You want book Miss.. You want postcard?!?!

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Cue the children, by the dozen selling postcards, books, gum, nothing all day and night. You can add to that the adults selling glasses and other knickknacks. You can't get away from them. Even if you have on headphones they call out to you.. Oh and I forgot tuktuk and motorbike. Of course you have this all over SE Asia but I definitely felt as if it were 10 fold in Saigon.. or I mean Ho Chi Minh City.

Otherwise it was a lovely stop before heading into Cambodia. The people are nice and helpful, just remember everyone here is an opportunist, even the smallest of them. I stayed in the center of the backpackers area, off De Tham Rd. The Ben Thanh Market was pretty good, but the night market that opens up around it was definitely more entertaining and a bit cheaper. While I was at Ben Thanh I wanted into the live produce section and got to witness a guy cutting apart frogs, while they were still alive of course.

The food was wonderful and the shakes were as well. Noodles and rice are of course staple items and since I can eat both, as I have been during my travels, it makes for a lovely meal while people watching around town. Bia Hoi, fresh beer, comes at about 30 cents a glass, cheaper by the jug if you are with a couple friends and its a lovely ending to a meal. =]

Instead of booking a tour to CuChi Tunnels I decided it would be more exciting to rent a motorbike and drive myself there. Now, they say Saigon has the worst traffic. I wouldn't say worst, I prefer to call it the most exciting. There is a technique which I discussed with a Canadian girl I met in DaLat. I would agree that you should:

1. NEVER run across the street, motorbikes and cars are not prepared to GUESS when you are going to make your dash.
2. Walk slowly and stop ever so often so that the vehicles can move around you.
3. Just look straight ahead. Streetlights mean nothing so there is no point in waiting for the light to change.
4. Sidewalks are not just meant for you, but parking all types of vehicles, riding bicycles and additional street lanes when the motorbike driver feels the road is too congested.
4. If all else fails, just follow beside a local.

Also when driving a motorbike, if you take the challenge, there are a few rules:

1. Street lines are for decoration, most drivers will driver anyway on any side of the road, likely the side closest to wear they were parked.
2. Traffic lights are also for decoration, drivers tend to go at will, when they feel the beat essentially!
3. Beeping takes on many forms of communication, such as; I am going to now, you are to close, I am going to pass you, or even oops pressed that by mistake.
4. Some motorbikes don't have working lights, those that do probably won't use them.
5. When you see an arm stick out to the left or right from any of the five (yes 5) people on the motorbike this means they are likely going to turn in that direction within the next inch (2cm) to 1/4 mile (400m).

The drive was about 70km from town but the tunnels were cool. It's amazing that the Viet Cong fit in them, they are really tiny and the ones on the tour were widened for westerners...lovely. When asked if I wanted to go through the long or short tunnel, I naturally selected the long one... My guide, oh yeah I had my own private guide with my 75,000dong entry, made a bolt down the path. The tunnel was about a meter (3 feet) high and I definitely lost him a couple times but it was cool to try out. They ate a meal with a veggie very similar to yuca, not sure what the name was though. I did not try the shooting range as I heard from a couple Brits I met that iit was 25,000dong per bullet and you had to buy 10, what a rip off.

Driving was also cool because I got to check out other parts of town.

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Photos

Anything you want, they've got it...
And most of it still alive!

The Tunnels...
About 3 feet high.

Typical wartime meal...
It's Yuca!