People watching

The chairs in the cafes, bars, and restaurants in HCMC are oriented toward the sidewalk and street, just like you would see in a Parisian cafe on the Champs Elysee. There's certainly no shortage of people watching opportunities here, like there is in France. Streams of moped riders cruise down the streets endlessly--we're told that, in a city of 10M people. there's 7M bikes, more than 1 for every adult. Collisions between riders are inevitable. We say a bad crash in the middle of a monsoon rainstorm the other day; someone rushed off the sidewalk to help, there was an exchange of words and both riders drove off. We didn't see any money change hands.

I'm looking out onto our small lane while writing this post. Meagan just walked by on her way back from some shopping, buying postcards to send back to friends and family stateside. As much as the cafes are arranged in the French way, enabling chats about the folks you see walking by, more than anything we see both locals and backpackers buried in their 3Gs, rarely having conversation even with the person sitting right next to them. Guess I'm one to judge, typing away here at my computer in the hostel dining room. It's a sad state of affairs when, as cool as the technology is, the Facebook Mobile post about the experience becomes more pressing than really taking the moment in.

Strong coffee

Waking up in Ho Chi Minh City on vacation, checking the clock and seeing 7am, it seems inevitable what the next step would be: nothing, fall back asleep. Fortunately, the coffee in Vietnam is enough to get even me out of bed before midday. After having a cup downstairs, I  cruised through the rest of a small book of interviews with Lee Kwan Yew I've been reading the past couple of weeks, and I feel ready to run 3 marathons. Nice way to counter the sluggishness you usually get from the tropical heat. Even getting a blog post in before 9am!

Vietnam visa

The developing world is a crazy place when it comes to getting had. When you first get to China, you pay for your fair share of roundabout cab rides. You need to be pushy at the different haggle-based markets if you don't want to be paying triple and quadruple the real value of "cashmere" scarfs and false Ray-bans.

Soon, you get cynical, and you start getting played less--or at least less obviously. But then you begin to see, as you get to know the place better, that you do have folks peddling cheap and convenient services, people who aren't trying to screw you really badly. Oftentimes, even large government or corporate offices will outsource stuff to very shabby vendors for logistics and POS interactions, which can get confusing, as you'll be handing money to someone with no affiliation with the company you're supposed to be paying other than a very-crumpled invoice they're yelling at you to sign more quickly so they can get on to the next customer.

I guess you're supposed to have a visa to get into Vietnam. We're both very excited to get on the plane to Ho Chi Minh City and explore a new country.. but we learned yesterday that you're supposed to get a visa for entry. The flight takes off at 5:30pm, it's now 2:30 and we still have not gotten our visa. Internet search revealed an official-looking website to get visas online in 90 minutes. In the span of 15 minutes, I've exchanged 9 emails with someone named Mr Jacky Dang who can provide the visas once I've submitted $190 to them through Paypal. Five minutes ago, submitted payment and just received email from Jacky confirming the visas'll be in our email in 1 hour (3:30 pm).

Hopefully next posting will be from South Vietnam..

Shanghai vs Beijing

Just got back form Shanghai after their Mid-Autumn hockey tournament. Beijing's team went 2-3-1, I was only able to compete in 2 of 6 games because of work conflicts. As striking as the hockey were a couple other things I observed about Shanghai (this is my first stay of more than 20 hours despite having been in China for over 5 years):

1) Way more cosmopolitan. Aside from the city skyline, layout, As I've had it put by some female friends in Beijing, it sometimes seems as if local ladies here choose outfits by turning the lights off and grabbing whatever the touch first in their closets. Shanghainese seemed a bit more fashion-forward in such a way that they were playing with trends and designs in a more self-conscious way, as opposed to the bizarre mimicky stuff you see in north China.

2) Better service culture. Waitstaff at restaurants were generally much better trained, more attentive, and had better English than what you see on average in Beijing.

3) More coins used in change. I got a lot more 1 yuan coins than 1 yuan notes in Shanghai. I definitely find the 1 yuan notes annoying, but not as annoying (or destructive to the material in your pants pocket) as a sackful of metal coins I had to lug around.

4) Tips seem expected, from foreigners at least. Whereas in Beijing you would get 1 cabbie in 12-15 who would not give you back full change down the 1 RMB on your cab fare, 3 or 3 Shanghai cabbies I met did not return the 1-2 RMB extra change, then seemed irked when I requested all my change back. Guess this is a result of longer history of Americans/foreigners in Shanghai and increased tourist numbers?

5) Bit less picky about ID-related stuff. Whereas I was almost turned away at the turnstile in Beijing when I could not produce my original passport (I had a color scanned copy), they didn't bat an eye at the train station in Shanghai... however I was turned away at the hotel when I couldn't produce an original passport.

Aliens

The AC turns off at 6am at the Tohko resort and it gets hot in the bamboo cabin quickly after that. Convection caused by the sun doesn't come up until later in the day, so the breeze that I'm getting now typing this at the little shoreside restaurant wasn't there a few hours ago. To wake up, I grabbed a set of goggles from the rack, all the good pairs had been taken earlier in the day by island hoppers and the snorkels that were left were brown and dirty. Without breathing apparatus I jump in the water and doggy paddle along, seeing a few fish right as I dunk under. Huge bluepurple iridescent clams  muscled closed as I saw above them. Just below the water surface, I was surrounded by an alien world of life that you could not imagine by looking at the waves above. The sea was cloudy with millions of tiny plankton and krill. Huge schools of fish with bumblebee colors swam over and around me. As I neared the point where the reef drops off into the deep sea, I looked out on the blue abyss and felt like I was flying.

Long tails

It is amazing to be close to the water again in Thailand. Besides the beaches, with massive untouched coral heads swarming with wrasses and parrotfish just 10 yards off shore, the best part had to be the little fishing skiffs that act as boat taxis, called "long tails" for the long propeller shaft sticking out the back of the wooden transom. Basically this is a10 foot long shaft with a stainless steel ceiling fan attached to the end. Kind of looks like something out of a Saw movie. Docking doesn't get more complicated than driving the boat up onto the beach, and you hop out. I imagine someone trying to run a taxi service with one of these things back on the New Jersey shore... 3 things: 1) fighting with insurance company to see if possible to get insurance policy, 2) initial success followed by 3) public outrage at passenger or passerby being maimed by open propeller blade that should have never been allowed in the first place, even though accident was not result of boatman's negligence.

It's funny the relationship that developed-worlders maintain with the developing world. You stay in a place like this for a short-enough time that you're able to romanticize the dingy parts and the danger, they make the place more appealing, when you know that thr locals must experience this place in a very different way. In conversations over dinner with fellow travelers you deride the litigiousness of places like the US and wish people would just take it easy. Then you get back to said developed country and with a change of location comes a change of perspective.