Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam

  Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Friday, June 20, 2008

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, known to the people who live there as Saigon, at 6am on Tuesday morning. We found it the most difficult place out of anywhere we've been so far (with the possible exception of Mumbai) to get good clean accommodation for a decent price. After staying in really nice hotels in Hoi An and Nha Trang for 12 and 10 dollars a night respectively, we we forced to for out $18 a night for a small but tidy room in an average hotel. We spent the rest of the morning catching up on sleep from the overnight bus and arranged to meet Eddie from Kerry in the afternoon to go for a walk. We went for a short walk before stumbling upon a Bia Hoi stand, so we sat there and had a couple of beers then set off to find the market. When we found the market there were loads of food stands that were more like restaurants so we decided to have dinner here. Worst decision ever! I ordered Singapore fried noodles - the worst dinner I have ever had in my life! There was some noodles at the bottom of a pile of meat, what was the meat? Who knows, I identified some shrimp and something that I think was pork. There was a brown coloured meat that looked like beef but definitely wasn't, I really think it was dog. There was a meet with the texture of a Frankfurter sausage, haven't a clue what that was and there was some squid tentacles just to top it all off. I ate a good bit of it, put on a brave face, and now I think its safe to add dog onto the list of animals I have eaten in my life!

Notre Dame Cathedral

Improvised Traps

We went from the market to a bar called Go2 Bar (via KFC to get some proper dinner!). There was a good singer on and we met the Irish girls from Nha Trang there. Had a good night, watched the France Vs Italy game and had another post 4am night.
The next morning/afternoon we went for a walk through the posh French Quarter of the city. Full of swanky hotels and designer boutiques, we could have been walking through Paris, Milan, Munich or any other trendy European city. We walked as far as the Notre Dame Cathedral then found the Diamond Centre, a huge air-conditioned shopping and entertainment complex. Spent a few hours in there and booked tickets to come back to the cinema that evening. The film in English that day was the new Indiana Jones film, wouldn't have been my first choice but Lydia's been wanting to see it for ages. It was a good excuse to keep us out of the pub for a few hours anyway! After the cinema we met Eddie in the Go2 Bar again but we left early as we had to be up for a tour the next morning.

American Tank Destroyed by Landmine

Karl in Tunnel

The tour was to the Cu Chi Tunnels, about 2 hours outside of Saigon. Cu Chi is a vast area in the south of Vietnam where the Vietnamese were very successful in their fight against US forces in the 1970's. One of the main reasons for their sauces was the fact that they dug a huge network of tunnels underground. Many people lived in the tunnels for weeks on end and only surfaced in darkness. It was fascinating to see how these people lived and great to go into an actual tunnel. The tunnel we went down was one of the original tunnels, not one of the tunnels widened for tourists. It was so claustrophobic and hot. It was less than 1.2m in height and 0.8m wide. We went through about 20 metres of tunnel and we got out. To think that these people could walk for miles to different villages in the tunnels is amazing. We were also shown a display of some of the improvised weapons that the locals used in their fight against the US. Some of the stuff looked quite barbaric and was usually something made from of wood and nails or sharp pieces of metal.
We had another quiet night (2 in a row!) on Thursday night as we booked the early bus to Cambodia for Friday morning.

We had a ball in Vietnam. It was so much different to India & Nepal, so much better developed. Better hotels, roads, transport, hygiene etc. The people were really nice too. But I think what made it most different for the two of us was the social scene. In India and Nepal, especially India, there was not much of a pub and club scene but in Vietnam every night we went out we met new people. There were so many more backpackers there and it was easy to get talking about places we've been or are going to. We went to nightclubs a lot and made some good friends who, hopefully, we'll bump into along the way again.