that trip up north

and the rest which made the cut…

serenity

road trip

2 days of chinese new year holidays plus a weekend in this part of the world, we pulled a crazy card and dived into a road trip up north. two thousand kilometers and loads of traffic jams later….

(more to come..)

changi airport terminal 3

just for the record, changi airport terminal 3 is not a passenger terminal building – its a shopping center with “parking spaces” for airplanes.

bring your comfortable walking shoes ladies, its gonna be a long long walk (seriously!) from aerobridge to the transit shops or vice versa when you land into singapore. if you’re a serial shopper and plan to do some serious spending the moment you land, make sure you skip the in-flight movies and charge up with sleep first – you gonna need it.

post vietnam blues

the trip up to vietnam was like a bad dream. 14 hours work day daily in an utterly fubar-ed situation left me broken and 3 kilos lighter when i got back (and that was only a 6 day trip, wonder if i’d just disappear into thin air if i stayed there for a year). right up to the very last minute that i was in the office in saigon i was hassled by either the users or the systems; it felt like getting out of prison when i finally got into the cab to the airport.

recollecting back from the limited times i had outside work in saigon (i chose to take a slow walk to & from work eveyday), i would think that it would be a wonderful destination for a photography holiday. the town looks like any medium sized malaysian town but ten times cleaner! traffic was mad (imagine the amount of people jostling at the start of the boston marathon, then imagine each of them on a motorbike – you’ll get the traffic on saigon’s roads) with motorists mostly not heeding the traffic lights. surprisingly though, to cross the streets, one would just have to just walk right ahead, the motorists would do everything to avoid you.

people aren’t very friendly though they wont bother you either. nonetheless, i noticed a few instances where a tourist raised up a camera to capture one of the numerous sidewalk eateries (one literally sits on the side walks’ ground and have a meal here) and all of them actually stopped, noodle hanging out from mouth, smiled and waved at the camera! anyone who loves people or street photography should slap on some 50mm primes and walk the streets for some very interesting shots (becareful of snatch thieves on bikes though, loads of incidents of such)

communication can be a problem with only a handful of viets who can actually converse in even basic english (i seriously almost punched a viet vendor because of network issues in the office – its hard to speak even plain english let alone explain technical jargon to them). the service staff would usually be ok (why shouldn’t they? accommodation and service in saigon is not cheap!) with english but you’d be hard pressed to find anyone to have your questions answered when you’re on the streets.

i would love to return to saigon on my own time but for now, i am just reeling from the bad work experience. also, i have my credit card bills to clear first before i can plan to go anywhere (hotel was $USD310 per night when i was there!) …boy its gonna be a long while.

goood morning vietnam

i hate rush jobs. especially when “business” is driving opening an office in an “emerging” market, the technolgists have to scramble to set up the infrastructure in double quick time. add a little “every one wants to keep costs lean” factor and you’d come up with an utterly fubar-ed situation.

oh, i am writing this on an overpriced hotel internet access in saigon (20USD for net access per day is daylight robbery!)

more to come… ahm seriously bushed after days of lack of sleep and long long work hours (silver lining fact – am flying back home later in the evening, regardless of the condition of the office! woot!)

(wished i could have taken and posted a picture of the place or something….seriously, i really haven’t the time!)