Advertisement
Published: March 13th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Flying from Singapore to Ho Chi Minh City took a whole day. Because of the way our airfare worked, we couldn’t get a direct flight, so we were forced to fly to Hong Kong, then take another flight to Ho Chi Minh City. Our first flight was going fine. A young Chinese boy, about four years old, was sitting in front of us and was enjoying popping up over his seat and practicing his English with us. We were quite enjoying this, as it provided something different than simply watching TV or reading the in flight magazine. And besides, we thought he was a pretty adorable. At least we did, until he threw up everywhere just before decent. Despite his parent’s best efforts to clean up, the putrid smell was trapped inside the cabin. With her fruity scented lip balm held to her nose, Alicia was gagging and now it looked like she was going to spew. Luckily she didn’t, and we landed safely, but boy were we were glad to get off that plane. Thankfully, our second flight was less eventful, and we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly called Saigon) just as the sun was setting.
We
Welcome to the Madness
Driving to our hotel, we were not prepared for the chaos on Saigon's roads! knew Vietnam would be different to Singapore, but we weren’t prepared for what was about to hit us. The airport was pretty much like the old Adelaide Airport. Not only was it small and run down, it was pretty close to the centre of the city. This meant that as soon as our taxi left the airport we were driving on regular city streets, not some huge enclosed expressway, like you would in most cities. We knew Saigon was a populous city, but having recently visited Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, we thought we knew what populous meant. This place made Bangkok look empty, and that’s saying something. Everywhere we looked there were people. People walking, people in shops and restaurants, people sitting around outside, and most of all, people on motorbikes. Words can’t explain just how busy this city was. Its one of those things you just have to see to believe for yourself. What’s more, no one seemed to follow any road rules, including sticking to the correct side of the road. We highly doubt that you need a licence to drive in Vietnam and if you do, we cant imagine there’s a driving test. With no helmets
Ben Thanh Market
So thats why all the food tastes so good here and up to 4 people per bike (including young babies) plus cargo, the only thing that seemed to prevent any serious accidents was everyone’s non-stop use of their horns. Back home in Australia, on the rare occasion that someone toots, it usually means ‘what the hell are you doing?’ or something along those lines. In Vietnam it either means ‘watch out, you’re about to hit me’ or ‘move out of the way, I’m coming up from behind you’. Also, lots of intersections don’t have traffic lights and you just go whenever you can get across without getting killed! You can probably imagine this short trip from the airport to our hotel room was pretty fascinating, but also very overwhelming and also quite intimidating.
Settling into our hotel was good, as it provided a refuge from the mayhem outside. Having only eaten two plane meals that day, we were ravenous and ventured out in search of a safe meal. Luckily our hotel was right in the backpacker’s area so we figured that most restaurants would be ok for tourists. Yet being in a dark, foreign and very intimidating place, we were still quite scared to venture far from our hotel,
A Book Seller
In all the tourist areas women sold stacks of photocopied travel guides. Vietnamese women commonly wear matching tops and bottoms. so we settled for a very touristy bar/restaurant about 20 metres from our hotel. After Singapore where we often struggled to find good, affordable food, we knew we wouldn’t have that problem here, because our meal was delicious and cheap. In fact, for the next two days, we did very little but eat and hang out in and around our hotel room. This was both due to great food, and the fact that our hotel room TV had several sports channels, always playing football matches from across Europe. We sampled many of the nearby restaurants, venturing out further from our hotel, as we became more familiar with our surroundings. Most restaurants had both Vietnamese and international food, and where ever we went we could eat a delicious meal, with appetisers and drinks for between 6 and 8 Australian Dollars (80,000-100,000 Vietnamese Dong). At the same time, we began to realise that far from being intimidating, the Vietnamese were easily the friendliest and kindest people we had met so far on our travels. Of course, everywhere we went, locals would approach us, offering motorbike rides, pirated travel guides, cigarettes and the likes. We could easily smile and shake our heads, or
Vietnamese Vegetable Soup
Freshest and most flavoursome soup yet on our trip. Only AU$ 1.50 say ‘no thanks’ and they would respect that, smile back and move on, unlike in other places we had visited where the hawkers never took no for an answer. One place we particularly enjoyed going was Bobby Brewers, a café which served Starbucks inspired drinks, but at half the price. Upstairs they had a mini ‘gold class’ cinema you could see free (but obviously pirated) new release films on a large screen through a digital projector, as long as you bought something. We ended up spending two evenings here. The way it was almost hidden, and so dodgy, yet so cool just made it really quite funny.
Having spent two days chilling out and relaxing, we decided it was time to venture away from our hotel, and see more of Saigon. Walking more than a couple of hundred meters in Saigon is near impossible, as motorbikes rule both the streets and the footpaths. Therefore, we didn’t hesitate to sign up for a city day tour, which included hotel pick up and lunch for just US$4 each. The trip was good, in that we got to see a lot of stuff, but unfortunately our tour guide’s English was not the
best, so we didn’t always understand exactly where they had taken us, and what was significant about what we were seeing. However, we could see for ourselves, the influence that French and Chinese occupations had had on the architecture and culture of this city. The War Remnants Museum was interesting, but also horrific as it really highlighted the human cost of war, although it only seemed to show one side of the story.
We were to be staying 11 nights in Vietnam, and after just 3 days in Saigon we decided this place was a bit to full-on to stay for the duration of our trip. So on our fourth day we decided to take a chance and booked a 4-night stay at a resort in a costal town called Mui Ne, a place we knew little about. We left Saigon that evening on a US$4 coach, in search of fresh air, peace and quiet!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.245s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 9; qc: 61; dbt: 0.0779s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Steeve
non-member comment
Salut!
Salut et content de voir que vous allez bien et que vous avez toujours la pêche, lol. Le Viêtnam à l'air vraiment jolie et on dirai qu'il y a plus de polution qu'à Paris lol. Je pensé que c'était impossible!!! est ce que le vieillard qui est assis sur le banc et réel? Si oui, il est vraiment très maigre. Bonne continution à vous deux et à bientôt à Paris. A+