Saigon - Street Bars and Dragons

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We left Phnom Penh on the 22nd of January in the morning and after a straight forward border crossing we arrived in Saigon in the afternoon on Chinese New Year's Eve (TET for Vietnamese people). Most of the shops outside of District 1 were closed as the people headed to their families for celebrations. In the alleyway we stayed in families gathered and played cards and BINGO! Ryan felt at home straight away but it was nothing in comparison to Gala Bingo as he pointed out with slight disappointment. Poor guy.

We found a place to stay quite easily and had nice Vietnamese noodle soup in the evening before we started enjoying Saigon Beer in a street bar for 10.000 VND (0.50$).

The next day we didn't do much (as usual; haha) apart from walking around, drinking ice coffee(s) and beer(s) and having nice food. In the evening at 7 pm we met up with Phuong - a lovely Vietnamese girl. She wanted to take us to a nice restaurant but most of them were closed during TET so she took us to a Hotpot Buffet. The food was okay but nothing special and terribly overpriced - 13$ per person!! Phuong wouldn't let us pay for our food but we managed to pay for her coke in the street bar later. (Great achievement. haha) It was very cute to watch her looking around the touristic streets with all the people and lights where she had never been before even though she grew up in Saigon. Her brother picked her up at midnight and that was our sleeping time.

The next day we arranged to meet at 4 pm so we went to a nice bakery before and bought some yummy donuts that we then enjoyed with ice coffee. We showed her around in District 1 a bit more and then sat down for some beer and water for her. After having some food on the street that Phuong obviously strongly disliked we had some more beer and even Phuong ordered one. It took her 5 hours to drink it and she made it weaker with one massive ice cube per hour. But yeah - she had some beer with her ice ;-) Little Ryan got an angry birds balloon which he proudly presented on our table. We had a great afternoon and evening and I can really see us living in Saigon and meeting Phuong more often. She is lovely.

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