Ho Chi Minh City, a.k.a. Saigon

As posted by Ingrid:

Although Kep, our last stop in Cambodia, is only 45km from Vietnam, the nearest border post only opened in 2007 and does not as yet provide a direct link to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC). So, early on a sunny Tuesday morning we ordered a car to take us back to Kampot where we caught a bus back to Phnom Penh with Ibis and a driver who tried his best to have us all killed. Using his horn instead of slowing down when entering villages and overtaking in situations that made us gasp we were a bundle of nerves when we arrived at our destination and the by now familiar Willow Hotel near the Independance Monument. We allocated the afternoon to forward planning - a task long overdue - took our customary evening walk and went to bed early.

Mekong Express with ruffles on the windows and lace doilies on the driver's dash took us the 240km from Phnom Penh to HCMC early the next morning - a 5.5 hour journey. The border formalities and a ferry crossing over the Mekong took a good hour and there was lots to see to make the trip an easy one.

HCMC is a Mekong Delta city on the Saigon River with 8.1 million inhabitants. Our hotel was small but comfortable and the location was fabulous. Right in the middle of District 1 and with all the major tourist sights within walking distance.  It did not have a natural light window, a first experience for Helen but relatively common in Vietnam where street fronts are small but building lots are quite deep. On the plus side, it made for very quiet nights and it is easy to oversleep in the morning.

After six weeks on the road, getting our hair cut and nails clipped pretty much became a priority and we set out to do just that on our first day in town. Freshly groomed we set out to explore the Reunification Palace, the Opera House (only from the outside) and City Hall, one of the most photographed buildings in Vietnam. The Central Post Office has a ceiling filled with light, a gorgeous terazzo floor and old style phone cabins which are now also used for ATM machines.

City Hall

Opera House at night

The next day we visited the War Remnants Museum, with displays so shocking I had to leave the rooms repeatedly to avoid nausea. It vividly documents the "American" war through photographs, both from the Vietnamese population as well as the American soldiers' point of view, including the various massacres and the effects of Agent Orange, the defoliant used to clear vast areas of the country. We had planned to visit the underground tunnels but this will have to wait until later in our trip. There will be plenty of time to do this around the DMZ near Hue.

The center of HCMC reminded me a little bit of the Floridian East Coast or the center of San Francisco, but comfortingly you only had to walk down side streets to encounter street markets and food stalls. And of course there is the motorcycle traffic....

Helen was looking for a little while t-shirt - it is easy to run out of clothes in the 35C+ heat - it took us three days to find something that did not sport "Beer Lao" on the front. I was looking for a lipstick  - while the MAC store had many samples not one item was in stock for many colour ranges.That however did not deter the sales person from encouraging me to test the samples. I got a little bit upset at the end which was a big faux paux as it did not allow the clerk to "save face".

Helen, freshly shorn

We visited the same restaurant four times for dinner. It was a branch of the one I had frequented in Hanoi last spring and the food was very good. On our last evening, we visited the tallest building in HMCM, had a drink on their 52nd floor and watched the lights come on all over the city.

And we are off to our ocean "vacation", eight days of walking the beaches of Mui Ne..............