Hill tribes and homicidal motorbikes

So,

We arrived in the big Ho Chi Minh ville today, having made a series of trains and planes on time (thanks mum and Sally!). This place is pretty crazy. Makes Bangkok look calm, even with the bombs. And I was just getting used to the Baht...

We touched down about two hours late, having flown with Air France. It seems they struggle to count, as they were forced to hold the plane back about an hour while they counted and re-counted the passengers.

For the last couple of days I've been off on a hill trek. This took me up into the mountains to visit a bunch of tribes, go Elephant riding (hmmm) and Bamboo rafting. I went with five other people: one guy from Lebanon, a couple from Germany and a mother and daughter from Sweden. Quite a diverse group, although everyone spoke English. Actually, the group made me feel very parochial, with the group collectively speaking German, English, Swedish, Latin, Arabic and French. By that I mean ALL of them knew German, French and English. And two of them knew Latin!! My contribution? English, English and English. We are so sheltered in Australia, being able to travel anywhere in the world and almost expecting that someone will know English. It is really uncool, and really lets us off the hook. This is especially so when you consider how few of us know any languages from our region. Anyway, I digress...

What was interesting was the clash of idealised tradition (mainly catering for tourists) and modern technology. On the one hand, it's clear that the hill tribes understand what tourists want, and try to pump this by selling all sorts of handicrafts. However, the villages have TV and solar power. I think, and may well be wrong, that this is probably a pretty honest depiction of rural Thailand. These are not people caught in a timewarp for our amusement, but are rural people getting on with it. I think they have made pretty significant moves forward in the last two years, with a school being built and more solar power through the village. Apparently, this was the King's generosity, and this is why they love him so much, but I don't buy that. Thai's are just looking for an excuse to talk about Rama IV.

I actually enjoyed Thailand a lot more than I expected I would. It was added at the last minute, mainly due to the price of flights to Bangkok in comparison to Vietnam, but looking back we did some really really great stuff. I could quite happily spend another six weeks there. However, it's really exciting to be heading into Vietnam, a place I've wanted to visit for so long, and to really have the time to do it well.

Heading out to explore Ho Chi tomorrow and then going to Chi Chi tunnels. Will post more pics when I take more.

until then.