Saigon - Vietnam… in a different way

On the Chinese New Year day of 2008, early in the morning I met one of my friends, Amit at the entrance of my condo. After the two nights staying awake I felt like a real zombie I must admit , yet at the bottom of my heart, I knew I was ready for a new adventure!

On the board of the Jetstar budget airlines we soon slept through the two-hour-long trip and we were already at the very new and beautiful airport of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), a.k.a Saigon (in comparison with 3 years ago it was so modern and new!). A middle-aged man was waiting for us with a big “Margit” sign in his hands and within 30-40 minutes we were in the familiar backpackers district, at Madam Cuc Hotel 64 (Bui Vien Street, District 1). In Vietnam, due to the house taxes, the buildings are very narrow and in order to get a cheap place to stay in, we ended up getting a room on the 6th floor, which in reality was on the 8th floor, 135 stairs away from the ground. HCMC is crowded and loud, most of the foreign investments come to this commercial center so it has grown to be a real metropolis actually.

After some relaxing we headed to town. After 100 meter of walking we went to Go2Eat restaurant for lunch. There I saw a young couple, probably around 35, with three kids. The oldest, a girl and the second, a boy were playing pool, at least kind of, as much as they could reach it, and the smallest one, around 2 years old was roaming around the parents. The scene really touched me because I found it stunning how, with a family like this, young people travel around to discover Vietnam… in a different way…

After a fabulous Vietnamese curry we took our map and headed to town finally! As we were walking around we discovered a new sight of Asia, very different from Singapore’s, yet very much realistic one. Biking “cyclo” men tried getting us to take a ride, however, with the new visitors’ stubbornness we continued walking on our own.

At first we visited the War Remnant Muesum, which is a real-life-testimony of the Vietnam war a few decades ago. In 2004, I clearly remember how my visit here steered me up with its eye-opening exhibitions. It is terrible what we, humans, can do to each other. In Vietnamese I attempted to explain to Amit which streets to take (after our fun misunderstanding situation during the China trip, he was kinda sceptic :-P). We found the extra secured Reunification Palace and then through a park we got to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Here we met a colleague, Stefan, who recommended us to check out the “Tet” festival flower market in a nearby street, 0.5km away. The city, opposite to my memories of it, was very silent, a lot of places were closed, but at the end, no wonder, as it was “their Christmas time”. By the Opera House we saw women selling their goods from big baskets and we also saw many Vietnam and Saigon photo exhibitions placed along the streets we took. The year of the mouse/ rat was welcomed with a huge flower parade and suddenly many people appeared all around. The riverside was nothing special, fairly polluted but on the way back to downtown, it took us to a nice foot massage place where we spent half an hour indulging in this form of relaxation. Many times we seemed to have got lost at least we felt that way, yet we still had so much time on our hands!

Before dinner we took another 135-step-climb to our room and then went for a walk in the backpackers street. Due to the past days’ exhaustion I soon went to alpha-and-beta but Amit, Albert, Lucian and Erwin partied a wee bit in town.

Cuchi tunnels, the place famous for its underground paths from the Vietnam War times was a destination I did not want to take on, as I clearly remember the shock I had few years ago. In the afternoon we went to downtown to check out Ben Thanh market but it was closed because of the festive days. Our taxi driver, without any command of English, could only understand our destination by interpreting Amit’s cartoonish drawing of a lion and a cage and we indeed made our way to the right place! From the books, we remembered that it was not a good place to visit but it was right by the History Museum which seemed worth a visit. After the museum we spent some time in the Botanic Garden which was filled with families.

From here Amit pretended to pray so a new taxi driver knew we wanted to check out the cathedral. There we looked around for a nice café and voila, we met another colleague, Darshana for a few minutes. Amit bought some deco souvenirs and I bought Vietnamese tops for myself and then we walked “home” I don’t know if it was something Saigon specific but the time was passing by so slowly here! Maybe I am just not a “city girl” and that is why I was bored, maybe ;-).

We went to a run down pub called Guns’n’Roses to have a cocktail and play pool and then went for another foot massage. After that, we met Albert and his gang in Bui Vien Street and headed to Go2Bar where we had some drinks, beers and danced big time! Gosh, I loved dancing again!

The next day we planned a trip to the Mekong delta. We were munching on our baguette breakfast at 7.30am and until 8.15-8.20 there was no sign of a tour guide. I kept reading and writing but after a while Amit strongly was enquiring about the trip and the hotel lady said the bus could not enter our street and we had to take a motorbike ride. I did not mind at all, rather loved it!!! The driver kept asking if we overslept so I knew they forgot about us ;-). Anyway I loved taking the ride for long kms on the crowded roads! Funnily enough Albert, Erwin and Lucian ended up being on the same bus with us so we headed to Mekong delta together. Because of the “Tet” festival the famous floating market was not open so we spent some relaxing time: checked out how they make the local coconut candies, the banana wine, we drank honey tea, walked around in orchards and listened to local songs. Even though it was a nice program, to me it was way too slow. The best thing we did was the boat rafting for 10-15 minutes on the narrow river though. I loved that :-)! After the 1.5-hour-long bus ride we were back to Saigon. Amit and I went for a Vietnamese Italian dinner, rested a bit and later in the evening we met the boys in the neighbourhood. First we went to Gvintel, a very nice restaurant by the Opera House (with the best ever Strawberry-Lemon juice I have ever tasted :-)). After that we walked around the colourful flowery streets. The ambience was sweet and happy… Later we went up to the forth floor of the Rex Hotel were we relaxed while sipping on a cocktail and watched the street festival from above.

Later we just went to sleep, packed and then took our way back to the reality, back to Singapore…

More pictures here!