7NNT25 Day 16: Chiang Mai > Bangkok > Ho Chi Minh City

Soundtrack: “Khe Sanh”, Cold Chisel

Having left day 15 on a cliff hanger, I can reveal that I was able to get up in time to head out and get my laundry just after 9am, so I won’t have to buy any new clothes anytime soon. While I’m travelling with a few treasured items, my green The Clouds t-shirt that I got at a gig the night before I last came to Thailand, which has travelled a bunch since, was recognised by a friend of the band in Fort William, and was also photographed in the main court of the Rijksmuseum (two of us have now done this, so it’s a tradition) is probably one of these, but otherwise really most of my clothes are, if necessary, expendable. I think I’d feel the loss of my laundry bag though, it’s really just an orange parachute silk or similar material sack, but it’s been with me on pretty much every trip. It’s as much a part of my travel routine as tomato juice.

Every day in Chiang Mai there’s been a gent parked in front of my hotel, greeting me every morning with a shout of “Taxi!” and every morning I’ve waved and said no thanks. This morning to get to the airport I agreed, and so made his day until he probably worked out that I’m a terrible one for knowing how much to tip. Still, he got me to the airport and in good humour.

My flights CNX > BKK and BKK > SGN were on the same ticket with Thai Airways, and so they have a system where they give you a sticker that lets you go through customs in Chiang Mai even though the it’s a domestic flight to Chiang Mai. I was a little unsure, but everyone who saw the sticker knew what I had to do and waved me on accordingly, so it’s a great system. There was a tiny bit of confusion as I’m switching passports to my UK one to arrive in Viet Nam (UK citizens don’t need a visa, while Australians do) but it was easily sorted. Had a wander through the rather small (understandably so) duty free section of the airport, and spotted some interesting things in the bookshop but I’m watching my weight, at least until I leave the Philippines (I’ve heard their budget airlines are really strict on luggage weight). So no Buffy the Vampire Slayer tarot cards for me, nor the two volume slipcased Tamriel books (the world of Skyrim).

I was thinking it’d be an almost empty flight given the few people waiting at the gate, but once we started boarding a whole lot of passengers appeared out of nowhere, because of course, I might have been queuing at the international side, but it’s still a domestic flight so there’s all those passengers too. Flight was uneventful, just how I like it, and got into Bangkok airport on time if not a little early.

Sometimes the world conspires to make me cleverer than I really am. After all the stuff about foreshadowing, little did I know that when I mentioned not having to walk the entire length of Bangkok airport when I arrived, ‘d then find myself having to walk and walk and walk the length of the airport this time around. Fortunately I had plenty of time to do it, but I certainly got my steps up.

With time to sit and eat, I found a little airport eatery for my last meal, minced pork, rice and fried egg. More expensive and not as fantastic as the earlier mince, rice and egg, it was still okay, and gave me a bit of a corner to write yesterday’s blog post. Then it was time to stroll down to the gate, hop in the bus that then drove and drove and drove to find our plane, before boarding (and it was an almost empty flight this time).

Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon, biggest city in Viet Nam. On 30 April 1975, troops and tanks of the North Vietnamese Army roared through the city, crashing through the gates of the Presidential Palace, and effectively ended the “American War”. Viet Nam, a country that had been split in half since the late 1940s, was reunified. As with all such things, not everyone was entirely happy about this, but given the various governments of South Vietnam had been somewhat “interesting” I’m going to guess that not everyone in the south was unhappy about the reunification.

And now a lot of people have come to celebrate/commemorate 50 years of unification, me being one of them, not necessarily to celebrate or commemorate, but to just see what sort of festivities occur. Having been born in the early 1970s, my only memory of 1975 is Rod Stewart’s “Sailing” being number 1 in Australia. Traumatic I know. But pop culture in the 1980s (well from the late 1970s) as full of the “Vietnam War”, stories for better or worse, told from the US/Australian side. Heck, one of Australia’s unofficial national anthems is kind of about the aftermath of the war on a fictionalised veteran (and yes, on this trip I’ll also be hitting a “Hong Kong mattress all night long” assuming that Don Walker meant sleeping, and not a euphemism for a “jaded Chinese princess”, I’ll skip that bit). Anyway, 1980s pop culture, war, songs, teevee, movies, the whole war thing was ubiquitous.

In 2014 L and I did out first trip to Viet Nam, and we got to see what the country had become. One of the t-shirts I bought had in big letters: “VIET NAM A COUNTRY NOT A WAR” and that’s just right. Over the following visits we’ve seen more and more of the country, and we love coming back. I get the impression that for the locals, while they remember and commemorate, they harbour no ill feelings, as they are if nothing else a resilient people, a generous and kind people, and over the years a lot of countries have tried to conquer this country and all have been sent packing. They kept some culture from the Chinese, baking and cooking from the French, and capitalism from the US, and they do all this well (if you want to see capitalism in action just come to Vietnam on a day where it might rain — by the time three drops have fallen at least two people will have offered to sell you an umbrella or plastic poncho).

I love this country: my grasp of the language is poor, I can’t tell good Vietnamese food from bad (from what I’ve had, it’s all good), and as a 6 foot tall white former red-head now grey/blond/ash/something coloured hair, I stick out like anything; but in spite of that, the country generally loves me, because they love everyone who comes to their country and is willing to walk with them. (It doesn’t hurt that I have VND in my pocket to spend, but no where else have I found people who’ll just come up to me and say hello and ask where I’m from.

Anyways, yeah, Vietnam is awesome. But they do love a bit of bureaucracy (maybe they also got that from the Chinese) so while my flight may have been a quarter full, there was still a huge crowd at customs queuing to be processed, there’s no shortcuts here. I’ve seen busy customs halls, but rarely have I seen one with more than 10 desks open, each with a queue of over 30, plus uncountable folks not yet in one of the lines. Lots of people are in town for the 50th. It took almost 50 minutes for my turn to come, and while I was a little concerned in not having done the usual Australian passport apply for a visa entry, they let me through fine. It took that long to get through that my suitcase wasn’t even on the baggage carousel, they’d left everyone’s beside and turned off the carousel. I hadn’t booked an airport pickup, figuring on taking a Grab, and when I enquired about the prices for airport taxis, Grab was definitely the best option ($10 AUD vs $30 AUD).

A lot of people in town, streets were packed. The normal 20-30 minutes from the airport to District 1 took almost an hour, everyone was out, folks on scooters, cars, the occasional official car with flashing light police escort that everyone made way for, and people lining the streets, ready to camp out to catch the parade. I’d had time to check some parade details, and noted things would kick off around 630am, on one hand I groaned at how early, but it’s also coming into hot season so probably wise to do. Hotel, check-in, I don’t recall ordering a super-room here, but the room I got is one that makes me wish I was staying longer: it’s small but just has all the things like a mini spa, rain shower, good gentle aircon, and one of those groovy toilets with all the buttons and will shoot water up your but if you like. The bed is on a slightly raised platform, everything fits well, it’s quite boutique.

Seems the hotel is in a bit of a party district though, then again all of HCMC is currently a party district. There are a number of bars and restaurants that appear aimed at Korean and Japanese tourists. But what greeted me, stepping out of the hotel, was a mass of locals wearing red shirts with a single big yellow star, the Viet Nam flag. Hundreds, if not thousands, heading left and right. I figured on walking part of the parade route, just to get an idea of where to be tomorrow, and head down to get as close as possible to the Reunification Palace (former Presidential palace). The streets were alive, truly a million people may well have been out, some setting up their spots for the parade, others zooming around. I made it to the Palace, where a number of local veterans were having their picture taken. A guy came up and asked if he could interview me for his weblog/podcast, and then asked me about why I was here, what it meant to me, and if I had a message for Viet Nam. Hopefully I came up with some answers that weren’t too crap, and that didn’t translate offensively, I talked about travelling here many times, how wonderful the people are, and how the Vietnamese should never change their kind and generous hearts, or something like that. I unfortunately didn’t get the full details of the guy to try to find the final result, but I hope he edited it to something reasonable and coherent. If I get detained on the way out, or get movie star treatment, we’ll see.

I took some selfies in front of the Palace, having a noisy moment of reflection on the past events, before heading off to find food and, more importantly (the regular reader has probably just choked reading that, for what is more important than food?) a yellow-star read t-shirt. It had to be done. I found a gent selling them, and he had an XL so I got it and put it on over my Clouds t-shirt. In hindsight I should have tried to find an XXL, as the shirt was apparently 100% cotton, so no stretchy, and a little snug (spoiler alert, it’s also a real pain to take off). Once on, I got a whole bunch of smiles from the locals (from chatting to podcast guy not all the locals are”locals”, as folks from all over Viet Nam have come here for this). Food was a little harder to find, as the closest food hall was closing, but I found a vendor selling flavoured rice so I got half pandan and half black sticky rice. And some interesting smiles, as apparently they don’t get to see a big white guy wearing a VN t-shirt ordering roadside rice everyday, it was delicious so I don’t know why not, and I ate it too fast to take a picture. Heading back in the direction of my hotel, I found a restaurant quite close that had all the good local foods, so I went for a serve of fried spring rolls and an avocado smoothie. While I’ve occasionally mocked VN spring rolls in the past, stemming from our first trip where every cooking class we took had us making them (and I do mean EVERY), they are a wonderful treat, full of mince and vermicelli, so good.

Then back to the hotel to try to get a little sleep ahead of a 530am wakeup and parade.