Motorbikes in Viet Nam

These are NOT my pictures (they came from a friend) but do accurately convey what you typically see in Viet Nam. The motorbike is the utility vehicle of SE Asia. It's a combination bus, SUV, pick-up truck, flat bed trailer, and all round mover of anything and everything.

Singapore, again...

Hey, it's just like Dubai here in Singapore! A faux Irish pub is widely advertised here. Thought I'd pass on that (but did attach a photo from a REAL Irish pub last Christmas - Dick Mac's, in Dingle, with REAL Guinness on tap) and head down to a restaurant district on the river.

Busy, hectic, and clean with no honking horns! So amazing! And so very expensive in comparison to Viet Nam. Took a cab down to the river and couldn't help but be amazed at how orderly the traffic is, and so few motorbikes!

6:30 am bus to airport tomorrow morning. Looking forward to getting home. However, a group of Vietnamese senior government/justice officials arrive in Vancouver the day after I do for a week long study tour in Vancouver. So, one day off at home, then I get to introduce the group to a whole new world...

Last day in Hanoi...

So, I’ve spent a lot time venting and bitching about the screw-ups, challenges, questionable food, cockroaches, dirty hotel rooms, hard beds, and the differences between here and home. I’ve been thinking a lot about that point of view over the past several days.

I just finished reading “The Place at the End of the World” by Janine Di Giovanni. It’s an account of conflict, death, famine, horror, tragedy and evil in places like Chechnya, Kosovo, Jamaica, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. She’s a war correspondent who was challenged some years ago to “write about the small voices, the people who can’t write about themselves.”

Her writing brought me back to what these trips are all about – individual lives and the small voices. I’ve made some fantastic connections, built on developing friendships, watched as some police (not all, or most, as that would be too much to expect too soon) “get it”, talked to lots of smiling kids and adults in the streets, consistently been greeted with smiles wherever I go, been the recipient of many acts of kindness, been reminded multiple times how spoiled we are in the West, and been fortunate enough to experience, in small ways, a totally different culture. I have been lucky to help, in small ways, to improve how police will treat children who are victims, witnesses, or suspects.

These are a people who have a culture and history dated in the thousands of years. They have endured and experienced challenges I cannot begin to imagine. And, they have been kind enough make me feel welcome. For all of this, I am grateful. I am fortunate to have been blessed with this experience, and these friends.

Now, if only the beds were better and the cockroaches were smaller…

Home delivery dinner in Hanoi

Now I'm normally the type to photograph food, but I couldn't resist this.

Second to last night in Hanoi before I go home and I'm pretty beat. In no mood to go out yet again in search of dinner after a month on the road. My apartment/bachelor suite has a stack of home delivery menus, so I figure what the heck. Let's try it.

An Italian/Mexican sort of place looked good and I ordered the full rack of ribs thinking "full rack" is still a small dish here. I'm used to local sized portions of food, suited for people half my size. Wrong.

Thirty minutes later, after some minor language issues on the phone placing my order, a man arrives at my door with a cardboard delivery box more suited for packaging a small piano rather than dinner for one. I was stunned when I opened the box. $12 and I have dinner for four. Guess what's still in my fridge the morning after?

To give you some sense of scale of this slab of meat, I put my business card in the picture. Salad (dressing is in the small plastic bag) and fried to top it off. Heineken from the fridge, a good movie on Thai cable TV and I'm a happy campter. A stuffed, happy camper with leftovers.

I managed to waddle out of my hotel this morning and spend two hours Christmas shopping in the Old Quarter, then back to my desk for more work.

One last senior level meeting late this afternoon and that's it. All done. Midday flight to Singapore tomorrow, and a night there, then 17 hours of flying time the next day gets me home!

Looks like my next trip back is May, 2007.

More on Cambodia visit

A few more pictures from the Cambodia road trip.

Three of the Vietnames police and I standing on the unfinished bridge from Viet Nam to Cambodia. The view of Viet Nam from Cambodia (note the huge sign in Cambodian. Not a clue what it says). The gang of Vietnamese police, Cambodian border police, and the lone Canadian - and this was pretty cool - no guns, no rules, just lots of smiles and handshakes and posing for everyone who had a camera, which meant everyone from our group.

The thatch sided house on stilts is a fair representation of what you see in the poorer rural areas we went through on the way to the border. The government is gradually building newer homes to move residents out of these conditions. We went by rows and rows of these new homes that were no larger than than the old ones, but better constructed and with access to water and power.

In Hanoi now for the final stretch of this trip. Four weeks, fifteen hotels, Canada - USA - Korea - Singapore - United Arab Emiraes - Viet Nam - Cambodia, and home again via Singapore and Korea.

Vuon Co Thap Muoi – white stork bird sanctuary

After our brief visit to Cambodia, we were off to a wildlife sanctuary (Vuon Co Thap Muoi) for what turned out to be a boat tour. We were loaded on to a long, narrow canoe sort of thing. Lots of white storkss (revered here as symbols of wisdom and love, and rapidly disappearing elsewhere in the country) and dozens of other varieties of birds.

Stopped for lunch in the middle of the refuge at a thatched roof wooden building on stilts above the water. Snake head fish (see picture of my host holding my lunch) roasted on an open fire (whole, as the guts are supposed to be the best part – which I believe is a matter of opinion), served on lotus leaves pulled from the water. Lotus stems (up to ten feet long) were also gathered for eating (lotus blossom seeds are a common snack served at dinners).

An observation platform gave us a great view of the entire area. It wasn't until I was partway up that I realized just how high it was, and how step the steps were. Being afraid of heights, it was a stupid place for me to be!

I’m in HCMC for the night, and off to Hanoi tomorrow late afternoon. I’m splurging tonight (a new word for my translator that he wrote down after I spelled it) and paying $48 a night at the Bong Sen Number 1. I’ve been here a couple of times before and now know the immediate neighbourhood. This is a big step up from the $10 and $23 rooms I’ve been in. For $48, you get a room that is clean, has pictures on the walls, a soft bed, and no cockroaches or geckos (or at least none that I’ve seen yet). Such is my simple approach to luxury.

Cambodia – unofficially…

The police arranged for a day trip to the countryside yesterday. I knew were going to the border region, but I didn’t know I’d be going across the border in to Cambodia, unofficially.

We stopped after an hour or so to pick up the local police boss as our escort to the frontier (left the hotel at 6:30 am). A little while later, we come around a corner to a dusty flat (see picture of the road to the border) area with a small market in progress and new looking two lane concrete bridge over a river. On closer inspection, the bridge approach road wasn’t finished. This is the frontier with Cambodia (known in this region as Kampuchea). The bridge was built and paid for by the Viet Nam government, who will complete it later this month. However, the Kampuchean government is so poor, they’ve asked the Vietnamese to not only pay for the bridge, but to pay for 28 km of road on the other side to connect to the pan-Asian highway.

Since the bridge isn’t open for real, you need a barrier. Right? So, as I walked on to the bridge I found a small tree and some branches across it mid-span, with a couple of rows of barbed wire strung along on top. A token barrier. On either side of the river are dirt poor markets / villages, with a constant parade of small boats going back and forth. Not a terribly serious border. (see pictures)

Turns out, we’re going to cross the border, by boat. A sort of ferry it turns out. A sort of foot passenger ferry (motorbikes and bicycles welcome, along with livestock), and it’s standing only. Pictures of actual "frontier" are forbidden, so the boat photo was shot from the hip, literally, so I missed part of our "ferry".

So we scramble down the bank on the Viet Nam side, past the two VN border guards (unarmed) lounging in the shade, and down to the river bank. The ferry is a flat bottom wooden thing, about 5’ wide by 16’ long, with a drop ramp in front (it just runs up on the bank on arrival), powered by a small gas engine attached to an 8’ shaft with a small propeller on the end. 18 of us, and one bicycle got on this thing. No hand rails. No Ministry of Transport inspection decal. No personal flotation devices. No safety briefing. You stand still and hope for the best as the current grabs you and this tiny little old guy tries to get his boat engine going. As it lurched, I let out a rather loud “Holy shit!” Everyone laughed. I guess the emotion translated well in to Vietnamese. (see picture of our ferry)

Two minutes later I’m scrambling up the riverbank in Kampuchea. Our police boss escort went ahead a few steps to greet the border guards. All smiles, especially when they saw a large foreigner. No passport control. No declaration. No paperwork. In fact, when I asked for my passport to be stamped to show I’d been there, much confusion followed. Turns out there is not stamp here. I’d have to get on a motorbike with one of the border guards and go down the road a bit to another location. I passed on the offer.

So what do you do when you’re unofficially in a third world country, one with horrendous human rights problems? You pose with the border guards for lots of pictures, do lots of handshaking and smiling.

The market was dirty, incredibly poor, and carried an amazing array of cognac, knock-off watches, and cases of foreign beer.

Cao Lanh - Dong Thap Province

Our police office we’re at for the next three days is about ten minutes drive from our hotel, right on a tributary of the Mekong. I visited this station briefly in the summer. A semicircle of one-story buildings surrounding a courtyard of fruit trees – papaya, banana, lichee nut. There is a volleyball court and net out front (see picture, with motorbikes in front of the offices). Ants everywhere. The back of the lot is a small garden, and two feet beyond that is a tributary of the Mekong River.

Most of the equipment is here for the child friendly room, but not unpacked. Our “actors” for the skills coaching role plays for today and tomorrow are two little girls – Giau (pronounced Zeow) ten and Chau (pronounced Cho) twelve. One is the daughter of a woman who works at the station (cook/cleaner) and they both live in a local village. Naturally, nobody told them why they’re here. They ended up doing great. The twelve year old is a part-time lottery ticket seller. (see picture)

Later in the day, Giau did a scenario where she played a 15 year old boy who robbed a taxi at knife point. It was hilarious. She was so serious and intent, yet her feet couldn’t touch the floor from the chair she was in. The next day, the girls had a fit of giggles just as the police were about to start the simulated interview. It was contagious across the entire group.

The river picture with green in it is taken behind the police station. The less appealing picture is taken behind the Cao Lanh market. The street is one of the main streets here in Cao Lanh. 70% of the traffic is motorbikes, 28% of the remainder of traffic is bicycles, and the remaining 2% is cars, trucks, buses.

My room has at least one gecko. I saw him run across a wall, and now I can hear him/her chirping from behind the curtains. Last time here, when I was going to pack I moved some papers on the desk and one jumped out. I was so startled that I think I jumped higher than it did. I hope it keeps the cockroaches to a minimum.

This is a world where nobody is surprised to see somebody walk in the front door of a “local” hotel with a sack that is obviously moving. A large snake to be sold to the kitchen. Either there were several snakes in the back, or one very big one. Took the guy two hands to hold it up.

Another police “friendship dinner” followed the conclusion of the training days. This time, the “special” dish was bat porridge. Amazingly not bad.