Phu My Hung Security Fire Drill

The boys in green (Phu My Hung Security, the largest private army outside of the Vatican's Swiss gaurds) strutted their stuff this morning in a fire safety exercise and just happened to do it in the apartment adjacent to us on the same floor. We had ringside seats for this dramatic exercise involving fake victims being rushed out on stretchers, a smoke machine, victims abseiling from the 7th floor window in a rudimentary winch and hoses being unleashed with their full fury.





I played my part, standing on the balcony waving my arms and holding up the baby as if to say 'Save us, for gods sake save us!'. Some of the guards were laughing but I don't think the guy barking orders with a megaphone found it amusing. That aside, it was a serious exercise as this video will show - a volunteer (or not) guard crawling out of the window and abseiling down the building.

Finally, a sunset!

Over the weekend we finally had the opportunity to sit and enjoy a bit of a sunset.



Maybe I will start a photographic exhibit called 'Beautiful Phu My Hung'...;-)

New Neighbourhood

In the distance is Phu My Hung, in the foreground the upcoming Riverside Residence project, which as you can see, we will have a pretty good view of from now on.

"Phu My Hung is not a dirty word Blackadder. Crevice is a dirty word, but Phu My Hung isn't."

Phu My Hung seems for some to have a stigma attached, as if moving there is a cop-out, a wimps option, giving up in a sense to a sterile environment, giving up on the real Vietnam. Well, for us, now a family, it's the only choice. The time for bravado and the (apparent) ego trip of still being 'hardcore' enough to live in the inner city districts is gone. The three and a half years I spent living in Binh Thanh district, an epi-center of all that is potentially frustrating (congested roads, flooding, poor infrastructure) feel like that was my time. Now, times have changed. Our little one needs the space to breath and play, and with our new neighbourhood we have this. We can actually use a pushchair and in the morning or evening stroll around leafy green parks and quiet deserted streets. When I retire at night it is not to the sound of bad karaoke, racing motorbikes or a hawkers call , it it is to the sound of croaking frogs and humming cicadas.


I suppose our year back in England helped to put a lot into perspective, about the good things and the bad things of living in Vietnam. Quality of life being one. From now on there is no more traffic to worry about, my school is 5 minutes away. No flooding anymore, and the air is comparatively good too. Town is just a 15 minute taxi ride away but all the stresses of its heaving streets are now just a twinkling skyline visible from my chair as I sit typing - that, in itself, is peaceful. PMH has developed now into another busy part of the city and even the main part now is not so attractive to us - busy in it's own way. However, we have managed to find a little corner of the city suitable for what we needed.

In the field opposite the apartments an old man has taken the liberty of setting up his own garden. This is not unusual either, as opportunists have done this in various other spots I have noticed.


Here, work being done on the lawn out the back, the peaceful tree-lined road and apartments in the background.


And some shots from the park:

Saigon Developement Update - July 2009

I'm sure we are all still recovering from yesterday's goat penis front page, or maybe today's frozen tiger story...can you imagine:

A) Hey - the tail is sticking out of the boot - what should we do?
B) Just shove it in, quick!
A) I can't, it's frozen..
B) Ok, let's just go...no one will notice. It's not like we'll be in Thanh Nien tomorrow...
A) Yeah, haha.

The first day we moved into our new apartment I watched the dying rays of the sun cascading onto our balcony but was too busy to sit out there and enjoy. Ever since then I feel like I'm on a disappointing holiday - every day has been cloudy, rainy and windy...no sign of a sunset - oh well!

For some strange reason I have a morbid interest in the development of this city and have been blogging it for some time.

Good ole Nam Ky Khoi Nghai/Nguyen Van Troi have completed their widening projects to help traffic stream into the city from the airport much quicker. They are now probably the worst stretch of road in the central districts. Drains rise out of the road in pyramids of tarmac some one foot higher than the surrounding surface, patches of gravel and pot holes litter the way - viewed from above it must look like a patchwork quilt. Taxis supposed to be ferrying guests and tourists downtown in double-quick time are left painfully picking their way along a 3 kilometre slalom.

At least when it comes to District 1 and District 4 connections things have improved. The new bridge at the end of Nguyen Tat Tan is open which goes over the canal to join up with Ton Duc Thang - it bypasses the tunnel site which is underneath and is still in progress. Coming in from D4 you also get a good view of the skyline on Ham Nghi and Nguyen Hue - the BiTexaco tower under construction especially. I presume it is still set to be the city's tallest building at 60 something floors.



If it does end up looking like this, it'll certainly add a spectacular dimension to the skyline lacking anything like it so far.



Saigon Happiness Square, Nguyen Van Cu on Feb 5th 2008:



And today - not sure what's in it - the 'Now Zone' whatever that is. It's very bland and Singapore like.



Heading down to the end of Nguyen Van Cu we have the fourth bridge to cross the canal between districts 1/5 and 4 now open. This one must have had the residents of D8 very happy. What a lonely and strange backwater District 8 is, a forgotten corner of the city - but this bridge may help open it up to development. The previous access was pretty awful. The bridge has these swanky ramps that curve round underneath - something I shouldn't be excited about, but it's a level of sophistication I've not seen before in Ho Chi Minh City infrastructure. Usually its a plank on a couple of bricks. On the right of the picture is part of the continuing construction of the East-West highway, on the left, that sexy ramp.



Looking east from the Nguyen Van Cu bridge the East-West highway in progression. You can see the temporary shacks of the construction workers lining the bank of the canal:



And this from Cau Ong Lanh, the bridge which leads from Nguyen Thai Hoc into District 4...another new bridge between Ong Lanh and cau Khanh Hoi (pictured earlier with the Bitexaco tower in the background). More ramps, this time coming off the highway. After this, the highway will disappear under the river and plough through District 2, a part of Saigon's ring road. Despite this being pretty much town center.





This is the area I am referring to with all these bridges!



Heading back out to D7 and Lotte World is finished. It has to be the biggest, best organised department store in the city. I hate it. It has many Korean products as well as the whole Vietnamese high street and supermarket collection. The only good thing is the wide isles, a world away from the living hell of an inner city Co-Op Mart. Lotte World is full of people just walking around with the intention of buying absolutely nothing. Sad when a giant shop passes as entertainment...



Back to the Phu My bridge, where they are so optimistic about it opening in September that a fun run has already been organised. I'm not so optimistic. Maybe the actually bridge span will be open, but the elevated roadway that runs right across part of D7 and into Phu My Hung is still being built. When I drove down to take these pictures a violent storm was blowing in overhead, the wind was howling violently and whipping up huge clouds of dust around the construction. People were attempting to shield their eyes whilst driving their bikes one-handed along the bumpy narrow road, avoiding JCB's and huge trucks along the way. Like a scene from Mad Max, the entire road surrounding the site was caught in a vicious dust storm - I saw one old man remaining defiantly in his coffe-shop deckchair and simply place a hat over his face - others seemed caught up in an air of panic and hurried around their place of business pulling things inside as quickly as possible. At times like that I am reminded how miserable life in the city can be for some people - this stretch of construction must have made things hell for the residents.





The elevated road leading to the bridge, still under construction.



All in all, there is some progress to be seen, but don't get too hopeful!

Observations so far

We spent five nights in Happy Inn on Bui Vien next to Sozo cafe, and Chi said to me in the taxi from the airport 'I can't believe I am staying on Bui Vien'. I suppose it must be like someone from a district of Sydney coming back to Aus and going to stay in Kings Cross...but nice hotel overall.

As usual with moving house Internet access has been hard to come by and I've not had the chance to snap many pictures either. But here are a few observations so far:

What used to be a quaint little hotel on the corner of De Tham and Bui Vien has changed into this garish monstrosity. Crazy Buffalo. At night the neon lights up some multicoloured steam....



On a positive note (I think) one Lotteria has actually gone (probably replaced by another 16 elsewhere). Allez Boo is back, just on the opposite corner where the Lotteria was for a while.



One of the top five urine smelling streets in Saigon has been cleaned up as well, this is the little bit of pavement running from PNL up to Le Lai. It used to be a green fence that was saturated in cyclo driver by-product, no it looks a lot better.



Finally, the Phy My bridge is ready for opening in September. Looks pretty good! It will connect district seven to district two. I am hoping, praying, that it will take away the need for the heavy container traffic from the ports to travel through District 4 and then along Ton Duc Thang to get out of the city.



Other things:

1) A gaggle of women in Chi's mum's neighbourhood said we should put a T-shirt on Louisa to keep her lungs warm.
2) On two separate occasions a taxi driver has tried to insert the pushchair into his saloon car boot before folding it up.
3) Everyone thinks Louisa is a boy because she didn't have her ears pierced in the delivery room.

Back in Saigon

So so good to be back in town!
Can't wait to get settled and back into the swing of things. Will be posting soon with pictures on things that have changed since last summer - initial impressions, pretty much the same but with a few new buildings going up and slightly worse traffic.