A Day in Saigon

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We got to the Incheon Airport in good timing. We sat around and waited for a long time. Once we were seated on our Vietnam Airways flight, we realized that we were on a 6 hour flight! We had no idea it was so long. It was a nice flight though. I had pleanty of leg room and i sat in the middle of two people. We were served a nice meal with free drinks (including wine). Much better than all the United or Delta flights I've been having experience with. We walked off the plane and the heat from the engines hit us in the face. It was so hot. And then about 3 yards later we realized that wasn't the heat coming from the plane, that was just the outside temperature! Hot and muggy.

In the plane we discussed going to Phu Quoc island for the first two days. White sandy beaches, total relaxation. In my guide book it said we should be able to get the flight for 41 dollars. At the travel agency in the airport, the flights were 170 dollars...round trip! And busses took over 10 hours to get there, so we gave up and decided to move on and head into the city. We went outside and waited for the bus. I literally just started dripping sweat the second we got outside, so i started lathering on the suntan lotion. Our half hour (about) bus ride to center city from the airport cost us 3000dong; or about 17 cents. Not too bad.

We went to one or two travel agencies (there were countless numbers of them on the streets) to try and get to Phu Quoc island, but it just didn't work out. Too expensive. We wanted to go to Siem Riep to see the Temples and nobody seemed to be running busses up there (12 hour one way busses that cost 12 bucks). So again plans weren't working out. As we sat there and she called asking about flight prices, there was a gecko climbing up the walls of the building. Kinda cool, but also made me REAAALLLY nervous about other things... Disgruntled we just settled on two tours, one lasting one day and the other two days. We just wanted to schedule something.

We left from the agency spending 52 dollars on 3 days worth of tours. We were looking for a hostel to drop all our stuff, we were already so sweaty from walking with our backpacks on. People just literally followed you around trying to get you to buy things, get a cold drink, sit down for some dinner.... Figuring out exactly how to cross the street was interesting too. There was thousands of motorcycles. The streets were streaming with people and motorcycles. Locals were carrying around their goods asking for money, tourists had trek bags and guide books. The city was hustling and bustling. It was hard to remember how poor of an area we were in, cities are deceiving, but then the "hey lady" brought me back to reality. We found a hotel 7 bucks a night for a private room and bathroom plus air-conditioning and a tv. We dropped our stuff and decided to walk around the city a little bit. We went to the Palace which was closed and I wanted to go to the War museum but that was closed too. So we went to Notre Dame Cathedral, the only site open, since its a church and not really a site. The remains of when they were under the French Influence way back when...

While we were walking around we saw a travel agency with a huge sign outside offering 41 dollar flights to the Island we wanted to go to...go figure! We went out for some dinner which was yummy, cost about 3 dollars. We were exhausted, and since we were 2 hours behind now, even though it was early in Ho Chi Minh City, it was late in South Korea. We went back to the AC Room and watched some of the many American TV channels until we fell fast asleep.

Bus- 0.17$
bottle water - 0.25$
Dinner - 1.20 each
'Prada' Sunglasses - 8.00$

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