If You're To Meet in Saigon, You'll Find Them in Ho Chi Minh City

On Our "Cyclos"

As soon as we arrived back in the hotel lobby around 10:55, our guide was waiting for us.  He was a college-aged student with very good English, who walked us outside to find two bicycle rikshaws (or cyclos) waiting for us, each with an admittedly very old looking driver.  Our guide explained that he would travel ahead of us on scooter, waiting for us to arrive by cyclo.  During our drive from the airport, we'd witnessed the morass of scooter traffic from inside a car; now we were, however, plucked smack down into that chaos, but in an open rikshaw.  It was quite the experience.  We realized quickly, too, that we should have worn masks, as the pollution from all the scooters was extremely evident.  In fact, everyone on scooters was wearing masks.  Literally, everyone.  We chalked it up to a rookie mistake and instead tried to enjoy the slow ride amongst the traffic, until our first stop, which was a local food and flower market.  Our guide was waiting and walked us through a series of winding alleys comprising several successive types of local markets, the highlight of which was the flower market.  We were, quite literally and very noticably, the only Westerners to be seen.  While I did not expect anti-American sentiment to linger too much, I was still not quite sure how welcome we'd feel.  To my delight we did not engender much interest at all.  I might have expected sellers to swarm us, as obvious foreigners, and try to hock their wares, but quite the opposite happened.  We were all but ignored, and when we did interact with anyone, they were extremely pleasant and helpful.  

Must Be Good Food; All the "Grab" (Vietnamese Uber) Drivers Were Lined Up

Dragon Fruit (White with Poppy-Seed Like Seeds When Cut)

Before we reboarded the cyclos, our guide took us to get fresh-pressed sugarcane juice.  A man used a hand-cranked press to run stalks of sugarcane through to get juice, which he mixed with ice.  We were wary, however, of the water used to make the ice, so we both took a few sips but did not finish, not wanting to take the risk of gastric distress, so to speak.  We were then off again, this time heading further north, to a huge indoor wholesale market.  It was housed in a colonial French building, which was quite lovely, and it was absolutely stuffed full of stalls selling every conceivable item.  Again, it is not a tourist destination, so we again were quite unique among the clientele.  They also sell everything in bulk, so while they had -- for example -- counterfeit Guicci bags, you would have to buy 50 and not one.  The sheer variety of items, and scale of the operation, was fascinating, and I particularly enjoyed this stop.

Fresh Sugar Cane About To Be Pressed

View From the Cyclo

Our final stop was to be a Chinese shrine, in the area of Saigon still known as China Town.  Our guide was again waiting for us when we pulled up in our cyclos.  He told us a lot, but I'm sure it was only the surface, about the history of the Chinese in Vietnam.  They have always been a large minority among the population, and they used a common alphabet for centuries, as well as shared religions, etc. Buddhism remains the overall dominant religion, with Christianity in a distant second place and indicative of French missionary work during their occupation days.  This was the Ba Thien Hau Temple, which was dedicated to the Chinese goddess of the sea, and was popular among the significant Chinese population which plied the seacoast, shipping items to and from China in the late 20th Century.  The temple was over 200 years old, and had more incense than one could possibly imagine.

Ba Thien Hau Temple

Papa Ho Was Always Watching

It was interesting to see, but again we were the only tourists, and everyone else was there praying and lighting huge ornate hanging chandeliers constructed of incense, which would burn slowly for days on end.  While there, we sat in an antechamber and our guide told us about our cyclo drivers. He described them as homeless men, but that was a misinterpretation.  In fact, we saw no obviously unhoused people at any time on our trip.  I'd like to chaulk that up to communism and their socialist state, but at no point did we hear anything to indicate that the Vietnamese Government has anywhere near the budget coffers needed to truly provide across the board for the population.  More about that later, but I also should have mentioned that I had fully expected to see no signs of communism, thinking that Vietnam was communist in name only.  That may be the case for economics, but I was struck throughout the trip at the number of flags flying everywhere in the cities and tiny villages.  They invariably were hung in pairs, or when they were lined up, it was always the red flag with the yellow star (the official flag of Vietnam, with the red symbolizing the "blood shed for our independence," and the yellow star reflecting the complexion of the Vietnamese people), and paired with a red flag with the Soviet hammer and sickle.  I guess Vietnam and North Korea are the only countries still flying the hammer and sickle, and it was a bit jarring to see so often.  Lots of propaganda posters, too, all over the place, with many of them showing the trifecta of Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, and Ho Chi Minh.  I digress.  Back to our cyclo drivers.  As our guide spoke, we realized they were in fact men without families.  Vietnamese tradition is to honor your elders, and children are expected to house and take care of their parents until they die, with the typical household having three generations under one roof.  These men had no families to take care of them, so they lived in communal homes and were forced to work well into their old age, usually any meanial jobs, to sustain themselves.  While of course we already planned to tip all of these men, our generosity grew after hearing this story.

We were back at our hotel in the mid-afternoon, and while we certainly enjoyed the trip, the assualt on our senses from all of the people and traffic was a bit much.  We retreated to our nice and quiet room to detox and regroup, while also resisting the urge to sleep.  We elected to go out and get a massage, as we had seen countless massage, nail, and beauty parlors on literally every street.  Relying on TripAdvisor for ratings, we found one only a few doors from our hotel.  We were the only customers and were treated like royalty.  Foot baths and tea while they prepared for the massages, which we received upstairs on tables next to one another in an area for couples.  The massages were 90 minutes, and both of us admittedly dozed at various times during the very relaxing procedure.  We finished off with tea and cookies at reception.  The fact that each massage cost less than $20 solidified our pledge to get massages as often as possible during the trip. While making the short walk back to the hotel, we saw a nail salon.  K wanted to get a pedicure.  As soon as we showed interest, a woman came out and ushered us in with broken English.  We both ended up getting manicures and pedicures.  The woman had been alone, but she got on the phone and called a friend working as a nearby shop, who appeared within minutes.  The combined manicure/pedicures were less than $10 each, so again we felt the money and time were well spent.

Preamble to the Massage

Two items I should have mentioned.  I had withdrawn Vietnamese Dong (their currency) from an ATM at the airport when we arrived. The exchange rate is a rather astonishing 25,000 dong per dollar, so we were forever referring to little cards or our phones to figure our prices.  To hear a mani/pedi costs 250,000 dong sounds daunting, until you realize it's only $10.  The other basic fact about Vietnam I failed to mention is the insanity of trying to cross the street.  Yes, there are painted crosswalks all over the place, and there are in fact also crossing signals for pedestrians.  They are all purely for show, as traffic simply does not stop.  Even when there are red lights, scooters which should stop instead slowly merge into traffic, as if the light didn't exist.  So, if you tried to wait until there was a break to cross the street, you would simply NEVER be able to cross.  Our Gate1 guide gave us lessons beginning the next day, when we first met him, but it involves simply stepping into traffic and proceeding slowly, while NEVER stopping or turning back.  The oncoming traffic will "simply" serve around you like water around a submerged rock.  If you look left or right while crossing, most folks will freeze, so the trick was to look straight ahead across the road and to, as our guide said, "have faith that the Buddha will see you across."  This came to mind, as getting our massage required our first official street crossing on our own, and it was rather harrowing.

Our Hotel in Ho Chi Minh City

We were both dragging back at the hotel, but we'd made it through the day.  Rather than go out to eat, we instead elected to eat in the hotel and call it an early evening.  There were prominent "buy one, get one free" signs in the lobby for happy hour, so we availed ourselves to two margaritas (a drink we would have often during this trip), followed by dinner in the lounge.  Our stomachs weren't sure what time it was, but we ate.  We were in bed and asleep by 8:00pm, which was almost exactly 36 hours since we left Washington two days prior.