I don't know whether it's the great weather, the relaxed and easy going personalities or the diverse culture that makes Ho Chi Minh city such a charming place to hang out. Ok it's not the cleanest, wealthiest or prettiest of cities I've been to, but there's something about the people here that makes all that disappear.
You learn very quickly the dos and don’ts of touring HCMC. I knew being fresh tourists in such a strange and unknown environment, it's as going to take a few mistakes before we worked them out. I guessed being two pale white boys with back packs, we would stick out like a pork pie at a bar mitzvah......... I wasn't wrong.
Lesson number one. Don't even stop and talk to street traders, or before you know it you will have two pairs of sunglasses to add to the 30 you already don't need.
From the minute we left our hotel they were on us flies around a sh**. If you think you can get rid of the street traders, who are trying to sell you "original" Gucci sunglasses for 300 dong ($15), by hiding out in a restaurant, you're wrong. That doesn't scare these guys off. So plan "B" was to humor them for a few minutes thinking that if I just listen to what they had to say, they will leave me alone ....... I now own one pair of Oakley and one pair of Gucci sunglasses. Both real of course, and for a knock down price of $17 for the two.
First on the agenda was to find me some underwear. I was still without my cases and although I had on the same t-shirt I had traveled in the day before, I refused to put on the underwear. So until I could find some replacements, I was going commando, but with HCMC being so hot and humid this wasn't going to cut it for long. We found a cyclos (basically a bike with a basket thing on the front you sit in). For 50,000 dong ($2.5) he would take me shopping to find some clean boxers. Perfect.
This was our first experience of the craziness. Scooters race around the streets like an army of ants, with no respect for rules such as which side of the road to drive on. At every intersection you find yourself in a game of chicken with at least 150 others vehicles. There's generally a rule that a bus beats a car, a car beats a scooter, and a scooter beats a bicycle (pedestrians don't even rank). Where does a cyclos come in this chain ......... well my man thought he trumped them all.
You learn very quickly the dos and don’ts of touring HCMC. I knew being fresh tourists in such a strange and unknown environment, it's as going to take a few mistakes before we worked them out. I guessed being two pale white boys with back packs, we would stick out like a pork pie at a bar mitzvah......... I wasn't wrong.
Lesson number one. Don't even stop and talk to street traders, or before you know it you will have two pairs of sunglasses to add to the 30 you already don't need.
From the minute we left our hotel they were on us flies around a sh**. If you think you can get rid of the street traders, who are trying to sell you "original" Gucci sunglasses for 300 dong ($15), by hiding out in a restaurant, you're wrong. That doesn't scare these guys off. So plan "B" was to humor them for a few minutes thinking that if I just listen to what they had to say, they will leave me alone ....... I now own one pair of Oakley and one pair of Gucci sunglasses. Both real of course, and for a knock down price of $17 for the two.
First on the agenda was to find me some underwear. I was still without my cases and although I had on the same t-shirt I had traveled in the day before, I refused to put on the underwear. So until I could find some replacements, I was going commando, but with HCMC being so hot and humid this wasn't going to cut it for long. We found a cyclos (basically a bike with a basket thing on the front you sit in). For 50,000 dong ($2.5) he would take me shopping to find some clean boxers. Perfect.
This was our first experience of the craziness. Scooters race around the streets like an army of ants, with no respect for rules such as which side of the road to drive on. At every intersection you find yourself in a game of chicken with at least 150 others vehicles. There's generally a rule that a bus beats a car, a car beats a scooter, and a scooter beats a bicycle (pedestrians don't even rank). Where does a cyclos come in this chain ......... well my man thought he trumped them all.
It was obvious that when I got to the store (to collect my new underwear), I was going to have to buy more than one pair, as it was very possible that I would use at least one pair just getting back to the hotel.
The shopping was a success, and with my new socks, boxers and t-shirt I felt ready to take on the city. The next stop was the war memorial museum. By this points our cyclos drivers had talked us into using them to be our drivers for the day....... whilst in Rome do as the Romans, so why the hell not.
The war memorial museum was amazing. From the American tanks, planes, helicopters and boats that were displayed in the front like some kind of trophy, to the eye opening images and facts we picked up inside. All I can say is that every story has two sides, and I have only ever heard one side of the Vietnam war. I now have a better understanding of why, how and what the war was about. It gets all too political if I share my views, but as bad as the war was, the things these people went though, I left having gained a new respect for a nation has picked themselves up, and moved on without much bother at all. It was a pretty somber experience, but an interesting one to say the least.
The rest of the day was filled with more tourist stuff. Surviving the roads, eating unknown food items, drinking warm beer chilling by ice cubes, haggling for goods that will probably spend their life in the bottom of a draw and genrally taking way too many pictures of scenes that would be boring to anyone else looking at them. You know the pictures I'm talking about.
Lesson number two. Agree a price before hand.
We finished up and told the drivers to take us back to the hotel. They pull up and drop us off, give us a few compliments and then tell us it's going to cost 2,000,000 dong each for their services. That's $100 each, which we know from our tourist book is the average monthly wage. Something tells me they are trying to rip us off. We laughed at them and tell them no way, although we are being careful to not cause too much of a scene at the same time. I'm just guessing, but if the police get involved, I sure the two pale white boys white back packs are going to have to pay even more to get out of this (money rules in these parts of the world). We haggle for about 10 minutes and get away with 800,000 dong each. Still probably way overpriced but serves us right for thinking they had our interests at heart. Lesson learnt, and I can promise that won't happen twice.
Next stop in the morning is the airport to head to Hanoi where we pick up the bikes. Now the real trip begins.
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