Singap 06 - .....

2006-11-05T21:11:00.000+08:00

Hi people from everywhere. Long time no see.

Finally yesterday, Saturday, we found something interesting to do (in the sense that it can be reported on this page). So we decided to spend one day in Johor Bahru, the city across the strait separating Singapore from Malaysia for those of you who haven't followed the previous stories. People from Singapore usually go to this place only for shopping because Malaysia is a cheaper country. Why not act local? Let's go shopping in JB, said we, and spend our last ringgits (Malaysian currency).

Olivier, Lea, her visiting sister and myself left the campus around 10 am (very early to wake up, compared with the previous weeks), took a cab to the Woodlands checkpoint, and entered JB after crossing the bridge. I am not really familiar with the history of this place, but basically it has now become a cheap(er) shopping centre for Singaporeans. That is what I understood of what people here feel about it.

So that was our day. We spent the biggest part of it in THE big mall, just hanging around, and did just a bit a walking through the town to say we did some cultural stuff. In fact, it was no so exciting, it was just a way to get out of Singapore for a day without spending tons of money. Maybe next time I should go to a real cultural place, such as the Asian Civilisations' Museum.

The JB crew

Yes! Another Malaysian stamp in my passport

Seen in JB

A big lunch

A funny thing in the mall

Streets of JB

A UBJB (Unidentified Building in JB)

As far as life on campus is concerned, the most notable thing these days is the exams coming up. It really seems to be a big event here, you see many posters in the uni to remind you they are coming, and offer you mental help if you feel depressed because you work too much, or stressed, or whatever else. Events such as exam dinners are also planned...the cultural shock I guess. Fortunately I do not fall in this category. Before the end of the semester, I will try to tell you about my daily life, and show you what the campus is like.

Caring Neighbours

2006-10-08T13:12:00.000+08:00

Over the past couple of days, there has been some kind of persisting fog, smog, or whatever you want to call it all over Singapore. At first I thought it was maybe a higher humidity in the air that gave it this appearance, but I was told that it was a phenomenon that came around every year around this time.

It is a 100% man-made haze, originated in Indonesia, on the Sumatra Island. Local farmers, wanting to clear their lands or bring donw huge areas of forests simply burn the lands, hundreds of acres at a time, causing a giant haze to cover Singapore, Malaysia, and sometimes Thailand.

If you are interested, you can find more information about this problem on mongabay.com, another article and pictures of the haze on wikipedia.com.

Good Week Vietnam

2006-10-04T18:06:00.000+08:00

Sunday, October 1st, Singapore. Baptiste, Erik, Omar, and I got back from Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City, HCMC) yesterday afternoon. As promised, I will try to give you a full insight in our week in wonderful Vietnam, day by day. Just before starting this long story, I want to tell you that this trip was one of the best in my life, we enjoyed it so much, and we are all looking forward to returning to this very special country. Hope you enjoy!

Saturday, September 23rd, Day 1

Our Tiger Airways flight from Changi airport in S'pore to Ho Chi Minh City was scheduled at 6.40am, so we decided to take the last train to the airport on Friday night, to save about 50 sing$, and wait several hours in the airport. Changi airport is definitely are very comfortable airport with all the facilities you can wish for. However, our flight, being with the budget Tiger Airways, was departing from the budget terminal, meaning of course budget conditions to spend the night. We still managed to set ourselves more or less comfortably on the floor or on the benches, and patiently waited for our check-in time. I just managed to exchange a couple of Euros into Vietnamese Dong, at a pretty bad rate, but just in case we needed any immediately on arrival. 1€ is equivalent to 20,000VND. Tiger Airways is a standard budget airline, safe enough in my opinion, and with just the service you expect, meaning some kind of flying bus. We arrived in HCMC around 7.50am, because strangely enough, Vietnam is one hour behind Singapore, despite being further east. First vision of Vietnam, of course, the airport. HCMC airport was at first sight some kind of old and decrepit airport, which seemed to be just as those you could expect in communist countries in the 80s. Just the time to pass immigration, add a stamp to my passport, collect our luggage, we were immediately thrown into the wild life of Saigon. Because we were 5 with a fair amount of luggage and had plenty time, we decided to take the bus to the centre instead of a taxi (we managed to resist the very pressing local taxi drivers), after having checked that it was possible to get to the hotel we had found on the internet. The bus ride took about 20 minutes, and cost us each 4,000dong (0.2€), instead of the normal 2,000, because of the size of our bags. Still, it was affordable enough. This first striking thing for Westerners like us was the incredible number of motorbikes in the streets. They were simply everywhere. In front, behind, left, right, on the pavement, moving in all directions, hooting coming from all around us, but everyone seeming to be in control of their movements.
We eventually got off at the stop indicated by the ticket seller on the bus, and walked a couple of meters to find the Yellow House Hotel, located at Bui Vien, 31, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City. We hadn't booked any hotel before arriving, so we could be free to see if liked it or not before choosing. This one seemed to be exactly the type of place we were looking for, had enough free beds, and the streets around busy enough for us, so we settled ourselves in a 5-bedded room, originally for 4 beds, and went for a local breakfast while waiting for the previous people to check out. We walked down the Bui Vien Street and chose a not too hardcore local place for our first Vietnamese meal. Of course, I had to order some spring rolls (or nem or cha gio in viet), and we all had a little sample of Vietnamese cuisine for this first meal. The other guys being tired, we then returned to the hotel, took a shower, they had a little nap, and I thought I might just go for a little walk around the hotel, and buy myself a belt-type purse to keep all my money and passport safely under my pants. Before going out, I met a French-speaking Vietnamese who had spent many years in France, had a chat with him, exchange some more money, and just walked round the block, found the type of purse I was looking for 30,000dong (1.5€), and returned to the hotel. Baptiste having woken up, we went together for another walk, and then when we were all finally operational, we decided to go touring round Saigon. To the advice of the hotel manager, we started off in direction of the "famous" Benh-Tanh Market, about 15 minutes away from our hotel. All along the way, we were offered various bicycle or motorbike taxi services, many books (or photocopies of books) such as Lonely Planet guides, cigarettes, sunglasses, postcards, fans, etc, by street vendors. We then had a little around this big market, each bought our yellow-starred red t-shirt (the Vietnamese flag) for 1 or 2 dollars (most places take indifferently USD or VND), decided to come back to this place at the end of our trip so we wouldn't have to carry around all our souvenirs. Vendors in this market, and especially in the textile part, are probably the most aggressive vendors you can come across, almost suffocating when you walk through the very tight alleys of T-shirts, shirts, jeans, local clothes. Coming out of the market, Andrew, as a perfect tourist, started to show some interest in a lighter offered by a guy in the street, and very rapidly, all the people who had something to sell gathered around him seeing he could be interested. It took us a long 15 mins to get clear of these never giving-up vendors.
Next direction, towards the Saigon River, maybe there would be a nice river walk, but it turned out that the place was not really as we see the river banks in Paris or other places, so not so attractive. Our attention was however drawn to a cross-river ferry landing and loading point, which every so often poured out hundreds of motorbikes and scooters on either side of the river. It was already getting towards the end of the afternoon, so we decided to find a way to call Thang, a Vietnamese whom I had had an email contact with thanks to another Vietnamese guy I met in NTU. We found a street phone (a lady with 3 phones in the street selling phone call minutes), and agreed to meet Thang around 9pm at the hotel. Walking along the streets, Andrew was once again stopped by someone selling something, except that this time, it was a girl or lady (she looked very young but must have been around 20) advertising for massages in a salon nearby. Because of our interest in a massage and two Australian tourists who told us their massages were very good, we told the girl we would go and get some food and be back in an hour to go enjoy relaxation. We ate a Vietnamese Pho (noodle soup), and returned to this girl who was still waiting for us at the exact same point. She led us to her place, and we chose the 90 minutes long full-body massage with oils and stuff. It was the first time I ever had a "professional" massage, and I can only recommend it to all of you. The massage girl really took care of all decent parts of my body, including my head, walked on my back (which almost made me scream when she made my spine crack), did some type of reflexology in my feet, etc, etc. You simply feel so good after that. I must get another one before I leave Asia.
By the time the massage was finished, it was already past 9 so we had to hurry to get back to the hotel, and decided to use this motorbike taxi to get back. As our first experience in the local traffic, we were a bit scared but in the end, because the traffic is quite slow (rarely over 40 km/h), you do not feel so much in danger. But of course, almost no one wears a helmet when driving, including us as taxi passengers. We each had our driver, and I have a nice video of that ride, I will see if i can find a way to upload it somewhere. When we arrived, Thang was waiting for us, and we decided to go a club called Apocalypse Now (...), we had read about in the Lonely Planet. So the 5 of us, Thang and another German guy I met earlier in the hotel took a "normal" big taxi to this club, and spent the rest of the night there. In Saigon, according to the law, clubs and pubs should all close at midnight, but some special places (in the tourist area) have permission to stay open later, 2am for this club. A very awkward thing about clubs there is that you see policeman inside, checking people do not kiss, have a "decent" behaviour, and in the Apocalypse Now, there must have been at least ten cops. The funniest one had the duty to stand on the stage just above the dancefloor, spending all night just next to the speakers and looking down into the crowded dancefloor. You could clearly see he was also moving in rhythm with the music, and sometimes even singing, when local songs came up. Very funny. It is normally also forbidden to take pictures in the club, but at the end of the night, I got a picture with this guy. Hehe. About girls in the club (and in all the places we saw in Vietnam), it is simply crazy to see how many beautiful girls there are, we were all stunned. They are all so pretty, and they seem to like Westerners, so they really come dancing with you very easily. For a first day in Vietnam, we can say it was exciting.

Sunday, September 24th, Day 2

Waking up at a reasonable time, we tasted the breakfast at the hotel, made up of a banana, scrambled eggs, tea, and toasts, pretty standard, but good for starting a new day. Andrew and I had agreed with two girls in the club the previous night to meet in the lobby at 12 to go visiting Saigon. When they got there, the other 3 guys were still sleeping, so we decided to go just the 2 of us with An and Anh (different pronunciation). They had come together on one motorbike, and since they both seemed to be experienced local drivers we rented a second bike for the day, around 8us$, and hoped on the back of both bikes ready for a very long ride around Saigon. We stayed on the bike all day long, and never managed to come out of the city, it must be so big. We saw many different places, but we don't really know what it is we saw. It was simply a more local point of view of Saigon, very interesting. They didn't really know what they wanted to show us so it was just going around without any plan. I like not having any plans. Around 2pm, it started to rain, a kind of rain you never experience in Europe, so hard, with enormous drops, but it was still so warm. I don't know how these two girls still managed to drive under this rain. I was sitting behind and could hardly keep my eyes open, but they didn't really seem to be bothered by these conditions, and calmly continued their way through the drenched streets, until we finally stopped in a 100% local food place. I had not even had to finish taking of my poncho bought on the side of the road when it started raining for 3,000dong, when dishes were already arriving at our table. The girls must have said a couple of words to the waiter, wanting to make us try typical stuff. Anyway some kind of rice porridge, boiled duck, and coagulated duck blood (not much taste but with local spices it was very nice) were displayed in front of us and we filled our stomachs before going back to our motorbike trip. Throughout the day, I really realised how big this city was, how busy it was everywhere, and was amazed by the number of mini-shops all over the place. It is very simple to describe: each house or each entrance with a road access is a shop, selling clothes, fruit, mooncakes, motorbikes, repairing motorbikes, music, or anything else you can think of. The only "shop" you won't find is Mcdonalds, because it doesn't exist in Vietnam, but anyway, I hope you won't go there to eat that stuff. Around 5pm, feeling a bit tired of driving, they suggested we went bowling, so bowling we went, had a couple of games (it was around 10US$ for the four of us for two games), and then headed back to our beloved Yellow House Hotel, once again under the pouring rain, but this time it being almost dark. Still, no accident, no feeling of danger, the hundreds of bikes all seeming to move along in chaotic harmony.
Nothing special about that evening, just taking it easy, going to a restaurant for dinner, a couple of beers, and back to bed.

Monday, September 25th, Day 3

It was this day we had chosen to do our first real tourist visit: the Cu Chi tunnels, remnants of the Vietnam War, used by the VCs (Vietcong) against the Americans, but also previously against the French colonial power. So we woke up very early at about 7am and left with our guide and fellow travel mates in a minibus. According to himself, the guide served under American commandment during the war as a boat and helicopter driver, but I cannot remember all the details of his speech. He was a very entertaining guide who really seemed to know what he was talking about, and really mean it. On the way, he refreshed our memories on the Vietnam warS, which do not only include the one against the Americans, but also the previous ones against the French and others, and the following one against China, which ended in 1980. He explained us how the Vietnamese population had risen from about 30 million after WWII to 84 million nowadays, and that the government was now encouraging families to limit themselves to 2 children. He also showed us the loud speakers you find in most streets through which the government speaks to its population every morning (Good morning Vietnam), giving them the local news, as other types of information. Going to the tunnels, the bus stopped at a handicapped factory, where people, who didn't seem so handicapped were making decorations painting eggshells. This was the way used by the government to take all the very poor and handicapped people out of the streets of Saigon after the wars so that they wouldn't bother tourists. After this not very interesting stop, we arrived at the Cu Chi tunnels location, where we were first shown a video on how bad Americans were to the brave local population. It is true that after this trip, you can wonder why Americans went to Vietnam in the first place. Anyway we were there to visit, so they showed us how the Vietcong had built three levels of tunnels, one for everyday life (kitchens, factories, dormitories), one for communication, and one for emergency escape, about 10 meters deep underground. The total lengths of the tunnels is over 200km, and they reached right under the nearby American base, because that is the place where they had the least chances of being bombed, very clever people. We then walked around the area, seeing various holes made by B52 bombs, we learned that they Americans, using napalm over the tunnels only made them stronger, because all the ground at that place is clay. We saw all the different type of traps set by the VCs (most of them originally being hunters) in the jungle, you wouldn't want to fall in any of them. We arrived at a shooting range where we could shoot most American original guns and a AK-47 Kalachnikov for 1.6$ per bullet. Andrew, Baptiste and I decided to have a try at the famous AK-47. It really does make a tremendous noise. I wouldn't ever want to be caught in gunfight. Just the sound of the guns would make me run away. Finally, we got to the most important part of the visit, entering the tunnels. The part we went through was 100m long, it was totally dark inside, except for the few electric lights they put in for tourists, and you can only crawl or walk crouching in them. By the time got out, we were totally drenched because it was so hot inside. That was the end of the visit of the Cu Chi tunnels.
We got back to our hotel in Saigon around 2pm, and wanted to go get some lunch, but it took us at least 1 hour to find a "real" restaurant (as opposed to the little hawkers on the sides of the streets which didn't appeal to all of us), where we ate, again, some fried spring rolls and other Vietnamese soups. We thought about visiting a couple of museums after our meal, but by then, they were already closed (Revolutionary Museum, Reunification Palace), so we just had another walk across the town, went to the Notre-Dame cathedral, visited the central post-office, bought a couple of stamps I didn't use (I hope none of you are expecting post cards from Vietnam), and headed back to the hotel, nothing special about that evening.

Tuesday, September 26th, Day 4, Departure to the Mekong Delta

Map from TravelFish

The previous day, we had finally discussed the terms of our trip in the Mekong Delta with the little travel agency in our hotel, had agreed on a 3-day travel, spending 2 nights in "homestays". We also thought it would be better to have a private tour to have more flexibility, for a little extra charge. The only thing the manager told us was that we would have an Australian couple as travelmates for the first day, not a big deal. So early that morning, we boarded our Mercedes minibus with the driver, Lee our guide, Kelly and Luke, the Australians.
First destination, a place with the lovely name My Tho. A quick boat ride to cross one of the numerous parts of the splitting Mekong, and get on an island, which seemed quite well designed only for tourists. We first watched some people hand-making coconut candy, but a couple of these very sweet delights, then moved towards some kind of fruit bar where ate....fruit. Many types of local fruits (most of which you can also find in Singapore) including pineapple, papaya, rambutan, local bananas, and others which I cannot remember the name, all these served with a cup of tea. While we were enjoying these fruit, two men sat beside our table, one bearing a guitar and the other a local one-stringed kind of violin. They started playing some typical Vietnamese music, and three women sang us some songs. Very nice to listen to but maybe a little too exaggerated. We then moved on in the island to another hut where tasted some more tea with homemade honey and a random local alcohol, took a couple of pictures with some honeybees and a big snake. Then we got into a canoe and cruised along narrow rivers, to finally join again our first boat. It took us around other rivers, all boarded by many banana trees and palm trees and other types of tall plants. For lunch, we stopped on another island, and decided all together to order 2 elephant-ear fish, a very big fish which is said to have an elephant-ear shape when it swims. One of them was fried and the other boiled, but both of them were used to make our own fresh rolls with rice paper, spring onion, cucumber, rice noodles, and mint leaves. Delicious. Of course, we had a waiter who spent all the meal with us to show us how to make these rolls, otherwise we would never have managed to do it with our clumsy Westerners' hands.
After having filled all these 7 stomachs, we took the boat again to go back where the minibus had left us, and then moved towards Can Tho, where we going to spend our first homestay night. Can Tho is quite a big city in Southern Vietnam, it has a university, and I'm sure, many other interesting things to see. But we were to take another long boat to go to the actual house for the night, and along the boat trip, we saw all the Vietnamese houses built along the mighty Mekong, people bathing, washing their dishes and clothes in it, and you really feel what is meant by developing country when you see all these houses. Anyway the house where we stayed was a solid one, very big in comparison to the other ones around it, and we went for a short walk along the road just before having dinner. It was at that moment that we first experienced the real hospitality and kindness of the Vietnamese people. All the children were coming out of the houses to waive to us and say hello, the parents were showing the babies how to waive to us, one man invited us to have a cup of cold tea, and we took some pictures with a group of lovely kids. The dinner that night was coincidently very similar to the lunch we had, more elephant-ear fish, more rice paper, more rice noodles, but this time we also had some very good tofu and a local beer. Before going to bed, I had a little chat with the owner who showed me a Vietnamese humour magazine, with many jokes about foreigners, which you can recognise with their big noses. I asked him there were any jokes about the government, and he told me no, government is not a good topic of discussion for Vietnamese people. I can understand. Finally, after having sprayed anti-mosquito stuff all over my body, I snuggled into bed, right beside Omar... Most of the night, I watched a firefly which had got inside our mosquito net, and eventually fell asleep.

Wednesday, September 27th, Day 5

Originally, the plan was to wake up at 4am to go see the people preparing the floating markets. I remember an alarm clock ringing around that time, and Omar going to turn it off, but I also remember the noise made by the rain at the same time, so we all went back to sleep without a word, knowing we were not going to go out in such conditions. We finally woke between 6 and 7, had breakfast, almost ate ant-filled jam, packed our stuff and took the boat to the floating markets. The floating markets are actually groups of boats, each one selling various kinds of fruit, vegetables. I don't think you will go to these places for the sales, or look for your next TV set there, it's just traditional markets, for locals. I was also wandering what the advantage was of having such a system compared to a normal land market. I forgot to ask the Lee (the guide, remember?), but after having thought about it, maybe it’s because there are very few bridges over the Mekong so it makes it much more difficult and much less cost efficient (business student), or maybe people don't have any ways of transporting their products apart from their boats. I'll ask them next time I go, promise. The boat ride through the floating markets lasted quite a long time, maybe 2 hours, the sun was shining, and to be honest, most of us were enjoying the sun on the boat and almost sleeping. After that, back to the bus, and we grabbed a quick lunch in a bakery, four or five buns with meat for about 0.5€. I asked the guide if on the way to Long Xuyen and the Tiger Island, where we were going to spend the 2nd night, we could stop by the crocodile farm I heard about. So at the crocodile farm we stopped (advantage of being on a private tour). As you may have already guessed, we saw many crocodiles and baby crocodiles in ponds, just chillin', mouth wide open to let the heat out of their thick bodies, hundreds of them. The point of the farm is I think to get crocodile meat, but I am not totally sure, I never saw any crocodile dishes in restaurants. Andrew, following the steps of his regretted idol Steve Irwin, the crocodile hunter, tried to open a crocodile cage, almost got inside but a sudden movement of the hungry reptiles made him quickly step back out. This short animal break being finished, we hit the road again, stopped in Long Xuyen, took some bicycles, and rode to the ferry "terminal" (embarkation spot would be more correct) under the rain, and took the ferry to the Tiger Island. My memory is not very clear but I think the island is named like that because it has the shape of a tiger's head. There are no actual tigers on the island. The house where we left our stuff for the second night was much smaller than the previous one, only one room for guests, we were all on Indiana Jones type beds (sorry I cannot find a better word to describe them). Afterwards, we went riding around the island on our bikes, saw how life was in very traditional Vietnam, were again saluted by all the children on the sides of the roads (even the ones in houses ten meters away from the road were on their doorstep shouting hello to us with their little voices), stopped at a small "store" where women were making incense for worshipping Buddha, visited a small Pagoda, had a quick explanation on what Buddhism was about, the circle of life and everything. We saw farmers struggling to get an enormous pig into the back of a lorry, the pig making the most terrible noise, bought some freshly picked bananas, passed in front of a school and children came running to the gate to say .... hello (so sweet), and had a fried and boiled tofu break on the side of the road. On our way out we had spotted a volleyball pitch and when we came back, locals were having a game, and we asked Lee if he could ask them if we could join, and of course, these people being so nice welcomed us into a game with them. Being lousy volleyball players and the locals being very well trained, the game was pretty short, but we had a great time, experiencing local life. We were sweaty and muddy after the game, but the house where we were staying didn't have a real shower (only a water tank from where you could splash some water on yourself), so we found a more interesting and entertaining way of washing: there was a guy washing motorbikes along the road with a high pressure water pipe, so we thought we (Lee) could ask him if we could be borrow it for a couple of minutes to wash our dirty bodies. Naturally the answer was yes (Lee gave him a couple thousand dongs at the end), so there we were, standing in the middle of a street on Tiger Island, showering each other. People it bars around were enjoying the show, and we were also having fun. Finally we went home, changed our clothes had a rest, had dinner (can't remember the food), and went to have a couple games of French billiards with local youths. When we go the place, the four tables were fully occupied by locals, but the manager seemed to chase a group a guys away so we could play. Feeling embarrassed about this situation, we said we could wait, it was no need to kick them out, but them seemed to accepted and smiled to us. So we started playing, not really knowing the rules, and they tried to explain us as they could, none of them speaking English. Baptiste and I had a game against 2 locals, but once again, we didn't stand a chance against these guys who could almost be playing at world class level.

Thursday, September 28th, Day 6

In the morning, we had a quick visit of a floating fish farm, crossed the former Vice-Presidents park, and then went back for lunch, took again the ferry to Long Xuyen, and finally headed back towards Ho Chi Minh City, got back to the hotel around 7pm. Sorry, not much to talk about that day. Maybe also I am getting tired of writing, skipping the details. The pictures will help you appreciate all this.

Friday, September 29th, Day 7, last whole day

We had decided to make Friday our shopping day, to get all the souvenirs we had wanted to buy but didn't want to keep during one week. It was time to get presents for all our friends and family for the next 3 years (including birthdays and Christmas) without spending too much. We are such nice people. You are all wondering if you will be among the lucky ones who will receive a lovely present from Vietnam, but I can already tell you that you won't be one of them. I'm sorry. Anyway, to do this shopping we chose to go to the main market in Chinatown (we hadn't been to Chinatown yet), but in the end, it was not really a tourist market, so you could mainly find kitchen utensils, normal clothes, travelling bags, and other football caps. So after this quick shopping and meeting Andrew again who had gone to the TigerAirways office to postpone his return flight to the next Monday, we returned to our hotel and went to the real tourist market, the Benh Tanh market, and each one of us went in his own direction to find the best bargains. On the way home, we took a picture with a lady's carrying stick (you know the traditional Vietnamese thing with 2 buckets on either side) and of course bought some fruit off her (2 kgs actually), we saw some guys playing some sort football with something like a badminton shuttlecock asked one of the guys if he had an extra one, bought it from him, and started playing this game, bear foot on a square in Central Saigon. In order to finish our trip as well as it had started, we returned that night to the same Apocalypse Now club, found the same policemen, encourage the one on the stage to sing and dance, applauded him when he did so, and enjoyed our last night in Saigon.

Saturday, September 30th, final morning

The only interesting fact about this last morning in Vietnam was a big electric whole area around our hotel. When you look at the amount of cables attached to each post,breakdown in the due to the number of people who used to add their own wire to suck up electricity, you wonder how they will manage to fix the problem. However, while I was walking around the block to buy a couple CDs of Vietnamese music, I saw that the local repairmen didn't seem to mind and you can see how the guy was working in easy conditions. After that, nothing else about Vietnam, that's it, back to not as exciting Singapore, great...

So as may have understood in this trip, we didn't much of the real tourist stuff, no museums, only a couple of small pagodas, no palaces, and so on. The main tourist attraction we attended was the Cu Chi tunnels, and it was worth it. Since we hadn't planned anything specific for the trip, we just wanted to take it easy, enjoy Vietnamese life, local life, have fun, and not do a photo holiday. This kind of holiday is in my opinion, the most interesting type, and we really felt the true hospitality of these people, my only wish now is to return to this fantastic country.

Hope you enjoyed it.

And don't forget, more pictures here.

Good Morning Vietnam

2006-10-02T14:03:00.000+08:00

Hi folks!

Coming back from incredible, wonderful, amazing Saigon and Vietnam, my head is full of images and is begging me to return as soon as possible.
I'm sure you guys are impatient to read about our adventures, don't worry, I am writing a long (very long) report about this unbelievable week, so you will have to be a little more patient.

Meanwhile, you can enjoy a sample of our pictures on my new picture place.

Enjoy!

2006-09-22T00:25:00.000+08:00

Maybe you are wondering what is going with me, if I am still alive, if anything has happened to me since nothing new has come up on this page. Or maybe you don't and just think I am lazy or that my life in Singapore is boring. Actually over the past week or 2, I have been (trying) to study, get over with my reports, and be clear for the second half of the semester.

So I have been writing about interesting topics such as the lovely social security in France, the impact of the American current account deficit on the term structure of interest rates, or even the difficult matter of option pricing. If you want further info about any of these, just ask me, and I can send you my lovely reports. Or maybe you simply don't even know what the topic is about or don't give a **** about my academic researches, which I must confess are not the most fascinating occupation, but nevertheless interesting for me.

We are now Thursday evening, and as every other Thursday for the past 2 months, my life as been busy with getting up late, breakfast, lunch, and other getting the last things ready to go to Vietnam tomorrow night.

Vietnam?!!!?? Yes Vietnam.

Next week is recess week for students of NTU, so of course, all (most) exchange students are going abroad (or out of the city as far as Singapore is concerned). Some lucky people chose Thailand as a destination, they will be able to enjoy the lovely view of tanks and military tents in Bangkok, although it seems quite safe now. Most local students or other international students (basically Chinese) are not so lucky and will stay in our fantastic campus to work on their final year project, such as Yefei, my roomie and most likely all final year students. We exchange students, whose life is more relaxed than local students, will wish them good luck and go exploring neighbouring countries.

So Baptiste (French frog), Andrew (Aussie kangaroo), Erik and Omar (Mexican gringos), and myself (...) will be leaving on Saturday morning to Ho Chi Minh City in Southern Vietnam for one week, and travel throughout the Mekong Delta, and hopefully enjoy a loooooong Vietnamese massage. Just chillin'.

Keep an eye on this page in about 9-10 days, it will be flooded with a whole lot of new photos and adventures....

Hasta luego cabrones

2006-09-07T15:40:00.000+08:00

According to my Risk & Insurance Professor, this is what would happen to 2 men and 1 woman left on a desert island depending on their nationalities:

One Italian would kill the other to have the woman,

The two Americans would have the woman together,

The two French would kill the woman to have each other,

The two Germans set up a strict weekly schedule for sharing the woman,

One of the Thais would rent out the women to the other for 2 bahts a night,

One of the Philippinos would kidnap the woman and ask the other one a ransom,

The two Singaporeans would wait for government instructions to know what to do with the woman

Welcome to the world

2006-09-05T13:36:00.000+08:00

As I am only a beginner at blogging, I am still discovering the various functionnalities this website offers. I have changed one setting concerning the comments you can leave here, anyone is now allowed to write what he thinks of this page, good or bad, without registering. So just feel free to write what you think about this page, if you have any suggestions to make it better, if you want to meet me (?), or anything else, tell me.

But please leave your name so I know who I am addressing.

That's all folks!

2006-09-05T00:01:00.000+08:00

Daddy and Nicola (my elder sister for those who didn't know) arrived in S'pore last Wednesday. After having shown them around the very centre of S'pore under the rain and having dinner at the son of my parents' neighbours in France on Thursday we decided to go to Malacca for the week-end, Nicola and Daddy then continuing the North towards KL, where they should right now. I had to be here today on Monday because I had a "quizz" in my Derivative Securities course, and I could not miss it, because studies should of course come before anything else, isn't it?

So we decided to meet at their hotel on Saturday around 9 so we would
have at least half of the day to spend in Malacca. Unsurprisingly, when I got to the Royal Newton Hotel, they were not ready, still having breakfast. So we left the hotel around 9.45.

We then took a taxi to the Woodlands checkpoint, located in the northern part of the island. We crossed the S'porean exit point, took the bus to cross the bridge to Johor Bahru, in Malaysia. As should be done, Nicola ad me entered the queue to go through Malaysian customs, and Dad went around because as a Chinese citizen, he needs a visa to enter the country. 10 minutes later he called to help him understand what the officer was explaining. He was actually saying that it was impossible to get a visa at this checkpoint and that we had to go through the second one to have it.

So we took a bus back over the bridge, to reenter S'pore. On the S'porean side, I crossed the border with no problem because of my student pass, but Nicola and Dad had a problem which made us waste another 30-45mins: the officers didn't quite understand the paper the Malaysian officer gave Dad saying he had been refused entry, and Nicola had the exit stamp from S'pore, but no entry stamp to another country, and the officers couldn't understand how it was possible...

We finally got through, took a taxi to the other checkpoint in the very Western side of S'pore, found out that it wasn't possible to cross it on foot, took a bus and MRT back towards the center, and took another bus which would allow us to cross the border...so tiring.

The final delay was getting the visa for Dad which took more than one hour, although they had told us 30 mins were enough. But I managed to arrange three places on a bus directly from the checkpoint to Malacca, saving the trip to Johor Bahru and then to Malacca. We arrived at the Mimosa Hotel at about 8.45 pm, more than 12hours after I had left the campus that morning. We went to get some food in the center and found Chinatown overcrowded because it was the evening open market and also a music festival in the streets that week end. Very enjoyable atmosphere, very joyful, but as usual, business is business. On Sunday we visited most of the town, which you can see on the photos, very small place Malacca, but very good for spending week ends in my opinion.

My final adventure this week end was getting back to the campus on a truck with locals who were glad to take for the ride, because I was unable to find the MRT station near the place where the bus from Malacca had dropped me.

That's what traveling is about, good and bad experiences. That's why i like it.

Children performing air guitar near the live music during the Malacca music festival

Malacca main square

Crowded streets on Saturday night

2006-09-01T01:11:00.000+08:00

As most of you guys know, I am a pretty lazy person, so I always need a little delay to update my page when something happens. If I could do something to help I would, but I think it is already too late now.

So I just wanted to show you some pictures of the WOMAD festival we went to last Saturday in Fort Canning Park, Singapore. I was delighted when I heard there would be such an event around. I really miss all the live music I could find last semester in Poznan.
Before entering the park, we went to do our shopping for picnic at the local Carrefour, got some French baguette, French camembert, French cider, and various other food and beverages.... So we managed to have a nice meal sitting on the grass, which I had not done in a long while.

An intersting fact about that evening is that is was wearing my "Polska" (meaning Poland in Polish), and 2 groups of Poles, one from Warsaw and one from Gdansk came to ask me if I was Polish. Both groups had brought some Polish with them, it was such a pleasure to taste Zywiec and Warka beers again. I was wondering if would ever meet any Poles during my stay here, now that's done!

The main artist of the festival was Jimmy Cliff from Jamaica (I suppose you all know I Can See Clearly, the song from Rasta Rocket), who perfomed really well. We also saw a concert of Chico Cesar, a Brazilian latino singer, also really good. There also was a band of drumers who invited people to join in the rythm, and after the Jimmy Cliff concert, one of the stages turned into an open air dance floor, so we stayed there dancing on reggae-latino-various music, until about 3 am and then went for some local food.

Chico Cesar and his guys

Jimmy Cliff

Dancing all night long

2006-08-17T14:54:00.000+08:00

A street barbecue, very nice

Olivier and me at the bottom of the towers

Kaitlyn, me, and a Malaysian policeman

To be able to enter a Mosque, women were required to wear suitable clothes. Here are our 3 Koreans with the proper outfit. I was also wearing the same blue gown.

2006-08-17T14:42:00.000+08:00

Here are some more photos from KL

Reading Kelly's Korean journal on the way

A Hindu ritual, rolling the woman in red on the floor all around the temple

The Temple during a ceremony

Preparing a sugar cane drink in the street

2006-08-16T02:32:00.000+08:00

Last week-end was my first trip abroad, or out of the city, the two are equivalent in Singapore. After hesitating between Melaka and Kuala Lumpur (KL), we finally managed to agree on a week end in the capital city. So Saturday morning, our little group of 5 people (Lea, Kaitlyn, Kelly, Olivier, and I) left the NTU campus. The first step was of course to get to the Singaporean checkpoint, cross the strait between the two countries, and get a second stamp on my French passport, allowing me to stay 30 days in Malaysia. The first Malaysian town after Singapore is called Johor Bahru. As soon as you get in Malaysia, coming from Singapore, you feel the difference.

The first locals you meet are a horde of taxi drivers ready to offer you a special price for all the tourist destinations, mainly the famous islands. If you listen to them, you will always get the best price, just for you they say. Our plan was to take a bus to KL so we moved towards the counter of bus company and bought our 5 tickets, 28 ringgits each (1€=4.5RM). Around 10.15, our bus left Johor Bahru. The bus was undoubtedly the most comfortable bus I have ever taken. In France, or elsewhere in Europe, you always buses with two rows of two seats. This one had one row of two and one row of one seat, which means very wide seats, and a very big space for your legs, my biggest fear in buses. The only problem was the air conditioning (air con), which sometimes makes places freezing cold.

Six hours later (although the guy who sold us the ticket had said only 4), we finally got to the heart of KL, right next to the very busy Chinatown. Being a really organised person, I had written several addresses for hostels, and we luckily managed to find one just next to the bus station, the Red Dragon, where we paid 20 ringgits per night. After a quick shower, we started our tourist visit.

To be short, the main places we visited were Chinatown, the Petronas Towers (night & day), the KL Tower (some sort of TV tower like the one in Berlin but a bit higher), Little India, a Mosque, a Hindu Temple during a ceremony, the Malaysian National Museum, flea markets full of local watches, sunglasses, “Louis Vuitton” handbags, and sport shoes, local food courts, and a karaoke bar on Saturday night.

KL is very as I expected it to be: a very busy capital city, with an enormous contrast between the very highly developed center and business district near the Petronas Towers and the surrounding areas, a mix of Chinese, Indian, Muslim architectural styles. You just need to take a few steps away from the towers to see I am talking about. The number of taxis you can find in the streets of KL is also impressive. The drivers are always really insisting on taking you wherever you need, always at the best price. Being 5 travelers could have been a problem to use taxis, but KL taxi drivers are so nice they always accepted to take us together.

Concerning the Petronas Towers, the main attraction of KL, I really must say they are amazing. Two towers at 452m above the ground, falling directly strait on the pavement, made of glass and steel. When you stand just at their feet, you really don’t feel like they are standing right above you. But when you look up, the view is breathtaking. I was not really expecting to be that colour during the day, the pictures you usually see show brownish-coloured towers. But the best view in my opinion is the one you get at night. I don’t know how they manage to get such a lighting of the towers, but they simply seem unreal at night. They look like a giant 3D-projection in front of you. I really recommend people coming to this part of the world to go visit KL.

Nevertheless, some people may not appreciate it so much. KL is a very polluted, very crowded, and in some places quite dirty place. The smells in the street are not at all similar to those in Europe. All over the traditional areas, you can smell incense, the local food made on the street, and from time to time the very special durian smell.

Special thanks to Olivier for the photos

2006-08-08T21:27:00.000+08:00

The Hindu Temple

2006-08-08T16:50:00.000+08:00

More photos from Lil' India

2006-08-08T16:08:00.000+08:00

Here are some pictures of our trip through Little India, which I think was last Friday. As you can see, there was not so much to see so I show you randomly selected photos. We visited an Hindu temple, which was undoubtedly the most exciting part. You can find many small Indian shops in this area, as well as more Indian restaurants, and more Indian people in the streets. That is maybe why it is called Little India.

I think I should go again maybe to find other interesting places.

2006-08-07T17:51:00.000+08:00

Today Monday, 7th August 2006 was the first day of my last semester as a student. Because of the complicated subject registration process that I will not explain to you lest you get bored, I only had one lecture (Money and Banking), normally for 2nd year students, so I will definitely not chose this one. I rather take something like 'Life Contingencies and Demography', even if does not stick to my original studies...

We have 2 weeks to add/drop subjects, which means 2 weeks during which we can go (or not go) to the lectures we want. Same system as they had in the Akademia Ekonomiczna in Poznan. Being an exchange student gives you more freedom...hehe

This beginning of semester is also the time for all the student clubs and societies to enroll new members. Student life here seems to be very active, with over 90 different clubs/societies. Some would say it is because people (and students) in Singapore have a relatively limited range of activities... Anyway, with Baptiste and Olivier (from France), will try to join the Jam Band and maybe have a live performance by the end of the semester. You never know.

2006-08-02T15:16:00.000+08:00

I have now been in S'pore for ten days. Life settling down, new exchange students are arriving every day. We must be at least 50 to 60 by now.
The semester will begin in 5 days.

So far, if I had to describe the Island of the lion in 2 words, I would say "Giant Mall". Malls are part the Singaporian identity. People come to shop until they drop. You can find gigantic shopping at all most each MRT station, the MRT being the "Mass Rapid Transit", S'pore's train network. My first visiting days with my buddy Zhi Yang, allowed me to see at least 5 or 6 malls.

But this city-country still has other more traditionnal areas, such as Chinatown, Little India, and Arab Street, but I will describe these places to you when I will have visited them.

My daily life here is rather peaceful, no crazy journeys planned so far. I play football, go swimming, wash my clothes, have drinks with my friends, talk with my local neighbours, etc...

Two days ago, most of the exchange students (including myself) headed for the Sentosa island, located just South of S'pore. This is the famous place for locals to go to the beach. However, I am not sure if the entire island is artificial, or if only the beaches were man-made, but everything there makes you feel like in some kind of Disneyland. The sand on the beaches was imported from Indonesia, the seawater is clear in the first 10 cm, and from the beach, the lovely view is made by dozens of cargo ships waiting to enter one of the most active harbours in the world. Someone told me that even the size of the sand grains was calculated by local engineers in order to get the best ratio "confort of the beach/long lasting beach".... Everything must be used at its maximum efficiency.

2006-07-27T23:58:00.000+08:00

2 nights ago I went to the Singaporean Night Safari with some friends, which is some kind of zoo at night (...) where you are in a tram and ride around to see the animals, which are not behind fences, and it makes the ride quite exciting. I saw mainly some elephants, tigers, lions, some kind of crocodile, bears, and bats. Because everything was very dark, it was impossible to take any pictures.

So here are some pictures (still in bad quality) of my bicycle ride along the South East coast I had today with Singaporean friends.

Unfortunately, it is impossible to see all the cargo ships behind the palm tree but it is really impressive to see how many of them are waiting to enter to harbour, and it makes the beach much less attractive. Anyway I spotted not far from there a "cable-ski" lagoon and I think I will go and try it, it is just like water ski, but you are pulled by a cable.

Then you can see a sort of double picture of central Sg with a football field in the center of the town.

I am still in process of discovering the place, with its local peculiarities...

2006-07-26T22:47:00.000+08:00

Here is the 3rd picture of the food court it didn't manage to publish in the previous post.

As you can see it is big.

2006-07-26T22:21:00.000+08:00

Yo everybody, welcome to Singapore, the land of permantly high temperature and palm trees. I finally made it to the famous island, with a little delay, and a 7 hour wait at Doha airport because the plane was waiting for other transit planes....

Anyway I safely got to the campus situated at the very West end of Singapore.

After checking in my room with an Indonesian roommate (roomy) I changed rooms yesterday to now be with a Chinese roomy that I haven't met yet. Hope he will be a nice guy.
To give you a short description of the NTU (Nanyang Technological University)campus, I would just say it is enormous! There 16 halls of residence, each one of them inhabited by a big number of students (it is impossible to know how many there are in each but I would say 300 to 500).

So here are the first pictures of the place I can show you. Sorry about the quality, the next ones should be much better.

These first 2 picutres are the financial and business district in the very centre of Singapore. The weather looks bad on the pictures in fact there was just too much sun for my bad camera.

These 3 pictures were taken in a food court, the local special restaurant type. This is how it works: you have a very wide central area with tables where people sit down to eat. All around it there are dozens of mini restaurants where you get the food from, each one of these selling different types of food, mostly Asian of course, such as Japanese, Chinese, Indian, others specialised in soups or duck or dumplings or other things. Eating one or two dishes there costs only around 5-7 S$, and you can find them in each mall, all the canteens on the campus are based on this model

2006-07-14T00:02:00.000+08:00

For this fisrt post on my brand new blog, I am cheating a little because I am not yet in Singapore but comfortably set in my room in Colombes, and this explains why the date of this post will be wrong.

I wanted to show you my first real contact with Singapore (from now on I will call it Sg because Singapore is too long to type each time), my plane ticket. As you can see I am leaving on Saturday 22nd, in 9 days and I will have a 5 hour stop in the lovely (?) Doha, Qatar. The whole trip should take about 19 hours, without taking into account the time zones. So let's hope my luggage and myself get there without any trouble.

See you in Sg!

Have a good week

2006-07-14T00:00:00.000+08:00

Je tiens à m'excuser auprès de mes amis Français qui vont passer sur ce blog mais pour pouvoir partager mes expériences avec un maximum de personnes, je vais tout écrire en anglais.

Alors ... Ready ? Go!