Viet Nam

After a short flight, we set down on a runway that must date back to the war – put simply, it was a bumpy ride. The runway was surrounded b bunkers and aging aircraft hangars. It seemed like nothing had changed too much in the recent past. The annoying Vietnamese bureaucracy of the immigration procedures at the airport made us really angry, and got our trip off on the wrong foot. We were bounced around between customer officials, made to sign forms, and generally harassed, but we did eventually make it through. We changed $100 US for a bag full of the local currency – the Dong. I’d never before nor since held so much Dong in my hand, I’m said to say… The exchange rate was about 11,700 Dong per US dollar, so you can just imagine how thrilled we were to get some 200 Dong bills. We hopped in a taxi bound for the #70 Guest House.

From what we understood from the locals we talked to, Ho Chi Minh is changing at light speed. There were hotels and guest houses everywhere, and more kept springing up every day. #70 was in the backpackers section, and we loved it. We paid $11 for a super clean, big, hot-water, air conditioned room run by a super nice family that really made us feel at home (it was their home after all!).

After we dumped our bags, registered our passports with the police (you no longer had to give it to the hotel – they took it to the police (in that case next door) registered it, and returned it), and put our valuables in the safety box at the inn, we went exploring.

Before we managed to step outside, we were thoroughly warned by the hotel staff about pickpockets and muggers – definitely a worthwhile warning. We went around the corner to the main backpacker’s area, Pham Ngu Lao, and had lunch at Kim’s Café.

We ended up eating all our breakfasts in Ho Chi Minh at Kim’s (great strawberry shakes and fruit plates) and were happy with the tours we booked through them. The Lotus, around the corner from Saigon Café was pretty good, and a personal favourite was Len’s Vegetarian Restaurant, a couple of alleys over. They had great Mexican food (mmmm.. guacamole) and veggie burgers. On our first afternoon in the bustling city, we explored nearby streets and markets on foot. Everywhere you looked there was poverty. The people were very friendly, but one thing we hadn’t experienced before on our trip was the constant touching and grabbing from the aggressive touts and beggars.

We got a roll of film developed for 56,000 dong – pretty good deal since the quality turned out to be quite good. All over the streets there were people playing all sorts of games – chess, checkers, cards and others – and we really felt a sense of community.

We really wanted to go north to Nha Trang and possibly Hoi An, but after checking out buses, it seemed like the only ones available were nine hour busses during the day to Nha Trang – we couldn’t waste 2 days traveling so we opted to fully explore the south. The other problem getting around Vietnam, was going anywhere “on our own”. Public transport seemed like a real pain – point to point to point… and the package tours, although we usually avoided those like the plague, seemed like the way to go. We booked the Kuchi tunnels tour ($4 + $3 admission) for Tuesday.