Saigon

Saigon was wonderful – and everything I expected it to be, a large quite modern city with way more than its fair share of motorbikes and scooters adding to the chaos.  It had lovely architecture with a French colonial feel in many places. As we arrived the shops and houses lining the main roads seemed very smart in comparison to their Cambodian counterparts, with signs that were far more intelligible thanks to the latin alphabet introduced to Vietnam by 17th century missionaries. It was pretty late in the evening, but we were nice and relaxed after a smooth border crossing on a comfortable bus that for once dropped us off in the main travellers spot and not a remote bus depot – result! As usual were met by a swarm of our eager touts all trying to persuade us that they had the biggest, newest and best accommodation.  We picked our man and followed him down the street.  It was a good fifteen minute walk by the time we got through a rabbit warren of alleys to eventually find our place.  We were both pretty sticky by this point, as even at night the humidity was still at a high sweating level!  It turned out to be great, the owner and his wife lived on the first two floors, with his young son sleeping on the couch in the lounge which was also the reception!  The top two floors had been recently converted into a series of ensuite rooms.  We had a little balcony from which we could see and hear the daily life of the locals in the alley.  It was wonderful as it felt like we were in the middle of a mainly Vietnamese area, however one of the main tourist streets of Saigon was only a few minutes stroll away.  As we wandered through the alley we observed the families mostly watching TV and cooking, but it looked like everything was conducted out of one room of a house, so there could be many families living in one block.  There was also a 70’s style hairdressers offering the ‘latest’ mullets and a shop selling wonderfully gaudy clothing.


We had split from Chris, who had gone back to Thailand, and Roald and Brian who had caught a later bus, but who were ultimately heading the same way.  In a typical small world fashion who should we meet on our third evening in Siagon but Roald who was having a beer outside his accommodation right next to the cashpoint we had chosen to use!!  We went for a drink and he told us that they had heard about a great water park in Saigon.  We decided to go with Roald and a few of his friends from his hostel.

The trip to the waterpark was a little confusing, our big group had to get two taxis and it turned out that there were two waterparks, each taxi driver having his favourite! After a short while we all managed to arrive at the same place and paid our admission fee.


We had a great day!  Not at all what I would have expected from Vietnam.  It was by the far the biggest water park I had been to, with many different slides, wave machine, rapids and even a zip line!  The slides were so fast I could hardly speak after the first one!  It was quite tame at the beginning and just as I thought the slide was coming to the end and I was relaxing thinking ‘oh that was pleasant’ then the tube opened out and dropped onto a 1 in 2 grade slope and I picked up speed at an alarming rate!!!  At the bottom I just had time to catch my breath when I realised that the top half of my swimsuit was gathered around my neck and I had a very amused lifeguard smirking away!!!

We had lots of fun racing each other on mats, and another fun slide called the Twisterbowl which dropped you into a funnel which you slid round and round on before dropping through the hole.  I now know what it feels like to be a spider in a plug hole!!!  By the end of the day Rob had created a hole in his swim shorts from the friction of all the slides! We could have been anywhere in the world, and maybe not a cultural experience but a great one nevertheless.



Another thing to mention in this section is our experience of the Durian fruit.  It had been everywhere during our travels during south east Asia, we had obviously arrived during the peak season.  The main thing to say about ‘the king of fruits’ is that it stinks.  Not in a nice way either.  People actually compare the stench that this fruit gives off to rotting meat!  We had seen signs in hotels which showed a picture of a fruit with a large cross through it – they were obviously not welcome everywhere!  We had seen it in all the countries we had visited so far piled up in the back of pickup trucks.  Each seller only had a weighing scales and a knife, and you could buy the whole fruit or a section of the pale insides.  It was relatively expensive for a SE Asia fruit, and the more times we walked past it the more times I thought I should give it a go – there must be some reason why people eat this fruit and give such a regal title.  So as we were passing one of the many stalls we stopped and bought a portion.  I held my breath (so I couldn’t smell how bad it was) and bit into the soft stringy flesh.  It was disgusting, repulsive, sickening, abhorrent and as many more of those adjectives as you care to think of!  The best way I can describe it is as a slightly sweet rotten cabbage flavour. Mmmmmmm tasty!  Rob was equally unimpressed by the experience, so we decided to give what was left of it to the hostel owner, who turned round to us and said he felt exactly the same way as us about it – but his niece would be very grateful.  We had obviously stumbled on the Marmite of the fruit world!