Ho Chi Min City

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Also known as Saigon, Ho Chi Min City may be my favorite city I have visited during my time in Asia. While there, I spent several days playing the role of tourist, but also managed to mingle with the locals when the opportunities arose. I went on a tour of the city. I went on a tour of the Mekong Delta. And, I went on a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels. The tour of the city was mediocre, excluding the very disturbing and graphic War Museum. Here the story of the Vietnam War was told from a different perspective. Machines of destruction; tanks, planes, helicopters, bombs, were striking sights as I entered the courtyard, while inside the mueseum many more profound aspects of the war were revealed. Some of the pictures were extremely grotesque, displaying the effects of agent orange, mutilated bodies, or entire roads covered in innocent bodies. They had a wall rack displaying many of the hand held weaponry from both sides. In tubes they had feti (plural for fetus?) that were mangled due to the agent orange poisin. If you didn't already know how much of an atrocity the Vietnam War was, you figured it out pretty quickly. One of the mediocre sites on the tour was seeing disabled people making artwork out of lamiated laquer covered in crushed egg shells. Later we saw art gallery that hosted works of art created entirely out of sewing. In both of the exhibits, the people who were creating the artwork were open for viewing. In the sewing art gallery I really liked a photo on the wall that showed the various hand positions used for the weaving. It looked like a scroll for some ancient weaving kung fu and I pondered if there was a weave-master around who taught the skills, or whom I could challenge to a weave battle to the death.

The tour of the Mekong Delta was an overnight journey to the heartland of Vietnam. The Mekong Delta is very populated and is where much of Vietnam's rice and rice related products are produced (among other non-rice related things). I packed as if I were going straight into the jungle; Boots, pants, listerine, mosquito spray, my ninja sword, everything required to survive. Instead, we spent out first night in the Mekongs most populated city...I wanna say it was called Chao Doc, but who knows, I'm bad with names. Before arriving in our hotel for the evening, we went on a day tour on the river in a nearby city. Before launching our boat, actually, on the bus, our guide says to us "We're going for lunch, you can leave your bags on the bus." However, what he REALLY probably meant to say was.... "We're going on a 4 hour boat tour where amazing photos of rural Vietnam can be taken and it would be a shame if you didn't bring you camera, but instead followed some advice I could potentially give you about leaving all your stuff on the bus " So no photos of this beautiful boatride, but I can make an attempt using words to describe a scene that would have been much better conveyed through pictures. Well, first, we went to an island where we were served vietnamese tea (with local honey!) and some goodies. The islands were really low to the water, but were very nice as their paths were lined with small fruit trees. From there we received a small paddle boat ride down a very narrow river. Wearing one of the Vietnamese conical hats, I sat back and relaxed while our two boatmen pushed us down the river. Each bank was less than hands length away, but boats coming in the other direction managed to squeeze by. Each time the driver of the opposite boat passed, he would mumble something. After a few boats I was able to caught the mumbled phrase, it was "Give money." Haha, drive by money requests. We stopped off at a coconut candy shop, where we got to see how the candy was made, followed by traditional singing show. Later we stopped at shop where rice rice noodle were produced. I understood the process in about 2 minutes and instead spent a good 20 minutes cajouling the absolutely massive penned up pigs, doing pretend auditions for parts in the newest Babe movie. Then we had lunch, pork-chops on rice. Yummy.

Lets see, in Cao Doc, the city, I learned something about the Vietnamese people I already had a suspicion of in Ho Chi Min City. They are a proud people. For example, the parks in Vietnam, especially the one in the city we were staying in, are so very well kept. These parks are well kept not for the sake of tourists as they might be in other neighboring countries that rely so heavily on tourism, but rather they have this upkeep for the sake of the local people.
I also learned they eat snake sometimes, so I did as well. It was far from delicious. After dinner I happended to notice 4 aquariums in the restraunt, each hosting an animal available on the menu, including the snake I had just eaten. Yummy? Other notable menu items included mouse and (as I'll post in a picture at some point) "Bread topped with gizzard shad." The next day we toured the floating market of the Mekong. One fascinating note is that each boat tied their produce to the mast of their ship so that the other ships were made aware of what they were selling. I bought a pastry.

At some point I went to the Ch Chi Tunnels and I'll have to say, this was my favorite tour in Vietnam. Our guide was a Vietnamese girl who spoke nearly perfect english, and with an Austrailian accent. She'd describe some area of the tunnels then follow up by saying "you knaow whud I mean?". Often I did. I don't know if the tour would have been as informative or as interesting without her. She also had a great sense of humor, which was appreciated, because the tunnels weren't exactly humorous by nature. Some things I learned about te area included: The tunnels covered some 200 Kilomteres. 200 KM! There were 80,000 people living in that area in the time, most of them probably housed in these tunnels. Talk about cramped quarters. Their tactics against their rivals were stunning. The array of bobby traps they used were indeed amazing, effective, and frightening. Their tunnels were multi-level, getting smaller as they went deeper and deeper. Many ingenious ideas were orchestrated, such as releasing the smoke produced by the kitchen through vents low to the ground in the forest, duplicating the effect of a morning mist. When their tunnel to surface breathing holes began to get noticed by the Americans (often by search dogs) certain counter tactics were delvoped. At first they used chilli's to discourage the dogs, and eventually used old cigarettes and U.S. soldier clothing to mask the smells. As the tour tour progressed, the sound of gun shots began to fill the air, adding a stark element of realism. The sounds were eminating from the nearby firing range, where tourist hillbillies were firing off guns with glee. I'll admit, I joined them. I bought bullets for two different guns, the M16 machine gun and the AK 47. I was a little timid with the first gun, which happened to be the M16, so my aiming was pitiful. When I got around to using the AK 47, my confidence had risen and I found myself to be quite the true shot. The guns varied greatly in their kickback, barrel heat, and noise. You know how noisy an AK47 is when you're holding it to your eat? No, you probably don't, do you, well, I do. Before finishing the tour we had the opportunity to crawl through one of the tunnels that is still in tact. I hesitated, but eventually made my way into them. They were hot, and you had to do a duck walk all the way through, but they gave a good impression of what the tunnels might have been like (These were the top tunnels, and widdened slightly for tourists. In the actual tunnels I believe crawling was often necessary). All-in-all a great tour. Two thumbs up.

As for Ho Chi Min City itself. Well, as our city tour guide pointed out, there are 8 million people in the Ho Chi Min City are and an estimated 3+ million motorbikes being ridden. It is absolutely pure maddness. Walking across the road is done as so....slowly, deliberatly, anywhere you decide to do it, and staring the drivers in the face. Then, to your amazement, you don't get hit. Rather, people just drive around you like water flowing over a rock. Oh, and the fool's done wear helmets. Their horns, wow, they never let up. Here they use it in every situation, differing from in North America, where I think we use our horn more like a weapon. For example, in America: If you're pissed off, HORN! If you're...well...pissed off, HORN! If some idoit is an idiot, HORN! Or if someone isn't moving when the light turns green, ya, you got it, HORN. But, that's all I can really think of for North American horn using. Oh, and for being lazy when you want someone to get out of their house. But here, it's truely their communication. Every single time a bus passes a bike, HOOOOOORN, HORN HORN HORN, HOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRNNNNNN. Try reading while some horn-happy horn-dog is horning at every person he passes, yeah, try reading in that, or sleeping for that matter. But, back to the bikes. There's a lot of them. I've seen a few crashes, but no fatalities. In fact, the crashes I have seen been pretty tame and I've appreciated being spared the potential sights of grutality. On one occasion our bus actually hit someone, the driver proceeded to laugh with a few passengers and we drove off. Crazy. But, this is Vietnam.

What else is there a lot of, oh right, my most belove'd feature of the people of Saigon. THEY ABSOLUTELY LOVE BADMINTON. Everywhere you look. In the alley, in the street, and most definately in the park. Badminton, badminton, BADMINTON! Who plays badminton in all of Canada except me (and the rest of the Max Cameron Badminton Squard). I know what you're thinking, "What's he talking about, I LOVE badminton." Ya...I know you do...but, just not the same, I'm sorry. So, overjoyed with this discovery of Saigon's badmintoness, I rushed out, on my second day, and bought myself a badminton raquet. Enthralled with the joy of my opporunity, I attempted to play at a local club, only to be looked upon with expressions of non-understanding. So I went back to the park. It was here that someone asked me to play and I spent the next 3 hours doing so. I played until it was dark, windy, and I could barely stand, beaten by fatigued (and occasially by the other players.) That night I was a wreck. I was sore, oh so sore. So, I decided to get a massage. Problem is, there was no massage parlours nearby that I knew of. To ask a local for the location would be difficult (there really isn't as much english spoken here as Cambodia or Thailand) and to ask a motorbike driver would leed to the wrong type of massage. So, I asked a random gentleman wearing a suit who happened to be walking nearby. I told him I wanted a massage "Just for health" and I crossed my hands in front of my crotch so he understood. The gestures weren't needed, he is actually an english teacher at a nearby highschool and had just finished his class. I noticed he had a slight limp, but that didn't stop him from taking me 6 blocks in the opposite direction he was travelling to help me find a massage parlor. The parlour was unfortunately expensive, but he goes there when he needs a proper massage, and the service was actually quite good. I guess he wanted to practice his english with me, or just make sure I was okay, because he stayed at the massage parlor until my hour was up. Afterwards as we walked back to where we had met, he offered to take me out the next evening for a tradition Tet dinner. Tet is the name for the Chinese New Year, which starts on...ummm...the 17th or so. But since i wouldn't be in Vietnam to celebrate, he told me he'd take me out early. Also, he mentioned not to eat too much before arriving for dinner. The next day I went back to play badminton, but was so sore that I just sat and watched. As I looked on, a Vietnamese girl came and sat down beside me, then asked me if I could help her with her english. I did, for a few hours actually, and then met her the next night to teach her again. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to make the noise "th" as in "with" for Asian people. Try it out, make the noise, then think about how you'd try to teach someone to use it. Not easy. I met up with the Vietnamese English teacher the next night, and as he had instructed me the day before, I kept up a good appitite. Good thing, because apparently he wasn't eating, only feeding. He stood across from me, wrapping up peices of fish and other salad into rice paper wraps then passing them to me. I ate an entire (large) fish (a rare one out of the mekong that is only eaten at this time of year) plus all the salad he stuffed into each roll. I was truely loving Ho Chi Min and was thinking I'd say for another day, but he told me I had to do otherwise. He actually wrote up an entire itinerary for me for the country and told me I should leave as soon as possible to get it all done. With that, my mind was set, I was to leave for Dalat.

Lets see....what else happened in Ho Chi Min. Well, some cultural observations: Many of the ladies in Saigon wear, as I call them, Pajama Suits. Their pretty much pajamas, but they wear them all day long (I'll probably write about this again later). Also, there are a lot of Cyclo drivers...can't say I've taken one in my whole journey. Oh, and there's a this one cafe near the tourist district that I told EVERYONE about. On the first floor they sold coffee and other goodies. The second floor was for hanging out. On the third floor though, they had built a mini-theatre. There was about 20 theatre style seats and couches, and a 8 foot screen that the movies were projected on to. There was also a little service button in front of you in case you wanted some treats delivered to you.

While in Saigon I also met some friends that I had met in Cambodia at one of the guesthouses. Since then, I have seen them in almost every town I have been in.

Hm, one last quick note, and this is accross the country, the rooms are a little more expensive than say Cambodia, usually between 7-12 dollars, but every one comes with Satalite TV, hot-water, and often air conditioning. It's nice, but sometimes a little uneccessary and also a little frustrating because there are practically no rooms for cheaper available.

Right, so, with my itinerary in hand, I set off to Dalat.

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Photos

City Tour: The Post Office
LAME.

City Tour: Important Building
I can't remember WHY it's important. Maybe it belonged to a king or something.

City Tour: Art Gallery
Various forms of art were created here by disabled vietnamese people.

City Tour: Art Gallery
The laquer making area.

City Tour: Art Gallery
An eggshell decorated pot

City Tour: Art Gallery
More art, although I can't remember what material this is.

City Tour: Sewing Art Galley
The Weave Styles

Comments

[Tracy]

Actually yes, I do know how noisy an Ak-47 sounds when you're holding it to your ear. I also know how to make coconut candy, rice papers, tea and honey, how to tunnel around in cu chis, party at the Sailing Club, cross the street in Saigon, have a suit and several crappy pairs of pants tailored for me. I also saw the forest rollercoaster. You're still going to Laos right!?