Big Trouble in Little China
Trip Start
Oct 12, 2009
1
3
Trip End
Jan 30, 2010
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Eventually we mastered the road crossing art which involves closing your eyes, running and praying that you get across alive. One of the first people we met in Saigon was Mr.Kim, a slightly eccentric Vietnamese cyclo (a kind of bicycle taxi) driver. He approached us during breakfast and started telling us about ying yang, all seeing eye, swastikas and different form of Buddhism he was practicing. He also was very proud to show us his great comments book that were mainly filled with comments on 'thanks for teaching us about Buddhism'. Mr. Kim offered us a cyclo ride the next day but unfortunatley we never had the pleasure of meeting him again.
So on the same day we took a taxi to Emperor Jade Pagoda, a scam had begun.....basically the taxi driver quoted us a price that was much higher than what the locals told us. After insisting for a while we managed to talk him into putting the meter on and eventually paid an adequate price. However we thought he had drove us to the wrong place, so we ended up walking into some place and asked one of the locals where this Pagoda was. They gave us the directions and on we went only to find out after 40 minutes of walking that we made a full circle and ended up in the same place that the taxi man had dropped us off...it had turned out that he had taken us to the right place...doh!!! The pagoda was very different to the temples we had seen in North Thailand, it reminded us more of a Chinese style temple with neon illuminated colourful figures in every room. Worth visiting if you are ever around this area.
So after an already eventful morning...scam number 2...
We decided that after all the unnessecary walk we deserved a motorbike taxi back to the city centre. We negotiated the price with the taxi guy and all happy we jumped on our first ride on the scooter. We became part of the motorbike mod and crazy driving system and to be honest we both enjoyed it a lot. However after the short drive we had to spend 10 minutes trying to pay the price that was agreed as the guy quoted twice the amount after. All the people were watching as we made a scene but eventually we won. The fast and furious driver sped off with no feeling of satisfaction from ripping off naive tourists....ahh ha!!!
We decided to eat at the night market which fortunately for us was where the fast and furious driver left us. The food was amazing, we found that vietnamese cuisine offers more than just noodles and rice. The meat is better here and their way of cooking is more distinctive. It's a real paradise for the bbq lovers - Marcin was truly delighted. Its very European in someways as you can eat french, italian, german, indian foods etc There are also coffee shops on every corner serving vietnamese coffee with sweet condensed milk.
One of the must see things in Saigon is the War Museum. We spent only a few hours there and still didn't finish looking around. The pictures are horrific and leave you feeling sad about how people can become so inhuman during war. Whilst looking at the photos a group of Vietnamese students approached Marcin asking about his feelings about the exhibition. One thing led to another and so we all ended up having an ice coffee together. They wanted to improve their English and we were happy to mingle with the locals and stay in touch with them. It had turned out to be great as one of the students Mi Son offered to meet with us in Mui Ne in a few weeks time to show us around.
After we headed off to see Notre Dame cathedral, another french addition to Saigon. It was nice but you can't beat the original. On ourway back we accidentally found an exhibition by a German photographer. His work was based on life in Vietnam from the 60's to the present. He was a phtographer during the Vietnam War and documented a lot of controversial images that had been banned by the vietnamese government. We met with the artist and he told us many interesting stories about his experiences during the war.
On the last day in Saigon we went to China Town via bus. No tourists seem to take the local buses here so we were the only foreigners on board. There was this fanatical Christian man that spoke to Marcin about his faith and how he loves America. To our surprise we observed that American lifestyle is highly valued in Saigon.
China Town was a crazy place filled with all kinds of junk to buy. The roads were only existing on the map but once there you'd be lucky to find a piece of pavement.
Saigon is a place to stay for a few days then leave for someplace else...a very scamming enjoyable time!!
