a walk in the park

This morning I've got a teleconference at 11, so I don't have to get to work until then. Hence the tourist part of my brain kicked in and said "go for a walk". Actually after being stuck inside an exchange for the past 3 days, pretty much all of my brain said go for a walk. So I did.

I decided to have a wander around Thu Le Park which is across the road from my hotel. I quickly discovered that the zoo prevents you from walking the whole way around, and from my previous post you can see there is an island in the middle of the lake: that is part of the zoo as well. I didn't really want to go to the zoo, so I back tracked and went around the other way.

Voi Phuc Temple is a façade! Literally. Here it is from the front:

Behind the façade are the temple grounds, with a few more buildings further back. The temple was built because the people worshipped a Prince that vanquished some pirates back in the 11th century. He then did some other nice things, so they made him a God. Not a bad job description I reckon - Godprince.

I've been told there isn't enough electricity for everyone, and so there are rolling blackouts through out the day. Being good proactive people, the Vietnamese use energy saving bulbs - even in their temple lanterns!

After wandering around the temple grounds for a bit, the zoo then extracted its revenge on me for avoiding it at the start of the walk. To continue my walk I had to enter, and pay the extravagant entrance fee of 2000 Vietnamese Dong... which is an entire $0.15 Australian... : )

There's a back entrance to the island which I couldn't see from my room, and it's guarded by ferocious red crocodiles!... of the concrete variety.

Inside the zoo, the vast majority of exhibits were Vietnamese animals, which is great for a tourist, but all the signs were in Vietnamese too; not so good for a tourist! But then again, I was the only westerner in there as far as I could see, so they've got their target audience correct. (The relativity cheap entrance fee might also be an indication that it's for locals.)

Vietnam is home to many species of Macaques (lets just call them monkeys for simplicity), and the island housed all their enclosures. Because monkeys are cute, I took heaps of photos of them:

There were also the usual such as elephants and tigers; the ordinary such as goats and deer; and the more interesting such as the Malaysian Porcupine (below), and the Binturong - otherwise known as the catbear, which of course is neither a cat or a bear (just like the platypus isn't a duck or a beaver!)

The elephants were a bit sad, as the were chained down to the spot by their legs - except for the one that was currently being exhibited, it was being fed, but was made to stand on a ridiculously small stand, like in an old fashioned circus. The goats on the other hand had an awesome enclosure, with a temple like construction for their protection from the elements. If it's not colloquially known as the temple of the goat, then it should be!!

The porcupine was looking a bit sleepy, so I suspect it might be a nocturnal animal... It was kinda rocking on it's feet with it's eye's closed, while it's mate snoozed in the corner. The binturong's were the weirdest animal I'd seen in a long while (excepting the oversized red coloured cockroach-things I'd seen in the street the other day...). Cat-bear goes some of the way to describing what it looks like; have a look at the photo instead! : )

to the northern hemisphere

The first 24 years of my life have taken me to all parts of main land Australia, both main islands of New Zealand, and to Bali in Indonesia. So before this trip I'd been as far west as Perth, as far South as Wilsons Prom, as far north as Bali, and as far east as Auckland.

Now I'm off to service the needs of the world's telco's! First trek, Hanoi, Vietnam. First stop over... Singapore. I suspect Singapore airport might get frequented by me a fair bit over the next few years. Here's what I might get used to:

That's the view from the smokers balcony / flower garden. To keep a tired traveller happy there is plenty of free grog samples in the duty free store downstairs too.

Hanoi was a 3 hour flight from what I can recall - I don't actually remember taking off - I fell asleep while the aeroplane was taxiing!! The Daewoo hotel in Hanoi is "Hanoi's best" according to the Lonely Planet - here's the view from my first room:

The traffic, as you can see, is pretty damn insane, though I have been enjoying the taxi rides; they are very entertaining. The guy standing under the unbrella is a traffic policeman - his job is to fine anyone who ignores the traffic lights - a manual red light camera system : )

The protocol for driving around this town goes something like this:

1. honk horn
2. merge into the traffic if possible
   
3. if not honk horn
4. drive
5. if impeded honk horn
6. if anyone looks like merging into you, honk horn
7. arrive at destination
8. stop
9. have horns honked at you
   

My favourite traffic sights so far have been a toddler riding between Mum and Dad on a motorbike - ASLEEP!!, and a guy transporting two dead pigs, tied to either side of his motorbike. These are closely followed by people transporting 19" LCD's on the back of their bikes.

Due to the original room only had single beds, I've been moved down two floors to a room with a king sized double. It has a view over Thu Le Park:

The park has a zoo, and an ancient temple, and... the Australian embassy!.. Tomorrow morning I don't have to be at work until 10:30ish, so I plan on going for a walk around the park.