Friday, August 09, 2013

Arriving in Ho Chi Minh City

Sam could be the perfect travelling companion except for one flaw, his total and utter lack of interest in cars and motorbikes.

“Look Sam, a D series Citroen, look Sam an antique Vespa…”

Nothing. Nada, Niente. Completely expressionless face. Looks the other way. Walks off.

I point, I get excited, wow! “Look, look, look.”

Nothing at all.

“But, but, but…”

“I don’t care,” he says, if he even says anything at all and usually it is nothing at all.

Well, here it is 5.30am and we’re up and packed and ready for breakfast at 6am, the taxi at 6.30 and then it is off to De Nang airport, for a flight at 8.45 to Ho Chi Minh City. De Nang is a wasteland, such a crap town, the awfulest of the awful. How it got that way, I’ll never no?

Then it is two days to go and Vietnam is over.

De Nang, where the communist state meets a building site. They look as though they started massive redevelopment program and then they ran out of money, or the GFC hit, or they just lost interest, who knows? There are Gold Coast style resorts and half built buildings and empty blocks of land, kind of dug up and then forgotten, like a child’s sand pit at dusk. As Bette Davis would have said, "What a dump." We've got an hour to wait at the standard issue silver, blue and laminex airport until our plane boards. It is hot, boiling hot at 7am. Oh, that sun, it is out as I head outside to the ashtray. There is just enough time for some strong coffee from paper cups and a couple of ciggies. Sam is nagging me about the ciggies... of course, we have to go through security. Really? Roll of the eyes. Apparently, we have fifteen minutes till boarding. Oops.

Ho Chi Minh City was hot when we arrived, very hot, scolding hot. The air conditioning in the taxi didn’t seem to work, but then, eventually, as we got going it did. We pulled out on to mucky motorways that were ugly and which pretty soon clogged with traffic. There seemed to be all the “Asian Ugly” without any of the “Asian Charm.” Concrete and development and squalor all piled on top of each other, with concrete barriers stopping you crossing from the old to the new. Advertising and wires and car fumes and rubbish and grey as far as they eye could see… all wrapped in a floral face mask so you had a chance to breath. There were cars and trucks and scooters and taxi’s and busses all trying to occupy the same space in the same lane at the same time, with everybody tooting and nobody going anywhere.

Oh, where had we come to? We’d come from my new favourite place in the world – until I travel again – the beautiful Hoi An, which only seemed to highlight the difference.

We struggled through the traffic and eventually turned a city block and turned a city block and turned a city block to our hotel. The foyer was as tacky as the internet had suggested. Our hotel room was half the size that the internet had suggested and it had no window. Cell block Saigon. It had faux-Queen Anne furniture, in brown. It, actually, had granite tiles on the floor, which unfortunately resembled lino.

It was just a little depressing, thus far.

We asked the hotel desk where to eat lunch and they suggested a place in the next street. The food was good, but we felt got ripped off for the first time with the napkins. They placed wet towelletts in front of us without a word, so naturally we ripped open the packets and used them. When the bill came we had been charged for them. Six thousand dong. We were cross. In reality that is 30c, 15c each.

We went to the market, the Ben Thanh Market. It is big and loud. So much landfill, really. There was stuff just everywhere. It was great if you wanted clothes or food. I kind of enjoyed the game, for a while, don’t know why, but I did. We tried to get undies 5 pairs for 100 thousand Dong, we chose the stall with the cutest son. Sam was cheeky, holding the undies up against him suggestively. He said, “Not for me.” Pity. We continued to haggle. We didn’t manage to get them for 100 thousand Dong, though. “No.”

I wanted my gold coconut bowl for twenty thousand Dong. I didn’t get that either. Forty thousand Dong was the lowest they’d drop it to. But, I only wanted it if I got it for twenty, because I didn’t really want it at all, it was just a challenge to see if I could beat them down. (I wish I’d bought it for forty thousand Dong now, $2 instead of $1)

We came back to the hotel for the air conditioning to get out of the heat. Exhausted. (Well, we had got up at 5am)

We walked to the Ho Chi Minh memorial or, at least, that was where we were heading when we got ripped off by a street seller. He captured out attention by offering us directions. Then he helped us across the street. He wanted me to carry his shoulder pole, a favourite trick of the street seller. He produced coconut juice, first one for me, then one for Sam. It was hot, we were disgruntled and we were thirsty. Two coconut juices for 150 thousand Dong. We were tired and we just didn’t think. We should have paid 50 thousand Dong. He saw us coming

We walked to the Notre Dame Cathedral, in the blazing heat. It was closed for another half an hour. We walked over to the post office, which was across the road. Yes, well, it was kind of nice, maybe you’d be impressed with it if you lived in, say, Camoowheal.

We were way unimpressed with Ho Chi Minh City at this point. It seemed like another big, dirty city with few, to no, redeeming features. We didn’t care enough to wait the half an hour for the cathedral to open.

Hotels, museums, memorials, opera houses, Palaces, I’m just not so interested in them, to a point. I like features that make a city unique, I feel you can see cathedrals and museums in any city.

We were heading back to our hotel when we stopped to have Haagen Dazs by the park. I had to talk Sam into it, and besides there was air conditioning. The compromise was that we were going to share a cone, but we ended up ordering a multi flavoured, double stacked waffle creation. And two Vietnamese coffees. It started to rain just as we’d finished our treat. It started to deluge. We had to wait for two hours for it to stop enough that we could walk in it without getting drenched. The people waiting started to pile up. A beautiful English couple, he with his white t-shirt just a little tight across his manly chest, she with her gorgeous face and luxurious long blonde hair. An older, I think, Danish couple, who looked like seasoned travellers with their sensible shoes and small back packs. A couple of young Vietnamese men. A group of highly chic Vietnamese girls who never stopped talking as they sipped their coffees.

Eventually, the rain subsided to a light sprinkle and we walked back to the hotel. Sam photographed the old black Citroen Light 15, I didn’t have my camera with me. Usually, he just looks blankly at me when I enthuse about a car, but this time he didn’t. Yay.

We headed out for dinner. It was still raining. We walked all over, and the place just seemed awful. We kept walking, but there didn’t seem to be anywhere where there were restaurants and people and coffee shops, anywhere nice. And it kept raining. We walked to the opera house. The surrounding shops seemed chic, shiny and lovely, but still there was not much happening. And it just kept raining. We had one umbrella, which barely covered us. We walked passed bars that were behind closed glass doors. We walked through a night food market. I was over being wet, with my damp clothes sticking to me. I was over the rain drip, dripping on me. I was over the broken footpaths and the grime and the shit and just nothing and no where to eat, in the city that is most famous for eating in Vietnam.

I got pissed off. Sam got pissed off. We both came home pissed off. I went to sleep as Sam had a shower to go out for dinner. I didn’t wake up again till the morning. We didn’t eat.

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