Simon & Rosie's Travel Journal

Keeping Busy...

2015-09-22T13:10:00.002+07:00

with my latest project.

Introducing SIY Saigon - Self-Guided walking tours.

The best adventures are your own - so See It Yourself

www.SIYSaigon.blogspot.com

or

Find us on Facebook

Color Me Run 2015

2015-05-19T14:39:00.000+07:00

The official video of this awesome event has just gone online. We waved at the photographers, we waved at the drones, we threw paint in each other's faces and managed to scrape a half-second of fame at 1:16.

For those of you who subscribe to the blog by email, unless you have super-snazzy email software, you'll need to visit the blog itself to view any videos like this.

The GoPro's fisheye lens is not kind to people with big (green) noses

Man and Machine...and Cardboard

2015-05-13T10:44:00.000+07:00

"Is he going somewhere on that bike?" asked my mum when she saw this.

"That is nothing," I replied.

It's pretty easy to get used to the sights of Vietnam. Just last week I was sat in traffic and realised that the passenger on the bike in front of mine was facing me. Back to back with the driver he sat, his feet teetering on the foot pegs and a fridge freezer balanced across his knees. We nodded at one another in mutual acknowledgement of his logistical feat. The lights turned green and his face quickly disappeared into the swarm.

Your choice...

2015-05-07T14:14:00.002+07:00

Watch this awesome video, or simply dance around to the awesome tuneage - Tempura Soul by Fuka Vicente.

Photo Essay

2015-05-02T13:30:00.002+07:00

As promised, here's a roundup of our last few months - in photographs...

Nam Cat Tien National Park

Rosie takes her mum to see Angkor, Cambodia

Dried and candied fruits and vegetables, Ben Thanh Market

Rosie and her mum enjoy a cocktail on the banks of the Saigon River

A Frida Kahlo themed painting party as part of Rosie's Birthday celebrations

Our friends Mark and Laura visit from the UK

Best buds since childhood

Sunset boat trip on the Saigon River

Painting expedition with our friends Tom and Be Heo

Ho Chi Minh City 5k Color Me Run

Until we get our own GoPro camera, you'll have to watch someone else's video:

A trip to Hanoi takes us to a pop-up beer club spread across several abandoned buildings

The train-line out of Hanoi runs just a few feet, sometimes inches, from people's homes

Fruit and veg seller in Hanoi's Old Quarter

Back where it all began, revisiting our favourite kerbside Bia Hoi joint in Hanoi

16p a glass

Huu Tiep Lake, Hanoi, complete with a twisted fragment of a US B52 bomber shot down by an anti-aircraft missile during the American War. A nearby museum houses the rest of the aircraft in various chunks.

A visit to the Perfume Pagoda, 3 hours outside of Hanoi and only accessible by boat and cable car

Our new friend Minh

Sara and Louis from Brighton join us on a motorbike trip into the mountains via an obligatory stop-off at the chopstick factory

40 years ago this week, on the 29 April 1975, the US began the final, frenzied phase of its evacuation from Saigon. This image, taken by Dutch photographer Hubert Van Es, shows one of the final "Air America" helicopters on the elevator housing of the Pitman building, a CIA owned apartment block in downtown Saigon. Their aim was to evacuate all US military and civilian personnel, along with various South Vietnamese aides and allies (and their families) whose safety was not guaranteed once the North Vietnamese army arrived.

The next morning, the North Vietnamese army rolled into Saigon, its tanks smashed through the gates of the former Presidential Palace, the government surrendered and modern Vietnam was born.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary, flags and banners have been hung all over the country and a huge ceremony and parade was held outside the reunification palace (formerly the presidential palace). Despite living only 3 blocks from the parade route, this was as close as we, or anybody could get. Road blocks lined with police made sure that this was a strictly closed-door event. Very strange for us and the handful of other foreigners milling around the barricades, all of us having risen early to catch this once in a lifetime event.

Fortunately, a massive firework display was put on that evening. The streets of Saigon ground to a standstill as tonnes of explosives lit up the famous Bitexco building. We perched ourselves at one of our favourite rooftop bars with completely unobstructed views of the show. Surrounded by cheering, happy, excitable locals, all of us looking out over Saigon's ultra-modern skyline, it was difficult to imagine the struggles this country has been through over the past century. The warmth, kindness and hospitality of the Vietnamese people is truly the country's greatest asset.

To read more about the fall of Saigon, click here.

To learn more about the American evacuation, codenamed Operation Frequent Wind, click here

A Few Days in Mai Chau

2015-04-29T18:21:00.001+07:00

Sitting at the end of a four-hour drive from Hanoi, up, over and into the mist covered mountains, the tribal villages and rice terraces of Mai Chau are a world away from city life. Sometimes it's hard to believe that we actually live in this country...

Mai Chau Valley

A chopstick factory worker bundles the freshly cut bamboo ready for drying

Vietnamese Sarnies

2015-04-14T15:32:00.004+07:00

So as one of my jobs last month, I got to choose the best banh mi in Saigon. For three days in a row I was fuelled by nothing but bread and meat! If you're outside of Vietnam, here's the online version.

I now also have my own mini-profile on the Word website with all of my articles listed as soon as they appear online.

The past couple of months have also seen me picking up work from another prestigious Vietnamese publication, AsiaLIFE. With a print edition magazine in HCMC, its own online radio station and a website covering Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, it's certainly an exciting group to be working for.

Check me out in the March and April print issues, or click the links below for the online versions.

Saigon's Top Five Lunch Deals

The Asian Social Circus Association

Coming soon: A lightning fast roundup of the past two months in Vietnam.

New Year Two Point Oh

2015-02-19T22:59:00.000+07:00

Having been part of Imperial China until 938 CE, Vietnam's culture and traditions are steeped in Chinese heritage. Known here as Tet, Vietnam's celebration of the lunar new year is the biggest event on the calendar.

2015 marks the year of the goat in Vietnam. In other cultures, owing to a translation issue
with an ancient Chinese symbol, rams and sheep may also symbolise the new year.

For the past few weeks, the shops have been packed, the city has been decked in Tet trees, lights and flags, and the excitement has been building in the run up to the 18th of February, New Year's Eve. The giving of gifts and food hampers has seen every spare inch of our local Co-Op supermarket piled with elaborately stacked baskets of chocolates, biscuits, cakes, nuts and fruit, and the loading of motorbikes has become even more ridiculous...

With traditional Tet flowers between his legs, this chap's passenger precariously balances
a kumquat tree on each thigh, completely obscuring her from view

A balloon seller sails his bike down the road as the wind catches his colourful wares.

In the run up to the big day, Vietnamese people clean their homes, cars, scooters and business from top to bottom, clearing the bad luck in time for the new year, and display colourful selections of fruit whose names, when placed in certain orders, sound similar to traditional Tet greetings.

Word Magazine published a helpful guide for anyone who wants to know more about this massive event and the various customs surrounding it. Unlike the western version, there's a bit more to it than ill-fated New Year's resolutions and Nicorette adverts.

The nine day national holiday began last Saturday and slowly the city started to drain of its inhabitants as people returned to their home towns and villages. They say that as the holiday approaches, every bus, car, van, lorry, train and plane leaving town will be rammed, exodus style.

Yesterday, New Year's eve, and Saigon was like a ghost town. All shops, restaurants, cafes and offices closed and shuttered, the streets eerily quiet. With Rosie's mum visiting for half-term, we headed out in search of one of the handful of eateries still operating. Rosie's mum achieved a level one mastery of the chopsticks and got stuck in to the Asian way of dining...

Omelette, tofu, squid and noodles in one of our favourite restaurants in Saigon

With a bit of research, visitors can still find things to keep themselves occupied. It's not that hard to find a decent meal and several tourist attractions like the Reunification Palace are open as usual. One Tet tradition is to visit Saigon's famous flower street and pose in your 'Sunday finest' for family photographs. A block west of its usual home (owing to the construction of a metro system), a kilometre long stretch of one of District One's busiest avenues is turned into a pedestrianised floral wonderland, with raised ponds, gardens and 3D constructions spread out right there on the tarmac to the sound of piped in birdsong mixed with Kenny G.

A living reconstruction of a rice paddy expertly demonstrated

Despite the city's apparent emptiness, it was obvious that come nightfall on the eighteenth, anyone who was still here would assemble in the streets downtown for the annual firework celebration at midnight. With the apartment building to ourselves (all but a handful of our neighbours have also abandoned the city), we decided that along with a few select friends we would take to the rooftop terrace in the hope of spotting the pyrotechnics and see in the New Year (again) with a few drinks. It was also the day after Rosie's birthday, so there was double cause for celebration.

We borrowed some fairy lights, gathered tables and chairs, plumbed in the sound system and had ourselves a pocket party beneath the stars. It was one of the best New Year's Eves ever...and in the middle of February! A kicking playlist of soul music pumped out over the rooftops, we made a drunken "Happy New Year" call to a friend in New York City (result, much confusion her end, zero credit my end) and danced barefoot until almost three AM when our legs could take no more.

No offence - here, this is a "V" for Vietnam.

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới !!!
(Happy New Year)

In other news...

2015-02-05T16:23:00.002+07:00

Today I passed my Vietnamese motorbike driving test.

Hoorah!

I think the hardest part was the mountain of paperwork you have to fill in, but at least I'm now legit.

Here is a helmet cam of the practical test which some may have seen on the famous Top Gear Vietnam episode

(URL: http://youtu.be/lvxW-zGHTZY)

As a UK licence holder, I was able to skip the Vietnamese theory exam.

I'm not quite sure it prepares riders for the reality of life on the Vietnamese roads - a life which is beautifully portrayed in this video...

(URL: http://vimeo.com/32958521)

Now a month long wait for the actual licence!

Another early morning...

2015-02-05T15:26:00.003+07:00

"What am I doing to myself?" I thought as I set the alarm for four AM. "Maybe I rushed into this a bit...maybe I'm not ready yet?"

But before I could question it all too much, I'm riding through the darkened streets of a Sunday morning in Saigon en route to District Seven. No doubt on the prowl for drunk drivers (for many, Saturday night was still in swing), a pair of traffic cops leap out of the darkness and pull me over.

"Turn off engine," one says.

"Oh s**t," I say.

One of the downsides of living in a developing country is police corruption, and the traffic cops here, in their seventies beige flairs and helmets, are notorious for demanding bribes from wealthy foreigners when no violation has been committed - they generally just make one up and threaten to take your bike away.

With no ID and very little money on me, I'm beginning to wish I'd stayed in bed.

They eye me up and down, sat there shivering in my teeshirt and shorts in the early morning cold. They mutter to one another.

"I'm going running," I offer. I pull out my teeshirt and point at the large runner's bib I'm wearing. "Running..." I repeat, motioning with my arms.

They mutter some more.

"Okay, go!"

My heart restarts along with my engine and I'm off without incident.

Twenty minutes later and I'm at the start line of my second Half Marathon. Sponsored by LaVie mineral water, this is HCMC's first Conquer The Bridge 21k race. Exactly six weeks after my epic dash around the temples of Angkor in Cambodia, I am back, ready for more punishment and pain and ready to crack the two hour mark.

Surrounded by 500 or so other runners, behind us are the five and ten kilometre participants, ahead, the winding roads of D7, still in absolute darkness, and somewhere out there...is the bridge.

Phu My Bridge, to be precise...it's big, it's long, it's very steep and stands very high above the Saigon River. And we were all about to run to the top of it...

Here's the official video for the race. Who's that handsome/sweaty chap at 3:46?

URL: http://youtu.be/wdtQCZ4PEzg

This was a rather sedate race compared to Cambodia. Everyone was in bed as we slipped through the night, the sunrise just glinting in the windows of the high-rise apartment blocks. No cheering villagers, no lines of kids desperate to high-five us as we run by, no drummers....but on we pushed with the official camera RC drone whizzing overhead from time to time.

Up ahead we hear engines and the front runners have looped around the first turning point and are coming back down the street to meet us. Outriders on three matching Honda Goldwings, headlights blazing, appear out of the darkness ahead of them to keep the path clear, giant Vietnamese flags rippling behind them as the leaders sprint past. And then all is quiet. Very quiet.

The sun rises and the bridge is still way off on the horizon as we circle around the residential areas before veering off towards District Two and the bridge that connects us.

As usual, I'm at 5km and thinking there's absolutely no way I can finish. Then I drag myself to reach 6k - I'm through the 30 minute mark and the reserve stores kick in. 10k approaches and we make a sharp turn onto an elevated ramp and we're up above the houses and on the long slog to the bridge which stands like a mountain ahead of us.

That bridge is steep. The 10 and 21k routes have merged and we're surrounded by them all of a sudden. As the incline increased, people's pace has slackened and many have resorted to walking. I'm not letting this thing beat me - coming down will be easy - let's do this. And I charge on up, overtaking everyone it seems. The top is invisible, it's like chasing the horizon. But then I hear the music, and a line of people cheer us up to the top where a podium-type platform has been erected and many take the moment to have a little disco. I dodge and dart around them, no parties on this march soldier, and skip my way to the bottom again at record speed.

Turning back off the highway, we're at 16km and the rest is a walk in the park - a walk with aching toes, ankles, knees, hips and eyelids. I swerve around the "shower-tunnel" LaVie have helpfully erected to douse us all in water - fortunately, the early morning haze is still lingering and temperatures are yet to breach 25 degrees - and push on. A few corners, around the shopping malls and someone yells "Two kilometres to go!"

With my GPS watch, I've been monitoring my pace - keeping it bouncing between 5:30 to 5:50 per kilometre - but prefer not to see my time and have to resort to doing all sorts of baffling maths in my head. I switch it to time mode and I'm at 1hour and 50 minutes. Two five minute kilometres? Let's do it. I crank up the speed and let rip. My muscles are burning, my joints scream "no more" but I keep it up enough to make the final turn towards the finish line. The locals have risen from their beds and have come to cheer us on. The super-exciting tunnel of supporters narrows as the gate looms and I can see the official timer tick over to 1:59:15 and I sprint through the finish in a blur of noise and pain.

Official time: 1:59:24 (an average pace of 5:40/km and twelve minutes faster than Cambodia)

Next up? A few months rest and a lie in.

A giant medal and a finisher's tee wait at the finish line

Coffee Cup HCMC - The Workshop

2015-01-27T21:34:00.001+07:00

At first, The Workshop sounded like your average Saigon café, until I saw the menu...

Click here for the full article as published in Word Vietnam

Just...wow...

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If you were looking for one final excuse to visit Vietnam.

This stunning film has also ruined all other holiday videos for me.

I am the Saigon Street Snacker...

2015-01-16T10:27:00.001+07:00

For the fourth month in a row, I'm currently working on my next Street Snacker article for February's magazine. It seems I've found my calling - eating and drinking. It's a tough life.

For now, here are my efforts for January's issue for those of you unable to get your hands on the printed version.

Happy New Year!

Forest!

2014-12-29T18:23:00.001+07:00

After a few thoroughly festive days doing nothing but drinking beers and champagne from the hotel room bin (filled with ice), while having long hot baths, watching movies and TV box sets and generally doing nothing, we extended our stay in Dalat by another two nights and donned our hiking kit once again to hit the hills of the surrounding countryside...

Coffee berries

The freshest passion fruit ever

Coffee plantations

Merry Christmas!

2014-12-25T07:59:00.001+07:00

We like Dalat already. After a long Christmas Eve car journey, we climbed up the mountains to be met with temperatures not felt for a long long time.

Coats, jumpers and jeans were the order of the day and by the time we were heading home after an evening of exploration last night, Rosie was wearing a wooly hat! It was quite surreal, but has certainly helped us get in the festive mood.

We have earl grey tea, a hard drive full of movies and a few presents to exchange. Now it's time for a festive buffet breakfast in the five-star hotel across the road and a festive home-made joke...

What do you call a Christmas crooner who didn't get the electric shaver he asked Santa for?

Michael Stublé.

...anyway, here are some pics.

A sunny Christmas morning!

Jungle!

2014-12-23T14:47:00.001+07:00

I'm very much enjoying...

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...Word's new website design and homepage

The Marou Story Goes Online...

2014-12-09T15:26:00.003+07:00

...along with a few others.

Click here for Marou.

Here for The Great Escape

Bo La Lot is here

He Runs She Runs

2014-12-07T14:03:00.001+07:00

At 4:30 this morning, we rose to the rooster in a bizarre boutique hotel room in Siem Reap, Cambodia, surrounded by Barbie dolls in display cases on the walls and random bits of neon plastic glued, literally everywhere, all over the room.

Siem Reap is just a few kilometres from the ancient city of Angkor, the ancient seat of the god kings built over one thousand years ago.

It was over beers in a Brooklyn bar that a friend of a friend told us of Angkor's annual half-marathon event, held in aid of land mine victims. "We have to do that!" we said. Owing to my relatively flexible caldendar these days, I was able to find the huge amount of time required to train for such an event - having only started running in February of this year - and Rosie entered the 10k run...highly respectable given the busy first term she's just had in a new school in a new country.

So with the sun not yet up, we were donning our running kit and heading out across town in a tuk-tuk to get to the start line opposite the mighty Angkor Wat temple. A new sensation was felt...I believe many across the world call it "cold". At maybe 15 degrees, Rosie's arms prickled with what many across the world call "the goose's pimples".

Long story short, it was amazing. I made a good start and quickly found myself at the 5k mark...the scenery is stunning and with people from all over the world competing, there was a great atmosphere. As we headed up the park's east boundary, families and children from the nearby villages had come out to cheer us on, standing in long rows along the road, holding out their hands to high five as we filed past. I have a GPS watch and noticed how much faster I got when passing them...it really helped!

The 10.5k half way mark was a long time coming but as I pushed on, time seemed to speed up and before I knew it we were at 16k with only 5 more to go. Drummers and dancers met us along the way, pounding to the beat of the thousands of feet running past, and as the incredible temples appeared and disappeared behind us, I was soon staring down my last 3k. It was around 8am, and the tourists had started to appear in the park, roaring and cheering us on...and my pace rocketed, leaping from an initial 6:28 per kilometre to 5:30. Sprinting the last 500m was amazing, speeding along the narrow tunnel formed by the crowds. The dance music from the PA system was pumping, I could see the finish line through the trees and I shot past everyone and anyone ahead of me to finish in 2h 11m with an average pace of 6:11...not bad considering the temperature was hitting 30+ degrees by the end.

From a frosty morning in February, when I was only just able to jog 1km around my parents' village, to an international half marathon, I'm really rather proud of myself...and exhausted! Could I have turned around and done it all again, do I have a marathon in me? Not today, no thanks....but never say never...

Rosie hit a new PB for her 10k, leaving the "fun runners" chewing her dust and finishing in an amazing 1 hour 8 minutes. Quite a change from her Santa Run on a bitter London morning exactly one year ago to the day. After leaving her waiting for me for over an hour, we were reunited on the banks of the Angkor Wat moat for a big sweaty hug with the towers of the largest religious building in the world looming over the jungle beyond the water.

After massages and a huge lunch, we're now just chilling in the cafés (me) and manicure bars (Rosie) of Siem Reap before making the 45 minute flight back to Saigon this evening.

Here are the before and after shots:

Some time later...

News

2014-12-03T11:19:00.001+07:00

"It's happening!" went my e-mail to Rosie. "It's finally happening!"

A couple of weeks earlier I'd sent a rather random e-mail to the editor of one of Vietnam's biggest English monthly magazines. "I'll sharpen pencils, make tea, organise your contacts," I offered, keen to find a reason to get out of the house and escape the boredom. "If you want me to proof-read, I can do that. Maybe throw down a few lines of copy here and there..."

I clicked send and forgot all about it - I probably went off to mop the floor for the second time that day or something.

"Can you come down to the office for a chat?" came the e-mail back a few days later (shocked face).

With nervous, sweaty hands clutching at a brand new notebook, I rode a cab into the centre of town and found myself sat next to Nick Ross - chief editor for Word Vietnam - as he offered me the chance to write a sample article for them. "We'll start you off as freelance," he said. "So what would you like to write about?" Just like that. Word Magazine is the Vietnamese equivalent of Time Out and is distributed primarily in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City...it's a big deal.

Now, I'd arrived with my office-administrator head on. I'd also sent him one of my short stories on the off-chance that he'd see some potential in me, but the idea of actually writing for them was not on my radar. I hastily came up with a subject and in under a week bashed out 900 words on the "soundtrack to Saigon".

FIRST ATTEMPT

But it didn't work. After just over a month in the city, I was very, very green, and it showed in my writing. I'd overlooked glaring issues that were obvious to long-term residents and made assumptions that were highly contestable. I didn't really know what I was talking about. But they saw something...

"Can you do a food review for me?" came Nick's e-mail the following week. "It's a small ice-cream and pancake place in District 3. Not a big job, just 500 words. I have the photos already. They know you're coming."

"It's happening!" I wrote to Rosie that afternoon. "It's finally happening!... and we're going out for ice-cream tonight."

That night and we're eating hand-made ice-cream and crêpes with a couple of friends. I get to work the next morning.

My 500 word review is submitted and I don't hear anything for some time. Oh well, I think. I tried my best. Just not this time eh?

TRY AGAIN

Then came the ping of an e-mail in my inbox. I'm invited to the magazine's next monthly editorial meeting. Interesting, I think. Maybe they're giving me another shot. So kind of them.

I enjoy a second sweaty-palmed cab ride still not really knowing whether I have a position here or not. I find the restaurant where the meetings take place and take a seat at the crowded table. So there I am, surrounded by professional editors, photographers, writers and journalists. A stack of copies of the latest issue arrives from the printers and I casually flick through, pretty much expecting not to find my review, but you never know.

But boom, there it is. Top Eats. Below an arrangement of eye-catching photographs sit 500 of my words. My words, my review, my name at the end. My name. In print. I try to play it cool but inside I'm high-fiving the world. 15,000 copies distributed in bars, restaurants, hotels, cafes, gyms, schools, offices and apartment buildings in Vietnam's two biggest cities, Saigon & Hanoi. That's double the number of visits this blog has ever had since it began in January 2012.

But for now I sit there, mostly in silence, not sure what I, a former office-administrator, gearbox builder and wannabe short-story writer can really bring to the table. Nevertheless, ideas are bounced around me, opinions on the latest issue are given and suggestions for the next are raised. It's informal, it's creative, it's casual clothes - no shirts or ties here - someone's even drinking a beer, and somehow, it's me, and I like it.

(Full-size readable version below)

"Okay," says Nick. "Street Snacker..." This is the magazine's regular section focussing on a new street-food dish each month. He looks to me. "Simon, do you want to take it?"

I nod.

"How about bo la lot?"

I've never heard of it. "Okay," I say. "...but, what is that?"

"It's good, you'll see."

I get an address and soon after I'm introducing myself to the owner of this tiny street-food joint as a writer for Word magazine. It feels...odd! "We'd like to feature your restaurant in the magazine," I explain. She's delighted. We eat 'bo la lot' (beef in leaves), I interview her about her life, her restaurant and her food and I spend the next couple of days writing (yeah, I took my time!). It feels great to be writing for a purpose again, after so many months filling notebooks with what are mostly futile attempts at story writing, for stories that no one will probably ever read anyway. I like it.

It's October now, and at the end of the month we take a half-term trip to our nearest 'desert island', Phu Quoc. In the waterfront bar of our hotel sit a few copies of the magazine.

"I'm in there," I say to Rosie.

"You are! You are indeed."

I flick one of them open to my page, just to make sure it's still there. It is.

I COULD DO THIS...

The next week my Street Snacker article is published in the November edition and I'm once again sat at the editorial meeting to plan the next issue.

"December's Street Snacker..." says Nick. "Simon?"

"Absolutely," I reply, and my confidence leaps. They like me...I guess?

"Cool. Next up - Top Eats. There's a great BBQ place in District 1 that's just had a makeover. You want to check that out too?"

"I can indeed." And I'm thinking to myself, wow! That's two pages. Two articles, two pages!

When the discussion is opened up to other ideas for the December edition I raise my hand. "There's a cool 'room-escape' game that opened this summer in District 3," I offer.

People look confused. "What's 'room-escape'?" someone asks.

"Where you get locked in a room and have to solve puzzles to escape...?"

Silence.

"It's very big in Europe and the States - like the online puzzle games you get..."

"Okay, sounds interesting," says Nick. "Write it up. 600 words."

And that's three pages! It's going to be a busy month. And then....

He runs through his list of notes. "You mentioned chocolate wine before..." he continues, looking up at me.

Our neighbour had recently tried cocoa juice wine at her boyfriend's house and raved about how good it was. He worked for a chocolate factory in HCMC and the farmers who supply their cocoa had sold him a bottle of their home-made wine. Again, no one at the table had heard of it.

"Chocolate...Wine?" came the ubiquitous response. "I have to try that!" said someone else.

"Okay," said Nick. "Chocolate wine - Simon Stanley."

And we're up to four pages!

THE BIG ONE

Over the coming days I exchange emails with Nick and we agree on an angle for the story. Focussing on Marou chocolate - a luxury producer based in Saigon whose products can be found in Fortnum and Mason among other luxury stores across 25 countries - we decide to craft the story around the company's farmers with the chocolate wine as the hook.

"So much has been written about the story of the company - let's do something different," I suggest.

Dotted throughout the countryside, these tiny farms are producing some of the best chocolate in the world, in a country that neither produces nor consumes much chocolate at all. I'd heard about Marou's "better than fair-trade" business ethic and was keen to show another side to the firm away from a simple "this is Marou, they make good chocolate".

I line up an interview with the French owners at their factory (and make a scramble all over town on the morning of the meeting to find the one shop that sells dictaphones) and make the long taxi ride up there. Tucked away in a dusty backstreet on the edge of town, I navigate the final hundred metres or so by smell alone, the distinctive aroma of chocolate riding the warm air.

I'm shown the production facilities, the sacks of beans arrived straight from the farm, the packaging room...the whole process. Yet I feel like an impostor, wielding my stupid Sony dictaphone like an idiot, asking stupid questions with lots of "umms" and "errs", in my yokel accent (a tragic consequence of using a dictaphone is actually hearing your own voice - and hating it). What must they think of a magazine who sends such a numpty to do their journalism? "We're a serious company!" I hear them saying to themselves. "Sacrebleu!"

I suck it up and try to sound as professional as possible. I ask if we could join their agronomist on one of his tours of the countryside when he goes out to visit their farmers and hunt, literally, for new ones. "Of course," says Samuel, one of the co-owners. He gives me the guy's email address and we arrange to spend 24 hours with him on a trip to Nam Cat Tien National Park in Lam Dong and Dong Nai provinces.

But there's one problem. The guy rides up there on his scooter with his translator on the back. I need to shadow him on this journey and the only way is to follow him from Saigon. But I don't have a bike. Or a photographer. "You must take a photographer," Nick had said. "We need the photos."

URBAN AND OTHERWISE - VIETNAM'S JUNGLES

Less than 48 hours before departure, I acquire a 125cc automatic scooter from the manager of our apartment building and head off into the backstreets of District 1 to get my bike legs. The roads in Vietnam are re-diddly-ickulous. Packed with millions of bikes, the rules are...flexible. People whizz up on the wrong side of the street, turn suddenly without indicating (or even looking), pull out of side-streets without so much as a glance, and ride so close together you can frequently feel exhaust heat from other bikes gently baking your left calf. If ever there was a lesson in anticipatory, defensive driving, Saigon is it.

Here's a video to give you a rough idea of what it's like aboard a bike here...

Check out the beer delivery at 2:55!

At 5:20 this guy drives past the end of our street, 100m or so from our apartment.

You won't believe me, but it's safer than it looks. Slow and steady, the traffic just 'blends', flowing like water through the streets, always moving, never clogging. And despite the horns and what we in the UK would class as bad driving, no one is angry and no one gets road rage. The horn just means "I'm here," and we all go about our business. Nippy, agile and able to stop on a dime, the scooter is the only way to really get about this city.

So I manage a few hours riding practice over two days but the afternoon before I'm due to leave, we still have no photographer. After a frantic exchange of emails with the magazine, one of the members of the their staff (a writer, photographer, editor and fashion expert), Francis Xavier, agrees to make the ride up with me. I feel pretty guilty - it's a long way, and she probably has better things to do. No. she definitely has better things to do, better than riding up there with this idiot. But I suck it up and think of the story.

Next problem, her bike is an old 50cc Honda Cub and "probably won't make it".

It's a four hour drive, at least, and I don't doubt her for a minute.

More e-mails. I'm inexperienced as a rider and don't need the pressure of taking her on the back of my bike - that and it's not so comfortable sitting on the back of a bike for 150km. But she has a friend with a 125 to lend her. Just hours before we need to leave, we are ready.

THE ADVENTURE BEGINS

After almost 4 hours in the saddle, caked in road dirt, brake dust, tyre rubber and sweat, we arrive in the Nam Cat Tien National Park buffer zone - the sparsely populated ring of rainforest, fruit farms, coffee plantations and tiny villages surrounding the park. The landscape is stunning. Rolling mountains surround us, their faces coated in lush tropical forests. Waterfalls tumble out of the scenery and kingfishers, herons and eagles dart overhead as we cruise the dusty country roads in convoy. And here we find the cocoa farmers. And here the story begins.

So today, with this being my 150th blog post, my first feature magazine article has been printed and distributed across Vietnam - another 15,000 copies - with the story later to appear on the magazine's website. It covers six pages, plus the other three articles I wrote earlier in the month. Pretty chuffed am I.

If you want to read the whole magazine, full PDF versions of each edition are available at the bottom of the magazine's homepage at wordvietnam.com (iPad users can export the PDF to your Kindle app) or click the following links to see just my articles (opens a new tab):

October
November
December - part 1
December - part 2

The big feature on Marou was substantially edited, so do feel free to read the full version here.

With a few more articles lined up for January, a 2,000 word Open University assignment on the Russian Empire due next week, a half marathon this coming weekend and a week or so exploring Nam Cat Tien national park and the mountainous city of Dalat over Christmas, it's going to be another busy month...

Saigon by Night...by Vespa

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The narrow alleyways race past. Colours, sounds and smells rush by. Cries of kerbside food-vendors cut through the chorus of rattling scooter horns. Clouds of smoke and steam swirl through our wheels and spiral off in the dust as we pass. My driver drops down a gear and cranks out a short burst of throttle, expertly threading us through the chaotic night-time traffic of this busy Saigon backstreet. With the bikes around us dancing in and out, avoiding each other with millimetres to spare, we swerve around bicycles, food carts, fruit sellers and parked taxis, my knees brushing past each obstacle, but the driver knows what he's doing. Suddenly, the path ahead narrows to what seems like a dead-end and the world slows as a looming brick wall approaches. Then, like flocking birds, we all turn and bank in unison, bursting out beneath an arch of paper lanterns onto a wide tree-lined avenue. I look back to see the rest of the group pop one by one from the shadows, their fifty year old two-stroke engines ringing clearly above the chaos. We all meet at the next set of traffic lights as a wall of traffic rolls across our path, everyone eyeing the green signal which will send us once again into the bedlam. I spy Rosie through the haze of petrol fumes and we share a knowing smile. We own this night, this perfect night, in this perfect city of noise and dirt and crumbling walls, with history so thick it clogs the air and food so good it could take a lifetime to fully appreciate.

There's no better way to see Ho Chi Minh City than on the back of a scooter, and when that scooter is a restored 1960s Vespa, it's like being part of your own slice of pre-1975 Saigon. Whisked from one food joint to the next, with a few boozy and musical interludes, we really got to see a side of the city we'd so far been missing out on, and with our expert local guide meeting us at each waypoint, we picked up some valuable tips and tricks for our life here in Vietnam. I even decided that life aboard a scooter isn't as crazy as it looks and have since been eyeing up a two-wheeled stallion of my own.

Vietnam Vespa Adventures operates out of Ho Chi Minh City, Hoi An and Siem Reap (Cambodia). We took the "Saigon After Dark" tour. www.vietnamvespaadventures.com

Phu Quoc...

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...the tropical paradise 1 hour from Saigon

Saigon Flower Market

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Just what you need...

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...when settling down to watch the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off...

Truly scrumptious, as Mary would say.