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.

Tokyo! Part 1 (well overdue)

We flew out of Gimpo airport early Saturday afternoon, 12/27. Apparently if you fly into Haneda airport in Tokyo from Korea, you have to leave from Gimpo, and if you fly into Narita Airport (the larger of the two Japanese airports), you leave from Incheon (the larger of the two Korean airports). When we arrived at the airport, we decided to go through security first, and then find some breakfast. It's a good thing we did, because Kathryn hadn't updated her visa, and as we were going through immigration (which is always a slightly harrowing affair), she was asked to go purchase a single entry pass so she could leave and come back. Dayna and I didn't know this until after she came back from a room with one door and no windows, so we were very glad it was something a little bit of won was able to take care of.

The flight itself was uneventful - we had a nice lunch served on the 90 minute flight, and landed in Haneda. We had decided not to check our bags so that we wouldn't have to wait for them at the baggage claim, so we headed to immigration, and then to purchase our train tickets. Our plan was to spend the night in Tokyo, and then leave the next day for Kyoto, where we had booked a hostel for two nights. We had spent quite a bit of time researching train tickets, and had found a cheaper alternative to the Shinkansen train - the bullet train that connects most of the country. The Shinkansen would have cost us about 28,000 yen each (about $280), while the train tickets we purchased were only 23,000 yen for all three of us (about $77). After getting our tickets, we got a map of the Tokyo subway (SO confusing!), and directions on how to get to our hostel in Asakusa.

While looking at the rather daunting ticket machine, a man came up to us and asked, in English, if we needed help. We gladly told him yes, and he helped us buy our tickets, and even made sure we got on the right train. The metro in Tokyo is similar to the one in Seoul, but slightly smaller, and much quieter.

Dayna and her luggage inside a Tokyo metro car

It's illegal to talk on your cellphone on the metro, and there are signs everywhere reminding you to turn off your cell phone (not even just silence it!). It's very clean, and there are signs in the station to remind you not to drink and ride:

A polite sign reminding you to "please do it at home". Get drunk and pass out, that is.

We arrived in the early evening, and were thrilled with what we saw as soon as we got off the subway. The metro entrances are often well hidden in Tokyo, and are sometimes under buildings or in side streets, and not marked with large signs announcing their presence. The stop in Asakusa could easily be mistaken for the entrance to the mechanical room of a building, and it dumped us out onto a side street in what is considered "Old Tokyo", or Shitamachi.

We were greeted within 5 minutes by a group of jinricksha drivers who wanted to take us on a riding tour of Asakusa for only 2,000 yen for 10 minutes. We politely declined, since we wanted to check into our hostel, and $20 is a bit much for ten minutes (and the rickshas only take 2 and there were 3 of us).

Jinrickshas near our hostel.

We had very detailed directions to the hostel, and were amazed by the buildings and people that we saw as we walked.

Kathryn and Dayna in front of the Kaminarimon in Asakusa

We headed towards the Senso-ji, which is a temple that, according to legend, houses an image of the Buddhist goddess of mercy - Kannon. There was a large red gate that we had to walk by called the Kaminarimon, or Thunder Gate, next to a 5 story pagoda that I fell in love with. Past the gate was a small garden, with statues, a koi pond, and small shrine-like structures. Our directions then took us through a market street called Nakamise-dori, with just about every type of Japanese souvenir imaginable.

Nakamise-dori

We got slightly lost when we were looking for the amusement park, since it was not what we would have considered the western version of such things. But our timing was perfect, because when we finally found it and were walking by, there was a ninja street show being performed that looked like something out of an anime cartoon. We watched for a few minutes (not understanding any of what they were saying of course), before continuing towards our hostel.

Everybody was ninja fighting!

The people at our hostel were very nice, and gave us our sheets and instructions on how to get to the room. This was the first hostel I've ever been in. The costs are kept down because many of the conveniences of a standard hotel are absent, such as your bed being made for you, a private bathroom, or even private rooms. We happened to have a 4 bed room to ourselves for the night.

Yay bunk beds! Kathryn was more happy about it than she looks.

The beds were very comfortable, the blankets warm, and the room small but serviceable. There was a kitchen and a common room on the main floor, and computers you could use for a fee. We were starving, so after stashing our stuff in the room, we headed out for something to eat.

Wandering around looking for food made me feel like I had when I first arrived in Korea. I had no idea how to read the writing on the menus posted outside, and unless there was a picture of each item, we passed by with hardly a second glance. We probably roamed around for about 20 minutes before finally finding a place that we thought we could order from. It was a small Indian restaurant, and the one man working there spoke a little English. He took our drinks, made our meal, and even consented to having his picture taken.

Kathryn's looking at our Japan book, and Dayna's just looking strange at dinner.

My yummy fried rice.

After dinner, we had planned on going back to the Nakamise-dori to do a bit of window shopping, but it had closed down for the night. We did get to see quite a few traditional Japanese paintings on the metal doors that were covering all the shops.

Geisha painting in Nakamise-dori

We were also pleasantly surprised by how well lit the Senso-ji was lit up at night, and we took tons of pictures that look just like the ones from our travel guide. (By the way, if you ever travel to another country, I highly recommend using a Lonely Planet book. I've used one for almost everywhere I've gone in Korea. They're helpful, accurate, easy to follow, and they're meant for the single traveller on a budget, but mention family outings and higher priced items, too.)

Senso-ji area at night

We headed back to our hostel around 9 or 10, and noticed the rather odd and brightly painted graffiti on the walls near where we were staying.

Dayna and I in front of the colorful paintings by our hostel

There were also tons of bikes lined up against the walls. We couldn't figure out if they were rented, or for personal use, or community bikes, but the all looked the same and there was a security man who was policing the area and making sure they were all lined up just-so.

A bunch of bikes lined up, with our hostel in the background

But as we were heading back towards our hostel, we met a semi-creepy man, who decided to talk to us. We tried to keep walking, and kept our answers brief, if we answered at all. He asked us where we were staying, and Kathryn answered "we're not sure", even though we were a stone's throw from the entrance of our hostel. He mentioned he was staying there (oops!), and we just sort of nodded and kept walking. Which is how we came across the seediest, gaudiest, coolest looking "love motel" I've ever seen. The prices were listed outside by the hour, or by the night.

Askakusa's version of a love motel

After a sufficient time gawking at the hotel (and my semi-brave trek down the steps to see inside, only to be frightened away by an automated talking door and a couple coming out of the elevator), we headed back in for the night, easily avoiding our creepy neighbor.

The next morning we woke up leisurely around 8am, and checked out of the hostel. They were kind enough to let us check out, and then store our bags downstairs while we wandered around Asakusa. We planned on seeing a bit of the area, and then heading to Kyoto, where we had booked two nights at a hostel. We explored the area around Senso-ji for about an hour.

A temple roof and Buddhist statue near Senso-ji

Smoking is not allowed while you're walking on the street. You have to stand by one of these bins, and put your cigarette but inside when you're done. Everyone that we saw seemed to abide by these:

Smoking bins

We saw a tourist information center, so we headed inside to find out where we could catch the train we had tickets for to get to Kyoto. After a short wait, we spoke to the man and woman behind the counter, who laughed because apparently someone had been in earlier with the same tickets we had with the same question, and they weren't able to find any information for them. They suggested we try a travel agent down the street. The travel agent was closed, so we headed back to the tourist center. After a much longer wait, we were becoming a bit impatient with the long-winded people in front of us and the lack of staff (where had the nice man gone?). When it was finally our turn again, we convinced the woman to let us use her computer to find the exact name of the train we were trying to find. Well, it turns out that the tickets we had were for a train that takes 9 hours to get from Tokyo to Kyoto. Since we were only going to be there two days, this pretty much made the tickets worthless to us - why travel somewhere for 18 hours when you're going to be there less than 48 hours?

I felt really bad about this, because the trains had been my responsibility to research and book, and I had found this "great deal", but had apparently missed the whole 9 hour part (instead of the two hours that the Shinkansen train takes). Kathryn had booked our first hostel, and Dayna had booked the hostels in Kyoto. I suppose if I had known before hand our trip wouldn't have been much different than it turned out to be because the Shinkansen was so far out of our budget range that we would have just decided ahead of time to stay in Tokyo. I confirmed online that we would be able to get a refund on the tickets, so long as they weren't used, and we thanked the woman for letting us use her computer and then left.

So we headed back to the hostel with the small hope of finding an open room there, but as we expected they were fully booked for the night. We asked to be put on the waiting list, and then Kathryn and I started looking through the Japan book for something to do that day in the area while Dayna made a call to our hostel that we had planned on staying in on our last night. Luckily they had a few rooms available, so we picked up our luggage from downstairs, took our names off the waiting list, and headed out to the maze known as the Tokyo subway.