Shanghai VS.

So after cruising through Cambodia, I entered Vietnam, straight to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City….sounds a lot cooler if you call it Saigon). Saigon was pretty tight. I have a friend who just moved down there so I wasn’t such a tourist there. We actually didn’t do much besides go out a couple nights. The nightlife was uninspiring, although there were some nice places. To be honest I was expecting Saigon to be bigger, a la Bangkok, when it was more of a glorified Phnom Penh. Thats not exactly a favorable comparison as Saigon and Vietnam in general is head and heels more developed than Cambodia but anyways. The one real cool thing I went to see there was the Reunification Palace. Normally I’m not a palace guy, but this one had (preserved or set up….either way) war era headquarters in the basement. It was pretty chilling, going down deep below, seeing maps on the walls, old communication equipment.

Besides that I can’t say that Saigon had too much to offer. Well besides a fancy bowling alley Yup, thats exactly what I would expect a bowling alley in Saigon to look like. Especially, when the ground floor had this view.

Besides that, some early complaints and warnings for Vietnam :Lots of touts and motorbike drivers trying to rip off white man down there. This was probably my, and most others, biggest complaint of Vietnam. Its hard to go anywhere and not have someone bothering you for some reason or other; be it to buy a conical hat or a motorbike ride. I once made the mistake of pulling out my lonely planet and staring at the map inside around a gang of motorbike drivers. Within seconds I was surrounded asking if i want a ride. When I say asking I can’t really describe ut lets just say its not like they’re polite questions. I think I lost it at this point yelled for a bit then stomped off across the street to read my lonely planet in peace. They didn’t follow.

Anyways the best way to travel from South to North or vice versa is to book with a travel agency. You can get a hop on hop off bus ticket stopping in 5 cities going north to Hanoi for around $20 depending on where you go. I recommend Sinh Cafe. I didn’t go with them, I went with Anphu travel as it was the cheapest at $17, but the buses sucked.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 3:51 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.