This is my rifle, this is for fun

It’s normal for fathers to worry about the safety of their little princesses, but my father worries more about the safety of items and people in the fall out zone of my clumsiness and violence… His eyes flash with fear and his voice betrays his nervousness when he realizes I’m carrying a tray of drinks, playing mini golf, closing a door, pretending (PRETENDING) to punch somebody in the face, going near anything delicate and expensive, touching anything mechanical or electrical (cameras in general, his in particular) so it’s probably for the best that he doesn’t see this photo of me firing a AK-47…

Everybody else had a go with machine guns but I went for the classic assault rifle. I quite fancy one of these now, maybe I’ll get a flatbed Toyota pick up to go with it. I can see insurgent chic being the next big trend down Stoke Newington farmers market (I wouldn’t stand out enough in Dalston though…)

Day 2

We visited the Cu Chi where the Vietcong used tunnel systems to wage guerilla war against the US, the museum bit was a ropey but you got to try out the tunnels (some slightly widened to allow for fat European asses!!) and other stuff…

Day 1

I joined the tour in a different hotel yesterday after I got back from the beach. Had a closer look at the new biggest building in Saigon as I walked up, its massive with a huge platform which I thought was for a restaurant or something but it’s actually a helipad. It’s owned by some petrol company, there’s loads of oil here, which I never really realized but it adds another aspect to the American invasion…

It’s a random ragtag group of aussies, brits and Canadians on the tour either in their twenties or their forties for some reason…might be interesting, might not be…We went for a bit of a wander round in the evening together but I was frankly bored of HCM and quite keen to see something else!! The hotel was a bit shitty but close to the back packing area which is somewhere I’ve not really spent a lot time before – it does what it say’s on the tin and if you want to buy a watered down cocktail, a copy of Mr Nice or a whore then it’s the place to go…

Fountains of Cheese

 “The Worlds Local Bank” often cuts off my supply of money when I travel abroad, which I find exceptionally frustrating and when I was paying in the hotel, I saw the familiar hesitation as the lady tried to put my payment through. I mentally prepared myself for the annoyingly familiar conversation with the Indian call service employee when she came back and told me that I had a 15% discount on my whole bill as I was a HSBC customer. It nearly makes up for the hours of international phone calls…nearly…

The hotel I stayed at was really Chinese (the outside was made of cardboard and stucco like the new Peninsular shopping mall in HK, the rooms were decorated like a shit, fake Victorian themed London Pub, there were ashtrays everywhere and there were random rooms with nothing in them) and I suspect somehow the hand of the Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation was involved...

 
This was my view on the second day. I had two swimming pools all to myself (complete with fountains and bridges) it was AMAZING!!!! I fully understand how lucky I am, I know I can seem like a spoiled little bitch at times but I totally appreciate all these fantastic things, it's just a shame I was on my own...)

Luna de Miel

On the MSN useless facts the other day, there was story about a Taiwanese woman marrying herself, she’s obviously a bit nuts but I think I’ve just been on honeymoon on my own…Vung Tau is a slightly grotty beach resort 90 minutes away from HCM by hovercraft and according to the guide book has a big statue of Jesus and temples and shit, but I don’t care about that!! This is what it’s all about, books, green mango and chilli salt (90 cents) sun, beer and beach (I went in the swimming pool rather than the South China Sea, I don’t want to catch sea AIDS)

My honeymoon nights consisted of me eating cheese and watching Transformers 2 in bed (although I wouldn’t be on honeymoon with anyone who didn’t accept this as a perfectly normal activity anyway- love of cheese, beer, shit sci-fi movies are things I look for in a man- along with big hands and the ability to talk to strangers- I’m not a particularly fussy lady…)

My legs are much more tanned now than this by the way... Como hecho la menos la playa!! The beach was so close when I lived in Alicante. My journey to work used to involve driving past the Med, now it consists of wedging my nose up somebodies armpit as I stand on the train... Spain was boring as shit though when the sun wasn't shining- just need to kep on remembering that!!

Nam nam nam 3

And I also how to make the beef stock in Pho!!! It's like making mulled wine but with more bones....Hope everyone fancies Vietnamese food when I get back!!

Nam nam nam 2

I also learned how to make spring rolls properly (normally the ones I make look like what comes out of a dog after it’s stolen a newspaper and eaten it!!)

Nam nam nam 1

Aaahh my holiday has finally begun!! I’m going to celebrate by not giving in to boredom, loneliness and buy wooden shit, and do something vaguely constructive!!

This morning I learned how much fresh noodles cost in the market, poked some soft shell crabs (they don’t really seem to mind) and found out what banana flowers look like and how to make them into a tasty salad (complete with chilli flower that I carved myself!!)

T-1000

I always wondered if they changed “Hasta la vista, baby” back into English in the Spanish version of Terminator 2 but no, Arnie says “Sayonara, baby” instead, that’s my interesting fact of the day… Getting rid of the orange laptop was a bit like the last scenes of Terminator 2, what with the desperate fight set in a factory, the shape shifting metal and the final lowering of the beast into an industrial smelting pit (ok a cardboard box back to England) but spine chillingly it's clawed it's way out and is in hot pursuit!! Thanks to DHL for their refusal to send batteries without a special package, it looks like the heaviest laptop in the world will be coming on holiday to Cambodia with me…at least I can be in contact with the real world…fuck it, there’s still time for an accident…

I had to go for a farewell dinner with the factory owners son and Charles, it wasn’t too bad apart from when Po was accusing Charles of being too harsh and I agreed. He looked quite surprised and hurt, but on average he does make at least 3 employees a week cry, so frankly he can shut up!! Anyway they dropped me off and the good byes were very casual as always, as we all know, I’ll be back (do you like what I did there, tied in another Terminator reference, you can never have too many!!)

Final view of the factory, which is always amazing (there are 9 more buildings the same size as this for anybody who's interested) The liquid metal pit and nanomorphing laptop are erm...behind me

It's nearly over!!

I got to go out for lunch as it's my last day in the factory and I went with the ladies rather than Charles, which was a nice change!!  Normally I sit in the golf course restaurant listening to him rant about special Chinese metals or a production problem whilst I gaze into the distance over his shoulder, wondering idly if he ever uses prostitutes (because he probably should…) but today I got to listen to a bit of gossip, it wasn’t very juicy, but frankly anything is better than a lecture on dollar fluctuation. I also found out what Ba Ba means, there were signs on the road this morning next to buckets of moving things and I was intrigued. I don’t think I’ll be stopping on the way back to pick up a live turtle for dinner though…

Bella and Susan in the grey van where I spend a lot of my life at the moment...You can tell they're really enjoying it too...not..

Kasa arimasen

Went out for dinner and got trapped in the restaurant by a massive thunderstorm -I just had to have another drink (or three...) until it passed!! I got bored in the end though and walked back to the hotel in the rain (it was nice and warm at least!!) The japanese businessmen in the lift were slightly bemused by my bedraggled appearance though...

Eloi

I saw this fruit yesterday at lunch in Toxic and asked Charles what it was, his answer was as usual "I don't know" He has lived in Vietnam for 5 or 6 years and really has no interest in it or the people (I asked him what Thank you lady's real name was and got the same reply) I asked Rita though and its a "seris" (sounds a bit like the french cerise n'est -ce pas but has three husks in it instead of a stone) and you eat it with salt and ground chillis. Magically loads of these appeared today, which added to the sinking feeling of becoming an eloi in The Time Machine, where they get presented with fruit and sandals by unseen hands but then are snatched from their world above ground and dragged down into the dirty subterranean factories of the morlocks to be a eaten... They probably aren't planning that, probably....

Anyway I 'preciate these fruit more than stinky durian you unnerstan' my mean?

Are you there god, it's me Margaret?

On a more personal note – I know where my extra tampax is, but being in a bag under my desk at work in London, it’s not much good to me… Unfortunately Vietnam is one of those countries that have not discovered this amazing product (this should be held as one of the socio-economic watermarks to show that feminism is functioning in a country – probably…according to…errr…me) so I’ve had to go back to my teenage days and buy rubbish sanitary towels (40p in the local supermarket though yes!!) and in doing so discovering you can become a Professional, here at least!! I’ve been menstruating for 18 years and must be a fucking expert by now, but nobody has offered me any corporate sponsorship for this!! Note to self; when return to UK begin looking for ways to make money out of my periods.

9pm Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

Get back to hotel, check my e-mails and lounge on bed watching How I met your mother/CSI/ a bad romcom always starring Sandra Bullock/some other bollocks and start feeling sleeeeeepy… It’s actually quite a good life detox coming here, you don’t drink as much, you sleep more (and I dream loads here for some reason) and you eat really healthy food. It’s very, very, very dull though… Go to sleep knowing that the next day will be almost exactly the same as this one. Repeat... ooh…. at least 10 times until whole trip merges into one long day!!

8.30pm ish Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

Wander back to the hotel and find the kitten hanging out in the street!! It’s so cute and friendly but really boney, it looks a bit like Val’s cat Bootsy (same stripey belly!!) but weighs nothing. I wonder what would happen if…no!! Reminder to self you’ve done this before and Jeremy still isn’t much of a house cat even after 3 years!! Reluctantly leave kitten rolling around in streams of human piss on the street…no really!I scrubbed my hands clean afterwards!!

7pm Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

I get back to the hotel and then head out for dinner (the room service cheese plate can’t be done everyday) looking out for the little kitten that’s been living in a box next to one of the market stalls at the back of the hotel, but its not there…Most of the motorbike madam men who hang around there can’t be bothered to ask me now!! I went up the road just by the main cathedral to a café I had a drink at the other day. I can tell it’s quite expensive for Vietnam (there’s a waterfall and stepping stones – I’m very easily swayed by girly shite like that!!) but it’s cheap compared to the western restaurants near the hotels. A drink and beef pho cost $5 and the pho is really nice, with actual meat in it and the chillies are really crunchy and fresh. Rainy season is just finishing and it hasn’t pissed it down at all today so I sat outside and enjoyed the heat!! The only thing that ruined it was the muzak, Ronan Keating songs being sung by a girl- this is totally the kind of place a girl like Christina, who used to work at the factory, would come and I bet this is where she picked up that disgusting habit!! I haven’t missed her tuneless droning this week!!

oohh figured out how to add multiple pictures - whoa I'm getting dangerous at this shit mofo!!

6 pm EXACTLY Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

I make my escape in the grey van but it takes about an hour to get back to the hotel, sorry couldn’t take any interesting photos of this trip. Basically everybody is rushing to get home on their mopeds but because they are all talking on their mobiles and getting in each others way, nobody is going anywhere very fast... I haven’t seen anybody carrying giant panes of glass on their mopeds this time so maybe it’s illegal now – I could never look at them before because I didn’t want to see how horrific the accidents would be and to have the image of a violent decapitation repeating in my memory!!

Hotel is quite posh, but there's loads of douchy looking guys (westeners) hanging about who look you up and down as you walk through the lobby, which is a bit disconcerting, especially after a day at the shoe factory when you look like shit. They're probably not giving me the once over in a good way... 

5pm Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

T
une 3 signifies dinner is served and I’m left on my own again. I’m quite hungry at this stage but thank you lady gave me some fruit this morning which has been out all day and is rotting slightly now but I’m just going to eat it anyway!! Mmm fermented!!

1pm Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

Tune 2 comes on and everyone emerges blinking meaning I have to pretend to look busy again!! Today I look run off my feet as I am tapping away at the computer but I’m just writing this stupid blog!! I haven’t got much else to do as I am waiting for samples to appear…

For the rest of the afternoon I hover around in the office and down by the sample track as my presence seems to intimidate them (and make them do work!!) I feel like the bad guy, but frankly I don’t care…More samples appear upstairs and I watch the packing girls actually do something (their normal position is off – they just gaze blankly at the wall for literally hours at a time or pick things out of each others hair!!) This is the stage where you get to pull out anything really scary before it gets sent to London (if you’re quick enough)

It's 7 am in the UK so in two hours I can talk to people from the real world!!!

12.05 pm Groundhog Day (The O'leer Cut)

I take full advantage of being the only person awake to have a good old poke around in the cupboards to see if there is anything interesting they’ve been hiding. This time all I find is 3 rotting bananas that Charles hid from thank you lady three days earlier…I think the mystery of who was hiding half eaten baguettes in the materials cupboard for the mice to finish has been solved…

12 pm Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

After lunch everybody goes to sleep on the floor by their work places, wherever that happens to be – there are bodies under the desks, under the sewing machines, under the conveyor belts…

11.30 am Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

Tune 1 comes on (there are various classical jingles broadcast throughout the day to tell people where to go- the beginning and end of each meal has a different song. You can’t help humming along with them and I’ve heard them so many times I know at exactly which point they suddenly cut off – they are really irritating!!) and that means lunch… to be fair everybody else in the factory has been working since 7.30 but I’m not quite ready. You have to eat it as there won’t be any more food until you get back to the city at about 7.30in the evening, but sometimes it’s a bit difficult when your body thinks its 3.30 am… Its generally the same type of thing everyday, some kind of soup made out of a leaf  which tastes super healthy, a meat/prawn spicy dish, some vegetables (for some reason chips today) and rice or noodles. I thought the orange stuff was just weird Vietnamese ketchup and took a big scoop on a chip- it was actually the hottest chilli sauce I have ever tasted so that serves me right!! I’ve only been given the chicken foetus dish once- I freaked out so much (you could see its eyes through the crispy battered coating) they haven’t bought it again!!

Morning - Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

Morning basically consists of looking at random bits of plastic based synthetic materials  that have similarities to shoes, drawing/cutting them to show the technicians how they should look and listening to Charles rant about something (to be fair he’s been in a good mood most of this trip- he’s been to Taiwan so must have got some…shudder…) I often turn off at this point, especially when he’s talking about dollar exchange rates, tax, Taiwan, and say mmm, yes, you’re right, Charles and gaze out of the window- I wonder if I could make it past the armed guards and over the gate….

9.10 am Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

Pass the Shining Bicycle factory and take the next right and you are here… The heart sinks as the prison gates close behind you and you are back in Fulsome with no possibility of escape or parole...

9.05 am Groundhog Day (The O'Leer Cut)

If you ever want to get married on an industrial estate outside Ho Chi Minh, I would highly recommend this place. You can hire your dream wedding dress for the day (all colours – especially fluorescent ones- available), the floral arch for you and your new life partner to walk though (a fluorescent colourway can be chosen to match your dress, the blooms will be in luxurious, genuine plastic) and a professional photographer to record the magical day (you stood on a dolphin in front of a nuclear sunset) Best of all is the location, as all the passing juggernaut drivers can wish you luck and share a tiny part of your joy as they pull in to the neighbouring Song Than 2 logistics hub.

9.00 am Groundhog Day (The O'leer Cut)

Arrive at industrial estate which is just another city really, lots of people live here and there are shops, cemeteries and about 4 army barracks. There are loads of soldiers around but they don’t seem to be up to much!! You catch glimpses of the cadets in the woods herding cows and the higher ranking officers are always drinking sake and shouting "funny" jokes in the canteen of the fish processing plant (yep thats as beautiful as it sounds) behind the factory…

8.50am Groundhog Day (The O'leer Cut)

We travel through the suburbs, which are a really random mixture of small businesses with heavy industry (people welding and turning wood on massive lathes) sitting next to cafes, wedding photographers studios, moped part suppliers and street vendors selling fruit and lumps of  mysterious animal (hung up under a beach umbrella with the fur still on it yummmm!!)

8.46 am Groundhog Day (The O'leer Cut)

I can’t work out whether this is a really crap job or actually quite nice!! On one hand you are mindlessly carving coconuts all day, under a motorway bridge and probably getting paid very little but on the other hand you get to sit by the river, in the shade and do something quite zen…I’d say its still quite shit though…

8.45 am Groundhog Day (The O'leer Cut)

Head out of city centre over the river towards the industrial estate. The first time I saw these boats I thought they were just muddy islands until I saw them move and then I was just confused about why people would want to move tons of what appears to be piles of crap about (apparently its clay for making bricks further up the river)

8.30 am Groundhog Day (The O'leer Cut)

Sit in grey prison van in rush hour traffic, watching millions of mopeds go past. Its really dusty/polluted now there are more mopeds so most people use face masks, plus vietnamese women have phobia about getting tanned (the girls in the office here use pieces of paper to protect themselves from the sun as they go to different buildings but unfortunately for them I don’t think A4 has a very high SPF factor!!) so they cover themselves up even more. Note this lady’s face mask, gloves and socks (it’s about 24 degrees)…

8.15am Groundhog Day (The O'leer Cut)

Do a bit of people watching as I eat my breakfast. There is a café across the road where some rough looking old dudes sit cackling and play cards every day and occasionally send some younger boys over to the people sitting here to offer to polish their shoes. I’ve been wearing flipflops so have managed to avoid them!! I’ve been leaving orange laptop in a prominent position on the edge of the terrace but still no-one has stolen it- damn you it’s a perfectly good laptop (that weighs more than a small car!!) This street is really busy as there are some big offices nearby and loads of people are getting dropped off- I’ve noticed they don’t really kiss each other goodbye but a playful slap on the arm seems to serve the same purpose!! A punch in the face is probably the same a really good snog...maybe...

8am Groundhog Day (The O'leer Cut)

Make my way down crack alley by side of hotel, past people eating pho to café. I should really try the pho (or a Laughing Cow baguette) for breakfast…but I need (hot) coffee…

You unnerstand my mean

Mmm just stuffed my face in the Vietnamese restaurant in the little courtyard just by the Caravelle (next to the Refinery) – it was probably really expensive for here ($16 for 3 dishes and a drink) but a bargain compared to the hotel - $16 for a burger (no fries) and $20 for the breakfast buffet!! I’ve just been going to a café in the street behind where a croissant and coffee is $3- thought I’d be nice and save my boss some money (even though he doesn’t deserve it at the moment…grrr) Sorry that my blog hasn’t been very exciting so far – my days involve sitting in a van in heavy traffic, watching thousands of mopeds go past, cutting up plastic shoes in a large sweaty building, whilst pulling evil faces at “lying man” my least favourite colleague in the factory, eating pomello, dodging the streams of piss in the back alleys of Saigon looking for places to eat and watching shit US tv in my hotel room. I’m reaching the stage now of struggling to write and talk in joined up English, by the end of the week I will be fluent in pidgin!! To make up for my neglect tomorrow (and to stop me from going mad from boredom whilst waiting for shoes to appear) I’ll try to take pictures of my erm…exciting daily life!!

Bonjour fish boat!!

I've enjoyed my day off today but spent most of last night puking due to a combination of going to Toxic for lunch (this is Val's name for an exceptionally dirty sushi restaurant near the factory) drinking two cups of thank you (cam on) lady's coffee (made using water from the slime covered water cooler I discovered yesterday) and the worst period pains ever- I don't even think I can blame the beer as I was nearly sober by the time I went to bed...I went for a wander by the river to buy tickets for a hydrofoil trip out to Vung Tau beach next weekend and saw the fish boat restaurant again , it looks even scarier in daylight than it does at night!! When we went there for dinner I saw a rat as big as a baby jump out of the kitchen port hole and swim off down the river!! The family entertainment was pretty special too - a fire breathing stripper- all the dads were like "come on kids lets have a closer look at the lady" whilst all the mums held back with sour looks on their faces...Lets just say I didn't sign up for another trip...

Party time!!

Saturday night in HCM, I’ve just been out for dinner with the Taiwanese factory manager and the owner’s son and watched them get drunk on two bottles of (piss weak) beer each (I had 4 because I’m a lady – a northern lady!!) and now I’m trying to decide what to do next!! Do I go to a bar (on my own), do I go to Apocalypse Now- the worst name for a club in Vietnam ever by the way (on my own) or do I stay in my hotel room and watch a Ghostwhisperer double bill on Starworld? The answer is probably the latter…On the one hand you don’t want to be stuck in the hotel just because you’re a woman and you shouldn’t really be going to those kinds of places because its not seen as being the right thing to do, but if you do go, its only really to prove the point that you can do it and it would be rubbish when you were actually there (on your own) Men have it a lot easier when they travel than women do…

I got some good news though when they dropped me back at the hotel- I'm not expected in the factory tomorrow!!! Yey sleep, Yey swimming pool, Yey wandering round Saigon!! I just need to remember to not break the golden rule: boredom+money+saigon=wooden..stuff in my suitcase!!

I'm sorry I scared you mr. taxi man (well a bit sorry)

I’ve been in Vietnam three days now and I’ve only been offered 6 motorbike rides madam so things are definitely changing here. You can tell people are earning more money as everybody is on a moped rather than a bike now. It’s the opposite of London, where the money is flowing out, rather than in and everyone has taken up cycling. There has been a 36% increase in wages in the last year alone (this said in a tragic manner by Charles, the Taiwanese factory manager, overlooking the fact that it’s actually good news for the people of Vietnam) It’s nearly possible to walk down the street like an actual human being without being treated like a big, white sack of money, who will vomit dollar bills on random passersby if prodded correctly (nearly)
Sometimes you don’t even make it out of passport control before someone starts trying to fleece you, but this time I made it as far as the airport gates, when the driver asked me for another $10 on top of the $10 price we had already agreed, apparently as a fee to get out of the airport car park…I don’t think he was expecting the reaction he got, but if he ever finds out that London cabs have soundproof screens and driver controlled doors, I think he will totally understand why…I paid $10…

Cheese

For any of my colleagues bothering to read this blog, the Sofitel is now ranked at #2 in the Official Saigon Cheese Plate Contest (Caravelle #1- more fruit and bread is warm, The Legend #3- only 3 cheeses and rubbish crackers and the Sheraton #324 - no fucking cheese plate) Yes - this really is how exciting our work trips are....

Introducing my (only) travelling companion...

The orange laptop from work AKA the ginger beast, which is no relation to the other ginger beast in my life- Xavier, but weighs roughly the same amount as medium sized dog. Val spends every trip hoping that it will break or get stolen and now my shoulders do too. I left it alone to see if anyone would be tempted to steal it as I raced against time against time to get it to connect to Facebook before the battery ran out (a race which I lost) but unfortunately I was in Hong Kong and the only respose the beast got was pity as the locals glanced up from their mini computers/IPads!! Bastards, just because they were afraid of the hernias it would cause them (although maybe it blended in too much though against the orange furniture so they couldn't see how eminantly thievable it is!!!!)

Bored international businessmen are well catered for in HCM with the excess of girly bars and sports bars available (or even bars that combine the two) but what about the ladies eh? I am going to spend my evenings trying to find "Any Hole's a Goal" which SHOULD exist (it would obviously be football themed rather than golf themed-oooh maybe I should open it if it doesn't) or watching HBO. I can't guarantee this will be an interesting blog but it might stop me going mental on my own...erm maybe....