~journeys twenty-ten: journal with pfotos~
~ cambodia ~ indonesia ~ malaysia ~ thailand ~ vietnam ~
Saturday 20 November 2010
CAN THO ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~August 10-13, 2010
Saturday 13 November 2010
VUNG TAU to CAN THO ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~August 10, 2010
The local bus is an interesting ride up the 'under reconstruction' highway to Bien Hoa on the main Saigon/HCM-Hanoi drag. The traffic then gets ludicrous. Heavies mostly...trucks 'n buses. Vietnam's in the thoes of major development after all. The roads can't keep up. Even maintaining existing ones lags behind. Tolls are everywhere. They can be big money-spinners. But there are bigger. So not much of the current development has resulted in more user-friendly transport infrastructure. Or wait on, hasn't it?
Heading into Saigon on the main road from Bien Hoa's slow going. I'd bought this ride to Can Tho for VND70k with the distinct impression that Saigon wasn't on the menu. There's always the distinct possibility, due to the language barrier, that this impression is a distinctly false one. Seems so wedged between trucks and other buses on the road into Saigon. Hang on a minute! We're sidling right into quieter traffic. Before long we're pulling up at a tollgate. Then like the magic only real money can buy, we're on the still-pristine 50-plus-kilometre freeway that now skirts north round the 12-plus-million-people/motorbike city named in victorious honor for Bac Ho. Fantastic, wonderful. A freeway. Memories of Malaysia. Then, after the freeway's over it's back to the mostly two-lane Saigon-Can Tho highway. Back to the present. We have a welcome piss and refreshment stop. There are buses of many companies continually pulling in and out. Now it's over a main branch of the Mekong on the 'John Howard' bridge near Vinh Long.
We roll off another new bridge and enter the precincts of Can Tho. It's been a mostly enjoyable, interesting and reasonably comfortable 7 hour bus trip from Vung Tau. I somewhat strangely let myself get dropped somewhere in the outskirts of the city. There are distinct language misunderstandings going on...again. It's dark now and raining too...and I haven't got a clue where the riverfront I know is, or how far I am from it.
Friday 12 November 2010
VUNG TAU ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~August 07-10, 2010
Aug. 07. My visit to Vung Tau. Mid afternoon, the direct local bus from Nga Trang rolls into the bus station. We've taken the coastal road from Mui Ne rather than the main drag. Thankfully we've missed the under-construction-for-endless-kilometres' Bien Hoa to Vung Tau highway. A change indeed the centrally-located Vung Tau bus station. I don't have too far to hike to find a cheap room then. However on closer arrival there don't appear to be cheap-room places nearby. I have the mandatory coffee and cigarette right outside the station. It's not really anything to do with having no idea about where to stay. Just a 'traveling habit' on arrival in a new town. Getting ready for a walk. In this instance, reflecting on my lifestyle too.
I've lived in Saigon off and on for a couple of years. I've somewhat incredibly never been to Vung Tau before though. The closest I have gotten in the past is checking out the fast-ferry at Saigon's district one wharf. Last year I'd had the thought when I was only working weekends that I could live down here. Contemporary Saigon's 'motorbike madness'. I'd commute for weekend work up in the city. Much more sanity-preserving in the long run.
The usual big city in the developing world syndrome. Noisy with polluted air and waterways. A rat-race best avoided. Most that live there have the "I gotta get away" from here feeling occasionally. Vung Tau. I had it but never did make it down to Vung Tau. You can spend a lot of time and energy on the big-city soul-destroying merry-go-round! It's hard to find the 'off' switch. This visit's about checking the place out. Seeing if maybe I could handle living here. Perhaps working here too. Or doing that commute. Starting over.
I turn left out of the bus-station and walk about one and a half kilometres down Nam Ky Khoi Nghia to intersect Hoang Hua Tham. So far so good. I take a wander up and down for a couple of hundred metres each way. I recognize one place from a guide book. But the Phoung Nhi Hotel's now closed. There's a likely looking hotel right next door. I have as good a room for as cheap as I'll get around this town. After a bit of lighthearted bargaining I agree to pay VND200k for today, Saturday. Subsequent days will cost VND150k per night...until next Saturday! Like most low-budget hotels there's an hourly rate for the casual local visitors with their girlfriends. After the weekend I'm the only 'permanent' guest.
Vung Tau's at it's busiest. But the weather isn't cooperating. It's overcast for the entire three day stay. The ocean beach is alive with people. Living in Saigon one never sees into the distance. Never sees hills. Never experiences wide expanses of much at all apart from long streets and avenues brimming with motorbikes and their colorfully helmeted riders. So though it's not been a 'beach day' weather-wise at 5.30 in the evening the sand is still alive with families new and old. Families of orientation and procreation. People scramble down to the beach from the street that fronts the beach. There's a bit of an esplanade. And a lot of street stalls. This is a pleasant surprise. Not yet fully developed!
The Sunday is a lazier than normal day. In the evening I hit the streets and head back up-town to the Vung Tau market near the bus-station. The market's quieter than on a weekday. The rain's been intermittent again today. It's approaching that time of the year. On Nam Ky Khoi Nghia outside the market there are stalls with flowers, fruit and veges. Just to the right of the market entrance there's a sidewalk coffee place. It's an ideal place to relax and observe.
Aug. 09. Late morning on Monday I'm out and about and heading for the western side of this peninsula town. I wander towards the esplanade bay that's situated on the upstream side of the ferry-to-Saigon wharf. I arrive at the esplanade about noon on yet another overcast day. It's unusually windy too.
The Saigon River isn't that inviting compared to the 'ocean beach'. It's not as polluted as I expected though. What's happening? There's a cyclo. Some kids are watching a para-surfer. There's a wedding photo-shoot going on. The bride's in voluptuous red. The groom's patient like he's got to be from now on. The crew are constructing a set, suspending a swing from a tree bough. Those are photos for a lifetime. I stand my distance. It's an intriguing scene. I'm being entertained. Earlier, I caught a glimpse of square and a big church. It turns out to be the Vung Tau Cathedral.
On the way back to the room, I stop off at a cheap corner restaurant near my hotel. It's still open for lunch but deserted. I'm the only customer at 1.30pm. Lunch time in Vietnam is usually from eleven thirty to one. I think they've cleaned up and don't really need a late, strange-looking foreign customer. But they oblige showing me the menu. The food's reasonable...nothing special but all right. The staff and their kids are friendly. It's a makeshift building with huge, filthy ceiling fans. Afterwards it's 'siesta at the room' time.
I venture out again in the evening. I'm moving on tomorrow to Can Tho. So it's back up to the bus station. There are good, cheap local buses that can take me there directly by skirting round most of Saigon. I have a coffee at the market nearby.
My Vung Tau stay's been surprising...and interesting. It's OK. I'd anticipated that it'd be way too expensive but tacky and I'd hate it. Vung Tau's been a pleasant surprise. I'm heading to pay a visit to an American friend, BigManJohn. He's now back from his China visit and living again in Chau Doc on the Mekong near Cambodia. A border town. He reckons it's a laid-back, friendly, interesting and cheap place to live! We'll see. First I'll stop off at Can Tho the Vietnamese Mekong's main town. The big 'delta city'.
Thursday 11 November 2010
NGA TRANG ~journeys 2010: journal with pfotos~Aug.04~05 2010
Nga Trang's "holiday beach" town. A shining jewel in the tourist crown of Vietnam is Nga Trang. It's changed out of sight over the last ten or so years. The main beach is a very developed foreshore these days. Twenty years or more ago it must've been absolutely stunning. I'm sure anyone who was fortunate enough to visit then including ex-servicemen who served at Cam Ranh Bay in the '60s and early '70s would surely testify. To change the subject, here's a Nga Trang business idea? Provide machines that disperse reasonably priced premium drinking water. It works in Malaysia. In most towns, in key locations, there's refreshing, cheap water available. And the dispensers of cool, clear water are not only used by 'cheap Charlie' backpackers. There, the locals often refill plastic containers!
It's a hot enough day for cool, clear refreshing water as I wander along the main beach just below high tide mark on easy-to-walk-barefoot sand. That littoral strip is where I feel most comfortable. In the central bay the beach is manicured...kept very respectably clean. Foreign tourists sun themselves. I focus on moving on along in the heat. From a disused wharf I survey the view back along the bay to the esplanade and the main tourist beach in it's centre.
I have no real idea of what's in store up ahead. But I have the feeling it might just get interesting though. I'm still feeling kind of euphoric having extricated myself from Hanoi. Walking on for at least an hour, I pass along the village foreshore where it's really still like Nga Trang must've been not so long ago. I then manage to scramble around the rocks then up the hill with the Oceanographic Institute overlooking the Cau Da villas. The resulting view in all directions from the Institute is well worth the effort. And I avoid paying an admission fee! That's just the way it turns out. An excellent exploration of the south end of Nga Trang bay and along the Cau Da village foreshore.
Aug. 05. I visit Long Son Pagoda by accident really. I'm 'en route' on foot trying to find the local bus station. I don't want to endure another 'sleeping bus' down to Vung Tau. This Pagoda with it's huge Buddha is near the bus station. Or so I find out. I approach it from the Cai River side. I see the back of the hill. I see the back of the giant Buddha sitting on it. I'm thinking "I'm lost". I'm way off my mark. But I'm not one to give up and turn back. I continue to follow the street that skirts around the hill between the river and the main road. Suddenly, bingo! There's the station. After purchasing my ticket on a direct bus to Vung Tau for the next morning I visit the entrance to the Pagoda. I stop off for a couple of well-earned cold drinks...cokes that is.
I don't really go in. I have a good enough view of the 'Giant Seated Buddha'. I see a couple of birds playing around on Buddha's head! I just sit observing the comings and goings. I chat with some young women who are helping with the Pagoda renovations. Then I amble off taking a more direct route back to the central alley and my room. Another bus trip's in store in the morning.