I could have just gone without updating today but significant events have transpired. I had bad luck with trying to shit our (the group, yes I speak of us as a whole) stuff. Mitchell calmed me down and came up with an idea. The other day I met the guy with the 2x mint ARVN rucks and LW Ruck bags. He mentioned and I posted here that he can ship to us in Canada from South Vietnam. I went back to him and told him the post office won't ship our stuff and he said that he could. Now that's all I know. He can ship with a tracking number and wanted to see how much stuff we had as I didn't want to hump 30kg seven blocks and not get our stuff shipped. Luckily I had the pics I took and I emailed them to him. He said what I thought, no way the claymore or M16 mag will go, as it'll hit Canadian customs and be sent back to Vietnam, and I'm cool with that. Just came up with an idea of what I could do with them in country still :)
I went to the market to touch base with the zippo guy, as he wanted to invite me to his house to talk to his kids as he's trying to teach them english. Doc Jay's a teacher now! :P haha. On my way to the market I walked through "The Dutch Lady". There's a dutch park in downtown Saigon and I have no idea why. Anyway I fought with a vending machine (see video) and cut through the park, as crossing the street and the centre of the roundabout is dinky dau (very crazy) and I was stopped by a younger guy (fuck I feel old haha) and he asked me the usual, where I'm from, how long have I been here, etc. I talked to him and two girls come up, and they start talking to me too, asking about Canada and why I'm here. Well two more people show up and I had at one time seven people listening to me and asking me stuff. Half way through I thought enough to record it haha. What can I say? Asians love me, and it's not because of my dong (Vietnamese money, ass haha). Hit the market and talked to Zippo guy (lets call him Tran). I hit the post office and shipped the legal things, souveineers, keepsakes and all that jazz. Got back to Pham Gnu Lao (my neighbourhood) and went for supper. I went to the same place for breakfest and wanted to see how Vietnam tackles one of my favs, Fettachini Alfredo. They can do banana pancakes since it's a thin long pancake and two cut up bananas. They fucking bombed my Alfredo. I ate it but it was the 2nd worst one I've ever had (the worst I didn't finish). On top of it the service sucked and I'm not going back, even for breakfest.
Tran came to pick me up and I met his wife and father in law (VN familes are tight). Went back to his place and invited me into his home. I met his kids and we chit chatted and after that Tran wrote questions for the kids to ask me and handed them out. They had to say it without help and I'd answer. I'd turn it back on them like "What is YOUR favourite colour?" and they had to try and answer me. We snacked on grapes with seeds (I hate seeds but sucked it up) and then we had some meat. It was actually reindeer jerky covered in jam haha. I didn't like it but Tran kept giving it to me so I kept chewing and chewing and choking it down. He showed me where my dock was for the hydrofoil tomorrow and drove me home. It's Halloween and I had no idea the Vietnamese were so into it, they're all gathered at the centre of town to watch fireworks from their tallest building and tomorrow is a holiday so the post office is closed haha. Makes me mad that I gotta get up for 6am and hit the docks for 8am. The good thing is I get to dip my feet into the pacific and see the Australian AO. After that I head back to Saigon to ship our stuff. I was told by the one company it would be like $300 something to ship. If it's under $300 I'll do it on the spot. If it's over I'm not sure what I'll do. I want to send it home, but I don't want the guys to get fucked over on the shipping percentage. At the same time, I still want to be on vacation. I might have to suck it up as this is the only chance we're going to get a lot of kit from Vietnam. I'm also going to scale down my vacation a bit. I'd like to spend another week in Saigon, hit the National Parks, the 173rd areas, see some mountain people, climb a few mountains and hit the tourist stuff, Hoi An, Hue, Da Nang, Nha Trang, the DMZ and that's it. Hitting every town in Vietnam is too ambitious and un-needed. I found out after missing the Long Binh area. There's nothing to see and it wouldn't change my trip if I cut it out. I'm going to bed because I wake up in 7 hours. That and I need sleep so I wake up on time! Peace out y'all!
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Saturday, 30 October 2010
We got problems, well I have problems. I went to ship it at the post office and they say "No ship, army" and tried another post office "No ship", tried another "no ship" so I don't think I can ship. One company I went to weighed it and said it would cost $316 Canadian but I get the feeling when they look inside they say "No ship".
I'm leaving for Vung Tau tomorrow and I can't exchange the ticket as I've already paid for it and will be out $114. I told my hotel and they looked at it and called the shipping company. They said Vietnam doesn't allow army things to be shipped out, but I was told I might be able to take it with me when I leave, have the bag checked with all the other luggage. That's good but two issues. 1) I have to carry an extra 60lbs for 45 days as I have no where to store it and 2) I'm afraid when I do take it to the airport they say "No take" and I'm out of $500. Option #2 is I try to sell it all, which I don't want to do and I won't get 100% of my money back. I'm not sure what to do about it.
I'm leaving for Vung Tau tomorrow and I can't exchange the ticket as I've already paid for it and will be out $114. I told my hotel and they looked at it and called the shipping company. They said Vietnam doesn't allow army things to be shipped out, but I was told I might be able to take it with me when I leave, have the bag checked with all the other luggage. That's good but two issues. 1) I have to carry an extra 60lbs for 45 days as I have no where to store it and 2) I'm afraid when I do take it to the airport they say "No take" and I'm out of $500. Option #2 is I try to sell it all, which I don't want to do and I won't get 100% of my money back. I'm not sure what to do about it.
Kit, new owners and prices
I forgot to mention I need money from the following people:
Josh - $62cdn = USMC 3 pocket grenade carrier, USMC jungle aid kit, Zippo, radio
Sam - $47cdn = mint ARVN ruck, 6 green beret, mike force, SOG patches
Kirshin - $35 = mint ARVN ruck
Sean - $85 = 2 zippos, LW ruck bag
Derek - $28 = MP steel outer helmet.
If you could pay me on paypal or EMT at forcerecon85@hotmail.com that would be great. I'm sending them off today and I'll find out how much it'll cost to ship a heavy duffle bag and split the shippin cost as 50% of the bag is my items. Thanks :)
Josh - $62cdn = USMC 3 pocket grenade carrier, USMC jungle aid kit, Zippo, radio
Sam - $47cdn = mint ARVN ruck, 6 green beret, mike force, SOG patches
Kirshin - $35 = mint ARVN ruck
Sean - $85 = 2 zippos, LW ruck bag
Derek - $28 = MP steel outer helmet.
If you could pay me on paypal or EMT at forcerecon85@hotmail.com that would be great. I'm sending them off today and I'll find out how much it'll cost to ship a heavy duffle bag and split the shippin cost as 50% of the bag is my items. Thanks :)
Day 5
Hey, I'm full of food and going to bed early. I was up till 2am last night and woke up at 10am so that cut into my tour time. Ideally I should be getting up at 6am as museums open at 7am. If I wake up at 10am that gives me less than two hours to hit a museum as everything closes at 12/1pm for the national lunch break haha. Plus I have to wake up Monday morning at 6:30am, eat, be at the harbour dock for 8am and board a hydrofoil for 8:30 and get into Vung Tau around 10:30am. I then go to Long Tan Cross and Nui Dat which was part of the Australian Aera of Operations (AO).
Today was good though, I haven't had a bad day yet. I woke up and hit a local restaurant for breakfest. I had banana pancakes and they were really good! I kicked myself for not getting breakfest earlier. I grabbed a moto and headed to Bien Hoa which was the base for the 173rd Airborne Brigade (the unit I re-enact) when they first came to Vietnam. They were the first unit in Vietnam because the US needed security for Bien Hoa airfield. At the time the US only had Da Nang Airbase in the north and Bien Hoa airbase in the south to luanch strikes into North Vietnam and give aerial support to ARVN units and their US Advisors. Well the enemy knew the US only had these two airbases and would launch rockets, mortars and infantry attacks on it. The US sent the 173rd Airborne Brigade because it was the US quick reaction force for Asia and they were based at Okinawa Japan. If the US needed help in any Asian country the 173rd would act fast and because they were an airborne (paratrooper) unit they could drop thousands of troops in minutes using the sky to surprise the enemy. They were suppose to be temporary and the 101st Airborne Division would take over. The 101st were famous during WWII (Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan) and they did come to Vietnam, but the 173rd was so great that the 101st was used in another part of the country.
At first the 173rd was to be used for basic security and counter against enemy attacks on the base, but they soon started bringing the fight to the enemy before the enemy could hit the base. As other units were doing this too and it seemed to be working more troops were sent to Vietnam, reaching it's peak around half a million in 1969 when the US started pulling out. The 173rd left Vietnam in 1971 and was one of the longest serving American units in the war.
It's safe to say I love the 173rd Airborne, so seeing the area they operated in was great. I took a moto to Bien Hoa and made sure he was one of the $100,000d per hour drivers as I had no clue how long we'd be. We started trucking there and I got to see the outer part of the city. Construction! The city is booming and expanding. On one job site I saw 10 condos being built. I thought Vietnamese roads were busy but highways are kinda scary for me haha. There's two sets of lanes. One set of two for moto's and a second set of two lanes for transport trucks and cars. Sometimes they merge together and driving between two transport trucks scared the fuck out of me, but what could I do? I could only hold my breath and hang on. All along the highway was factories and construction equipment for sale. Sometimes you saw vendors selling water or fruit and once in a while there were mechanic shops. It was raining in Saigon but only spitting so I was fine, but on the highway it poured. My driver pulled over to get gas and we put on our ponchos. Glad I got to use my Vietnam era poncho in Vietnam :) After an hour we hit Bien Hoa, and I thought the distance on maps was small, but getting to Bien Hoa took a good while. I might have underestimated that in my planning. We got there and found the site of the airbase, but it's currently being used as a Vietnam People's Air Force Base so there's no way we could get close. My driver took the next right street so we'd get closer, but still away from the base. That's when I did something odd. I brought my knife and an empty water bottle and started stabbing the earth. Whatever came out I scooped it in my water bottle. I told the driver I wanted to take a piece of Bien Hoa home with me as a souveineer and we hit the road again. I wanted to go east of Bien Hoa to check out Gao Ho Nai which was a 199th Light Infantry Brigade (LIB) base. The 199th shared Bien Hoa with the 173rd and both worked the same area. The 173rd focused on Bien Hoa and the 199th focused on the Long Binh Complex. Long Binh was the biggest base in SVN. Units weren't allowed to set up camps in the city, so the US found a huge area of land and set up shop there. Saigon was the capital, so all those people who to be based in Saigon, like hospitals, supply units, police, aviation units, radio and the list goes on were sent to Long Binh and the base had over 50,000 troops living and working there. I wanted to drive down Hwy 51 to check out the area but my driver got lost. By the time we got back on the highway were were half way home and being happy with my mud, I just told him to go back into Saigon. There wasn't anyway to turn around anyways and I burnt my leg on the exhaust pipe of the bike
It made me realize that I'm okay not hitting every big town in SVN. What matters most to me is seeing certain places like where the 173rd served, national parks where I can legally hump through the jungle and not worry about losing my legs to a landmine and towns like Nha Trang, Hoi An, Da Nang, Hue and the demilititerized zone. Going through Bien Hoa town was good, but it's just like Saigon. I'm sure Vung Tau will be like Saigon but smaller, like Bien Hoa so I'm thinking of cutting some things out of my trip and just pass through towns instead of stay each day. With any extra days I bank up I could go home early and see if I can change my flight home, or spend more days in Saigon or another town.
On the ride down to Bien Hoa something came to mind... ILTFP! "I Love This Fucking Place!" It's awesome and I feel it's all that society needs. If you have a car, you're friggen rich, that's blinging. I now hate cars since I can cross the street no problem with motos, it's cars that stop me from walking across as motos go around me. A car goes through me haha. It also makes me want to buy a motorbike, it's addicting haha. This place doesn't need the frills we have in the west, all the things we take for granted. The people are great despite some vendors being annoying and there's just something about it. It's more alive then back home. I can see why some US troops stayed and chose not to come home after the war. Anyways I'm going on too long.
Once back in Saigon we passed the Saigon Centre which is a shopping mall. I wanted to check it out and it was full of stuff you don't need, like The Bay back home. Just fancy stuff that people don't need like funiture, and clothes. I did find a La Senza store though so I had to take a pic for Brittany as she works there in Ottawa. Maybe she could get transferred there? That or London haha. I hit Ben Thanh market and handed Sean's custom zippo design and as it would be a while I humped it to the small shop I saw yesterday selling US Army gear. I picked up 3 rucksacks: 2 mint condidtion ARVN 2 pocket rucks, one for Sam and one for Kirshin and a Lightweight Rucksack bag for Sean. Got them for $35 each even though i was told the LW ruck bag was $45. As I was nearby I went to Cho Dan Sinh (where else? haha) as they had a duffle bag to haul all my stuff. I also bought a grenade carrier and USMC first aid kit for Josh. I asked where the post office was and it was on the other side of the downtown core. I moto'd it there and asked how much it would cost to ship the stuff I picked up that day. I was told to do it by sea as it's cheaper and more accepting of large packages, as they normally carry CONEX (big metal shipping bins). I hit Ben Thanh market again to pick up the zippos and they came out alright. The one design of the 503rd infantry ( the regiment we re-enact) is complex so I can't fault the artist if he can't put somethign that hard on an inch of steel, but it has that made in country by some guy in a shop in Saigon feel to it, you know, since it was haha. I talked to the zippo guy and tomorrow he's invited me to his house to see his family. His son is considering on going to Canada for school. I know what you're thinking and yes, be nice to everyone you meet, but have a plan to kill them. This guy I don't think will give me roofies and use me as his sex slave but I'll be cautious. He is a nice guy but yes I'll keep my guard up. A common con is that some Vietnamese person invites you to their place for a visit and to practice english, and there's a poker game going on. You're told to play and they more or less win all of your money from you. I'm not playing poker haha and I consider him my first Vietnamese friend and I'm honoured to be invited to his house and family. He also said that next time I'm in town he'll have his friend over that lived in Toronto and is a Vietnamese history buff which would be cool.
I made it home, dropped my shit, had a shower, took a video of the shit I got today and went out for dinner. I hit a local bar and ordered onion rings and cihcken fingers. I didn't know their portions would be so big and the onion rings and two for one beers filled me up. The chicken fingers are as thin as chicken fingers but overall it was a good meal and did something else I wanted to do, have a drink while I'm in town! tomorrow I'm getting up early so I'll hit the rack. Have a good one :)
Today was good though, I haven't had a bad day yet. I woke up and hit a local restaurant for breakfest. I had banana pancakes and they were really good! I kicked myself for not getting breakfest earlier. I grabbed a moto and headed to Bien Hoa which was the base for the 173rd Airborne Brigade (the unit I re-enact) when they first came to Vietnam. They were the first unit in Vietnam because the US needed security for Bien Hoa airfield. At the time the US only had Da Nang Airbase in the north and Bien Hoa airbase in the south to luanch strikes into North Vietnam and give aerial support to ARVN units and their US Advisors. Well the enemy knew the US only had these two airbases and would launch rockets, mortars and infantry attacks on it. The US sent the 173rd Airborne Brigade because it was the US quick reaction force for Asia and they were based at Okinawa Japan. If the US needed help in any Asian country the 173rd would act fast and because they were an airborne (paratrooper) unit they could drop thousands of troops in minutes using the sky to surprise the enemy. They were suppose to be temporary and the 101st Airborne Division would take over. The 101st were famous during WWII (Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan) and they did come to Vietnam, but the 173rd was so great that the 101st was used in another part of the country.
At first the 173rd was to be used for basic security and counter against enemy attacks on the base, but they soon started bringing the fight to the enemy before the enemy could hit the base. As other units were doing this too and it seemed to be working more troops were sent to Vietnam, reaching it's peak around half a million in 1969 when the US started pulling out. The 173rd left Vietnam in 1971 and was one of the longest serving American units in the war.
It's safe to say I love the 173rd Airborne, so seeing the area they operated in was great. I took a moto to Bien Hoa and made sure he was one of the $100,000d per hour drivers as I had no clue how long we'd be. We started trucking there and I got to see the outer part of the city. Construction! The city is booming and expanding. On one job site I saw 10 condos being built. I thought Vietnamese roads were busy but highways are kinda scary for me haha. There's two sets of lanes. One set of two for moto's and a second set of two lanes for transport trucks and cars. Sometimes they merge together and driving between two transport trucks scared the fuck out of me, but what could I do? I could only hold my breath and hang on. All along the highway was factories and construction equipment for sale. Sometimes you saw vendors selling water or fruit and once in a while there were mechanic shops. It was raining in Saigon but only spitting so I was fine, but on the highway it poured. My driver pulled over to get gas and we put on our ponchos. Glad I got to use my Vietnam era poncho in Vietnam :) After an hour we hit Bien Hoa, and I thought the distance on maps was small, but getting to Bien Hoa took a good while. I might have underestimated that in my planning. We got there and found the site of the airbase, but it's currently being used as a Vietnam People's Air Force Base so there's no way we could get close. My driver took the next right street so we'd get closer, but still away from the base. That's when I did something odd. I brought my knife and an empty water bottle and started stabbing the earth. Whatever came out I scooped it in my water bottle. I told the driver I wanted to take a piece of Bien Hoa home with me as a souveineer and we hit the road again. I wanted to go east of Bien Hoa to check out Gao Ho Nai which was a 199th Light Infantry Brigade (LIB) base. The 199th shared Bien Hoa with the 173rd and both worked the same area. The 173rd focused on Bien Hoa and the 199th focused on the Long Binh Complex. Long Binh was the biggest base in SVN. Units weren't allowed to set up camps in the city, so the US found a huge area of land and set up shop there. Saigon was the capital, so all those people who to be based in Saigon, like hospitals, supply units, police, aviation units, radio and the list goes on were sent to Long Binh and the base had over 50,000 troops living and working there. I wanted to drive down Hwy 51 to check out the area but my driver got lost. By the time we got back on the highway were were half way home and being happy with my mud, I just told him to go back into Saigon. There wasn't anyway to turn around anyways and I burnt my leg on the exhaust pipe of the bike
It made me realize that I'm okay not hitting every big town in SVN. What matters most to me is seeing certain places like where the 173rd served, national parks where I can legally hump through the jungle and not worry about losing my legs to a landmine and towns like Nha Trang, Hoi An, Da Nang, Hue and the demilititerized zone. Going through Bien Hoa town was good, but it's just like Saigon. I'm sure Vung Tau will be like Saigon but smaller, like Bien Hoa so I'm thinking of cutting some things out of my trip and just pass through towns instead of stay each day. With any extra days I bank up I could go home early and see if I can change my flight home, or spend more days in Saigon or another town.
On the ride down to Bien Hoa something came to mind... ILTFP! "I Love This Fucking Place!" It's awesome and I feel it's all that society needs. If you have a car, you're friggen rich, that's blinging. I now hate cars since I can cross the street no problem with motos, it's cars that stop me from walking across as motos go around me. A car goes through me haha. It also makes me want to buy a motorbike, it's addicting haha. This place doesn't need the frills we have in the west, all the things we take for granted. The people are great despite some vendors being annoying and there's just something about it. It's more alive then back home. I can see why some US troops stayed and chose not to come home after the war. Anyways I'm going on too long.
Once back in Saigon we passed the Saigon Centre which is a shopping mall. I wanted to check it out and it was full of stuff you don't need, like The Bay back home. Just fancy stuff that people don't need like funiture, and clothes. I did find a La Senza store though so I had to take a pic for Brittany as she works there in Ottawa. Maybe she could get transferred there? That or London haha. I hit Ben Thanh market and handed Sean's custom zippo design and as it would be a while I humped it to the small shop I saw yesterday selling US Army gear. I picked up 3 rucksacks: 2 mint condidtion ARVN 2 pocket rucks, one for Sam and one for Kirshin and a Lightweight Rucksack bag for Sean. Got them for $35 each even though i was told the LW ruck bag was $45. As I was nearby I went to Cho Dan Sinh (where else? haha) as they had a duffle bag to haul all my stuff. I also bought a grenade carrier and USMC first aid kit for Josh. I asked where the post office was and it was on the other side of the downtown core. I moto'd it there and asked how much it would cost to ship the stuff I picked up that day. I was told to do it by sea as it's cheaper and more accepting of large packages, as they normally carry CONEX (big metal shipping bins). I hit Ben Thanh market again to pick up the zippos and they came out alright. The one design of the 503rd infantry ( the regiment we re-enact) is complex so I can't fault the artist if he can't put somethign that hard on an inch of steel, but it has that made in country by some guy in a shop in Saigon feel to it, you know, since it was haha. I talked to the zippo guy and tomorrow he's invited me to his house to see his family. His son is considering on going to Canada for school. I know what you're thinking and yes, be nice to everyone you meet, but have a plan to kill them. This guy I don't think will give me roofies and use me as his sex slave but I'll be cautious. He is a nice guy but yes I'll keep my guard up. A common con is that some Vietnamese person invites you to their place for a visit and to practice english, and there's a poker game going on. You're told to play and they more or less win all of your money from you. I'm not playing poker haha and I consider him my first Vietnamese friend and I'm honoured to be invited to his house and family. He also said that next time I'm in town he'll have his friend over that lived in Toronto and is a Vietnamese history buff which would be cool.
I made it home, dropped my shit, had a shower, took a video of the shit I got today and went out for dinner. I hit a local bar and ordered onion rings and cihcken fingers. I didn't know their portions would be so big and the onion rings and two for one beers filled me up. The chicken fingers are as thin as chicken fingers but overall it was a good meal and did something else I wanted to do, have a drink while I'm in town! tomorrow I'm getting up early so I'll hit the rack. Have a good one :)
Friday, 29 October 2010
Day 4 in Vietnam
Last night I felt like shit, and I honestly think it was because I ran around the city all day, and I shook my head "No" to about 200 vendors and drivers. It's racist I tell you. Just because I'm white they assume I have money. They don't bother other Asians, just single out white people. It's gotta stop. Today I felt better but I was walking, which meant I had drivers following me trying to get me to get a ride with them. I was only walking a few blocks so a ride was pointless. I wanted to go but they all ask where I go, where I'm staying, where I'm from, etc and now I'm just saying no and walk off haha. I'm beyond being nice to everyone but not losing my cool, just say no kids and move on. I've also seen other white people being bugged. An older man outside Ben Thanh Market, Saigon's busiest opened his wallet and had six people surrounding him asking him to buy. Vultures. In the market I saw a girl and she was asked. She said to nobody in particular "Oh My God it never stops!!!!!!!!!!!" and I let her know she wasn't alone haha.
So I walked around the downtown core, and I should have done that on my 2nd day as I found a million places to eat. I've mentioned I'm a picky eater, so while I was walking down the street and seeing a four story KFC I had to stop. Tasted just like at home! This KFC also served ice cream sundays and seafood as well. You order and go sit and have them bring it out to you and instead of a tray you get plastic KFC plates. Neat little cultural differences. I was heading back to Cho Dan Sinh aka American Market. I think it's just called that since it's full of tools and military stuff and they consider it American haha. I picked up a map last night on the way home thank god. Sadly my GPS thinks I'm still in London so all my mapping before the trip has been close to pointless which I have to figure out still and hopfully will tonight as tomorrow I'm taking a day trip out. Anyways with a map it already showed popular stuff in town and it was great. If I had the map earlier I could have just walked everywhere instead of pay moto's to take me everywhere. I made it to the market and the first thing I bought was a compass as the last direction I knew I was going was south thanks to the GPS tracking showing the plane's location coming to Vietnam haha. Long story short I bought a lot of Vietnam War stuff from gas masks to a claymore mine, patches and 4 rucksacks, 3 ARVN 2 pocket (which are small) and 1 3 pocket tropical ruck, but it's not in great shape. At least now I can say I have one of every US Army pack used which I'm calling an achievement for braging rights. I'm redefying hardcoreness while I keep creating it :)
Bartering is still kinda funny. After I bought something they gave me a chair and told me to sit while they dig though their surplus piles. The did the work for me while I said "I buy, no buy or too beaucoup dong" haha. One guy even grabbed me a bottle of water for free haha. The one girl was a collector too so it was hard to get stuff lower. It rocks when you find people who have no clue how much something is. The same girl gave me a $120 1960's parachute shourd cutter for $10 but wanted to sell me a $10 pocket knife for $40 haha. The other steal I've gotten is on ARVN rucks. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) at it's height had 800,000 troops so that's a lot of rucks. The market must be saturated with them as a useable one in average shape is $28 and a perfect museum quality one is $40. On eBay the cheapest I saw last night was being sold in the US for $145 but I wouldn't pay more than $60-$70. It's safe to say I got my share of kit, all that I could carry and ran low on cash, so I had to hump it out to an ATM. The closest one was a block from my hotel so I unloaded, Josh wanted a custom US Marine zippo so I took the order and headed back to the market for more. It got to the point though where I, myself knew I was buying too much haha. For the most part I only bought things that #1 would plan to buy, #2 things I knew were a steal and #3 what people in the group wanted. My compass and I starting going towards Ben Thanh market to the Zippo guy for Josh's order. I found a unit patch for him so luckily I could give that to the zippo guy and he could copy it exactly. I couldn't do the same for mine so I drew a shitty angel wing with bloody sword and in return I got an even more rough angel wing and sword haha. The good thing about that is that you know it was hand done in a little shop in Saigon and not some punch press in a factory in China so it's even more authentic ;)
On my way to the market I stumbled on a military shop. I checked it out and they had the normal stuff, packs and uniforms but they had US Marine caps which I've never seen for sale and Josh told me to get anything USMC related. They also had Green Beret's and since Sam is our resident SF Nammer I checked it out. The shop owner said he had everything from American War, South Vietnam, French military stuff, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. I tried to call his bluff and asked if he had packs with a metal frame. He sent his wife in the back and she came out with a never been used lightweight rucksack frame. To those who don't collect, the lightweight rucksack is the one item that divides the men and the boys when it comes to collecting. If you have a lightweight ruck you're just not in to Vietnam for a year or two. It means you're in it for realz like Sean, Sam, Kirshin, Tim, Josh and myself. I asked if he had the bag for the frame and pulled down a ball of nylon sacks, all belonging to the lightweight rucksack (LW Ruck as I'm tired of typing it all out haha). This is amazing because the LW ruck is rare. Since it's rare for a good one you're paying around $300 US. He was selling the bags for $45 each. The frames are rare but as Canada used them, there are a few still kicking around in the back of small, unknown surplus stores. A frame will cost around $40-$50 and straps you can buy off eBay for around $20. That means you can have a $300 ruck for around $115 US. If I had more cash I'd buy it all. Maybe I should check my Illinois Lotto Ticket? ;) I told him I'll come back and I got his card. He also said that when I come back home I can still contact him, he'll take pics of his stuff and ship it to me so we now have an international retailer with hard to find shit working for us. I also think he was in the ARVN during the war as he was wearing a Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) shirt with with two M60 machine gunners on the back saying "All gave some, Some gave all" on the back and I told him that was good. If he wasn't ARVN or allied he'd have a commie Star somewhere . I left and hit the market, oh and I was also carrying 4 rucksacks on my back and other misc items haha. I came to Ben Thanh Market later than normal though and the engraver was gone, but tomorrow I can pick it up and pay him.
I found out Pho 2000 was across from the market which my travel book recommended and I checked it out. I had Chicken Pho which again is just noodles so it was like asian chicken noodle soup haha. It was cheap but good and I was working the chop sticks like a pro. Honestly don't try and learn from a book or online, experience is the key. I tried from a book and it's not practical for me. All you need to do is pinch the tips together and anyway you do that it's correct haha. Anyways I felt like a kind because of my chop skill. I checked it out and turns out Bill Clinton was in that shop in 2000 and had something to eat and they took a lot of pictures of him. Bill Clinton is seen as a bit of a hero as he opened up relations with Vietnam meaning Vietnam and the US could trade and work together again. I'm not sure but I think I heard that the US and Vietnam were considering doing military exercises together, as oppose to against each other, like 40 years ago haha. I left Pho 2000 and I had a Japanese kid ask me if I was a backpacker. Having 4 rucksacks on my back I couldn't fool him haha. He just got off the bus from the airport and was an FNG to the city. Well now after 3+ a few hours I was a seasoned pro and took him under my wing. He was hungry so I directed him to Pho 2000, asked him if he knew how to cross a Vietnamese street, how to deal with being harassed by vendors and drivers and the like. His 2nd question was if I was alone and 3rd was where I was staying. Could have easily been a con so I bullshitted him and said I'm meeting my friends back at my hotel. I just told him what district I was in and since there's 200 places in the area good luck finding me. Wait... there's someone at the door...
So yea, I had you thinking for a minute. Even while I'm in here, I have the door locked and a door stopper. Only way I'm opening the door is if I hear a sexy Aussie female accent and her shower isn't working muhhahaha. Anyways I headed back home, swung past a travel center and picked up my paperwork for going to Vung Tau. I think I mentioned it but Vung Tau was a resort centre for Allied units. Good sand, surf, water slides, golf courses and other stuff paid for by US tax dollars. It's also a jump off point for visiting the Australian former Area of Operations (AO) where I'll see Long Tan and Nui Dat, the Aussie's two biggest battles. The Aussie government actually has a monument on the Long Tan battlefield but you have to apply and pay a fee to access it as the VN government can profit from kids wanting to see where their relitives died. It was getting dark out so I headed for my hotel. Night time isn't bad in Saigon but I think it's more of a risk to be out. Just like in the war the US owned the day, the Viet Cong owned the night. After sundown it's time for the VC to take over. Other than that I had a shower, unpacked, took a picture of all my shit, got a craving for oreo's (half a pack for $.26 Cdn) so I headed out. I also needed water as I'm drinking about 4L a day. While I was out I saw my first whore! It was obvious. Vietnamese people are pretty conservatively dressed so seeing a girl in a red halter top and cut off jean shorts she's selling something, and I don't think it's Avon or girl guide cookies. I haven't been out at night as I haven't had time to be, but I checked out the local bars to see where people go. I can choose from Allez Boo Bar, Crazy Buffalo or Go2 and I was surprised that everyone was at Go2 so I might have a drink before I leave Saigon. I thought I'd be drinking and hanging out every night but I don't have time. If I was in Saigon for 49 more days then sure, but I got a country to dominate. Speaking of which I'm hitting the rack. Take care.
So I walked around the downtown core, and I should have done that on my 2nd day as I found a million places to eat. I've mentioned I'm a picky eater, so while I was walking down the street and seeing a four story KFC I had to stop. Tasted just like at home! This KFC also served ice cream sundays and seafood as well. You order and go sit and have them bring it out to you and instead of a tray you get plastic KFC plates. Neat little cultural differences. I was heading back to Cho Dan Sinh aka American Market. I think it's just called that since it's full of tools and military stuff and they consider it American haha. I picked up a map last night on the way home thank god. Sadly my GPS thinks I'm still in London so all my mapping before the trip has been close to pointless which I have to figure out still and hopfully will tonight as tomorrow I'm taking a day trip out. Anyways with a map it already showed popular stuff in town and it was great. If I had the map earlier I could have just walked everywhere instead of pay moto's to take me everywhere. I made it to the market and the first thing I bought was a compass as the last direction I knew I was going was south thanks to the GPS tracking showing the plane's location coming to Vietnam haha. Long story short I bought a lot of Vietnam War stuff from gas masks to a claymore mine, patches and 4 rucksacks, 3 ARVN 2 pocket (which are small) and 1 3 pocket tropical ruck, but it's not in great shape. At least now I can say I have one of every US Army pack used which I'm calling an achievement for braging rights. I'm redefying hardcoreness while I keep creating it :)
Bartering is still kinda funny. After I bought something they gave me a chair and told me to sit while they dig though their surplus piles. The did the work for me while I said "I buy, no buy or too beaucoup dong" haha. One guy even grabbed me a bottle of water for free haha. The one girl was a collector too so it was hard to get stuff lower. It rocks when you find people who have no clue how much something is. The same girl gave me a $120 1960's parachute shourd cutter for $10 but wanted to sell me a $10 pocket knife for $40 haha. The other steal I've gotten is on ARVN rucks. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) at it's height had 800,000 troops so that's a lot of rucks. The market must be saturated with them as a useable one in average shape is $28 and a perfect museum quality one is $40. On eBay the cheapest I saw last night was being sold in the US for $145 but I wouldn't pay more than $60-$70. It's safe to say I got my share of kit, all that I could carry and ran low on cash, so I had to hump it out to an ATM. The closest one was a block from my hotel so I unloaded, Josh wanted a custom US Marine zippo so I took the order and headed back to the market for more. It got to the point though where I, myself knew I was buying too much haha. For the most part I only bought things that #1 would plan to buy, #2 things I knew were a steal and #3 what people in the group wanted. My compass and I starting going towards Ben Thanh market to the Zippo guy for Josh's order. I found a unit patch for him so luckily I could give that to the zippo guy and he could copy it exactly. I couldn't do the same for mine so I drew a shitty angel wing with bloody sword and in return I got an even more rough angel wing and sword haha. The good thing about that is that you know it was hand done in a little shop in Saigon and not some punch press in a factory in China so it's even more authentic ;)
On my way to the market I stumbled on a military shop. I checked it out and they had the normal stuff, packs and uniforms but they had US Marine caps which I've never seen for sale and Josh told me to get anything USMC related. They also had Green Beret's and since Sam is our resident SF Nammer I checked it out. The shop owner said he had everything from American War, South Vietnam, French military stuff, Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. I tried to call his bluff and asked if he had packs with a metal frame. He sent his wife in the back and she came out with a never been used lightweight rucksack frame. To those who don't collect, the lightweight rucksack is the one item that divides the men and the boys when it comes to collecting. If you have a lightweight ruck you're just not in to Vietnam for a year or two. It means you're in it for realz like Sean, Sam, Kirshin, Tim, Josh and myself. I asked if he had the bag for the frame and pulled down a ball of nylon sacks, all belonging to the lightweight rucksack (LW Ruck as I'm tired of typing it all out haha). This is amazing because the LW ruck is rare. Since it's rare for a good one you're paying around $300 US. He was selling the bags for $45 each. The frames are rare but as Canada used them, there are a few still kicking around in the back of small, unknown surplus stores. A frame will cost around $40-$50 and straps you can buy off eBay for around $20. That means you can have a $300 ruck for around $115 US. If I had more cash I'd buy it all. Maybe I should check my Illinois Lotto Ticket? ;) I told him I'll come back and I got his card. He also said that when I come back home I can still contact him, he'll take pics of his stuff and ship it to me so we now have an international retailer with hard to find shit working for us. I also think he was in the ARVN during the war as he was wearing a Prisoner of War/Missing in Action (POW/MIA) shirt with with two M60 machine gunners on the back saying "All gave some, Some gave all" on the back and I told him that was good. If he wasn't ARVN or allied he'd have a commie Star somewhere . I left and hit the market, oh and I was also carrying 4 rucksacks on my back and other misc items haha. I came to Ben Thanh Market later than normal though and the engraver was gone, but tomorrow I can pick it up and pay him.
I found out Pho 2000 was across from the market which my travel book recommended and I checked it out. I had Chicken Pho which again is just noodles so it was like asian chicken noodle soup haha. It was cheap but good and I was working the chop sticks like a pro. Honestly don't try and learn from a book or online, experience is the key. I tried from a book and it's not practical for me. All you need to do is pinch the tips together and anyway you do that it's correct haha. Anyways I felt like a kind because of my chop skill. I checked it out and turns out Bill Clinton was in that shop in 2000 and had something to eat and they took a lot of pictures of him. Bill Clinton is seen as a bit of a hero as he opened up relations with Vietnam meaning Vietnam and the US could trade and work together again. I'm not sure but I think I heard that the US and Vietnam were considering doing military exercises together, as oppose to against each other, like 40 years ago haha. I left Pho 2000 and I had a Japanese kid ask me if I was a backpacker. Having 4 rucksacks on my back I couldn't fool him haha. He just got off the bus from the airport and was an FNG to the city. Well now after 3+ a few hours I was a seasoned pro and took him under my wing. He was hungry so I directed him to Pho 2000, asked him if he knew how to cross a Vietnamese street, how to deal with being harassed by vendors and drivers and the like. His 2nd question was if I was alone and 3rd was where I was staying. Could have easily been a con so I bullshitted him and said I'm meeting my friends back at my hotel. I just told him what district I was in and since there's 200 places in the area good luck finding me. Wait... there's someone at the door...
So yea, I had you thinking for a minute. Even while I'm in here, I have the door locked and a door stopper. Only way I'm opening the door is if I hear a sexy Aussie female accent and her shower isn't working muhhahaha. Anyways I headed back home, swung past a travel center and picked up my paperwork for going to Vung Tau. I think I mentioned it but Vung Tau was a resort centre for Allied units. Good sand, surf, water slides, golf courses and other stuff paid for by US tax dollars. It's also a jump off point for visiting the Australian former Area of Operations (AO) where I'll see Long Tan and Nui Dat, the Aussie's two biggest battles. The Aussie government actually has a monument on the Long Tan battlefield but you have to apply and pay a fee to access it as the VN government can profit from kids wanting to see where their relitives died. It was getting dark out so I headed for my hotel. Night time isn't bad in Saigon but I think it's more of a risk to be out. Just like in the war the US owned the day, the Viet Cong owned the night. After sundown it's time for the VC to take over. Other than that I had a shower, unpacked, took a picture of all my shit, got a craving for oreo's (half a pack for $.26 Cdn) so I headed out. I also needed water as I'm drinking about 4L a day. While I was out I saw my first whore! It was obvious. Vietnamese people are pretty conservatively dressed so seeing a girl in a red halter top and cut off jean shorts she's selling something, and I don't think it's Avon or girl guide cookies. I haven't been out at night as I haven't had time to be, but I checked out the local bars to see where people go. I can choose from Allez Boo Bar, Crazy Buffalo or Go2 and I was surprised that everyone was at Go2 so I might have a drink before I leave Saigon. I thought I'd be drinking and hanging out every night but I don't have time. If I was in Saigon for 49 more days then sure, but I got a country to dominate. Speaking of which I'm hitting the rack. Take care.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
Day 3 in Vietnam
I'm finding I gotta keep these shorter or I'm typing for an hour and trying to upload stuff, talk to everyone I can on msn messenger, email my family and route my next day via GPS and google earth and it cuts into my time that I could use to explore the town and find a decent, not so foreign place to eat.
I'm a picky eater and since it's a different country I can't tell what places are restaurants from the street in my area. The other thing is I don't want to moto across town to a place that my book mentions to find out I don't want anything on the menu haha. This is probably the biggest snag I've hit so far. The first full day (Day 2) I had here I wasn't hungry and just focused on staying cool and drinking water but this morning I was hungry and needed something so I saw a mamasan (older lady) with baked goods. I wanted a bun as I know what I'm getting haha but she slopped some funky paste, chicken and other misc stuff and covered it in cilentro (it's on everything here haha) and I could slowly eat that. I walked to Ben Thanh market and looked around at all the shops on the way and caught a cyclo (pedal trike with passenger seat in front) to Reunification Palace which is where I was going to go yesterday but ran out of time. I had the usual banter with the driver, where I'm from, how old am I, how long have I been in town, how long am I staying, where am I staying etc. Some drivers try to get you to get them to wait while you tour a museum. I take hours and I don't want to pay a guy to stand there for 2 hours waiting for me haha. They also say "After Reunification Museum I take you to War Museum, take you here, take you there, etc" to hook you in for the day and hook your money haha. There's two kinds of moto's too. Drivers will take you point A to B for a certain price. Others will take you anywhere you want but for 1 hour at a set fee, usually 100,000d/$5Cdn. Both have their positives. Anyway more on that later.
So this cyclo driver rubbed my shoulders (as he's behind me pedalling) said "after museum I take you for massage. Girls are very pretty and after make elephant trunk rise up! Women here like white elephant trunk more." I bursted our laughing for the first time in Vietnam haha. He asked "I want?" and I quickly told him no haha. I have to take meds to not catch malaria and it isn't a cure. Also conditions at local hospitals generally aren't great, but if you do need a hospital then be lucky your in Saigon as outside big cities I could go to an animal vet, wait in line with water buffalo and get better treatment. There's no friggen way I'm going to risk getting the black VD from some over used and under paid Saigon whore haha. I'm hardcore into getting the Vietnam experience, but not the VD's they caught. Plus they had free medical care and the best treatment in the world scattered across the country. So the anwer was a clean NO! No no no no no hahaha.
We hit the palace and I had to go through a security checkpoint which I thought was odd for a museum. Later I found out they hold government meetings, functions and such there too so it made some sense. Nothing was being held when I was there though. Anyways there's not much to describe but a lot more to show. I took at least 200 pics of the place and a few videos but Reunification Palace is pretty much the former South Vietnam's version of the US White House. It's fancy and nice but it's still a working environment and the President and family reside there. Now I'm not an expert when it comes to the SVN (South Vietnam) government, leaders, etc so don't quote me haha. It was built in the 1700's/1800's by the French and was a sort of fancy vacation house to French officials. When the French pulled out of VN in 1954 and the country divided into the communist North and the democratic South, it became the South's Whitehouse. In 1962 a SVN Air Force A-1 Skyraider flew over and bombed the Palace. It was flown by an undercover agent (Viet Minh/Viet Cong I'm not sure which was in power) and President Diem had to rebuild it. Diem was put in power by the US as the US was at first supplying SVN with military hardware and education on the US's systems (legal, government, military, etc) and in 1960 started sending troops over to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN for short) troops eventually leading to having 500,000 US combat troops in VN. Diem wasn't elected by the people, or was but rigged to win it as he complied to the US (hmm... sounds familiar haha) but the people hated him and started to rise against him. There's a famous photo of a Monk who sat down, doust himself in gas and lit himself on fire. If you like Rage Against the Machine they used it on one of their CD cover's. Anyways that Monk was protesting against Diem. Diem was also catholic and being in control of a country that's mostly Buddhist isn't good for the polls haha. Vietnam was about 10% catholic at the time and I assume it was because of french rule. The bombing destroyed the whole left wing of the palace and Diem ordered the whole palace to be destroyed and rebuilt to what he wanted (fancy fuck haha). History will show that Diem was killed and it's though that JFK and the US was behind it which I can't confirm or deny but I think that's the general though on the topic.
The main reason why I wanted to see it is that April 30th, 1975 two North Vietnamese Army T-59 tanks hit the palace, one crashed into the main gate, the other ran into the palace to raise the Northern Flag (or at least the blue/red flag with yellow star, the VC flag). The crew that ran in to raise the flag wasn't stopped because the SVN government was waiting for them. The NVA steam rolled over the country and the ARVN did not put up much resistance. This wasn't because they were bad soldiers (though they were generally regarded as such compared to US troops) but because they were ordered to fall back and flee south letting the north take one province at a time. By April 1975 they were outside of Saigon and millions of people fled into the city hoping to be saved by their government or at least the US. They weren't. But on the 30th when the flag was raised it marked the end of the war and for the first time in 21 years Vietnam was whole again and for the first time in over a century the Vietnamese were in charge of their country and not under foreign rule.
It's a nice place and I can't describe it, just look at my pics :) The two tanks that first went to the palace are on the site as monuments and it was a good place to visit. Sadly they do have underground bunkers and bomb shelters but they aren't open to the public. History of the Underworld got my hopes up as they toured it.
Next I hit Binh Soup Shop, near the airport and it's just like every other soup shop. Oh, except the 1968 Tet Offensive, a plan for the NVA and Viet Cong (VC) to take over the country over the Tet holiday (like Christmas and New Years wrapped in one) by violating the ceasefire (ceasefire as SVN troops all went home to celebrate as did enemy troops) was planned upstairs! And it worked... kinda? They hit every big city and provincial capital in SVN, took over the US Embassy in Saigon, bombed the media center and put up a good fight. By the end of the week though they lost 38,000 troops compared to 2,000 US troops and the allied forces took most places back with in a few days except the holy Hue city and Khe Sanh (more on that later). It failed tactically but Walter Cronkite said the war is now unwinnable (that fucker haha), as with other reports capturing the news. This is how it was a success. The US media told everyone at home the war couldn't be won and with plenty of protests the US started leaving Vietnam in 1969.
I ate Pho for the first time which is noodles in a soup like broth and had meat in it. My driver, nice guy ate with me and I asked him if the meat is chicken or beef. It sooooo wasn't chicken and it was way too stringy for beef. A side note on the way to the soup shop I saw a man selling puppies. They were in a cage on the back of his moto and there was about 12 cute little bastards. I wanted to buy them all to save them from the cage and possibly dinner. Thinking of this and chewing the strange meat I had to keep telling myself it wasn't dog as it might not have been. I went to swallow it and my body said "I'm not letting you do it! Get it out!" and I almost choked and threw up (choked as I wanted it down, threw up as my body trying to reject it). I got it down after a small fight and had to wash it down with water since I didn't wanna puke in Vietnam. So yes. I might have eaten dog. Lesson learned: never let someone else order for you as I told my driver I wanted to eat and he barked at a lady for Pho. 2) If you are wanting to eat, tell the people you're with you only eat chicken! haha. Oh and my driver missed me almost puking thank god haha. He did get to laugh at me trying to use chop sticks though :) After the Pho we went upstairs to the meeting room. The room is actually for rent but I'm sure it would cost a lot more. We went past a little crawl space door which was a tunnel used to sneak Viet Cong officers and officials, including the predisent of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and perhaps General Giap (main enemy general in the war) in to plan the Tet Offensive. That tunnel I assume was connected to the Cu Chi Tunnel system which was a set of tunnels stretching 250 miles (more on that later)They had the room set up with a table for tea, pictures of all the famous officials and an alter for the shop owner who was Viet Cong. I was told to sit in the 3rd seat and my driver took a picture of me. A man looking after the room told me to use a tea cup and kettle and pretent to pour tea haha. I did and they got a picture. Then they told me that was Ho Chi Minh's chair and his tea set!!! So yea, I sat in the enemy leader's chair. That's like going to the US and sitting in the chair Hitler used in a secret meeting haha. I was stoked hahaha. They told me that not every tourist not allowed to sit in chair for photo and I lucky guy which I prefer to believe :)
After that we hit the site of the US embassy which is famous because of the attack during the Tet Offensive, it had at least one bombing that I know of but I wanted to see it because when Saigon was falling to the enemy (April 1975) the US did not help the people of Vietnam and evacuated US staff and citizens. I think there were some special occasions for Vietnamese, like wives, staff that worked there, probably whores, etc. People wanted to get away and the enemy was right outside the city. We're talking about millions of people running down the street with everything they could carry running for their life. At the embassy people knew of the evacuation or just wanted US help and they swarmed it to the point where people are being kicked off the fences by the US Embassy Marines. At this time all US troops were pulled out of SVN but the US Marines have the duty of guarding US embassy's world wide so they were security. The thing is though, if someone made it over the fence they would be evacuated as it would be a breech of security to open the gate to let one person out while 500 tried to get in haha. There's a famous photo of people on the roof in a line trying to get onto US Navy helicopters. US President Ford(fucker) would evacuate the US workers but not help the millions of people who were slaughtered trying to get away. The evac was a military operation and the US Navy had the new F-14 Tomcat (my favourite aircraft) escort the helicopters, not shoot down enemy aircraft attacking innocent people. Anyways that was a sad ending to a sad event. Today the old embassy is gone, but the US consulate is built on the site. I couldn't get any major pics as it's taboo to take pictures of government buildings as I could be planning something bad. I got a picture of a monument on site and across the street is a building the same design as the old embassy. I could only get a quick one though as a security guard gave me the evil eye and I jumped back on the moto haha. We also drove past the Canadian consulate as it was closed at the time and we made our way to Cho Dan Sinh aka American Market!
We pulled into a parking lot and I didn't know why until I saw tanks, jets, guns and missiles haha. My driver told me to jump on the tanks and he'd take pictures. I doubled checked if it's okay, as these are museum pieces and he said it was. Fuck it, I wanted to jump on tanks hahaha. So I got pictures on a T-59 Tank, same as the one that crashed the palace, an M113 troop carrier with .50 cal (I think it was chinese version) and 106mm recoilless rifle. This was a big thing to me because as a group we've played with unarmed Canadian M113's but being on a US one with nice guns on it, it was great. I also got a picture on a 40mm Anti-Aircraft-Artillery (AAA) gun which was even more cool because you could rotate the gun and change the angle of it too! I felt like Jane Fonda (bitch) when she went to North Vietnam to spit on America and she got to play with an AA gun that shot down her fellow countryment and tortured them. Another awesome thing to see was a Surface to Air Missle (SAM) launcher. I think it was an SA-2 launcher which is big as the missile is the size of a telephone pole hahaha. It's almost as big as a fighter jet it's trying to shoot down haha.
I had my shot so we continued to go to Cho Dan Sinh.
We got there and my driver wanted to come in with me but I said I'll be hours (and was haha) and he wanted to wait. I just wanted to pay him and explore haha because it's said that there's a lot of American War items inside. I got excited planning this trip when I found out, but also heard that the communists destroyed everything that was from the US and SVN government (In my one picture there's a SVN flag on a jet and it has a big black "X" over it haha) so I didn't want to get my hopes up. Just in case I didn't expect anything from what I had already seen, zippos and patches.
JACKPOT!!!!!!!!! I need to fly my Vietnam guys over for extra man power. There's so much stuff that I can't do it all myself. I tried to control myself and looked as I planned on going back to buy. I also have a list of things people wanted so I'll get that together tomorrow. I picked up a Military Police (MP) helmet for our Derek as it was painted all up in that unit's colours. The power of bartering, they wanted $40 USD but I got it down to $28 :) I also found an ARVN 2-pocket pack for around $30USD while I just checked on ebay and their going for at least $179 (which is a ripoff in USD anyways). I also picked up a few patches as I'd like to find a bunch of 173rd Airborne, the unit we re-enact as the patches are made in Vietnam. They're lower quality but because it was made in Vietnam during the war they are worth more since now factories in the US spit out thousands of hi quality ones. I'd also like to have a full colour and olive drab (OD) patch of every major combat unit that served in Vietnam. Do a nice picture frame display with them and a map of VN in the center.
Tomorrow I'll try to pick up the following...
Vietnam wants:
Sean = lw rucks
sam = mint arvn/tropical ruck
brit = zippo - arvn ruck
josh=zippo or usmc kit (forget which or both), m55
derek=XL or Large Long ERDL and OD pants, ERDL Boonie- 7 3/4 Size, MP stuff
kirshin: arvn ruck
And some items for myself of course, sorry guys but I call first dibs haha. I'm uploading a video that I can link here showing the market. It has pretty much everything Vietnam wise: helmets, uniforms (mostly reproduction), boots, packs, web gear and some modern stuff like PASGT helmets, Arid MARPAT, Desert Tiger Stripes, ACU and misc era kit. I can't guarentee you anything but if you guys need anything let me know ASAP. Also I could easily spend my whole trips budget here but I can't, not yet anyways haha. If I do find something you want I will email you the price from forcerecon85@hotmail.com, If you could paypal me at the same email address that would help me out a lot more instead of getting paid in two months and possibly not find you more gear in other parts of the country. Not sure if I said it but Facebook is banned in Vietnam so my main form of comms is my hotmail email or if you have an account, post on my blog. It's late so I should hit the rack. See you guys later.
I'm a picky eater and since it's a different country I can't tell what places are restaurants from the street in my area. The other thing is I don't want to moto across town to a place that my book mentions to find out I don't want anything on the menu haha. This is probably the biggest snag I've hit so far. The first full day (Day 2) I had here I wasn't hungry and just focused on staying cool and drinking water but this morning I was hungry and needed something so I saw a mamasan (older lady) with baked goods. I wanted a bun as I know what I'm getting haha but she slopped some funky paste, chicken and other misc stuff and covered it in cilentro (it's on everything here haha) and I could slowly eat that. I walked to Ben Thanh market and looked around at all the shops on the way and caught a cyclo (pedal trike with passenger seat in front) to Reunification Palace which is where I was going to go yesterday but ran out of time. I had the usual banter with the driver, where I'm from, how old am I, how long have I been in town, how long am I staying, where am I staying etc. Some drivers try to get you to get them to wait while you tour a museum. I take hours and I don't want to pay a guy to stand there for 2 hours waiting for me haha. They also say "After Reunification Museum I take you to War Museum, take you here, take you there, etc" to hook you in for the day and hook your money haha. There's two kinds of moto's too. Drivers will take you point A to B for a certain price. Others will take you anywhere you want but for 1 hour at a set fee, usually 100,000d/$5Cdn. Both have their positives. Anyway more on that later.
So this cyclo driver rubbed my shoulders (as he's behind me pedalling) said "after museum I take you for massage. Girls are very pretty and after make elephant trunk rise up! Women here like white elephant trunk more." I bursted our laughing for the first time in Vietnam haha. He asked "I want?" and I quickly told him no haha. I have to take meds to not catch malaria and it isn't a cure. Also conditions at local hospitals generally aren't great, but if you do need a hospital then be lucky your in Saigon as outside big cities I could go to an animal vet, wait in line with water buffalo and get better treatment. There's no friggen way I'm going to risk getting the black VD from some over used and under paid Saigon whore haha. I'm hardcore into getting the Vietnam experience, but not the VD's they caught. Plus they had free medical care and the best treatment in the world scattered across the country. So the anwer was a clean NO! No no no no no hahaha.
We hit the palace and I had to go through a security checkpoint which I thought was odd for a museum. Later I found out they hold government meetings, functions and such there too so it made some sense. Nothing was being held when I was there though. Anyways there's not much to describe but a lot more to show. I took at least 200 pics of the place and a few videos but Reunification Palace is pretty much the former South Vietnam's version of the US White House. It's fancy and nice but it's still a working environment and the President and family reside there. Now I'm not an expert when it comes to the SVN (South Vietnam) government, leaders, etc so don't quote me haha. It was built in the 1700's/1800's by the French and was a sort of fancy vacation house to French officials. When the French pulled out of VN in 1954 and the country divided into the communist North and the democratic South, it became the South's Whitehouse. In 1962 a SVN Air Force A-1 Skyraider flew over and bombed the Palace. It was flown by an undercover agent (Viet Minh/Viet Cong I'm not sure which was in power) and President Diem had to rebuild it. Diem was put in power by the US as the US was at first supplying SVN with military hardware and education on the US's systems (legal, government, military, etc) and in 1960 started sending troops over to train the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN for short) troops eventually leading to having 500,000 US combat troops in VN. Diem wasn't elected by the people, or was but rigged to win it as he complied to the US (hmm... sounds familiar haha) but the people hated him and started to rise against him. There's a famous photo of a Monk who sat down, doust himself in gas and lit himself on fire. If you like Rage Against the Machine they used it on one of their CD cover's. Anyways that Monk was protesting against Diem. Diem was also catholic and being in control of a country that's mostly Buddhist isn't good for the polls haha. Vietnam was about 10% catholic at the time and I assume it was because of french rule. The bombing destroyed the whole left wing of the palace and Diem ordered the whole palace to be destroyed and rebuilt to what he wanted (fancy fuck haha). History will show that Diem was killed and it's though that JFK and the US was behind it which I can't confirm or deny but I think that's the general though on the topic.
The main reason why I wanted to see it is that April 30th, 1975 two North Vietnamese Army T-59 tanks hit the palace, one crashed into the main gate, the other ran into the palace to raise the Northern Flag (or at least the blue/red flag with yellow star, the VC flag). The crew that ran in to raise the flag wasn't stopped because the SVN government was waiting for them. The NVA steam rolled over the country and the ARVN did not put up much resistance. This wasn't because they were bad soldiers (though they were generally regarded as such compared to US troops) but because they were ordered to fall back and flee south letting the north take one province at a time. By April 1975 they were outside of Saigon and millions of people fled into the city hoping to be saved by their government or at least the US. They weren't. But on the 30th when the flag was raised it marked the end of the war and for the first time in 21 years Vietnam was whole again and for the first time in over a century the Vietnamese were in charge of their country and not under foreign rule.
It's a nice place and I can't describe it, just look at my pics :) The two tanks that first went to the palace are on the site as monuments and it was a good place to visit. Sadly they do have underground bunkers and bomb shelters but they aren't open to the public. History of the Underworld got my hopes up as they toured it.
Next I hit Binh Soup Shop, near the airport and it's just like every other soup shop. Oh, except the 1968 Tet Offensive, a plan for the NVA and Viet Cong (VC) to take over the country over the Tet holiday (like Christmas and New Years wrapped in one) by violating the ceasefire (ceasefire as SVN troops all went home to celebrate as did enemy troops) was planned upstairs! And it worked... kinda? They hit every big city and provincial capital in SVN, took over the US Embassy in Saigon, bombed the media center and put up a good fight. By the end of the week though they lost 38,000 troops compared to 2,000 US troops and the allied forces took most places back with in a few days except the holy Hue city and Khe Sanh (more on that later). It failed tactically but Walter Cronkite said the war is now unwinnable (that fucker haha), as with other reports capturing the news. This is how it was a success. The US media told everyone at home the war couldn't be won and with plenty of protests the US started leaving Vietnam in 1969.
I ate Pho for the first time which is noodles in a soup like broth and had meat in it. My driver, nice guy ate with me and I asked him if the meat is chicken or beef. It sooooo wasn't chicken and it was way too stringy for beef. A side note on the way to the soup shop I saw a man selling puppies. They were in a cage on the back of his moto and there was about 12 cute little bastards. I wanted to buy them all to save them from the cage and possibly dinner. Thinking of this and chewing the strange meat I had to keep telling myself it wasn't dog as it might not have been. I went to swallow it and my body said "I'm not letting you do it! Get it out!" and I almost choked and threw up (choked as I wanted it down, threw up as my body trying to reject it). I got it down after a small fight and had to wash it down with water since I didn't wanna puke in Vietnam. So yes. I might have eaten dog. Lesson learned: never let someone else order for you as I told my driver I wanted to eat and he barked at a lady for Pho. 2) If you are wanting to eat, tell the people you're with you only eat chicken! haha. Oh and my driver missed me almost puking thank god haha. He did get to laugh at me trying to use chop sticks though :) After the Pho we went upstairs to the meeting room. The room is actually for rent but I'm sure it would cost a lot more. We went past a little crawl space door which was a tunnel used to sneak Viet Cong officers and officials, including the predisent of North Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and perhaps General Giap (main enemy general in the war) in to plan the Tet Offensive. That tunnel I assume was connected to the Cu Chi Tunnel system which was a set of tunnels stretching 250 miles (more on that later)They had the room set up with a table for tea, pictures of all the famous officials and an alter for the shop owner who was Viet Cong. I was told to sit in the 3rd seat and my driver took a picture of me. A man looking after the room told me to use a tea cup and kettle and pretent to pour tea haha. I did and they got a picture. Then they told me that was Ho Chi Minh's chair and his tea set!!! So yea, I sat in the enemy leader's chair. That's like going to the US and sitting in the chair Hitler used in a secret meeting haha. I was stoked hahaha. They told me that not every tourist not allowed to sit in chair for photo and I lucky guy which I prefer to believe :)
After that we hit the site of the US embassy which is famous because of the attack during the Tet Offensive, it had at least one bombing that I know of but I wanted to see it because when Saigon was falling to the enemy (April 1975) the US did not help the people of Vietnam and evacuated US staff and citizens. I think there were some special occasions for Vietnamese, like wives, staff that worked there, probably whores, etc. People wanted to get away and the enemy was right outside the city. We're talking about millions of people running down the street with everything they could carry running for their life. At the embassy people knew of the evacuation or just wanted US help and they swarmed it to the point where people are being kicked off the fences by the US Embassy Marines. At this time all US troops were pulled out of SVN but the US Marines have the duty of guarding US embassy's world wide so they were security. The thing is though, if someone made it over the fence they would be evacuated as it would be a breech of security to open the gate to let one person out while 500 tried to get in haha. There's a famous photo of people on the roof in a line trying to get onto US Navy helicopters. US President Ford(fucker) would evacuate the US workers but not help the millions of people who were slaughtered trying to get away. The evac was a military operation and the US Navy had the new F-14 Tomcat (my favourite aircraft) escort the helicopters, not shoot down enemy aircraft attacking innocent people. Anyways that was a sad ending to a sad event. Today the old embassy is gone, but the US consulate is built on the site. I couldn't get any major pics as it's taboo to take pictures of government buildings as I could be planning something bad. I got a picture of a monument on site and across the street is a building the same design as the old embassy. I could only get a quick one though as a security guard gave me the evil eye and I jumped back on the moto haha. We also drove past the Canadian consulate as it was closed at the time and we made our way to Cho Dan Sinh aka American Market!
We pulled into a parking lot and I didn't know why until I saw tanks, jets, guns and missiles haha. My driver told me to jump on the tanks and he'd take pictures. I doubled checked if it's okay, as these are museum pieces and he said it was. Fuck it, I wanted to jump on tanks hahaha. So I got pictures on a T-59 Tank, same as the one that crashed the palace, an M113 troop carrier with .50 cal (I think it was chinese version) and 106mm recoilless rifle. This was a big thing to me because as a group we've played with unarmed Canadian M113's but being on a US one with nice guns on it, it was great. I also got a picture on a 40mm Anti-Aircraft-Artillery (AAA) gun which was even more cool because you could rotate the gun and change the angle of it too! I felt like Jane Fonda (bitch) when she went to North Vietnam to spit on America and she got to play with an AA gun that shot down her fellow countryment and tortured them. Another awesome thing to see was a Surface to Air Missle (SAM) launcher. I think it was an SA-2 launcher which is big as the missile is the size of a telephone pole hahaha. It's almost as big as a fighter jet it's trying to shoot down haha.
I had my shot so we continued to go to Cho Dan Sinh.
We got there and my driver wanted to come in with me but I said I'll be hours (and was haha) and he wanted to wait. I just wanted to pay him and explore haha because it's said that there's a lot of American War items inside. I got excited planning this trip when I found out, but also heard that the communists destroyed everything that was from the US and SVN government (In my one picture there's a SVN flag on a jet and it has a big black "X" over it haha) so I didn't want to get my hopes up. Just in case I didn't expect anything from what I had already seen, zippos and patches.
JACKPOT!!!!!!!!! I need to fly my Vietnam guys over for extra man power. There's so much stuff that I can't do it all myself. I tried to control myself and looked as I planned on going back to buy. I also have a list of things people wanted so I'll get that together tomorrow. I picked up a Military Police (MP) helmet for our Derek as it was painted all up in that unit's colours. The power of bartering, they wanted $40 USD but I got it down to $28 :) I also found an ARVN 2-pocket pack for around $30USD while I just checked on ebay and their going for at least $179 (which is a ripoff in USD anyways). I also picked up a few patches as I'd like to find a bunch of 173rd Airborne, the unit we re-enact as the patches are made in Vietnam. They're lower quality but because it was made in Vietnam during the war they are worth more since now factories in the US spit out thousands of hi quality ones. I'd also like to have a full colour and olive drab (OD) patch of every major combat unit that served in Vietnam. Do a nice picture frame display with them and a map of VN in the center.
Tomorrow I'll try to pick up the following...
Vietnam wants:
Sean = lw rucks
sam = mint arvn/tropical ruck
brit = zippo - arvn ruck
josh=zippo or usmc kit (forget which or both), m55
derek=XL or Large Long ERDL and OD pants, ERDL Boonie- 7 3/4 Size, MP stuff
kirshin: arvn ruck
And some items for myself of course, sorry guys but I call first dibs haha. I'm uploading a video that I can link here showing the market. It has pretty much everything Vietnam wise: helmets, uniforms (mostly reproduction), boots, packs, web gear and some modern stuff like PASGT helmets, Arid MARPAT, Desert Tiger Stripes, ACU and misc era kit. I can't guarentee you anything but if you guys need anything let me know ASAP. Also I could easily spend my whole trips budget here but I can't, not yet anyways haha. If I do find something you want I will email you the price from forcerecon85@hotmail.com, If you could paypal me at the same email address that would help me out a lot more instead of getting paid in two months and possibly not find you more gear in other parts of the country. Not sure if I said it but Facebook is banned in Vietnam so my main form of comms is my hotmail email or if you have an account, post on my blog. It's late so I should hit the rack. See you guys later.
Vietnam Day 2
I have a headache because I did so much today (Day 3) and took 400pics that'll take forever to upload so I think i'll play catch up. I got up at 7:30am and planned on hitting the War Reminates museum and caught a moto there. We turned the corner and all I could see was a CH-47 Chinook sitting there. All I had was US funds and they took it, but gave me dong back and without a calculator I can't figure out if I'm getting ripped off. After that I stuck to dong since I can do the basic math (item is 480,000d, I give them 500,000 and get 20,000 back). I took pics of the UH-1 with wrongly mounted M134 minigun, A-1 Skyraider, A-37 Dragonfly, O-1 Bird Dog, F-5 Tiger, Tanks and the like. The museum is gruesome and mostly highlights how "evil" the US was. Granted war is hell, but showing me dead fetuses, torture, massacres, etc when you first walk in I find is overkill compared to Western museums haha. Saw some weapons I didn't know about, one being a heavy machine gun I'm guessing which was french. Did see some cool stuff like the China Lake Grenade Launcher (3+1 shotgun style), XM148 Grenade Launcher, BAR rifle, M76 Gustav sub machine guns, etc. Upstairs it got better and had a lot of pictures and a few displays. Had some good maps showing which units served in what areas and I got to learn that South Korea held part of II Corps from Qui Nhon down to Phan Rang and explains why there weren't many US troops there.
Earlier after I got in the gate there was a man who's arms just above the elbow were blown off from a land mine (either from doing something honourable like de-mining or from picking up unexploded ordinance to rig home made booby traps to kill Americans, who knows). He had sets of photos for sale and wanted $15 US. I tried to bargin but went on about feeding kids. I went into the bookshop in the museum and saw the same set of photos for $4 so I scammed for my first time! Yay! :D haha. I'm not too upset about it, just learning something new. My battery started dying and my other one was at the hotel charging so I didn't get as many pics as I wanted. I moved into the hotel room I booked and it's really nice. Pics are uploading now but it has air conditioning, a fan, big tv (which isn't being used), bathroom/shower combo which makes sense and a double bed. Honestly I don't need anything else in a room. The staff are great people and really nice too. By the time I was relocated and ready to rock again the Reunification Palace was going to close an hour after I got there so I hit Ben Thanh Market.
Ben Thanh Market is Saigon's biggest and busiest. It ranges from food, clothes, touristy items and fabrics for making new clothes. Every booth you walk past (and there's hundreds) since I'm from the West and have money every vendor "has special deal for you" haha. The first 15 times it's still funny but after 50 it's fucking annoying haha. It reminds me, on the Dave Chapelle show he visits the Internet which is laid out like a mall. Everywhere he walks two people act as pop ups wanting to sell penis pills and cheap medication and after the 4th time or so they ask and he slugs them both and yells "Spam blocker bitch!" haha. In the end I wanted them to fuck off and let me shop, but I kept my cool. It's very important not to get angry and "show face". It's very disrespectful, brings shame, lack of honour and all that asian cultural stuff. I could argue that assaulting me all the time with "numba one deal" is disrespectful but I'd be talking to the wind. All you can do is smile, put your hand out to distance yourself from them and say "No thank you". What was disrespectful was that one girl selling clothes talked to me and I said no and she grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me into her shop. I was in shock and didn't want to make a scene so I humoured her, told her I didn't want to buy clothes and was countered by the ever stumping "why" routine haha. I don't like clothes. "Why?" Because... I don't like clothes haha. Making things worse I told her (now I speak pidgeon english to the public) "I go home now" tried to make my escape and her business parter blocked my only exit. This was going too far and I was thinking of forcible confindement as it was against my will. I almost felt like running through her but got roped into buying stuff and when my exit was free I went for it.
I found a guy selling Vietnam War Zippos. These zippos are made locally and at random. They take US units, mix them with a city/area in Vietnam and a year so it seems like a US soldier made it custom for himself as a keep-sake, as many troops did. On the back is a phrase like the many in Brit's Zippo book. Now with my vast superior knowledge on the war I could easily call bullshit haha. For example there was a 9th Infantry Division lighter, and the place was Dong Ha which is in the north of the former South Vietnam and the 9th never went north of Saigon, so there's a few hundred km in between and the 9th wouldn't have been flown up there for a short period. They pulled out of Vietnam in 1970. The zippo was dated 1973-74 when all US ground troops were gone haha. As far as I'm concerned I'm getting a few zippos for the guys as a gift from Vietnam and myself as there $5. The only bad thing is that I couldn't find a USMC one for Josh with the date and place that makes sense and if I did, it had a stupid phrase on the back like "With dope there's hope" so it'll come down to unit or phrase as both is next to impossible. I'd like to stay in Saigon longer, but not going through 40,000 zippos. I got a custom zippo done so that I can have a 173rd Airborne Brigade logo, with the place as Dak To, their biggest battle and the year 1967. On the back I chose "Gimme your hearts and minds or I'll burn your fucking hooch down!" haha. I know, I'm going to hell and paid a vietnamese man to write it. My 2nd option would have been "Napalm sticks to kids" but I think I went with the lesser evil of the two :)
While I waited for my zippo I talked to the guy and stayed for two hours just talking about Canada and Vietnam. It was my first time sitting and sharing with someone from Vietnam and it was a good experience. After that I moto'd home to my room and did what I'm doing now, uploading and trying to catch up on the blog. Now I gotta start doing stuff from today! Also, the website where i uploaded my pics and vids, I've almost reached my limit so I paid for a google one that gives me 20gb for $5. When it's up I'll share the link here. one more pain in the ass :P
Earlier after I got in the gate there was a man who's arms just above the elbow were blown off from a land mine (either from doing something honourable like de-mining or from picking up unexploded ordinance to rig home made booby traps to kill Americans, who knows). He had sets of photos for sale and wanted $15 US. I tried to bargin but went on about feeding kids. I went into the bookshop in the museum and saw the same set of photos for $4 so I scammed for my first time! Yay! :D haha. I'm not too upset about it, just learning something new. My battery started dying and my other one was at the hotel charging so I didn't get as many pics as I wanted. I moved into the hotel room I booked and it's really nice. Pics are uploading now but it has air conditioning, a fan, big tv (which isn't being used), bathroom/shower combo which makes sense and a double bed. Honestly I don't need anything else in a room. The staff are great people and really nice too. By the time I was relocated and ready to rock again the Reunification Palace was going to close an hour after I got there so I hit Ben Thanh Market.
Ben Thanh Market is Saigon's biggest and busiest. It ranges from food, clothes, touristy items and fabrics for making new clothes. Every booth you walk past (and there's hundreds) since I'm from the West and have money every vendor "has special deal for you" haha. The first 15 times it's still funny but after 50 it's fucking annoying haha. It reminds me, on the Dave Chapelle show he visits the Internet which is laid out like a mall. Everywhere he walks two people act as pop ups wanting to sell penis pills and cheap medication and after the 4th time or so they ask and he slugs them both and yells "Spam blocker bitch!" haha. In the end I wanted them to fuck off and let me shop, but I kept my cool. It's very important not to get angry and "show face". It's very disrespectful, brings shame, lack of honour and all that asian cultural stuff. I could argue that assaulting me all the time with "numba one deal" is disrespectful but I'd be talking to the wind. All you can do is smile, put your hand out to distance yourself from them and say "No thank you". What was disrespectful was that one girl selling clothes talked to me and I said no and she grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me into her shop. I was in shock and didn't want to make a scene so I humoured her, told her I didn't want to buy clothes and was countered by the ever stumping "why" routine haha. I don't like clothes. "Why?" Because... I don't like clothes haha. Making things worse I told her (now I speak pidgeon english to the public) "I go home now" tried to make my escape and her business parter blocked my only exit. This was going too far and I was thinking of forcible confindement as it was against my will. I almost felt like running through her but got roped into buying stuff and when my exit was free I went for it.
I found a guy selling Vietnam War Zippos. These zippos are made locally and at random. They take US units, mix them with a city/area in Vietnam and a year so it seems like a US soldier made it custom for himself as a keep-sake, as many troops did. On the back is a phrase like the many in Brit's Zippo book. Now with my vast superior knowledge on the war I could easily call bullshit haha. For example there was a 9th Infantry Division lighter, and the place was Dong Ha which is in the north of the former South Vietnam and the 9th never went north of Saigon, so there's a few hundred km in between and the 9th wouldn't have been flown up there for a short period. They pulled out of Vietnam in 1970. The zippo was dated 1973-74 when all US ground troops were gone haha. As far as I'm concerned I'm getting a few zippos for the guys as a gift from Vietnam and myself as there $5. The only bad thing is that I couldn't find a USMC one for Josh with the date and place that makes sense and if I did, it had a stupid phrase on the back like "With dope there's hope" so it'll come down to unit or phrase as both is next to impossible. I'd like to stay in Saigon longer, but not going through 40,000 zippos. I got a custom zippo done so that I can have a 173rd Airborne Brigade logo, with the place as Dak To, their biggest battle and the year 1967. On the back I chose "Gimme your hearts and minds or I'll burn your fucking hooch down!" haha. I know, I'm going to hell and paid a vietnamese man to write it. My 2nd option would have been "Napalm sticks to kids" but I think I went with the lesser evil of the two :)
While I waited for my zippo I talked to the guy and stayed for two hours just talking about Canada and Vietnam. It was my first time sitting and sharing with someone from Vietnam and it was a good experience. After that I moto'd home to my room and did what I'm doing now, uploading and trying to catch up on the blog. Now I gotta start doing stuff from today! Also, the website where i uploaded my pics and vids, I've almost reached my limit so I paid for a google one that gives me 20gb for $5. When it's up I'll share the link here. one more pain in the ass :P
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
Flying and Vietnam Day 1
Bah, now I'm pissed. I wrote a blog and saved it in my drafts, but now I'm back online, want to post it but it's gone. The good news is I'm kinda stuck here uploading pics and charging my camera batteries so let me do it for my 2nd time... By the way it's long since I had at least 8 hours to kill in between flights and 19 hours to kill flying haha. It's a mix of my journal I've kept and things I've learnt since writing it, so it kinda jumps around a bit.
Mon Oct 25th/2010 @ 0522h
So it begins! My exciting/scary adventure! It's only scary as I'm not use to this shit, I'm an FNG when it comes to the solo multinatiotional airport hopping thing. Only self travelling I've done was to Eric's wedding but I had my Mitchell to help ease the situation. Well now I'm a babe in the woods and any fears I have I have to deal with myself. this is a vacation, but on a deeper level its a test to see if I can make it on my own. Some people move from home, go off to school and I picked a 53 day long (possibly more thanks to time zones) trip to burst my cherry. Now to friends they might not detect it or think of it, but this is the biggest fucking thing I've ever done!
0540h
I'm settling and surprisingly the airport in London is busy at this hour haha. Still unsure but the pulse is slowing. Feel like I gotta pee but must be full of Aduventure! I was wearing a random t-shirt I picked up for work at Goodwill, it's a Tim Hortons Lynx shirt and I have no clue who they are. So at the security desk a guard starts quizzing me on them. He grew up going to all their games and I had to bullshit my way past him, more worried about reloading all the shit in my pockets instead.
0623h
on Learjet type bird and crammed in like a sardine haha.
0655h
AIRBORNE!!! I can't help but think "Fuck Yea!!!" when the pilot hits the throttle, the turbofans scream and you feel the wheelbreake release. The world zips by at around 160 knots, you see the taxiway you just crawled over zip by and familiar landmarks fade away. London stretches on as far as the eye can see, lit up in the dark at 1,000ft. The take off isn't a topgun moment but more like an aerial stock drag race at any street corner after watching The Fast and the Furious at the movies. I can only imagine an F-14 Tomcat aircraft carrier takeoff, balls to the walls moment. Wish I could have got a video, London looked great. Not much to do but smile at the chop making the het bounce and start reading :)
0735h
Started our descent into O'hara airport in Chicago. The pilot sounded normal at the start of the flight, but now sounds like Boomhower from "King of the Hill" hopefully because my ears are popping. "Yea man tell you wut, dis yo Cptn talkin bout like tu min fro lnding n strtn r dang go decnt man. Boom ovr n out" haha
0940h Eastern TZ - Already learning, O'hara is BIG, 4th largest in the US and one of the busiest in the world when it comes to annual arrivals and departures. Got off the jet and everyone working security or on the flight deck was black. Nothing wrong with it at all but just observing the contrast of the border we share. No help from anyone but I did get to hear about some girl's weekend before giving up, no signs or ropes herding me to where I'm suppose to go. Got on the train (O'Hara has a friggen train haha) and got lost but eventually found my way. United, my carrier has a desk in 3 of the 5 terminals here. I had to pass security again and I have too much shit in my pockets so my laptop dry sack is holding all my misc shit. I got 4 hours to kill and bought a Chicago magnet, ate at Chili's and wandered around. Impressed at what they have, McDonalds, Quizno's, Dinosaurm Shoe Medic and a lot more. Saw a USAF Servicemen and later on my flight a women in Desert Tiger Stripes but I lost both in the crowd before I could thank them for their service and chit chat. It's worse than I though too, because of the time change I'm stuck here for 6 hours!!!
1209h - Took lots of pics while in Chili's and had Mushroom Swiss burger, just hope they don't attack me on the plane later (they didn't). Also bought a lotto ticket for $118 Million so if I win, everyone in the group is getting free airfare to join me! Too bad the CDN is worth more. Speaking of which I exchanged some CDN money I had in my wallet ($30) and only got $22 USD back! Rip off but I think it was my only option thinking it could be worse in Vietnam (in VN it was easier and no service fee. Mind you it took some calculating to figure out I didn't get ripped off. girl could have given me $200dong for $30USD and I wouldn't have realized it. I'm sticking to dong now though since anyone will take USD here, but only give dong back so its easier to tell if I'm getting ripped in the same currency. I still gotta take a pic of one million dong thrown on my bed gangsta style. Checked my atm bank balence and I though it would be the only time I'm a millionaire but fuck that shit, I'm a multi billionaire! Mind you I'm not emptying my bank account for pics of me swimming in cash. Plus Dong isn't thick like at home. It's not regular paper thin, it's rice paper thin. You could shoot DNA though it, it's that thin. I'll play the waiting game and oh, by the way, no surprise but I'm surrounded in asian people.
1422h Ont time- AIRBORNE!!! to Hong Kong (HK and I don't mean Heckler and Koch) on a B747-400! BIG MUTHAFUCKA with 1st class on 2nd level. Which airplane movie has it been in? Hmm... Executive Decision, Snakes on a Plane (insert Sam Jackson quote here), Passenger 47 and every hostage/terror in the air movie! Lucky me! :) I am now the minority and will be for 53 days. Best I get use to it now. The interesting thing and opposite of VN is this flight is over the age of 35 while 50% of VN's pop. is under 35 years old. Also the stewartests I've encountred are over 35 too. Am I going to be 35 at the end of the flight, like some "Final Countdown" action? (awesome movie). Took my meds to sleep and I'm 2h behind my preplanned sleep cycle so hopefully I can catch a few Z's. Time is going fast though I think because there's always a new face to see or place to go. Also you can watch on tv where the plane is and details like how fast we're going, how high, km's travelled, km's left to go, etc. We're going about 10km a minute which is cool. 14 hours until HK haha. Some John C. Reily movie (how did I remember his name!?) is on, got pretzels, apple juice and candy from my parents to snack on still.
1422h - Testing out headphones to block the engine noise (sitting right on the wing) and hit Radio Ch#7. It's blasting classic rock like RamJam - Black Betty, VN era songs like Rare Earth - I got a line on you, Hendrix, The Who, Steve Miller Band, Box Tops and some good post war songs like Heart (who I Heart), RUSH, Van Halen - Panama (I thought the song was about the US invasion. Pictured Cobra gunships working the tree line, blackhawks dropping off troops, C-130's dropping PSYOPS leaflettes and blasting the song and A-10's looking for an excuse for some 30mm depleted uranium action haha). So far my highlights have been seeing a fat American with a mullet, taking off, landing, turblance, Chili's and rocking out on the flight.
2033h - Got some sleep, hour or two and only on my left side. I got a glass of water and while half asleep spilled it (now that's reality tv folks at home), but now I'm alert haha. Sun was setting but I think we're going faster than the earth's rotation (or at least hope we are) and it's nice and bright out again. I thought we'd head due west and go over Seattle, Hawwii, Japan and finally China, but we went north into Ontario, Manitoba, Nunavut, North West Territories, Yukon, Alaska, Russia, Mongolia and into China which I thought was weird but cool and hoped it was faster haha. Felt like I was getting a sore throat (thanks recycled air with poor filteration) and the music on Ch#7 is in a two hour loop, so I get to hear the same songs over for seven more hours. Oh, and Dinner for Schmucks was on but I dozed off.
2135h Chinese time - Chinese noodles with lemon cookie, currently over Russia, 6000km left to go till HK. Got chopsticks for noodles and I failed. If the Asians saw me I would have brought great dishonour to the plane.
Lesson: Syncronize bathroom breaks during a movie or when your meal is mentioned. After your meal there's a good 30 min line up for the tiny bathrooms and I doubt you want to be #39 to use it haha. Worked well in a row of three as I needed to go, and the two others stood up and waited to sit when I came back. Then we rotated and they took their turn. Yea, I micro-manage washroom breaks, wanna fight about it!? Thought so :)
1913h HK time - Landed in HK fine. I was trying to figure out why it was 5 o'clock and still light out. I didn't change my watches time or anything so why is it 5 after horus of flying away from my timezone!? Oh... it was 5am in Ontario and 5pm in HK. Fuck you analog watch and your lack of am/pm markers. Gate 61 we unloaded at and in 3 hours we would load at the same gate. Went through immigration I wasn't given the paperwork for it until I waited 30mins in line with 533 other people. Filled it out, waited again and ran to get my bag as it would have been sitting there for a good half hour and free for the taking. Guess what!? My bag was gone! Only two uglier bags still rotating around. I talked to security and checked my boarding pass. Turned out my bag was transferred or waiting to be moved onto the Saigon plane haha. I talked to the info centre and was guided to my terminal for my next flight. It's an awesome airport! Everyone I talked to was upbeat, nice and polite and had super happy million dolla smiles! A lady cut in front of me when it was my turn to hand over my immigration papers. She was old and rude so if she was in that much of a hurry I wanted to save her 30 seconds. Maybe let her see her grandkids for 30 seconds more before she has a stroke and dies. Anyways the immigration guy saw it and after she left we didn't speak the same language but had a good laugh over it haha. The security guy I talked to about my stolen bag was happy and didn't treat me like a retard after being a retard, info centre guy spoke awesome english and was great. I also got bugged to do a survey but I didn't mind, I had 2 1/2 hours left and hadn't talked to anyone for more than 30 secs in 16 hours other than at Chili's haha. She was all nice but really motored through the english I could barely keep up! I guess Chinese is super-go-go-fun fast and learning english she motored through it too haha. The airport also had ladies dressed in blue uniforms directing people flow like it was a police officer at rush hour so I always knew where to go. I thought it was great but fuck you Chicago haha.
If you have to go to Asia, go through HK airport. Each terminal has a mall inside it, the main terminal mall being two stories about a medium sized city mall ranging from popeye chicken to super-go-terrific-happy-fun-time action figures, high end fashion like Gucci, Rolex, Lambourgini, you name it crazy expensive fashion stuff, HK had it. I saw the kind of shortbread cookies my scottish father had as a kid and $600 scotch by a company I thought only made fancy wine. For the non-blingers and crystale drinkers like myself there's burger king, book and convience stores and the like for a good mix of shopping, oh yea, and it's in an airport of all places haha. Other things about HK airport is that I saw Nate's Grandpa's dog Maggie, the same breed of dog (which I forget again haha) for sniffer dogs. The airport also has gone through recent renovations and looks futuristic and industral, a nice mix. I went to get something to eat but I got disorientated and lost in the airport mall (yea, it's that big haha) and started running low on time. They did have Chinese food but not the Canadian modified style. I wasn't feeling up to food adventure and found a nice aussie style bar and grill but time was too close so I ate more candy haha and headed for my gate.
Again I got onto another B747-400 but somehow it looked even bigger than the first. All I could see out my window was 200ft long of wing which made it look bigger. The only downside was I was in the middle of the wing so I couldn't see any HK or Vietnam on landing, just friggen massive wing. I tried to take a pic because at night without the curved upward wing tip, in the night it looked like a big air force bomber like a B-52, B-66, etc. It does amaze me that something so big, so heavy can take off and fly in the air. Thank friggen god for a few thousand pounds of thrust! It was funny but I was seated with an Asian girl. She had an Australian accent. She also was a US citizen visiting family back in Saigon. It was nice talking to someone since around that time I'd gone around 28 hours without talking to anyone for more than 10 seconds, other than the survey lady and that was just yes and no haha. So far though people are interested that I'm Canadian and ask me a ton of questions. I got to ask her about Australia and she quizzed me on Canada.
2126h HK time - Currently flying over the skies in which thousands of pilots flew hundreds of thousands of missions and dropping millions of tons of bombs on targets in North Vietnam. It was trippy since hundreds of people had died in that same airspace and hundreds of thousands died on the ground in the North. I'm finally in country and everything from this point on is history! Such a nerd I know but I don't care. I'm in a place where everything I see, my knowledge on the war is relevent haha instead of the odd conversation at work or hanging out. Much like we do at group events we unload and binge our knowledge on the topic, I'm in a place where most people know the story behind Reunification Palace, Tan Son Nhut airport, the racetrack, the former US Embassy, the Rex hotel and the list goes longer with every new town I'll hit as I go. Still, before I explode with excitment I gotta find my hotel, call Kim Ngai Guesthouse and hit the rack.
That's the end of my journal and so i have to continue here. I de-planed and went to grab my bags. 500 people standing around two luggage belts is still a hell of a lot of people. We're all gathered around for the same reason and just starring at a small door, waiting for our luggage. It's funny, we're all thinking the same thing hoping that we win the lottery and our bag comes out first. Finally I got my bag and had to scan everything thru the X-ray machine. I forgot to mention but after passing HK security and X-ray, just before we entered our VN bound plane the Vietnamese conducted their own personal security check, going through our stuff again. It wasn't a problem but I just thought it was odd, like the HK security wasn't up to par, or Vietnam is just paranoided? Anyways I was told by my guesthouse (a family lives here and has about 4 rooms for rent, more on them later) I was to get a taxi from the office inside the airport instead of outside as the ones outside are scammers. They'd turn on the fare, take you to the wrong side of the city and finally decide to let you go to your hotel with them making an extra thousand dong. I showed the guy at the counter the address, he radiod someone and they took my stuff and led me out. It was cool but then he passed me onto a younger guy and he was going to take me by jeep. So i was traded to three people. Do they all know where I'm going? I jump in and we start to go. I found out I had no seatbelt and told the driver to which I got some Vietnamese back which I took as "Hold On" haha. As soon as I walked out of the airport air conditioning it hit me. That's right, the heat. I instantly went from a cool 20 degrees celcius to 32 degrees. It doesn't sound too horrible but it's 100% humidity. I think in Canada a hot day in Ontario is maybe 80% humitidy max. Anyways with the humidity it felt like 43 degrees. By now it was about 10:30pm haha. The ride from the airport was awesome, just seeing all the sites and sounds. It was as if everyone of the city's 8 million people came out to welcome me. People everywhere, a sea of people! With that also a sea of motos (mopeds/motocycles/vespas, etc) buzzing around. I saw lines painted on the road, stop signs, yield signs and everything was ignored haha. The only thing that mattered was that you weren't going to hit anybody, which is amazing since around the car there was at any given point 10 motos buzzing around. It was a real trip haha. But everyone on the patio, all up and down the roads it was great. On the way in I got to see Reunification Palace and Ben Thanh Market and more on those later. We entered the area my hotel was in, the Pham Ngu Lao area which is the backpack district of the city. In about a 2km by 2km square, there's about 200 hotels and a thousand rooms to rent. We stopped and the driver grabbed my stuff and pointed for where I was to go. I didn't see it and he pointed it out. Signs in Vietnam are so distracting since there's signs everywhere it becomes one jumbled up mess haha. Anyways I saw the Kim sign. I told him to come with me so I made sure it was the right place. I crossed the street (which is a skill in itself with so much traffic) and looked to see where the driver was. He drove off. I walk up to the staff (everyone is outside at night) and showed them my info on the place, address, phone numbers, etc. They told me I was in the wrong place and their rooms were full. Communication is still kinda tough even though most people know some english, but I asked where it was and they told me to go to the next street, take a left, then a right, then a left and right and I wasn't going to get much help haha. Now, taxi's (moto taxi is the biggest service so taxi = moto) park on the street, sit on their bikes and wait. So do most people haha. I had to ask a bunch of people if they were moto and finally one was. I asked them if they knew where my hotel was and they pointed to the place where I was just at haha. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere so I asked where an internet cafe was, went in, looked up my email and found my hotel info, copied it down and drew a map. Turns out my book was made in 2004 and had their old location, they've moved since. I paid 2,000dong ($.10 CDN) for my internet time, caught a moto and made sure he knew.
Taxi edicate is interesting for tourists. Show where you want to go weather it's a map, address or both. They nod and say okay. You double check that they know, they nod again. You ask how much that way you aren't charged an insane amount when you do get there. You can barter and play hardball (ex: 100,000d too beaucoup, I go 50,000d) and counter until you got a good price. Toruists are jabbed and can be charged double but it takes experience to realize it. Once you get your "deal" you legally have to be given a helmet and wear it and then you hold the fuck on for dear life!!! haha. Your first time you wanna flip out because you picture yourself crashing into the 20 motos around you, your driver ignores all the road signs you understand and you are not in control so it makes it more scary haha. Horns are used as often as brakes, but not in our "get of of my way" form, but in a "I'm right beside you don't crash into me!" way haha. In one full day I've gone on the sidewalk, down a "do not enter" and against a one way street. After your first few times you learn to have faith and relax because you see how the traffic works. Top speed is 30km/h and as long as you move slow, you're fine, just like walking across the street. You start to walk and do it slow because everyone will move around you. If you dart across you'll cause a pile up and you'll be in the middle.
I'm tired and side tracked haha. The moto had to ask for help but we were really close, so I can't fault him. A nice mamasan (older lady, translates to mother) guided me down a dark and scary alley and I found my hotel. Thank fucking god! I screwed up the booking and said I was coming a day earlier (damn time zones) so they sold my room to someone else. They still had an open room but it was lacking air con and an actual bed since it was just a matress on the floor haha. I couldn't care less though and just wanted to crash. I unpacked, hit a local 24/7 store for bathroom stuff I had the best cold shower I ever had and hit the rack!
I'm beat and I'll write about today, tomorrow sometime or when I get the chance. Take care.
Mon Oct 25th/2010 @ 0522h
So it begins! My exciting/scary adventure! It's only scary as I'm not use to this shit, I'm an FNG when it comes to the solo multinatiotional airport hopping thing. Only self travelling I've done was to Eric's wedding but I had my Mitchell to help ease the situation. Well now I'm a babe in the woods and any fears I have I have to deal with myself. this is a vacation, but on a deeper level its a test to see if I can make it on my own. Some people move from home, go off to school and I picked a 53 day long (possibly more thanks to time zones) trip to burst my cherry. Now to friends they might not detect it or think of it, but this is the biggest fucking thing I've ever done!
0540h
I'm settling and surprisingly the airport in London is busy at this hour haha. Still unsure but the pulse is slowing. Feel like I gotta pee but must be full of Aduventure! I was wearing a random t-shirt I picked up for work at Goodwill, it's a Tim Hortons Lynx shirt and I have no clue who they are. So at the security desk a guard starts quizzing me on them. He grew up going to all their games and I had to bullshit my way past him, more worried about reloading all the shit in my pockets instead.
0623h
on Learjet type bird and crammed in like a sardine haha.
0655h
AIRBORNE!!! I can't help but think "Fuck Yea!!!" when the pilot hits the throttle, the turbofans scream and you feel the wheelbreake release. The world zips by at around 160 knots, you see the taxiway you just crawled over zip by and familiar landmarks fade away. London stretches on as far as the eye can see, lit up in the dark at 1,000ft. The take off isn't a topgun moment but more like an aerial stock drag race at any street corner after watching The Fast and the Furious at the movies. I can only imagine an F-14 Tomcat aircraft carrier takeoff, balls to the walls moment. Wish I could have got a video, London looked great. Not much to do but smile at the chop making the het bounce and start reading :)
0735h
Started our descent into O'hara airport in Chicago. The pilot sounded normal at the start of the flight, but now sounds like Boomhower from "King of the Hill" hopefully because my ears are popping. "Yea man tell you wut, dis yo Cptn talkin bout like tu min fro lnding n strtn r dang go decnt man. Boom ovr n out" haha
0940h Eastern TZ - Already learning, O'hara is BIG, 4th largest in the US and one of the busiest in the world when it comes to annual arrivals and departures. Got off the jet and everyone working security or on the flight deck was black. Nothing wrong with it at all but just observing the contrast of the border we share. No help from anyone but I did get to hear about some girl's weekend before giving up, no signs or ropes herding me to where I'm suppose to go. Got on the train (O'Hara has a friggen train haha) and got lost but eventually found my way. United, my carrier has a desk in 3 of the 5 terminals here. I had to pass security again and I have too much shit in my pockets so my laptop dry sack is holding all my misc shit. I got 4 hours to kill and bought a Chicago magnet, ate at Chili's and wandered around. Impressed at what they have, McDonalds, Quizno's, Dinosaurm Shoe Medic and a lot more. Saw a USAF Servicemen and later on my flight a women in Desert Tiger Stripes but I lost both in the crowd before I could thank them for their service and chit chat. It's worse than I though too, because of the time change I'm stuck here for 6 hours!!!
1209h - Took lots of pics while in Chili's and had Mushroom Swiss burger, just hope they don't attack me on the plane later (they didn't). Also bought a lotto ticket for $118 Million so if I win, everyone in the group is getting free airfare to join me! Too bad the CDN is worth more. Speaking of which I exchanged some CDN money I had in my wallet ($30) and only got $22 USD back! Rip off but I think it was my only option thinking it could be worse in Vietnam (in VN it was easier and no service fee. Mind you it took some calculating to figure out I didn't get ripped off. girl could have given me $200dong for $30USD and I wouldn't have realized it. I'm sticking to dong now though since anyone will take USD here, but only give dong back so its easier to tell if I'm getting ripped in the same currency. I still gotta take a pic of one million dong thrown on my bed gangsta style. Checked my atm bank balence and I though it would be the only time I'm a millionaire but fuck that shit, I'm a multi billionaire! Mind you I'm not emptying my bank account for pics of me swimming in cash. Plus Dong isn't thick like at home. It's not regular paper thin, it's rice paper thin. You could shoot DNA though it, it's that thin. I'll play the waiting game and oh, by the way, no surprise but I'm surrounded in asian people.
1422h Ont time- AIRBORNE!!! to Hong Kong (HK and I don't mean Heckler and Koch) on a B747-400! BIG MUTHAFUCKA with 1st class on 2nd level. Which airplane movie has it been in? Hmm... Executive Decision, Snakes on a Plane (insert Sam Jackson quote here), Passenger 47 and every hostage/terror in the air movie! Lucky me! :) I am now the minority and will be for 53 days. Best I get use to it now. The interesting thing and opposite of VN is this flight is over the age of 35 while 50% of VN's pop. is under 35 years old. Also the stewartests I've encountred are over 35 too. Am I going to be 35 at the end of the flight, like some "Final Countdown" action? (awesome movie). Took my meds to sleep and I'm 2h behind my preplanned sleep cycle so hopefully I can catch a few Z's. Time is going fast though I think because there's always a new face to see or place to go. Also you can watch on tv where the plane is and details like how fast we're going, how high, km's travelled, km's left to go, etc. We're going about 10km a minute which is cool. 14 hours until HK haha. Some John C. Reily movie (how did I remember his name!?) is on, got pretzels, apple juice and candy from my parents to snack on still.
1422h - Testing out headphones to block the engine noise (sitting right on the wing) and hit Radio Ch#7. It's blasting classic rock like RamJam - Black Betty, VN era songs like Rare Earth - I got a line on you, Hendrix, The Who, Steve Miller Band, Box Tops and some good post war songs like Heart (who I Heart), RUSH, Van Halen - Panama (I thought the song was about the US invasion. Pictured Cobra gunships working the tree line, blackhawks dropping off troops, C-130's dropping PSYOPS leaflettes and blasting the song and A-10's looking for an excuse for some 30mm depleted uranium action haha). So far my highlights have been seeing a fat American with a mullet, taking off, landing, turblance, Chili's and rocking out on the flight.
2033h - Got some sleep, hour or two and only on my left side. I got a glass of water and while half asleep spilled it (now that's reality tv folks at home), but now I'm alert haha. Sun was setting but I think we're going faster than the earth's rotation (or at least hope we are) and it's nice and bright out again. I thought we'd head due west and go over Seattle, Hawwii, Japan and finally China, but we went north into Ontario, Manitoba, Nunavut, North West Territories, Yukon, Alaska, Russia, Mongolia and into China which I thought was weird but cool and hoped it was faster haha. Felt like I was getting a sore throat (thanks recycled air with poor filteration) and the music on Ch#7 is in a two hour loop, so I get to hear the same songs over for seven more hours. Oh, and Dinner for Schmucks was on but I dozed off.
2135h Chinese time - Chinese noodles with lemon cookie, currently over Russia, 6000km left to go till HK. Got chopsticks for noodles and I failed. If the Asians saw me I would have brought great dishonour to the plane.
Lesson: Syncronize bathroom breaks during a movie or when your meal is mentioned. After your meal there's a good 30 min line up for the tiny bathrooms and I doubt you want to be #39 to use it haha. Worked well in a row of three as I needed to go, and the two others stood up and waited to sit when I came back. Then we rotated and they took their turn. Yea, I micro-manage washroom breaks, wanna fight about it!? Thought so :)
1913h HK time - Landed in HK fine. I was trying to figure out why it was 5 o'clock and still light out. I didn't change my watches time or anything so why is it 5 after horus of flying away from my timezone!? Oh... it was 5am in Ontario and 5pm in HK. Fuck you analog watch and your lack of am/pm markers. Gate 61 we unloaded at and in 3 hours we would load at the same gate. Went through immigration I wasn't given the paperwork for it until I waited 30mins in line with 533 other people. Filled it out, waited again and ran to get my bag as it would have been sitting there for a good half hour and free for the taking. Guess what!? My bag was gone! Only two uglier bags still rotating around. I talked to security and checked my boarding pass. Turned out my bag was transferred or waiting to be moved onto the Saigon plane haha. I talked to the info centre and was guided to my terminal for my next flight. It's an awesome airport! Everyone I talked to was upbeat, nice and polite and had super happy million dolla smiles! A lady cut in front of me when it was my turn to hand over my immigration papers. She was old and rude so if she was in that much of a hurry I wanted to save her 30 seconds. Maybe let her see her grandkids for 30 seconds more before she has a stroke and dies. Anyways the immigration guy saw it and after she left we didn't speak the same language but had a good laugh over it haha. The security guy I talked to about my stolen bag was happy and didn't treat me like a retard after being a retard, info centre guy spoke awesome english and was great. I also got bugged to do a survey but I didn't mind, I had 2 1/2 hours left and hadn't talked to anyone for more than 30 secs in 16 hours other than at Chili's haha. She was all nice but really motored through the english I could barely keep up! I guess Chinese is super-go-go-fun fast and learning english she motored through it too haha. The airport also had ladies dressed in blue uniforms directing people flow like it was a police officer at rush hour so I always knew where to go. I thought it was great but fuck you Chicago haha.
If you have to go to Asia, go through HK airport. Each terminal has a mall inside it, the main terminal mall being two stories about a medium sized city mall ranging from popeye chicken to super-go-terrific-happy-fun-time action figures, high end fashion like Gucci, Rolex, Lambourgini, you name it crazy expensive fashion stuff, HK had it. I saw the kind of shortbread cookies my scottish father had as a kid and $600 scotch by a company I thought only made fancy wine. For the non-blingers and crystale drinkers like myself there's burger king, book and convience stores and the like for a good mix of shopping, oh yea, and it's in an airport of all places haha. Other things about HK airport is that I saw Nate's Grandpa's dog Maggie, the same breed of dog (which I forget again haha) for sniffer dogs. The airport also has gone through recent renovations and looks futuristic and industral, a nice mix. I went to get something to eat but I got disorientated and lost in the airport mall (yea, it's that big haha) and started running low on time. They did have Chinese food but not the Canadian modified style. I wasn't feeling up to food adventure and found a nice aussie style bar and grill but time was too close so I ate more candy haha and headed for my gate.
Again I got onto another B747-400 but somehow it looked even bigger than the first. All I could see out my window was 200ft long of wing which made it look bigger. The only downside was I was in the middle of the wing so I couldn't see any HK or Vietnam on landing, just friggen massive wing. I tried to take a pic because at night without the curved upward wing tip, in the night it looked like a big air force bomber like a B-52, B-66, etc. It does amaze me that something so big, so heavy can take off and fly in the air. Thank friggen god for a few thousand pounds of thrust! It was funny but I was seated with an Asian girl. She had an Australian accent. She also was a US citizen visiting family back in Saigon. It was nice talking to someone since around that time I'd gone around 28 hours without talking to anyone for more than 10 seconds, other than the survey lady and that was just yes and no haha. So far though people are interested that I'm Canadian and ask me a ton of questions. I got to ask her about Australia and she quizzed me on Canada.
2126h HK time - Currently flying over the skies in which thousands of pilots flew hundreds of thousands of missions and dropping millions of tons of bombs on targets in North Vietnam. It was trippy since hundreds of people had died in that same airspace and hundreds of thousands died on the ground in the North. I'm finally in country and everything from this point on is history! Such a nerd I know but I don't care. I'm in a place where everything I see, my knowledge on the war is relevent haha instead of the odd conversation at work or hanging out. Much like we do at group events we unload and binge our knowledge on the topic, I'm in a place where most people know the story behind Reunification Palace, Tan Son Nhut airport, the racetrack, the former US Embassy, the Rex hotel and the list goes longer with every new town I'll hit as I go. Still, before I explode with excitment I gotta find my hotel, call Kim Ngai Guesthouse and hit the rack.
That's the end of my journal and so i have to continue here. I de-planed and went to grab my bags. 500 people standing around two luggage belts is still a hell of a lot of people. We're all gathered around for the same reason and just starring at a small door, waiting for our luggage. It's funny, we're all thinking the same thing hoping that we win the lottery and our bag comes out first. Finally I got my bag and had to scan everything thru the X-ray machine. I forgot to mention but after passing HK security and X-ray, just before we entered our VN bound plane the Vietnamese conducted their own personal security check, going through our stuff again. It wasn't a problem but I just thought it was odd, like the HK security wasn't up to par, or Vietnam is just paranoided? Anyways I was told by my guesthouse (a family lives here and has about 4 rooms for rent, more on them later) I was to get a taxi from the office inside the airport instead of outside as the ones outside are scammers. They'd turn on the fare, take you to the wrong side of the city and finally decide to let you go to your hotel with them making an extra thousand dong. I showed the guy at the counter the address, he radiod someone and they took my stuff and led me out. It was cool but then he passed me onto a younger guy and he was going to take me by jeep. So i was traded to three people. Do they all know where I'm going? I jump in and we start to go. I found out I had no seatbelt and told the driver to which I got some Vietnamese back which I took as "Hold On" haha. As soon as I walked out of the airport air conditioning it hit me. That's right, the heat. I instantly went from a cool 20 degrees celcius to 32 degrees. It doesn't sound too horrible but it's 100% humidity. I think in Canada a hot day in Ontario is maybe 80% humitidy max. Anyways with the humidity it felt like 43 degrees. By now it was about 10:30pm haha. The ride from the airport was awesome, just seeing all the sites and sounds. It was as if everyone of the city's 8 million people came out to welcome me. People everywhere, a sea of people! With that also a sea of motos (mopeds/motocycles/vespas, etc) buzzing around. I saw lines painted on the road, stop signs, yield signs and everything was ignored haha. The only thing that mattered was that you weren't going to hit anybody, which is amazing since around the car there was at any given point 10 motos buzzing around. It was a real trip haha. But everyone on the patio, all up and down the roads it was great. On the way in I got to see Reunification Palace and Ben Thanh Market and more on those later. We entered the area my hotel was in, the Pham Ngu Lao area which is the backpack district of the city. In about a 2km by 2km square, there's about 200 hotels and a thousand rooms to rent. We stopped and the driver grabbed my stuff and pointed for where I was to go. I didn't see it and he pointed it out. Signs in Vietnam are so distracting since there's signs everywhere it becomes one jumbled up mess haha. Anyways I saw the Kim sign. I told him to come with me so I made sure it was the right place. I crossed the street (which is a skill in itself with so much traffic) and looked to see where the driver was. He drove off. I walk up to the staff (everyone is outside at night) and showed them my info on the place, address, phone numbers, etc. They told me I was in the wrong place and their rooms were full. Communication is still kinda tough even though most people know some english, but I asked where it was and they told me to go to the next street, take a left, then a right, then a left and right and I wasn't going to get much help haha. Now, taxi's (moto taxi is the biggest service so taxi = moto) park on the street, sit on their bikes and wait. So do most people haha. I had to ask a bunch of people if they were moto and finally one was. I asked them if they knew where my hotel was and they pointed to the place where I was just at haha. I knew I wasn't going to get anywhere so I asked where an internet cafe was, went in, looked up my email and found my hotel info, copied it down and drew a map. Turns out my book was made in 2004 and had their old location, they've moved since. I paid 2,000dong ($.10 CDN) for my internet time, caught a moto and made sure he knew.
Taxi edicate is interesting for tourists. Show where you want to go weather it's a map, address or both. They nod and say okay. You double check that they know, they nod again. You ask how much that way you aren't charged an insane amount when you do get there. You can barter and play hardball (ex: 100,000d too beaucoup, I go 50,000d) and counter until you got a good price. Toruists are jabbed and can be charged double but it takes experience to realize it. Once you get your "deal" you legally have to be given a helmet and wear it and then you hold the fuck on for dear life!!! haha. Your first time you wanna flip out because you picture yourself crashing into the 20 motos around you, your driver ignores all the road signs you understand and you are not in control so it makes it more scary haha. Horns are used as often as brakes, but not in our "get of of my way" form, but in a "I'm right beside you don't crash into me!" way haha. In one full day I've gone on the sidewalk, down a "do not enter" and against a one way street. After your first few times you learn to have faith and relax because you see how the traffic works. Top speed is 30km/h and as long as you move slow, you're fine, just like walking across the street. You start to walk and do it slow because everyone will move around you. If you dart across you'll cause a pile up and you'll be in the middle.
I'm tired and side tracked haha. The moto had to ask for help but we were really close, so I can't fault him. A nice mamasan (older lady, translates to mother) guided me down a dark and scary alley and I found my hotel. Thank fucking god! I screwed up the booking and said I was coming a day earlier (damn time zones) so they sold my room to someone else. They still had an open room but it was lacking air con and an actual bed since it was just a matress on the floor haha. I couldn't care less though and just wanted to crash. I unpacked, hit a local 24/7 store for bathroom stuff I had the best cold shower I ever had and hit the rack!
I'm beat and I'll write about today, tomorrow sometime or when I get the chance. Take care.
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