Southern Vietnam

From Hoi An it was a murderous 30 hours bus ride down to Ho Chi Minh City(HCMC) (the inner city is famous Saigon). I can highly recommend the Reunification Palace in HCMC, the architecture and interieur is hard to find in South East Asia, truely impressive 60s style.
Christmas was strange, or let me say different; cultures merge! Continental European retail industry has discovered Halloween as a promising market gap so do Vietnamese celebrate Christmas. On Christmas Night, people with their scooters populated the streets of Saigon, making a crossing slow and nerve wrecking. Turning around the whole Father Christmas story the kids are dressed up as Father Christmas. Call it globalization: Same same but different.


We joined another one day tourist tour to visit a Chao Dai Tempel and the Vietkong tunnels (what a genious mix!). The tunnels gave me an impression of the horrors of the Vietnamese war and though truely tempting I think its SICK to shoot around with AK47s at such an occasion and in general and anyhow... (please refer to my Lebanon war post).

Another tour (I am sufficiently tour tortured for long time to come) got us around the Mekong Delta. It was terrific countryside, photo objects and foreign things to see. With all the other tourists (you never walk alone...) we had a look at floating markets and the djungel of the Delta!


My travelling group split at this point and we left Leila and Choralie in Vietnam and continued with three: Jaquim, Sophie and me. By boat we left Vietnam to Cambodia on the Mekong. I said good bye Vietnam but the Mekong I revisited again thousands of kilometers up its stream weeks later.

In conclusion: This Post and my stories do not sufficiently reflect Vietnams most important feature: its people. I saw impressive things and got a grip on the geography of Vietnam. I learned about the history, saw the living standards and realized some of the problems. I did not sufficiently get in touch with the people and the Vietnamese society, but in my own defense - on a holiday its hard to achieve that.

Vietnam

Finally something about the trip... that's a two months delay!!

Anyways: I went on holidays with 4 other Europeans, exchange students from CUHK. Wu ge pengyou (the five friends/ Die Fünf Freunde ohne Timmy dem Hund) departed from Hong Kong mid December 2006 to take the nightbus to Southern China. From there we had a daylong bustrip(s) over the Vietnamese border to Hanoi. The ride was funny though slightly annoying. Vietnam welcomed us with its rough side: scam and touristprices/ touristservice. Even the official moneyexchange wanted to have its share. Anyhow, we made it.


We spent only one day in Hanoi - we figuered the lack of time already than! In Hanoi my two future companions decided to remain with me almost for the whole trip - I was positively surprised, expecting to make it from Vietnam on my own.


The next stop was Halong Bay: GOSH! That countryside must have been designed by Slartibartfast. It a coastal area and thousands of mountainous islands are scattered in the water.
We joined one of the obligatory tour trips which makes you feel pretty much like a tougher all-inculusive tourist. But the countryside payed it back and we had a good time, also with the other folks on the boat and Jaquim lost a few rounds of chess.



We headed down south in the slow tourist busses which took us to Hoi An, a pitoresque, charming city (though overpopulated by tourists and taylors). The town is full of very nice (!)souvenir shops, restaurants and taylors. We couldn't resist the offer of taylor made shoes, jackets, trousers ... and ... finally: Wu ge pengyou got Wu ge (5x) Kimonos. All this stuff we had to carry around with us from there on.

Harbour of Hoi An, ©Zara

Path of Life

My future is out there. Yours is, too. It's the nature of future not to be here right now and not to be part of our past (except if you are Marty McFly). Therefore it must be ahead.

I know for sure that something is going to happen in a few months to come. I'll let you know if I know the details of the future and that will happen in our future past! Ooor God calls me back and tells me all about it. I gave the old fellow a call the other day but only reached his answering machine, gosh, that needs an update, its still in Hebrew!

Anyways, I am on the quest to find a master program, right on time (two weeks before deadlines). I want to post some links just in case anyone feels like checking what mess you missed out on:

Study in Norway
Study in Sweden
Study in Germany
Studieren in Österreich
Study in the Netherlands
Postgraduate studies in the UK

Smartass quotes on the future:

develish sarcastic "Future: that period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true, and our happiness assured." - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary(1)

sad "I have made good judgements in the past. I have made good judgements in the future." - George W Bush. (1)

antiquarian "Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." - Kierkegaard. (1)