Ho Chi Minh Day One

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Up early again, 530am, ouch lol. Showered, packed and on the bus!

The bus wasnt full this time so we were able to spread out a lil more and have two seats to relax in. Was an interesting trip, so many sights to look at and just people watching can fill the time in.

The drive took 7 hours but some of that was spent in the border crossing, prob an hour.

I wish i had of packed food with me, as quite a few times we stopped for traffic or on a barge when we had to cross a river, there were these beautiful, poor lil children begging me for food. A sad, sad moment, as i had nothing to give and these poor darlings look like they needed food far more than i do. Was so hard to just turn and face the other way as i literally didnt have anything and it was very upsetting :-((

The border crossing was interesting, you have to get off the bus and walk across the border, do immigration and customs as you leave Cambodia and again as you enter Vietnam, which really doesnt consist of more than showing your passport, however can take time! we got on the bus again over the border and continued into Ho Chi Minh city, where the fun began lol... fresh off the bus and a taxi grabbed our bags and put them in his taxi, i should have known then lol. I had read up on tripadvisor so knew about taxi scams, but when your in that position what else can you do? We got in and as we had no dong, he took us straight to a money exchange, on the way we're watching his meter tick over at lightening speed. 40000 dong straight to 80000 dong. The money exchange did not give me and receipt or a conversion rate and i stupidly just put the money in my purse n jumped back in the taxi, worrying bout the meter ticking over in there. We drove around th eblock 4 times!!! before he finally pulled into the hotel, which we know now was around the corner and charged us $20 aud, we paid it and just got out asap. Once inside i counted the money that i exchanged and realised we were about $50 short too. This was a great start to Ho Chi Minh, all in our first 30mins!

We had a shower and regrouped and i walked across the road to a coffee shop and got some iced coffee and baguettes for lunch, then we walked down to the markets. On the way we met two motorbike drivers/taxis who asked if we wanted a city tour, as we were feeling quite nervous about Ho Chi Minh so far, we said no but as we were talking to them for a while, and they showed us there books they get all there custimers to write in we started to think they were not so bad. We booked them for the next morning at 11am.

Have i mentioned the traffic here????? OMG it is insane, there is literally thousands of scooters n motorbikes, plus cars, buses etc and what seems liek no road rules! You just drive wherever whenever and people slow down or go around you. Crossing the road is a near death experience, where you just walk out slowly and steadily and the scooters will go around you! They actually have tourist security to help you cross near the markets.

We walked down to Ban Thanh market and started looking around! OMG the shopping here is amazing for homewares, i was up late googling how to ship things back, but in the end it seems imposible or far too expensive :-( We didnt buy anything as we planned to go back the next night.

On our way back we met up with the motorbike guys again, his name is Khai and somehow i was talked into going for a ride, in PEAKHOUR. Oh. My. God. i cannot describe sitting on a bike going thru an intersection and seein gprobably 200+ bikes coming straight at you head on plus ones sideways from every which way, somehow we survived, but i was terrified haha. We then went for dinner and drinks, where i drank quite a few mojitos! calming my nerves lol. We are staying in District 1, whch is the backpacker district, so very busy with tourists, bars, reastaurants etc. It goes all night here, as we could here the music in our room lol all night, even so we slept well, maybe helped by the cocktails ;-)

Night, Night....

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