Vietnamese Vignettes

I feel I won’t be doing Vietnam any justice if I don’t ‘finish’ our experience there. Although I have to admit that considering the whirl wind of a week it was, and how much time we spent inside a vehicle that I don’t feel like we truly ‘experienced’ Vietnam. But we did see all her coastline in full, which is more than we’d be able to say if we’d flown from one city to another – however much more comfortable that might have been!

If anyone can enlighten me on the name of this particular fruit, please do. Unfortunately I didn't try it because I couldn't understand how one was supposed to eat it.

Taking a ride down the streets of Saigon on a three-wheeled cyclo. Yup that poor guy is pedaling us on his bike!

First the name: I know it’s officially Ho Chi Minh City – named for the country’s beloved Uncle Ho who funnily enough lies embalmed against his wishes in Hanoi (he apparently wanted to be cremated. So the guards that have to stand by his body night and day really have no one to blame for the most boring job on earth but themselves when you think about it). But its hard to call it Ho Chi Minh City when everyone else calls it Saigon which I understand was the original name before the North took the South. So in Hanoi, its mostly (but not always) referred to as HCMC (I get tired retyping it) but from there on down, almost everyone refers to it as Saigon. I prefer Saigon because I feel it conjures up more in the imagination – I think of strong colours, incense and silk trading coupled with swords and pointed cone hats that are really only elegant when Vietnamese women wear them with their beautiful, long flowing traditional dresses.

We arrived just as Saigon was waking up – or going to bed depending on your preferred sleeping schedule I suppose but at 4:30 in the morning, the city was as alive as ever – just no guest houses open. So we had to temporarily take up residence at a café/bar (again depending on if you’re a morning or evening person) and settled in for a spot of people watching. Locals going to work or setting up their little breakfast stalls, tourists completely drunk not just with cheap beer but with the adoring praises of the young Vietnamese girls on either side of them and other weary train travelers, such as ourselves, trying to orientate themselves and wondering why the heck if the train always arrives at 4 am and there are always backpackers on the train are there no guesthouses open? Perhaps the bar owners pay the guest houses to stay shut so everyone has the choice of either buying a more expensive breakfast than usual or wander the streets of Saigon for another 2 hours with a heavy back-pack on. Coffee wins hands down.

Hot coffee Vietnamese style -- Vietnam is not a good place for the recovering coffee addict...no...I am NOT an addict.

We haven’t booked a single thing ahead on this trip. That’s just how you do it when you’re back packing. Just because the person on the other end of the phone says “yes we have room” doesn’t mean there will be a reservation with your name on it by the time you arrive. I listened to a poor young girl learn that lesson the hard way the other day. After spelling her name several times in vain and explaining she called just yesterday to book a room and they’d said ‘yes’ then…its much easier to walk from hotel to guest house asking for a room and bargaining the price as you go.

China Beach outside Hoa's Place

So since its so early in the morning and Saigon has many guest houses, we decided that I’ll wait with the bags at the café while Jason checks a few places out. I watch him cross the road to a place that looks like it might now be open and see two girls drive up quickly on a motorbike. Not thinking anything of it – they’re dressed in jeans and t-shirts with running shoes on – I think he’s trying to bargain for a better price on the room. Then I notice she’s not letting him leave…and she’s literally pulling him towards the other girl on the bike. Jason takes off sprinting across the road, a look of surprise and embarrassment plastered on his face. It seemed like he would bust up laughing if not for the reality of the situation. He catches his breath while I just look at him.

“What the heck was that?!”

Then he busts up laughing.

“Ma-dage…you want ma-dage sirrr?” he says, imitating the girl.

He laughs again. Then he is more serious.

“She totally grabbed my balls.”

You can understand how come the girls want him can't you?

I’m not really sure what a wife’s reaction is supposed to be by this point. The girls are gone and my husband’s here with me and even though I’d been watching, I hadn’t seen them do that to him. They didn’t look like prostitutes cause they were wearing jeans and t-shirts! Lesson learned…although I’m still trying to figure out what to do with the bags when I have to run across a road to punch a girl in the face for grabbing my husband. We abandoned the idea of Jason going it alone and decided there was more safety in twos.

After finally finding a cheap, family run guesthouse with a clean room and hot shower (the irony of this whole backpacking trip is that most of the places we’ve stayed have had better showers than the one in our previous apartment back in China), we took off to see Saigon in a day. Saigon is fascinating but I feel it lacks the character and elegance of Hanoi. It’s like and endless song of cell phones ringing, horns honking, and ‘Lay-dee, you like to buyyy?” And its dusty. Although for the first time in days, it wasn’t raining, just cloudy, so I wasn’t complaining.

We did the war museums and ate the best lunch ever – totally vegetarian. I think I’ve said it before but if there were a word to describe the Vietnamese, it would be optimistic. They’ve been through a lot, oppressive rulers, needless wars, poverty and the like but they hold their heads high and constantly remind themselves that things are looking up and will be even better tomorrow. They’re very proud of themselves and their culture. Going to the war museum was very interesting since it mostly settles around the Reunification War (more commonly known as the Vietnam War of which, being Australian, I know little about). Now it seems the only evidences of communism are the hand painted propaganda signs the dot the countryside. There are multiple Catholic Churches through out Southern Vietnam. Although I’m sure for someone that lives there – local or ex-pat – freedom is vastly different.

Traditional Vietnamese spring rolls -- all raw veg wrapped in a rice wrapper with the most amazing 'secret recipe' dipping sauce.

However the 4am start to the morning had us all but completely knackered by mid afternoon and the lack of sleep from the past couple of days (the soft sleeper train is definitely better than the sleeper bus but I still didn’t really sleep) made us aware that if we went home to ‘nap’ we weren’t likely to get up till the next day. Which would probably result in another early morning and a continuing of this vicious cycle of self-imposed insomnia. So we kept up our zombie tour of Saigon, finally ending it upon stumbling on a Chinese vegetarian restaurant (who’d have thought one would have to go all the way to Southern Vietnam to get vegetarian Chinese food?) and then dragging ourselves back to our room, taking yet another hot shower (just because I can) and falling asleep safe from the touchy feely girls, listening to a lullaby of cell phones, car horns and “Lay-dee…you like to buyyy?”

But what I'd really, really like to know is...how come you can get cheap as chips avocados and cheese in the next country over? Come on, I mean, its not like we're separated by an ocean or anything!