cooperman88

Rules of the road – none! Vague rules only apply if you’re in sight of a policeman. Traffic lights are there just to look pretty. Pedestrian crossings only work if you walk very slowly with your hand held high. The correct side of the road is the one you’re on. They generally drive on the right, a legacy of French Colonial Rule whereas Thailand drive on the left – like what normal people do! But all traffic signs are advisory only so going the wrong way down a one way street means you ride fast and everybody will get out of your way anyway. Turning left at any junction means cutting directly across the corner then ‘wobbling’ / ‘filtering’ through the hordes of oncoming motorbikes until you eventually reach the relative safety of your side of the road. The concept of a quick correct left turn having stopped, waited and looked, is just not in there. After all why stop when your engines running! If there is anything in front of you it’s only purpose is to be overtaken, usually on the pavement or if you’re reading this in America on the ‘sidewalk’. An indicator flashing means nothing. It only means something if you wave your hand as well.

If you ride a big sports bike it’s compulsory to have tattoos and wear a baseball cap (preferably backwards) or, if you’re a woose, a leather ribbed cycling skull cap. It’s also compulsory to ‘blip’ the throttle at all stationary opportunities and preferable to have a ‘hot girl’ perched high up on the back wearing very short tight denim shorts with frayed edges (almost thick knickers).

However! If you are a man of style you ride below:-

There’s a current trend in Saigon to own a DISCOVERY! It doesn’t matter what the actual car is it can become a DISCOVERY by simply putting letters on the front or, better still the front and the back.

There is almost an underground Classic Car movement here but you rarely see them on the road. they are most definitely investments. As per one of my previous blogs cars are heavily taxed here and thus relatively expensive. You cannot import a vehicle unless it’s under 5 years old and you have been the owner from new AND you pay the tax relative to it’s current value so any car that’s already here is valued.

The standard of restoration is very high. Cars I have stumbled across are an Austin Healey 3000, Aston Martin DBS (1970’s) Several 1950’s Mercedes / Peugots, 1960’s Citroen DS’s and VW, many – windowed camper vans.

Anyway that’s all my news for this week. Christmas dinner in a reasonably expensive Australian chain restaurant was a disaster. Tough dried cardboard turkey and instant mashed potato. Cooking at home next year. Was going to this year but some treasured packets of Paxo sage and onion stuffing had been invaded by little pesky beetle bug things so three packets had to go!!! Gutted!

Happy New Year / Decade John

Christmas (will come back to food next week).

The Vietnamese don’t ‘officially’ do Christmas. Their government has no National religion but in reality it’s a strange mix of Buddhism, Taoism and ancestor worship with ‘Pagodas’ – inhabited my male and female monks – liberally spread through all communities. Their main holiday is ‘Tet’ which is really the Chinese Lunar New Year and falls at the end of January/ early February. There’s usually a two week break from everything and the city empties out as people go back to their original rural homes Family shrines and ancestral burial sites are cleaned, painted and visited.

However!

It’s an irresistible commercial opportunity and so great effort is expended ‘Selling’ Christmas even though ‘Christmas Day’ is a normal working day, kids go to school, people go to work. The Catholic population do celebrate Christmas but for some reason they think that the main day of the Christmas ‘event’ is December 24th- Christmas Eve. From what I gather it’s a legacy of the French Colonial Period.

The Catholic element of Saigon is quite interesting. In the late 40’s early 50’s Ho Chi Minh and his military man General Vo were conducting an offensive (The Vietminh) in the north of the country (Hanoi and the Red River basin area). They were killing/murdering anyone connected to / working for, the French and by default that meant Catholics. The French, assisted by the Americans shipped thousands of Catholic families down south where they settled on scrubbland on the outskirts of the city. That area is now very desirable and is the home to Celadon City a large area containing multiple high rise apartment blocks, Aeon Shopping Mall, five star sports resort new state schools, new International school and soon a new International University. it is the place to be in Saigon. Celadon is an exquisite ancient porcelain stolen from Korea by the Japanese in the 1920’s.

Food in Saigon comes in three categories. Street food, restaurant food and high end restaurant food.

Street food is cheap and good. The staples are:-

Banh Mi – basically a lighter than air baguette that really should be consumed withing a couple of hours of being baked. A left over from French colonialism that is better than the original. Filled with processed meats (mainly pork based) pate`s, sliced cucumbers and herbs and a dark coloured sauce, it’s a quick tasty tummy filler for about 50p. Banh Mi also comes as part of a popular breakfast called – banh mi oplaaaa (a hard long A sound) – see picture.

The national dish is Pho, pronounced Furrrrr with an up-down-up cadence. It’s a bowl of rice noodles in a hot beef bone watery broth with small pieces of thinly sliced beef which blanch off in the near to boiling hot broth. To this you add chille sauce, brown sauce and assorted herbs to taste. There are usually three herbs one of which is mint but I don’t know the names of the other two. One may be Basil but I’m not sure.

Bun Rieu is similar but is seafood based.

Hu Tieu Nam Vang (pronounced Ho chew nam vang)is originally a Cambodian dish. Once again a hot broth with fine noodles plus a couple of quail eggs. a couple of largeish prawns, some thin slices of pork / heart / liver. To taste you can add some bean sprouts / lettuce / and other herbs. Delicious

Restaurants are usually large, busy noisy places where customers are usually in family groups. Before entering check out the size of the chairs. the Vietnamese like small plastic chairs ( Europeans would consider them ‘children’s chairs) Asian people are far more flexible than Europeans and consider these chairs as normal.

Once I was having breakfast outside my hotel in Thamel Kathmandu Nepal and eavesdropping on two British doctors who were sat at the next table. They were discussing hip joint replacement operations. Those of you that know me will be aware that I’m the proud possessor of cobalt steel hip joints so I was interested in their conversation. The gist was that hip replacement was virtually unknown in Asia and that the reason could be their tradition of squatting to go to the toilet meant that they fully extended their hip joints twice a day and that this ‘exercise’ maintained their joints.

This is borne out by the fact that most work is done on the floor, not standing at a workbench. Squatting it seems is very comfortable!

More on food and drink next week.

Love and peace J

Old world charm in comparison to the brutality of modern shopping malls and high rises that are straight. Every line and perspective is straight, curves are just too expensive.

This is a ‘Motorbike’ city. If you have a car you are a ‘God’. There are two reasons to own a car. The first is to show off that you can afford one. Your S400 AMG Mercedes saloon cannot do more than 25mph because of the swarming, crazy motorbikes. You never drive it yourself and you keep it in your front room. The second is to stay dry when it rains. You buy a car for yourself and you buy a car for the government as the ‘luxury’ tax is around 80%. Petrol is very cheap.

A young waitress has just walked into the coffee shop holding a baby. I’ve no idea whose baby it is but it’s not hers. Now all the other waitresses are crowding around the baby making ‘goooeeey’ noises. the baby is totally unimpressed. I’m guessing it’s a boy.

It’s December, the air is cooler and dryer, soon the aeroplanes will be landing from the other direction, soon Dad’s will be buying kites as the wind picks up. The air conditioning units are mainly silent at night as the temperature drops to low twenties. I’m considering wearing a coat for my morning school run on my Yamaha 155cc Variable Valve Timing NVX motorbike.

I spent yesterday reading Rory Stewart’s book ‘Place to Place’ about his trek across Afghanistan. So impressive, I watched the corresponding documentaries on YouTube last night. Possibly things would have been a lot different if he’d have made it to PM and not Boris.

The tower on the left is the fourteenth highest tower in the world. It has an ice rink in the basement. The round orb on the right is the moon. Most Vietnamese children under twelve have no idea that men have been there.

It’s perfectly acceptable to wretch and gob on the floor whilst riding your motorbike with no lights but a working horn whilst smoking a fag and texting on the phone, to pick your nose in public or smoke in a restaurant / coffee shop. Saigon is one big coffee shop.

The money (The Vietnam Dong) makes you an instant millionaire, but you’re a ‘Dong’ millionaire, which sort of deflates things a bit. There are no coins. All notes from ten thousand Dong up to five hundred thousand Dong are plasticized, so it’s OK to wash them in your pockets. The Vietnamese will not accept any note that is damaged in any way and will always try to offload such notes onto you. So check your change.

I’ve started to read / study T E Lawrence The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Amazing phrases / thoughts and observations. If I had to choose a hero in my life it would be him. For a man to command, inspire and bring together disparate warring tribes for the benefit of his indigenous country, knowing full well that his country’s promises were deceitful, false and hollow gives insight into the internal conflicts of the man. And then, having led, commanded and been commended for his leadership, to re enlist as an ‘other ranks’ because of his own personal perceived guilt and disgust at the military/politico ‘officer Class’ elite makes him somewhat ‘special.

Tonight I have to go and teach some Vietnamese children who have no idea that Boris Johnson exists!!!

Talk soon.

love and Peace

John

The tower on the left is the fourteenth highest tower in the world. It has an ice rink in the basement. The round orb on the right is the moon. Most Vietnamese children under twelve have no idea that men have been there.

It’s perfectly acceptable to wretch and gob on the floor whilst riding your motorbike with no lights but a working horn whilst smoking a fag and texting on the phone, to pick your nose in public or smoke in a restaurant / coffee shop. Saigon is one big coffee shop.

The money (The Vietnam Dong) makes you an instant millionaire, but you’re a ‘Dong’ millionaire, which sort of deflates things a bit. There are no coins. All notes from ten thousand Dong up to five hundred thousand Dong are plasticized, so it’s OK to wash them in your pockets. The Vietnamese will not accept any note that is damaged in any way and will always try to offload such notes onto you. So check your change.

I’ve started to read / study T E Lawrence The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Amazing phrases / thoughts and observations. If I had to choose a hero in my life it would be him. For a man to command, inspire and bring together disparate warring tribes for the benefit of his indigenous country, knowing full well that his country’s promises were deceitful, false and hollow gives insight into the internal conflicts of the man. And then, having led, commanded and been commended for his leadership, to re enlist as an ‘other ranks’ because of his own personal perceived guilt and disgust at the military/politico ‘officer Class’ elite makes him somewhat ‘special.

Tonight I have to go and teach some Vietnamese children who have no idea that Boris Johnson exists!!!

Talk soon.

love and Peace

John