Good Morning Vietnam!! Day 1 - Walking around Ho Chi Minh City

Day 1 - I woke up and went outside at about 6am to see us going up the Saigon River to Ho Chi Minh city. It kind of looked like the Amazon, but less forest, more buildings and a whole lot more water traffic. The MV Explorer (the SAS ship) honked it's horn about 3 times in a matter of 20 minutes to tell small ships to move out of our way! Apparently bigger ships have the right of way, but some local ships didn't like it soo much =/ Our captain wasn't driving the boat though. A Vietnamese pilot came on at about 4am to drive us up the Saigon river because they are the ones that know the river the best and know where to go. It was really humid outside, but the wind was blowing so it made it bearable. Ashley and I went downstairs to eat breakfast with Jessey and we got ready to start our day! Ashley had a trip that afternoon, so Jessey and I were gonna walk around with Cathy and Lucy. Robert came along for a little bit before he had to be back for a trip at noon. We didn't get off till about 9am and took the shuttle that SAS provided to the center of downtown at the Rex Hotel. From there, we got money exchanged or stopped at an ATM and headed down the street. We came upon Ben Thanh market which is a huge market with tiny stalls that are really close together so there is little aisle space sometimes. We were told that Ben Thanh market was the place to go for cheap souvenirs. There were definitely souvenirs, but it was pretty pricey and some stalls were fixed prices so you couldn't bargain at all. At this point in the voyage, we're all pretty good at bargaining and we've bargained for anything and everything! We walked through and they had different sections for clothes, souvenirs, fresh produce, little food shops, and a seafood place. Lucy, Cathy, Jessey, and Robert ended up getting Spring Rolls at this one place where you sit on the stools around it and they hand you the food. It was kind of like the hawker center in Singapore. Even the food was a bit pricey, a spring roll cost 50cents and they weren't that big. From there, I wanted to get a Japan Rail Pass and we decided to head in that direction because a tourist police officer told us that it was a few blocks down. Rob took a taxi back on the way because he had to head back to the ship to make his trip. It ended up not being only a few blocks, but about 6 or 7. =[ It was hot and humid and I felt bad for dragging them to go get it. And when we FINALLY got to the office, it was CLOSED! >_< WTH. The tour operator on the ship that guides you if you have any questions on where to go, said it would be open even though it was a Sunday. NOPE! Closed! =[ I was bummed and felt bad, but we hopped in a taxi and headed towards the Reunification Palace.

When we got there, it was closed too! but it was closed for lunch and would reopen at 1pm. It was about 11:30 and we were hungry so we decided to try and find a Pho place. We came across this little food shop that could've looked a little sketchy and they didn't have a menu and they said all they have is Pho. So most of us ordered Beef Pho. It was alright, but filled out stomachs and it was only $2. We thought it was only 14,000 Dong, but the guy actually said 40,000 Dong. The conversion is $1 to 20,700 Dong. Which is an insane conversion rate and it seems like a lot of money, but it was less than $2. We headed further down the street and found other Pho restaurants that we could've gone to, but they were a bit pricier for $5 for a bowl of Pho. We stopped at a Cafe so Cathy, who didn't get Pho because it was hot, could get Spring Rolls. Jessey and I went across the street to a place called New York Dessert Cafe. I know, I know, not very cultural right? But we wanted dessert! lol We decided after looking at the menu that Lucy and Cathy would probably want these desserts they had too so we went back over to the Cafe and ate with them, AGAIN. They had free wifi too so I talked to Zoey and my grandma for a little bit. We went across the street, next to the New York Dessert Cafe to The Coffee Bean >_< because Lucy wanted iced coffee because we were all starting to feel a bit tired from the heat. We headed next door to the dessert cafe and got some cheesecakes, mud pie, and a shake =] I was happy with the desserts and especially my shake! lol there was wifi there too so I talked to Mai and Kapena and Ces were at her place to I talked to them too for a little bit. After almost two hours of eating we decided that we should probably start walking around again. We went to the Notre Dame Cathedral across the street and checked it out. Then we finally headed back to the reunification palace and bought $1.50 tickets to walk around. The palace didn't have any kind of information signs and we didn't have a tour guide, so we were walking through aimlessly, not knowing the significance of the different rooms. We did follow this Japanese tour group at one point and Lucy was translating for us what was what.

We left and got in a taxi and had the hardest time trying to explain that we wanted to go to this memorial for a monk who immolated himself to stop the discrimination of the Buddhist religion. Our driver did not know where to go and said it was 30 minutes away and we heard it was only 10 minutes, so we redirected him to take us to another market we heard was better, but after about 5 minutes, Lucy figured out what cross section the memorial was on the map and showed the taxi driver to take us there. We got there and there was no memorial, then the driver finally realized what we meant and took us a block down. >_< It was probably the most confusing taxi ride ever. We went to the memorial and the story was insane. This monk sat where that memorial was, but on the intersection. He sat down on the street and while meditating, another monk poured gasoline on him and lit him on fire. The monk didn't scream in pain, but just sat there while he burned to death. The crazy thing was the only thing that remained in tact of him was his heart. The rest of him burned to bits. We heard that his heart is still preserved and thought it was at this memorial, but it wasn't there and figured it was probably at a museum somewhere. It was just so crazy that he did make a sound while he was burned alive and that he was so devoted to the Buddhist religion and against the killings of many monks that he did this.

We hailed yet another taxi and asked them to take us to the other market. We got dropped off and walked around there, but it wasn't at all what we were expecting. It was mostly a market for locals and didn't have any souvenirs and mostly had household goods, fresh produce, seafood, and regular clothes. We just walked around for about an hr then got another taxi to head back to the ship. Along the way we got to this roundabout that had a really cool mini park that was over a pool and had fountains surrounding it. There were a lot of restaurants too so we asked the taxi driver to stop, we paid, and got out. We went to the mini park area and looked around to see where we wanted to eat. The entire roundabout was surrounded by fancy restaurants and we decided on a place called The Sushi Club. lol We wanted Japanese food! We were the only ones that were there and the staff busily got ready to serve us. We sat on the top floor on the balcony and ordered lots of sushi and I ordered an unagi bowl. They were really accommodating since we were the only ones there and my unagi bowl was alright, but Jessey guys said their sushi was really good. We paid for our bills which was really cheap for all of us. My bill came out to about $6 and theirs came out to about $10 and that was with ordering like 4 different sushi plates. It was really cheap compared to the American-Japanese places.

We hailed yet another taxi and took it back to the ship, our driver was a little confused and thought we meant a different ship, but we could see the ship from where we were headed in the wrong direction so we just pointed it out to him. The language barrier here was a lot worse than I was expecting! We got back to the ship at 7:30 and a couple of our friends were getting married in Vietnam. Long story short, they left notes on our doors that said 7:15 at the Rex Hotel! We missed it!! We were soo bummed and felt so bad because Jessey and I were supposed to be IN the wedding. I was supposed to be a bridesmaid and Jessey was supposed to walk the bride down the aisle. I won't say any names on who it was because I'm not sure if they would want others to know, but it was a fake wedding. Past SASers have gotten married in Vietnam because it's only legal if you send the documentation in to the US. They weren't planning on sending it in. We found out that there was an after-party at the Rex Hotel so we got ready and waiting for the girls to get ready. We didn't leave till like 10 and right as we got to the Rex Hotel, the wedding party was leaving to go to a club! We followed them to Apocalypse Now and stayed there for a couple of hours. It was a huge SAS party and we quickly got over it. It was fun while it lasted, but there was just too many SAS people. We had trouble getting a taxi home because the driver that knew where we had to go was overpriced and then the one that would meter the taxi didn't know what the heck we were talking about! We finally just got into the taxi where the guy was just going to meter it after some reluctance. We arrived at the ship and I showered and went straight to bed! I had to get up to go to Cambodia the next morning at 6:50am!

Miho =]

Side notes: Crossing the street is insane in Vietnam! Not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but a lot of streets don't have pedestrian lights or they do, but they don't work. So sometimes you just have to walk across the busy traffic and the best way to get hit is to walk at a steady pace and the mopeds/motorcycles/cars with go around you. There is mostly mopeds and motorcycles in Vietnam and you just have to guess the best time to go and just go! YouTube crossing street in Vietnam! You'll find some crazy videos