I really am in Hanoi, honest

Hanoi, Vietnam
Well, now the camera's back in action, let's get some dumb snaps up on here. Obviously I could have taken pics of Hanoi's bustling streets, the architecture and impressive cityscape but no...

The demise of Milky Joe, from darling of the small screen to toilet mounted ash tray. Poor Milky, reminds me of the slide into shambling obscurity of Richard O'Sullivan of Robin's Nest fame.


OK, so it's not big taking the rise out of foreign notices in the English language but this really did make me laugh.
- No.6. Obviously financial penalties weren't doing the trick.
- No.8. I was clearly breaching two of this hotel's rules, especially with Ming the Merciless in tow.


And here's a snap so you can see how desperately in need of a hair cut I am. Doesn't prove I'm in Hanoi, just that I've got a dodgy Barnet and was somewhere drinking beer with a bloke from Barnsley (although you can't tell that from the picture either). You'll have to take my word for it.

Camera exorcised

Hanoi, Vietnam
Seems that I have managed to clean up my camera from whatever evil spirit had invaded it: basically formatting the memory card and internal memory and sprinkling it with holy water whilst chanting a Voodoo spell.

So, I have gone back and added some pictures to my previous post about Hoi An & Hue. Check 'em out if you like...or take a leap off Tower Bridge with five bob's worth of lit Roman Candles in your pockets, that would probably be more exciting.

Ha-noise

Ha Noi, Vietnam
[Camera still suffering from the lurgy and not letting me download pics so sorry, no visuals. Bummer.]

Well, I survived the trip to Hanoi, or Ha Noi or even H Anoi if you like (everyone writes it differently). It was 14hrs of near torture, and I really mean that: the air con vent was leaking above me so I had a regular drip of water falling on my noggin, which I believe, yup, is a method of torture. And after a midnight snackstop, everyone apart from me seemed to get back on board with some vinegar steamed, fermented leech gizzards or something as the smell of what folk were eating was really rather rum. And then there was the team of Chinese shower parts salesmen that were having what I could only understand to be a sustained shouting competition. I don't think there was a clear winner - they were all equally excellent at it.

That's one thing about Vietnam, in fact SE Asia in general but Vietnam especially - the constant noise. There really is no escaping it: the beeping, the banging, the blaring, the balling, in fact any 'b' that means loud noise, they're at it from dawn 'til well past dusk. Even the interaction between locals is more like a verbal boxing match than a discussion, regardless of what it might be about:

Mrs Nguyen & Mrs Pham might be discussing the price of frogs but to an outsider it sounds like one is accusing the other of killing her youngest child, roasting it and eating it with a lime marmalade dressing.

I wonder if there is a Vietnamese word for 'hush' or whether you can literally translate 'I'm just going to kick back and enjoy a little peace and quiet, maybe with a Rich Tea biscuit'?

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not totally whinging about it, in fact it's great at times - makes you feel like you're right in the thick of things, especially in Saigon or Hanoi. Just other times, it's a drag, like 6:30am and the construction site outside your guesthouse window is in full swing (seemingly using dynamite), two cleaners are verbally clawing each others face off outside your door, the motos are constantly beeping and there's a van with a loud speaker blaring out martial music and local cinema listings coming down the street. Time to get up then? Maybe so.

Hanoi is fab though. Went to see the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh yesterday, I guess just for the ghoulish sake of it (photos forbidden I'm afraid). Funny that he expressly wished to be cremated before he died and not embalmed but they did it anyhow.

HCM: My dying wish is that I will be cremated.
Personal physician: Of course Mr Ho.
HCM: I think this is it, I'm going...euuuggghhh...
Personal physician: Right lads, get him in the formaldehyde, we've got the Ho Show to put on!

Poor fella.

Right, I'm off to try and get my camera disinfected. Stay alert!

(Oh, and my left foot has swelled up like some form of flesh coloured balloon. I wonder what that can mean?)

Of swim shorts Ming the Merciless and other bobbins

[Have revisited this post and added some pictures now I've managed to drag them kicking and screaming off my rather wan camera. Enjoy!]


Hue, Vietnam
Oh hello, fancy finding you here.

I'm having a fearful strife getting pics off my camera at the moment so there's no visual titillation (unless looking at Verdana font rocks your world...it does mine, I can assure you). Bit worried about it as the last time I tried to 'Explore' my memory card I briefly saw a collection of folders on there that I don't remember having added myself, one entitled Administrator Porn. Nope, I'm pretty sure that one wasn't one of mine. Maybe all this promiscuous dirty 'porting', sticking his USB cable into any old cheap foreign slot in Cyber Cafes has got Cam a nasty dose. And if some digital gremlin is going to infect my camera, well fair enough, but share the love - let me see this porn as well. Hey ho.

Weather (I am English after all)
So what's new? Well, it's been raining a lot...and I mean a lot. Enough to make Gloucestershire feel like the Atacama desert I'm sure. Some cyclone passing through that has been shedding its heavy tropical tears on the region. Perked up today though you'll be glad to hear. So that's the weather done with.


Swimmers of Hoi An
Had a lovely time in Hoi An, a Unesco World Heritage City and also city of a thousand tailors. And yup, got the swim shorts made up. Felt a bit bad cheating on my original tailor in Singapore but that's the cut & stitch world of tailoring for you. The shorts weren't quite as natty as I had in mind - was thinking red, yellow and orange trim on a brown base - but in the end they ended up just plain Orange & Brown but hey...that's what it's all about. In fact had some made up with pale blue trim on a brown base as well, so thanks for the advice Evan, but I was there a little before you. In fact I got a bit carried away and also had a pair of O&Bs made for Dan, I mean at $7 a pop, it would have been churlish not to. It will be good to have matching swimmers for our bid to represent GB in the synchronised swimming pairs event at Beijing 2008. (Pictures to follow...of swimmers...not us in the 2008 Olympics...when/if I can clean up my camera.



Other than that, Hoi An was charming and had more than its fair share of lanterns.




Ming the Merciless
After five months of noodling about the tropics I think it's fair to say that some, most in fact, of my clothing isn't in the best of shape. As a product of endless sweating, getting rained on and in the rainy season often clothes taking a long time to dry after being laundered, some of my T-shirts have developed that clawing, sweet-sour, fusty, just-not-right smell: Ming the Merciless. Once in your clothes then that's pretty much it. You can wash them and wash them, add as much disguising fabric conditioner as you like but somewhere in there lurks Ming and out he will pop, and then even you are upset at having to sit next to you on an eight hour bus ride. I remember Ming the Merciless visited a pair of Radar's snowboarding gloves once and they had to be quarantined and then burnt. It took months for him to scrub the smell off his hands. I think I'm going to have to ditch most of my T-shirts when I get back to Bangkok, which is a shame as I rather like a couple of them, but that's the only way to get rid of Ming. That or skewer him with the point of War Rocket Ajax.

Plumbing the depths
So, here I am in Hue, Vietnam and what do I find myself mostly doing? Scouring the web for SE London plumbers. Kerrr-Ray-Zeee. It's all musical flats back at the Borough Bunker and there's a slow bath drainage issue (gripping stuff huh?) that needs resolving before the next incumbent takes up residence. So has it been getting awestruck by the Tomb of Tu Duc, the Tomb of Minh Mang or the pagoda of Thien Mu? No it's been emailing or trying (unsuccessfully) to Skype Steve-The-Plumber or DIY Darren. I did find a plumber in Walworth called Yen Lin Chong, so that made me feel like I hadn't completely lost that SE Asian connection. And I did manage to get to the Citadel (Kinh Thanh) and the intriguingly named Forbidden Purple City yesterday, which contrary to its given nomenclature is neither purple nor forbidden. I wanted my money back; the bare faced cheek!




So killing a spot of time just now waiting for another bus, perhaps my last 'eric' overnighter in SE Asia, up to Hanoi. As potentially the finale, I'm really going to cherish this one, maybe try and stay awake all night just to soak up that wonderful experience: the bladder shrinking air con, the blaring DVD of Vietnamese pop videos, the constant beeping of the horn as we high speed snake amongst traffic, most of which seems to be coming straight at us.

Right, better skip off and write my last will and testament...actually something I should have done a long time ago. Be good now and eat your greens. You know how I worry about you.

Kite surfing what fun...to watch

Mui Ne, Vietnam
I really have been the most lazy of bones lately. Just kicking back here on the coast, catching a little (and I mean a little) sun, dodging the monsoon rains, reading some DH Lawrence (well, it can't all be a picnic in the park, right?) and drinking perspiring bottles of Happy Hour Beer Larue. In fact Happy 'Hours' are so long here it would be easier for bars to post the one hour a day they are effectively serving double priced cocktails and call it the Miserable Hour.

Have been tempted by this kite surfing lark that seems all the whizz 'round these parts. Well, I was tempted until I saw a novice lifted clean out of the shallows and deposited unceremoniously amongst some plastic tables at a beach side cafe some 15m away. Quite spectacular. They really must have been thirsty. I gave them 9.5. It also takes more time than I have got to learn so have stuck to a spot of boogie boarding...and drinking heavily of course.

Don't know why but I really have been off taking snaps. Think it might be the rain. Poor old Cam has sat forlornly in my bag feeling fearfully neglected I'm sure. Must try and pick it up as my wayfaring leans towards a close.

Another epic (or is that 'Eric'?) bus journey this afternoon and on through the night (grrreat) up to Hoi An where I am looking to get a bamboo slippered needle wizard to knock me up a snap pair of swimming shorts in brown & orange, natch.

At least it's lashing down with rain so I don't feel so bad about the 17hrs on a bus although obviously the downside is it makes the already treacherous driving conditions nigh on murderous. If I don't make, it's been great knowing you and I beqeath you my trusty brown John Deere cap.

Let's GO!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Hi Ho Chi Minh we go

Mui Ne, Vietnam coast
So fare-thee-well Phnom Pen, Cambodia and 'Hello there!' Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam...otherwise known as Saigon. The journey south east through Cambodia and over the border to Vietnam was pretty unremarkable...so I shan't remark on it really. OK, just a little. The only way you knew you were in Vietnam as opposed to Cambodia (other than having your passport stamped at the border crossing of course - a sure fire give away) was that the road and shop signs changed. Out went the complicated (for me) Cambodian script that looks like a drawing of a city skyline. In came the monosyllabic, staccato, roman script of Vietnamese complete with an abundance of 'b's, 'v's, 'x's and 'c's. Actually, it's equally indecipherable (for me).

So my first impression of Ho Chi Minh City? Two mangy dogs stuck together in a post-coital tangle; the male unable to withdraw from the female due to an unfortunate spasm of the female's yonni (medical term). I've heard it often happens to foxes and the Jack Russell (breed of dog as opposed to ex-England wicket keeper) but I've never witnessed it. The poor muts. The male had managed to dismount but his tackle was still firmly tethered creating a sort of canine Push-Me-Pull-You (Woof-Me-Woof-You).

I have to say I have been a bit trigger shy with the camera, maybe on account of all the scare stories about determined HCMC street thieves, or maybe I simply haven't been in the shooting mood. I didn't feel this afforded the right opportunity to start snapping and spared their doggy blushes. I have done a little sketch for you though:


The doggy nature of the scene reminded me of a joke that always makes me laugh.

[Two guys in a pub having a pint, Bert & Reg. Reg has his dog with him. The dog proceeds to lick its own balls.]

Bert commenting on dog's activity: Blimey Reg, it's amazing isn't it. I wish I could do that.
Reg: Give him a biscuit Bert and he might let you.

Ho ho ho.

Other than that? Well, HCMC was fun. Busier and more vibrant that Phnom Pen with more motos if that were possible. Did the usual: Vietnam War Remnants Museum (or American War as they call it here. And why not? They weren't fighting themselves...well...actually they kinda were but it was the Yanks that were the main protagonists), National Museum, a couple of temples but to be honest I think I was a little tired of city dwelling.

I have since adjourned to the coast about four hours north of HCMC for some R&R (huh? Has it been such a stressful time of late?) - a place called Mui Ne. Pretty relaxing spot but the local industry is producing fermented fish sauce so there's an over powering & pungent odour in the air.

Which made me think of Mel Brookes for some reason. Here's a minute of fun for those with the time; a bit of 2000 Year Old Man (if my embedding works that is):

On the way here I managed to attract a bit of a limpet. The sort of companion you don't want to hang around with but can't seem to dislodge. I suppose I could have reverted to some of his own blunt language.


Let's call him James...as that was his name. Without being too 'travellor' and snobbish about it, I wonder why he bothered leaving Wimbledon in the first place. Comments include:

'This mash potato [uh huh] is fucking rubbish.'
'Can't wait to get to Oz so I don't have to eat all this local shit.' [What like the mash potato?]
'I just tell moto touts to f-u-c-k o-f-f.'
[To bunch of Vietnamese lads watching him play pool] 'Errr...do you mind pissing off?'

Etc etc etc. The odd thing was he was really into bird watching. I guess you can't stereotype a twitcher (or birder as he told me is the new slang term - cunning). He's now left so I feel a little more relaxed not trying to skulk around and be vague about where I'm going to be for dinner etc.

And as an end piece to this rather patchy post, and of no interest to anyone but Will Anderson probably, when my phone shuts down to standby, it has decided to display an image of Will Anderson raising a glass of Adnams Ale in the King's Head in Roupell Street, Waterloo. (I do have that image on my phone, it's not that spooky.) Well, I guess Will is a fine fella, it's a great boozer and a jolly decent drop, so why not?