2010 Midyear news

A lot of new experiences and overseas travelling to Taiwan, New Zealand and Vietnam since the last blog. Been so busy that I am now sitting in Vancouver and completing this blog. I visited Taiwan for a 2 week hardware installation and training along with Amit from our offices in Canada. Our host Benny was absolutely amazing and he just wanted to spoil us all the time. Language was a big problem though and I can still hear Amit say:” Benny, no man we don’t understand, use different words”. Benny chaperoned us most of the time to places of interest; the night markets and bargained on our behalf at the Electronic Supermarket during several visits. It is their culture to give presents and it was difficult to get him to stop. The worst was that he constantly wanted to feed us while we were walking about. I am still amazed how he can eat so much and be so thin. I cannot say that I always enjoyed the food and the smells of the food stalls while walking around. Traffic was quite an experience and is probably the best example of organised chaos. I have never seen so many scooters, they are parked two deep on the sideways and fill the roads with traffic. Whole families will travel on a scooter: Dad as the driver, mom on the back with a kid between them and one or two kids standing on the running boards in front of the dad.


The Taiwan antennas are mounted on very high towers and I was not so comfortable being 20m in the air on an open framework.

We then flew to New Zealand and we both thought that Air NZ was a refreshing change from the other airlines. The crew were just so relaxed and friendly; the food was plain but very well prepared and tasted great. The layout in the aircraft is probably the best for “cattle class”.

We worked on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. New Zealand is a truly beautiful place, it was very green and lush in the countryside and the little town of Martinborough and Greytown are so relaxed it is like a time travel to the 80’s. I was lucky to have spare time to visit my old friend Frans from South Africa. A few beers, a BBQ and chatting and way too soon I was on my way to Oz again. It was great to be with my family again after 3 weeks.

I managed to arrange my flights to Canada for June in such a way that I will be able to attend the Candian F1 race in Montreal and visit my nephew Johann in Winnepeg before I return to Oz in July.

I was then requested to visit Thailand before the trip to Canada but with visas and stuff I tried to delay till August but was overruled and just as I had it all in place all hell broke loose in Bangkok and my trip was cancelled due to the political problems there. I then had to very quickly arrange to visit Vietnam the last week of May.

It was quite a mission to organise a business visa for Vietnam and in the end had to settle for a tourist visa. This was not any easier as you have to first request it and get approval and then you are allowed to travel and have the visa stamped in your passport on entry. The customs people in Ho Chi Minh City (old Saigon) was as rude and blunt as the blacks in RSA and not fun to deal with after 15 hour flight. The other people and especially my hosts here in Vietnam were very friendly but the language was once again a problem. The trick is to use mono syllable words and not use tenses.

The Taiwan tower for the antenna is a baby in comparison with the tower here in Vietnam, 35m and a much narrower platform! When you shift your weight at the top, the whole tower sways. Somehow I did not have the same uneasy feeling up there that I had in Taiwan. I am very happy they only have one antenna here. My arms are still quite stiff from the climb.

Vietnam is a poor place and very grotty in places and yet the people are friendly, helpful, very well educated, respectful and they dress very well. Most the people I dealt with have their own dwelling (flat or house) and motorbikes.

In Vietnam the primary form of transport is motorbike that is a cross between a motorbike and a scooter, with bigger and thinner wheels like a kids bicycle but the frame and fairings of a scooter to protect your feet when the road is whet and to allow woman to ride it with a dress. Bicycles are the main transport for the poor and the young people and you often see them travelling in groups with one sitting on the carrier. After the age of 18 they can purchase a motorbike. They also have plenty of the old delivery style tricycles with two wheels in the front and a tray. They load an amazing amount of stuff in there with anything from massive 2m long steel plates and pipes to the equivalent of a bakkie load of boxes, vegetable or fruit.

The traffic here is complete chaos and you probably wont be able to go anywhere without a horn on your vehicle. I have not been able to work out who has right of way in a crossing or a roundabout as everyone is hooting and ducking other drivers.

Roadside cafes (read a bunch of child size plastic chairs under a tarpaulin or tree) are where people have lunch and dinner and although it looks very grotty, it is surprisingly clean and each bowl is cleaned again on the table by rinsing with boiling water. The food was a bit more Western and most items are fried rather than boiled as it was in Taiwan. Typical lunch is fried green beans with potato vines and leaves, fried fish and chicken pieces, roasted peanuts and rice. There are a few sauces to lightly dip your food in but they have some VERY HOT stuff in there.

The last dinner was in restaurant and the food choice was again a bit strange at times with Chilly Jellyfish, Fried Eel and soup with a seafood thing that looked like a kidney being the only food I did not try. Only the men drank beer at the meal and they kept on filling the glass so I have no idea how much we drank. I was presented with a framed Vietnamese art by the group and fortunately it fitted in my backpack.

The hotel I stayed in is very luxurious and the people all speak very good English. Restaurant has a choice of western or traditional Vietnamese menus. The manager turned out to be a South African! The weather here is very hot and sticky and it feels like walking into a sauna when you leave the hotel. It caused me a lot of grief with my camera as it steamed up badly when I tried to take pictures outside. I found a camera shop and managed to explain to the owner the problem without him speaking a word of English! He used a hairdryer to heat the camera and lens and dried all the moisture. He also explained that I should wrap my camera in the room with the aircon by showing me picture of an aircon on his PC. It was a little like playing Pictionary.

It is really difficult when I am away as Carina usually works from the early morning and we need someone to get Michael going and ready for school at that time. When I’m away we have to rely on friends to do this. Fortunately our friends Shaun and Chantal (also South Africans) have a daughter in the same class and he then sleeps over with them. We can’t wait for Carina to finish her course, yes we thought she would finish a while ago but she decided to continue as it is like running a 800m race and then stopping 10m before the line. She has applied for leave while I am in Canada but have not received approval yet! And now I can say that her leave was approved and that she has completed her training! It is such a relief.