Ben Thanh Market & Sozo
Trip Start
Dec 02, 2008
1
31
37
Trip End
Jan 03, 2009
Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Monday, December 29, 2008
Today's plan was to take in the main Saigon market, Ben Thanh Market. We went for a walk to visit it, along the way meeting Lee and family (who now own Ophelia's pram). They told us that the pram has changed their life which was lovely to hear. I'm glad they're getting great things from it, like we did.
Once inside the market, I became overwhelmed quite quickly. I can't stand being somewhere where there is lots of people (see Bac Ha Market entry back at the start of this trip) and not much room, so I kinda lose the ability to breathe and function normally. I got through it eventually and we did a little bit of shopping (bargaining).
The market is crazy. There are so many people everywhere. It seems that there are about 15 stalls in a row selling you the same freakin' thing
Breakfast
. It's amazing how they make any money. The colours are terrific though - colourful scarves adorn many stalls, colourful fruit and veggies around the food stalls. Terrible smells in the fish aisle, lovely chickeny soupy smells near the pho stalls. We shopped a little bit more on the way back (I saw a couple of terrific basses but decided against buying one) and decided to look into the cost of a day trip to the Mekong. After some more searching in tour operator's stores, we decided against going down the Mekong this trip (probably - we MIGHT still do it before the end). It saves us money (that we don't really have).
We went to Sozo coffee shop for a late lunch of toasted sandwiches. Sozo is an incredible shop which employs the disabled and disadvantaged of the Saigon community. They do great things and Kythera and I both made a donation (getting a free t-shirt). It was raining outside so we stayed for a good while before heading back out for a walk around Saigon. We headed up where the tourists don't, saw how much they sell the TV that we have at home here (about $200 AUD cheaper). Saigon can be grey at times, but it can also be very beautiful and colourful - we saw the Saigon Municipal Theatre on the way back which was advertising a colourful Vietnamese show. If we were more confident with our Vietnamese, we might've attended!
On the way back from our walk, we did some more shopping (or browsing) and headed out to dinner. Tonight, Vietnam were playing Thailand in the second leg of the AFF Suzuki Cup Final (they won the first game 2-1)
Breakfast (close-up)
. We went first to an English bar-cum-restaurant where people were smoking (and not even watching the Vietnam game). We left and went to another restaurant a couple doors up, where they had the Vietnam game on a massive screen upstairs (at first, we were the only ones there before some others joined us, some tourists, some Vietnamese). We enjoyed our dinner and saw Vietnam draw the game 1-1 in the final seconds (meaning they won 3-2 on aggregate). Vietnam wins the AFF Suzuki Cup for the first time ever! It was thrilling to watch. We went for a walk through the park to celebrate the win - I was wearing my Vietnam soccer shirt proudly! We walked to the other side and watched heaps of motorbikes go past waving Vietnamese flags. The kids got a little sleepy at this point so we took them back to the hotel for bed. They fell asleep instantly so after a while, Kythera and I headed outside our hotel to watch a bit more of the festivities. We saw SO MANY PEOPLE! It was incredible - words cannot do it justice. It seemed every Vietnamese person was out with a Vietnam flag on their motorbikes. We saw 60,000 people at least, and that's not even a good estimate, there was probably over a hundred thousand clogging the streets. I got right into it, doing some soccer chants and waving the Vietnamese flag. I even banged on a bucket! People had whatever they could get their hands on and they were banging them together, yelling "Vietnam Chiang Thang" (Vietnam Champions) over and over again and roaring and waving their flags so much that it was just a sea of red. INCREDIBLE. Neither of us had seen anything like it before. We took some photos (attached to this entry) and some video (which we will upload to YouTube once we get home). We finally got back into the hotel (kids were still asleep, of course) and Kythera read some more of her book whilst I watched my Blackburn Rovers (yes, I have chosen my EPL team for this season) draw 2-2 with Manchester City (boo!) before we fell asleep with the thunderous chants still in our ears (the celebrations continued until at least 5am).
