The heat is on in Saigon

You’ve never been this hot before. Your t-shirt sticks to your body, the sweat pooling at the base of your back and under your arms. Peeling the material away from your skin like cling wrap and fanning the shirt gives only a brief respite from the intense heat. It takes a few days to acclimatise to the energy-sapping humidity of Ho Chi Minh in August.
Just when you think your hair couldn’t possibly frizz any more, you step into the Ben Thanh Markets. The light breeze that you didn’t even realise you were enjoying outside is gone and the temperature feels like it has risen at least 10 degrees.
But you notice this for only a moment before wonder takes over as you contemplate the foreignness of this shopping mecca. All you can see are rows and rows of stalls selling everything you can imagine, and even things you can’t. Your eyes take in the colours, the smiling faces of the vendors; you hear the haphazard chorus of the Vietnamese people spruiking their wares, their broken English lilting with their sing-song voices. The smell of sweaty bodies is overpowering until you turn and inhale the cocktail of odours from fresh seafood, vegetables, fruit and meat hanging unrefrigerated from hooks. Don’t open your mouth or you’ll taste the raw meat as the smells waft and hit the back of your throat.
Your arms brush the ample stocks of DVDs, wooden souvenirs and ‘genuine’ Chanel t-shirts, and if you look that fraction of a second too long, before you know it you’re being dragged into their store to take a closer look.
For a beginner this can prove overwhelming, but if armed with a smile and a good sense of humour you are likely to soon find yourself in conversation with a local. A mention of the word ‘Australia’ prompts a practised ‘Gday mate’, questions of kangaroos, and a joke about coming back home with us to find a husband. A glance back, however, reveals the sadness behind her smile and brings tears to my eyes as it dawns on me that that is really what she wishes for. It is so easy to forget, as a traveller, that the lives we lead are so far out of reach for so many.
This feeling of helplessness is compounded as you leave the claustrophobia of the markets and have to step over the crippled legs of a disfigured lady or a scarred young child, whose hands reach out for you, their eyes a silent beg for help. Walk around any corner and you will pass an old man asleep on his cyclo, all his worldly possessions in a bag on the ground next to him making a bed for his malnourished dog. Despite all this they are wonderful, friendly people, always ready with a big toothy smile or a wave for the tourists. I am humbled.
These assaults on your senses are only a few of the things you’ll love about Saigon.