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Published: January 26th 2007
Our hotel - we were warmly greeted by Madam Cucs staff even though it was close to midnight when we arrived. The hotel is very narrow and tall as most are. Our room is on the 4th floor which is actually 5 floors up and there is no elevator. Oh this could be fun... They have an inventive way to get luggage up to the higher floors - it is a long cable hook that is lifted via a motor. Just strap it all together and up it goes. So as we make our way up the 5 flights our luggage gets the easy ride. Our room is quite nice, especially considering the price of $28 US a night. The room is large with 2 double beds and a single matress on the floor, a fridge, air conditioner and fan, color TV with lots of english channels, large balcony, white tile floors, lots of windows and on 2 sides so you can get a breeze going and a very interesting bathroom. The bathroom walls are about 12' high and tiled for much of that. The shower is not enclosed so when showering you can actually spray down the the walls and the bathroom floor and toilet - what a time saver this would be for house cleaning. Not only is this room an okay price for the 5 of us but it includes breakfast of fresh buns, jam, fruit, vietnamese coffee, or green tea and fresh oj. You also get fruit and drinks during the day then a supper of simple noodle soup and deep fried spring rolls if you want. Oh, by the way, if there are just 2 of you the rate for all this is only $15 a night!!
Our first day exploring here was fun. Ty and Reegan are treated like little rock stars. Everyone wants touch their skin and try to make conversation with them. They are handling it quite well. Reegan has actually learned to turn it all into a little "try and catch me" game.
Our hotel is not on the tourist area but we quickly find that area. Our first walk across the road was easier thatn we had pictured. Here the traffic really never stops - not for people crossing, or for oncoming vehicles or those turning in front of you. You just carefully step out into the oncoming traffic (which is all those hundreds of motorcycles at a time) and with a steady slow pace you walk. The traffic sees you (you pray) and weaves its way around. Now imagine a couple million of these motor bikes in Saigon, some vehciles thrown in, wheeled vendors with their mobile shops and cyclos (3 wheeled carriages for some skinny vietnamese man to wheel people and things around in for cheap) and you have mind blowing traffic situtations. I actually walked across the street with the camcorder going to record this experience. You won't believe it. The odd thing is that it all seems to work - everyone gets to where they are going but no one loses time waiting for lights to change and people to cross. We do have a tight grip on the boys and they quickly learned that ripping their hands from your grasp gets them in alot of trouble so we have that under control now. (sigh of relief inserted here). Other than that I find this traffic quite exciting. Oh one more thing. If you want to get somewhere faster just drive up onto the corner curb and down the sidewalk a bit to eliminate any delays. But you can't go far those as these motor bikes are parked all over the sidewalks too.
We made our way to Ben Trahn Market. All I can say is I can't wait to come back and shop before we go home. The things I looked at all seemed so cheap in price and the fashions in this city are amazingly great!!! Aftyer perusing the goods we hit the food area. We choose a place to eat and they quickly made us alittle table with little kid stools for seating and we had chinese noodle soup with seafood and noodle stirfry with a big bottle of water. All for $5 and we were full. While dining Ty and Reegan had to go to the bathroom. Remembering this a large food court but Chinese/Vietnames style, the lady from our "food stall" takes them into the cooking space and lets them pee in the floor drain. How's that for convienence. Afterwards our legst ook us to the War Remnants museum. The walls there are full of photos of the Vietnam war (or the American War as they call it here). It was quite disturbing but the kids didn't care. Kyle crawled amongst the bamboo searching for geckos that can be found all over and Ty and Reegan wanted to explore all the war vehicles, tanks, planes and helicopters that are there. James didn't seem too interested in reading the photo blurbs so he followed the boys around with the camera and camcorder. When we left we were approached by the cyclo drivers. We hired 2 of them for just under $2 each (we have since found they will work for less) to bike us back home so we could shower the days dirt off and hopefully get the boys down for anap. The cyclos join in the traffic mass in the 30 somethig heat ad like Christmas shoppers all with a goal, they deliver us to the hotel uninterrupted and sound..
Tidbits - a huge assortment of fruits and cheap too. Dragonfruit, jackfruit, mini banans, lychee, durian (not a flavour I like), mini mandarines and many other unidentified ones we have to try.
We have not experienced any of the hassles from touts or beggars that we had read about and were expecting - most are more interested in talking to or touching the boys than hassling us to take a ride or purchase.
Almost midnigh here - more to come soon,
Cheers from saigon,
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dallastravelonthemind
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post pictures please
post pictures please