Crazy Saigon (Jan 2007)

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So we left Phu Quoc and said goodbye to Geoff and me, Aid and Chris got the early morning ferry and luckily the crossing was no where near as rough as on the way out (no puking for Aid, yay!!). We then got the bus back to Saigon for a couple of nights.

We all went out on motorbikes with drivers of course. The roads are absolutely crazy in Saigon, so many many bikes and so many near crashes it is quite scary!! We went to the war museum which was really quite harrowing, lots of graphic photos and pictures and the weapons used. We also watched a documentary showing the effects of agent orange (a chemical the Americans used) and all the malformations it caused, it really was sad.

Then we spent the afternoon at the Rex Hotel on the roof top bar drinking happy hour cocktails. It's such a beautiful hotel, and it was where the war journalists used to go. The views over Saigon were amazing and we watched the sunset. We asked to see the most expensive room just to see it of course and it was lovely, silk dressing gowns and everything! Not for backpackers obviously.... drinking cocktails prob isn't either....

Then we rode around the city seeing a few more sights... the opera house, river, and all the lights came on that night for the Tet festival (their new year) which was cool.

That night we got mortorbikes to take us to where all the lights were and we really regretted it.... the roads were so manic (more than usual, we think because of the lights being turned on) and me and Chris had mini little crashes on our bikes, we didn't fall off but banged into other bikes. We were all dropped in different places too (we think our drivers were all a bit drunk) so we all got worried about each other! We got a taxi home anyway....!

We were getting a bit too used to these fancy cocktails so decided to go again that night to another fancy hotel but as they weren't happy hour prices we decided to do a runner... all went out separately and it worked a treat. Dad you'd be proud - I remember the stories of you doing runners from Indian restaurants! He he!

The next day we went on a trip to the Mekong Delta and spent the day on the river in various different boats. The best were the little rowing boats in narrow canals colliding with other boats. It was amazing to see how they live on the river on river houses and boats. We went to a place where they make coconut candy and honey tea. And we all did some sleeping on the boat, Aid did some touching too (see pic) it was far too early to get up that day.... 7 o clock rise.....

The next day we left for Dalat, me and Chris got the bus and Aid got a flight (after having doen 2 bus trips to and from Phu Quoc Aid couldn't handle another one quite so soon!).

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