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Published: February 22nd 2008
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Saigon centre
Holding back the barf after taking paracetamol with straight rum.......nice! Hi guys,
We arrived in Hoh Chi Minh City(Saigon) on Wed 13th Feb at around 2pm, got our bags off the bus and grabbed a taxi to take us to the same place the vikings were staying! We also needed an ATM and we explained this to the driver.....off we went! He took us to get money and then to the guesthouse, as we were pulling up Gill said she recognised the buliding across the street.....the driver had taken us in a huge circle and wanted $10, the street is one way. He basically stopped where the bus dropped us off...cheeky fucker! We refused to pay full price and he threatened to get the police and he wouldn't open the boot to give us our bags.....Gill was fuming! We told him to get the police we were not paying....Mitch gave him $4 and told him that was all he was getting, eventually we got our bags....good start! The guesthouse the vikings were in was full, so off Mitch went, down the yellow brick road to find a room......I love looking for rooms it fills me with such joy and happiness! Some dude off the street asked if we needed a
Alley in saigon
This is the view from our guesthouse, there was rats a plenty! room I said "Yes" and he took me up some alley way and into someones gaff! I just took it cause i couldn't be arsed looking all day...the room was pretty crap but it would do....Gill was so happy with my find....not! We met the vikings and went for drinks that evening, later on two americans and a canadian joined us whom the vikings had met previously! After a few drinks and some guitar jamming we went to another bar called the guns 'n' roses bar, as we were leaving an accident involving a motorbike and a taxi had just happened, the driver of the bike was lying on his back, his helmet had come off and there was a large crowd just standing there doing nothing. He was bleeding from his head and he was gasping for air, his eyes were wide open and rolling back. We had to do something or he was going to die in the street, Mitch and Morten knew first aid so we had to get him in the recovery position as his breathing was getting more shallow every second! Mitch put his hand on his back and felt a gurgling in his lungs
Around Town
Me and Hoh Chi Minh! which sounds like internal bleeding......there was no ambulance in sight! The crowd pulled him out of the recovery position much to our dismay and chucked him in the back of a taxi with his girlfriend.....heavy man! We don't think he would have made it unless they got him to the hospital quickly! We headed to another bar, all very sombre! We stayed up till 4am. Hungover the next day so we all met up and walked to the local botanic gardens and zoo, we saw lots of the city on our way. We love Saigon it's a really cool city.....the traffic is the craziest we have seen yet....the amount of motorbikes is unbelievable! You just have to walk out on the road and hope the drivers will dodge you. We had lunch at an irish bar with amazing food and then headed to an arcade, it was a good laugh! On the way back we saw another motorbike accident but it wasn't serious....we didn't hire a bike here! On the 15th Feb we headed to the Cu Chi tunnels which is where the vietcong built their tunnels to defeat the southern vietnamese and the americans, so clever and really interesting.
Irish Bar!
The local irish pub in Saigon! It was a half day trip and at the end you crawl through the tunnels, it was very claustraphobic and dark and we were the only few who managed to go the whole 90 metres! On the way back we got dropped off at the war museum, very sad and shocking pictures, there was a lot of atrocities on both sides but the americans were the worst with their chemical warfare. There were two fetus in jars showing the horror of this type of warfare, very disturbing! The next day we had to get the bus to Muine at 8am, Muine is a beach resort famous for kite surfing 6 hours north of Saigon. We were there with the vikings and Brian the canadian, we just chilled here, did some boogey boarding, drank a lot, sunbathed and played pool and ate of course. We also went on a half day tour in a jeep to the sand dunes this is where the camera got killed. We did sand surfing but it was pretty crap! Yet again we saw another motorbike accident involving a bus and a bike, i think we have seen 8 accidents in total. We stayed here for
Wacky Races!
The madness that is Saigon! five days as we really liked it here. We arrived in Nha Trang yesterday(21st Feb). Nha Trang is another 6 hour journey north of Muine, it's pissing with rain, the last of the good weather is behind us till we get to laos it gets colder as you go north in vietnam. We will upload the pics once the camera is out of hospital! Cheers and goodnight!
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Karen McG
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The best is yet to come!!
Hi GIllian, loving hearing about your travels and woes...ringing a few bells with the accomodation debacles!! Surprised about Serendipity Beach, as it was lovely when we were there (bit too many people trying to sell 'leg threading' or fruit salads tho!). We also thot Phnom Penh was a shit hole, too busy and not much to do apart from see horrendous evidence of murders. Hope you go to Hanoi in N. Vietnam it's quite cool, but will blow your mind with even worse traffic than HCMC (believe me!). Try to get to Cat Ba Island and Halong Bay for a couple of days on a junk boat, it is one of the most amazing sites, so beautiful. Watch your posessions in Nha Trang, a few of our mates had stuff stolen while there. Off to feed Jude, Take Care and keep having a ball (gale forced winds today...yippee!) K and Judexx