Goodmorning Vietnam!!
Or afternoon anyway!
We finished up our time in Cambodia by visiting the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda and seeing a film on land mines around the world.
Our Mekong Express Limousine Bus (yep, that was the name) to Ho Chi Minh City was due to leave at 8:30am and we left at 8:40..amazing! Due to it being an express bus we only stopped once for a lunch break of about 15minutes and then, of course, at the border.
The entire border crossing was probably about 1 1/2 hrs. At the Cambodian departure point we had to get off the bus so they could check it, then they called us up by our passports so we could reboard. We drove approx. 200ft and had to get off the bus and collect our luggage at the Vietnam border. There we waited for quite some time while our guide on the bus got our immigration cards stamped. Then, we waited some more while he got our passports stamped, then we had to go through a scan and back on the bus to continue on to Ho Chi Minh City. The entire trip took about 7 hrs and we’re seriously considering flying next time!
HCMC is crazy… I didn’t think anywhere could have more chaotic traffic than Bangkok but I was wrong! We’ve been trying to take photos so we’ll be able to show everyone but are simply following the advice in lonely planet which is to walk slowly across the road and letting the moto drivers steer around us as we go. It’s scary as hell crossing 4-6 lanes of traffic this way but we’re surviving it so far!
We had prebooked Kim Hotel on mini-hotel alley which was a nice change from having to go from one hotel to another to check the rooms. Unfortunately, we got scammed by our rat bastard taxi driver right off the bat. He was using the meter and Jim & I had JUST noted it was 81,000dong when we turned the corner onto a street and suddenly it jumped to 170,000! He said our hotel was just up the block and we got our luggage out and argued with him over the rate and he just kept babbling about the meter rate but we KNOW he did something to that meter because it didn’t more than double in 1/2 block. Then, to add insult to injury he had dropped us BLOCKS from our hotel so we had to put on our packs and hike to our hotel.
Luckily, the young ladies that run Kim Hotel are just lovely. However, they have a tiny elevator, a novelty in itself and when Ms Kim was going up to floor 4 with Jim it got stuck. The other girl working and I had to get them out of the elevator and we walked up the floors to our room. Too funny!
For $20 /night we have a balcony, tv, aircon and the first true hot water shower we’ve had since leaving Bali. Very nice. The beds as with everywhere here seem to be made of cement, but it’s still a lovely room. And, mini hotel alley is much quieter than being right on the main street so no earplugs for sleeping here! After checking in we headed to the Go Go bar for a couple of much needed beers.
Today, Thu. 6 Dec. we took the walking tour of the city that is in lonely planet. We first had breakfast and I tried Pho, the national food for breakfast of noodles and beef in broth with bean sprouts and chilies added. The indoor market was loads of fun for bargaining for tee shirts and then we strolled through an outdoor market. We took pics of some of the great colonial buildings in downtown and had german, of all things, for lunch.. homemade bratwurst and red cabbage and a schneider weisse beer..possibly my favorite beer in the world..it was SOOOOOOOOO wonderful. Not to dis the local beers of SE Asia but nothing comes close!
After lunch we went to the reunification palace where Saigon fell in 1975 and saw all of the former meet & greet rooms as well as the tunnel/war rooms in the basement. Then, to the War Remnants museum. This used to be called the American War Crimes museum but they changed the name because visitors didn’t like it. Imagine that. Anyway, while the museum is quite one sided it is a horrific example of what war does to everyone involved, the soldiers, the countries, and most especially the innocents who are caught in the middle.
We took the cyclo taxi’s back to our hotel area and paid a bit too much but it was a ball having the bicyle drivers wheel us through that crazy traffic! Tomorrow we’re off to the Cu Chi tunnels outside of town to see how the viet cong lived and fought during the war. We’re planning on leaving HCMC on 8Dec and heading up the coast to Mui Ne to take a mini vacation and chill out at a beach resort for a couple of days.
It’s steamy hot here in southern Vietnam and looking forward to the cooler weather further north!
Hope this finds everyone well. Cheers J&R
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