Saigon
Well, Saigon is definitely one of the craziest cities in the world! That I've been to anyway!
There are soo many motorbikes everywhere, the streets are lined with little stalls- food stalls, markets.. Hotels and guesthouses everywhere. Entire streets are lined with DVD shops and hardware and electricity lines hanging across all the streets... Wow.
I stayed again with my English friends and we managed to go on a couple of amazing tours. We started at one of the most famous and beautiful temples of the religion 'Cao Daism'.. which is a mix of Buddhism, Christianity, Maoism... and something else. It was amazing inside with huge mosaic windows and painted designs. We were able to be there for one of the ceremonies where amost a hundred monks came in and there was traditional music and instruments and a choir.. It was awesome.
We went on a war history tour which consisted of a few different places- the main attraction being some of the tunnels people went down into and lived in for a time during the American/Vietnam War. We went through the tunnels and some were very tight- a couple of people got a little freaked and had to get out! Not good for claustrophobics. We saw traps that the South Vitnamese set against the American troups, little hidey holes.. Little rooms that had been dug out in the tunnels where people lived for months at a time. We were even able to buy some bullets and use the K-47's that they used.. They are soooo unbelievably loud. I didn't fire one myself. Thought about it but decided against it.
Our tour guide was a veteran from the war and had a finger missing. He was really good and gave us a history of where we were going and what happened on the mini bus ride. One girl on the tour was from Ireland (soo hard to understand!) and she was an idiot. She was wearing something that resembled pajamas (hot pink and fluffy material) and she asked the tour guide questions like -Did you kill heaps of people, Like?.. She was soo rude! You just don't ask things like that- it's called respect. The guide replied- well, it was either that or get killed.. It was a freakin' war. Idiot. Sorry. I get annoyed at people like that! Anyhoo..
We also went together to the war history museum. It was mostly a big gallery of photo's from the war. There was a movie showing about the effects and how the Americans used Agent Orange and how it still affects people today. There were also old fighter planes and helicopters, and a couple of rooms depicting the types of torture and prison rooms used. It was pretty scary stuff. I honestly felt like crying after I'd seen alot of the photo's. They're definitely not for the squirmishly minded. It puts you in a fairly sobering mood. Didn't feel like doing much after that.
One morning Jack, Simon and I decided to head off early to check out the markets. We went to the fresh/ everything kind of market first and saw every part of a pig possible, from bags of blood to brains to skin.. It was lovely. We bartered over watches, and I got an 'omega' Yay!! Then we went to a hardware/ uniform market, where they sold police and army clothes, (I bought some thongs.. Army style! finally) and Jack bought one of the crazy cool Vietnamese style road police hats. They're har dand green and roundish. Just cool! Then Simon decided to go home and Jack and I went on our DVD hunt. Oh, there were sooo many! It was glorious. I bought quite a few.. heheheh.
On our last night together, we found a cool restaurant called the.. um.. the. Yes. I'll get back to you on that one. They advertised if we ate there we'd all get one free shot of something.. I forget what it was but it was nice. David asked if we could have two each, and they said yes. Throughout the night, we kept asking for more and we ended up managing to get about 6 free shots each. It was great! Plus we had had 2 bottles of whiskey between us. I bought an awesome red t-shirt and we tipped our serving girl quite a bit of money.. about 20 thousand dong each.. which adds up to about 7 or 8 dollars. Doesn't seem like much but an average tip is about 10 000 to 15 000 dong (about 1 dollar).
All in all, Saigon was soo crazy, so much fun and so interesting. There are approximately 6- 8 million people living in Saigon. That's alot. A LOT. I learned alot and ended my visit in Vietnam here. It sucked going through all the security at the airport though. Vietnam is very high security- a fair bit more than thailand for example.
Peace out! Sorry it's so long, and that it's been so long.
There are soo many motorbikes everywhere, the streets are lined with little stalls- food stalls, markets.. Hotels and guesthouses everywhere. Entire streets are lined with DVD shops and hardware and electricity lines hanging across all the streets... Wow.
I stayed again with my English friends and we managed to go on a couple of amazing tours. We started at one of the most famous and beautiful temples of the religion 'Cao Daism'.. which is a mix of Buddhism, Christianity, Maoism... and something else. It was amazing inside with huge mosaic windows and painted designs. We were able to be there for one of the ceremonies where amost a hundred monks came in and there was traditional music and instruments and a choir.. It was awesome.
We went on a war history tour which consisted of a few different places- the main attraction being some of the tunnels people went down into and lived in for a time during the American/Vietnam War. We went through the tunnels and some were very tight- a couple of people got a little freaked and had to get out! Not good for claustrophobics. We saw traps that the South Vitnamese set against the American troups, little hidey holes.. Little rooms that had been dug out in the tunnels where people lived for months at a time. We were even able to buy some bullets and use the K-47's that they used.. They are soooo unbelievably loud. I didn't fire one myself. Thought about it but decided against it.
Our tour guide was a veteran from the war and had a finger missing. He was really good and gave us a history of where we were going and what happened on the mini bus ride. One girl on the tour was from Ireland (soo hard to understand!) and she was an idiot. She was wearing something that resembled pajamas (hot pink and fluffy material) and she asked the tour guide questions like -Did you kill heaps of people, Like?.. She was soo rude! You just don't ask things like that- it's called respect. The guide replied- well, it was either that or get killed.. It was a freakin' war. Idiot. Sorry. I get annoyed at people like that! Anyhoo..
We also went together to the war history museum. It was mostly a big gallery of photo's from the war. There was a movie showing about the effects and how the Americans used Agent Orange and how it still affects people today. There were also old fighter planes and helicopters, and a couple of rooms depicting the types of torture and prison rooms used. It was pretty scary stuff. I honestly felt like crying after I'd seen alot of the photo's. They're definitely not for the squirmishly minded. It puts you in a fairly sobering mood. Didn't feel like doing much after that.
One morning Jack, Simon and I decided to head off early to check out the markets. We went to the fresh/ everything kind of market first and saw every part of a pig possible, from bags of blood to brains to skin.. It was lovely. We bartered over watches, and I got an 'omega' Yay!! Then we went to a hardware/ uniform market, where they sold police and army clothes, (I bought some thongs.. Army style! finally) and Jack bought one of the crazy cool Vietnamese style road police hats. They're har dand green and roundish. Just cool! Then Simon decided to go home and Jack and I went on our DVD hunt. Oh, there were sooo many! It was glorious. I bought quite a few.. heheheh.
On our last night together, we found a cool restaurant called the.. um.. the. Yes. I'll get back to you on that one. They advertised if we ate there we'd all get one free shot of something.. I forget what it was but it was nice. David asked if we could have two each, and they said yes. Throughout the night, we kept asking for more and we ended up managing to get about 6 free shots each. It was great! Plus we had had 2 bottles of whiskey between us. I bought an awesome red t-shirt and we tipped our serving girl quite a bit of money.. about 20 thousand dong each.. which adds up to about 7 or 8 dollars. Doesn't seem like much but an average tip is about 10 000 to 15 000 dong (about 1 dollar).
All in all, Saigon was soo crazy, so much fun and so interesting. There are approximately 6- 8 million people living in Saigon. That's alot. A LOT. I learned alot and ended my visit in Vietnam here. It sucked going through all the security at the airport though. Vietnam is very high security- a fair bit more than thailand for example.
Peace out! Sorry it's so long, and that it's been so long.