Saigon

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Whilst we have been travelling we had heard several stories of how dangerous and dodgy Saigon was, so it was with some trepidation that we arrived off our bus after dark. Fortunately most of these stories were largely unfounded (we only saw 1 drive-by robbery in the 2 days we were there) and we really enjoyed the city.

The first morning we were feeling energetic so decided to do a walking tour of the city to take in all the major sights. The tour took us around 7 hours to complete as we were interrupted by a massive thunder and lightning storm and had to hide out in a cafe for about an hour. We managed to see the municipal theatre, Notre Dame Cathedral (Vietnam style), Post Office, Reunification Palace (couldn't get in as it was closed for renovations before APEC), and the War Remnants Museum amongst others.

We tried to go into the War Remnants Museum but it was closed around lunchtime, so we went to grab some food ourselves and go back after it opened, we arrived back over the road from the museum and we motioned to the guards on the gate to ask if it was open and ok for us to go in as there was a crowd standing outside. It appeared they misunderstood us and we were quite concerned when they all started blowing whistles and gesturing with their batons, fortunately for us they were trying to stop traffic for us and came across the street to get us and escort us to the museum!

Inside the War Remnants Museum was pretty horrifying and really opened our eyes up to how devastating the war had been. We saw "tiger cages" which were replicas of the cells that prisoners were kept in and tortured, complete with unpleasant photos and descriptions of torture methods, and a guillotine. We also saw the effects of Agent Orange and a display of photographs from foreign photographers who had been killed during the war.

Our final stop on the walking tour (once we found it) was a small, colourful pagoda complete with pond full of tortoises.

After 7 hours of non-stop walking in 33 degree heat we treated ourselves to a cold drink and a western dinner.

The following day, we got a motorbike over to Chinatown as we had heard there were some good markets over there. We arrived outside a four storey building of madness. Stalls were crammed into a 2m x 2m space, with as much stuff as they could possibly fit in there, the aisles to walk down were only just wide enough to squeeze through. You could buy everything from freshly deceased chicken to towels and silks to Calvin Klein's latest perfume. We don't think that many foreigners make it in there judging by the amount of stares we received.

From here we set off to explore Cholon/Chinatown's many pagodas, about 4 until we were pagodaed-out. Along the way Anna thought she was back at work and directed us to an area selling natural remedies/herbs etc. Not quite as flash as the new offices at NZ Nutritionals!

Whilst exploring Cholon we came across an endless row of street stalls, that as we progressed through we felt less and less comfortable, but in hindsight it was good to see the differences between this and the more western part of town that we had walked through the day before. The normal thunder and lightning arrived at 3.30pm putting a premature end to our day.

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