The Shines see Saigon by Vespa

The Shines — all five of them — tour Vietnam’s largest city on vintage Vespas – part of their Long Trip Home.

July 6: Bangkok to Saigon

OH GOD OF the railways, most high priest of train tracks, forgive us for we have strayed. Please try to understand. An overland trip from Bangkok to Saigon would have meant not only rail travel but also a number of bus journeys. We have three dear children and, having invested so much time and money, have grown really quite attached to them recently. Having experienced southeast Asian buses over the years we feared for their safety and simply couldn’t do it, so forgive us our transgression… we will be back very soon.

And so it came to pass that we touched down in Ho Chi Minh City on Vietnam Airlines flight no. VN600 as our odyssey lurched onwards.

Joking aside, we both agonised at length, and over and over again, about deviating briefly from our rail route.

The truth is, both of us have seen far too many overturned tourist buses over the years, torn like ripped pilchard tins, their innards strewn across highways in Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia.

Our Thailand to Vietnam leg would not have been possible without clambering aboard one of those buses – the type which bowls down the centre of the road regardless of lanes or opposing traffic – and our beautiful, brave children mean more than any principal or grand travel plan.

Ginny convinced Mrs S that was the case during a walk in Bukit Brown cemetery while Zoe was meticulously planning our route. I hope you agree.

Full disclosure: we’re due for one more short flight too, from Hanoi to Hong Kong once we’ve travelled the Reunification Express, the rail track which acts as Vietnam’s spine. The reasons for that are more prosaic, though. We wouldn’t have had enough time to complete our trip if we’d gone overland from Hanoi; plus the crossing into China would have meant buying a ticket on the border in the middle of the night. Nobody can accuse us of taking the easy option, but there are limits…

In any case, VN600 was an uneventful enough flight. The boys had seats to themselves and Kitty was appeased throughout by the infamous iPad (see: http://bit.ly/1516oHW). The only moment of brief excitement was when Mrs S cried with laughter at my expense after revisiting the ‘dare’ theme from Bangkok and turning it on me, the chief architect.

“I dare you to goose her — I’ll buy you an X-Box,” she spluttered as a willowy air hostess sashayed past me down the aisle.

“Really? An X-box,” I played along, looking up from my in-flight magazine.

“I will, yeah — when you get out of prison.”

Never a dull moment…

“I’ll buy you an X-Box if you goose her…”

We’d elected to get a visa on arrival and were beginning to curse our decision as our visa chap hovered at the back of the queue while the line for immigration grew longer and longer. This chap, though, had played this game before and knew it well.

Clocking my noticeably unimpressed (some might say grumpy) visage at his lackadaisical approach to securing our visas and getting us out of the airport, he flashed me a smile, asked for 10 U.S. dollars before tucking the green note into my passport.

“Follow me,” he grinned, holding our travel documents.

Ho Chi Minh might well have spun in his grave at the naked commercial enterprise of it all, but sure enough we strolled past the banks of queuing visitors at which point our chap performed his magic and we were through in a jiffy.

“Follow me, I know a man who can…”

A mere fifteen minutes later we were checked into the very chi-chi Alcove Library Hotel, the children were munching peaches and drinking milk and I was contemplating that life didn’t really get much better, just as Mrs S confounded that notion with the news that she had arranged a Vespa tour of Saigon for us all.

The wonderful staff at Vietnam Vespa Adventures fixed a two hour tour of the city on reconditioned vintage Vespas; collected us form the hotel and whizzed us round the Saigon giving us a real insiders view of this buzzing and vibrant city of 6 and a half million people.

It is 14 years since we were last in Vietnam. So much of the skyline has changed, and the bicycles have been mostly replaced by scooters and mopeds.

The people, though, remain the same. Proud and straightforward. There is something about Vietnam and the Vietnamese I fell in love with all those years ago, and it was rekindled as we touched down in the country’s largest city. I love the smells and the sounds, the vibrancy of the city, its wide Parisian avenues sitting cheek-by-jowl with its winding back alleys. I love the matter-of-fact way they are so willing to discuss their country’s troubled recent past. And I love the way that everyone you meet returns a smile with a smile.

It is good to be back finally.

Not even Vespa action can keep Kitty from her sleep…

Following our fantastic Vespa escapade, which merely confirmed that I have the BEST WIFE EVER, we hit Brangelina’s favourite Saigon eaterie Cuc Gach Quan for a bite of supper. Brad and Angie caused a bit of a wow when they brought their kids to this rustic, organic restaurant in the trendy back street of District 1.

Zossian caused a bit of a wow too, as it turns out.

The tamarind prawns were sensational, the green mango salad beyond compare and the claypot pork a triumph.

Kitty ate mostly popcorn and white rice, Ben pulled Norman Wisdom faces and declared everything was too spicy, before Kitty performed her final act of disapproval by dumping a glass of pomelo juice all over the dinner table.

I drank a bottle of Saigon beer and got the bill…

Ben feeling the pace a little…

Memories from Day 6:

Hello Vietnam

Our wonderful guide Dieu

what a great way to blow the cobwebs away…

…a two-wheeled tour round Saigon on a Vespa — for all five of us. Ben especially loved it, and I am pretty sure Kitty is a bit of a biker chick, too…