We did it! On 17 August 2012, Rosie & I left the UK. For six months we travelled from Japan, all the way through South East Asia to Australia. After that came 6 months in the USA, a year back in the UK and a permanent move to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam - our new home.
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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...
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.
"What am I doing to myself?" I thought as I set the alarm for four AM. "Maybe I rushed into this a bit...maybe I'm not ready yet?"
But before I could question it all too much, I'm riding through the darkened streets of a Sunday morning in Saigon en route to District Seven. No doubt on the prowl for drunk drivers (for many, Saturday night was still in swing), a pair of traffic cops leap out of the darkness and pull me over.
"Turn off engine," one says.
"Oh s**t," I say.
One of the downsides of living in a developing country is police corruption, and the traffic cops here, in their seventies beige flairs and helmets, are notorious for demanding bribes from wealthy foreigners when no violation has been committed - they generally just make one up and threaten to take your bike away.
With no ID and very little money on me, I'm beginning to wish I'd stayed in bed.
They eye me up and down, sat there shivering in my teeshirt and shorts in the early morning cold. They mutter to one another.
"I'm going running," I offer. I pull out my teeshirt and point at the large runner's bib I'm wearing. "Running..." I repeat, motioning with my arms.
They mutter some more.
"Okay, go!"
My heart restarts along with my engine and I'm off without incident.
Twenty minutes later and I'm at the start line of my second Half Marathon. Sponsored by LaVie mineral water, this is HCMC's first Conquer The Bridge 21k race. Exactly six weeks after my epic dash around the temples of Angkor in Cambodia, I am back, ready for more punishment and pain and ready to crack the two hour mark.
Surrounded by 500 or so other runners, behind us are the five and ten kilometre participants, ahead, the winding roads of D7, still in absolute darkness, and somewhere out there...is the bridge.
Phu My Bridge, to be precise...it's big, it's long, it's very steep and stands very high above the Saigon River. And we were all about to run to the top of it...
Here's the official video for the race. Who's that handsome/sweaty chap at 3:46?
This was a rather sedate race compared to Cambodia. Everyone was in bed as we slipped through the night, the sunrise just glinting in the windows of the high-rise apartment blocks. No cheering villagers, no lines of kids desperate to high-five us as we run by, no drummers....but on we pushed with the official camera RC drone whizzing overhead from time to time.
Up ahead we hear engines and the front runners have looped around the first turning point and are coming back down the street to meet us. Outriders on three matching Honda Goldwings, headlights blazing, appear out of the darkness ahead of them to keep the path clear, giant Vietnamese flags rippling behind them as the leaders sprint past. And then all is quiet. Very quiet.
The sun rises and the bridge is still way off on the horizon as we circle around the residential areas before veering off towards District Two and the bridge that connects us.
As usual, I'm at 5km and thinking there's absolutely no way I can finish. Then I drag myself to reach 6k - I'm through the 30 minute mark and the reserve stores kick in. 10k approaches and we make a sharp turn onto an elevated ramp and we're up above the houses and on the long slog to the bridge which stands like a mountain ahead of us.
That bridge is steep. The 10 and 21k routes have merged and we're surrounded by them all of a sudden. As the incline increased, people's pace has slackened and many have resorted to walking. I'm not letting this thing beat me - coming down will be easy - let's do this. And I charge on up, overtaking everyone it seems. The top is invisible, it's like chasing the horizon. But then I hear the music, and a line of people cheer us up to the top where a podium-type platform has been erected and many take the moment to have a little disco. I dodge and dart around them, no parties on this march soldier, and skip my way to the bottom again at record speed.
Turning back off the highway, we're at 16km and the rest is a walk in the park - a walk with aching toes, ankles, knees, hips and eyelids. I swerve around the "shower-tunnel" LaVie have helpfully erected to douse us all in water - fortunately, the early morning haze is still lingering and temperatures are yet to breach 25 degrees - and push on. A few corners, around the shopping malls and someone yells "Two kilometres to go!"
With my GPS watch, I've been monitoring my pace - keeping it bouncing between 5:30 to 5:50 per kilometre - but prefer not to see my time and have to resort to doing all sorts of baffling maths in my head. I switch it to time mode and I'm at 1hour and 50 minutes. Two five minute kilometres? Let's do it. I crank up the speed and let rip. My muscles are burning, my joints scream "no more" but I keep it up enough to make the final turn towards the finish line. The locals have risen from their beds and have come to cheer us on. The super-exciting tunnel of supporters narrows as the gate looms and I can see the official timer tick over to 1:59:15 and I sprint through the finish in a blur of noise and pain.
Official time: 1:59:24 (an average pace of 5:40/km and twelve minutes faster than Cambodia)
Next up? A few months rest and a lie in.
A giant medal and a finisher's tee wait at the finish line
For the fourth month in a row, I'm currently working on my next Street Snacker article for February's magazine. It seems I've found my calling - eating and drinking. It's a tough life.
After a few thoroughly festive days doing nothing but drinking beers and champagne from the hotel room bin (filled with ice), while having long hot baths, watching movies and TV box sets and generally doing nothing, we extended our stay in Dalat by another two nights and donned our hiking kit once again to hit the hills of the surrounding countryside...
We like Dalat already. After a long Christmas Eve car journey, we climbed up the mountains to be met with temperatures not felt for a long long time.
Coats, jumpers and jeans were the order of the day and by the time we were heading home after an evening of exploration last night, Rosie was wearing a wooly hat! It was quite surreal, but has certainly helped us get in the festive mood.
We have earl grey tea, a hard drive full of movies and a few presents to exchange. Now it's time for a festive buffet breakfast in the five-star hotel across the road and a festive home-made joke...
What do you call a Christmas crooner who didn't get the electric shaver he asked Santa for?
A rooftop BBQ restaurant I'd highly recommend - here
Street Snacker - Bun Cha Ca Danang. A delicious fish-cake noodle dish - here
Despite being an officially atheist country, Vietnam does Christmas. The big department stores have giant illuminated displays of Santas and reindeer and sleighs and snowy Christmas trees, our local co-op store is playing dodgy covers of Christmas hits and the staff are all wearing santa hats, and the foyer of our apartment building is thoroughly decked out...
Yes, that's a roaring log fire
The "ice-bar"
Our friendly local Communist party's website has a few images of the brilliant illuminations, which include a mile-long boulevard of twinkling flags to mark the 40th anniversary of "reunification" which falls in April 2015 (the Americans know it by another name..."the fall of Saigon"). I'm hoping to get Rosie on the back of the bike, camera in hand, to film this amazing sight for you.
Our friends Geoff and Jane have recently blogged pictures of the various Christmas scenes from Ho Chi Minh City here.
The weather in Saigon is warm and dry, currently 30 degrees (midday). The arrival of the dry season brought with it significantly lower humidity levels so it's much more comfortable outside - it feels rather like those record-breaking hottest days in the UK at the moment.
Rosie's 3 week Christmas break began in style yesterday (lunchtime cocktails in the Mekong Merchant anyone?) and today we're resting and relaxing preparing to haul on our rucksacks once again and get travelling for the next week or so.
As a pre-Christmas treat, we bagged a table a HCMC's number one restaurant, Pizza 4Ps, for tonight - I'm expecting good things - and tomorrow morning (Sunday) we'll be bussing it to Nam Cat Tien for a spot of cycling, hiking and bird/gibbon spotting in the jungles of one of Vietnam's most splendid national parks. After three nights, on Christmas eve, we'll head up to the mountains of Dalat.
1,500 metres above sea level, they say it's the Switzerland of Vietnam, enjoying year-round Spring-like temperatures (roughly 10 degrees cooler than Saigon), sweeping mountain scenery and plenty of homely goodies like cauliflower, strawberries and early morning mist. We've also been promised surroundings that are "even more Christmassy than Saigon".
Q
