Hard News: From Saigon
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just wait until you drive out of town at night - dodging the unlit bikes and people - I finally decided the the reason they kept dipping and undipping their lights was half warning and half a sort of echo-location for unlit fellow travellers
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Oh Russell! For a moment there you started to sound ever so slightly like Thomas Friedman...
Please take care whilst overseas; Friedmania is ever so hard to treat once you've got it :)
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It's funny how, despite being a western aligned fascist state, the Singaporeans don't seem to worry about terrerists at all.
Maybe either they think nobody well set a bomb off in Singapore, cos it's illegal, or that worst case lots of people will get killed and that will ease their overpopulation issues.
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It's funny how, despite being a western aligned fascist state, the Singaporeans don't seem to worry about terrerists at all.
Maybe either they think nobody well set a bomb off in Singapore, cos it's illegal, or that worst case lots of people will get killed and that will ease their overpopulation issues.
I suspect it's a bit like Dubai, which doesn't seem to have a terrorist problem either - because it suits everyone to have a business centre.
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It's funny how, despite being a western aligned fascist state, the Singaporeans don't seem to worry about terrerists at all
Actually they did have that 2002 alleged attempt at the US Fleet in 2002 and there was a 2004 arrest for an alleged plot to do damage on the MRT.
And the young men with machine guns are very evident at the airport, where men of Arab origin tend to have their passports examined with magnifying glasses before they board. I'd say they are very concerned with a potential terror strike. But Russell is also right, Singapore's secretive banking laws offer good haven to dodgy funds.
Bangkok's the one....they're in the midst of an insurgency in the south, bombs went off on NYE and yet security is pretty much zip.
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why are we talking about Singapore?
I thought Russell was in Saigon?
Did someone invade someone and I didn't hear about it? -
the Singaporeans don't seem to worry about terrerists at all.
That's not actually the case. They're just a whole lot smarter about it than the Americans. Putting ignorant racist thugs at the airport to give travelers the third degree shows such contempt that it is more likely to inspire terrorism than stop it.
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He went to Changi on the way through and I think is heading back that way for a few days
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That's not actually the case. They're just a whole lot smarter about it than the Americans. Putting ignorant racist thugs at the airport to give travelers the third degree shows such contempt that it is more likely to inspire terrorism than stop it.
Amen. My last entry experience to the US was completely absurd (although clearly not enough to tempt me into terrorism) and LAX sucks, esoecially for transit passengers. Three hours in transit at Changi was actually fun.
I'm at the software park outside Saigon at the moment. We visited the data centre and I asked them about the reports that the fishermen who dragged up the wrong cable had all but cut off Vietnam's internet access. Total bollocks, as it happens. There are multiple interconnection points, and the earthquake in Taiwan (which is a node on the Pacific fibre loop) was actually much more of a problem for them, but even that was only transitory.
I must try and find a telecomms map of the region ...
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I might add that for both the US and Vietnam I had to get a special journalist's visa. For Vietnam, that was the end of the matter; for the US it became part of the problem on entry, when the dolt on the desk refused to accept that a journalist could actually be going to a conference. Weird.
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Oh Russell! For a moment there you started to sound ever so slightly like Thomas Friedman...
Well, I am the Magazine Publishers' Association business columnist of the year the past three years running ...
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Well, I am the Magazine Publishers' Association business columnist of the year the past three years running ...
i vote that rb isn't allowed to mention this any more. :P
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ah...but can you mix metaphors and grow a bushy moustache...
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I must try and find a telecomms map of the region ...
SEA-ME-WE3 has a landing in Đà Nẵng, and the NEC submarine cable map shows at least one landing in Vietnam. Starhub has another nice picture. There are bound to be many more, all owned by various consortia.
It would be interesting to see them all on one detailed map.
Here's yet another story on the cable fishermen: Vietnam has only one undersea telecom cable at present
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SEA-ME-WE3 has a landing in Đà Nẵng, and the NEC submarine cable map shows at least one landing in Vietnam. Starhub has another nice picture. There are bound to be many more, all owned by various consortia.
It would be interesting to see them all on one detailed map.
Yeah, the data centre guys (who also serve five ISPs) said they had multiple links, including land links. It's interesting that the politicians are emphasiing the undersea cables, because it doesn't seem like the risk of total loss of service is great.
I think bandwidth appetites here are a bit lower though. Augen has a 1Mbit/s service, and a bigger company we vistted today only has 2Mbit/s. It does seem like they get their rated speeds though.
Oh, and by the way: fuck Ihug. Still no webmail for me. I'll have to see if I can at least retrieve POP mail when I get back to the hotel later tonight.
I think I'm joining the gmail for domains club when I get home ...
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Sue,
flying into San Francisco is so much nicer than LA.
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San Francisco is so much nicer than LA.
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> My last entry experience to the US was completely absurd (although
> clearly not enough to tempt me into terrorism) and LAX sucks,
> especially for transit passengers.
I have three words for you: Air Tahiti Nui.PPT >> LAX
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My email's back. - smtp and all. About bloody time.
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Oh, and by the way: fuck Ihug.
</applause> did i mention it took almost a month to get basic phone and broadband to my new digs?
this despite being told it would only take seven days, and constant reassurance the "service" would be up "tomorrow".
they very nicely waived all installation fees.
but it took a fair bit of convincing.
that limited bandwidth in vietnam is prolly a better service than all of our domestic "providers"
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Yeah, totally fly through San Francisco rather than LAX. I was through customs in 15 minutes when I arrived there a few weeks ago, and I was pretty much last off the plane too.
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I did see a group of Vietnamese fishermen outside your place looking very embarrassed.
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I might add that for both the US and Vietnam I had to get a special journalist's visa. For Vietnam, that was the end of the matter; for the US it became part of the problem on entry, when the dolt on the desk refused to accept that a journalist could actually be going to a conference. Weird.
There was an old PJ O'Rourke column where he hammed up his surprise at a Vietnamese minister lecturing him about the virtues of capitalist development being allowed in Vietnam (a communist! lecuring me! a Republican! about the virtues of capitalism!); sadly O'Rourke has ambled enough to the my-party-right-or-wrong line of thinking that it's unlikely he'll be doing a followup where a Vietnamese minister lectures him on the virtues of freedom of travel.
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Yeah, totally fly through San Francisco rather than LAX.
I endorse this advice completely. SFO was 150% better than LAX in terms of ease of passage on my last visit in '06. Also if flying AirNZ, you get to travel to AKL on the 777 which is a much more roomy and modern airplane than the workhorse 747-400s that ply the LAX route.
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Excellent.
You have an email from me that I would like you to look at urgently.
Alastair
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