SaigonNezumi.com

This morning I was headed to Pham Ngu Lao to meet an American friend who arrived from Kazakhstan via Thailand.  I headed out of my house at about 8:10 AM knowing that I would hit the traffic jam along the canal.

Yeah, it was heavily congested.  I was following a woman on her Honda motorscooter.  All of a sudden, I saw her handle bars and front wheel turn then watched the backend of her bike skid on it’s side.  She fell down right in front of me but I braked in time.

A guy in the distance ran to help her.  We both lifted her scooter up and this is what was strange about the accident.  For one, there was a chuhuahua chained to her scooter and I suspect the chain somehow locked the front brakes of her bike.  Then, as I was helping the man lift the scooter, he tries to put in on the kickstand.  Only problem, the kickstand was not down.  My bike was actually blocking me from going around to put the kickstand down.

I then had to fight to keep the bike up and balanced.  The woman grabs the scooter’s handlebars, thanks the man and then tries to put the bike on the kickstand again.  Again, I had to struggle to keep the scooter up until she realized that the kickstand was not down.

Yeah, it was strange

The chihuahua was fine but fell down AFTER we lifted the motorbike up…

If you have not done so, please register for the first BarCamp Saigon event. The event will be held on November 15th at RMIT in Phu My Hung, located about 15-20 minutes outside of Saigon.

You can register at this URI: http://www.barcampsaigon.org/?page_id=37

You can register for sessions at this URI: http://www.barcampsaigon.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=2008_sessions

Looking forward to seeing most of you at BarCamp Saigon.

Gasoline prices dropped yet again last Saturday.  50,000 VND ($3.03 US) is beginning to fill up my gas tank again.  It now costs about 15,500 VND (94 cents US) for 1 liter of 92-octane gasoline and 16,000 VND (97 cents US) for 1 liter of 95-octane gasoline.

This is great news for the average Vietnamese motorbike commuter.  Back in July, 2008, the price of A92 gasoline was around 19,000 VND ($1.15 US).

The negative is that there seems to an increase of the old, less fuel-efficient, motorbikes making their way back on the roads again

Yes guys, you read the title right.  Today I saw some people water skiing on the Saigon River.  I was a bit surprised since I for one would not even dare putting his hand in the Saigon River.  I guess these guys are braver than me but it looks like a load of fun.

The Thu Duc District has changed quite a bit since I moved to Vietnam 4 and a half years ago.  I expect many more apartments and skyrises to be built along the Saigon River in the next 5 years.  I took these shots from Thanh Da this afternoon.

(See some high rises being built in Thu Duc)

(Great view of Thu Duc from Thanh Da)

(Saigon River View of Thu Duc Distict)

Maybe I am getting old but I really like this water fountain I saw at this Vietnamese restaurant in District 1:

Ever notice when a new group of Expats arrive in a particular country, in my case Vietnam, they tend to think they are ‘Above the law’?  Even some longtimers, those who have been here more than 4 years, have this notion they can anything they want in Vietnam.

Some examples off above the law attitudes include having your ‘Vietnamese’ girlfriend stay overnight in your home, apartment or room.  Not obeying the traffic rules on the streets.  Refusing to pay since you that you were cheated, ie not paying for the week’s worth of motorbike rental.  There are many, many examples.

Yesterday my students were presenting about motorbike safety.  They kept mentioning about the consiousness of the Vietnamese people need to change in efforts to decrease motorbike and car accidents.  I found this amusing since if you check around Saigon, the person most likely NOT to wear a helmet is, yes you guessed it, a Western Expat.  Just drive past the Pham Ngu Lao Backpacker area.  If you ask them why they are not wearing a helmet, the response normally wil’ be, “The Vietnamese Police can’t speak English so they will not stop us.”  Hence, he is saying he is above the law.

Many Expat guys want their Vietnamese girlfriends to stay overnight in their homes, apartments or room even though legally this cannot be done in Vietnam.  Some Expats accept this.  Others do not but they feel the police will not do anything since they are a foreigner.  So wrong, the police will just contact your landlord.  When my landlord talked to me to complain about my roommate and his girlfriend, it was after his visit to the Ward police.  You can guess what happened but in the end, the above the law attitude prevailed.

Refusing to pay the Vietnamese is more of a problem with Backpackers and English teachers.  One complaint you hear from Vietnamese is that they get to know, lets say, an English teacher.  He/she has no money one day so the restaurant, hotel, etc., gives them a tab.  The teachers pays it off in the beginning but starts to pay later and later.  Eventually the English teacher bails believing, many times, that they do not need to pay their ‘bills’ since the Vietnamese are most likely cheating them.  They also get away with it.  What can the Vietnamese do to someone who feels they are above the law?

It goes on and on but are Expats really above the law?  Makes you ponder.  Comments are definitely welcome here.

Below is a picture of my former student, Daniyar, from Kazakhstan where I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1997-1999.  Looking at the picture of the mountain in the background makes me miss Kazakhstan.  Kazakhstan is a very beautiful country.  I plan to make a business trip there in the next year, if possible, to meet my other student, Alpamys.

At the end of the month, a former Peace Corps Volunteer from Karatau, Kazakhstan, my Peace Corps site, will visit Vietnam.

Okay, I know Debian Lenny is still in Beta but I just had to try it on my Thinkpad T60.  My Thinkpad is very picky when it comes to BSD/Linux distributions.  Normally the Debian-based systems tend to function very well on my Thinkpad.

In the past, I have run Debian Etch, Ubuntu Hardy Heron, Linux Mint and Sidux on my Thinkpad.  Etch had problems and I was not in the mood to compile the entire kernel to make a minor change.  Linux Mint is really nice but I did not like having to do a full install each time they came out with a new release.  Sidux rocks BUT no Gnome desktop.  I am not a fan of XFCE or KDE anymore.  Got to have Gnome.  Ubuntu Hardy Heron was great BUT I needed a more stable system I can easily configure so I can test some open source business applications for clients.

So a couple days ago I decided to try Lenny.  Well, Linux Mint and Ubuntu get flying colors for detecting all the hardware on the Thinkpad and configuring the settings.  Well, Lenny does the same thing.  The only thing I needed to configure was ALSA and my wifi. I used this Installing Debian Lenny on Thinkpad T60 guide to help me.  After that, I used alsaconf and alsamixer to configure ALSA.  I installed iwl3945 to easily get wireless to work.  I have some other minor configurations but at the moment, I am quite happy with my Lenny system.

Is Lenny an Ubuntu killer?  Probably not but Ubuntu developers lives became much easier due Lenny’s upcoming release.

I attended my first Oktoberfest ever with Tony and his wife last Friday night at the Windsor Plaza.  I really enjoyed it, expecially the food being a big fan of German sausages and mash potatoes.

Unfortunately, I could not drink the beer there.  The first beer was good but they had already switched the second type of beer when I went for a refill.  I could not drink it.  Finally they switched to Tiger beer which I really hate.  Did that spoil my fun, nope!!!

I had a blast dancing on the tables, falling off the table (I guess being drunk makes you more balanced), and watching everyone having a great time.  Since Tony was from GHP Far East, a German company, I got to join his company for all the fun.  GHP was one of the last companies to leave the Oktoberfest Friday night.

Can’t wait for the next Oktoberfest.  I just got to remember to drink more early on so I can enjoy the rest of the beer later

(Two hours into the Oktoberfest at Windsor Plaza - Saigon)

(It was packed)

(The calm before the storm)

(The storm arrived, people started dancing on the tables)

(Nice little mug we got to keep)