Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

Saigon, renamed Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) after the fall of South Vietnam to North Vietnam in 1975, was named after "Uncle Ho" (Ho Chi Minh) as the locals refer to him.  HCMC is a big city, compared to many we've recently visited.  It's surprisingly cleaner than what we had expected.  The city has a fleet of street cleaners who are seemingly dispatched en masse, especially in the evenings.  They sweep up the tidy piles of rubbish that have been pre-organized by street vendors and street side cafes/food stall owners.  Rather than “garbage-men” in the states, here most street cleaners we've seen are women, clothed from head-to-finger-to-toe with rice hats on.  They push manual rubbish carts on wheels, and keep the streets extremely tidy.  We're staying on mini-hotel alley, which is chock full of newly constructed high rise small hotels that are super clean and cheap.  $15 USD gets you a brand new room, TV, hot shower, and wireless interconnect in your room, along with a "western" breakfast or Vietnamese Pho Bo if you so choose.

Crossing the streets is the day's biggest challenge.  HCMC is motorbike central... and street signs and traffic lights serve mostly for decoration.  Our practice has been to find a local just about to cross the street and stick close to them.  If we keep moving forward at a consistent pace, looking ahead and to the left and right, and weave our way through the mass of bikes coming toward us, eventually the motorbikes do get out of our way... well, at least the bikes have avoided us, weaving their way around us.  This technique doesn't work with busses, however, which seem to clog the streets here.  The infamous cafe "open tour" busses are an extremely cheap mode of transport and make up the bulk of a very well developed tourist transportation network all the way up the country from HCMC to Hanoi.  There are a ton of bus/tour companies to choose from, and it's not very evident any differences between them.  With all the companies busses, the streets are packed with them, and just in case they're not big enough for you to see them when they're hauling down the road and fast speeds, they wail on their horns every couple of meters, to cause anything in their path to jump out of the way.  

On every street corner there are crowds of men with their "motos" (motorcycles) and cyclos (3-wheel rickshaw type bikes where the driver sits up high and passengers sit in a deep metal bucket seat).  Apparently cyclo drivers are being "phased out" by the government.  Many of these drivers were prominent people in many highly held occupations prior to and during the war; some serving the Southern Vietnam army, and working with the Americans.  Today they have been stripped of their ability to working their prior occupations, deemed traitors and untrustworthy by the government.  They live on the street corners, and are surviving merely by convincing tourists to take all day tours of the city... similar with them being stripped of their employment status, they also apparently, have been stripped of their citizenship and right to live in the city.  These guys have fabulous stories and personalities that entertain for the duration of a ride.  Their big smiles, gregarious personalities and books of customer testimonials were enough to convince us to hire one to drive us around town.  

Hundreds of Vietnamese locals are out exercising, playing badminton, doing tai chi, and just strolling through the trees, enjoying the morning as the city awakens and energy and city beat rises with the sun.  We're amazed at how green the city is - parks, trees, lining the streets, it's a pleasant place to hang out in, especially sitting on a street corner in a cafe, observing local life whiz by.  Whole families of 4-5 people seated on a single motorbike is a common sight, and common mode of transportation for families here, similar to Cambodia.