Vietnam – Day 5

It’s been a while since I wrote something here. I’ve been busy. In several hours’ time I will head to Shanghai for a holiday. It will be chilly but hopefully fun. Will write more when I’m there, if the internet connection’s working and we’re not being charged an exorbitant fee.

We had a brief stopover in Bangkok en route to London. We landed at Heathrow Airport. Unfortunately it was at the old terminal, which was fully showing its age. The red carpet we stood on was so worn out, that in some areas the underlying white threads were showing. The airport staff was as brusque…

We checked out at 10 a.m. and drove 600 kilometres along the Albany Highway. I did about two-thirds of that, since most of it involved going in a straight line and the only real challenge was not to fall asleep or get my right arm seared by the scorching sun. We stopped over a few…

We visited the main Cao Dai temple. Previously, this was a secretive religion until the Communists insisted that they open up. Now they even have an entrance for tourists! However, Cao Daism is still very powerful and if you don’t agree with this religion, you can’t live in the area. There’s a story that someone…

We had a pleasant two-hour flight into HCM City (aka Saigon). The ride into town was quite an experience. In Saigon, there’s a gentle sort of organised chaos on the roads, where motorcyclists, cyclists, cars and pedestrians avoid each other by inches, and do it almost effortlessly. Their trick is to move slowly. We passed…

My flight between Singapore and LA was uneventful. Watched a French movie, “The Great Meaulnes” which reminded me of The Great Gatsby as both stories are depressing. I watched the last quarter of Happy Feet, and re-watched Casino Royale which I still think has a kickass plot. We had a short stopover in between, at…