Home Again

I am back from Ho Chi Minh City.

Sweet memories and wealth of experiences to remember Saigon by, the good and the ugly. I guess, as in any cities, you either love them or hate them. So far, there are not many that I hate because basically, I really enjoy the difference, the obvious and the subtle ones.

The one thing I can't forget about visiting the few ASEAN countries thus far is the lack of English really disadvantaged the citizens. Vietnamese, Thais, Indonesians - they practically don't speak English and for that, they would most probably lose out a lot of opportunity. Well, not all, at least, the Thais made it up with their eagerness, humbleness and politeness that you can't help but try to be even nicer to them, hehehe. As for Saigonese, hmm, what can I say, apparently, they don't have the "Welcome" smile on them, you don't really feel like welcomed at all. Most faces I see, even when I smiled at them were dour and sour and moody. In most countries, most of the locals would have fun trying to decipher what the nutty tourists are saying. Not in Saigon, they just give me the impression that we, the tourists are pests...hmmmmphhh.

But I did enjoy their local produce very much though. I had one of the best avocado juice yet, and I had like 3 glasses at one go, that speak volumes of their taste. A must try at the market (Binh Tay Market) in Chinatown. Funnily, that was the place we enjoyed the most, taking in the local scenes, the bustling of the people trying to make a living, exploring the market looking for knick knacks as souvenirs, I would have bought loads if not due to the fact that AirAsia only gave me 15kg of baggage allowance. I came with 8kg of personal stuff and went back with 17kg, I had to "borrow" the baggage capacity of my sister's to avoid extra baggage charge. And that 17kg did not count the 2kg I was hand-carrying!!!

After we were done in that market, we headed to another market, more known for souvenirs and for tourists (unlike the earlier one, is more for locals). My sister and niece were a bit tired (we walked for about 5 - 6 hours at the first market), so, they decided to go back to hotel, the taxi driver was kind enough to allow us to drop off and then send my sister and niece back, without re-tripping the meter, we saved on one minimum charge, hehehe.

An Dong Market was the second market we went and I think we spent about 2 hours there only, my brother in law suggested that we go back by motorbike. I was interested to try and was also worried. You would too if you know how the traffic in Saigon is like. But what is life then without a little bit of excitement and risks?

Well, all said and done, we got ourselves two motorcyclist "taxi", which cost about 20,000 dong per person (about USD 1.30) for a 15 minutes ride. Fortunately, it was not a hell ride, in fact, it was quite pleasant, I wouldn't mind it again, should the cost be less prohibitive. I mean, the actual taxi costs about 50,000 dong and it can seats 7 people comfortably, so, if we are in a group, it is not worth it to take the motorcyclist, right?

One thing about Saigon traffic is that, no matter how heavy is the traffic, it never come to a standstill. You have to see it for yourself to believe it. Of course, not counting the stops at traffic light (even that at times was not really adhered to). On the way to the market in the morning, the dual lane roads (4 lanes, 2 on each side) was reduced to practically 1 1/2 by a crane doing excavation works. If this happened in Malaysia, you can be assured of at least a 5 - 10km traffic jam! For Saigon, it took our taxi approximately 15 minutes to navigate through, even that is due to a bus unable to squeeze through all those motorbikes and cars as it needed a bigger space to manouver. One of the worker stopped some oncoming traffic and everything flowed once again. I have to salute them for their systematic chaos. To our eyes, the traffic definitely is in a chaos but somehow, it moved even more smoothly than any Malaysian cities with half the traffic and double the roads!! I did my observation and I will tell you why, but later. Now is the time to sleep...Ciao