Of course, I could always blame Blogger which I recently have trouble logging in as I'm probably one of the few remaining woolly mammoths in their pool who has yet to switch to the new Blogger. Or I could blame the earthquake in Taiwan, which broke the cables like sausages in the sea, affecting internet access. Not that I noticed though, since I don't surf the internet much. Heck, I hardly spend time in front of the computer now, except at work.
The year end has also been especially busy, at work and at home. Work wise, with the long weekend in sight, we are preparing for an onslaught of local guests checking in. These guests are more intimidating than the Vikings. The moment my room attendants heard about them, their legs start to tremble and all start filing outside the clinic for MCs, which just adds to my manning woes.
For the uninitiated, local guests tend to do the following:
1. Check in en masse. I don't mean checking in at the same time. I mean as in per room. It seems as if the locals are having a competition to see how many people they can squeeze into one room, or to feel how sardines felt.
2. Plunder and pillage. For a room rate that is possibly shared by 10 people, they expect 20 sets of every amenity in the room. One set for each to use, and one set for each as souvenirs. Yes, the locals are big on free hotel souvenirs, even if it's just ordinary toilet paper. They can check in with an empty bag and check out with a full one, without even stepping out for shopping. I'm surprised the furniture is not carted off.
3. Demanding. What they want, they have to get it. They don't get it, they perform the national hobby - complain. They also expect servicing of room even if they have only checked in for an hour and numerous times per day. They should be thanking their lucky stars that we do not strictly enforce the maximum occupants rule.
4. Perform magic. If my room attendants are servicing a particular room, leaving their carts outside, when they come out, magically the amount of amenities and other items will diminish from what they had when they last had the cart in sight. No points for guessing who are the wonderful magicians in the league of David Copperfield.
5. The main reason why my room attendants quiver when the locals are in house is not because they are demanding. Rather, their rooms are what we term as 'dinosaur rooms', in the T-Rex category no less. The amount of rubbish and chaos they leave behind in each room can rival that of Smoky Mountain in Manila.
I guess, Singaporeans, being Singaporeans, like to stretch their money to the fullest.
Oh right, I've yet to finish on my trip to Vietnam. Well, I'm going to do a summary for the remaining 7 days.
Hoi An is a quaint little town, with a night atmosphere in the league of Jiufen in Taipei and Chinatown in Malacca.
Hue is a cultural city big on tombs and temples.
Halong Bay is an impressive scenic area.
Hanoi is a city with plenty of places to go around it.
Food in Vietnam makes you eat like a cow. Not in terms of having good appetite, but rather in terms of the proportion of greens. I ordered the speciality Cao Lao in Hoi An, and I got a bowl of noodles top with plenty of vegetables. I ordered fried pho in Hanoi, the proportion of vegetable is 50-50 to the proportion of noodles. On top of that, I get a small basket of fresh vegetable as an appetiser.
Moo...
Saturday, December 23, 2006
To Cu Chi Tunnels
I had also booked a flight to Danang for the next day. Originally had wanted to spend an extra day floating down the Mekong Delta, but one of the fellow travellers came back from the tour and didn’t exactly recommended it.
I didn’t get to see the cows on fields and fishes in water. Spent much of the day on the bus instead, he grumbled.
Though I would have love to stayed on a bus and have a merry sing-a-long session with others who booked the tour to Mekong, after much consideration, I decided to fly out the next day instead and spend more time up north.
The tour agency for my Cu Chi Tunnels tour missed me out in the morning. I had to be picked up separately. Luckily, the rest of the tour group are just chilling out inside a handicap lacquer work workshop (literally chilling out in the air con as it was burning hot outside), so I didn’t miss anything.
Throughout the ride from HCMC to Cu Chi, our tour guide touched on its history and talked about his wartime experiences as well. He said he was with the US Navy as an officer at that time, and spent about 2 years in the States prior to the war and how he was given the name Billy. However, given his command of English, I had my doubts about the authenticity of all that he had said. No matter what, he made it entertaining with all those personal anecdotes, true, half true or false.
After the video was the tour of the combat area (partially reconstructed for tourists). Bomb sites, different traps used, the small tunnel openings and sniper holes, destroyed tank etc.
Apologies for the direction of the video, but attempts to rotate it resulted in truncation.
Some of the traps used by Viet Congs
Baby guerilla shoes to gorilla shoes
Ahhh....Daylight
By 2pm (local time), I was back in HCMC. With half a day more to spent, I went on a walking tour with my (technically it’s NLB’s) trusty Lone Planet as a guide. First stop was the Ben Thahn Market. It sells practically everything. T-shirts, shoes, souvenirs, dried food, hot food, flowers, watches and a wet market. I was just so tempted to buy some stuff, but with another 8 days to go, I didn’t want to lug around an entire shop on my back.
Notre Dame Church & Hotel De Ville - Day & Night
One of the more notable sights is the Hotel De Ville. No longer a hotel but a government building, it has an impressive façade and I just can’t imagine how nice it would be inside.
Walked all the way down to Saigon River hoping for some breeze. Ended up looking at an unimpressive river with clumps of giant water hyacinths and rubbish. There are boats restaurants along the river where they will travel up and down the river while you enjoy dinner. However, with all the rubbish in sight (at least along the particular stretch I was at), more likely I’ll contribute with my vomit.
River boat & rubbish on Saigon River
Chatting outside hotel
Night fell and after walking for far too long without any rest, I headed back to my hotel. Back there, I sat outside the hotel and chatted with Max, a nice old pharmacist from Canada and some of the hotel staff. This homely atmosphere was to be something I wouldn’t get in my other stay in Vietnam.
Bye Bye
Thursday, December 21, 2006
First day @ HCMC
When I planned my Vietnam trip, I pretty much kept the itinerary open. I just bought an air ticket to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) and another out of Hanoi. In between, where to stay, what to do, how long in each city/town and the internal flights are decided as and when I’m there and ready to move on to keep things flexible.
I took Tiger Airways, which means I had the opportunity to board from the Budget Terminal. It was nothing fantastic to yodel about. In fact, you would have probably screamed about the nothing and empty feeling, possibly due to the lack of contents and high ceiling. There is just so much empty space you could park two Boeings in there and still not feel crowded.
Budget Terminal - Departure Hall
The time finally came for boarding. Since it was free seating, 5 minutes before boarding time, everyone’s practically jostling around the various display television to wait for the boarding gate number to show.
*Ding* Gate 9.
The minute, no make than nanosecond, the gate number showed up, everybody rushed towards it faster than the word ‘FREE’ can attract the aunties during the Great Singapore Sale. I was no exception. To be among the firsts in the queue so I could get my desired window seat, I had to trample an old lady, bully little nuisances called children and kick several nobodies out of my way.
I got my desired seat alright, but I’d my retribution as well. Instead of getting chio young ladies sitting beside me, I got two old unchio Vietnamese ladies (UVLs). The moment after we took off, these one of the UVLs whipped off her shoes and put her legs on the hand rest of the seat in front of her. Ewww…. Thank goodness a Tigress (what I call the stewardess) came by and requested proper sitting.
An hour into my flight, I felt my bladder about to burst. I looked towards my left and both UVLs were asleep. Damn. That’s one of the downsides of sitting at a window seat. I had no rubber band, no bottles and the window couldn’t be open. I could only wait. Thankfully, less than an hour later, we landed with no flooding disaster. No points for guessing where I headed to first.
The minute I walked out of the airport at HCMC, I was already marked as a walking dollar sign and got ripped off by the taxi driver. I had no doubts about it and confirmation with the friendly proprietor of Madam Cuc 64 (where I stayed) sealed the fact.
The traffic from the airport to Pham Ngu Lao, the backpackers area, is not for the faint hearted. As a matter of fact, I came to discover it is true for traffic in whole of Vietnam, with HCMC being the worst. A well tanned complexion can become stunningly pale in seconds if you can’t take the traffic conditions.
The entire trip from the airport to Pham Ngu Lao, my taxi driver had his hand permanently glued to the horn and pressing it perpetually. The cacophony of honking seemed to be telling me ‘Welcome to Vietnam. Hope you brought an extra pair of ear drums’.
While there are more motorcycles on the roads than there are cars, at rate the drivers and motorcyclists are utilising their horns, one could probably make a fortune out of just replacing them.
After finding and checking into the highly recommended Madam Cuc 64 (there’re two more Madam Cuc branches nearby), with half day more to go, I decided upon going to Cholon (Chinatown). To avoid getting ripped off again, I asked for the prices of going to Cholon by taxi and motorcycle from the lady proprietor. Taxi cost 30,000VND (approx SGD3) and motorcycle cost 15,000VND. However, she recommended me to take the local bus which only cost 3,000VND. 3,000VND? Wah lau, so cheap! The last time I paid that amount on a SBS bus ride was probably in the early nineties.
There wasn’t any hesitation on deciding which transport to take, especially having already been ripped off once, I needed to make sure my money went a longer way. The only problem with taking the local bus was where do I stop? Luckily for me, the way to Cholon ended up at the Cholon bus interchange, so there wasn’t an issue.
Cholon Bus Interchange
Shops in Cholon are basically clustered along streets by what they sell. There’re entire street selling nothing but cloth, streets of shops wholesaling Chinese medical products, streets selling canvas and nylon products, street selling sports products (near a school) etc. Of course, there are the usual temples and churches which my Lonely Planet Guide classified as sights.
Streets selling herbs, cloth and canvas products
Climbing 8 floors to room was no fun after a tiring day
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Back in Sg
Finally back in Singapore, after 10 days in Vietnam. An extra day in Hanoi than intended (technically it's Noi Bai Airport), courtesy of Tiger Airways.
My flight back was on 15 Dec 9.40pm (sg time), taking the same plane that Rayner took to Hanoi. The plane landed on time at 9.10pm, followed by the herding of Team Singapore and other passengers out of the plane. Although the boarding time was also at 9.10pm, nobody made a noise as we allowed time for the cleaning crew to turnover the plane first.
Only at 10.20pm did the announcement came that the flight has been delayed till 11.30pm due to a 'technical check'. The Tiger crew sashayed back to the plane and was stopped by a couple of irate passengers. Questions were asked and taichi was played followed by a prompt disappearance into the plane that David Copperfield would have been proud of.
At 11.30pm, the gates was still closed. The second announcement came at 11.45pm and that the flight will be delayed further till 12.30am. By this time, the passengers were tired, hungry and frustrated. We were even asked to shift to the next gate as there was another flight due for boarding at the current one.
Questions were asked regarding the delays and the answer given was the same - 'technical check'. Apparently, the engineer was roused from his sleep and had just reached the airport.
For me, I had no frustration with the delay. Unlike some of the passengers with young children or old folks, I'm alone. Unlike some who had connecting flights to other places, I had none. I had also taken an extra day of leave to rest, so now it cuts into it but I still wouldn't miss my work. The entire delay became a circus for my entertainment, and it was really interesting to observe how people react differently and the badgering the innocent airport employees took.
The flight cancellation finally came at 1.50am. Volcanoes erupted, earthquakes trembled and typhoons blew. The gate became a free for all fracas with questions, complaints and threats flying left, right and centre to the airport employees. Apparently a bird committed suicide and the engineers needed more time.
Demands to see Tiger Airways representative was turned down as they do not have one. Demands to see the Captain was turned away as well as he has no authority outside the plane (he probably was on his way to a hotel). As Tiger Airways is a budget airline, it does not cater food and accomodation for its affected passengers as well. There were no more taxis and the airport is closing for the day.
We were in a dilemma and so was the airport employees. After another hour of tussling and conflicting answers from the airport employees, finally they kicked us out of the transit area but allowed us to sleep at the airport with assurance the flight would be on the next day at noon. Me, I had no issue with it and I'm glad I bought travel insurance this time round.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
In Vietnam
Of course, with my backpack, I'm practically a walking dollar sign, so I guess getting ripped off now and then isn't that surprising. So far it has been good. Meeting fellow travellers and locals has given me good enough tips and help.
Just read another typhoon is due to hit Vietnam. A maybe for now as it might veer towards China or Hong Kong. So crossing my fingers now, because I'm heading up north where it is one of the projected paths for the typhoon.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Baby
Wah. Finally completed the almost impossible task of generating my report on my attachment. I did a word count and I won't be surprise if it's more than the total word count for ALL the essays I did in Year 1 of university.
Given the amount of brain cells that had valiantly died in contributing to the final product, I didn't even bother read through again to spot mistakes of any sorts or to make changes. The moment I hit the last full stop at conclusion, Print is the next icon I clicked on.
I'm not particularly bursting with pride about that, but it's just going to be for my manager's reading pleasure and I doubt he's going to deduct my pay for my English. So what the heck! I'm already in holiday mood and with only 4 more days before I fly, I've yet to decide on the itinerary. This definitely has moved up the priority list higher than refining my report.
Well, I just like to relate one thing I saw on my train ride home last night. There was this couple sitting beside me and the wife was holding their couple of months' old baby. Apparently, she was trying to get the baby to sleep and was rocking the baby in her arms.
The thing was, the intensity at which she rocked the baby one would have thought she was strumming the guitar at a rock concert. My eyes just grew bigger as I watch her rocked and was expecting the baby's head to drop off anytime.
Thankfully for the baby, (s)he made cries of protest that averted the consequence of either a snapped neck or jellied brain. On hearing the persistant cries, the mother changed tack and hugged the baby over her shoulder and gently pat her/his back in lulling the baby back to sleep. Boy, the look of relief on the baby's face was such a classic.
In any case, tomorrow will be a big day. Not for me though, but for my Da Ge. Congrats! And on the behalf of the Government, I thank you for contributing to the National Policy.