The heat is on in Saigon!

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29th/30th



We landed in Saigon yesterday afternoon after a small flight delay. My three words first impression: friendly 'organised' chaos. Unlike Thailand, 'the land of smiles', here they seem more genuine and people smile at each other, which I didn't realise was missing in Bangkok until now. 'Organised' because there seems to be an unspoken agreement: on roads, motorcycles have priority; on zebra crossings, motorcycles have priority; on the pavement, motorcycles have priority. Chaos speaks for itself.



First, we decided to take the bus. After confirming it went to the right road, the driver asked where we were from - and cheekily asked for some English money in exchange for Vietnamese Dong! The bus was a rickety tin can that had definitely seen better days, and very quickly filled with locals making the snail-pace commute into the city proper - it was rush hour.



I can safely say that it was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Hoardes of taxis, buses, cars, minivans, the occasional push bike and, of course, motorbikes, cramming for space and smashing their horns in a cacophony of shouting, beeping and revving engines. To pass the traffic-time, we played our new favourite game of 'most ridiculous cargo on a motorbike' the leaderboard currently stands at: yellow grit bucket, two men with two 3ft rolls of carpet balanced on their shoulders, kingsize metal bedframe, and in first place we have a bunch of balloon animals tied to the vehicle, the driver of which was dressed as a clown!



We found our hotel easily - great location, lovely cheery staff, but our windowless room was pretty damp which meant we only stayed one night. You can really see the french influence in SE Asia here - we passed a few bakeries, about 100 coffee shops, and I was given a freshly baked baguette the size of my forearm along with three poached eggs for breakfast (who says you lose weight travelling?). Only a short walk from our tucked-away hotel we found a street food stall serving food with tiny fire-pit BBQs and wooden chopsticks to cook with (definitely not a recipe for disaster!), so I dragged Chris over and we ordered garlic rice and wild boar and runner beans in special sauce. Apart from the fat rind on the boar, the meal was super tasty and we managed to look pathetically western enough that one of the waiters came over and cooked our food for us! Result.



Next morning I attempted to upload pictures from our digital camera to Facebook - and failed miserably, so we went for coffee and mapped out a grand itinerary for the day. This plan also failed, as I felt suddenly ill and have been meaning to pick up some antibiotics for a couple of days. So despite all the cool sights and attractions that Saigon boasts, we've managed to see none of them this time around. To be fair, the whole smog/traffic/constant noise situation doesn't suit either of us particularly well, so we've booked to have a few days in the seaside town of Mui Ne. Thanks to the low season, it's cheap as chips - the first obstacle, however, is the 5(ish) hour bus ride and our 6am start tomorrow morning. We've read some hellish reviews online but hopefully we have dodged a bullet by travelling in the day... we shall see!

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