Around Ho Chi Minh

On Monday, we hired two cyclo (like rickshaw/trishaw) drivers to take us around the city. You basically paid them 500 dong for a short trip (2kms or less) and a thousand dong for a trip anywhere else in the city. We went to An Dong market, across town. The ride was…. I guess the word would be exhilarating. The traffic was like Phnom Penh but at a million miles an hour. Our cyclo drivers stayed together and boldly crossed busy roads like the old pros that they were.

The market was pretty good, but the focus was more for locals. Walking through the narrow aisles, chock full of tacky, cheap looking clothes and having every vendor grab us was pretty unsettling. While waiting for Beth to get some stamps, there was suddenly a group of seven men surrounding me, touching my dive watch and offering to trade it for theirs. It got a lot of attention because of it’s size, but this was hilarious. We enjoyed driving around in cyclos so much, that after we got back we tried telling our driver that we wanted him on Wednesday – but the only word he could speak was “hello” – and that covered every greeting, including goodbye! We ended up writing a note “Wednesday, around 10:00am, go around city”. He took the paper and ran off, holding it like a valuable present.

We took a walk, past the roundabout and parallel to souvenir ally Le Loi street. We found a mini shopping center that had tons of CDs – for $2 each We bought a half dozen, and should have bought more, but it was hard picking winners out of the selection of mainly mixed love ensembles – no thank you. There were wooden lacquered Disney carvings everywhere, which led me to believe that the Japanese were starting to come to Vietnam in droves – that was later confirmed. On the way home, we stopped on a pub to get of the rain. I played pool with a ten-year-old Zippo lighter vendor, and he damn near kicked my ass.

At the hotel, we witnessed a classic exchange between the nightshift guy at the hotel (we talked to him in Japanese, which was bad but better than his English) and a British woman.

Brit: (speaking very quickly with a very strong accent) Can I leave my rucksack here?

Hotel guy: (staring blankly) Paadon mee?

Brit: My rucksack.. can I please leave it here?

Hotel guy: I… don… understan….

Brit: MY RUCK – SACK. Leave here???

Hotel guy: Wat that?

Brit: (very loud now) RUCK… SACK… You know, RUCK SACK. Here?

Hotel guy: I don know… sack?

Brit: RUCK SACK!!!! (she finally gestures towards her backpack)

Hotel guy: Ohh…. Ok… No problem (smiling)

Beth and I cracked up, and the woman smiled like she was part of the joke, not knowing she was the butt of the joke. I guess Beth and I would have tried some synonyms and more gestures, but to be fair, we had just finished three years of teaching English….