I saddled up Oscar and off we went for Chùa Bà ở Tây Ninh, Black Lady Mountain in the Tay Ninh Province, about 100 km north of Ho Chi Minh.  I left early on Saturday to beat the heat and traffic.  It took about 2 hrs and 15 mins and I had a refreshment stop.  Signage is almost non-existence so thank god for mobile reception and google maps.

I got directed into the motorbike parking area by a guy on a loud speaker.  On the Black Virgin Mountain are Pagodas (temples) and there are two ways to get there.    Walk or take a gondola up.  I decided to take the gondola up so I could admire the view and also it was already about 35 C.  Yes I know, I have done Ironmans but I am a tourist here:).

The mountain is named after a woman who married a soldier who died so she remained a virgin. I wandered around for about 2 hours, looking at the Pagodas, watching people, drinking and eating.  People asked to take my photo with them and I had my normal amount of people staring at me.  I was the only foreigner there, so it is understandable, oh and I am very beautiful!  The Pagodas are part of the rock  and one was called the Hanging Rock Pagoda.

I love the use of colour here and the detail in the Statues.

To prove I was here I used my selfie stick.  True Asian.

This was my favourite thing of the day, watching this little girl worship and follow her parents.

Now it wouldn’t be a typical day in Vietnam if there wasn’t one there that made you look twice and go… Obviously there are not many emergencies here or you will be protected if one happened as it would be hard to access this emergency exit.

Now there are three ways to get down the mountain, gondola, walking and Luge.  Well, it was pretty obvious which one I was going to take.  Yes the Luge!.  I found the entrance and then thought, this wouldn’t cut it at home as half the population wouldn’t fit between the rails.

I was a little scared at the start but got into it.  They had men posted all the way down telling you to slow down and they blew their whistles.  As expected I heard the whistle a lot!  I have found out that Vietnamese don’t like corners, on the road, if there are corners they slow right down and I end up passing them on my push bike.  So on the luge this was exaggerated.  I would have to stop and let the guy in front of me go.

I decided to take a different way home and went to the lake that feeds the Saigon River.  It was great, saw the local sights and did some off roading.

It must have been harvest time as there were lots of tractors caring cassava.

I made it safely back to Ho Chi Minh, but because it is the rainy season I was caught in the middle of a down pour.  I actually quite enjoyed it.  I drove through massive puddles and if a car or truck passed you got soaked.  I had my full face helmet on so I could keep seeing.  This is one thing I am going to miss when I get home, riding my motorbike because you aren’t going that fast, 50 km/hr so can look around and there are very few road rules, but somehow I feel safe.  Go figure.

 

So after driving around the streets of Ho Chi Minh and seeing some crazy stuff, Lauren and I decided to create some of our own.  Now I will give you this warning, do not try this at home, we are trained professionals and are skilled in this art form.

So we cruised over to District 7 and found an empty car park to work our magic.  We had some practices and Huy was a camera person.  We also had a small crowd watching us, couples, taxi drivers and a security guard.  I thought the security guard was a good addition especially if the crowd got out of control etc.  This was the park and Lauren “psyching” herself up.  I got myself in the zone by revving my 110 cc engine loudly.

So we had two routines that we performed to perfection.  The first was being towed behind Oscar (my motorbike) on a skate board. We got up to 20 km/hr, which doesn’t sound that fast, but it is!

Skating

We also did a maneuver known as the Launch

The Launch

Now the other routine is inspired by the way women who sit on the motorbike when wearing a skirt or dress, they sit side saddle.  This is harder than it looks and it is also harder for the driver because of the weight distribution. We have named it “Riding like a lady”.  However due to the R rating of this video it could not be posted here, however there is one photo.

And here is the crew that made this possible, left to right, Huy, Julie and Lauren.

We had a lot of laughs doing this and provided entertainment for the spectators.  Got to love Vietnam.

 

 

Habitat was lucky enough to host 400 Optus Sales and support staff on the 19th and 20th of July.  We had 200 on each day in Long An, in the Me Kong, about 1.5 hours from Ho Chi Minh.  They were picked up by bus and driven down there and worked on 6 houses and two schools.

I was helping with the school and we were painting inside and out and building a toilet block. Here we are at the start of the build, waiting to get on the bus.  We have from top to bottom, left to right

Thanh (aka Sunny), me, Phuoc, Trang and Huy.

We had a welcome from the local government in Long An before before we started.  It is a great sight to see so many people working and especially because I didn’t have to, I was a coordinator.  I think it is a role I excelled at, aka bossing people around!.

The school where we were working had 400 students and it is currently school holidays here.  They get about 2.5 months off.  Lucky parents!

Below are pictures of the toilets that the children currently use.  The one of the left if for number 2 (or heavy as they call it in Vietnam) and the picture on the right is for number 1 (light).  Note that the picture on the right is not covered and this is for the use of 400 primary school students.  This is a busy place.

So we didn’t feel left out, we had a squat porta loo.

Optus organised some speakers who they flew out from Australia for their Sales Conference and one of them was Brooke Hanson, swimmer.  I just had to take a selfie, it is what you do here.

We had a great two days and at the end we had presentations with the 6 families and the two schools and a group photo

The best part of this is watching the delight that the families have with their new homes.

 

 

 

 

My success continues (or luck) in the mountain bike races here.  Last Sunday I competed in a race near Cat Lai.  It was a “Fat Bike” feature race and also normal “skinny” mountain bikes.  The loop was 20km and it wasn’t technical but it had a bit of mud.  This is what a fat bike is:

The race was located in gum tree plantations and we were treated to goats and water buffalo.

The course was the type of one where you could get a good rhythm going and go crashing through the odd muddy puddle.  The men went off first and then we were grouped with the Fat bikes.

It is amazing what spans across cultures, some men do not like being passed by women and there are always riders that are looking for the free ride – drafting and not sharing the duties.  There was also cheating, some fat bikes got pushes from the motorbikes on the course, they were disqualified.  There were only 5 girls in the race, and there were 3 of us competing with each other and swapping the lead throughout the race.

I had a great day and loved the course, no hills and I managed to get second.  The prizes are amazing here.  I got a saddle, bike gloves, trophy and a silver chain ring.  Joost got second in the under 40 and James got third in the fat bikes.  So The Bike Shop had a great day out.

The Bike Shop had a tent set up and we had a prime location.

Here are all the competitors at the end of the race.

 

 

You would think that because China is a neighbour and is also of the communist thinking that they would be close friends Vietnam and China, however talking to people, no one likes China, whether it is their government or their tourists.  They are seen as a necessary evil.  Other than the fact that China has invaded Vietnam for centuries there are a few reasons in recent history that would point to Vietnam’s distaste:

1. The South China Sea.  However, in Vietnam it is called the “East Sea”.  China has been taking over the ownership of this sea and it is an important fishing zone for the Vietnamese and also shipping channel.  The Philippines recently took China to the UN court and the ruling came back this week.  Shock horror, it ruled that China was in the wrong.  South China Sea / East Sea
2. The second reason is an environmental disaster that has happened on the Vietnamese coast covering over 200 km and killing marine life.  The steel company is from Taiwan, close enough to China.  Fish are to the Vietnamese like sheep are to kiwis.

Environmental Disaster

It is interesting the alliance between America and Vietnam now considering the Vietnam War.  President Obama on a recent visit lifted the last of the embargoes it had with Vietnam.  Times are changing here.  Watch this space.

During my time here I am continually amazed and in awe of the things that Vietnam can manage without.  On the other hand there are things that they can’t do without that may surprise you.  Firstly I will start with the things that they can do without for periods of time:

• Electricity – it is amazing.  I have been places where the power is out but you wouldn’t know it, life carries on.  We were in the Me Kong and the power was out of Sunday and it was called “Sunday Blackout”.  We still have breakfast and lunch and went on a cruise.  In Australia if that happens, it is very hard to get anything done.  They do a lot of cooking by charcoal and gas and computer systems do not rule the world here.
• Tables – they have this great ability to squat, so they don’t require work benches like we would to fix printers, motorbikes etc.

• Chairs – because they can squat, you see people waiting and eating in the squatting position.  If I did that I would fall over or my legs would give out.
• Refrigerators – It defies logic here.  All the street food doesn’t have refrigeration so meat sits outside for most of the day.  You get ice out of an esky (Chilly Bin) for your drink
• Cars – motorbike rule the road here.  The Government makes it very expensive to own a car here.
• Proper shoes – flip flops can be used for everything, even construction.
• Books – you don’t see people reading books here and I haven’t seen a library yet.
• Sun glasses – even on the motorbike few people wear them
• Toilet paper – there is a hose beside every toilet that they use.
• North/South/East/West directions – I have asked many people if district X is north of here and I get blank stares.  It is not a common way to give direction here.
• Traffic Laws – you only need to stand and watch the traffic to work out there are very few rules.
• Seat belts – people hardly ever wear them and there are no child seats.
• Mattresses – The girls that live in the room next to me sleep on the tiled floor.  I sleep on a foam mattress which is about 10cm thick.
• Sport – sport is not played at school where education is the key and they also don’t have fields.  Children don’t play team sports like we do at home.  The only sports I have seen played regularly are badminton and soccer. No one talks about sport during the week at work. it is not an important part of people’s lives here.
• Chocolate – I know, I can’t believe it.  They don’t have the reliance on chocolate that we do, hardly anyone eats it so that makes it harder to get chocolate here, but don’t worry I know where to source it from:)

Now, what are the things that Vietnamese people can’t do without:

• Karaoke – yes these bars are everywhere and it is the most common thing to do than going to the pub.
• Love songs – they love them here
• Fish sauce – it is almost in every food
• Sugar – same as fish sauce.  I have had pasta that has tasted sweet.
• Condensed milk – the famous coffee here uses sweetened condensed milk.  People love it here and most foreigners do too.
• Coffee – There are coffee shops everywhere, but the weird thing is you can only get drinks, no food
• Motorbikes – need I say more.
• Selfies – yep, taking photos of oneself is very popular here.  I watched two girls waiting at the airport for 30 minutes take photos of themselves.  There are photo shoots happening all the time
• Rice, noodles, fish – it is everywhere
• Sun protection – especially women are into protecting themselves from the sun.  Now it is not for the reasons you would think, protecting against skin cancer, it is remain as white as possible.  That is seen as more beautiful here.

• Ice tea – every restaurant that you go to you get ice tea or “trà đá”.  I love it, it is cold and thirst quenching.

• Face masks – the reason to wear this is two fold, air pollution due to all the scooters and protection from the sun
• Tooth picks – they are always on the table.  My father would love it here because of that.
• Plastic rain jackets – couldn’t live here without them as normal jackets are too hot and heavy.
• High heals – I am continually amazed at the high heals that women wear here especially if you see the condition of the foot paths.
• Socks with flip flops – yep, you have a space for your big toe.  Also seen women wearing stockings with shorts

• Ice – trucks and motorbikes ship ice around.  Because they don’t have much refrigeration, this is critical.
• Knock-off/pirated clothes, software – love it

During my stay here in Ho Chi Minh travelling around I have come across some weird and wonderful things

I am not sure why this woman needs gumboots on to fan the fire

This is just wrong, baby on the bottom right. And it is outside a catholic church, need I say more?

This is how people with disabilities get around on scooters.  I think it is fantastic.

How cute it this, it had been raining and the mother was picking her child up from school.

The thing he is pushing is a speaker and he is singing Karaoke at 8:45am in the morning and it is very very loud.  We don’t know what he is selling but he goes past our office 1-2 times per month.

A beautiful old lady reading her book in the morning.

Another old lady reading her book in the sun.

I went to a Vietnamese Buffet for lunch with the Habitat Crew, it cost 37,000 VND ($2.20 AUD). The food was OK, but this plate made me think I was in a prison.

While we are on the subject of food, here is how you eat french fries in Vietnam and instead of tomato sauce, we were given butter and sugar and of course chilli sauce and fish sauce.  Yep, you heard it right!

This chicken is looking confused. If I was the chicken I would be running for the hills.  Look on the right side of the food cabinet.  I think these were his friends.

So from Chicken we go to crocodile.  This was in Nha Trang.

In search of Western food I went to a donut shop.  On first appearances it looked normal however, as usual when you look closer you always find a gem. Yep, meat and hot dog donuts (didn’t try this, not that silly).

Not sure what these fish are, but they love them here.  They are ok, but they are fill of bones, a good weight loss strategy! You either chock or it takes 1/2 an hour to eat one fish.

Now once the food is eaten, the dishes need to be done, so in Vietnam, they employ help. Yep, that is dog in the dirty dishes.  I find that you shouldn’t think about this ever.  You just look at it like you would the river and watch it float away.

Moving from food to transport and showing the link, charcoal is a major source of cooking fuel so you have a lot of these vehicles moving around.

Some people pimp their rides out.

Even Mc Donalds is up with the scooter revolution here.

So a major part of the scooter is that it can transport anything.  When I saw the one in the top right hand corner, I though, is that a coffin, but no, it was a cabinet.  Can you imagine the mess if the bike with the all those eggs crashed?

I worked for BOC and we sold a lot of gas and I have seen lots of ways that it is carried, but this one tops it off, green bottle on the right. Photo quality not good due to being so scared:).  Just kidding, I was at the traffic lights so was under time pressure.

I have always wondered how to transport my push bike on my scooter, both here in Vietnam  and also Australia, here it is

At the airport in Ho Chi Minh, they obviously don’t have enough air bridges so most of the time I get a bus from the terminal to the plane.  It is amazing walking beside these massive planes.

Vietnam is a predominately Buddhist country, so there are shrines in most businesses to bring good luck and ancestral ones in houses.  On my way to work I pass this.  I stopped once and found this.  I didn’t know tigers smoked?

My friends, the Valley Virgins made a guest appearance in Vietnam and they thought the face masks looked like men’s underwear and also I am not sure what one of them is doing to the ice.

Now with the shops, they are everywhere and you can buy almost anything at any time.  This is in a market near my home, see if you can spot the shop owner between the goods.

I thought this was really cute.  These guys fix motorbikes and are having a break

Now, after living with this all for 6 months, it can make you a little mad, this is what happened to Lauren.  She thought this was normal.  Well I am not surprised seeing all the crazy things we see everyday.  We call this phenomenon, “Random”.

Even Coca Cola has been affected by this phenomenon. You can decide what is going on here.

So I hope you have enjoyed this.  I love it here in Vietnam and seeing all these wonderful things everyday.

 

 

On the weekend of May 7th we went to District 7 and had goat, it was interesting.  We had BBQ goat and a hot pot and we heated our Banh Mi (bread rolls) over the flames.

Here is the preparation of the goat at the front of the restaurant.

We also witnessed a live chicken being taken into the kitchen but it never came out, where did it go?  I think it is a conspiracy.

After that we had a bubble tea and then went to the Cresent Mall where they have the colour bridge.  Formal name is Anh Sao Bridge which means Starlight Bridge.  It is amazing so I took a time lapse of it.

Time lapse action

 

Of course I took a few photos too.

It looks like I am a giant compared to Su Jeong and Lauren, not sure how I did that.

So after getting home at 3:30am in the morning from my birthday party we were up and catching a bus to the Me Kong at 10:30 am.  It was originally 9 am but Lauren and I negotiated a later start and then we were late so we ended up with 10:30 am.   Now I was not feeling well at all so I came prepared with a plastic bag.  Well we got in the taxi and about 2 mins later I had thrown up, managed to get some of it in the bag, so the taxi driver just looks at me and winds the window down.  Got to love it here.

Well we waited for the bus and I had some alone time to contemplate life, ie too old to go out drinking, but then I remembered, I will blame it on the Dutch guy, buying us red bulls and Vodka and Champagne!  There is always a Dutch guy in there somewhere:)

So as you can imagine I had a “great” ride to the Me Kong for 2 hours.  We made it the Ben Tre Province and we forgot to tell the driver to stop so we had to walk some distance to the accommodation.  We got a greeting that I have never received, 3 dogs came running out, barking and growling.  We survived and then I died on my bed for a while.  Some of the interesting stuff at our accommodation.  By the way, we were the only guests staying there.

We then embarked on an epic journey to get some motorbikes so we could cruise the streets. By this time we were tired and hungry and some of us were “hangry”, hungry and angry.  We found a great restaurant and had fish soup.

From there we cruised around; bubble tea and played cards, and had a hot pot for dinner.

We got back to our accommodation and continued playing cards and had lots of laughs playing “Bullshit” and Spoons.  The funniest part was the pronunciation of bullshit which sounded like “push it”.  We had a few wages, Huy had to buy us Bubble tea because she couldn’t count her cards in spoons and whoever won Bullshit got a free lunch. Lauren, Huy and I one.

We were given mosquito net which is always fun to install and 12am and then we broke the toilet.  I managed to fix it so when we decided to go to sleep, our A/C had other ideas and started a version of chain saw massacre!

The next day we woke up to no power, apparently is was “Sunday Blackout” a common occurrence.  We finished off my birthday cake for breakfast and also an egg Banh Mi.  I entertained the troops with my three cords that I knew.

We then went on a boat tour of the Me Kong and saw coconut lollies being made.  I am not sure but I think there is a form of “child labour” being employed here.

It also rained so we bought rain jackets for $0.60 AUD each: it already came with holes:). We have from left to right Su Jeong Kim from South Korea, Lauren Obermueller, me, and Trang Pham

We then had a horse drawn journey around the village

We were then treated to a paddle along the natural forming channels. Huy decided to paddle as well and I got very wet!!!!

By then we were starving so what else would you have on the Me Kong than a massive fish!

We had rice paper and we picked the fish off, delicious.  Don’t be alarmed, they are scales hanging off.  From there we did a bit of shopping and saw a monkey bridge and visited a Pagoda.

 

I bought a silk fan that is hand painted and I got the artist to write on it for me.  It cost $6 AUD (100,000 VND).

That was the end of our journey so we got the boat back and went to catch the bus home.  The only concern/query I had about the trip was the fact that the life jackets were stored in plastic.  Maybe it helps with buoyancy!.

The cost of food is very cheap in the Me Kong compared to HCM, so because Huy had lost the bet in cards she owed us a bubble tea each.  So we got a lady at the bus stop to go to the nearest bubble tea shop and get prize so she wouldn’t have to pay more in HCM.  Now that is being thrifty.

On the 2 hour bus trip home we were treated with love songs on the TV in the bus.  These are very popular in Vietnam.  It was a wonderful trip with many laughs and experiences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A girl can never have too many birthday parties.  I think I have lost count now but when it is a big one you have to do it in style.  I hired out a venue that Lauren and I had checked out a couple of weeks before.  When we were scoping out the venue it was a little windy and one of the roof panels blew off and hit the floor near us.  Now this sounds a little shocking, but not here in Vietnam, everyone one looked at it and then carried on eating, including us.

On the invite I included that you had to wear a funny hat and that there would be prizes.  I put on some beers and Lauren and I picked the menu before hand.  This is always fun in a foreign language, but Huy helped us, but somehow we still ended up with Snails and no rice.  Before we started eating, we watched a video that Huy had developed.  It is awesome, one very talented lady (not me Huy!).

Birthday Video

As previously mentioned, the cakes here a little bit different so I decided to organise my own one and have it delivered and it was a massive success.

After dinner we had the hat judging contest, I was one of the judges and then I got one of the staff at the venue.  We then walked around and looked at the hats.  The other judge was a male so he only picked females, so I had to evoke my veto powers and overrule.  In the end, we had one male and one female.  Lucy with a lizard hat from Eastern Europe and Pierre with a bike helmet.

From there it was just a series of photos, capturing the hats and people.

From there Lauren, Simone, Trang and I headed back to my place to drop off my presents and to have a cheeky Gin before we headed to a Cuban Bar to listen and dance to a Philippine band. Lauren befriend a Dutch guy (just can’t escape them), I knew he was Dutch before he even spoke, they just have a look.  Anyway he preceded to buy us Red Bull and Vodkas and Champagne.  Yes the night started to get messy, I was pole dancing, but in Vietnam we call it “Column Dancing”.

From there we charged onto Apocalypse Now, a seedy yet famous night club.  I didn’t experience an Apocalypse until the next day on the bus ride to the Me Kong…  The night club was quite strange.  The guys there were mainly Western however they only had eyes for Vietnamese girls and I didn’t see any foreign women.

It was a wonderful night with lots of laughs and experiences.  I hope the next 40 years are just as fun and exciting.