Today I change capitals within the same country. Due to the division and then reunification I will be travelling from the capital of the south, Ho Chi Minh City ( formely Saigon ) to the capital of the north, Hanoi.
My flight was booked in Pnhom Penh by the travel agents just next to my friends guesthouse and as I have temporarily misplaced their printout I had only my memory to guide me to the domestic airport and hoping that I could board the flight.
I woke at just after 5am, as I the flight was due to be at 9am and I had to pack, travel to the airport and check in with enough spare time to sort out any problems encountered prior to flight.
Realising that both weight and space were an issue, and that I had not yet found time to send my latest mail bundle back to the UK, meant that I was repackaging a lot of my stuff prior to check out and this always brings home how much rubbish and packaging a person collects in a short space of time, even when they are doing their best not to buy soveneirs and such.
As expected I didnt quite have enough US $ left to pay for my 4 night stay here in Saigon and so I ended up paying with both dollars and Vietnamese dong, which is always fun and I am only glad that the hotel people were on good terms with my friend here and so they were much less likely to scam me for the exchange rate.
I had been warned that a taxi to the airport will cost around 100,000 dong and could take up to 45 minutes with semi bad traffic so it was a relief to arrive in around 25 minutes and only costing 80 000 dong, well actually it was only 72 but taxis have to pay an additional 5 to enter the airport complex and I guess he gave himself another 3 as a tip which is not really worth grumbling about ) and so with plenty of time I was at the airport.
En route I passed quite a few sights that I would have liked to have taken a photo of, and yet they were not mentioned to me by either of my friends, on the city tour or mentioned in my travel guides and I think the reason for this is that despite their beauty to me they are not necessarily of any significant importance. Every city will have plenty of places where, time and money allowed, would make great photo opportunities but knowing and finding them can be a painstaking process especially if they are not considered important or relevant by the locals, and this is why I like to take a stroll myself around the local area to see what I personally feel beautiful.
The problem is that time and time again I have spotted things on the way to the airport a fair way outside of the city centre and with no real reason to go there at any other time it would be almost impossible to find them. But considering this, could anyone really ask a local taxi driver, "Can you please take me to the city limits and just drive around a bit in case I see anything that I want to take a photo of?" and even if they did how many times would the journey turn out to be fruitless through random luck?
In the far east there are probably more motocycles than in the rest of the world put together, it certainly feels like it when you are out and about dodging cyclists coming at your from every direction. Here the traffic is much like logs floating down opposing rivers, each of them takes the route of least resistance, often rubbing noses shoulders and occasionally coming to a nasty collisoin but more often than not one gives way peacefully and slowly and eventually they all make their way down stream.
Another analogy I came up with last night is to do with travelling in general. Now I accept that I am not a parent, but I am uncle to enough to have some experience to know a little on the subject, so I do not think it unreasonable for me to suggest that travel is like the difference between having a baby and babysitting. Short time travel is like babysitting, it is fast, you get to do all the highlights and hopefully before it gets to tricky for too long you can hand it off to someone else and are off back home again to safety and familiar surroundings. But long term travel is like being a parent, you can lighten the load occasionally with having good friends and family around you but in the end you have to accept that it is your responsibility and instead of hoping that bad things will never happen to you it would be much wiser to plan ahead as best you can and deal with each bump as it comes. Finally although many people might have complaints from time to time, and from the outside people might wonder why they put up with it, the emotional and spiritual rewards of both are priceless and everyones experience is uniquely their own in so many subtle ways.
Arriving at the airport earlier than expected, I checked in easy enough, once my clerk found my booking with the help of their colleague, and security was not as tight as I had expected and within minutes I was in the waiting area outside my departure gate, waiting for boarding and take off.
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