Orange, Sydney and Saigon

After a very relaxed few days on the Sunshine Coast – not too many other choices, the nightlife isn’t exactly mind-blowing in Caloundra – I headed down to New South Wales. Had a wonderful time there, was fun hanging out with Craig, Sam & the kids in Orange for a couple of nights (though a slight temperature change … snow on the ground and all that), and then a few nights in Sydney.

Spent suitably large amounts of time in a selection of bars, wandered round the city, met some fun new people and caught up with wonderful old friends …… and found myself falling back in love with the place like I do every time I go back there. Great, just what I need. Would it be wrong to move back to Sydney for the third time in eight years, I ask…?

Anyway, despite the warm sunshine, good food and great company that I was enjoying on Saturday, I managed to unwillingly drag myself away from the city and out to the airport via a scenic car & bus excursion to meet up with Deano and catch the nine hour Jetstar special to Ho Chi Minh City. Which I’m going to call Saigon from this point forward, both because the locals do and also because it’s much quicker to type. And because I can. The flight was surprisingly painless and we arrived around 8pm to a balmy 24 degrees and drizzle. The visa issuing process was a little time consuming, but given that we didn’t know if we were even going to get them until a day or two before we flew out, I guess I shouldn’t complain. We’d arranged a pickup at the airport which was kinda cool, I’ve never had anyone holding my name up on a card in the arrivals hall before. Makes me feel all famous. Or something. So off we headed into the city.

Oh. My. God. The traffic in Saigon is just completely insane. Scooters, scooters, scooters EVERYWHERE, transporting everyone and everything from place to place at top speed while avoiding pedestrians, buses, trucks, other scooters, potholes and god knows what else. I’ve never seen anything like it. And I love it. There’s just something about the feeling that you are taking your life in your hands every time you even think about crossing the road. There seems to be about a 1 second window between when a set of lights goes red and when people on scooters start trying to run those lights, so you’ve got plenty of time to get across the street. Ahem. All you need to do is make eye contact with 20 or 30 scooter riders flying towards you, walk purposefully but slowly out into the street, and trust that they will ride around you rather than over you. I’m writing this from the hotel rather than the hospital, so I guess the system works so far…

Right, back to the story. So we go to our hotel, powdered our noses and headed out to explore and find some food – strangely the Jetstar ‘sandwich’ selection wasn’t quite cutting it. Much like New York, enormous progress was made on the exploration front – in this case, perhaps as much as 10 steps to a bar / restaurant that served good food and plenty of cold beer. Problem solved. And despite being in the heart of the backpacker district, as well as the ever present background symphony of car and scooter horns, the hotel room is remarkably quiet so I even got a good night’s sleep. Brilliant.

Today was spent doing the exploring we thought about doing yesterday – after some pho for breakfast and arranging a trip out to the Cu Chi tunnels for tomorrow and a flight to Nha Trang the next day, we hit the streets in earnest to find the War Remnants Museum. Of course, we missed the fine print in the Lonely Planet that advised that it was closed from noon til 1.30pm … and arrived at 12.05. Perfect. The first smatterings of rain were starting to make their presence known as well so we found somewhere to eat and drink (no, not beer … for once) and watch what had now turned into a full scale downpour. I swear that Deano should get a job as a rain dancer … it took maybe five minutes from him saying ‘pah, you call this rain?’ to the heavens well and truly opening. He should move to Australia, could make a fortune…

Once 1.30 rolled around we swam back in the direction of the museum. And here was me thinking I wouldn’t need my flippers until I get to the Greek islands. This museum used to be called the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, so it’s not hard to figure out the general thrust of the displays. Plenty of interesting stuff though, focused mainly on the US war but also making mention of the French, Chinese and various others who have tried – and failed – to invade Vietnam over the centuries. Some pretty graphic photos in some parts – tortured soldiers and civilians, deformed kids due to Agent Orange, etc – but overall, well worth the visit for a couple of hours.

The rain had abated while we were in the museum, but in reality it was saving its best until we were walking back to the hotel. I’m fairly certain I saw a submarine ducking and weaving in and out of the lines of scooters, put it that way. Well, I guess if we choose to visit Vietnam during the rainy season, it’s not exactly unexpected. Hopefully Nha Trang should be a little drier!

So I’m back at the hotel now, thinking about heading out in search of dinner and beer. It might take a little longer than usual to get moving though, as poor little Deano is curled up in bed having a little nap-nap. He tells me that he’s sick with a cold, but I think maybe he’s just getting old. Only time will tell, I guess…