Chuc Mung Nam Moi... hello, cat.

My journal from KL:

The smell of durian punctuates and pollutes the air while competing with the more familiar scents of stir fried chilis and fried rice. Everything is in competition in central Kuala Lumpur, from the beauty of the local orchids to the exotic tastes of tom yam soup and nasi goreng and fish head curry. Touts compete for your money and massage parlours compete for your flesh (representing the more seedy side of Asia's tourist industry). It's exotic and familiar and disarming and overwhelming and comforting all at the same time. The new, modern ways compete with traditional perspectives as the older generations attempt to navigate within the parameters of modernity. Sometimes this is successful. Other times, it can be a miserable failure. But this seems to be the reality of a whole collection of nations who are on the doorstep of transition from old to new. This is Asia.

 

Today:
I've started writing this post a couple of times. However, fatigue has set in a bit, and the weather has shifty to the rubbish end of the spectrum. It's still warm, humid and rain-free, but the wind has picked up and some clouds linger above my new location and beg for the go-ahead to pour down on the coastal beach-town of Nha Trang. I was also on a bus throughout the night last night as I travelled from HoChiMinh City (aka Saigon) to the southeast coastal town of Nha Trang.

 

After the unfortunate circumstances of KL (which were heavily balanced with some fantastic experiences), I arrived in HoChiMinh City a little weary from having had little sleep the previously stressful days. So, I spent the first day just catching up on some much-needed rest and planning out my last 10 days of vacation. I fly up to Beijing on the 23rd, so time was becoming precious and extremely limited.

 

The Chinese New Year celebration wasn't particularly exciting, as I wasn't able to meet up with any of my intended folk for the festivities. A cousin of mine from Canada happened to be arriving that night, but because of timing and delays at the airport, he didn't arrive in time and we didn't touch base. I also met some other travellers that morning and was planning to meet up with them, but because of the jammed phone lines and a lack of messages, I didn't track them down either. Still, I checked out the fireworks and fought the craziness that was the celebration in this city of 6 million, then headed to bed.

 

The next few days were a little more full, as I met up with my cousin and his friends as well as with my English friend Sian who arrived the other day. We checked out some museums and ate tonnes of food while sampling the local sodas and taking in a bit of the Saigon nightlife. We also took a tour our to the CuChi Tunnels where the Vietnamese forces resisted both the French forces (during occupation) and the American forces (during the Vietnam war). It was pretty amazing and Jackie, our tour guide, was excellent. These hideouts were used over a 26 year period until Vietnam finally gained independence. We crawled through the fox-hole-like tunnels and I even took a turn firing a real AK-47 with live ammunition at the sport range set up on site. Surprisingly I'm an okay shot after not firing a rifle for close to 10 years. Sorry to dismay/disappoint all my non-Alberta friends... I grew up around firearms and the Picture Butte Fish & Game... you can't slough off your childhood conditioning entirely! The AK was pretty fun.

 

After Saigon, I hopped on an overnight bus outta town (the Chinese New Year made everything insanely busy) up to Nha Trang, where I am now. The bus ride was, in a word, brutal. It started off alright, as I was sitting with a really adorable and friendly Vietnamese family (3 adults and 3 kids and me shared 5 seats at the back of the bus). The kids were really well-behaved and the father was content to sit in the aisle so as not to crush me into the window. Their little son, about 4 years old, was my little sidekick. He sat beside me at the start of the ride, and as he started to doze, he used me as: a pillow, a footrest, a place to drape his legs, and an arm-holder. The whole time I just laughed. His parents were worried that I would be annoyed but I was fine with it, and as I just quietly smiled, I think I won over the family (and some of the nearby passengers).

 

They only came on the first hour of the trip, though, so I soon had plenty of extra room to move. Oh, if only it would last.

 

Within 20 minutes, I was plastered against the window as a slightly chubby British guy plopped down beside me and proceeded to provide me with a general sense of discomfort for the next 9 hours of misery.

 

We then got dropped off on the side of the road at 5am and were forced to hang out at the beach while the hotels slowly opened their doors. It took me 15 hotels to find one that wasn't full. 15!!! And then it was only available for one night. So after checking in and sleeping for a couple hours and showering, I had to seek out another for tomorrow night. It only took 10 tries this time. It's my own fault for choosing to come here during the holiday and not planning ahead, but it's hard to do when you don't have a set schedule.

 

Regardless, here I am. Being by the ocean again is fantastic, but the beach is pretty polluted and overrun with rubbish. There's lots of tours available for the surrounding islands, but the prices are super high. So I've decided that other than checking into some kayaking tomorrow, I'm just gonna take a couple days to hang out, read and relax before heading north again. I start work again on the 25th, so I'm going to be a busy dude after that. Now's the time to just relax. After a bit of dinner, I'm hopefully going to pass out and start tomorrow fresh... my cousin and his friends are coming in the morning on the bus, as is Sian, so I'll definitely have some people to hang with for the next couple days.

 

For now, food calls. I think some mystery Pho is in order. When in Rome...

 

T