Got traffic congestion build a combi subway, light rail network, Saigon, Vietnam

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam has  embarked on a 155 billion (US) light rail system to ease road congestion.
                       

Lam On  Square now

Lam On Square then

                                                             

Saigon, traffic, traffic and more traffic.

The 19.7 km first phase of this is now in progress (construction Lam On Square) at a cost of 1.3 billion (US) and due to be operational by 2017/18. This first line will run on what is thought to be the cities major traffic route, Ben Thanh Market to dist 9 and with a daily capacity of 160,000 people. Ticket prices will be 2,500 dong or about .16 US which is a little less than the 3,000 dong for a bus ticket are at present.

In total the completed modern 6 line system will spread out across 67 miles of track.  Estimated completion is in 2020.

In conjunction with all this a bus-to rapid transit system is due to leap into action in 2018 with newly built designated bus routes and updated facilities.  It is thought to have the capacity of handling 620,000 passengers per day at a building cost of 1.35 billion.

Artist conception of one of the
new terminals.

Artist conception of the
downtown terminal.

Artist conception of  pedestrian mall
Saigon city center.

Which leads us up to the big question, if only 5 % of 

Saigon's population is utilizing mass transit at present

is all this stuff enough to make them park the 

motorbike or that new car.

The problem with the present mass transit (buses) 

is the sirly drivers and assistants, ill maintained 

buses and facilities.  A long with a stigma 

associated with bus ridership associated with

riding the bus because you were too big a 

loser to afford a motorbike or now for some, 

a car. Not sure how these new facilities 

will be at addressing these things.

So for now the only sure thing is that big money 

is being spent while the historical and significant

values of old Saigon are being decimated.

Thanks for stopping by 

photos - walk through dist 1, Sai Gon - police to dog meat

Sai Gon is  so interesting, so many things going on, like an onion you peel back one layer and you find another view.  It is the kind of place, let your senses guide you and you won't be disappointed.

ao dai (traditional Vietnamese dress) clad young women

vanishing french agriculture

Add caption

we got donuts

roundabout dist 1

push cart recycler

push cart recycler

we got wires -  Pham Nhu Loa backpackers area

hem (alley) dining and street vendors

dist 1 street side vendor serving  rush hour traffic

flower on my balcony 

chop stick dryer

Hem (alley) eatery specializing in  omlets

Team - mobile fruit vendors

omnipresent police

Ben Thanh market flower sellers 

recognise this

pagoda

another night motorbiking in Saigon

yup, got a hunger for dog - here you are

20 years - curb side fixing 

polices prisoner transport truck - ref. no ac in the back

Bin Tham Market

shoe shine boys - strategy session

xe om driver looking for a fare

old and new dist 1

thanks for stopping by - Doug

Review - Cathay Pacific, have their policy's and are sticking to it

                                      


I'm a long time Cathay customer and will continue to be but that doesn't mean I like the way they treat customers. The airline is changing and this is  about that and due to that the bad experience I experienced with Cathay's customer service manager.

However, other than my specific my present specific complaint I've noticed a general decline in  customer service over the past few years.  This might be caused by the corporations demands for improved  profitability.  To this end it seems as though their is a decrease in support staff which might explain the sometimes curt actions by their staff. Though, in fact my flying experience is that the friendly sky's are a thing of the past not only with Cathay and most airlines.

The deteriorating service is something I passed off until a year ago when the hip I damaged while visiting Sai Gon had me in needing a little special attention on my flights back to the states. Oh ya, they gave me priority boarding and arranged for a wheelchair to get through Hong Kong airport but it was a mechanical thing with no compassion. I grumbled quietly to myself about poor me but didn't say anything. Maybe if I had spoken up all would have been different. I was thinking old school air travel when you were treated special even if you weren't a sad half crippled person such as myself but it takes more than a subtle expression to get what you want.    

Last month on my latest return from Saigon  it all came to a head, not on the plane but at their ticketing office in Sa Gon, over the phone and ended with e-mail  with  Racheal Barretto, "Customer Relations Executive".  This was all over my attempt to change my return city from Bangkok to Sai Gon.   I had done this many times in the past, though it required a penalty charge, which I was OK with but this time it seemed the only way was to toss my return ticket and buy a new one but nodody acually suggested that. From my start in person at Cathay's ticket office in Sai Gon to ending in terse e-mails  from the Customer Relations Executive.  Guess all this would have been easier to stomach if I would have been given a solid reason or some options. For this ticket I had used my miles to upgrade to economy deluxe but what difference should that make.  Anyway, It was the same flight from the Hong Kong to SFO but just a different departing city from the original ticket.

The reason I wanted to change was that I was having trouble getting around on my recently rebuilt leg but all I got was changing a ticket was against  Cathay policy and not in so many words, now please go away.

Just wanted to share this as I still believe Cathay is good to fly with but wanted to get the warning out that you need to make sure you're up on their policy's before hopping aboard.  Kinda like the motorbike or tuk-tuk guy where you need to discuss everything and agree before you pillion. 

An alley is a hem in Sai Gon - (original posted May, 2014)

As a kid growing up in Flint, Michigan my grandparent’s lived  only about a few blocks away us. Though, even living as close as they did I often thought of my visits to their place as an adventure. You see, beyond their backyard they had an alley, mom said – “dangerous people lurk in alleys and strange things happen there so if I knew what was good for me, I was to stay clear”. So as any boy might, at the warnings of his mother, I became obsessed with the alley and the part of my grandparent’s back yard bordering it.

Now my grandpa, though unspoken on this, never the less seemed to understand and would often let me peek through the bushes separating his back yard from the alley, look away as I peered around the corner, or for a most excellent adventure, slide into the alley for a moment. As a quiet and very serious man my grandpas had little time for his own adventures but think he wanted more for me, as he would sit me on his lap and share and explain his latest National Geographic magazine. Though, I think it was those forbidden forays into the alley he allowed, that had the biggest influence in my adult adventures.



So now let’s take a gigantic leap from 1950’s flint to March 2011, in Saigon, Vietnam and it’s the alley thing all over again, no mom it’s now ok to go out in it and as a matter of fact I have to in order to get to my rented room. Though, still the danger, but not the unknown type as when I was a kid in Flint but now it’s the very real danger of motorbikes and bicycles wizing by trying to beat the light on the intersection it skirts around. My alley is as most; the center of life and living for the people around it and for me as well as my room entrance is off it and my balcony over looks it. It’s also a place where, along its edges and against its buildings, food is sold, motorbikes are repaired, garbage is sorted and folks just hang out. Vietnamese take all this for granted but I think these urban alleys are amazing in how are they bring everyone in and around the alley together.

Now, mind you, this alley is not a large area, otherwise it would be a street. We are talking about a place maybe 300 ft long by 12 - 15 ft wide, but within this relative small space there is a lot of stuff happening.

The food sellers – one end for the morning set, tables line the side with tarps strung over the top, open air kitchen, dishes done in tubs – the other end in the evening it’s the same thing. All this is put up and torn down when the serving is over and the area is cleaned so you would never know they had been there. Across from my room is the motorbike repair guy which my landlord says he has been at it in his little alley spot for 20 years – no shop but a box and a large metal bowl on the curb with all his tools and there again he sets up in the morning and in the evening picks up everything and stuffs his box and bowl in someone’s place, like under one of my landlords chairs down stairs and goes home. Down a ways, at about 6:00 PM, a big pile of stuff shows up along the far side of the alley and then a lady appears, sorts through it, guessing she is separating plastic from paper and then they are gone, both her and the pile.

A side from the businesses that set along the sides of the alley, do their thing, fold up shop and go home only to repeat it again tomorrow, there are people walking and chatting from 4:30 in the morning till around 9:00 at night, kids playing, mom’s walking their babies, retires sitting around little tables playing board games, motorbikes parked, some with people lounging a top chatting or texting into their cell phones and through the middle of all this is a steady stream of motorbikes bustling by in both directions.

It’s what in the states city planners might refer to as a mixed use area, the alley edges are like canyon walls as the homes and businesses fit tightly together forming a solid 3 or 4 stories high cliff face, each opening directly into the canyon like floor. For example we have an LP gas distribution center with motorbikes used for delivery, office machine business, lawyer, Vietnamese traditional medical clinic, cell phone store, several other food related shops, rooming houses like where I stay, private residences and a hand full of others that I have no idea what they do.

However, I’m comfortable in my canyon in urban Saigon, it’s noisy, especially when the motorbike guy is fixing a horn, a bit warn around the edges and I’ve had a couple real close encounters of the speeding motorbike kind. Funny, now that I think about it, I have the same kind of comfortable feeling here that I had hanging out with my Grandpa, in his garage, by his alley, in Flint a zillion years ago.

What goes around comes around, maybe it’s Karma.

Sai Gon in photos part 1 -

dinning street side - always ask for the table with the view

Commercial dish washer Sai Gon style

we got wires

new greenery 23-9 park

street side cafe

street side market

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recycling Sai Gon style

 When visiting Sai Gon get out on the street and you'll be richly rewarded.  Yup, noisy, crowded, crazy but alway interesting.  

Oh ya and safe, though you'll hear Vietnamese talk about motorbike cowboys who race by stealing purses, jewelry, cameras and phones off of unsuspecting pedestrians.  Though  keep in mind this is a very large city with a population of over 11 million and their are bound to be a few bad apples mangoes. However, after 14 years of wandering the city at all times day and night I've never had a first hand experience with this.  Though just as a general rule in Sai Gon or wherever a  body should always stay aware of what's going on around them and take appropriate precautions to stay out of harms way and safeguard their valuables.  

All these photos were taken in District 1 of Sai Gon and it's flat and so easily walkable.

I offer this as an additional tip - make sure when you leave your hotel you pick up a hotel name card (business card) so then you can walk around until yourself hopelessly lost, or exhausted  grab a motorbike taxi or a car type taxi and show them the name card, ask how much and you're off. 

burning effigies on a street corner 

Notre Dame Cathedral

Peoples Committee Building 

get your motor running Le Loi Street in front of Saigon Center

motorbike show room

Sai Gon's got Starbucks

emerging fire hydrant

watermelon carver

23-9 park, event security - police


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