Keeping Busy...

with my latest project.

Introducing SIY Saigon - Self-Guided walking tours. 

The best adventures are your own - so See It Yourself

www.SIYSaigon.blogspot.com

or

Find us on Facebook

Color Me Run 2015

The official video of this awesome event has just gone online. We waved at the photographers, we waved at the drones, we threw paint in each other's faces and managed to scrape a half-second of fame at 1:16.

For those of you who subscribe to the blog by email, unless you have super-snazzy email software, you'll need to visit the blog itself to view any videos like this.

The GoPro's fisheye lens is not kind to people with big (green) noses 

Man and Machine...and Cardboard

"Is he going somewhere on that bike?" asked my mum when she saw this.

"That is nothing," I replied.

It's pretty easy to get used to the sights of Vietnam. Just last week I was sat in traffic and realised that the passenger on the bike in front of mine was facing me. Back to back with the driver he sat, his feet teetering on the foot pegs and a fridge freezer balanced across his knees. We nodded at one another in mutual acknowledgement of his logistical feat. The lights turned green and his face quickly disappeared into the swarm.

Your choice...

Watch this awesome video, or simply dance around to the awesome tuneage - Tempura Soul by Fuka Vicente.

Photo Essay

As promised, here's a roundup of our last few months - in photographs...

 Nam Cat Tien National Park

 Rosie takes her mum to see Angkor, Cambodia

Dried and candied fruits and vegetables, Ben Thanh Market

Rosie and her mum enjoy a cocktail on the banks of the Saigon River

A Frida Kahlo themed painting party as part of Rosie's Birthday celebrations 

 Our friends Mark and Laura visit from the UK

 Best buds since childhood

Sunset boat trip on the Saigon River

 Painting expedition with our friends Tom and Be Heo

Ho Chi Minh City 5k Color Me Run

Until we get our own GoPro camera, you'll have to watch someone else's video:

A trip to Hanoi takes us to a pop-up beer club spread across several abandoned buildings

 The train-line out of Hanoi runs just a few feet, sometimes inches, from people's homes

Fruit and veg seller in Hanoi's Old Quarter

Back where it all began, revisiting our favourite kerbside Bia Hoi joint in Hanoi

16p a glass

Huu Tiep Lake, Hanoi, complete with a twisted fragment of a US B52 bomber shot down by an anti-aircraft missile during the American War. A nearby museum houses the rest of the aircraft in various chunks.

A visit to the Perfume Pagoda, 3 hours outside of Hanoi and only accessible by boat and cable car

Our new friend Minh

Sara and Louis from Brighton join us on a motorbike trip into the mountains via an obligatory stop-off at the chopstick factory

40 years ago this week, on the 29 April 1975, the US began the final, frenzied phase of its evacuation from Saigon. This image, taken by Dutch photographer Hubert Van Es, shows one of the final "Air America" helicopters on the elevator housing of the Pitman building, a CIA owned apartment block in downtown Saigon. Their aim was to evacuate all US military and civilian personnel, along with various South Vietnamese aides and allies (and their families) whose safety was not guaranteed once the North Vietnamese army arrived.

The next morning, the North Vietnamese army rolled into Saigon, its tanks smashed through the gates of the former Presidential Palace, the government surrendered and modern Vietnam was born.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary, flags and banners have been hung all over the country and a huge ceremony and parade was held outside the reunification palace (formerly the presidential palace). Despite living only 3 blocks from the parade route, this was as close as we, or anybody could get. Road blocks lined with police made sure that this was a strictly closed-door event. Very strange for us and the handful of other foreigners milling around the barricades, all of us having risen early to catch this once in a lifetime event.

Fortunately, a massive firework display was put on that evening. The streets of Saigon ground to a standstill as tonnes of explosives lit up the famous Bitexco building. We perched ourselves at one of our favourite rooftop bars with completely unobstructed views of the show. Surrounded by cheering, happy, excitable locals, all of us looking out over Saigon's ultra-modern skyline, it was difficult to imagine the struggles this country has been through over the past century. The warmth, kindness and hospitality of the Vietnamese people is truly the country's greatest asset.

To read more about the fall of Saigon, click here.

To learn more about the American evacuation, codenamed Operation Frequent Wind, click here

A Few Days in Mai Chau

Sitting at the end of a four-hour drive from Hanoi, up, over and into the mist covered mountains, the tribal villages and rice terraces of Mai Chau are a world away from city life. Sometimes it's hard to believe that we actually live in this country...

Mai Chau Valley

A chopstick factory worker bundles the freshly cut bamboo ready for drying

Vietnamese Sarnies

So as one of my jobs last month, I got to choose the best banh mi in Saigon. For three days in a row I was fuelled by nothing but bread and meat! If you're outside of Vietnam, here's the online version.

I now also have my own mini-profile on the Word website with all of my articles listed as soon as they appear online.

The past couple of months have also seen me picking up work from another prestigious Vietnamese publication, AsiaLIFE. With a print edition magazine in HCMC, its own online radio station and a website covering Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, it's certainly an exciting group to be working for.

Check me out in the March and April print issues, or click the links below for the online versions.

Saigon's Top Five Lunch Deals

The Asian Social Circus Association


Coming soon: A lightning fast roundup of the past two months in Vietnam.

New Year Two Point Oh

Having been part of Imperial China until 938 CE, Vietnam's culture and traditions are steeped in Chinese heritage. Known here as Tet, Vietnam's celebration of the lunar new year is the biggest event on the calendar.

2015 marks the year of the goat in Vietnam. In other cultures, owing to a translation issue
with an ancient Chinese symbol, rams and sheep may also symbolise the new year.

For the past few weeks, the shops have been packed, the city has been decked in Tet trees, lights and flags, and the excitement has been building in the run up to the 18th of February, New Year's Eve. The giving of gifts and food hampers has seen every spare inch of our local Co-Op supermarket piled with elaborately stacked baskets of chocolates, biscuits, cakes, nuts and fruit, and the loading of motorbikes has become even more ridiculous...

With traditional Tet flowers between his legs, this chap's passenger precariously balances
a kumquat tree on each thigh, completely obscuring her from view 

A balloon seller sails his bike down the road as the wind catches his colourful wares.

In the run up to the big day, Vietnamese people clean their homes, cars, scooters and business from top to bottom, clearing the bad luck in time for the new year, and display colourful selections of fruit whose names, when placed in certain orders, sound similar to traditional Tet greetings.

Word Magazine published a helpful guide for anyone who wants to know more about this massive event and the various customs surrounding it. Unlike the western version, there's a bit more to it than  ill-fated New Year's resolutions and Nicorette adverts.

The nine day national holiday began last Saturday and slowly the city started to drain of its inhabitants as people returned to their home towns and villages. They say that as the holiday approaches, every bus, car, van, lorry, train and plane leaving town will be rammed, exodus style.

Yesterday, New Year's eve, and Saigon was like a ghost town. All shops, restaurants, cafes and offices closed and shuttered, the streets eerily quiet. With Rosie's mum visiting for half-term, we headed out in search of one of the handful of eateries still operating. Rosie's mum achieved a level one mastery of the chopsticks and got stuck in to the Asian way of dining...

Omelette, tofu, squid and noodles in one of our favourite restaurants in Saigon

With a bit of research, visitors can still find things to keep themselves occupied. It's not that hard to find a decent meal and several tourist attractions like the Reunification Palace are open as usual. One Tet tradition is to visit Saigon's famous flower street and pose in your 'Sunday finest' for family photographs. A block west of its usual home (owing to the construction of a metro system), a kilometre long stretch of one of District One's busiest avenues is turned into a pedestrianised floral wonderland, with raised ponds, gardens and 3D constructions spread out right there on the tarmac to the sound of piped in birdsong mixed with Kenny G.

A living reconstruction of a rice paddy expertly demonstrated

Despite the city's apparent emptiness, it was obvious that come nightfall on the eighteenth, anyone  who was still here would assemble in the streets downtown for the annual firework celebration at midnight. With the apartment building to ourselves (all but a handful of our neighbours have also abandoned the city), we decided that along with a few select friends we would take to the rooftop terrace in the hope of spotting the pyrotechnics and see in the New Year (again) with a few drinks. It was also the day after Rosie's birthday, so there was double cause for celebration.

We borrowed some fairy lights, gathered tables and chairs, plumbed in the sound system and had ourselves a pocket party beneath the stars. It was one of the best New Year's Eves ever...and in the middle of February! A kicking playlist of soul music pumped out over the rooftops, we made a drunken "Happy New Year" call to a friend in New York City (result, much confusion her end, zero credit my end) and danced barefoot until almost three AM when our legs could take no more.

No offence - here, this is a "V" for Vietnam.

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới !!!
(Happy New Year)