Saigon - Day 5 & 6

(12/27/09-12/28/09)

So I made it to my hostel just fine, as I had arranged for a driver pick me up from the airport. The drive was vaguely interesting, and I think the driver thought it was funny when I took my first picture of a sign on the side of the road. To bad I never got a chance to try ostrich.


I was put in a room across the street from the main hostel. I was surprised at first, but the buildings in the city are so ram-packed together, that it shouldn't be a surprise when you have to have multiple locations to support your clientele. The room was a bit more upscale than my last one - I had a tv in the room and internet outside the room that was supposedly turned off at 11pm. After I'd gotten changed and showered (I was still in the same clothes that I had been crawling over Cambodian temples in earlier that day), I went exploring. I took a brief look at my map, and then just went for a nice stroll around, heading in the general direction of Ben Thanh Market.


I found it after wandering for about half an hour, and proceeded to go shopping for my cousin. I can see how it would be a rather daunting place for a foreigner to go, but there are several markets like it in South Korea, so I wasn't as overwhelmed as I could have been. It was pretty crowded, and most of the stalls are so close to each other that you have to turn sideways just to walk in between the shops. I don't usually buy things when I travel, even for myself (my photos make the best souvenirs), so I don't really know how other 'travel shoppers' would feel about this place, but it seemed to have just about anything that a tourist could want, from traditional clothes, toys, pictures, knock off hand bags, and dried/fresh/pickled fruit. Not only that, but most of it was incredibly cheap; the traditional outfits I bought for Logan were less than $10 (compared with traditional Korean hanbok, which will set you back a few hundred).

After picking up a few things, I headed back to the hostel. The market closes at sundown, so it was dark when I headed back to the hostel. A side note about Saigon, the traffic here is unbelievable. Just about everyone is on scooters or motorbikes, though there is a fair amount of car and bus traffic, too. In some places there are separate lanes just for the motos. The only law that seems to be enforced is the helmet law, and it's only for people over the age of 3 (and yes, I saw toddlers on motos with no helmet). The trick to crossing any street is to wait until it seems like there will be a break (however slight) in the oncoming traffic. Then you walk across, at a slow and steady pace. The motos will not stop for you, they will simply calculate your path and swerve around you. If you try to run across, you will almost certainly be hit. If you wait until there are no oncoming bikes, you'll be rooted to the same spot for a month. (Mom- if you ever visit Saigon, be prepared never to leave a 1 block radius).


I'd gotten an email the day before from the tour group about picking me up on the morning of the 27th to go for the Mekong Delta trip. The problem was, of course, that I was still in Cambodia on the morning of the 27th, and I had booked the trip to begin on the 29th. I sent them a reply email from Cambodia, but I wanted to check with them and see if I could go a day early on the boat tour, since I had seen a bit of Saigon and was anxious to get out of the city. I tried to contact the tour company through the hostel, but things were getting lost in translation, and it took a while to even figure out that I was talking to the head office of the hotel, and not the tour group. It turned out that the tour company's office was right around the corner, so I went in person. I talked to the owner (I think), and got everything confirmed and paid for for the original date. (I struck up a conversation with her because she was wearing a University of Florida shirt, and I was intensely curious if she had any idea what it meant.) I thought about going out for a drink and trying to meet some people, but I was really tired, so I decided to save my energy for a proper self-guided walking tour of the city the next day.

I had breakfast at the hotel around 8 and headed out. I used the Lonely Planet walking tour as a starting point, and set about wandering through the city. The city's pretty big, and much more than a normal person could walk in a day. I started out at the Ho Chi Minh museum, which was vaguely interesting.


The displays seemed a bit old and static, but still had some cultural points. Probably the most interesting thing I saw wasn't even in the museum. I was standing on the balcony overlooking the street below, trying to get a picture of the Vietnamese flag that was flying from the railing (I was waiting for the wind to pick it up a bit, but it wasn't cooperating at first).

As I was waiting, I heard a screeching sound, followed by a metallic thump. I looked down to see a guy picking up his moto from the street, as other riders simply drove around him. I'm not sure if he just fell off his bike, or if he hit something (or something hit him), but it further solidified my resolve NOT to ride a bike in Saigon. I'd enjoyed my motorbike trip in Cambodia, I didn't want to ruin it with an accident (And I know one person personally who had a motorbike accident, and another through a friend who's been permanently brain damaged as a result, both in Vietnam).


After that museum, I tried to walk toward the War Remnants Museum, but ended up at the Reunification Palace first. In this general area of the city, there are old propaganda posters on just about every corner.



The Palace was nice, but the best part was the fresh coconut I had afterwards. They pull it out of the fridge, cut off the top, stick in a straw, and hand it to you. Yum!



After enjoying the coconut, I headed to the War Remnants Museum. Interesting place, but definitely a slant on the 'truth'.


Some of the pictures were horrifying, others were just sad. There was even a section outside that was set up to look like one of the tiger cage prisons.



I figured three museums was enough for one morning, so I just started meandering back towards my hostel. I stopped at an outdoor market, but it was too similar to a Korean one (i.e. a market I would never buy something from). Had some Pho Bo for lunch, and made my way back to the Ben Thanh market. I tried asking a moto driver about going to one of the remote pagodas, but the initial price was about $10 an hour, which after Cambodia ($15 from dawn till after dusk), seemed exorbitant. They tried to negotiate with me, and offered me less than half that, but I decided it wasn't worth the risk on one of those motos.



Most of the cafes and restaurants have tables facing the street, which makes for perfect people watching. For every car I saw, there were about 100 motos, 3 walking vendors (selling sunglasses, photocopied novels and travel books with realistic bindings, lighters, and even chicken heads), 5 foreigners, 10 locals, and half a cyclo (a bike with a seat on the back - there weren't many of these).


I sat at a cafe for a few hours just people watching, and then headed to a nearby park, where it seemed they were having some sort of cultural festival. There were little stages set up, with sets meant to look like different parts of the world. On each stage were performers that each did their own country's style of performance, though it got annoying when stages opposite each other were performing at the same time - at top volume.


The park was rather big, with a large pond that had boats on it that seemed to be part of a performance. I was fascinated by the bats that were flying around the pond more than anything else.

After wandering around the festival for a few hours, I headed home to get some sleep so I'd be ready for my trip to the Mekong Delta the next day.