Singapore and Vietnam 2010

Disclaimer: I don't blog. I never have. The majority of below is a copy and paste of an email I wrote to family whilst overseas. So, it's not in the format of a blog. But on Cat's encouragement, we're starting a blog. Why not.

Here's a snippet of our July 2010 South East Asia honeymoon trip.

One word: wonderful.

So, to our first ever blog... :)

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Singapore and Vietnam

July 1 - July 12 2010

The heat of Singapore was matched by it's efficiency. No where else have I experienced a less than 10 minute process from landing to bag pickup. My initial instinct to speak broken and simple English was soon dispelled... A nation of perfect speaking Asians. Best of both worlds.

Met with Nabil and Ben and cabbed it to their home on perfectly maintained streets lined with tropical plants and showered by leafy trees. The one thing that continued to impress was exactly that - the beauty of the everyday. The greenery was everywhere - the city concrete completely softened by lush and exotic borders.

Singaporean people are wonderfully friendly. They are genuinely wanting to help. It's the only place I've been to where cab drivers round down their charges instead of bargain for more. Air is clean, cleanliness is enforced, yet the Asia market feel still is not completely lost.

But our trip to Vietnam has thus far been the highlight. At first landing in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) it felt just like another bustling busy Asian city infested with unexciting, overweight white-skinned and sandal wearing tourists. Ho Chi Minh's back streets offered some insights into vietnamese cuisine and culture, but overall it's feel was one swamped by that of a tourist hub. Not something we wanted to stay too long within.

An 8 hour bus trip to the central highlands on day 3 of our stay in Vietnam was about to take our trip to a whole new level of richness. Cat, Ben, Faya, Anisa and I were met with cooler weather, only a handful of foreigners, a charismatic and very helpful hotel owner and a beautiful mountainous backdrop. Ho Chi Minh dwellers escape the heat of summer to the highlands in Dalat, and we were soon to lap up the most luxurious and thrilling experience of our trip yet.

While Cat, Ben and I were happy to stay at a local and well established hostel, Faya and Anisa had booked the premium and most acclaimed resort in the highlands. It wasn't until we visited the Ana Mandara that Cat and I were swayed into it's charm. Words fail to capture its beauty, surroundings, quiet charm and tranquility... Just imagine; French architecture in rustic settings, a constant scent of jasmine flowers, the window view of the Vietnamese countryside, avocado and fruit trees and flowering fields of neighboring villages. Cat and I couldn't resist, and very unlike us, succumbed to the inescapable beauty of Ana Mandara. For two nights we lived in a wooden French villa, served by request, with pillows scented with a choice of natural plant perfumes. Our bathroom was the size of an entire floor of a standard hotel. Equipped with a fireplace and our very own butler, the following stay in Dalat was one of hitherto unknown luxury. The buffet breakfast was crazy. So much good food and only a 4 hour window to down it. The Vietnamese are unsustainably friendly and loving, smiles are pure and genuine.

Hiring motorbikes on the first day set the mood - adventurous during the day, relaxed in immodest luxury by night. Travelling through grueling traffic, weaving between trucks, busses and a swarm of motorbikes, even dodging unpredictable movement of cows - Vietnam took on a new level of exciting discovery. We travelled deep into the dalat mountains, where even our beloved iPhone Google maps couldn't locate. Passing hectares of coffee fields and sugar cane, it felt infinitely wonderful and free to be distanced from the impersonal and lifeless body of the western world. Here, communities still serve each other. Children still enjoy simple pleasures. Villages are alive.

A week quickly passed and we grew to love Vietnam's highland's more daily. As I write this I'm now off the east coast of Thailand on Koh Tau island. I still miss Vietnam. I really felt something there. We both did. Thailand has been commercially exploited, whereas Vietnam still retains its own unspoiled character. Many areas of Thailand is filled with European rude, overweight and sunburnt tourists, while Vietnams' pace and Ho Chi Minh's chaos still manages to fend off the less adventurous.