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Published: October 30th 2010
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Rightly or wrongly we decided quite early on that we would judge a country by it's border crossing. Vietnam faired well. No lengthy queues, no finger print scanning (a niggle of mine) and no stern officials that make you look shifty through nerves rather than any illegal activity. Our trip from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) went well.
Driving in to Saigon was a bit mental. There were bikes and mopeds everywhere, it's amazing that they don't crash in to each other let alone the big buses like ours. Instead the traffic seems to go slow enough that you can happily pull out in front of fifty motorbikes and they all steadily part letting you in to the stream of traffic. We did notice, however, there were no trusty tuk tuks on the streets which lead us to ask the question of how will we get to our hotel? As it happens we were met by a nice gent who offered us a lift in his metered cab. Awesome - until the meter was going so fast we'd clocked up $10 before we knew it. We'd read about these dodgy meters, but with no knowledge of the
city and little knowledge of the currency (30,000 dong to the pound) we had no choice but to sound a little concerned about the amount and ask if our hotel was close.
So after feeling a bit ripped off we got out at our hotel and was told that they'd run out of cheap rooms but they'd take us to another one of their hotels on the back of their mopeds. I smiled and politely explained that I have a 19kg backpack and a 3-4kg day pack and that the moped would be unsuitable. After a quick giggle they gave me a helmet. So.. it's dark, it's busy, I have my mega rucksack on my back and I'm sitting on the back of a moped zipping along the street following Steve on the back of his moped, who is undoubtedly enjoying this life threatening situation. Every time my driver braked my helmet banged in to hers and every time I had a near falling off moment I screamed. She, other moped drivers and pedestrians all found this rather funny.
Well, after a night's rest we decided to go out and book some train tickets to the coast and
to see a little bit of Saigon. We walked around the corner and low and behold it was where we had been dropped off by our bus. Bastard!
During our first day in Vietnam we learnt quite quickly how to cross the road, slowly with no sudden movements. The bikes just drive around you, beeping lots but generally with a smile on their face. We've not been run over yet, so it seems to be working. After seeing a few sights we went out on the popular D Bui Vien street to have a couple of beers in the evening. We met up with two guys, one of which was living in Watford and the other, a younger lad who wanted to use the services of a local lady. After a bit of safety advice from the guy from Watford and a little 'now be nice' from me, he went on his way. Walking home that night I asked Steve 'did I really just tell a guy who was about to pay a local lady to be nice?'. Yes, yes I did.
The following day we hopped on an 8 hour train journey to Nha Trang which had
the funniest announcement where they specified that no mad people were allowed. It took some doing but we managed to keep ourselves hidden from the guards.
Nha Trang is more of a city on the sea rather than the tropical wooden hut experience that we were expecting. It is fun though and has more dive shops than we can possibly canvass for dives. Although, the last couple of days have been so rainy we've decided that spending money on a cloudy, murky dive would be a waste. Disappointing, but I'm sure we'll find a way to make up for it.
After the first night we checked ourselves in to a
very nice hotel room which is on the 7th floor with a private balcony, bigger than most rooms we've had on this trip. We have a sea view where on clear days you can see the wonderful islands in the distance. Today we've also had a great vantage point for the floods that have sunk our road to three feet under water.
We were going to go for a walk today but we've decided on rainy day activities.. trying hard not to incorporate any Vietnamese red in
to that plan.
We hope everything is going well back home and that it is a little bit dryer than here. We are now officially 3/4 of the way through our trip, just three months until we come home. It's crazy how fast it's going.
Lots of love*
S&S
xxxxXXXXxxx
*we accept dollars & dongs
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M&D
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Floods
What a lovely blog to have on a Saturday morning. You had us in stitches. When you said it was raining when we spoke - we didn't realise that it was necessary to swim down the roads!! My goodness, those poor people. I wonder how long it will take to dry out? Time to look for some sun we think?!? lots of love xxxxxxxxxxxxx