Ho Chi Minh City

The journey from Phenom Penh was surprisingly effortless, the bus wasn't great, but again it was a real bargain (only $6) and we left early morning and arrived mid afternoon after going through customs at the Vietnam/Cambodia border.


The bus dropped us off in the cheap hotel area of town. We wandered around looking at a variety of places until we found somewhere for $8/night in the oh so amusingly named "Dung Hotel". We still laugh about it now.


The next day we went exploring around the centre of town. Somewhat confusingly the larger city is called Ho Chi Minh City, however the central region is still called Saigon. Walking around is quite a challenge as you are constantly being hassled by street traders trying to get you to take a ride on their motos, or selling you books, sun glasses or whatever else they have. Whether you are walking down the street or sitting in a restaurant having your dinner you seem to be fair game! It's hard to cope with this constant onslaught and on one or two occasions I told the exactly where to stick their chewing gum. Now, deep breaths, count to ten...


We took a look in the Ho Chi Minh museum (one of a number that contains information about the war). All of the museums are (understandably) quite biased and anti-American. But it's interesting to get a non-western slant on things.


The next day Lianne got her wish and we went to one of the three big water parks in HCMC. Lots of big slides and chutes, etc, etc... I think she enjoyed herself at least.


That evening we went to the Rex hotel garden bar up on the 6th floor with views across one of the boulevards (Vietnam was under French control until 1954 and it has a slight French feel to the place). We had a couple of 'expensive' drinks (still only $6 for two) and watched the world go by.


We had planned to leave by train up north to Nha Trang, but we couldn't get a booking so a nice overnight bus was the alternative. That was due to leave at about 7:30pm so we had the day to wander around. We went for a walk along the 'waterfront', which I thought would be nice but was actually a 3m high metal fence for most of the way, not very picturesque at all!

On our way to (another) museum Lianne noticed a sign for a badminton tournament that was being held. It was sponsored by a company called "Robot", so it was the "Robot Badminton Challenge". Lianne's a bit dumb so thought it was robots playing badminton! (It's true, she did). Wanting to see some robot badminton players we wandered into the hotel where we discovered that it was only people playing, however Lianne knew a few of them and called one of them (Tracey Hallam) up. She popped down for a quick drink but couldn't stay for long as she was playing latter that afternoon. Lianne decided she'd like to go see her play so we wandered down the road to where the games were being played. After bluffing our way in without paying (we were both players and we left our passes in the hotel) we watched a couple of games and chatted to a few of the players. Lianne was very happy with herself for this.

The museum we went to before watching the badminton was the "War Remnants Museum", this had some very graphic displays on the impact the war had on the Vietnam, in particularly the impact of Agent Orange on the locals.

After spending a day wandering around in the sweltering heat (had I mentioned it's hot here), we were both good and sweaty. The perfect way to start a 12 hour bus trip...