Hectic Sai Gon town
Good Morning Vietnam, well if only that was the case, I
arrived in
Ho Chi Minh (Sai
Gon) from Bangkok at around 7pm and
shared a Taxi with a cool French guy who had travelled a fair
bit. We were happily exchanging travel experiences when out of
nowhere I felt like I had been repeatedly punched in the stomach
and had the headaches from hell. Thankfully I was nearly at my
hotel, I was feeling awful, very faint and dizzy and all I
wanted to do was be sick. This is not the start you need in any
new city but especially not HCMC. I will spare you all the
hideous details but I will say this has surpassed any illness
I’ve had to date, I got very intimate with the bathroom and the
porcelain throne for 3 days solid, or liquid as the case may be
(sorry to much detail!)
You may be interested in:
►►► Trips from Sai Gon
►►► Visit Mekong delta
After being forced to move from my bed because the hotel was
fully booked I made it to another hotel and I think it did me
some good, it forced me to get some food on the way to the new
hotel and I think this helped start the recovery process, I have
no idea what it was I’m guessing food poisoning but thankfully
after 3 more days I began to come back to life and was eating
normally again. It makes you realise certain things you miss
from home when you are unwell, like a car, a big supermarket and
friend and family to help out, something’s are simply
priceless!
Anyway enough about that, I was planning to be in HCMC for 4
days and basically 3 of them were spent inside a hotel room so
not a good start. I decided to stay an additional day to explore
but I still wasn’t feeling the best so didn’t do all that I
wanted. This city has to been seen or experienced to be
believed. I have simply never seen as many motor bikes on the
road in my life and there appears to be no rules, if one side
of the road is busy or blocked you just use the other side and
the other vehicles will have to react to it. I saw several
accidents whilst I was there and was doing my best not to be
involved in one of them. It can take 10 minutes to cross the
road at times the stream of traffic is endless and added to this
I was feeling dizzy and faint so I felt like a walking target.
Ho Chi Minh city is just way too busy for my liking and I didn’t really
enjoy my time there, again I guess my state of health and some
bearing on this but even so this place has too much noise and
chaos for me, you don’t get the chance to relax its sensory
overload to the extreme.
Although the city itself was not for me there were a couple of
points of interest here, one being the war remnants museum. I
well openly confess I’ve never been a history buff and my
knowledge of most things historical is limited. But the museum
here was fantastic, it was not super modern or fancy in fact it
is very basic, but the simplistic graphic representation of the
war between the North and the South with the heavy involvement
of the US was a real eye opener. I think most people left there
with dropped jaws at the horrific events that took places and it
really hits home just how recent it was. I never really
appreciated the effects of Agent Orange and the vast numbers of
bombs that were dropped and still so many that are unaccounted
for. It was humbling to hear so many American’s walking round
and being out spoken in the fact they felt embarrassed to be
American and really didn’t feel comfortable being there. It’s
difficult to explain to much more about the museum because I
think the feelings it leaves you with are the overriding memory
I will take away from here, but if you
visit Sai
Gon you really
must add this to you list of
places to visit.
You may be interested in:
►►► Travel to Ninh Binh
►►► Sapa train booking
On my final day here I visited
Cu Chi Tunnels and the
Cao
Dai Temple on a tour. The Cu Chi tunnels were used by the South
to outwit or retreat from their enemies during the war, the size
of them are tiny, I went through an enlarged section for
tourists and it was very uncomfortable for the 100m I went along
for, these tunnels were 60cm x 80cm and went on for miles
without any lighting or ventilation, I can only imagine what it
must have been like for real, but it appears they were a very
useful asset because the Americans could not fit down them, to
many burgers I guess! I also got to do something I was really
looking forward to as well, firing an M16!!! You could select
from all manner of different guns ranging from a simple rifle to
a fully automatic machine gun. The only problem being is it
wasn’t all that cheap and 10 bullets in a machine gun would have
lasted about half a second so I went for a quick go on the M16
instead, I loved it! It was so bloody noisy, I have no idea how
you could fire one of those all day long and not go deaf but I
guess that’s the least of your worries in an actually combat
situation.
My final stop on the tour and in HCMC was a beautiful temple
called Cao Dai temple well it was actually 50km’s outside of
the city but you know what I mean, the temple is located in a
holy city and is one of the very few places around the world
were 4 religions practice together in harmony without fighting
and conflict. I couldn’t begin to tell you what the ceremony I
saw was about because I had no idea and our guide didn’t know
either, at least his was honest I guess. But basically the
different colours worn here represent the different religious
groups and it’s only the people at the very top who wear the
different colours, everyone else wear’s white. The outside of
the temple was a mix of architecture from the four religions. It
was an interesting mix but it seemed to work and made for a good
bit of tourist spectator sports.
My time in HCMC was disappointing, of course because I was ill
but also because I didn’t really click with the place, it’s just
too chaotic for me and you are never able to relax or sleep. The
noise from the bikes and the nonstop use of the horn could work
well in a concentration camp I’m sure, it nearly made me want to do something crazy! But like all cities and towns it does
have its good points so don’t miss it out if you head to Vietnam
and it also makes you realise how special the other areas are in
the country as I’m about to discover.
You may be interested in:
►►► Ethnic Travel Vietnam
►►► Vietnam short tours
