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We had a choice.......
We could have stayed in the backpacker area and found a place for less than $15 US.....We could have gone to Cholon, the chinese quarter, and found a mini hotel for around $30 US or we could have found a business hotel in District 3 for around $70 US.........Or for only a bit more we found we could stay in the gorgeous, historical, colonial splendour of "The Grand", 2 minutes from Lam Son square, smack dab in the middle of everything....! Buckets of atmosphere, swimming pool, bus-boys in gold braid,hot and cold running masseuses, breakfasts that could sink a ship.....Well, what would you do?
We reached for the plastic!
Saigon was not what we expected...Everything we had read and everyone we had talked to gave us the impression that it was going to be manic! We were expecting Hanoi to the power of 10, a mini Shanghai or Hong Kong...What we found was a beautiful, even elegant, colonial style sprawl..
The streets were wide and tree lined, and even at the busiest times we found that the traffic was nothing compared to Hanoi, consequently it is a fabulous city to explore on foot, and this
is precisely what we did....
In four jammed days we explored District 1, the heart of Old Saigon....The Opera house on Lam Son Square, The Continental hotel where Graham Greene wrote "The Quiet American"...The rooftop bar in the Caravelle from where american newspaper men boasted they could cover the whole of the Vietnam war (nearly $50 US for four largish G & T's and a plate of nuts...Yikes!)...The bustle of Ben Thanh market..... Notre dame Cathedral, looking like a brickwork Bugs Bunny with its huge rabbit ears......Drank cold beers on the roof terrace of " The Rex", another one of Saigons historic hotels...We visited the new style shopping malls and overloaded on iced coffees in western style coffee houses....We lunched on noodle soups, french style sandwiches, pastries .....even (I am so ashamed!!), had a plate of Kentucky fried chicken in an amusement arcade on the top floor of the Diamond plaza....In the evening we found some of the best food we had come across in the whole of Vietnam, glazed chicken feet as big as your hand, thin slivers of duck breast in tart orange sauce, snails the size of tennis balls stuffed with lemon grass, and it was possible
Notre Dame cathedral..
What do you mean, it doesnt look like Bugs Bunny? to eat cheaply as well as throwing caution to the wind...Foodie heaven!
On the third evening we literally bumped into a german couple we knew from Phu Quoc....In a city of 9 million souls what are the odds?...It was their 9th visit to Saigon and like us they were just walking the streets, still finding something new around every corner. There are historic buildings, temples, museums, must-see's everywhere, but like all of Vietnam, the best thing about Saigon is the window it gives onto the lives being lived within it...Its the people going about their everyday lives that for us, and obviously for the german couple as well, provided the endless fascination, and for the whole four days we were happy just following our noses and soaking it all in.
All good things come to an end....
44 (unbelievably fast) days after arriving in Hanoi it was time to go home...
I know that compared to some journeys ours was just a small adventure, but it was one neither of us will ever forget .......and its left us wanting more..........
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Andy Horsman
Andrew Horsman
Great Trip
Wow, looks like you had a great trip! It was really good reading about your adventures - it brought back a lot of happy memories! Riding Poppy must have added to the adventure 10 fold, superb! All the best