Although my preference in musicals slants more towards Bollywood than Broadway, Miss Saigon does seem an appropriate title for this chapter. Indeed, life is like a movie: you are the director and main actor. Disregard the plot of the Broadway production. This is Skye Frontier’s Adventures in Indochina.
First of all, if you haven’t yet seen my pictures of this booming and cosmopolitan metropolis, now’s the time to do so. The first thing you notice is the traffic. Chaos the likes of this I have never seen. This is Scooter City. Driving in all directions is the norm. While in India, honking is just to announce your presence as is more or less constant, here it is only to narrowly avoid a head-on collision. Given that drivers and riders completely disregard traffic directions and signals, this occurs several times on any given trip. Then there’s the sheer volume of vehicles. And yet, it flows. No gridlock. That in itself is remarkable.
The food in Ho Chi Minh City (or HCMC for short) is scrumptious beyond all description. I’ve eaten some pretty good grub in my perambulations, and while I’m (only slightly) hesitant about awarding Vietnam the ultimate culinary crown, it would at very least have to rate in the top three cuisines anywhere and of all time. Everything is so fresh and delicious and creative and well presented. I find myself looking forward to each meal, and it’s a challenge not to stuff myself. I’ve hooked up with Bau, who also happens to be a foodie, and fortunately for me in so many ways, is also a fitness buff. Daily trips to the gym have gotten me back into shape and are ensuring that all this food doesn’t go to the wrong places. Indeed, having unsurprisingly lost weight in India, the daily workouts have produced the flattest tummy I’ve have every sported. So there.
Bau kindly made reservations for the first hotel, but it was only for one night, since I happened to arrive at the tail-end of high season. Although very nice, I had to seek alternative accommodation the very next morning. Being stupidly precipitous, I took the first room I found, which of course was cheap, but unbeknownst to me, was located right next to a nightclub. And it was Friday night. And up three flights of stairs. The following day, although quite disoriented from three consecutive nights of sleep deprivation (my flight to Jakarta was delayed, allowing me barely four hours of shut-eye before arriving in the Socialist Republic), I resolved to find the best value I could, with silence as the primary consideration. Lac Vien, on a quiet side street just off the main tourist drag, fit the bill, and while more expensive than other hotels and guest houses I’ve stayed in throughout my journey, if truth be told, it was time for hot showers and a constant fast internet connection. And it’s a great value for the money. OK, I admit it. I’m officially tired of traveling. It’s been nearly a year since I’ve held gainful employment. And I’ve got shpilkes for some semblance of constancy. I want my own bed. I most definitely want my own kitchen. I want to see the same friends day in and day out. And I most definitely want a car, preferably an Audi A4 convertible.
I decided in the early days to check out the museums and sites of note in the downtown area. Certainly the most arresting was the War Remnants Museum. The shocking photos of victims of Agent Orange and Napalm filled me with revulsion over US hypocrisy regarding the current idiotic rhetoric about chemical and biological weapons. This was a massive deployment of WMDs by the US military, paid for at taxpayer expense! Another cool venue was the Independence Palace, seat of government of the Republic of South Vietnam. Truly and architectural wonder, and perfectly preserved, it stands as an achievement of the Vietnamese people in regaining their sovereignty.
This country was destroyed by the Vietnam war. Ten percent of the population perished. The economy lay in ruins (and ham-handed socialism afterwards certainly didn’t help matters either). You have got to see Saigon today. Everything is rebuilt to even greater glory than before. The economy of Vietnam is the second-fastest growing in Asia, after China, and the fastest in Southeast Asia, clocking in annual spurts of some 8%. In short, it’s booming. There has also been a generational shift, with a majority of the population having been born after Reunification. It seems, at least on the surface, that they’ve put the past behind them. And boy have they moved on. You just gotta admire the Vietnamese.
The other such venue I saw was the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Museum. The greatest work of art was the building itself (although the Main Post Office is rather grand, too). As art galleries go, I had a good browse around and rather enjoyed a number of the works.
Currently heavily involved in a job search, it seems prudent to stay put and stay organized. What’s more, Têt, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year is right around the corner, falling on February 7th this year. As such, the plan is to stick around until then, and watch events play themselves out, on all fronts. The scenario sort of reminds me of Bangalore, but with a much higher quality of just about everything. I moved on from there, after three weeks, feeling that I had truly seen what there was to see and done what there was to do, with no regrets. I’ll bide my time a bit longer here, with no lack for entertainment and things to do and achieve.
