Blewog-nam #14

We spent a week overall in Hội An. I did quite a few video recordings of the various occurrences, here are a few.

Where we stayed:

The River:

The Beach:

Backstreet Market Salon:

Blewog-nam #13

Huế

When we arrived in Huế I felt very very ill. So I had a bit of an esophogeal eruption on the side of the road. After that I felt fine. Which was nice.

We had about five hours to explore this ancient city, but began with the most important thing; food. We had some breakfast at a lovely little restaurant. This meal was followed by a short ‘cyclo’ ride to the apparent main tourist attraction, The Citadel. The seat of the Nguyen emperors was in here. Inside the citadel was a forbidden city where only the concubines, emperors, and those close enough to them were granted access, the punishment for trespassing being death.

We however were not killed and were able to really explore the place, at times we felt we had a bit too much freedom, being able to climb and look around freely.

My definite highlight was not the chance to explore ancient ruins , or the wonderful architecture, or the new historical point of view that I had gained on Vietnam. It actually came when I got the opportunity to feed their Koy Carp.

Blewog-nam #12

So after our busy weekend, it was time for us to pack our bags once again and make our way to Hội An. Our means of transport was somewhat interesting, it was an experience in itself. We had decided to save some money and avoid the option of a flight or a train to Hội An; instead we opted for something called a sleeper bus.

I’m sure some such equivalent exists in the UK, but in my personal experience, I have never come across such a thing. We basically got taken onto a normal coach, but instead of seats there were several beds – bunk beds at that.

Each bed is about four feet in length, and as you can imagine this is the perfect size for your average Vietnamese person. It isn’t so great for a man who is 6″2.

The whole experience went from being rather new, exciting and enjoyable to frustrating to a bit stupid. I spent most of the night dropping my blanket or jacket or pillow and having to climb out of bed, down the ladder to get it.

Oh and did I mention that there are not only people sleeping in the beds below, there are people sleeping on the floor (something I have noticed that about the Vietnamese – they’ll sleep anywhere). They weren’t best pleased at 3:40 AM when I would have to step on their faces in order to reach for my trusty blanket.

The other issue was the fact that my knees and my posterior were sticking out on each side of the bed. It wasn not nice for the people who had to squeeze past – it wasn’t that nice for me either. However by the time about 12 hours had past we had reached our first stop - Huế.

Blewog-nam #11

Ha Long Bay (Vịnh Hạ Long)

Ha Long Bay tours are advertised in pretty much every Hotel also in many restaurants, cafés and shops throughout the city of Ha Noi. We decided against choosing a tour with savage foreign Vietnamese people and also chose not to go on the often alcohol fueled back-packers tour. Instead we opted for a civilised Kangaroo Café tour.

The Kangaroo Café is Australian owned (as you might have guessed), it boasts many claims. The café seems to thrive on making irrelevant rules; read this, don’t touch this, don’t do that etc. They also hammer into their customers the fact that there are other Kangaroo Cafés in Ha Noi but they are all utterly and completely FAKE! Oh and sadly, they use the comic sans font, which always turns me off.

However we sought to look past all that nonsense and tried to acquire ourselves a nice & lovely tour around Ha Long Bay; and that is most definitely what we got.

On the morning of departure I helpfully decided to show symptoms of food poisoning. I really was suffering, and so was Sibyl as a result of it. I really don’t tend to get sick, so when I am sick, like many men I don’t do it that well. (Example.) We considered just cancelling the whole venture, but there was no refunds and we predicted I would get over it in a few hours.

The minibus was nice, spacious and air-conditioned.  I was blowing chunks throughout much of the journey, which was gorgeous. I always like making good first immpressions, so it was nice to be known as the sick boy for the rest of the weekend.

By the time we arrived I wasn’t feeling any better, and I was off my food. By the afternoon I was feeling slightly better. By this point we were on the boat and approaching the limestone karsts and isles.

The main activity of the afternoon was kayaking, Sibs went up front and I sat at the back, not really doing any rowing. It was a really nice time as we were able to go up really close to the rocks.

We had a lovely evening sitting on the edge of the boat. We were told that sunrise was at 5:45 so we got an early sleep.

5:45 came and we rushed to the deck to see the sunrise. It was slightly disappointing as we couldn’t actually see the sun due to clouds.

The next day it was time for a visit to a cave called Thien Cung. It was a visual feast.

When we got out of he cave we were pretty high up and were able to see some amazing views.

POPULATION EXPLOSION!

Ever heard anyone say: ‘Half, or more than half of all humans ever born, are alive today!’

This is a complete and utter myth – probably perpetuated by eugenicists and other people who believe the planet should be saved by population control of the human species. This is not a new myth either: in 1798, Thomas Malthus predicted that population growth would surpass the world food supply by the mid 1800s.

The Population Reference Bureau estimate that the earth has held over 106 billion humans throughout history. With a current world population of over 6 billion, that means that roughly 6% of people ever born are alive today. A significantly lower number than that given by population explosion alarmists.

What is perhaps more frightening, is the fact that many nations today are not producing enough children to replace the population with no growth at all, in other words, many countries are suffering negative birth rates (see chart below).

Blewog-nam #10

We met some lovely Vietnamese people throughout our time in Vietnam. For example a young woman named ‘Ha’ who actually thought it was hilarious when I simply began making fun of her name by shouting ‘HA…HA…’. She also was surprisingly humoured and unoffended when I refused to buy the fans she was selling because I had air conditioning!

We would also pass an older Vietnamese man daily, he was always keen to get us to ride in his Taxi. It eventually became a bit of a joke and I would regularly have playful fist fights with him.

However my favourite encounter came from a little boy who claimed to be called Phở and his sister. He came up to us selling chewing gum (very few people beg, most are selling something). We bought some gum from him and began chatting. I obviously busted out all my kids jokes and party tricks and we had a great time. On another occasion, him and his sister seemed to think it would be funny to tie my hair up. What can you do? They were so happy though, despite speaking of sleeping on streets and broken families.

Blewog-nam #9

Vietnam Vs. Thailand Football Match

We leaped at the opportunity to watch Vietnam in action playing their near neighbours. I put together some highlights for you all to enjoy.

Blewog-nam #8

Teacher’s Day Celebrations

As some of you may know, Sibyl’s placement in Vietnam actually involves her doing some work. She is teaching English to a select number of privileged Vietnamese children. She teaches at a place called ‘The Children’s Palace’ and yes, it really is as exciting as it sounds.

Even though the playground is great fun for the kids, some actual learning does take place. It serves as a sort of after school club. The kids that go to the school either pay a large amount of money or earn a scholarship funded by the government.

On the 20th of November it was Teacher’s Day. What on earth is teacher’s day? Apparently:

“This holiday allows students to express their respect to their teacher. Students begin preparing a week in advance, and many classes usually prepare literature and art to welcome teacher’s day, while other student prepare foods and flowers for the parties held at their schools. Students usually visit their teachers at their homes to offer flowers and small gifts, or organize trips with their teachers and classmates. Former students also pay respect to their former teachers on this day. The holiday has its origins in a meeting between educators in communist bloc nations in Warsaw in 1957. It was first celebrated in 1958 as the Day of the International Manifest of Educators; in 1982 the day is renamed Vietnamese Educators’ Day.”

Sibyl and her fellow gappers all received many exciting gifts. Some presents received:

All these gifts were topped by a ceremony on the 18th. Apparently it is a great honour to be asked to sing in Vietnam, or in Sibyl and Emily’s case in Vietnamese. They had no choice in the matter, during the big concert on Tuesday they were to sing a traditional Vietnamese song, in front of hundreds of people and an array of video cameras. I have put together a selection of highlights from the evening. Listen out for the chorus, ‘VIETNAM, HO CHI MINH!’

Enjoy.

Blewog-nam #7

Today we tasted a bit of Vietnamese history. After a bite to eat in street kids’ restaurant Koto, we went to The Temple of Literature. Built in the 15th Century this was a centre for learning, something to do with Confucious and other such legendary people. The great thing about the place is it’s ancient style and look, it’s like a typical Chinese type palace, I guess it’s purely due to the fact that the chinese ruled Vietnam for a long period of time. The other nice about the temple it’s peacefulness. What kind of learning can be done in a concrete jungle? Surely a far more calm and stress free natural surrounding can encourage a more positive learning atmosphere?

Blewog-nam. #6

I have arrived in Hanoi, and have been settling in for the past four days.

It has been an interesting, exciting yet un-stressful thus far.

Primarily it’s been amazing to see Sibyl. It’s been lovely getting used to her again, some things fall back into place instantly and some things we both need reminding of.

Blewog-nam in action.

There are so many distinctive things which make Hanoi a wonderful place to visit.

• Countless thousands of motorbikes/scooters, many of which are xe ôm’s which literally translates ‘motorbike hug’.

• Noodles are an essential meal here, funnily it seems the power lines have been influenced by their mị phố.

• The Vietnamese here are interesting. In shops and other services, they tend to take their time, common courtesy seems to be irrelevant, P’s & Q’s are out the window. However don’t get the impression that these are hostile savages; this lack of manners is replaced by genuine conversation, jest and generosity. I’m going to go ahead and say the ‘c.g.t.a.l.e.d.c.c.’ (‘classic going to a less economically developed country cliché) thing: ‘these people have so little, but they are so happy.’ I’d like to see how happy they would be if I gave them a Big Mac, Sky+ and an Xbox 360, not very I suspect.
• The army are always around. If anything is out of place I get the impression that they would not hesitate to shoot your face.
• It’s huuumid. It’s not always sunny but always sticky. However God has blessed us with the beauty of air-conditioning in many places.
• People actually do wear those funny hats, I’m told that they actually have a function – to keep the rain and the sun off. The fact that they attract tourists has nothing to so with why they wear them.

Here’s some more photos which hopefully capture the characteristics of Vietnam, most of them were taken by Sibs.