Vietnam - first week impressions

After one week in this bustling city, what can I say? Well, firstly, it’s hot. Not unbearably hot but just hot. Hot enough to prevent you from walking to work, hot enough to make you wake up if you air-conditioning turns off due to yet another blackout in the hotel and hot enough for you to actually sweat between your toes. They say that it will get even hotter in January, wonderful.

My gripe about my hotel accommodation continues as the lady doing my laundry has a rather annoying habit of writing my room number on the tags of my clothes in blue ink. I am sure she means well, you know, so she doesn’t get the clothes mixed up…but please…use some some common sense…use pegs or something but don’t write on other peoples clothes. Anyway, work has found me a rather nice one bedroom apartment that I can move to at the end of the month, so hopefully that chapter has been sorted

The other, most striking feature of Ho Chi Minh City is how busy it is. For those of you who have been to London, think Oxford street during the weekday but replace everyone with motorbikes. For those of you in Melbourne, um…think boxing day sales at Chadstone….times two and then replace everyone with motorbikes. Those little Honda’s and their cheaper Chinese competition are everywhere, going in all directions. They are on the footpath beeping for you to get out of the way and also blocking the footpath causing you to walk on the road. Although, as one of my directors said, you know if you are in a 3^rd world country if its safer to walk on the road than the footpath, and he is right. The footpaths in Ho Chi Minh City are terrible, totally uneven, lots of slippery patches, full of holes and loose bricks. So word to the wise, it is safer to walk on the road, but go against the traffic (well the majority of it).

This brings me onto one aspect of Ho Chi Minh City that keeps getting repeated, the concern about crossing the road. It is well founded...to a degree. The zebra crossings on the road are NOT, and I repeat NOT pedestrian crossings. They don’t mean a thing. These cause so much confusion that the British Business council has petitioned to get rid of them due to the number of foreigners getting swiped by bikes on them. The only way to cross the road is follow these simple rules

1. Always wait until the cars and buses have gone
2. Wait for a gap in the sea of bikes, if there is not one, look for a thin spot
3. Check for bikes going in the opposite direction of traffic, then walk across slowly
4. The bikes should go around you…if you see one coming towards you and the idiot is on the mobile or looking the other way, its advisable to walk a little faster
5. If a bus or car suddenly appears, also walk a little faster

Once you make it to the other side, remember to watch out for the idiots on the footpath or stay on the road.

The other point to note is the food. Yes it is cheap, but surprisingly it is also rather good. Not good for the price but actually rather good irrespective of the price. The coffee too is brilliant. I’ll cover the food in more detail later, hopefully with more pictures if I remember to bring my camera along, but I can say that I am impressed with the food here.

What’s it like working here? Well, its only been 4 days and I haven’t done any work at all so I can’t comment yet. However, what did take me by surprise was what happens at lunch time. I come back from lunch and see about a dozen bodies slumped at their desks. Holy crap I say to myself, is there a gas leak? Nope, they just take a nap during lunch time. Brilliant! I like this place already. There is also a room called the K-Zone, it’s like a recreation room with sofa’s and a big TV. I prefer to call it the birthing room due to the large number of pregnant ladies asleep on the couches during lunch time. It’s actually a funny sight so I may take a picture of it one of these days.

Vietnam - Arrival

After relaxing for 2 weeks in Melbourne with family and friends, I set off on a 10 hour plane ride to Ho Chi Minh city. The flight, on a Vietnam Airlines plane was very smooth, full credit to the pilots. However, the in-flight entertainment, for want of a better word was a little lacking for the 10 hours. By about the 4th hour, and I had only been awake for 1 hour, I was getting really bored. Not being able to understand the Vietnamese TV that was being shown, I resorted to the drastic. Talking to the guy next to me. Never managed to catch his name, but he was a really nice Vietnamese bloke who lived in Melbourne and was going back to Vietnam to visit his relatives and retrieve his elderly grandma who had been there for 4 weeks. We chatted about the usual things, the weather, what to do in Vietnam, how cheap everything was and then about each others lives. He was an interesting fellow, married with 2 kids, lived in Paris for 4 years and worked in a bank. Never really caught the name of the bank but then again, I only caught about half the conversation, but that was enough. Surprisingly, we managed to talk about rubbish for nearly the entire flight.

Anyway, after lumbering through the airport, I was met by Mr Gioi, the driver of the KPMG van. It had a HUGE KPMG logo on the side and front, so it was not hard to miss. We plodded on through the sea of bikes. You will never appreciate the sheer number of these noisy little Honda's until you experience it for yourself. Like a swarm of ants, these little things dart around seemingly chaotic trails, yet manage to get to their destinations in one piece.

We arrived at my apartment to discover it was a hotel. I had a small room, with no cooking facilities to speak of, no iron, a really hard uncomfortable bed and a that's about it. Very student like I believe is the word. I am not sure that I can live here for 3 months. Words need to be had with the authorities I believe.


Not being able to cook my Indomee, I gave up and went to bed at 8pm feeling rather annoyed.

Seat 75D

Made the 23hr flight from London to Melbourne yesterday. For those that have not experienced what must be one of the worst flights in modern day aviation, it means sitting down for one 13 hours stretch, getting off the plane then spending 2 hours waiting around to get back on the plane for another 8 hrs of....well sitting down.

I always fly with Qantas, you know, because I am supposed to be Australian and Qantas is the spirit of Australia and all. Well, after this flight, I have decided that my alliances lie elsewhere. The story goes like this.

Check-in. Silly me forgot to pre-book my seat so I was allocated one of the crap seats on the plane like the other idiots who don't fly often. Can I get an isle seat please, near the front if possible I ask is my bestest british accent and cheesiest smile. Of course Mr Sin, let me see what I can do came the reply from the obviously having a bad day overmade up lady at the counter. Here you go, here are your boarding passes. Hmm...passes I think to myself. Did she give me the Hong Kong to London leg as well? Nope, two tickets, London to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to London. Different seats. Fab! Well, I got aisle seat from Hell. Yep. 75D. Remember that seat folks. If you get it...request another...immediately.

75D, what can I say. Its in the back, not sure why they call it 75D, because, well there is no 75A, B or C. Just an empty space where the door is. I say empty because, its only empty for 10 minutes on take off and landing. The rest of time, it is full of f*cking dutch tourist who will not and cannot sit the f*ck down for the flight. No, they would rather stand there with their ASS on my seat, and sometimes my head! talking about f*ucking Koalas and Kangaroos. For f*cks sake, you paid for a seat so sit your fat asses down it it and stop bugging me because I want to sleep!

Then there is the toilet..well the 4 toilets that are behind me. Although, it smelt like there was only 1.

Okay, crap seat aside. There was also crap service. Well, in the old days. i.e. last year. You sit down, the plan takes off and the air stewardesses come around with a beverage. Nope, not anymore. 1.5 hours in you get lunch, or something that passes off as lunch and a drink. I refuse to ring a bell for a glass of water...so instead I winge about it on the internet. They only came around ONCE in the entire flight with drinks...rubbish. Then there was Kong Kong to Melbourne, where they didn't even do that. I had thankfully moved seats for that, but i was in the middle, but had some pleasant pretend conversations with a lovely old italian lady. I say pretend because I couldn't understand what she was one about.

Anyway, don't fly Qantas, don't sit at the back in the aisles and bring your own bottle of water. Now I am jet lagged like hell but at least I can have left over KFC for breaky!

Brussels

They say that there is not a whole lot of things to do in Belgium except for beer, chocolate, mussels and waffles. But on holiday, apart from beer, chocolate, mussels, waffles and steak what else is there to do? Thankfully, we found the steak bit as well!

We went to Brussels with a plan. It was to have a look at the famous pissing boy statue, visit the famous square, eat mussles and waffles (not at once mind you), drink lots of beer and buy some chocolate. I also wanted to eat some steak. Anyway, we left the hotel at 10am on Saturday ready to see the sights.
10:15am, The pissing boy- check.

10:25am: The square - check.

Right, it was too early for mussels so we just walked around.
12: Hungry so we went to Aux Armes de Bruxelles for lunch. Brilliant food listed as 4 forks (which I later realised was the price scale (1 being a bargain and 5 being first born) on the Michellin restaurant guide (never travel without it). Mussels - check.
I can't remember what happend between lunch and dinner so lets just skip to the dinner part.

6:30: Dinner at Jacques, another Michellin recommended restraurant in the "seafood district". Anyway, the steak was fantastic. So steak - check.

Around 9:00pm we hit the bar and had lots of beer! (okay, just one glass but it was a big glass!) So beer - check.

The next day, we headed over to Brugge, for the rest of our tour. Waffles!

That was it.

Oh yeah, chocolate...we bought lots of that too.

So, that was Belgium. We arrived back to London, completely relaxed for a change.

Berlin

There are two types of people in the world. I know its a gross generalisation but while sitting on the floor at Stansted waiting for the so called efficient Ryanair plan to land, the revelation dawned on me. There are the quers and the que jumpers. The later are the scum of the earth, but they seem to thrive here in London where the quers are meek and do little more than give the evil eye and mutter under their breath. Well, thats what happened while boarding the plane, this couple decided that they did not need to wait like the rest of us and jumped the que while the rest of the plane were sitting down on the floor (from exhaustion mind you). I, being the agressive australian that I was did more than just give them the evil eye, i labeled them. yes labeld them in public as que jumpers. Mind you that despite my agreesiveness I am softly spoken, so much so that people may have construed it as muttering under my breath. But anyway, I gave them the evil eye the entire time we were in the que and I think she (always pick on the weakest one) started to feel uncomfortable. Hahah, justice is served.

Anyway, already slightly annoyed, we arrived in Berlin and faced what has to be the efficiency with a capital A. Yep, three customs officials dealing with the EU passport holders and one old dude dealing with half a plane load of aussies, kiwi's and yanks. Anyway, needless to say, our group were the only ones left in customs after a while. Shoody I say.

Our night of efficiency kept rolling on, we decided to catch the train to the hotel because it would be easier. Famous last words. 2 hrs later we arrived. The person responsible for that decision has appologised and we have all moved on.

Our morning in Berlin started off with Breakfast at MacDonalds. A medium big mac meal at that. Talk about awesome! Big Mac's for breakfast! Anyway, not a good idea. Somehow your body just isn't ready for one at 9:30 in the morning. Lesson learnt.

Below is an extract fro Hien's email because I am being lazy

"We started a FREE walking tour started at 11am outside Starbucks, on Paris Platz, where Dave (our guide from Manchester) proceeded to give us a history lesson on Berlin's past 800 years. The Brandenburg gates were as impressive as the pictures but the monument which stole the show for me was the Memorial to the murdered Jews. A staggering 2,711 concrete blocks, all the same width and length (but varying in depth), covered a paved area of East Berlin, just over the street from Tiergarten. The architects gave no indication of what the blocks meant - everyone's own interpretation is correct.

Exhausted from our 5 hour walking marathon, we proceeded to find Monsieur Vuong's famed eatery - a Vietnamese restaurant in Berlin, you say? Yes. It turns out that German food is not so popular in the nation's capital. While the food did taste great, the portions were a little smaller than what you would get down Victoria Street and the waiters were a little too waxed and had more eye make up than your regular Footscray squatter. Hey I'm Vietnamese - I can say this.

With the arrival of Christmas around the corner, what else does Germany do best but its Christmas markets. In Berlin, there were several, with the most popular one being in Gendarmenmarkt, the square where the German and French identical cathedrals stand. We ate everything - from bratwurst, to currywurst, to fried biscuit things, to honey roasted peanuts, to chestnuts, to crepes....we ate it all. The only thing we weren't game to try was gluwein - mulled wine. Maybe next time".

Just to add, I am finally recovering from Food poisoning, yep real food poisoning. Based on my scientific analysis, it was the German gingerbread cookies. I think I might keep those for Halloween next year.. BWaahahahaha!


Photos to come up later. I haven't figured out how to use my new iMac yet.
Update: Photos are up. I have figured out how to use my iMac

The hills are alive!

Yes, the hills were indeed alive in the picturesque city of Salzburg. 8 Aussies, none of whom where born in Australia, made the long trek, made only long by the utter rubbish that was Ryanair, to the home of the Sound of Music. Interestingly, most Austrians either don't know or want to know of that musical. They do rather, want people to know that that there a "NO KANGAROO's IN AUSTRIA".

The initial assault that was planned on Salzburg by tour leader Le was to begin with a self debriefing before the flight (roughly translated as watching the Sound of Music). (un)Fortunately, this was not to pass and we began our journey without the sound of music ringing in our ears.

We managed to find a taxi for all 8 of us surprisingly easily and sped off into the center of Salzburg. Tour leader Le managed to extract from the driver, a recommendation for dinner that night, a little pub near the hotel. So, we took the advice and marched on in. Needless to say, it was fantastic. We pigged out on Salzburg style schnitzel (schnitzel with ham, mushrooms and cheese), Stigel beer (fantastic stuff!) and Mussel pots. So far so good I say.

The next day, we hit the town and managed to visit a number of sites, a few castles, we saw a few Salzburgians dressed in their weekend finery and managed to eat like the locals did (standing up munching on sausages).

That night we trudged into a restaurant that was clearly off kilter. Everytime we ordered anything, the waitresses would laugh. It was almost like she had not seen such little people eat so much. Anyway, we pigged out once again on Souffle's, meat platters and apple strudle and this time Truman Pill beer (we preferred Steigel).

The next day, the hills were really alive. We headed off on our sound of music tour with Anna-Maria, and visited most of the sites of the sound of music. Not really all that interesting for the blokes (except Michael who seemed to be really getting into it) apart from the absolutely gorgeous scenery. We eventually went to a luge track and had a bit of blast down the mountain. Next stop, Apple strudel! Anna Maria did say it was the best apple strudel in the world, and I would have to agree. Fantastic. She did fail to mention the setting we were eating the apple strudle in. I mean, take a look at this. Its a view, if I may say so myself.
Well, that was pretty much it, they say pictures are a thousand words, so just look at the pictures.

Travel: Bath & Stonehenge

Despite typical London weather, we venturned out in what was fast becoming "our" car, a streetcar named "Charlie". Charlie is a little Volkswagen Golf which is part of a car sharing program called Streetcar. We say fast becoming our car as we have had to fill it up with Petrol 3 times! and have done most of the Km's on it. Oh the really brilliant thing about Streetcar is that the petrol is free and at the current price of 98p ($2.45 ozzie) per liter, that is quite cool.

Anyway, I can tell you that Charlie, carrying 4 adults on board can quite comfortably make it to 90 miles per hour (doing about 4400RPM in 5th Gear) but despite that effort, it had difficulty keeping up with most of the London traffic on the M3 motorway. We were constantly overtaken by drivers in the bigger Mercedes/BMW's and even Transit Vans, who seemed to be quite intent on reaching the next traffic jam before anyone else.

Enough of the car I guess and onto Bath and Stonehenge.

Not alot to say about Bath except that it is really nice. The Roman baths are niceish but the water there is yuk!


We went past the famous Sally Lunn building, which is supposidly the oldest building in bath. Also worth mentioning was that this Sally Lunn bird apprently had really nice buns. Rubbish. Having big buns is nothing to gloat about. Sure they were big and round, but unless they are smothered in cream, they are just buns. Anyway, we ate one with Vietnamese meatloaf for dinner and it was just OK.

Stonehenge is a bunch of rocks in a circle. That's it. You have to see it but don't get too excited about it.


Rest of the photo's will be up later.

Oh, in Bath we came across this tosser. Jeremy clarkson frequently bags Porsche drivers, he calls boxers, "cocksters", caymens "gaymens" and anyone in a 911 as a wanker. A bit harsh on all the Porsche drivers, but I found one that was at least honest.

Travel: Paris

Spent the weekend in Paris, leisurely taking in the sites and feasting on the famous French cuisine, Pho noodles and Japanese Yakitori. :-) We did have plenty of baguettes though.

We stayed in the Latin Quarter,which is rather conviently located near Lourve, Notre Dame. The Lourve is very impressive, large and rather hot in parts, so don't try and do the whole thing without a break. Mind you, it is not as impressive as the Vatican musuem in Italy but very nice nevertheless. A warning for the thirsty, DO NOT go to the cafe next to the Lourve, its by the river. The photo below will explain why.



Warning, rant below:
Rant Start: It really gets me that despite the clearly marked signs, NO PHOTOGRAPHY in areas that hold the very important artwork (i.e. the Mona Lisa), idiots with their stuipid little digital camera's try and take photo's WITH the flash. For crying out loud, turn the flash OFF if you want to sneak a shot! It's because of these people that camera's are banned in those enclosures, so learn to use your camera before you take it on holiday.
Rant Over:

Shopping in Paris is one of those things that must be done. Having the summer sales on did help, with up to 70% off in some stores. We went up the Champ delesye for our shopping fix and came across a massive Louis Vitton store (the 2nd one) and were waiting for the Chinese toutists to ask us to help them buy a bag. Sadly, this Loius store had security guards to stop the spruking. Anyway, hope was not lost as we passed the Hugo store up the road, a chinese lady asked us to help buy bags for her..our experience was now complete. Anyway, we didn't do it.

That was it, quite a busy weekend. The next trip Paris will be to the Moulin Rouge and the surrounds.

Travel: Keukenhof Gardens Amsterdam

No visit to the Netherlands can be complete without seeing some Tulips. So you have to follow the zillions or tourists (mostly the elderly) to the Keukenhof Gardens. Its is probably the most spectacular garden I have been to in a very long time, it makes the Botanical gardens in Melbourne look like a patch of dirt.

Not alot to say about it except that it takes up an entire day and if you don't like flowers or walking, then you shouldn't go. If you do like flowers or taking photo's then you must go.

Some pictures below. I will put up the rest a little later on.

Travel: Amsterdam

After our Provence journey, we headed over to Amsterdam. City of Sin supposedly, or is that Las Vegas? We booked ourselves in this trippy apartment called....try and guess from the picture below:

Anyway, Amsterdam, famous for the red light district or as we affectionately acronymed it, the RLD. Equally famous are the coffee shops, the source of weed, hash and space cakes.

The thing you see above is a space cake. It looks like a really trippy cake made for school fairs, however, it tastes awful. Much like grass cuttings in a instant sponge cake. Did we get a trip? Nope. Because we couldn't eat anymore than one bite. At least we could image what it was to be a cow.

Next up Hash - when in Amsterdam....Well, the fellas gingerly went to get some hash from the recommended supplier across the road from the crazy apartment. A note for visitors to Amsterdam. 1 Gram of Hash is plenty enough, my friends asked for 2 Grams because 1 sounded weak, but believe me, 1 gram is plenty. Anyway, after several hick-ups - i.e. breaking the bong and sucking in pure hash, we managed to the cheapest bong in the shop as a replacement and had a puff or six. The result? No laughing like school girls, just a bout of dizziness closely followed by a desire to nap. Overall, hash is totally overrated. Just buy a few pints of beer and it does the same thing, without all the legal issues.

Finally the RLD. Nothing much to say really, except that you can't take pictures unless you want some European pimp the size of Jabba the Hut coming out and sitting on you. I guess its alot cleaner than having them on the street corners and they don't get cold so easily strutting around in their bikini's or school girl outfits.

Apart for the somewhat notorious side of Amsterdam, there are the "family friendly" attractions in Amsterdam. Namely, the Canals, the river boats and the Galleries. We spent an afternoon just walking around the streets of Amsterdam avoiding the zillions of crazy people on bike and generally taking in the rather quiet atmosphere. Some of the highlights include:


1. Canals. Lots of Canals, one local told us that to find the city centre, you look down the canal and where it turns left (or was that right?) that's the direction of the city. Pretty sound advice once you remeber whether it was left or right.


2. Bike jam. Lots of bikes in Amsterdam. They have their own little roads which looks suspiciously like footpaths except for the white line dividing it. So if you are walking on anything that has a white line down the middle, move otherwise you will get "dinged".


3. Rembrandt's "the Night Watchman" Rather nice paiting if I do say so myself.

Overall, Amsterdam is a fairly nice place.

Travel and Gadgets: La Provence, the Big Blue Whale and the Sat Nav Chick

We pottered around the South of France in a big blue whale, pictured below resting somewhere in the mountains while two of the crew were off writing their names in the dirt.

The drive through the Provence region is spectacular, with plenty of vomit inducing windy roads and fast highway streches in between. That is normally a good thing, but anyone who watches TopGear or knows anything about cars knows that the French can't make them. The car is far from an exciting vehicle to drive. It has what marketing folks at car companies call, cloud like ride.. which basically means that its kind of like being in a boat. Despite this, driving through this region is recommended.

The big blue whale did have two redeeming features; Automatic opening side doors and Sat Nav. The doors were something out of a B-Grade Sci-Fi show, press a button and its opened. Press it again and it's closed. You can also do it while about 30 meters away from the car. Great fun for the whole family.

However, the doors where upstaged by the Sat Nav. A drive typically went like this.

Sat Nav (SNC)" turn right in 200 meters"
SNC: "turn right"
Davin:"what right?"
SNC: "turn right"
Davin: "WTF? Stupid machine, there is no road to the right!"
SNC: "where possible plus U-turn"
Davin: "NFW - stupid machine"

later on that day.....
Davin: "hey, anyone know where we need to go?"
Me: "shouldn't SNC have said something already?
SNC: "......"
Davin: "err...where are we"
SNC: "......"
Davin: "bugger, its gone on strike again..anyone got a map?"
The Crew: "......"

SNC: "where possible do a U-turn"
Davin: "merde".

At times where we did follow it, we ended up in the back streets of some little village and along some very deserted roads. It even took us down some streets that would only just pass off as footpaths. Like the street below:



As you can see, there are quite a lot of cars infront, the drivers of which are all probably cursing their Sat Nav - "Merde! Regarder où vous me vous avez pris stupide, machine stupide".

Provence itself you ask? Its a very nice place, picturesque and generally pretty relaxing. Nothing much to do except enjoy the scenery and the food. I'd recommend a drive to each of the little towns along the way. Also take a quick drive to Monaco just for the thrill of driving on the famous corkscrew (below)