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Published: February 4th 2009
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Can you believe it? Our 10 days R n R at the beach have come and gone - just when we were really getting into the swing of things.
Now that Tet is officially over and everyone is back at work, we wake up to see all the fishing boats out on the sea. It really is quite a sight. When they are looking for squid a tug pulls out a whole row of the little round bamboo boats and drops them off at strategic locations. A couple of hours later he goes and brings them in again. It looks just like a mother duck being followed by her babies. On Feb 2nd we were taking our usual morning walk on the beach when Don got talking to one of the fishermen. Before you could say 'Bob's your uncle' they had struck a deal to go out to sea in a little round boat (not a beautiful pea green boat). They tried to persuade me to go along but I said, 'Someone needs to stay on shore and take photos.' I am so thoughtful that way!
We were quite thankful to be hanging around at the beach because we
kept reading the newspaper articles talking about the traffic chaos with everyone returning to work. People were actually getting off the trains because they were so overcrowded they were afraid for their lives.
Some situations defy logic. We booked our tickets for the return trip to Saigon and were told to be at reception by 1:30pm so that bus could pick us up between 1:30 and 2pm. This made perfect sense to us as the bus dropped us off right at our hotel on day one. At 2pm a mini van comes along to pick us up. So we think we must be meeting the bus in town. We hadn't been in the van a nanno second when the grumpy driver stopped and told us to get out - there was the bus. Honestly we hadn't travelled 100 meters. We could have walked in the time it took us to load and unload our luggage. We could still see our hotel.
We are now back in Saigon and in full exploring mode. Saigon is quite the city. Parts of it (the upscale areas) have wide tree lined boulevards which give it a European feel (the French influence) complete
with little cafes and bistros and, of course good food. All the name brands are well represented here. We walked and walked. We also visited their big covered market which is full of everything you could possibly want. Hundreds and hundreds of tiny cubby hole type places, piled high with stuff. I don't know how they all make a living peddling the same wares. We probably would have broused around longer but after a while you get a little tired of everyone trying to pull you into their little spaces and sell you something. We will probably pay it another visit when we return from the Mekong Delta. We did eat there - just don't ask me what we had. Hoi An was definitely the place to shop as prices are at least double here in the big city.
Saigon has Tourist Police. They are here to help you cross the major roads or help in other ways I guess. So funny. They step out into the road and with great authority they put up their hands to stop the traffic. No one pays any attention to them. Never mind, at least it is another body between us and
an accident.
Going to the market leads into another little story. Martin had advised us to travel really light when visiting the market so I didn't take my purse and Don didn't take his wallet or his camera. He just put some money in one of his zippered pockets along with my bank card. On the way we decided to put the little camera into a repair shop as the flash wasn't working properly. When we returned to pick it up we didn't have enough cash. 'No problem' says Don, 'Diana can use her bank card. Where is the ATM?'
'My friend will take her' came the reply. You guessed it - he took me to the ATM on his scooter. I wasn't planning on getting on another one of those things in this lifetime. No helmet yet! We are zipping through the traffic when his cell phone goes off. I wanted to shout at him, 'Don't answer that thing'. Now we are zig zagging around while he is talking on the phone - I shut my eyes. Good thing it was a scooter and not a motorbike.
Saigon is like Toyota central. They almost seem to have a monopoly, with a Ford thrown in the mix now and then. And I am not talking small, fuel effecient vehicles. I am talking big 4x4's, Explorers etc.
It's time to go eat again. Tomorrow we are off to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Neither of us plan on going down into the tunnels - but you never know!
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Martin
non-member comment
the tunnels
don't worry about those tunnels... years ago they widened many of them to accommodate 'western sized' bodies. Ha ha ha