Madam Cuc 127 Ho Chi Minh City

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... before I retreated to the safety of my hotel. For starters the traffic is crazy, to cross the road you just have to walk out in front of the traffic while they all beep their horns at you and hope they swerve to avoid you. Wherever you go the people are hassling you to buy their books, cigarettes or bananas, get on their moto taxi, clean your shoes for you or give their “charity” money. But I have to say the longer I’m here and ...

Saturday 21 November

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) on the Friday night about 8pm. I absolutely love this place. It took about 2hours to travel from the outside of the city to the centre. Sounds weird but I instantly know this would be my favourite place when we were driving into the city.

The traffic makes Bangkok's streets look like commercial street. Its unreal. You need to see it to ...

... the island, about an hours ride, passing through small villages. We saw the indigenous 'to the island' ridgeback dogs with blue tongues. These were wild but now have been domesticated. They differ from other dogs in that their teeth are very sharp and pointed as is their claws.
At the bottom of the island is a large working working fishing village and just up the road from there are a couple of brilliant white sandy, palm tree beaches with a very calm sea. Post card stuff ...

... road becomes a leap of faith... Basically the only way we can do it is so step out into the giant horde of traffic and walk very slowly across the road as the scooters weave wildly around you, all the while hoping to god there are no buses coming, which literally brake for no man. Personally I can only do it if I look straight ahead and don't even glance to the sides!

We hooked up with 3 British backpackers who were making the rounds the same as ...

... whole way down and burping.But fun to see and to hear, not the smelling tough. but the Vietnamese border showed up, and I was ready to meet My Vietnamese Sister From My Mother on that side. But no...all smooth and cheerfull. Just step out of the bus, collect your bags, get inside the terminal and wait till your name will be called. Okay that made it a bit tricky as our names are not really Viet-Names. Can you pronounce our names in Vietnamese..?? But I think that the look of our ...

... beautiful manicured gardens. Girls were wearing the traditional flowing white outfits called Ao Dai and riding their bicycles and the women were wearing their conical straw hats. Kids were coming out of school and looked so cute in their black pants and white shirts and wearing their red scarfs. Vietnam is a communist country and they are only allowed to have 2 children each and if they have more they get ...

... if not in the place known as ridiculously fantastic, which usually requires a special kind of mushroom to achieve. So I was bound to be underwhelmed.

We began by checking into a hotel. Apparently we would not be sleeping and living on a seafaring vessel, but living in an airconditioned unit with room service. At least the hotel offered snake on the menu, which is apparently illegal but very tasty. I'd love to say I hunted down said meal with the idea of me or him ...

... of hawkers either. Long bus trip out and back but so amusing coming back through the rush hour traffic - some of the narrow scrapes of traffic - scooters use the footpaths when there are some if all else fails - some of the loads they carry on scooters - cages of dogs - probably for the markets for eating - a huge pile of wood - the ultimate apparently is a live water buffalo!! Just had the final dinner with Tuan guide) he has to return to Hanoi for his grandmother's funeral ...

... broke the Geneva Accords. Although arguably justified, I still don't believe that things like this should be used for further political gain on either side but I suppose that is the way of the world.

After a brief coffee, the others got a taxi back whilst I walked (I wanted to clear my head a little). I really enjoyed my walk especially the bit where I was standing in the middle of 8 lanes of traffic during rush hour - very hair-raising especially the part where a moped ...