In case anyone's wondering I've been away in Malaysia & Vietnam for the past 3 weeks. I didn't really want to announce when I was going away, and for how long, because I'm still paranoid. ;)
It was a fun trip and I'll be uploading some of the 900 photos to Flickr over time. I prefer to add descriptions to most of my Flickr uploads as its more interesting for viewers, or a title at the very least.
Soong Kee
Malaysia was much the same as last year. One thing I noticed though is the rapid Americanisation of Kuala Lumpur. There's more and more mega-malls popping up, containing many well known international brands. Alongside that the hawker stores are also being modernised - Soong Kee has been air-conditioned for some time, and some malls have food courts with stores selling traditional hawker food alongside the McDonalds and KFCs of the world. There are also standalone mega-hawker-centres.
Vietnam is a really interesting place to visit. I vaguely recall reading that the average salary is between US$1-2 a day which is amazingly low. During my visit one USD was equivalent to 16,000 or 17,000 Vietnamese Dong (VND) depending on whether you were buying or selling. A bowl of Pho on the street seems to cost a minimum of 10,000 VND which is cheap for visitors but quite expensive if you're only earning a buck or two a day. I'm hoping there is local pricing which I didn't have access to. :)
I found the Vietnamese diet to be quiet healthy, if the lack of any obese people is to be any evidence. In the 11 days I was there I only saw one fat person, which I'm going to assume is/was an ex-pat. The vast majority of Vietnamese are lean and I saw not one McDonalds or Starbucks. One of our tour guides explained that Vietnamese people simply don't like to eat hamburgers. Good on 'em.
I'd also say that Vietnamese are generally hard working, and a cheerful, respectful people. On the latter point the road traffic is visibly chaotic, with horns blaring non-stop between 7am and 11pm every day, and no one observes road rules. The horn is used less as a "fuck you" as in most of the world, but more as a friendly "watch out, I'm here" toot. As the lane markings are typically ignored you would for instance toot when you are approaching someone's blind spot to make sure they know you're there. You might, as one of our taxi drivers did, also toot repeatedly if you are about to U-turn right through 5 lanes of traffic flowing in both directions. This sort of behaviour is completely acceptable - people don't seem to get agro, they just wait patiently as you manouevre.
Crossing the road is similarly nuts. The traffic, at least in the tourist areas, never stops. In Ho Chi Minh City there are 6.5 million people and 4.5 million motorbikes. You are expected to walk through the traffic which seems like a crazy thing to do but in reality its quite safe. As long as you walk steadily the sea of motorbikes will part and flow around you like water. I think in general this level of chaos and the traffic density (meaning generally slower speeds) means that drivers & riders are a lot more vigilant than drivers anywhere else. I honestly believe I have a higher chance of getting run over at a pedestrian crossing in Sydney than I would crossing any busy road in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi.
We started off in Ho Chi Minh City and had no troubles there getting around. Taxis are cheap - 12-15k VND for the first kilometre, then 11,000 VND per kilometre thereafter. The tourist attractions are all within a few kilometres so most fares should not exceed 30-50k VND. This wasn't a problem in HCMC but Hanoi was a different story where 3 out of 6 cabs that we caught were running dodgy meters. The first guy was unbelievably greedy. His meter already ran at 3x the regular rate (its quite noticeable as traffic moves slowly in Hanoi's Old Quarter) but the fool decided to also take us the longest way possible. Having a reasonable sense of direction both dad & I noticed this so when we finally arrived at our destination and his meter said 80k VND instead of the expected 25-30k VND, we gave him 50k and walked away (I didn't have anything smaller). The next two fellas weren't so greedy - they took the most direct route but both guys started bargaining with me when again we paid 50k of a 30k fare, asking for another 10k just for the hell of it. We told one driver that we knew his meter was dodgy even as we were driving as I saw the bloody thing jump up several times within a second as we were waiting at a traffic light. He must've thought we were distracted because we were making some idle chit chat. He apologised and slowed the meter thereafter(!) but still tried to get the full meter reading out of us.
Now Vietnam isn't all about traffic and taxis, more to come as I find time to upload the accompanying photos. :)
