thewills'wanderings

Saigon was a big surprise to us. After Hanoi, which we didn’t enjoy that much, we thought Saigon would be similar or worse as it’s bigger with more motorbikes and even crazier traffic. Whether we’d just adjusted to the Vietamese manner or whether people really are nicer in the south, we’re not sure, but we loved it! Sure, the traffic was nuts with lanes and lanes full of motorbikes but we quite enjoyed the challenge of crossing the road. One morning I went out to get some bread and had to cross a main road that looked impossible. I decided to be brave and give it a go because Tim and the girls are always telling me I’m a big scaredy cat and I couldn’t go back and tell them I didn’t get bread because I was too scared to cross the road! I was so focused on the traffic and choosing my time to go that I didn’t realise that there was actually a pedestrian crossing with a buzzer. It wasn’t until I was stuck in the middle of the road with 6 lanes of motorbikes screaming past on each side of me, honking, that I realised I had walked out when the little man was red and here I was taking on Saigon traffic! I’m sure there were lots of Vietnamese drivers making “stupid foreigner” comments at my expense.

A big highlight, if you can call it that was our visit to the War Remnants Museum. It was a very graphic display of the effects of the Vietnam War. There were lots of graphic photos of injuries and deformities of children born to victims of Agent Orange. It was a bit much for the girls and they spent more time playing outside than in. It’s quite hard to resist buying books and other things outside the museum from the poor men missing limbs from the War.

On a more lighthearted note, we spent yet another day at another one of Asia’s fantastic waterparks. It was great to get cool and for the girls to wear themselves out on the waterslides. The funny thing at this park was the foreigners changing and sunbathing area. It felt very weird to be ushered off to our own area. Kids at the park were desprste to try their English skills and the whole day we were followed around by kids yelling,”hello!what is your name?” and then giggling and running away. At one point I was sitting in a shallow pool surrounded by giant elephants(not real ones)and little slides for little people. Gradually a crowd started gathering of small children who were really interested in me. The more that came the braver they got until eventually some of them came really close and splashed water really hard in my face and just kept laughing! I felt like splashing them back and dunking their heads under but decided against it. It’s quite weird what people do when they’re curious about different cultures. (not just children, either!)

So, we spent 4 nights in Saigon, catching up on schoolwork, checking out the markets and organising our bus tickets to Cambodia. On the whole, we really did enjoy Vietnam even though we got off to a bumpy start. It was definitely the least foreigner friendly though, so that made it more of a challenge.