealers, can provide enough money to feed a family for a month or two, so the temptation is too much for many who cannot tell the difference between safe and lethal bombs. The war ended forty years ago, and it will take at least that long again to clear the UXOs (unexploded ordnance). 

On to Vietnam, we landed in Hanoi last night to a rapidly developing city with much construction underway. Dinner was at Koto, a restaurant that gives street kids training in the hospitality industry, sponsored by Intrepid Travel.

This morning I ventured out at 5.30am for early morning Mass at the beautiful St Joseph's Cathedral - very gloomy on the outside, but lovely inside - which somehow survived all the years of persecution under the early days of the Communist regime. Mass has only been allowed again since the 1990s, but the early service had a good-sized congregation, singing and chanting  the service in Vietnamese.

 I was lucky to get there, because despite the hotel reception assuring me last night that it would be no trouble to call a taxi, at 5.15am, none of the five taxi drivers outside, or the two sleepy hotel porters could speak English enough to know where "St Joseph's Cathedral" might be. They kept asking " Going to airport?" over and over, as the one sentence they knew.  iPhone to the rescue, I Googled it, and showed them the map and address in Vietnamese. Nods of understanding brought a phone call to a different taxi company, and safe delivery to the right place, with me in the back seat following the journey on the little flashing blue light of my GPS to make sure I was NOT being taken to the airport. Lovely service, with sizeable congregation despite the ghastly 5.30am time, and enthusiastic singing and chanting in Vietnamese. The taxi trip home took me past the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum at dawn, with hundreds standing in front for some type of military ceremony. Must find out what it was. 

I now have a busy day of personal sightseeing before I join up with a different group for the completion of the Vietnam leg of the tour. The Hanoi Hilton, the Mausoleum, and assorted other sights will give my tramping feet a workout.

 Vietnam: Message to Self: "Pull your head in." - 1 Dec 2013

Vietnam has been a bit of a culture shock to me, and it took me about 24 hrs to get my head around the idea that this is a different place, with a Communist dictatorship underlying everything, despite the drive for more tourists.

After my early morning visit to the cathedral, I started my first day on a walking tour of the town. Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum is about a 15-minute walk from the hotel, so I set off, map in hand. I arrived on the eastern side, with the mausoleum to my right

 and a large grassy park criss-crossed with paths to my left. 

When I tried to enter, a soldier began whistling at me - a real whistle, not a wolf one - to indicate that I could not enter there, and signalling me to the left. Walking down the footpath, I then decided to take one of the paths across the grass - no barriers or anything, but this brought another outbreak of whistling from other soldiers around the perimeter. A group of other young Asian tourists was having the same problem as me, and whenever we tried to turn towards the mausoleum, whistles broke about again. In the end we had to walk several hundred meters around the park, and approach from a different side street. Soldiers were everywhere, and whistles seemed to be used liberally. Finally in front of the mausoleum, we joined a line, marshalled into order, but the sign "No telephones" apparently meant "No cameras" also, as my attempt to photograph the enormous structure met with more of you-know-what! We filed through, past the embalmed body, and out to a rather pretty park which led to the museum of Uncle Ho's life. 

But by this stage I was rather edgy at being whistled at all the time, so I left to begin my general walk around the city. But worse was to come ...........

I headed for the Hoa Lo Prison, or the Hanoi Hilton, where many American airmen were imprisoned after being shot down, such as John McCain. It was apparently then rather a gruesome place, and has a very dark feel about it. But the way that some of it is presented is rather bizarre. Nice photos of airmen decorating their Christmas tree, and having Christmas dinner and generally having a pleasant time. Read the notice below about their "stable life". Quite strange.

I wandered from there down to a pretty lake,then north through the clamouring streets of the Old Town. Feeling tired, I looked for the most direct route back to the hotel and selected a street on my map that ran on the other side of the Military Museum where I had had coffee earlier in the day. The street looked quieter with less traffic than others, so off I set. I passed a soldier chatting to a lady with a baby and continued on for about 200m.

I then realised that I was the only pedestrian on my side, or the other side, forwards or backwards. Beside me was a tall yellow wall with gates every 100 m guarded by soldiers. I carried on until half way along I was challenged by a soldier, asking me who I was, and where I was from. Doing my best impersonation of harmless old lady tourist, I answered, and he told me to walk on the other side of the street. I scurried over, and continued for the remaining 500m with my eyes down and trying to look invisible. I realised in retrospect that I had misinterpreted a sign saying "Forbidden area 1000m" as meaning 1000m ahead, but it actually meant the NEXT 1000m, and the chatting soldier should have stopped me! Our Intrepid guide that night was quite shocked as he lives here, but has NEVER walked along that street. I fail to see what danger anyone could be, but it is quite clear that if someone says, "Do not walk on that street", then you don't! So lesson learned, I am now more vigilant, but looking a bit harmless obviously has its uses.

We left yesterday for the wonderful Halong Bay which is the highlight of my trip so far. It has the most amazing karst scenery, with vista after vista opening up as our boat sailed around. It is similar to Guilin and Yangshuo in China, but on an even bigger scale. My camera cannot do justice to the amazing panorama of this scenery around us.

We spent the night in the bay, on board our boat, and it was all magical. The food on board was also quite fantastic for what was not a high class boat, with fruit and vegetable art being a specialty. The camellia is carved from the end of a watermelon, the fishnet from a carrot, and the bread plate decorations from a whole salad!

 There is a beautiful complex of limestone caverns, similar to Waitomo, or the Reed Flute Caves in China.

 We also did quite a strenuous kayak trip which despite my muttering turned out to be amazing as we kayaked under a low arch of rock into a totally enclosed "lake" of water about 500m in diameter, 

 

 surrounded by high cliffs, and with a family of monkeys playing on the rocks to entertain us. 

 Quite magical, as the only entry is by kayak. We left all too soon to return to the maelstrom of Hanoi.

The traffic here in Hanoi is horrendous, with swarms of motorbikes covering the streets, and the parked ones covering the footpaths, so a trip anywhere is spent dodging bikes in all directions. However,they all seem to cope in the most amazing ways that would have NZ drivers crashing all over the place. At times I am longing for orderly traffic lights, footpaths, and pedestrian crossings that actually mean something.

Tonight is off to Hue on an overnight train which I do not think is of Eurostar standard, but another experience, I imagine.

Hue and Hoi An: The Gospel according to the guide

Thankful farewell to Hanoi, and the abominable traffic. What struck me after a while is that I hardly ever saw a bus, just swarm after swarm of motorbikes. Despite their authoritarian bureaucracy, it seems that when things were freed up, and bicycles were superseded by motorbikes ( you see very few bikes), that EVERYONE bought a motorcycle, so chicken and egg, there is little clientele for the buses, or there aren't any, I don't know which.

The other feature of Hanoi and the surrounding countryside is narrow, one-room wide houses, from three to six storeys high, painted only in the front! Travelling on the bus, I did not manage a good shot of these clustered together, but here is one example.

This is because property taxes are based on your house frontage, and you do not pay the full tax until it is finished, so you only paint the front, so therefore it is not finished! Despite hundreds/thousands of these strange houses, the taxman does not seem to have caught on. Around Hue you do not see these, so it must be a regional tax rule!

So onto the night train for Hue, which was not as bad as I had been expecting, and a passable night's sleep, though a cricked back, led us to Hue. This was the ancient royal capital until 1954, when the king agreeably abdicated to Ho Chi Minh, and left for Paris. It was all rather an imperial embarrassment, pounded by both sides in the American/Vietnam War,  but the powers that be have recognised that royalty has tourist potential, so with the help of UNESCO a lot of the destroyed bits are being refurbished.

This is where the Gospel according to the guide has been rather repetitive. I am not excusing any bad actions by either side in that war, but we do get a rather one-sided version of it from the guide. It is always the Americans who did everything, there is never any mention of the South Vietnamese fighting against Communism. There is a large royal compound in Hue - The Citadel - which he told us the Americans shelled and destroyed the buildings. A quick Google search will tell you that the area was held by the South for quite a long time, so firstly the Viet Cong shelled it, then when they took it over for about a month the South/Americans shelled it, then when the VC lost it, they shelled it again. Also, during that month, the VC rounded up 3000 Hue citizens suspected of collaborating, of being a high school graduate, or of being a Christian. When they were retreating, they could not take the prisoners with them, so they pushed them over a cliff in the Citadel to their deaths - not a site we were taken to see. Similarly the Ho Chi Minh Trail going through Laos, which he proudly tells us of, probably was not hugely welcomed by the Laotians who got the resulting bombing of the supply route. This sort of history version is repeated with everything we see, so I just have to button my lip and recognise that he is a government-trained guide, and it is probably the only version of history that he knows. However, it is also clear that many young people are desperate to leave Vietnam, even though the "boat people" times may have passed, and there are stories of guides dropping very heavy hints about being sponsored to get a job with any of the tour participants, for example, quizzing a physics research scientist about what he did and the possibility of a job - obviously, without any success.

So we toured The Citadel - obviously a magnificent place in its day, probably modeled on the Beijing Forbidden City, though a bit more spread out, with grassy areas as well. 

There is the same moat, and walls, and style of buildings, though little of what we saw is actually original, as it is being restored and rebuilt as a copy of what was destroyed. There is also a network of Royal tombs around the surrounding countryside, as each king tried to outdo the other with grand temples to accompany their tombs.

 There are other attractive buildings such as this covered bridge in a nearby village

 and a variety of pagodas and temples.

 These are also in assorted stages of disrepair or reconstruction, with UNESCO once again heavily involved. 

The main feature of Hue, apart from royalty, is the damp weather. It apparently rains most of the time, and all buildings over 30 years old seem to have increasing layers of black-green moss. True to form, it drizzled most of the time we were there, and I think my washed undies and T-shirts may be growing moss too.

Four hours on the road, stopping at one of the coastal resorts

 led us via DaNang to Hoi An, which is a delightful respite from everything. It is quite a small town, but good old UNESCO has been at work here too, preserving the Old Town, and helping keep the development of newer buildings in the same style. A covered bridge leads to the Chinatown area.

 Lanterns are a feature in the attractive streets and at the night market across the river in the "new" town.

 It has welcome traffic restrictions, and you can even walk into town in relative peace with only a few motorbikes threatening to run you over. There are tailor shops everywhere offering to outfit you in bespoke clothing in 24 hours. The internet warns against expecting Savile Row, or even Hong Kong standards, but I have had two blouses made within that time frame that I am very happy with. They made all the little adjustments I wanted, and the price was very easy on the credit card. Elsewhere, I confess to being a bit too soft-hearted with the bargaining process, as today I agreed to a $2 manicure in the market, and she did such a good job, I paid her $3! I have probably quite upset the economic system. I also cannot beat people down a few more dong when it is only 50 cents for me, but a significant amount for them.

Last night six of us did a fantastic cooking class run by a girl who deserves a place on Broadway, she put on such a good show for us for over 2 hours, and had us produce a marvellous five course meal, with all recipe details provided, all for less than you would pay for one course in an Auckland restaurant.

 So Hoi An tops my favourite town list so far.

Tomorrow is early on the road for a bus then plane to Saigon for the last two days of the tour, plus two days on my own, then home. I am busily reading up on Saigon history to have my own perspective on the guide's commentary. Busy traffic is not something I am looking forward to, but the city promises to be interesting. My own bed is beckoning......... 

Goodnight Vietnam

 Saigon is the last stop of my Indochina wanderings, and is definitely the most westernised of the stops so far in Vietnam. The Vietnamese say if you want money, go work in Saigon, if you want power, go work in Hanoi. I am not sure exactly how much money the average people have, as everyday items are very cheap, and some items are ridiculously so. A taxi ride of a couple of km may cost $1, so the taxi driver is not getting rich off that.

 However there is a ritzy area around Dong Khoi St which has several glittery shopping buildings, though I did not see a lot of actual shopping going on in them, just a lot of milling around. On Saturday evening Parkson's, one of these, had a glamorous pop singer entertaining beautifully dressed young people at the MAC make-up counter, and the rest of the shop made Smith and Caughey's look a bit down-market. There are the Prada and Ermenegildo Zegna shops, but all a bit empty. Even Mango had only me sampling the racks. The shops have just put up their very large Christmas displays all around the outside of their buildings  - even largely Buddhist countries love to celebrate Christmas

so the streets were teeming with people taking their photos in front of reindeer, piles of fake snow and lots of red sparkles -  all a little incongruous.

To backtrack a bit, our first half-day in Saigon was rather a history day, as after flying from DaNang, we first visited the Cu Chi Tunnels, where Viet Cong lived up to 30ft underground in a maze of tunnels about 70km from Saigon during the Vietnam War, and that was all a bit sombre.The war is ever-present here still, and the video and other displays  extolling the honour and glory of killing lots of Americans were a little unnerving. The hot steamy day added to the jungle atmosphere around us, giving a sense of the conditions the war was fought under - very unpleasant for all concerned. The tunnels were narrow and claustrophobic and must have been a ghastly place to actually live in.

 We then moved on to the War Remnants Museum which was more of the war history, and many captured American planes and tanks, and by this stage my head was spinning a bit.

The Mekong Delta was a great break away from the city the next day, and we travelled by a combination of large and small boats, and a ute adapted to be sort of 6-person open bus, but being Vietnam and not Thailand, we actually wore helmets! 

The scenery was very pretty and lush, and quite a pleasant version of the jungle as the delta area is a major fruit-growing region, so lots of nice fruit for our morning stop.

 Yesterday was my wander-the-city day, so I visited the main market, where I was literally grabbed by the arm and dragged to view one stall-holder's wares when I showed interest in a t-shirt. After a few abortive bargaining efforts we grew tired of the aggressive sales tactics, and headed for a shop recommended by Tripadvisor, where as promised, the same souvenir wares were on display with only mild shop assistants, and prices that were only a tiny fraction higher than the market. So I actually did spend my money there - I am not sure in what universe they seem to think that hectoring, and physically grabbing, are good sales techniques.

This morning I went to Notre Dame cathedral 

- yes, built by the French - for a lovely Mass with very good congregational singing and full pews, so they seem to have survived the more strict Communist years in some form. The rest of the day has been preparing for my evening flight, and finding somewhere to spend my last few dong -a delicious $3 meal of a sort of shrimpy omelette to wrap in lettuce leaves and herbs, and a $20 pair of Puma shoes has nearly emptied my purse. Sitting in the park now, typing this to the accompaniment of many flutes being played in the open air by the students from a nearby music school practising.

The trip is over now, and it has been a whirlwind range of cultural experiences, large quantities of very tasty and interesting food, with a mind-stretching amount of data to process through my little brain. It has not been a holiday in the sense of snooze-by-the-pool-and-read-a-book, but it is more of the expanding-awareness-of-the-world type of trip. It also reinforces how hugely fortunate I am to live in New Zealand, so while it is great to go away to new and exciting places, it is also fantastic to head back to clear skies, clean air and water, and the wonderful uncrowded spaces of home.

Until the next trip ..........