The Journey through Vietnam begins

The journey through Vietnam  Begins

 

Ho Chi Min City (Saigon)

 

After the fiasco with the visa, we passed through customs formalities easily to be met by a smiling young man holding a sign saying ‘Garry Scott’. Ok, he spelt it wrong, but at least the pick-up request worked.  A 20 minute ride through hectic traffic and lots of motorcycles saw us at the hotel.

As this blog is being written about 4 weeks after the event and on a boat in the South China Sea, a lot of events have been forgotten, I prefer to say ‘over-written in my memory’, so will just give you a précis of events. We did heaps more things and we are getting pretty tired now so must find time for some relaxation soon. Still enjoying travelling though, and we are a good team. We actually think we are in the Amazing Race sometimes.

We did our usual routine when we get to a new place. We go out and explore the surroundings and check out food places and look at trips we can take that interest us. We had several opportunities to practice our street crossings this day. We actually got good at it and sometimes didn’t even break into a sweat. It is a bit unnerving feeling the wind of a motorbike as it passes by just inches from you. The trick is to step out side by side and walk at a steady pace straight across the road. It is the car and bike rider’s job to avoid you. I recon we should do it blindfolded.

I was walking down a side street and caught sight of something happening in a small alley-way. It was all quite dark and as it was threatening to rain, there was no sun to lighten things up. It turned out it was a really small but busy eatery. Everyone, businessmen included, was sitting along the wall of the alley on tiny plastic stools and a plank of wood supported by cardboard boxes, was in front of them. By now Cathie realised I was missing and came to find me. “This looks good”, she said. So we sat down with the locals and ordered a baguette filled with I don’t know what, and a drink of fresh passion-fruit juice.  It all tasted great, nice and spicy and fresh. We had stumbled on a little gem known only to the local office workers who didn’t like the staff canteen. Our bill came to $3.75 NZ.

Friends of mine from Dunedin, Neil and Kerry Walker, were expected to be in HCMC on the 18^th so I texted them and got a reply to say they were arriving at 4.00pm. I found their hotel was a 10minute walk from ours and we went round to see them. They were on a golfing tour of Vietnam with 30 others. We spent an enjoyable couple of hours with them in their hotel room drinking their duty free gin. Their time was short as they were going on a river cruise but it was good to catch up.

I needed another haircut, so called in to a hair-dressers, and was told to come back in 15 minutes. Ok. Walked another 20 meters and here was another one that could take me now, so didn’t turn up for the other one. They gave us both a glass of horrible iced tea, gave me a cold-flannel wash : hands, arms, face, neck, head, and chest (inside my shirt! Was this a front for a massage parlour?), and a guy set about giving me my usual number 4. Then he used a cut throat razor to clean up my neck, and sideboards and around my ears. I sat frozen to the spot until he had finished. Those things are dangerous. He trimmed my ear hair, nose hair and eyebrows too. Job done,,, Asian haircut number 3.

That night we found a big night market, only after walking right past it on the other side of the road and walking about a kilometre too far. Navigation seems a bit off lately, and can’t rely on Cathie… she’d get lost in a cupboard! Had another street meal here but it wasn’t too good.

Wandered around the city next day and got caught in a torrential downpour. After waiting for what seemed like hours under a security guards umbrella, we spied a pub across the road so made a dash for it. Bad move, got soaked to the skin in seconds! Crashed through the swing doors and slid into a western style restaurant ie a cowboy bar, with staff dressed up western style and a guitarist playing country and western music. We sauntered up to the bar, dried ourselves off on the bar towels, and ordered some drinks. Well the afternoon got interesting as we interacted with the bar girls who wanted to practice their English. Saying we had to go after the first drink we were told it was still raining so why not have another, and another, and some food, and a cocktail. I did keep going to check to see if the rain had stopped but thankfully it hadn’t. It turned out a good afternoon and we were sorry to say goodbye. We learnt a lot about their education system and their lifestyle. All of them had a great sense of humour and they understood all of my jokes.

Next day we took a private tour to the ChuChi tunnels about 90 minutes south west of the city. These are a series of tunnels on 3 levels covering 200km in which the Vietnamese soldiers and families hid during the Vietnam war. Up to 20,000 were living in this way for 3 years. They had kitchens and medical centres and workshops. We saw demonstrations of several cunning booby traps, which snared lots of American soldiers. We went down one level in the tunnels and in the pitch dark, crawled 40 meters.  Cathie wanted to do another section so another 20 metres later we emerged hot and sweaty, but satisfied that we had experienced it. One question stays in my mind though….why did Cathie take her handbag down there?  J One of the resourceful tricks the Vietcong did, was to make shoes out of old tyres, but made the soles so that the footprints looked like they were walking in the opposite direction! Clever.                                            A good day.

Now we are off to MuiNe.