Friday, January 7, 2011

The heat is on in Saigon, and all is not well. But still at midnight, the party goes on.

So there I was in a luxury apartment overlooking Saigon. I'd had about 3.5 hours of sleep on a stationary, horizontal surface (I say surface because the mattress on the bed was very similar in cushion to a dining room table) and maybe 6 hours of sleep in airplane seats in the last 40 hours. SO the order of doing things may be a little fuzzy, but it's pretty much what happened.

But there was no time for sleep now. Back in a cab to the Ben Thanh market. Let's take a minute to describe traffic in HCMC (from now on, Ho Chi Minh City will be referred to as HCMC or even Saigon). The traffic runs on a system that can only be based on the idea of Chaos Theory. There's traffic light that seem to have no real meaning, I'd guess 85% of the population moves aorund on motorbike, scooter (150 cc or smaller), or bicycle. The majority of the rest walk or cab it. And you just kind of nose your way out into traffic and force a break for you to join the "flow". Crossing the street is an adventure in terror... imagine a hundred bikes bearing down on you.

SO, they put me in the front seat of the cab to make sure I got the full effect. And don't worry about seatbelts, not important.

So, walking around the market we found for sale everything you can imagine. And all negotiable. They have "fixed price" stalls, but why bother with that when you can go and argue with some one. It's the great tradition of third world shopping by calculator, where they type in a price, you say no, type in your offer, and repeat until you find a price you both can accept or walk away. It can be fun, or annoying. Imagine going to walmart in the states and debating the price of shoes or vegetables. Of course, we didn't come out empty handed, I have some lovely slippers now :-) for the price of about $1.50. We also found a stall and had a big bowl of Pho, the local soup. I've had it before here in the US, but it tasted better there.

Vietnamese seem to be a culture who like to be close to the earth. Literally. I'm not saying they're on average short (they are), but they seem to only want to squat down instead of stand, and only provide chairs you'd expect to find in a kindergarten classroom.

After the market, and the futile search for the show alley, we meandered into a place Grace had discovered. Imagine if you will walking down a street (dodging scooters and motorbikes who feel they belong on the sidewalks), find a doorway into an alley, follow it's winding course between buildings to doorway with stairs leading up. At the top of the staircase is a small cafe with delicious shakes and cheap drinks. I would have never found this place on my own, but the Princess and the Pea is one of those little place I hope to visit again some day. We (Grace, Joe, and Tanya) sat and talked and caught up over drink and desserts, and were joined by an Ashley, an english teacher from Chicago Grace had met). We sat on cushions on the floor around a little table and enjoyed a world away from home.

After a few more harrowing street crossings, we did some food shopping for the kids, and found our way to a Sheridan's Irish pub so I may continue my Irish Pub tour of the World. We had a couple of drinks (Guinness Draught, in cans only, for about $6). After that we headed back to the apartment for dinner, and some much needed sleep.

The next day, we set out again. Grace remained behind while TanJoe and I set out for some sightseeing, mainly to the Hard Rock cafe to expand my pin collection, and then past Notre Dame cathedral to the Reunification palace. When the the tanks from the north rolled into Saigon in 1975, the came here, knocked down the gates, and that was that. We walked through the place, still resplendid in 1970's decor, down through the basement to the radio and war rooms, and even watched a few minutes of film on the history of the place. While I can't say that America was in the right at all times during the Vietnam War (or as the locals call it, the American War), but the film was very much a revisionist history.

We also found the building who's rooftop served as the setting for the last desperate flights out of Saigon in 1975. The building was said to be home to many CIA agents... who watched as the city fell and was slowly evac'd out.

We met up with Grace and went for food. Saigon is very much oriented about food. Probably some of the French influence from the colonial days. There's just about everything you could imagine to eat there. We settled on the Barbecue Garden, where you order meat of your liking, seasoned, and cook it on a small grill in the middle of the table. Lunch (late late lunch) consisted spring rolls, of a platter for 4 of beef seasoned in 4 different ways, the best being wrapped around an onion slice with cheese, another large order of the beef with cheese, and about 9 beers. All for about $25.

We did some more shopping for random items, and then headed to the roof top bar at the Rex Hotel. Not finding a seat to our liking (one with a view), we headed back down and to the Caravelle hotel and it's rood top bar. We enjoyed a cocktail and listened to the sounds of the city. Music was blasting from below in preparation for the next nights festivities.

We finished the night at Ice Blue, an expat bar in the tourist area of Saigon that is a frequent stop for the Air Mekong staff. We met the owner, who proclaimed Joe and I to be "fresh meat", at which point shots of beer and tequila were handed to us... I'm not longer fresh meat, and the owner found us to be "Acceptable". Jonathan met us there there after work, and we had a fine time. A bar brawl between the pilots ensued... much fun was had by all.

The next day (New Years Eve), Tanjoe found a new home. They managed to rent an apartment in the same building as the Lewii... so much relief showed on their faces a finally having a home. Tanya stayed back a little under the weather while Grace, Joe, and I ventured out to Cholon (Chinatown) and to the larger Binh Tay market and some pagodas. It was like we found the Saigon I had expected. Not nearly as new and western as the district we had spent most our time in thus far, this was more foreign feeling. Helped by the fact there were only a couple westerners seen in the hours there. We ran through the market, crowded and confined. This looked to be the place the vendors came to by goods wholesale before heading back to district one to sell them in a more "retail" manner. We bought lunch from a street vendor. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but it was very good.

They say when traveling to less developed nation to stay away from fresh vegetables that are uncooked, or to make sure you wash them yourself. Yeah, i totally didn't do that. A small Vietnamese woman who carrier her "cafe" on her shoulders made us a lunch of noodles, some kind of fried meat (pork?), lettuce, mint (I think), noodles, and some sauce. We dined right ther eon the side walked sitting on out Child size stools. it was quite delicious. We then walked a few blocks to the Ong Bon Pagoda.

Pagodas are the Buddhist temples in town. They seem to be less formal in Vietnam than in Thailand, as we were allowed to roam freely in shorts and take pictures as much as we wanted. This one was fairly empty and we pretty much had the run of the place to ourselves. The smell of incense burning permeated the place. I didn't see any monks in this one though.

We then cabbed it back to the apartment where Joe had to go sign his new lease. We changed and got ready for the night out for New Years Eve and to ring in 2011.

We had a dinner at a restaurant that had a cooking school attached, and it was very good. My beef with lemongrass came complete with the waitress giving me instructions on how to wrap the beef, lettuce, and Vietnamese basil in rice paper. After dinner and drinks we headed down to where the stage and Heineken ball drop. Talk about insanity. I can only imagine it's like Times Square in NY would be but without the organization. The upside is I was taller than the general population so we could see a little farther of above the sea of humanity. We made our way to the QD bar for pre ball drop drinks and joined the party in progress with other Air Mekong people. Close to midnight we fought our way out into the crowds and experienced the count down. And 2011 was brought in with fire works and jubilation and great friends! Back up to QD for dancing and festivities. We made it an early night after the bars closed, and the only places we could find open (after piling 11 people in a cab) in the backpacker district was charging 100,000 Dong a beer, or roughly $5. Insane prices for Vietnam. So we hauled back to the apartment early (early being 4 AM), since we had to head to Cambodia in the morning.

This looks like a good place to end this section. Next Chapter, Cambodia.

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