Motorbike Sir?

Sorry for another lapse in posting. I have had a bit of writers block, or maybe laziness…I’m not sure. After leaving Jungle Beach, I had a crazy night in Nah Trang with a few Brits. After a few too many buckets at the Sailing Club we commandeered a few cyclos and raced them up and down the main street. I managed to flip one of these over by turning too fast and getting a bit of a scrape on my hand, but nothing to be concerned about. They cyclo driver was not too pleased, and demanded 50,000 dong for damages to his cyclo. I could see no visible damage, so I handed him 10,000 and walked away.

The next day I headed to Mui Ne, a small resort town about halfway between Nah Trang and Saigon. I really was excited about the town because of some amazing photographs of the place I had seen. There are some massive sand dunes that I was eager to check out and the guidebook promised a great beach.

I arrived, found a nice little resort and headed down to the beach. The beach was mediocre and the water was full of some sort of floating plankton which didn’t make swimming all that fun. I did have a great seafood meal that night and met some interesting travelers. I woke up at around 3 am in my bed with my whole body itching. The next morning I found my body covered in some sort of insect bites and thought that maybe some mosquitoes had penetrated the mosquito net over my bed. I spoke with the restaurant owner across the street and he thought it might be bed bugs, but I encountered many other travelers who had the same thing.

In the morning, I rented a motorbike and headed out to explore the dunes. On my way, I came accross a girl and her mother who waved me down. They didn’t speak English, but I gathered that the girl wanted a lift up the road. I motioned for her to hop on and took off. About a half mile up the road we pulled over at her family’s shack right next to the white sand dunes. Her and her sister led a Vietnamese couple and myself up into the dunes, where I took about 10 pictures of the couple in front of the dunes for them.

Back in town I had a nice seafood dinner followed by a couple of beers with a few Germans. After midnight I ran into a few Americans and an Irish guy I had met on the bus ride down to Mui Ne. They were taking the 1:30 am bus to Saigon. I couldn’t imagine the night being any better with the weird bugs so I ran back to my guesthouse, stuffed everything into my backpack, woke up the receptionist to pay my bill, and made it back out to the road just in time to make the bus.

I have now been exploring Ho Chi Mihn City (commonly referred to as Saigon) for the past few days. This city has some serious energy to it – a bit hard to explain but it seems like a very nice place to live. I have so far found the people a bit more relaxed and honest than up in Hanoi. This is causing a problem in my plans for teaching. I think I can make more money here in Saigon teaching English, and if I like the city more, why not stay? I will have to do some serious thinking over the next few weeks to decide where I want to live.

The other day I visited the War Remnants Museum (formerly known as the American War Crimes Museum). It has a number of incredible exhibits including an exhibition of photographs by war correspondents who died while working here in Vietnam. There were some amazing pictures of American soldiers, of horrified Vietnamese peasants, and in most cases they displayed the last photo that the photographer took. It was a bit eerie. At the start of the exhibit there was a quote by Marshal Ly Thuong Ket from the 11th century:

The southern mountains and rivers belong to the Viet people.
It was so clearly written in the Celestial Book.
Those who dare attack our territory, will be pitilessly annihilated.

I found the quote to be particularly interesting especially as it was placed next to many photographs of the American’s brutal war effort.

Another exibit talked about Agent Orange and its effects on the environment and people. Agent Orange was a chemical defoliant that the US military sprayed over much of south Vietnam in the hopes of making it harder for the Vietkong to hide. On display were jars of deformed fetuses and pictures of Vietnamese people who had horrendous birth defects allegedly caused by the spraying. It was quite moving. After seeing the exibit, I have noticed more and more people on the street who have odd birth defects or limbs missing. My guess is either land mines or Agent Orange.

There isn’t too much to see in the way of tourist sights here in Saigon, so I usually just walk around the city looking for interesting things. Here are some pictures I have been taking over the past few days. I hope they give you all an idea of what street life is like here in Saigon (although they could really have been taken anywhere in Vietnam).

An alleyway filled with motorbikes

A cart with vegetables

A lady pushing a garbage container in the rain

A lady selling fruit

A pair of workers building a gate

A cyclo driver fast asleep

Fish soup – delicious!

How traffic flows at intersections

I hope you enjoy the pics, I particularly enjoy the one at the top of this entry of the man with a ciggarette in his mouth while driving in the rain. Motorbikes transport everything in Vietnam: as many as 5 people, huge blocks of ice, or massive sheets of glass. Also nobody wears sunglasses or helmets. It all seems to work though; I have seen very few accidents (wheras back home, I would see at least an accident per day).

I am going to the Mekong Delta this afternoon for a few days, then I say goodbye to Vietnam (for a while) and head into Cambodia. A few nights ago I was partying with two expats who own bars in Cambodia. They are here in Vietnam on a short vacation because they have recieved a few death threats and thought it best to get away to let things settle down. This American we were with asked one of the expats, “What, aside from seeing Angkor Wat, do I have to do in Cambodia?”
The expat replied, “Stay alive.”
Sounds like the place for me.

Neil

Tags: Vietnam

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 7th, 2004 at 1:16 am and is filed under Vietnam. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.