rakish richard's rants...

Who's Your Mack Daddy?

Greetings loyal readers, and thanks for the spiffing comments on my last post. I will reserve my comments on the 'content' of said postings for the time being, but please keep up the volume.

Well, how about Saigon then?

'Twas a fun time indeed, and I'm especially pleased to say that the new camera is up and running, downloading to the iPod nice and smooth, and I'm snapping away like Robert Capa at every opportunity.

First test run was at the Reunification Palace, where tanks are left outside, just as they were when they stormed the palace in 1973. It's a pretty swanky example of nice 60's government architecture, still looking a lot better than anything built in New Zealand 40 years later.

Next stop was the War Remnants Museum in Saigon, which featured lots of slightly one-sided information about the Vietnam war - complete with some very frightening pics of birth defects caused by defoliants, and lots of correspondence from our favourite preserved leader - Uncle Ho. Personal highlights of course, were the masses of aircraft, tanks and artillery kept out in the courtyard. I was lolling about in a gleeful stupor when I came across the mighty Douglas Skyraider - a plane that has enchanted me (and taunted Berin) for quite some time now.

Friday took us to the Fine Arts Museum, which was kind of, how you say? Crappy? Some of the work, especially the sculpture, was quite good, but there was a woeful lack of good information. Most of the exhibits were in little dark rooms, with plaques amounting to nothing more than "Wooden Buddha", and "Stone Buddha". The year would have been helpful...

So, skip the Fine Arts Museum unless you have a deep interest in curation.

Arriving home that night, we found that the bus up to Hoi An (our next stop) was a surprising 24 hours for only 1,000kms, and we were forced to leave that night - with the Canuck Fred and Swede Carlos in tow.

Ill prepared for the trip, we set off at 9pm, leaving Saigon in a cascade of long-exposure photography, and steamed into the night. Ahhh, Saigon nights, Cheviot days, it was the best of times, it was the hardest of seats.

Up until our 2am 'dinner stop', the young man infront of me was enjoying his ride, with his seat extended back deep into my crotch, but I made certain to convey my dissatisfaction with a salvo of knocks, thumps and gentle physical reminders, and once we debussed at 2am, his seat was ramrod straight and I had no more trouble - other than the standard erratic driving and too-long-legs that plague me anyway.

However, much to our surprise, on arriving in Nga Trang, we found we'd just missed the connecting bus by half an hour, and had to make an unscheduled 12 hour stop there until the evening bus. This turned out to be quite the blessing, with the four of us spending a lot of time perfecting our body surfing stunts at the beach. Burned but looking a little more like someone called Travis, we left Nga Trang - a fleeting stop on our trip, just a burgeoning romance and all too soon parting - for Hoi An that evening. The rest of the ride wasn't pretty, let's say, so to cut it all to the goal, we arrived in Hoi An at 7am yesterday morning.

Hoi An is a nice little World Heritage site, a lot like Luang Prabang in Laos, but with far more conical hats and kanji written everywhere. As with the rest of the trip there are a multitude of smiling children, but dammit Bubbles - they're fully clothed!

Local delicacies include White Rose (no, NOT that incident out back of the King's Arms) and Cao Lau - a noodle soup that can only be enjoyed here in Hoi An as it's made with water from the Ba Le well in the old market. I'm rather hooked on the stuff, and have enjoyed 4 bowls already.

As is the custom here, I'm having some suits made. Those of you aware of my continuing sartorial trendsetting can rest assured that the two items I'm currently having tailored (had to add just a little into the waist...) are both 'pimping' and 'macking' suits. After a number of sketches on napkins I conveyed the required width of my lapels and the degree of flare in my leg successfully, and in two hours, USD$52 lighter, I will be the proud owner of one eggshell blue two button (plunnnnnnggging neck) suit and pants with white stitched highlights, and one grass green pin-striped three button suit with cutting edge lapel detail. My continuing weight problems seem to still plague me, as between trying on the two different pants I seem to have gained some pounds. Suggestions are welcome, but I won't touch that whole Atkins farce with a bargepole.

So, it looks like there'll be a couple more days here to check out the beach, wander around the oh so quaint little town, and possibly arrange for a complete corduroy dinner suit to be made.

Readers, I am a happy man.

Your man with the diamond tipped cane and shoes with goldfish in them,

Arch :)

posted by Arch @ 5:00 PM