Miss Saigon

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Geo: 10.7592, 106.662

Well, after a very bad flight, sitting next to the most nervous air passenger in the hsitory of the universe, we finally landed in HCMC. Now, Having flown with Vietnam Airlines, I'd be reluctant to do so again - good job that was our last flight with them! All future flights in this area are with Asia's answer to Easyjet - Air Asia; although we will remember to check in online before the flight from now on...

HCMC is a very exciting, forward-thinking and busy city. Unfortunately, it lacks the charm of the capital Hanoi. The streets are wider, the hawkers more aggressive, and the roads more lethal. In Hanoi, very few cars actually ventured out onto the roads, it was more the domain of the motorbike - easy to avoid as they swerve their way around you. However, here in HCMC, the traffic is even more intense, with a higher concentration of motorbikes (4 million apparently) and many cars, which do not have such a great capacity to manouevre around you!

However, we safely arrived at our hotel and our guide took us for a tour of the city. We saw the Opera House, the Post Offie (designed by Gustav Eiffel), the Caravelle hotel (where war correspondents pretended to be in the thick of the action as they sipped cocktails in the bar on 9th floor), the Diamond Plaza and its incongruent opulence next to the shabby shanty houses on an adjacent rooftop and the Notre Dame cathedral. Seeing these magnificent buildings reminded me of Vietnam's French influenced past, and the resons for the Vietnam war's beginnings. There would be more of this tomorrow.

We had dinner in the local market, watching them pull live fish from bubbling tanks and clout them around the head, before throwing them into the pan! Steaming piles of pancakes with vegetables were brought to our table, a coconut was set on fire to provide the steam to cook gigantic tiger prawns, whole fish rested in a stand, the miserable look on their faces testament to the newness of their execution and fresh vegetables and piles of rice were brought to our table with the chaotic charm of Vietnam. We ate like kings and thoroughly enjoyed the hustle and bustle of the rrough and ready makeshift resturant, hastily assembled at the close of the daytime market.

Then it was off to bed, as the local toilets at the market left a ltitle to be desired!!! xxx

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