Ari on the web

Vietnam lacks a royal family. As a proudly socialist republic is egalitarian enough to understand the folly of royals and their assorted paraphenalia. Thailand and Cambodia make portraits of their king unavoidable in a stroll around the main street, and the respective monarchs seem to have a calming influence on a hectic population. Indeed, the royals seem to be social gelatine, holding together otherwise disperate ethic and social groups with a common identity and figure of admiration. In the absense of royalty, however, Vietnam has created its own. Ho Chi Minh is unavoidable on the streets of Vietnam, with his face of wisdom peering out over restaurants, cafes and government buildings, whilst his statue liberally dots boulevards and intersections. HCM is Vietnam, and Vietnam ceases to exist as it is without HCM. Politically, HCM represents the father of the nation and its socialist ideology. His role, however, is much greater, in that he acts as a unifying force, much i...

Hoi An is renowned for its old world charm, its charming little village, the charming merchants at the market, the charming antiquated museums, the charming traditional music performances... in other words, the place is supposedly chockers with charm. After spending twenty-four hours in this UNESCO-listed Charmapalooza, I am willing to say that it is nothing special. Vendors hawk their wares with little concern for the lack of use for much of what is being sold. Tailors try to measure you up for a suit even as you persist in walking down the street. The fish and meats sits in a seemingly-inedible form at the market, as locals purchase some as they lick their lips. And moto drivers cruise the streets, desperate to score a ride even though the town is a simple grid of half a dozen streets, easily navigable (except in a few cases, see below). On one occassion I was desperate to buy a replacement for my waterlogged beach/bath towel, which has endured much punishment in the past mon...

Vietnam is about 90% Buddhist, but you wouldn't know it judging from the omnipresence of all things Christmas. A walk through the main streets of Saigon will leave you drenched in a sea (the metaphor seemed okay when I thought of it) of red, green and white tinsel, and your ears polluted by the sounds of tacky Christmas carols being blared out of shop fronts. According to some who had been here a while, major public Christmas celebrations have only started in Vietnam in the past couple of years. Based on that, I'd suggest that Vietnam is like the little boy who has just discovered his genitals, and now can't stop playing with them. The Christmas paraphenalia is so much more in-your-face then anything experienced back home. Given that Catholics are only a small part of the population, it seems clear that any notion of the spiritual side of Christmas is minimal. Instead, this is naked commercial opportunism, and the Vietnamese have taken to it with gusto. The spread ...

Sunday night was a big one in Nha Trang. It was a full moon, you see, and so that was the convenient excuse for half of the travellers to NT to head to the local Sailing Club ('ello Sailor!) and drink the local specialty - bucket cocktails, drunk out of an oversized jam-jar and liberally doused with alcohol. By 3am, the folks at the Sailor's Club were calling it stumps (my term, not theirs) and so I decided to call it a night and head home. Whilst walking the three kilometres or so from the Sailor's Club to my hotel, I came across the Manchester Hotel, or more specicially the monkey-man who was scaling the wall and thrust himself on to the balcony of a first-floor room. Monkey-man and I stared at each other for a moment, before he swatted in my general direction, mosquito style. There was no doubt at all in my mind about his intentions, particularly given the fact that theft in a seaside town such as this is very high. In my drunken state, I considered my options ...

Hello all. I've just logged on for the first time in two days and heard the horrible news. I was completely oblivious to it all, with only a few murmers from other tourists about something dangerous happening in Sri Lanka. I had no idea of the scale. I'm stuck in Vietnam at the moment, a fascinating place but not the place to be when big news is breaking. The little TV that I have seen has all been on the three government-owned channels, which have marked the natural disaster by screening wall-to-wall aging American movies with bad dubbing. Just like they honour every other day. Personally, I was completely unaffected by it. At the time when the earthquake hit I was in Nha Trang, a beachside resort on the east coast of Vietnam. Thankfully we were far enough from the site of the quake to be unaffected by it. No tsunami. No tremors. Clearly, we were the lucky ones.

Greetings from Mue Ne, a sleepy little beachside town that goes off at night. Think of it like the Lorne of Vietnam, except without the Schoolies. Nothing much to report about Vietnam itself from this particular vantage point. There are lots of Russians. Tourists can be arseholes. The sun is hot. Stuff happens. A few quick bits and pieces about whatever: - Sorry to those of you who got my little email, and when you clicked through on the link which was supposed to take you to the blog found yourself on the Mega site of bible studies and information . My bad. Hopefully with a bit of deft enginuity you would have spotted my typo and clicked through to the correct site. If not, then you won't be reading this and the message is largely irrelevant. - The itinerary on the right keeps chopping and changing. I've recently decided to abandon my plans to visit Laos on the grounds that (a) it's too far (b) it's too boring and (c) I still can't work out how ...

It's an old but true cliche that history is told by the winners. In the still-Communist People's Republic of Vietnam, that is remarkably true. There are several major sights throughout Siagon (the capital of the former South Vietnam, and losers of the war... a fate they won't forget too easily) dedicated to commemorating the American War, and each of them act as a stake through the heart of the Americans and South Vietnamese. Yesterday I ventured to the War Musuem, which was formerly called something like the American War Crimes Memorial until they realised it was scaring off visitors. It serves as a comprehensive assessment of the war, through the eyes of the communist North Vietnam. There's no tact or subtlety to the message - the evil imperialist Americans and their puppets in the south committed heinous offences, and the world should never forget. The horrors of life in non-Communist South Vietnam are shared, as are the cruel and barbaric tactic used by the ...