Through the Mekong to the Old City of Saigon

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The drive from Chau Doc to Ho Chi Min City (better known as Saigon) was wonderful. Everyone in Vietnam lives either along the road or the river, so we got to see a whole lot of local life as we drove through. Some areas were so green that this desert girl didn’t want to blink and miss a second of it. The most picturesque were the farmers in traditional conical hats working the rice paddies, or the same hats skipping across the river on log bridges to their homes.

My favorite site, however, were all the school kids going home for lunch. There’s a huge population explosion in Vietnam, and they have so many kids that school is run in a morning and afternoon session. All the students wear uniforms representing traditional dress. Apparently a lot of family fights revolve around the little triangle on the side seam of the top – some girls like it a little higher, to let a tiny bit of skin peak out, which of course their fathers disapprove of. I was impressed that they managed to keep them so white.

The Vietnamese have an obsession with mopeds. Besides mass transportation and large trucks, there are very few four-wheeled cars on the roads. In the smaller towns people rode bicycles; in the larger towns, it was motorcycles everywhere. Rest stops lined the road, usually with a place to park bikes, and then hammocks set up in the shade so you could have a drink and relax for a few hours.

For the ferry crossings, we had to get off our bus and walk onto the ferry. On the way were all kinds of interesting street foods packaged in palm leaf boxes. Most of it was pickled meats and veggies with rice in a separate box, or breads made with all kinds of sweets. They also sold watermelons and pineapples already cut up and ready to eat – so healthy.

I really enjoyed a trek through somebody’s house to use their toilet. They charged a few dong, and you got to see how they really lived. Compared to the Cambodians, they had a lot more stuff – electronics, furniture, cooking supplies, toys. Most of the country was still using squat toilets, however, although a lot of the houses had nice porcelain models.

You can’t actually drive through the Delta region without taking ferries. We took three along the route to Ho Chi Minh City. We passed tons of other ferries, water taxis, fishing boats and the floating markets.

Saigon was a typical city, with lots of poverty and a few really luxe areas. There were an awful lot of solidly middle class areas as well – more so than I’m used to seeing in American cities. We dropped our bags off at the hotel and left for a cyclo tour of the city.

Cyclos are really tall bicycles, kind of like the ones you see clowns ride in the circus, that push a comfy big seat in a cart on the front. The ride was exciting as we were almost run over or involved in head-on collisions every minute! With all the motorcycles completely ignoring any traffic rules, the occasional truck, and bicycles and cyclos weaving in between them all it’s amazing there weren’t accidents lining the roads.

On our tour, we stopped at the French Colonial buildings: the Opera House, the Old Post Office, and the oldest Catholic Church in the country, Notre Dame. The guide also pointed out all the hotels that were used during the war, and we ended the tour at Reunification Hall, formerly known as Independence Palace, where the NLF crashed through the gates and won the war, uniting the country under Communist rule.

We spent the evening wandering the streets of the backpacker district, drinking beer and eating more of the wonderfully fresh Vietnamese cuisine.

The next morning marked the end of our tour. Sara and I headed over the Market to spend the rest of our dong. We found some Vietnamese grown coffee and each bought a pound of the Weasel Roast – it’s actually pretty tasty. We also found a great painting of the schoolgirls in their traditional dress. It took us a while to barter for this – in the end, we ended up paying in Vietnamese Dong, Cambodian Real, Thai Baht and a dollar or two – I think it only cost about $5 in the end.

That afternoon we boarded a flight back to Bangkok on Thai Airways. I had the best airplane meal ever, and this was in coach.