John was right though, it was a bit of a dump. Architecture is non-existent. Buildings are just 3 to 4-story concrete row buildings with gaudy bright pink, periwinkle blue, mint green, lemon yellow facades that make them look like life-size Barbie houses. Even the Reunification Palace was just...meh. On our city tour there weren't even enough culturally or authentically Vietnamese sights to fill up an afternoon. We had to go to China Town to look at some temples! Nevertheless, I really came to like this dumpy town in a weird way. Probably because Saigon has really delicious food and we did some good relaxing and luxuriating. It took good care of us.
This was the first time Laura and I traveled by ourselves. We were meeting a group of boys at a hotel we had all booked ahead of time. We successfully arrived at our "luxurious" hotel on Thursday night. We a TV with MTV Asia (no CNN though), clean sturdy towels (that smelled a little like mesquite), and a REAL shower! with a glass door! All for $28/night, $14/person! The next day we got up early and of course found ourselves a cafe to have breakfast. Cafes are big in SE Asia which makes us happy. We quickly made friends with the waiters and waitresses of course and promised we'd be back the next morning (which we were!). We decided that we should probably try to get in touch with the boys if we were supposed to be going to the tunnels that day. Getting in touch with the boys was a little more difficult than we'd expected. We first tried a letter under their door. No response. We then tried to call on of their rooms. The person who answered sounded like he didn't speak English and claimed to not know a Laura Gayle. We tried another room...and, finally! someone remembered we were coming to meet them. "Are we going to the tunnels today?" "Uh...I don't know, I think I'm still drunk from last night...maybe this afternoon."
Well, Laura and I had not come all the way to HCMC to sit around in our hotel with only 3 full days to explore! We headed to the front desk to ask about going to the tunnels in the afternoon. "Tunnels? No tunnels now. Tunnels at 8:30 tomorrow." "But what about 1 PM?" "No tunnels now. Tomorrow morning!" Okay then! So we ditched the boys and took a guided private city tour (in an airconditioned car, yeah!). It was rather anticlimactic. We tried multiple times to ask our war vet guide, Son, what made Saigon special/unique or where the "downtown" was. And everytime, he'd change the subject! But, the War Remnants Museum, while disturbing, was quite powerful. That night we did manage to find a bit of "downtown." We had some marginal French food (actually I had bolognaise, when do I not?). Then we went looking for this bar in the guide book and ended up on some dark streets then popped up by the animae club we had seen in Lonely Planet, but decided we weren't really feeling the animae club scene considering it was roped off with a red velvet rope. We wandered some more and ended up finding a really nice local lounge where we watched a few older white men flirt awkwardly with young Vietnamese girls. Laura and I thoroughly enjoy people watching and speculating about their stories and what brought them to Asia. When we were done, we didn't want to walk all the way back to our hotel, so we hired 2 motorbike drivers to take us back to our hotel. Even though we were only going straight the whole time, I was scared shitless! At least I could say I did it!
The next day we had already booked a tour of the Mekong River Delta which sounds really cool right? Well...it was just alright, but luckily I was in a great mood so it was really fun. On Turtle Island, Laura touched some bees and ate some of the honey off the comb (I'm de
athly afraid of bees, so I wouldn't do it). Then we held a big boa constrictor which made for a cool picture on Dragon island. We tried a lot of tropical fruit and watched a little local band on Unicorn island. Finally, we went on a little sampan down onto Phoenix island and watched how coconut candy was made. I took a funny coconut picture!We got back to the hotel pretty early so we decided to do some city exploring. To get to the antique street the our Mekong guide had recommended we check out, we had to cross this enormous round-about (so big there was a public park in the middle where a bunch of people were just hanging out; people in HCMC seem to just be "hanging out" a lot). Crossing a single street is an accomplishment in itself in this city with its 3 million motorbikes, but crossing a roundabout in like 5 different places with no stop lights...now that is a miracle. Everytime Laura and I successfully crossed a street, I said to her, "There is a God." The antique street was sillily expensive so I just took pictures of the people hanging out on the street playing card games. They didn't appreciate it. We then decided to go to this place Pho 24 to have an "authentic bowl" of Vie
tnamese pho and who else do we see, but...Bill Clinton!Just kidding! But he really had been there a few years back. Afterward we had the BEST MASSAGES EVER! Laura had a 75 minute foot massage while I had a 75 minute back massage (for $12USD and they take USD in Vietnam! hahahahahaha!). It was really awkward at first because all the other massages I have had in Asia have been with some sort of robe on, not with oils and stuff, so I thought that's how this one would be, but then she starts trying to pull off my shirt, so I take off my shirt. Then she's pointing at my shorts! And I'm like, "Whoa there honey! I don't even know your name!" But pretty soon I was standing in my underwear while she's just standing there, not the privacy you get at a day spa in the US, but hey! it's Vietnam! So then she climbs on the table and she's squatting over my lower back rubbing in all the lotion! I was so confused and at the same time freaking out about my purse and wallet because someone took my purse for me while I was changing and here I am naked under this little Vietnamese woman, completely vulnerable. So at first it wasn't very relaxing, but then it was just so good, I didn't care.
That night we went to this awesome Vietnamese restaurant that was so well decorated and the food was so good and cheap. It was still early so we went to get drinks at this cute outdoor restaurant with pretty hanging lights from the trees we had seen on our way to and from the hotel. We were enjoying our wine and chocolate cake when we saw...dun dun dun...a HUGE FREAKING RAT! We were all girlish and squealy, pulling our feet up on the chair. Needless to say, we got out of there just as quick as can be.
The next day we did the tunnels finally. We used a different tour service this time that was half the price of the other tour service we had used. When the bus rolled up, it all made sense. We were on this hot, gross bus for about an hour and a half to get to these tunnels. We made this silly stop at "Handicrafts by Handicaps" and the guide said, "We stop here for 10 to 5
minutes for go bathroom." (and of course buy something while you're at it) And some guy on our bus thought the guide said 25-minutes and goes, "that's a long-ass shit." Laura and I found the comment exceedingly hilarious.The tunnels were "quite disappointing" (as Maud would say). Maybe because most of the time they referred to the Americans as "little devils" and "demons"? Even beyond that though, there were just a lot of people and the being in the tunnel itself was cramped and claustrophobic people behind you were freaking out about getting out and there was nothing you could do because there were people in front of you. We made it back and decided to end our day in luxury at the Hotel Caravel's pool. Lonely Planet (our savior for this trip) said it would be $11USD to enjoy their pool...WRONG! It was $23, but we decided whatever. So we used ALL the services we could. We lounged by the pool, swam, used the nice toilets, used the hot tub, sauna, steam room, showers, shampoo, conditioner, blow dryers, mints, lotion, toothbrushes, toothpaste, everything! It was lovely. We enjoyed a nice last meal at a little Italian place in the backpacker area.
Even though the sites themselves weren't as exciting as Thailand or China (or Japan as you'll hear about next!), it was a great girl's getaway and chance for us to prove to ourselves we had become damn good travelers without guides.
No comments:
Post a Comment