Vietnam Pt. 2 (Dalat)
Well I'm back in Saigon for the 3rd time. Trying to sort out my Korean work visa which is proving to be quite difficult due to the fact that I am not applying from Australia and it is hard to get in contact with the camp director as I do not have a phone and she is in Korea. It looks as though it might just work out but dark clouds still loom overhead. Will need some luck to get me through.
Anyways it's nice to be back and have a sense of familiarity in a place so foreign. After Cambodge it was time for us to visit my father's coffee farm in Dalat which he has been visiting during harvest season for the last few years. Finally got to reconcile the difference between my the way I imagined it was and the reality. It's actually very nice... though I was not impressed intially. Very hilly so it is hard to judge the size, it's 60 hectres apparently which is "fookin large init?" [Just finished a Ben Elton book (High Society) so I have a pommy accent in stuck my head.]
It was a relief to my conscience to see that the workers on the farm who get paid roughly $2.50 AUS a day are treated well by local standards. They get paid more than other farms cause it is far from town (28km dirt roads of varying quality) so none of them can get girlfriends, so they pass the time smoking some local plant through a long bong-like apparatus. I don't think they get high from it, but I was a little shocked to see the workers sucking down bongs on their lunch break!
Dalat is a mountain town that has been growing fast cause of the perfect agriculture conditions they have. Its in the central part of Vietnam in the middle of plenty of rainforest and has awesome soil apparently; so plenty of farms growing coffee, fruits, vegetables, flowers and plants. It's also home to many local artists and poets; the beautiful countryside is supposed to be inspiring or some crap. One dude recited his poetry to my parents whilst pissed at a restaurant and gave them a book of it. We arrived midway through the first ever Dalat Flower Festival which was as lovely as it sounds but with no hippies. At night though the party got going in a Vietnamese way: terrible music, innocent dancing, mild drinking and yelling like soccer hooligans.
Most nights were spent at various restaurants entertaining local officials, businessmen & the like. Was an insight into the way the socialist government works over here. It's no wonder that things move slowly, you have to wine & dine the people with power all the time and because the officials can do whatever they want you need to give them a cut on any profits or they just say no to any requests. The fine art of negotiating with these people is to work out how much to give them so they are satisfied, but not so much that they become greedy and start making unreasonable demands. Very fine line which is why my dad has a friend who manages the farm with him who is also the director of the local national park. One night we had dinner with Phung's parents if you know him. His dad is an important man involved with local agriculture, I think he represents Austrade giving aid to Vietnamese farmers.
The old ones and I parted ways as mum had to head back to Australia for Xmas & pops had to go look at tractors or something. So I stayed with my dad's friend and did a touristy tour of the city. All went well until I wandered around at some minority village and lost the rest of the tour group. Eventually I hitched a ride on the back of a schoolgirl's motorbike and found them at the "Chicken Village" after making them 20 minutes late for departure. They were all very goodhearted about it and kept making jokes that I needed 5 buffaloes if I wanted to marry a local girl and from then on everyone kept an eye out for me as I was the only white (sort of white) guy who couldnt speak the local language... was very touching, warm feelings and all that.
Trying desperatley to sort out this visa business so I can let loose for a few days, havent been properly pissed since... actually recently. On Saturday I hit up karaoke with my dad's friend and his work friends. The Soju wine and beer was flowing a definate prerequisite for karaoke. I killed em with "Imagine" by John Lennon and "Superfreak" by Rick James. The karaoke machine gave me 100% for both efforts, which says a lot more about the machine than it does about my singing. No one else got the full marks but they were singing those Viet songs that use those weird notes; the ones that are real irritating.
Hopefully I can sort out this visa business so I don't have to worry about anything. I'm meeting some people for dinner tommorow which should be a bit of fun; now that the folks aren't around I can start to misbehave a bit more. I'd like to raise the rating of this blog from PG to MA at least, if not higher. When I think about it 15 is still a little young, so I'll go for the R rating. Either by adding some sex scenes or using explicit language, one or the other is bound to happen.
[Also check out Tomek's bands new website www.vanshe.com their Ep is worthy and things are looking good for those young upstarts. Also theres a bunch of photo's of Tomek in silly shorts too!]
Anyways it's nice to be back and have a sense of familiarity in a place so foreign. After Cambodge it was time for us to visit my father's coffee farm in Dalat which he has been visiting during harvest season for the last few years. Finally got to reconcile the difference between my the way I imagined it was and the reality. It's actually very nice... though I was not impressed intially. Very hilly so it is hard to judge the size, it's 60 hectres apparently which is "fookin large init?" [Just finished a Ben Elton book (High Society) so I have a pommy accent in stuck my head.]
It was a relief to my conscience to see that the workers on the farm who get paid roughly $2.50 AUS a day are treated well by local standards. They get paid more than other farms cause it is far from town (28km dirt roads of varying quality) so none of them can get girlfriends, so they pass the time smoking some local plant through a long bong-like apparatus. I don't think they get high from it, but I was a little shocked to see the workers sucking down bongs on their lunch break!
Dalat is a mountain town that has been growing fast cause of the perfect agriculture conditions they have. Its in the central part of Vietnam in the middle of plenty of rainforest and has awesome soil apparently; so plenty of farms growing coffee, fruits, vegetables, flowers and plants. It's also home to many local artists and poets; the beautiful countryside is supposed to be inspiring or some crap. One dude recited his poetry to my parents whilst pissed at a restaurant and gave them a book of it. We arrived midway through the first ever Dalat Flower Festival which was as lovely as it sounds but with no hippies. At night though the party got going in a Vietnamese way: terrible music, innocent dancing, mild drinking and yelling like soccer hooligans.
Most nights were spent at various restaurants entertaining local officials, businessmen & the like. Was an insight into the way the socialist government works over here. It's no wonder that things move slowly, you have to wine & dine the people with power all the time and because the officials can do whatever they want you need to give them a cut on any profits or they just say no to any requests. The fine art of negotiating with these people is to work out how much to give them so they are satisfied, but not so much that they become greedy and start making unreasonable demands. Very fine line which is why my dad has a friend who manages the farm with him who is also the director of the local national park. One night we had dinner with Phung's parents if you know him. His dad is an important man involved with local agriculture, I think he represents Austrade giving aid to Vietnamese farmers.
The old ones and I parted ways as mum had to head back to Australia for Xmas & pops had to go look at tractors or something. So I stayed with my dad's friend and did a touristy tour of the city. All went well until I wandered around at some minority village and lost the rest of the tour group. Eventually I hitched a ride on the back of a schoolgirl's motorbike and found them at the "Chicken Village" after making them 20 minutes late for departure. They were all very goodhearted about it and kept making jokes that I needed 5 buffaloes if I wanted to marry a local girl and from then on everyone kept an eye out for me as I was the only white (sort of white) guy who couldnt speak the local language... was very touching, warm feelings and all that.
Trying desperatley to sort out this visa business so I can let loose for a few days, havent been properly pissed since... actually recently. On Saturday I hit up karaoke with my dad's friend and his work friends. The Soju wine and beer was flowing a definate prerequisite for karaoke. I killed em with "Imagine" by John Lennon and "Superfreak" by Rick James. The karaoke machine gave me 100% for both efforts, which says a lot more about the machine than it does about my singing. No one else got the full marks but they were singing those Viet songs that use those weird notes; the ones that are real irritating.
Hopefully I can sort out this visa business so I don't have to worry about anything. I'm meeting some people for dinner tommorow which should be a bit of fun; now that the folks aren't around I can start to misbehave a bit more. I'd like to raise the rating of this blog from PG to MA at least, if not higher. When I think about it 15 is still a little young, so I'll go for the R rating. Either by adding some sex scenes or using explicit language, one or the other is bound to happen.
[Also check out Tomek's bands new website www.vanshe.com their Ep is worthy and things are looking good for those young upstarts. Also theres a bunch of photo's of Tomek in silly shorts too!]
posted by Dave Tran at 1:46 am
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