24 Hours in Saigon

We left the island paradise of Phu Quoc on the early morning flight to Saigon which is now officially called Ho Chi Minh City. Our ATR aircraft was comfortable enough but we did get to enjoy a little early morning turbulence as we took of from the island. We landed in Saigon and quickly found a taxi into town after receiving our baggage. We were just in time for rush hour so the 5 mile trip took about 45 minutes all the while wondering if our taxi driver was taking us on a “scenic” tour to inflate the price of the ride.

I had the cab drop us in the backpacker ghetto which are found in every major tourist town in SE Asia. Backpacker ghettos have sprung up to service the increasing numbers of backpacker type travelers who are flocking to SE Asia these days. These ghettos feature hotels, guesthouses, restaurants and other services that cater to the needs of western travelers. Our modus operandi when arriving in a new city is that I drop Deb in a comfortable spot, sometimes in a café, but more often on the sidewalk. In Saigon she is treated to, as Ian put it, more motos than all of the rest of SE Asia combined while I wander off in search of lodging for the night. After about a half hour search, I report back to Deborah that I have found a beautiful little room with a balcony up a quiet side alley for $20 a night which is well within our normal range of $10-25 per night. We roll our bags down the alley which is chock full of other hotels, guesthouses, bars and restaurants which will provide fertile ground for our culinary needs.Saigon traffic

We relax in the room for a few minutes, flip on the a/c to cool off from the steamy Saigon heat. We head out into the mid-morning heat (did I mention it was hot?) and wander through the parkway which as first seems to provide a respite from the burning sun overhead and the buzzing, beeping motos in the street. Our momentary reverie is shattered by the beeping of a moto on the sidewalk behind us.

When we reach the end of the park, we are faced with a new challenge; crossing the street through an endless stream of the aforementioned buzzing, beeping motos. Riding 16 abreast on the boulevard. Since there is never a break in the stream we test out the method to cross the street as suggested in our guidebook. This method is reinforced by watching several locals perform the maneuver. After ensuring no trucks or buses are in sight we simply step off the curb in a leap of faith. The method entails walking slowly straight across the stream without attempting to dodge or weave the oncoming motos. This method enables the motos to gauge your speed and location and take evasive action. The method works flawlessly as long as one resists the urge to run screaming in panic to the opposite curb. We arrive safely on the opposite side much to our amazement.

We arrive at the large covered market of Ben Thanh. It is a huge market covering several acres and contains clothing, dry goods, groceries, vegetables, fish, meat, hardware and just about anything else the modern Vietnamese home might require. After shopping for some souvenirs we are enticed by the food stalls in the center of the market. We order some fried rice and shrimp and sit in the now sweltering market cooled only by the cold Saigon Beer we are pouring down our throats. Deb strikes up a conversation with a Canadian who sits down beside us. Practically the first words out of his mouth is a remembrance of Robin Williams’ weather report from the movie Good Morning Vietnam. “Today the weather will be hot and shitty with tomorrow continued hot and shitty.” That, dear readers is Saigon weather in a nutshell.

Street vendor

We give up on the market and return to our room after running the gauntlet of buzzing beeping motos.
We hide out until early evening and decide to walk over to the post office to investigate the cost and procedure to mail some of our accumulated treasures home. We find the post office without too much trouble. It appears to be a modern facility with very helpful staff. We gather the necessary forms and cross the street and haggle for a box and start the walk back while looking for a highly recommended sushi bar in which to have dinner. I know, call us crazy---sushi in Saigon? However, there is a Japanese ghetto in Saigon with blocks of sushi and Japanese restaurants. We find the sushi bar and walk in the door to be greeted by 6 uniformed hostesses yelling the traditional, “Irashai!!!!”. We sit down at the bar and are treated to a hot scented towel. We peruse the menu which is priced about half of the cost is in America but exorbitant by Vietnamese standards. We go crazy and wander out an hour later, $30 poorer, but stuffed to the gills(pardon the pun) with excellent sushi, sake, and beer. We aren’t dirt bags all of the time.

We start back to our hotel but decide to detour and take a walk along the Saigon River in the still stifling heat. We walk down some streets that are a combination of sidewalk food stands, pool halls and brothels. We do enjoy scenic tours of cities. After several minutes we arrive at the river. There were two huge floating restaurants lit up like Christmas trees, one of which had lights that outlined a sharp toothed fish. We tried to walk along the river but next our way was blocked by a stream of motos coming off the cross river ferry. We no sooner got through that than finding our way blocked by another stream of motos going on to the ferry. After struggling through a few more obstacles we left the river to find the road back to our hotel. We scored a big bag of muesli on our way back to the room which would provide a welcome respite from the steady diet of fried eggs provided by most of the hotels we have visited.

After a few hours of steady walking we arrived back at our hotel for a much needed rest.

Creative Vietnamese wiring

The next morning was spent packing the box that we would entrust to the Vietnamese postal service for a journey home. After packing, inventorying, and filling out forms we set out for the post office. We were met there by very helpful postal worker who helped Deb fill out the rest of the forms. He then performed a customs inspection which consisted of asking us if there were any cds or dvds in the box. There were no questions about heroin, child pornography, or vegetation. I guess he figured that was U.S. Customs’ problem. After being assured we had no Cds he put the box on a backless office chair. He attached one end of a roll of packing tape at the top of the box and then proceeded to spin the chair as he gradually lowered the roll of tape which was unwinding around the box, effectively encasing four sides of the box in packing tape. He cut the end with a razor sharp box cutter and then proceeded to tape the entire top and bottom of the box by laying a strip of tape across the box, deftly slicing the end of the tape and repeating this process in an extremely rapid process until the every bit of cardboard was covered with tape. He placed the box on a cart which we wheeled over to the payment window where the box was put on an automatic strapping machine which placed two heavy nylon straps around the box.

We left the post office with our packs fifteen kilos lighter and $70 poorer and rushed back to our hotel to catch the noon bus to Dalat in hopes of finding cooler weather and fewer motos.