HCMC, Uncle Ho's party town

We got off the bus outside the company's office in Saigon, and tried to figure out where we were.  We were just standing there when a guy handed Larissa a Vietnam Lonely Planet, said he was leaving the country, and jumped into a taxi.  Before we knew what was going on, Brad had snatched it!  Ha ha!  It only seemed fair - he did consider giving it to us and taking our photocopied version, but soon ditched that idea!!

We took a wander round for guest houses, and quickly realised there were tonnes.  They don't call it mini-hotel alley for nothing.  We had wanted for once to splash out a bit on somewhere nice, seeing as it was Larissa's birthday, but I think we were in the wrong end of town.  After looking round for ages, we gave up and stopped for a drink!  Poor Brad ended up running round loads of places, and eventually we just settled on one, just to get it out of the way.

After quickly sorting ourselves out, we headed out to start the celebrations!  It was about 6 at this stage, and time they were well underway.  We had noticed a bar called Go 2 Eat that looked busy, so headed there for a drink.  We were only there a short while when Stuart (from Hanoi) walked in with his mate Joe!  We texted Halong Bay Joe, and he met us as well, with Suzanna (from Nha Trang).  We also met Tom (Canadian, who we met in the PO in Nha Trang again) and his mate, so it was turning into quite the party!  We were gonna go somewhere for food, but with that many people, we ended up just ordering food where we were.

We moved on after a while to Allez Boo bar, which was good. Chelsi took up her 'resident' dj spot! After that, we went to a club someone had told us about called Lush. I wish they hadn't bothered. It was a rammed full, crap r'n'b place, full of homies. Unfortunately, Larissa loved it, so while I told Brad, Chelsi and the others to run while they could, I felt bad and stayed since it was her birthday. Joe seemed to like it too, so they danced while I sat and chatted some of the others.

When the torture was over, we got a cab back to the Go 2 bar, and Brad and Chelsi were still there, hurray! They had been to the shop and bought up all the milk cartons there, and were feeding little kids on the street! We found out later that these kids, who always hang out on that corner, are pretty well off, and live nearby in fairly nice homes. Nice. One of the little kids was a real bad egg - he was only about 8, but thought he owned the corner. He would just walk round giving jip to everyone, make really inappropriate comments and gestures, and just generally be as rude as he could. It was really sad, it's kinda obvious how that kind of kid is going to turn out.

The next morning we checked out, since Brad had been up and found us somewhere new!  Chelsi had been keen to get somewhere with a kitchen, since we thought it would be nice for once to cook for ourselves!  We had brekkie (really good!), and moved to Lucy's, which turned out to be a strange place indeed.  Apparently it's where people stay long term, so she wasn't very happy with us only staying 2 nights.  As far as we could make out, Lucy wasn't very happy at all.  She certainly wasn't very pleasant to us.  We threw our stuff in the room, and discovered someone else's stuff in the bathroom!  Brad said he had seen the staff move suits and clothes out, so we presumed we were being given the use of someone else's room, who was maybe away for the weekend!

After that, we headed out to the market.  We had literally just walked under the roof cover when the heavens opened, and the rain came crashing down.  It was a torrential rainstorm, and we couldn't believe how close we had come to getting washed away!  We had a look around, then pulled up some stools, met Kevin (the manequin), and played cards.  The rain didn't stop, so we jumped in a cab to where the NZ v Oz match was on.The bar didn't open till 4, but they told us to go next door, since it had really good food.  I'm not sure what they meant by that - it certainly smelled like a good bbq, but check out the photos to see what was on the menu.

We headed somewhere else for lunch, and I was delighted to find that on the fruit shake menu (I'm totally addicted, they're so good and so cheap in this part of the world), they had strawberry shakes!!  I asked the waitress if they were made with fresh strawberries, and she assured me they were.  And then I saw her pour strawberry syrup into the blender.  When you ask questions here - will the bus have aircon, how long will it take, does that include the fast boat - the answers are not always based entirely on fact.  If people don't understand you they say yes, and if they don't think you'll like the actual answer, they make one up.  Brilliant.

After lunch, we headed back to the Australian bar, but the drinks were expensive, and the staff weren't that nice.  So we moved to a different one, and settled down to watch the match.  Brad was a bundle of nerves, and Chelsi wasn't much better!  It was a good match, but although the All Blacks were leading the whole way through, Australia managed to snatch it in the end.  Suzanna joined us there, and we all got some food - the world's most awesome pies, and after some begging, some branston pickles!!!  (That was after dragging the kiwis up to the kitchen, explaining that I wanted to show them what Branston was, and feeding it to them from a spoon!)

After much chopping (during which Brad cheated), we jumped in a cab back to Go 2 bar.  We got chatting to a bunch of Australians there, who were lovely, and then Tei and Paul (from My Son) turned up!  There was much craic, and peanuts were involved...

Brad and Chelsi headed back early (even though they promised that they wouldn't!), and Tei, Paul, Joy (whose name wasn't Joy, but I just never heard it properly), Larissa and I headed to another bar called Apocalypse Now. We met the Irish lads from Nha Trang there - Feargal, Kian and their friend. That bar closed, and we all headed to Q bar, which was pretty cool! It reminded me a bit of the Kitchen in Dublin! It was a bit expensive there, so we headed back to Allez Boo bar, where I took up the dj spot! Well not quite, but I did sit with the dj and tell him what to play, and what cds to buy! It was a great night, but a late one - it ended with Tei, Paul and myself at the bar at 6.30, playing cards while Paul had some noodle soup.

Obviously, I was up quite late the next day!  Larissa and I headed out to Pho 24 for some lunch (pho is basically a noodle soup).  That afternoon, we went to the War Remnants museum - that's the new name since they changed it so as not to insult some tourists, it used to be called something like the American and Japanese atrocities museum, or something to that effect.  It was really tough going, with pretty graphic and harrowing photos.  The nice thing though was that for every victim's photos, there was a name, and where they were from, rather than just another mug shot.  Some of the things that happened were really hard to look at, especially the cages, and the Agent Orange after effects.

We met Brad and Chelsi there, and arranged to meet them later that evening for dinner.  We headed back into town, and had a look round some cheaper hotels.  That evening, we went out for 'Larissa's birthday meal' - it was decided that another pie from the Ozzie bar was in order!  After dinner we went for a bit of a wander, and Larissa and Brad had some cake in a fancy-pants restaurant before we headed back to Lucy's.

The next day we checked out, after Lucy had been really rude to Brad about the washing. We went to our breakfast place, and Brad had another look round at hotels - I'm not really sure how he kept getting lumbered with that job! We all got a taxi to the Cambodian Embassy, and arrived there at 11.45 only to find that they closed from 11.30 till 2 for lunch! Two and a half hours?  Did they eat in Cambodia??!!

Brad and Chelsi headed off to DHL to sort out having been robbed by them, and Larissa and I walked round looking for an internet cafe. After looking for an hour, and attracting very many stares for what was a rather low-cut dress that Larissa was wearing, we gave up and headed back to the embassy. Of course we found the internet cafe back where we had started! We spent a while there, and then headed back to the embassy, where we met the other two. Forms filled in, we jumped in another cab back to town. There was more organisation to be done there, so we sorted out tickets and trips, and Brad and Chelsi got some US dollars. You would think the place to do that would be the bank, but apparently they don't sell USD. You have to go to a travel agent, or a jewellers for that. Seriously.

Back to the embassy, picked up our passports, and then went back to the kiwis' room to listen to some music and finish off the wine and 'sparkling red' we had left over from Larissa's birthday.  We sat chatting and listening to music while they packed, since they were heading off to Phnom Penh in the morning.  We headed out for dinner in Milwakees, which wasn't great - my steak was cold, and Brad's burger didn't show up!

After that, we headed back to Go 2 bar, and met up with Tei and Paul, and Feargal and Kian.  There were tears all round when it came to saying goodbye to the kiwis, but they came back five minutes later!!  It was Paul's birthday (at least it was in a few days, but he was leaving the next day), so Tei went off and bought cake and candles - the last burning candle made it into quite a few photos!

We went upstairs, but Larissa left early since we were going to the Cu Chi tunnels the next morning.  I was djing again (maybe that's what I can do when I go home?).  After there, we headed to the bar beside Allez Boo until the early morning, after which Paul decided that it would be a good idea to go to a kareoke bar.  It was about 6 in the morning, of course it was a good idea!  So instead of getting picked up to go on my Cu Chi tunnels trip, I was in a kareoke bar, wanting my bed.  Brilliant.  I finally made it there at about 9, and sleeeeeept.

I woke up around 1, and Larissa got back shortly afterwards.  We had some lunch, and she showed me the really sweet note that Chelsi had left under our door!!  I pretty much spent the evening on the net looking stuff up for the rest of Vietnam, and ran back to the room at about 9 with a wealth of information!  We headed out for dinner, or at least tried to.  Tei had given us the card of a really good place he had been to, so we got some bikes there, but they were closing!  We ended up in a tiny Japanese joint down the road, where the food was great!

The next morning we got up and after breakfast got a taxi to the bus station - not the one we had asked to be taken to, I knew the driver was scamming us!  We took a local bus to the other bus station, and then bought a ticket from one of the dozens fighting for our cash.  We got on our minibus, and we only had to sit for 45 minutes before we were on the move!

The journey was unremarkable, except for a couple of accidents along the way, including a motorbike lying underneath a van - yikes.  Near Can Tho we drove on to a ferry, which was unexpected, and very exciting!  We spoke to a lady on the ferry, who recommended a guest house.  After that, it was a quick hop on the minibus again, and we arrived in Can Tho.