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Saigon Could Be Mexico

Tuesday, July 24th, 2007

Or one of many other countries I have been in!

How to be a Taxi Driver in Saigon – Vietnam, Asia
By: Graham Price
www.bootsnall.com

Positions Available: Applicants Sought
Job Title: Taxi Driver
Location: Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon)
Qualifications Required: Driving license or some previous experience of having driven a car preferred, but not essential.

Skills Required
1. Excellent Spatial Awareness – you must be able to know exactly where your vehicle begins and ends. This will become apparent when you draw to a halt (from speed) precisely one millimeter away from the scooter in front, or when driving (at speed) through a red light that requires a death-defying manoeuvre between traffic coming from either side.

2. A Strong Right Thumb – this is a must for successful horn operation. The horn has many uses; the following list is by no means exhaustive. Creativity and resourcefulness in this area are particularly welcome. The horn should be sounded when you wish to:

– Hurry vehicles in front along
– Bully smaller vehicles into the slow lane [or onto the shoulder]
– Warn any bikes in the right-hand lane of your intention to turn right from the left-hand lane
– Warn other users of your presence (especially when overtaking on a busy street, driving the wrong way down a one way street, running a red light, or taking a corner on the wrong side of the road.)
– Scare pedestrians who have become stranded in the middle of the road (purely entertainment value)
– Inform drivers ahead that the traffic lights have changed. In this instance, the horn should be sounded precisely half a nanosecond after amber turns to green.
– Apologise to someone whom you have cut-up whilst changing lanes
– Show your distress and distaste if any other road user should be inconsiderate enough to run red lights, drive on the wrong side of the road, etc.

3. The ability to “read” your passenger’s “type” – Passengers tend to fall into one of four main groups:
[read on]

Tourism Vietnamese Style

Wednesday, October 16th, 2002

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From the 200 kilometers of the Cu Chi tunnels, six layers deep just outside Saigon, the Viet Cong (South Vietnamese communist fighters) planned their campaigns on the South Vietnamese and American bases that ringed the city. The area became one of the most heavily bombed, gassed and defoliated sites as US forces attempted to clear the tunnels. Now, controlled by the sports and recreation department of the army, it serves to summarise the war for tourists. Part of the forest has been turned into a complete wartime environment.

The propaganda is that it was simple ingenuity that defeated the powerful Americans: the guerrillas left shavings from American bars of soap around the entrances to tunnels to disguise their scent from the sniffer dogs and smoke from cooking fires was dispersed through numerous chambers so that spotter planes could not locate it. At the end of the tour visitors are served a VC meal of stringy manioc dipped in crushed peanuts and tea brewed from forest leaves. As visitors leave they can shoot off a few rounds from an AK-47 at a firing range or shop for trinkets made from the brass shells of rifle bullits or model jet fighters crafted from Coke cans. VC uniforms of black pyjamas and checked scarves are offered to those who wish to dress up for the occasion.

Ironies
The North Vietnamese, especialy, are very proud that they won what they call the war against American aggression. This propaganda of heroic resistance is presented in all the museums in North and South Vietnam as the single, unifying theme of Vietnamese history. Well aren’t we proud of our War of Independence …George Washington is our kindly Uncle Ho Chi Minh! What was George Washington REALLY like? I have to admit that with the friendly tour guides-oh so happy to see the Americans react to all this-I bought a Viet Cong hat in Quang Tri only to give it away two days later to an old lady in Lang Co after I had a chance to think about it.

I took a tour of the Reunification Palace where the North Vietnamese crashed the gates of the South Vietnamese government building on that April morning in 1975 that sealed the fall of Saigon. (There is a tunnel system that runs the entire five kilometers to the airport from the Palace.) Some of the pictures on the walls shows the South Vietnamese government officials sitting waiting for the North Vietnamese; other pictures show their arrest.

In my tour group was a young enthusiastic German who was here for two months with his wife while adopting a “prostitute baby.” (Abortion is not much of an option here both because of lack of information and money.) As we moved about the Palace we exchanged remarks…we made a big mistake intervening in Vietnam I said…all countries seem to make big mistakes he said…the Soviet Union in Afghanistan…and both your country and mine lost a war…but now my country just wants peace, he continued, and started singing the music from the 1960’s musical “Hair” which he says is very popular in Europe right now. And we don’t want Mr. Bush to go to war in Iraq…if you go to war with Iraq you cannot win!

Saigon

Monday, October 14th, 2002
7VJvlOW1A5Ali2rnovusuM-2006216180228245.gif I wrote this in the Cambodian Foreign Correspondent's Club. Most countries have them...It's a good place to get away from the moto taxis, the cyclos and beggars, the heat and to read ... [Continue reading this entry]