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SOUTHEAST ASIA ON A WHIM AND A PRAYER

Follow our roving reporter Brian on his travels

THAILAND
The temperature is 32 degrees C in January and there are high-speed canal and river ferries and an overground rail system called the Skytrain. Where are we? We’re in Bangkok, Thailand.

Specifically, we’re having dinner in an open-sided restaurant next to the river where you got to a ‘buffet’ area and select from a wide range of meats and vegetables to take to your table and cook. There’s a brazier set up on the table, with hot coals or bricks within, and a circular metal tray above with a domed centre. You put hot water in the ring around the dome to form a moat in which you cook the veg, while the meats are cooked on the dome. Add a couple of Chang or Sinha beers and you have an enjoyable evening.

Last night we tried one of the local specialities, Tom Yum soup, made from chicken stock with lime, lemon grass, garlic, mushrooms, chilli paste, coriander and other herbs and spices and then filled out with shrimps or other meats. Delicious.

THE ZOO
Today we went to the zoo – although it’s quite unlike a zoo as we would know it. It is set in a huge park containing two large lakes with pedalos, a funfair and loads of large grassy areas for sitting or lying around in. The locals seem to view the zoo as a place to go for the day with the family, but with no intention of actually looking at animals - maybe because there's only one substantial normal park in Bangkok (Lumpini) for 6 million people, so this one does double duty. They bring or buy colourful rattan mats and just have family time near the lakes. We, on the other hand, did see some animals, e.g. elephants, hornbills, cassowaries, Malaysian tapirs, Asiatic tigers and black bears.

SHUKHAWADEE
Another excursion was to Shukhawadee, a 'resort' complex on Sukhymvit Road, near Pattaya on the coast. It was created by the owner of Saha Chicken Farms for the recreation of local people and as a gift to Buddha, took six years to build and cost billions of Baht. The complex covers more than 60 acres of land including a huge, blue mansion, spacious gardens and a private beach. The mansion is modelled along the lines of architecture and interior decoration from the time of French King Louis XIV. Extravagant European-style sculptures and figurines – French, Roman, Egyptian, Greek and pagan – are sprinkled lavishly throughout both buildings and gardens. You can take a tour of the house or just wander around at will: there is no entrance fee and it’s open daily from 9am to about 6pm. There are also opulent meeting rooms, conference facilities, cafés and restaurants and the splendid main hall. All a bit out-of-this-world for Western visitors but worth seeing for the experience of it.


EXCURSIONS IN VIETNAM

SAIGON
Next stop Saigon. We’re staying in the Phan Ngu Lao area and have hired motorcycles for the day, joining the 3 million other motorcyclists. Our first thought was to do the sensible thing and do a try-out on a quiet street before launching off into the traffic. Not a hope! There’s no such thing as a quiet road in the centre of Saigon! The lane where our hotel is situated was the nearest thing we could find, so we tried a bit of familiarisation before getting stuck in on roundabouts and junctions. Luckily, I’d owned a motorcycle before, admittedly many years ago, and the hireable ones in Saigon are low power (125-150cc) and lightweight. Here you can hire a machine for 8 dollars a day, no motorcycle licence required! So we’ve now spent five hours trundling around Saigon on a motorcycle, without mishap, managing to see most of the inner city and having more fun in the process than we’ve had for days – or decades, as far as motorcycling is concerned.

Central Saigon is a good place for a walkabout, but another attraction is a 90-minute hydrofoil trip down the Saigon River and across a short stretch of ocean to Vung Tau, a coastal resort. As it’s apparently densely crowded with Saigon residents at weekends, we went on a Friday.

DA LAT   
We took a small excursion to Da Lat, an interesting little city, set in pine forests next to a lake. The French colonial administrators seem to have developed it as a retreat from the heat and humidity of Saigon, rather like a Vietnamese Simla; hence the pine forests, which the French planted after cutting down the jungle. There are some lovely villas on a ridge overlooking the town one way and forests the other. Here we took a motorcycle tour (riding as passengers, not driving) to see some local activities such as silk weaving, mushroom cultivation and coffee production.

From Saigon you can take an ‘open ticket’ to Hanoi for 45 dollars, which means you can stop at various places on the way for any length of time. We chose the sleeper coach for the Nha Trang to Hoi An (550km) and Hué to Hanoi (660km) sections, which are both overnight sections.

So, from Da Lat we went on to Nha Trang on the coast, where we stayed only a few hours, mostly on the beach, while waiting for the night bus to Hoi An. These buses have about 35 berths and you can almost stretch out flat, but not quite (a shorter person than I am could). The old town of Hoi An is itself worth a stroll and from here you can take a tour to see the sunrise over some Cham ruins, leaving at 5am!

HUE    
Then to Hué, which was the national capital until 1945 when Emperor B?o Ð?i abdicated and a Communist government was established in Hà N?i (Hanoi), in the north. It is also remembered for its part in the Vietnam War. Situated in what was then South Vietnam, very near the border with North Vietnam, it suffered considerably in the T?t Offensive of 1968, when American firepower destroyed many historical buildings and Communist forces killed thousands of people.

The city has an enormous walled citadel, seat of the Nguyen emperors, with an 11km moat around, which used to house a forbidden city to which only the emperors, concubines and close associates were granted access, the punishment for trespassing being death. Today, little of the forbidden city remains, but reconstruction efforts are in progress. The tombs of former emperors and dozens of other monuments line the Perfume River, which crosses the city and is named for the perfumed flowers from orchards upriver that fall into the water in the autumn.

Off to Hanoi next. Join me there.

If you want to enjoy some of the sights and experiences Brian is reporting on, AwimAway.com will tailor-make a tour for you, of the highest quality and at the lowest possible prices!

 Sukhawadee welcomes all visitors who want to discover philosophy of living
 
© Brian Cranfield 2009
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