One thing that has struck me while in Ho Chi Minh city has been the lack of policemen or women. I haven't seen a single one and I've been riding around the city every day on the back of a motorbike. In "Democratic" Cambodia I see half a dozen policemen on most of the major intersections; they are there to catch people doing something wrong. Normally, they focus on the poorer people, on motorbikes, but this year I've been pleased to see them target those in cars. They all carry walkie talkies and they pass on messages to each other when they see someone without a helmet, no mirrors on their bikes, going the wrong way on a one way street etc. They collect the fine and pop it into a box that's shared at the end of the day. People could go to the local police station but they are told it would take hours out of their day, and so they pay up on the spot.
In this part of the world the majority of city ladies do not want to get a tan of any kind. In the supermarkets there are countless products with the word "whitening" on the label. In Vietnam the young ladies go to the extreme and cover their bodies, except for their eyes, when they are on their motorbikes. They have a wrap around skirt that's open at the back and covers their knees and legs like an apron. Their jacket has long sleeves and a hood, or they wear long sleeves that are pulled on like a sock. They always wear a mask and, underneath their helmet, there is usually a floppy brimmed hat or the jacket has a hood. They must be stiflingly hot but it's better than being brown! I had to laugh, watching the young ladies on the hike, because they were also shrouded in cloth and they reminded me of brightly coloured Muslim women.
When I go on my morning walk I see groups of ladies who are taking care of small children; they look like grandparents to me. They sit on the cement and natter while the children run around. Just up the road the cockerels continue to stare at each other from their individual cages; I'm glad I don't see any fighting. One man was walking along slowly, holding onto the path railings. He had leg irons on one leg so I think he'd had a stroke. A young relative walked behind him with a wheelchair. When I came back, the man was in the chair and the young man was massaging him. With so much happening outside the home, because of the weather, I get a better picture of family life than I do in the West.
I read the BBC news this morning and I'm a bit worried about the Indian election. The Prime Minister and his party are making hay of the recent massacre of Indian soldiers by militants from Pakistan. One MP from PM Modi's party, the BJP, said, "This emergency will gain us a couple of dozen more seats." I sincerely hope not.
In the evening I went with Phuoc to Toan's home. She's just had a baby and had invited a few of us for dinner. Food is so cheap they didn't cook but just went downstairs to the street and bought food from local sellers. We didn't have roast duck yesterday but we did today, along with grilled chicken, noodles and vegetables. Tam brought a bottle of her homemade mulled wine. She uses red wine and she adds some cinnamon, star anise and thinly sliced oranges and so it takes a lot like a Christmasy drink. Toan's husband is a fan of comics so he had shelves full of them; mostly from Japan and therefore red from back to front. He also runs a whiskey bar and so shelves were full of maturing whiskeys which I presume will be worth more in the future. The shelves were floor to ceiling and about 5 metres long so they held a lot of bottles.
Phuoc wanted to make a soup for breakfast tomorrow so we drove up and down the narrow streets looking for tomatoes. There's no comparison between being on a bike in Asia and in the West. Here, every street is alive with people and shops, even late into the night, and so there's always something to watch. My Dad used to have a motorbike, before he married my Mother. When I came along he had to have a sidecar. He'd never ridden a bike with a sidecar and so he managed to wrap it around a lamppost; I wasn't in it but at that moment he made the decision never to ride a motorbike again. Maybe he's smiling down on me now as I ride around Asia on the back of bikes.
