Day 277 - Tet Festival & Dam Sen Park

Happy New Year... again.



So whilst china and the rest of Asia (and every chinatown in every city in the world) celebrates 'Chinese New Year', the Vietnamese had to be different. Tonight its 'Tet', their own version of New Year, and its big business. When we left Ho Chi Minh City over a week ago, they were already clearing the streets, decking them with lanterns and flowers. And even back then the town was geared up for new year with flower markets and yellow-blossomed trees on sale everywhere - their very popular equalivalent of christmas trees.





But we come back on the eve of the Tet festival and the town is manic. Soundsystems blare out Vietnamese music, interspersed with 'Happy New Year' by Abba. Whole swathes of streets are blocked off, covered in flowers, gardens and statues of pigs (it is the year of the pig, after all). People are flocking to have their photo taken with anything they can find from decroated trees, huge terracotta piggy banks or displays of hanging flowers. Its carnage, and its still only daytime.





But, as with most new years celebrations these days, I'm ill. so is sam. so at 8pm when we wave off the london guys, we head straight for our cool, air-conditioned bedroom, climb in, and sleep right through til 11pm. We're rough - i'm bugged with the sweats and some weird headache that makes me want to die, and sam's suffering an evil cold that's leaving her bedridden too. BUT, its new year. So we get up.

And within 45 minutes, we've crawled into a cab, through the heaving carnage of moped traffic into town and are stood surrounded by thousands of vietnamese people staring into the sky, as if waiting for God to descend and wish them happy new year personally.



He doesn't. But at the strike of midnight, amidst the usual fanfare of music and hugging and cheering, a 15-minute firework display lights the sky. There's no real focal point in HCMCity. So the fireworks are being let off by the river, and their view is obscured by the town centre's skyscrapers. But it doesn't bother the people here. Every couple of minutes, they burst into applause at the sight of the fireworks. How mental is that? They are applauding explosives. I imagine like people did when fireworks were first invented. But its sweet.

And after walking back home through the equally hectic traffic carnage - people this time, not mopeds, we take our broken bodies and put them to bed. Happy New Year.

The next week is kinda boring. We're stuck in HCMCity, waiting for our Indian visas to be approved. But its Tet festival, so everything is shut. and they take 4 working days. So we actually have to sit around this city, which isn't the most fun-packed city i've been to, for over a week. But its fine. We kept ourselves busy - hours on the internet; a whole day in a cinema (apocalypto - AMAZING. Persuit of happyness - dull); hours browsing the pirate dvd and cd stores (guys - if you want anything for a quid each, let me know), swimming in overpriced hotel pools; introducing tanning oil to my skin - until now its been factor 15 cream and I'm blacker than my mate angie these days - needless to say my sensitive skin isn't ready for the oil. whoops. We also take a walk along the Saigon river. its grim. probably the nastist river I've ever seen. And the comedy tourist boats don't do it any favours either. grim.



But most notably of the weeks uninspiring events was a visit to the Dam Sen park. Not totally sure what to expect, the park is described as quirky in the guide books, and since the city's only other waterpark is shut for maintenance, we decide to go there instead. A confusing attempt to find a local bus takes about an hour, but we make it on board - don't underestimate how difficult getting a foreign bus is when you don't speak the language and have left your phrasebook at home - and 20 minutes later we arrive at this mental, huge theme park in the suberbs of the city.





Its huge, costs less a quid to get in, and is packed with a huge lake, a rickety monorail, an enormous ferris wheel and a waterpark tagged on to the side. We ride the monorail round and whilst fearing for our lives that its gonna collapse, we see the whole park's beauty. People lounge on the grass, soaking up the sun. Kids scream at every corner, riding the basic and very dated fairground rides. Pedalos dart across the lake, decorated with chinese new year... sorry, Tet... displays. Its SO nice.





And after an hour of wandering around, we throw on our swimmers and attack the waterpark.



Now. The main waterpark in closed, so this one is heaving. But its not just heaving. Its full to bursting. You can bearly walk around there is so many people. And they're all staring - we're the only tourists in the whole complex. But its fun. The water is gross - warm and murky from all the kiddies peeing as they play. But we have a swim in the pool, Eve and I ride some slides, we manage to make some friends with vietnamese kids to share out 3-person raft, and Sam and I float down the lazy river giggling like 5-year-olds again. Its nice.



And a couple of days later, we're picking up our Indian visas, repacking our backpacks, and hopping on a bus to Cambodia. I'm SO excited about Cambodia - its the main place I wanna visit in south east asia, and its just a 6 hour bus away. And before we know it, we're having our passports stamped at the the border, and preparing to cross into 11th country in 10 months.

Day 267 - The massage

Now, before I go any further, can I just urge you to read the following post. Right, I'm not even sure I can do the whole situation justice in written words, but I'll do my best. But its probably worth it.

So, we've not left Ho Chi Minh City yet. We're here for another couple of days, and shacked up in the poshest hotel in town. Its a normal day - steaming hot, by the pool, ordering room service to deliver our sandwiches and cans of beer to the poolside, on the 24th floor roof-top, overlooking the swarming city of motorbikes and pollution. The hotel's pretty special - taking in a nightclub on the 3rd floor, 2 restaurants, a gym, a beauty studio and 2 massage suites. Its kinda fancy.

The guys from london decide they all fancy a massage at the hotel's 8th floor suite (the bigger of the two, covering a whole floor). Its cheap (around 7 quid) and is just an elevator ride away. So we grab out 10% discount vouchers from the room, shower off the pool water we've become so accustomed to, and make our way to the 8th floor.

Two important (yet without hindsight unnoticed) pieces of information came to light at that moment. Number (1): Gender segregation. girls are redirected to the 24th floor 'ladies' suite. Men remain on the 8th floor. Cat, sam and bonnie, begrudgingly, head upstairs, whilst ady and I hand over the vouchers and make our way into the suite. And important point number (2): The ladies suite, on the same floor as the gym and pool, can only be a quarter of the size of one floor. Its tiny. The men's suite. however, occupies an entire floor - shower cubicles, changing rooms, jacuzzis, steam rooms, saunas, water fountains, massage rooms, buffet area, lounge and cinema - stretching away behind the reception desk. These piece of information are subtle. Ady seems to have got the message. I'm oblivious though.

So Ady and I are directed into the changing rooms where we're shown a locker and invited to stash all of our clothes and take a shower. Nervous laughter. "Can we wear swimming trunks?" I ask. No. Our changing room assistant seems unimpressed. Ady and I, bessie mates for a good 3 years now, have never seen each other naked. We agree that I'll go and shower first, and he'll follow afterwards. I'm embarrassed, but its fine.

And 2 minutes later we're in some light trunks supplied by the hotel and being led off to different booths to have our massages. We're booked in for an hour, and after taking a seat on the bench to wait for my masseuse, I wait about 5 minutes until a pretty young (18-year-old?) vietnamese girl comes into the room, inviting me to lie down on my front, dimming the lights and grabbing the oil off the side.

Important piece of information number (3): The room is probably about 10 foot square - plenty big enough for a massage table. But the table is sat right in the corner of the room - with less than half a metre between the wall and the table on both sides. As soon as the girl starts getting to work on my legs, she's squeezing past my feet which are overhanging the short table. At one point she even mentions "you're so tall", which makes me splutter a bit as I try not to laugh whilst staring at the floor. Its awkward. I'm worried that I'm poking my toes into places they shouldn't be going. But she doesn't seem phased, so I'm not going to be.

Within minutes, however, she's mounted the table, straddling me from behind, pulling my shorts down to expose almost my whole bum and pounding out ever knot that my back has ever had with her entire body weight. She's good - not AMAZING - but good. I'm not so keen on the bum massage section, which was possibly a little more intimate than I had expected. But still, it was novel. And before long, I hear a faint "mister?", and look up to realise she's ordering me onto my front to continue the muscle busting onslaught.

And here's where things start to get messy. My masseuse is busy massaging my thighs, again maybe a little more intimately than I was expecting, when she stops. I'm looking at the ceiling, concentrating on relaxing, when she says to me...

- "woo you like feschial massagch"

In what had been almost 30 minutes of total silence, I manage to misjudge the volume of my voice and boom out

- "A FACIAL? OH, NO THANKS"

Immediately, she's leaning forward, gesturing me to quieten down. and clearing her throat she asks again...

- "woo you like SPECIAL massagch"

and, as if I wouldn't understand the distinction, she give me two light taps on very uninterested private parts and lets out a (somewhat offensive) giggle.

I laugh nervously, and this time in a hushed whimper, tell her "no thanks". another double tap to clarify I understood, and I repeat the "no thank you" and laugh again as if making the whole situation far less embarrassing for her, and revert to looking at the ceiling and concentrating on relaxing again. How embarassing. For her *and* me.

Or was it. Within 10 minutes of this, the massage was over (20 minutes short of its time). The remainder wasn't nearly as good as before. No effort. No care. No enjoyment. At one point she's rubbing my neck like she's stroking a dog. And then out of the blue, she's up, the lights go up, the oils put back on the shelf and she's pulled out a receipt book.

- "you tip me"

OK. right, so the whole thing was, like, 5 quid, so I lay down a quid as a tip - that's 20% guys. Nice and generous.

- "not enough. i'm pretty girl. you have dollar? you have 100."

she's turned on me. and with that, she rips up the 1-quid-tip receipt and directs me to write a bigger tip on another piece of paper. I'm stumbling over my conversion - we've only been here 2 days. Did I get the conversion wrong? perhaps I've just tipped 10p instead of 1 quid. I didn't know what to do. she's kinda angry. In a moment of passion I write down 100 dong [3quid] and explain I have nothing more. she reluctantly takes the receipt, falsely(?) smiles and directs me out of the tiny room with the table still sat awkwardly close to the wall.

I'm kinda messed up - not sure if I've been ripped off, kinda buzzing on the whole humourousness of the situation, waiting for ady to finish up so I could explain it all to him. But he's not out yet. I shower. I sit in the jacuzzi for 20 minutes. I shower again. I sit it out in the steam room for 10 minutes, then a sauna for 10 more. and another shower. Ady's a no show. So I change into my clothes, and leave to pay, where the girl at the desk tells me "your friend is waiting for you through here", directing me towards the buffet lounge. The girls don't get this - its a boys only thing - after the massage we have a whole relaxation suite we can use for as long as we like. So I go in, BUT I'm directed towards a 40-year-old american man (who is clearly not ady). I look around - ady's not here - but the american invites me to help myself to food, so I grab some fish and sit down.

- "what number did you get?", he spits in a characteristically cocky american drawl
- "i sorry?"
- "you should always remember what number you had... so you can ask for her next time. Numbers 22 and 18 are ugly. And number 14 is too rough. But if you get number 8 - whoa - she's SO pretty and if you tip her well, she'll love you long time".

I'm mortified. Not only has he actually used the phrase "she'll love you long time", but he also opened my eyes to my own blatent naivety and foolishness. Until now I thought maybe I'd encouraged her to offer the 'special massage'. Maybe I'd acted the way people do when they're interested in that sort of thing (I wasn't. and i didn't). Maybe it just happened to me, and only me. I'm an idiot. This thing happens all the time. and the 4 men sat around, american included, come here for exactly that. a cheeky hand-job for a 3-quid tip while their wives/girlfriends are on the 24th floor having a far less exciting time.

American dude went on to explain his regular visits, but I'd had enough. This place sucked, and I felt a bit rank being here. I wanted out, so made my excuses and headed downstairs to my room, where Sam was sat waiting for me. I asked where ady was, but I already knew. she shook her head and asked if the same had happened to me. and seconds later we're all in ady's bedroom laughing at how we'd both had our private parts momentarily handled by vietnamese teenagers.

Ady came off a lot worse than me. I'm doing fine - i can handle that sort of stuff pretty well, although I don't think I owned up to my completely naivety. Ady though - he's in bad shape. It seems he saw the whole thing coming, right from the start, and couldn't relax or enjoy any of it. It was his first massage too, so he was out of his depth all along. And after the 'tap, tap', he just sat the last bit out and did a runner back to his room.

Its mental. The sex trade out here is big business. I've seen almost nothing of it - practically nothing at all. But what I have seen is pretty rank. If hand-jobs are seemingly acceptable in a 5-star-hotel, what the hell else goes on in the rest of town? What kind of standard is that, and is that even as far as it goes? Later that night, cat, bonnie and myself were in the 3rd-floor nightclub where we watched vietnamese barmaids palmed off onto balding, overweight men, clearly under orders from their boss. A board member from Intel, being entertained by one such girl, even asked the boss permission for when they could 'go home'. And when cat and bonnie were being hit on by the bar manager, he arranged for a young girl to come and introduce herself to ME. This place is nuts.

Perhaps I'm overreacting. Perhaps, as one old dude said in the nightclub, as he danced almost exactly like justin timberlake with a girl half his age, this country was 'every middle-aged man's dream'. Perhaps when I'm nearly 50, perhaps single, perhaps unable to pull like I used to - perhaps then the open doors of vietnam's sex trade wouldn't seem so repulsively ubiquitous. I dunno. I don't want to judge the vietnamese people - no way. And whilst I wanna judge the visitors, i have no idea if they're solely responsible?

In Peru, (I might have mentioned this before, but anyway) you get these girls who work for bars. They're job - to seduce men, get them to spend loads of cash, and eventually go home and have sex with them. Are they paid for this by the club? NO. They get paid in drinks from the guys, and in the oportunities that arise after the club closes. The bar is just a proxy to bringing 2 eager markets together. Is it so different here? From the number of vietnamese women (teenagers?) I've seen stroking the thighs of men twice their ages (in restaurants/on motorbikes/next to me in internet cafes) you could be fooled into thinking this is a good deal for both parties. But I don't think my naivety stretches quite that far.

Anyway, casting the depressing stuff aside, I got a double 'tap tap' off a teenager, and that hasn't happened in a while. And, for entirely the wrong reason, it made my day. I just feel bad it didn't do the same for Ady. We'll stick to being held up at gunpoint next holiday mate.

Day 266 - Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

Check out this motley crew...



Well, its been a pretty mental few days. You know how there are whole weeks that blur into one long party, littered with memories of laughing histerically about stuff and nothing much else? Well, this week has been one of those. Best boy mate Adrian, armed with Cat and Bonnie (who I LOVE) from London landed in the capital of Vietnam about 2 hours before us and were waiting for our call as we touched down. This was gonna be exciting.

First thing you notice - its hot. Steamy old Ho Chi Minh City - capital of vietnam and formerly known by you oldies as Saigon - tops the temperature charts of almost the whole trip with a whopping 34 degrees. And its like 8pm at night. Anyway, we strip off the hoodies, jumpers, two paris of socks, leggings (just sam that is), gloves and hats and hail a friendly cab driver to drive us to the swanky Windsor Plaza Hotel. We're booked in (paid for by them) to the nicest, plushest, kitschest hotel in Ho Chi Minh. Its huge, posh and definitely not our scene. But we're in. These guys are definately here to party.



And after grabbing the keys from the very grandoise reception and riding the escalator to the 16th floor, we're clambing over each other for the first hugs and rocketing up the 25th floor for catch-up drinks on the rooftop and a slap-up meal in the panaramic french restaurant. Its awesome. Like we've never been apart.



Ho Chi Minh is AMAZING. I know I gush about cities all the time. But this is different. Right from the first moments, its amazing. Its tropical (like Rio). Its almost exclusively low-rise (like Quito). Its colonial (like Santiago de Chile). And its occupied by an army of mopeds. There are no words for the number of mopeds here. Ok - so I could tell you how many there are (3 million according to wikipedia). But its not about numbers. The roads are swarming in bikes. some loaded with 4 people. some carrying wardrobes. bikes in every lane, in every direction, madness, chaos, carnage. cars dodging red lights, bikes going the wrong way down one-way streets, roundabouts that take 4 minutes to circle. Its unreal. Crossing a road is shockingly hard work, involving a slow inching forward allowing bikes to circle you. Its intense.



The next day, we wake up to the spritely gang from London beckoning us downstairs for the hotel's breakfast buffet - which is as shockingly amazing as the weather here - then we throw on our swimmers and spend the next 4 hours topping up our faded tans (its back on track now guys, cheers for asking) and diving around the rooftop pool as if we own the place. From up here the panaramas of the city are stunning - painted in a rich palette of bold pinks, greens and blues, dotted with roads shoaded in a fog of motorbikes and parks with leafy green trees shading their inhabitants. I'm hooked. I love this place.



The city's been through a lot. Named after Ho Chi Minh - former president and creator of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam - its better known (by both the locals and the rest of the world) as Saigon. And as I have just found out, its not the capital of vietnam. Hanoi is (thanks Sam - that redeems your 'Pakistan is the capital of India' comment - finally). Now, if you're like me, you spend too much time playing computer games and far more time being ignorant to a lot of the really important things that have gone on in our world's history in the last 100 years. That said, visiting a country does a lot to rectify this. So, keeping it brief for those who know all this, vietnam has been through a lot lately.

Vietnam, for me at least, is totally associated with the american led war. Long before this, however, it was the French who really mixed things up for the vietnamese. They landed on its shores YEARS ago in the mid-19th century, which was followed by lots of beautiful buildings being built to house the naughty french colonisers who wanted every aspect of vietnamese life to change - religion became christianity, education got an overhaul, politics and culture all shifted french-ward. And despite decades of vietnamese calling for independance to be restored, the french did nothing. The americans didn't even pop up until after the second world war, when Japan invaded Indochina (and were subsequently defeated) that old dude Ho Chi Minh rallied for independance and communism, gathering nationalist forces to fight off the french and force them to withdraw. Which worked - nice work, Ho.

Now, I know NOTHING about the american war. but it looked nasty. Here's my stab at paraphrasing what the world wide web thinks happened: after WW2, vietnam gets divided into north and south vietnam, intended to live happily ever after as seperate countries. But the increasingly offensive USA (is it true they wanna attack Iran now... I HATE AMERICA) decides it doesn't like North Vietnam because it is mates with the Soviet Union (who, surprise surprise, america hates). So in 1964 it attacks with half a million american troops. As if being tied up in guerilla warfare with the americans wasn't enough, north vietnam then attacks the south (barmy), spreading the fighting into neighbouring countries Loas and Cambodia as well. 1973 creeps around and american troops are withdrawn (after a horrific number of casualties), only to find the north attack the south again, overrun it, and declare it part of "north" vietnam.

And if that isn't enough, in 1978 the new unified vietnam attacked Cambodia to destory the Khmer Rouge (i don't know who they are), which prompted china (i know who they are) to attack vietnam a year later. All's quiet now though, and china seems to have forgiven vietnam (trade routes have reopened within the last few years). And that brings us up to date. peace and quiet. i hope you liked that little history lesson. thanks to the internet for showing me a thing or two I should have been taught at school.



Anyway, the history aside, the city is a scattered with colonial buildings, communist propaganda, parks (in which you can't sit on the grass, we soon found out), hundreds of shops selling fake North Face backpacks, loads of vietnamese wearing those pointy white hats and enough pollution to make you want to vomit up the lining of your lungs. For a city-kid like me, its perfect. And we're desperate to get out and see more of the place. After a few hours of wandering the city, through some notably non-touristy places (sorry guys) and via a weird cafe where all the seating faces out into the street, we end up at HCMC's botanical gardens and zoo.



OK. I have to be diplomatic about this. The gardens are nice. Nothing really that special. but nice. But the zoo is GRIM. After what happened in Cordoba (Argentina's horrific concentration camp-styled zoo, which prompted us to leave within 15 minutes of arriving), and with a direct dismissal from the lonely planet, I wasn't overly keen on what was coming up. But it wasn't AS BAD as it could have been. True, the cages/cells have water (often dirty). Occasionally they have plant life. almost all of them are hideously small - especially the elephants which have about 3-times their own size in space - so small they can't even turn around.

I could have left. I could have not even paid to go in. But I didn't. we wandered round, looking at the animals. I winced as an elephant was prodded repeatedly by some evil dude with a spike (he worked there). I winced when the hippopotamuses lounged in the filthiest water imaginable. I felt pretty sick for the bears, which panted in the roasting heat, clearly ready to give up the fight. But the rest of them - well maybe its no worse than australia zoo - minus a few tourist-friendly plants and water features.







Its SO AWESOME having the guys out here. Its so different too. Tristan, Anna, Anthony - they all came out to see us, armed with backpacks and lonely planets to rough it in hostels and move from town to town each day - which sam and I are so grateful for. But these guys have a different agenda - they're on holiday. They're here to soak up the sun, laze around, not move around much and take internal flights. Stay at posh hotels, eat at restaurants every night and get drunk as often as lazy hungover mornings will allow. Sam and I are powerless to stop it, and it seems we've both been swept up into holiday mode too. which is nice. travelling is, after all, like a full-time job to us. we've gotta have a break every now and then...