Via Singapore to Saigon

Travelling for me is like a drug, and believe me when I say I have an addictive personality.

It has been over a year since I last left Australia for adventure, and although I love living in Sydney being back out on the road again is like stretching a muscle or having my humours all realigned. I feel the same when I get some action after seeing none in a little while (sorry mum, but that reminds me it's been almost 3 months and I need to stretch). Nonetheless it feels great to be back out seeing the world again even though this chilled trip is only set to last less than two weeks. 

To be honest, as you've seen, I've really needed it. Samtember is hours away from being over and though I said we could have Samtober there really shouldn't be a need to do so. Besides October is for Halloween, November for NaNoWriMo and December for Christmas. I don't want to overshadow or ruin these holidays and events by dwelling more on my past failures, disappointments and men that don't deserve me. Samtember was about picking myself up again and reclaiming some of that lost self esteem by reminding myself that not only am I amazing but that I've been riding solo my whole life already and shouldn't let that bother me.

At any rate I have been awake since the ungodly hour of 4am Sydney time and now finally sit here typing at 9pm local time in Saigon - I legitimately struggle with the city's proper name for no reason at all. It's been a very long but pretty great day since leaving Australia at dawn, cruising most of the light hours at high altitude and spending some very nostalgic quality time in Singapore's Changi airport. The last time I had spent much time there was at the very beginning of La Vie back in 2014 - also the last time I was in South East Asia.

It's been a long, entertaining day that really got off on the right foot when the Singapore Airlines lady took one look at my passport photo featuring myself as a brunette and told me to stay blonde. You win, hair, light it is for the foreseeable future. I started as a blonde, and now I'm just back to basics. 

It was made better by the number of cocktails I pushed on the plane and the comedies I watched to get me through (Angry Birds, Love & Friendship, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates). I had been down again the night before but damned if I am not leaving those woes behind on September 29th. Instead I embrace one moment after the next from the Sunflower Garden at Changi that looked just as I had left it, to the traffic in Saigon that crossing the road made me feel that perhaps I was going to die. I am not a religious person in any way, though I am spiritual/agnostic, and I was so scared of making a crossing at one point my knee-jerk reaction was to make the sign of the cross. Wow. This is not my first time in a place consisting of mental traffic, and in fact Cairo was worse, but I suppose that given the nature of the trips premise and theme I am not quite on my game as I have been in the past. For that matter Al, my best friend and frequent travel partner, and I rated styles of travel. We classes South East Asia a Level 3, with Level 1 being such as the United States and the UK, Level 2 being non-English speaking First world European countries (ie France). There were others, such as Morocco, Turkey and Egypt being close to Level 5. But that was based on our experiences entirely.

Arriving in Saigon was seamless and so much more relaxed than I anticipated; for once even as tourists it didn't feel too much like we stuck out. In such a contrast to our experiences in Turkey and Egypt we walked down the street without anyone seemingly to really care too much - it's refreshing to not be catcalled, stared at or propositioned in the street. Not to lie that occasionally by the right person that can be flattering (like maybe 5% of the time), though generally when travelling to places like this it really isn't. In fact it can get downright threatening and I have been known on occasion to get my back up about it, modern woman that I am. That in mind we still did have some lovely interactions for example with a coconut vendor who not only helped us cross the street but chatted to us and then handed Al and myself each an iced cold coconut, lopped off the top of it and handed us a straw. It was some of the freshest, tastiest coconut water I've ever had and the experience alone made the entire thing worth it. 

Considering the atrocities handed to the Vietnamese people of the last century by the French and US (Australia and the NZ-ers too by default) they are some of the nicest people I've ever met. 

At the War Remnants museum, which brought me to tears in a way I haven't been since Auschwitz, there was a very clear line in the sand about what the war has caused the people. Agent Orange, civilian massacres and unwanted interference during a fight for independence ravaged the proud nation and left hundreds of thousands dead, maimed and psychologically torn. There are plaques littered throughout the museum that piece together the beginning, middle and end to the war that became a bigger and nastier deal than it should have been because the US violated the terms of the agreement set out in the Geneva Convention. There is no sugar coating it - war crimes, crimes against humanity and effective genocide was committed because the US, originally funding the French, couldn't just stay out of it. And it's even worse knowing that Australia, hero worshipping its big brother US after the Second World War, let ourselves be dragged into it. It's disgusting, I'm ashamed, and I cannot fathom the level of unmitigated arrogance that must have come from the US officials to even consider that what they were doing was right. But then considering these same idiots are looking more and more like they will actually end up electing Donald Trump as president after all I am almost unsurprised. It's like watching a trainwreck involving a big, dumb jock who thinks that his tramping around is actually doing more good than harm. There is so much face-palm in effect I can't even begin.

War is not something I like to think about, though I think that world peace is an unattainable pipe dream as everyone's idea of utopia is different (um, Adolf Hitler, anyone?), and this museum really just reminded me of how much history seems to just repeat itself all the time. The human race is the best in the world for lying to itself, as I well know, that what it's doing isn't wrong like what happened before. Did the US miltary relate itself to the Nazi party in the 1960's when it was burning villages and disembowelling civilians in Vietnam? No, but they were stupid to think that they were at all better. The difference was that the Nazi party was more organised and clear in their goal. Think about it.

And yet Vietnam is one of the most friendly places I've ever visited to date that it is actually incredible. It's humbling and it stirs my need to fight for justice again like the not-so closet vigilante that I am. I may wear hippy pants today, friends, but I am no hippy. 

I do feel relaxed however in a way I haven't truly felt for a few months - all baggage in Sydney and filed back into perspective. I've strolled, chatted, snapped pictures, bargained in the market place and laughed a lot already. My only wish is that I could be away longer - oh, and that there had turned out to be an attractive, eligible bachelor on our tour for me to flirt with. The 'raincoats' that I very hopefully packed have gone out the window, but the welcoming and kind group of people we have joined are definitely a better balm for the soul. I do still need to wash that man right out of my hair, though - even just to kiss someone else again would be enough. He, who betrayed me, needs to be gone. 

I'll be back to the market place, relaxing, taking on every new experience that I can and immersing myself every step of the way. It's a whole new world. On a side note, however, it's a bizarre thing to walk through a public park in the heart of downtown Saigon and see crowds searching...for Pokémon. 

Sam xox