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We arrived right in the middle of the backpacker area of Saigon (as the locals still refer to it) in the early evening giving us enough time to check into a guesthouse and get some food before getting some much-needed sleep.
The Pham Ngu Lao area (still no idea how you say it!) is definitely geared up to tourists - plenty of western food and crafts shops - but has it's fair share of locals enjoying the cheap beer so it's a pretty nice atmosphere.
On our first full day here we decided to visit the War Crimes Museum which is an undeniably one-sided look at the Vietnam war (it used to be called the Musem of Chinese and American War Crimes) and doesn't give a particularly good overview of the war, but it has some absolutely stunning photographs which made it well worth the visit. That evening we met up with some friends we'd made on the homestay a couple of days before and made the most of some of the 13p per litre home-brewed beer!
The following day we had a lie in followed by a leisurely trip to the National Art Gallery. Two out of
three floors of the gallery were excellent and included some war art as well as plenty of officially accepted contemporary art (not quite sure what that means). We also looked in a few of the many art shops in the area where I saw plenty of paintings I'd love to bring home but were a bit out of my budget. We continued our appreciation of Vietnamese culture by stopping on the way home for some Boba Tea - flavoured green tea with a choice of various jellies and sagos floating in it which the locals seem to enjoy - which was suprisingly nice once I got over the fact that my drink was chewy!
The next day we took a walk which took us via some of the sights of the city: the main central park, the Reunification Palace (where the first communist tanks crashed through the gates in 1975), Notre Dame Cathederal (not a patch on the real thing) and the post office (suprisingly impressive building).
We then continued our appreciation of Vietnamese youth culture by visiting an arcade where we played games (I whupped Monique at Puzzle Bobble). We also sang kareoke in a booth which
I think was broken because it gave us a score of 90% every song even though we spenty more time laughing at the inaccurate lyrics rather than singing. We followed this by watching an awful film made in Thailand with Vietnamese dubbing (played over the original dialogue) and hilariously mis-translated English subtitles - quite an overwhelming experience for the senses.
We then took a day-trip out of the city to see a Caodai temple and the Cu Chi tunnels. Caodaism is a religion which has existed since 1925 and has 3.5million followers entirely in Southern Vietnam, and is an attempt to create the ideal religion by a fusion of the secular and religious philosophies of the East and West (so the book says). The temple was very impressive and very different to any other temple I've ever seen - full of bright colours and strange images (most notably a cult-like eye symbol). We stayed for some of the ceremony which consisted of a very surreal (and again cult-like) entrance by hundreds of robed and colour coded worshippers seperated into their different levels of rank, who then proceeded to bow and chant as one. Very strange but quite interesting.
The Cu Chi tunnels was surprisingly good fun considering their purpose - go hide the Viet Cong and allow them to make surprise attacks in enemy territory before disappearing through a trapdoor. We were shown the tiny original trapdoors measuring only about 30cm by 20 cm, as well as a variety of types of viscious booby-traps used by the VC. We then went down into a short stretch of tunnel which was clearly not designed for someone of my height (lack of forward planning on their part). Although we were assured that we would only need to crouch slightly I ended up having to crawl on my hands and knees before gratefully resurfacing a short distance further up. It's unbelievable that VC soldiers practically lived down there (and used much smaller tunnels deeper down) and built wells and kitchens complete with chimneys to disperse the smoke.
That evening we ate at one of the recommended restaurants in the area which was interesting for a couple of reasons. Firstly I had to cook my own dinner over a barbeque which they put in the middle of the table (it's remarkable how much my chopstick skills improved when my hand was
over fire!). Secondly some of the other dishes on the menu sounded interesting to say the least - snake, she-goat's breats and goat's penis (as well as the genitals of a few other animals) were all on the menu. I think cooking my own dinner was the safer choice!
Our final day in Saigon was one of the most fun days of my trip so far. We headed to Dam Sen park on the Western outskirts of the city (after an altercation with a moto driver who tried to con us by taking us completely the wrong way then insisting that we should use two motos - the other belonging to his friend). We were under the impression that Dam Sen was just a park with a few sculptures in it, and so we were quite surprised to find that it was a theme park. We took a boat round dinosaur world complete with animated models, visited the ice palace complete with silly looking coats, went to the 3D cinema and generally had a good day walking round the gardens (with sculptures as promised) and eating ice-cream. The disappointing aspect was that there is a small zoo where the
animals, including elephants and monkeys, are kept in awful conditions in tiny cages and going by some signs it appears as though they make them perform circus acts. We boycotted the zoo as soon as we saw how the animals were treated.
The rollercoaster there was quite hair-raising. I commented as we approached that it looked "disappointingly tame", but that was before I saw the safety levels. To keep you in the cart during the loop-the-loops there was an overhead harness which was fastened by a belt from the seat. The problem was that it was designed for Vietnamese people so on a proper sized person the harness and belt can not reach one another. After some animated discussion between two of the staff they formulated a cunning plan - I was to hold onto the harness in order to prevent myself from falling out! That's one way to make a pretty average ride far more exciting.
Even more exciting was the moto ride back across the city to where we were staying - our drivers decided to have a rush-hour race! If their driving is eratic at the best of times it was downright dangerous when they
were racing and I still don't know how we (and especially my sticking-out knees) made it through some of the gaps. The highlight of my driver's effort (which still didn't win him the race) was when we went the wrong way round a roundabout because he thought it would be faster!
And so after a fairly long stay in Saigon (apologies for the monster post) we are due to head Northeast to the coast tomorrow morning.
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