Vietnam 2023

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Some hurdles overcome!

Hello Dear Readers,

I am writing to you at 4:20am in Ho Chi Minh City after 2 hours sleep. Jet lag is a wonderful thing.

The trip was Coffs to Sydney with an 1 hour 30 minutes to make the flight to Ho Chi Minh City. I made it  after overcoming quite a few issues.

These were,

1. Would I make the flight from Sydney to Ho Chi Minh in time.?
   • I could not get a boarding pass for the Ho Chi Minh flight in Coffs.
   • The flight from Coffs was late departing and arrived in Sydney 15mins late.
   • The international transfer desk in the domestic terminal could not give me a boarding pass.
   • Luckily a transfer bus was waiting to take me from Domestic to International.
   • The bus arrived at Gate A – Jetstar check in for a boarding pass was at gate K!
   • By the time I had a boarding pass and arrived at the departure gate quite a few people had boarded.
2. Would my luggage make it?
   • NB I was without my luggage for 3 days when I came back from the UK a few week ago.
   • I waited at the luggage carousel in Ho Chi Minh until all the luggage had come out only to find that the suitcase must have arrived first and a baggage handler had taken it off the belt.
3. Do not use taxi touts at the airport because they overcharge, I was advised.
   • The local currency is Dong and the smallest note is 1,000.
   • The touts at desks near the exit wanted 300,000 (300k) or 350k
   • Outside a tout said he wanted 300k, I said “too much”
   • Tout: “250k”
   • Me: “Too much”
   • Tout: “How much you pay”?
   • Me: “150k”
   • Tout “How about 170k”
   • Me: “150k”
   • Tout: “OK”!
   • I was very happy because I saved 150k (Aus $10.85) from the first quote.
   • Just now I installed the “Grab” app on my phone (Uber equivalent).
   • They quoted 151k for the same ride.
   • So I was doubly happy as I saved Aus $0.07 compared to the Grab fare!

Street food so far…

	The Bún mắm is a rice noodle soup with meat and a large prawn. It was really good value at Aus $4.34.
	The bánh mì (pronounced barn me) is a tradition Vietnamese snack is a short baguette with thin, crisp crust and a soft, airy texture mine contained sliced meant, salad, cheese , coriander and pickled vegetables and other indeterminable things. It cost Aus $4.20 and was tasty and also really good value

The cows in Vietnam are not to be trusted

I bought this bottle in the Co-op supermarket at 189C Đ. Cống Quỳnh, Phường Nguyễn Cư Trinh. It is a large store and I visited just after it opened at 7:30am. At that time there were more staff than customers. I wish I had thought to use Google Translate on my phone, with the help of staff, I may have made a better purchase. I recognised the cow (not peronally) and immediately thought the bottle contained milk. When I added it to my coffee later it occured to me that “It is a bit thick for milk”. Subsequent analysis has show it to be natural yoghurt. Coffee made with yoghurt is undrinkable. Hence, the cows here are not to be trusted.

Survival tips for Vietnam

Notice the cars lining up in the background

Pedestrian crossings make one feel safe but all drivers ignore them. When crossing a road look all the drivers in the eye. It will make you less anonymous and more likely to survive. Cross the road with a purpose, don’t dawdle. Do not show signs of fear (this is not easy but you must practise). On your side is that there is a lot of paperwork to complete when a driver has an accident. Only once have I thought that I did not have the nerve to cross the road – the feeling soon passed.

A Quiz

Sadly, there are no prizes but can you guess which hat I brought from Coffs Harbour (much to Judy’s surprise) and which one I bought at the American War surplus market? Answers next time.

We are friends again and how we reconciled is a story for later.

You may remember that I bought a back up set of mini screwdrivers just in case. A couple of days after the laptop died for a second time I thought I would open it up to see if was a simple loose disk drive or similar. Out of habit I pressed the power on button and lo and behold the laptop powered up and has continued to work fine up to now, touch wood. I do still hold my breath every time I power it on.

Money is hard to come by in Vietnam.

Funds were running low this morning Monday 13th. It was really raining hard so I thought I would walk to the nearby Sacombank. I withdrew money from their ATM in Ho Chi Minh City to pay for the laptop repair. Easy, or so I thought.
Their ATM was said by Google to be in the Century Riverside Hotel. The staff all said there was not a Sacombank ATM there but there was one around the corner a few hundred meters.
I found the AT M which happily sucked in my card, asked me how much I wanted and counted the money then said it was unable to let me have any. I checked my account on the Citi bank app and the money went out and back in again. I went inside the bank and they directed me to the HD bank nearby which did not exist anymore, it was now a shoe shop. Not unreasonably they would not give me any money bust asked if I wanted a new pair of walking shoes, I declined. I got a taxi to an HD bank about 4kms away. There was a bank there this time but they did not have an ATM. The staff and the security guard had a conference and one of the staff said the guard would give me a lift on his motor bike up the road. I put myself on his bike and off we went. We turned off the road down a side street, over the railway line to 3 ATMs in a row. What joy! I choose Vietcombank and it happily sucked in my card, asked me how much I wanted and counted the money then what elation pushed out the money and gave me my card back. As I say money is hard to come by in Vietnam.

We might have been eating a ‘Green’?

I bought this fruit at the local market. Notice that it has a dark green skin, inside it is a citrus fruit. Just think the orange originated in a region encompassing Southern China, Northeast India, and Myanmar, and the earliest mention of the sweet orange was in Chinese literature in 314 BC. If the Chinese had found this fruit first we would now be eating a Green instead of an Orange.

Is there something in the air?

I have arrived safely in Hanoi, I am staying at an apartment in the old town, busy, noisy and vibrant.
I was able to get into the flat early, 6:30am which was really good. After I unpacked I thought I would check emails. It will not surprise you to know that the laptop came up with the message “Insert a proper disk and reboot”. Naturally I thought to switch it off and on again, no joy.
I thought I would do the only thing I could with my mini set of screwdrivers, remove the base cover and look at the 3 disk drives. Nothing appeared a miss but I removed each drive and cleaned the connectors with spectacle cleaner. After reassembly I powered up and it worked fine, so, is there something in the air, I wonder?

How to find the apartment

The owner of the apartment sent me some pictures of the way to get in plus a video. Do view the video, needless to say I would have been lost without it. Now that you have watched the video, did you spot the washing machine?

To the market

Yesterday, Friday I decided to go to the produce market, Long Bien. The guide book said it opened at 3am and closed at Noon. I made it by 7:30am. A lot of the stall holders were already packing up. There was not a tomato in sight, maybe there was not at 3am either, I shall never know.
I did manage to find a pineapple, 2 greens (orange inside) and a couple of avocados. In all I spent about 6 dollars. I did find a kg of tomatoes for 2 dollars on the road to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and palace which was were I went next.

My SAK (Swiss Army Knife) nearly let me down.

I was amused to see a bag and body x-ray in a security booth. Ho Chi Minh had been dead for over 50 years so I did not know who they were worried about.
It will not surprise you to know that I take my SAK everywhere. One never knows when you may encounter a boy-scout in a horse’s hoof or cream cheese in an ethernet socket. Well, the sharp eyed security guards found the knife and said I could not go in. I said could they hold on to it for me until I go out again. No was the stern reply. I asked another officer with the same answer. After begging for a while, they relented and put tape on my knife which I wrote my name on. They said to be sure to return by 11am as that was when they closed.
Although one could not see Uncle Ho, as he affectionally known, one could go and see the simple houses that he lived in. It was well worth the visit. At the end of the visit is was far from the entrance which I could not work out its position. I spotted a young security guard. Neither of us spoke each other’s language. Me knowing the name of the Vietnamese baguette Banh Mi was no help. After typing into Google translate various phrases to no avail, the guard pressed the microphone button. I spoke into the phone, “I need to got to security at the entrance to pick up my knife”. My new young friend’s eye light up and with waving of his arms I knew exactly where to go. My SAK and I were thus reunited.

The complaints department has been busy.

The latter department has received 2 complaints recently. The first was regarding my photo selection, the complaint was that all my photos are of either old things, buildings, people and trees etc.
Of course, I cannot say the actual name of the person made the complaint, that would not be fair to my wife. The complaint has been reviewed and it has more than a little merit. I have sought out a modern plaza and you can see some photos of very modern shops in the photo selection just posted.
The second complaint refers to the fact that I put the latest photos at the bottom of the list and, of course I cannot mention who. My eldest son claims to be suffering from RSI on account of the scrolling that he has to do to get to the new photos. I am not sure why he did not use the jump link at the top of the page to get to the new photos. The latest set of photos are now at the top of the page and the jump link is to the older photos.

Did you know…

1. A fry-pan is a toaster, the reverse is not true. In the apartment here in Hanoi there is no toaster but there is a fry-pan. If you heat up the fry-pan dry, with no oil, and put in bread it toasts it.
2. Ho Chi Minh was a cook. Judy found out that “Hồ Chí Minh worked as a cook all over the world from 1911 to 1928 particularly in Milano. There is a plaque in Via Pasubio, on the left next to “Antica Trattoria Della Pesa”, remembering one of his workplaces.”

World Cup Cricket – we won!

I could not find any cricket on the TV over here. The phone would not show cricket live either, one has to be in Australia, I believe. The ABC listen app did not work either for the same location problem. For the semi-final against South Africa and the very exciting final against India I did the next best thing. I downloaded a free internet radio app and found a live commentary on ABC North Queensland who were rebroadcasting the English commentary from the BBC Radio 5 Live station. I supplemented it with a text commentary from the ICC website. Both nights I listened from start to finish, with the time difference, the matches finished before midnight. Great!