We
landed in Ho Chi Minh City at 8 a.m. Vietnam time. The airport was grey
and spartan, a cold welcome to a Communist country. But Ho Chi Minh's
weather was not cold at all, in spite of our expectations. It was very
warm, just under sweltering.
The moment we stepped out of the
airport, we met a scammer.
He was a taxi driver, offering us a 300,000 dong ride into the city
centre. That's 30 SGD. We said, no way. We want you to use your meter.
He said, no meter, no meter. You want how much?
He shoved his mobile phone into my hand, signalling that I should punch in my preferred price.
I said, no, no, we want meter.
No meter, no meter, he said, still pushing his phone at me.
Lianyi began walking away, snapping at me and June to ignore the
driver. He's just out to scam us, he said. Can you guys just walk away?
We
then debated taking an airport bus, which would have taken us to the
city centre either for free or for a small sum, I forget. But as we
were still debating, another taxi driver came up to us. We asked him if
he had a meter in his cab. He said yes, and we jumped in. The total
fare to our hostel in the city centre was 70,000 dongs, less than a
third of what the scammer had tried to get from us.
I love the
first sight of a city, the ride into it, taking in all these new sights
but not absorbing any of it because it's all too strange for your brain
to comprehend and process, yet knowing that in a few days it will be
easier to understand and it will feel less foreign.
As with
entering any new country, I tried to match my first impressions of Ho
Chi Minh City against all the other foreign lands I'd been too. But Ho
Chi Minh City wasn't like anywhere else I knew. It was like Siem Reap
but with more order and heavier traffic. It was clean -- no rubbish on
the streets at all -- but dusty and polluted. And the one thing that
really left an imprint on us was the fact that it was very, very noisy.
Motorcyclists
and drivers honked all the time. To us, it seemed like they were
honking for no reason at all. In Singapore, people honk only when
they're pissed off or panicking. In Vietnam, they honk just to let you
know they're there.
We got off at Bui Vien Street, where our Luan
Vu Guesthouse was. It was just a street away from Pham Ngu Lao Street,
Ho Chi Minh City's equivalent of Bangkok's Khao San Road.
It was
a small guesthouse down a narrow alley, reminding me a lot of the Baan
Hua Lam Phong guesthouse we stayed in in Bangkok. The lobby was not
much, but when we got to our room we were awestruck. It was spotless.
The floor tiles were a shiny pink and the walls were cream. The beds
were smooth and lint-free. The toilet was cleaner than the ones in our
own homes. We high-fived each other over our great fortune.
We
changed into fresh clothes, rolled around a bit, peered into the
neighbouring homes. The guesthouse was surrounded by people's homes,
and the one across the alley from us was so close that we could look
right into its window and see what the occupants were doing and, if we
wanted to, we could have talked to them without raising our voices. We
closed the curtains.
Then we went out for our first foray into
the city. The first things we saw were a lot of fake paintings - fake
van Goghs, fake Boteros, fake Warhols. A lot of tourist t-shirts, with
"Good Morning Vietnam" and Uncle Ho's smiling face on them,
communist-style guerilla caps with the red star, cigarette lighters,
Vietnamese flags. But our first stop was lunch.
We came across a street filled with restaurants of all types. For
some reason, we decided to eat Mexican. June and I had chimichangas. Lianyi had chilli con carne. My banana milkshake was an awakening
to the fact that sadly, Vietnam doesn't have great milk/fruitshakes like Cambodia does.
While
we were eating we saw what was probably a travel documentary being
filmed right outside our restaurant. There was a cameraman, a soundman
and a blonde male host with over-styled hair who looked as if an
airplane had softly dropped him right onto that very spot where he was
standing because he was way too clean and fresh to have been on Vietnam
soil for more than a minute.
After lunch we decided to walk
around Ho Chi Minh City. June led the way because she's a whiz with maps. We basically did a truncated
version of Lonely Planet's suggested walking tour of the city, and it
taught us one major thing: crossing roads is a hell of a scary thing to
do in Ho Chi Minh City. Remember what it was like in Cambodia? Ok now
add two times as many vehicles. There are few traffic lights, and even
fewer that are switched on, and the vehicles go any which way they
like. They don't give way. They don't stop. And it's honking, honking,
honking the whole time when you're trying to concentrate on staying
alive.
We walked past Ben Thanh Market, not bothering to enter because we
didn't want to shop and we'd been inside enough markets all over
Southeast Asia. We then crossed the longest street in mankind's history
(title bestowed upon it by me and not Guinness), and went to the Fine
Arts Museum. It was ok, nothing remarkable to me. I was more impressed by the museum building itself than the artwork contained within.
We then walked east, and turned north to a colourful street market
at Ton That Dam Road, where stalls are really specialised in what they
sell. There was a stall that sold only snacks. One that sold only
detergents. One that sold only soaps and perfumes. The Russian bought a
small bottle of soap for 90 Singapore cents, and a packet of tissues
that had been treated with menthol so that when you blew your nose, you
also got some heavy powder action going right back into your lungs.
Despite
the fact that we'd just barely begun our walking tour, we were already
pooped. Lack of sleep combined with the constant fear of
street-crossing, you know. So when we came across a Sarpino's Pizza
parlour on the way from the street market to our next destination, we
stopped for ice cream.
After ice cream we thrust ourselves back
into the world and realised that we were in the upper class part of the
city. The pavements and roads were wider, the buildings better-looking,
the shops weren't just shops but boutiques. We walked and walked some
more, coming across some lovely hotels that we would never be able to
afford.
We also came across a shopping centre which we entered
for the heck of it. Vietnam celebrates Christmas in a big way! We
didn't expect that. Workers were installing fake snowmen and some big
structures in the middle of the mall and there were lots of styrofoam
snow mounted on walls everywhere. Not just at that one shopping centre
too, but at most buildings. There were Christmas trees in hotel lobbies
that were big enough to have one, streamers and the works. Inside the
shopping centre we heard our first Vietnamese Christmas jingle. It was
creepy. Not like, in a
this-is-a-strange-and-unusual-way-to-sing-a-Christmas-jingle kind of
way, but in a why-does-this-song-bring-to-mind-tribal-funeral-rites
kind of way. Vaguely unsettling.
We then went to the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City, where the Lonely
Planet says visitors are warmly welcomed, but the reception we got was
unremarkable, same as at any other museum. You pay, get your brochure,
and walk away so that the welcomers can resume their conversation with
each other in Vietnamese.
The first thing we saw at the museum
was a couple taking their wedding photos. Outside the museum entrance
was a small garden with a swing and some really old trishaws. It was
quite a charming set up, if not for the incessant traffic noise still
surrounding us.
The museum contains exhibits about the history
of the city, major events that had happened there, and even a room
filled with fake animals and real animal parts to show the kind of
ecosystem that thrives in Ho Chi Minh City's less urban areas.
My
favourite section was a row of five vehicles that had been kept since
the war. Each had been used to transport military personnel, equipment
and resources between Saigon and Cu Chi and other surrounding towns
where the Communists had their bases.
After that we walked some more, but by the time we got to our next
stop, the Reunification Palace, it was already closing time. The guards
only allowed us to take a few steps past the gates to take some shots
of the palace facade.
By this time, the War Remnants Museum,
the History Mueum and the Notre Dame Cathedral had also closed, so we
pretty much walked around aimlessly for a while until we decided to
take a look inside the post office, which was still open.
I
liked it a lot. Classy French architecture and Uncle Ho beaming down
upon you as you go about your business. We sat there for a while,
debating what to do. Eventually, we decided to try to find pants, which
Joon and I needed to buy, and then to go for drinks and dinner.
We walked two streets down to a department store but it was way too
swanky for our backpacker budget. So we gave up and took a cab down to
a Vietnamese restaurant recommended by Lonely Planet -- Tib Restaurant.
It was a lovely meal, starting with a jackfruit salad that the waiter
had to teach us how to eat because he saw us doing it all wrong. We
also had a steamed catfish and some chicken. We paid about half what a
similar meal would have cost us in Singapore.
And then, it was
time to go back and sleep. We were way too tired to hit a bar or check
out Ho Chi Minh City's nightlife. Our flight out of Singapore had been
at 7:15 a.m., so we had all been at the airport by 5:30 a.m. and Lianyi and I had only had about 2 hours of sleep the night before. We
took a cab back to Luan Vu, watched TV (and quality TV it was too --
Singaporean and Malaysian malay rock music videos) for a bit, and went
to sleep.
Lianyi and I didn't sleep well at all, because
despite the fact that the traffic noise was muffled given the location
of our room, it wasn't completely muted. Traffic goes on all night, and
there's always the occasional extra-loud honk or engine revving from a
particularly passionate motorcyclist. And there are many other loud
sounds to contend with in the Vietnamese night. Shopkeepers around us
rolling down their shutters at midnight and then rolling them back up
again at 5 a.m., and at about 6 a.m. we were both woken up and stayed
awake for a long time because one of our neighbours (as in, a
Vietnamese living in one of the apartments surrounding the hostel, not
other guests within the hostel) decided that was the best time to abuse
her child, so we had to endure her yelling, her child's wailing, and
the occasional sound of slapping and beating.
Good morning Vietnam indeed.
