First Day in Saigon

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This morning Ryan and I woke up reallly early to catch the 6:45 bus to Saigon. It really was no different from the bus we took from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, only this time we were the ONLY Westerners on the bus. Again, they played Khmer music and music videos (or was it Vietnamese this time?). At one point the bus drove onto a ferry to cross the Mekong river. Ryan said out loud exactly what I was thinking as the ferry started to pull away: "If this ferry tips or sinks, we're fucked". Very true. And in Cambodia, that's not exactly unheard of. I'm still alive.

When we got to the border, we had no trouble with our Vietnam visas, luckily. The problem we had, or rather Ryan had, was that his passport was soaking wet from the water party at 'Heart of Darkness' two nights before! He didn't realize his passport was so wet until he pulled it out of his pocket to hand to the immigration authorities, and it was basically dripping. Luckily passports are made to withstand a beating (a friend of mine sent his through the washing machine), and the visa itself was fine - it just needed to be dried. So, the immigration authority simply set it out on a plastic chair in the sun, right where anybody could take it. We kept an eye on it.

After probably an hour, the passport was dry, and we were good to go. The bus pulled up with everybody else (who knows what they were doing), and we were off to Vietnam!

The bus just so happened to drop us off in the Pham Gu Lao area of Saigon, which is exactly where all of the guesthouses are. Perfect. However, I later read in my Lonely Planet that they suggest leaving your bags a a traveller's cafe before you start looking for a room, or you'll get attacked. This is exactly what happened to us.

As soon as we hopped off the bus, we were bombarded by people trying to take us to their guesthouse, most notably a loud and obnoxious overweight vietnamese woman who wore an olive green cap with a red star on it - probably remnant from her days with the vietcong. She hassled us non-stop. I was determined to not go to any of the guesthouses promoted by the people pestering us when we walked off of the bus, because it only reinforces it. This lady wouldn't give up. We would walk into guesthouses, find out the rate, and as soon as we walked back out onto the street, the lady would follow us, asking the price fo the room and telling us her price was better. No matter the price nor how nice the room, there was no way I was giving in to this woman.

After checking probably 20 different places, and finding all of them too expensive (we later realized that Saigon as a whole is a tad more expensive than Cambodia), we settled on rooms above the 'GON Cafe' for $8 a night. This place was a complete dive. We were told both rooms were singles with bathrooms, but after we paid for the rooms, Ryan realized that his was missing a toilet. The paint on the walls was peeling, and the room was just all around seedy. There were holes in the sheets where they had been burned, and my room smelled like paint thinner.

We dropped off our stuff and explored the city for the rest of the day. The tourist area is not particularly attractive, nor are there any interesting shops, but the city center is quite nice and clean. The only city I can compare it to is Bangkok, because it is quite developed. The are shopping malls carrying all of the designer names, boutiques selling silk, and tailors shops making cutsom suits for $130. Some of the original French architecture is preserved, and it's lit up at night which is stunning. There are also the vendors, whom all sell the exact same thing. There are the hammock sellers (why hammocks?), the fake watch sellers, the fake sunglass and 'Zippo' lighter salesmen, the wallet sellers who try to sell us lady's wallets, the waffle makers who sit by a fire and make fresh dense waffles and banana paper which is quite tasty, and the vendors selling fake Lonely Planets. Nobody has an original product.

Like Cambodia, in Vietnam, at least in Saigon, no doesn't mean no. No means you want a lower price. We had a guy peddling a single pair of fake Ray-Ban sunglasses try to bargain with us for a solid five minutes. I'm sure they realize we don't want their product, but they figure if they pester the tourists enough they'll buy it. I'm sure the tactic works on some. Even worse is when the ladies selling wallets give you the sad face when you don't buy a wallet, and then just stare at you. It's bad when you're eating a meal and they don't leave. Needless to say, the peddlers get very old very quickly.

Oh wow, I almost forgot to mention the Vietnamese girls. They're the most attractive of the Southeast Asian girls I have seen so far, and they LOVE American guys, or so it seems. They do this thing where they smile at you, and if you smile back, they turn their head away, pretending they weren't smiling at you. At the same time they start to giggle, and cover their mouth with their hand so you can't see them giggle. The head turn is a combination of denying the smile, hiding the giggle, and looking at friends for affirmation that he's a cute American. It's funny because there are a lot of tourists in Saigon, so you would think the girls are used to Americans, but I guess not!

For dinner, Ryan and I went to the Ben Thanh market - the largest in Saigon. The market itsself is covered, but we ate at one of the many outdoor restaurants surrounding it. This was the first very very Engrish menu I have seen. Anyone want to try a 'Singapore Smell'? Boy, I wish I remembered some of the other items on the menu, but only half of it was comprehendable. I had barbecued pork, and Ryan barbecued shrimp (they have the tank of live seafood right there in front of you) - solid choices.

After dinner, I convinced Ryan to see one of the places in my '1,000 Places to See Before You Die' book: the rooftop bar of the Rex hotel. It was meh. The view was alright, but not amazing, and the drinks were expensive and not great.

After that, Ryan wanted to go to a jazz club we had passed, so we got great seats and saw a fantastic saxaphonist. You would have thought you were in America, except for the fact that the 70 year old guy next to us was with a 25 year old Vietnamese prostitute, and so was the 300 pound Malay man two seats down. Anyways, the jazz was great, and my drink was fantastic (I wasn't going to have a drink, but I was 'required' to or else I had to pay a cover charge). I ordered the 'Yes, Orgasm', a mixture of Countreau, Kahlua, Bailey's, and Galliano, blended with ice. Yes, I have the ingredients memorized, it was that good.

The jazz bar closed at midnight, and I was beat, so we went to bed. Not exactly party animals.

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Comments

[alina]

nice
drink choice merritt....I expected nothing less