mrsjono

This is a painting of Kukup, a fishing village near Johor Bahru. It's on the wall of a seafood restaurant (Restoran High King) in Pontian and it caught my eye. I paused to look at it for awhile. When I was a primary school kid, I stayed in one of these houses on stilts during the school holidays. My sisters, cousins and I would point out mudskippers to each another as we walked along the long long wooden planks with our mothers close behind. We played Monopoly on the last day and I went to shit after I lost all my money. I remember bcos it was my first time shitting through a hole and I wasn't used to looking at rubbish in between my legs. We didn't take any photos of our short stay there but some 15 years later, these snippets of memories are still vivid in my mind. 

Today, I'm back here on a day tour with my co-workers. I hate tours and this was no exception. It was crap. I didn't see a single fish at the stocking area and it was clearly a tourist trap in disguise, selling prawn crackers and tidbits at a higher margin than the shops back in town. I took many photos but none of them meant anything to me, except this painting. It encapsulates the idyllic and rustic charm of the place I had felt years ago, which is long gone and lost.

Vietnam may not be as beautiful as China, but there are lots to see on the streets with so many activities happening at the same time. In Mekong Delta alone, I took 200 shots in 3 hours. We were so busy snapping away at the floating markets at one point in time, I didn't know what I was taking. Here are 10 selects from around Vietnam:

船的眼睛看起来很滑稽

He bought this durian pastry at Can Tho...

ate the whole bar on the boat...

not doing good the next day...

bedridden with broken arm and running a fever...

and back to normal after this plate of fruits ;)

I was so pleasantly surprised when our boatwoman started putting on bracelet bands and rings on our wrists and fingers when we finally reached Phong Dien. She had weaved them using banana leaves while the boat was on auto-pilot mode. We couldn't understand what she was saying, the rings don't cost a cent, but from her earnest expression, we could feel her sincerity. I felt she was trying to tell me "Thank you for riding my boat".

Lord of the Banana Ring

If you're interested in taking a ride along the Mekong Delta, look for this woman at the pier. We realised the agent recommended by Green Hotel (the agent claimed she was her sister) must have swallowed some of the money and wondered if the boatwoman got her fair share of the pie. I wore her handmade gifts for the rest of the day, all the way back to Saigon. I finally understood the meaning of priceless.

more photos on Saigon & Mekong Delta.

They are as strange to us as we are as strange to them...

I duck-walked several hundred metres in the tunnels and came out with both legs half-paralysed. Nontheless, it was a great experience not to be missed. You'll find out how clever the Vietcongs were and why the Americans lost. Impressive.

Caodaism believes in something of everything - Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Confucianism, Taoism and whatever religion you can possibly think of. They believe all religions in the world ultimately sends the same message - to bring love and peace to mankind.

I don't mean to be disrespectful, but it really does not make sense to me. Their hierarchical organization follows the Roman Catholicism. They have a pope, cardinals, bishops and priests and they pray in a building called temple, not church. Bcos they follow occult practices from Taoism, their daily ritual bears a strong resemblance to that of a Chinese funeral.

Sun Yat-sen (Chinese revolutionist), Victor Hugo (French poet) and Nguyen Binh Khiem (Vietnamese administrator) never met each other before. When Hugo died, Sun Yat-sen was only 19 years old. Mr Nguyen was not even from the 19th century. How did they come together to sign a covenant between God and humanity?

There are many strange things in this world. Oddly, this was one of the best shot in the whole trip.

千年老妖树

Of the colonial buildings we visited, this was the most beautiful :)

If you see ang moh carrying a guide book in their hand, 95% of the time it is a Lonely Planet guide book on Vietnam. It's the Vietnam backpacker's bible. Everyone carries different versions of the book which means everyone ends up going to the same places on the same bus, dining at the same restaurant, same cafe and even eating the same food. How'd we know? Rough Guides took us to the same places too.

Before we set off, I had totally no idea about the exchange rate, didn't know how the notes look like and didn't know the notes come in what denominators. It was all taken care of by my Minister of Finance. "I'll take all the Dong and you take care of all the US dollar," he said and passed a stack of USD to me on the plane. He knows I have a poor sense of numbers and worried that all the zeros behind will get me confused. True enough, the first time I tried to pay for something on my own, I handed a 100,000D note to the cashier thinking it was 10,000D and walked away. Luckily, the cashier was honest and called me back. But not everyone is so kind. A sneaky taxi driver told us the fare was 25,000D when the meter box showed 20.5 (x1000D in small print at the side). Minister of Finance confronted the driver and told him off "You tried to cheat us! Shit u!"

We met quite a number of Vietnamese who can speak Chinese and/or Cantonese in Saigon. Their ancestors came from China (Guangdong province) and eventually settled down in Vietnam, forming the Hoa ethnic group. The younger generation can converse up to 4 languages (Vietnamese, English, Chinese, Cantonese) fluently. It's time we stop thinking we're great just bcos we're bilingual...

Wedding of Mr Kim Chuy and Ms Van Hieu. Not sure if I got their names right lol. Looks like a Chinese wedding doesn't it? Nice hat there bride.

This pretty girl looks like a Tibetan to me. She gave the "not-again-why-is-it-people-are-always-asking-me-for-a-photo" face, dragged her feet over and forced a smile.


Auntie said 没有再p-ang di了

Remember someone said I look like a Vietnamese? She was right. Some locals talked to me in Vietnamese but not to RS. For instance, he was asking for directions at a bus station and the staff behind the counter asked me to translate what he said...

I had picked 4 hostels beforehand and we didn't stay in any of them bcos they were all full. We did not book bcos we don't know how to. I figured we'll look around when we get there. We met a family of four from Australia on the bus. The moment they got off the bus, the father just walked into the first hotel he saw. Cool.


Nah, the rooms are perfectly fine. Everyone seems to know each other in this small community. They would recommend their relative's place if their rooms are full. We were afraid the Thien Hong family would be upset seeing us coming from their rival's place (just next door) to buy mineral water from them. Silly us.


We ended up at Hotel 96 for a night bcos the sordid owner of Y Nhi let out the room we had reserved (and bargained for US$10) to two Singapore undergraduates who paid US$12 (cos they didn't know they can bargain). His excuse was he thought we were not coming bcos we didn't place our bags at his house. Smelly.

A deserted hotel with a corny name. I think we were the only ones here bcos we didn't see a single soul. Beats staying in that haunted room with cockroaches on the other side of the street. Creepy!

Half a year ago, I did research work for a professor on public spaces in Vietnam. Academia on public space in this country have discussed about personal activities not occurring in private places (inside the house) but happening outside, in the public sphere. This phenomenon is unique to Vietnam and it was an opportune time to see for myself and better understand the literature I have read during the course of my secondary research.

Pavements supposedly for pedestrians have been converted to commercial uses, forcing pedestrians to walk on the roads. I feel insecure walking along the road as motorcycles zoom past, less than a metre away from me.



Due to inadequate private space in homes, domestic activities such as eating, cooking and washing have spilled onto public spaces. In Western societies, people don't carry a bowl of rice and start eating away along the street.

The first thing that caught my attention when we arrived in Saigon was the traffic. Lanes don't exist and honking doesn't work. There are extremely few traffic lights (I suspect they don't have money to build traffic lights so they make do with roundabouts) and zebra crossings on the roads. While the bus was trying to squeeze its way through, I opened the window and looked behind. It was quite an amazing sight.


With no designated crossings for pedestrians, it can be rather daunting trying to cross the road what with the endless traffic. Not to worry, take a leap of faith and you'll get to the other side safely. I noticed the volume of traffic was equally heavy in the day and night. The honking never stop. The guide who took us to Cu Chi described Saigon as a city that never sleeps. It was the only intelligent thing he said that day.

What could be more extraordinary than going on a holiday with a fractured elbow. Imagine the inconveniences one has to go through without being able to use your right hand. It wasn't an easy journey for our injured friend here and he deserves a pat on the back for completing the journey and leading the way. We took this at 6.58AM, 17 mins before our flight. It was on purpose, bcos I didn't want to wait and I believe the plane wouldn't take off with my luggage without us on board. I was strolling on the travelator when we heard our names over the PA system and broke into a run for the gate only to find majority of the passengers were still waiting outside. For a moment, the adrenaline rush reminds me of The Amazing Race. How exciting.

I went to Vietnam not knowing what to expect and not expecting much. It was never in my list of destinations to visit. I dono about you, but somehow, Southeast Asia doesn't really appeal to me. Perhaps tourism campaigns for the region were not good enough. Or maybe humans don't cherish what's around (or near) us and we think there are better places on the other side of the globe. This journey changed my ignorant opinion of the region and it made me realise I actually don't have to travel too far to have fun.


From Saigon (or now known as Ho Chi Minh City), we visited Tay Ninh to check out the tunnels and Can Tho (pronounced as k-en the) for a flavour of the Mekong Delta. It was a relaxing trip alright, pretty smooth sailing (for me) as we didn't have much problems communicating (oh yes you'll be surprised, some Vietnamese are trilingual) with the locals. Of cos mishaps never fail to happen to us (no puking this time though) but they were compensated by the small discoveries we made and the kind people we met. All posts will feature highlights only, more photos can be viewed on facebook (not mine of cos) that have been painstakingly put together by rs.