Vietnam: 03/16/05

This map is pretty bad. But you get an impression. We traveled from the South up North.

SAIGON:

Before we left for Vietnam we were told that Saigon is a loud city with crazy traffic that would give us a culture shock.
Although traffic - meaning motorbikes, busses, cyclos, bicycles, taxis and very few normal cars - was heavy, crossing the road without being run over hard to get used to and the air full with the noise of the 4 million motorbikes (Saigon has around 7-8 million inhabitants and 4 million motorbikes) we really enjoyed Saigon.
As it was our first stop in Vietnam we chose to stay in a small (and very skinny) hotel in the more upscale part of the city.
HoChiMin, as it is usually referred to, is a nice mixture between French colonial architecture, modern buildings and the bustle and chaos of a South Asian city. Instead of taking public transport we hiked all around town in order to take in as much as possible. We made a walking tour through the main part of the city, visited markets and the Chinese quarter, got an hour long traditional Vietnamese massage, looked at temples and pagodas, spent an afternoon at the zoo/botanical gardens and had great food in little restaurants and cafes.

View from our hotel. This was the first sight of Saigon in daylight. It was sunny and breezy and felt like vacation!

Saigon, or HoChiMinh, as the locals call it, is a mixture of modern architecture...

... and the bustling chaos of an Asian city.

We arrived a few days after Tet (Lunar New Year), so there were flags still out everywhere. The Vienamese celebrate for about a week and everything is suddenly more expensive or even closed down.

Huge trees!

Ben Thanh market. Lots of knock off stuff, shoes, food, with a good fruit market in back. Huge rats too!!

Crossing the street was a joy in Vietnam. Especially Saigon and Hanoi. More so in Saigon as it was new to us.

You just slowly walk into traffic. The trick is to not panic and run. Just go slow and pray they adjust their path accordingly.

Who's your uncle? (Post office)

Notre Dame of Saigon.

Saigon is beautiful at night (city hall).

In Cholon, Chinatown of Saigon, everything is about dragons.

A mosque in Cholon.

Our first pagoda (or was it a temple? Never quite figured out the difference). We took tons of pictures of this one, not knowing that we would see 100 more (and nicer ones) on our trip!

We spent a Sunday afternoon at the zoo/botanical garden. The locals seem to like hanging out outdoors. Especially lots of families. The cool thing was, that we were the only tourists and it was nice to see the locals doing "their thing".

Everything turns into parking for the motor bikes.

Little Schnappies.

Oliphant!

Check out the antlers!

It is ok to hug trees. This is an African Mohogany.

Pretty lady in the Saigon Botanical Garden

Nice hammer and sickle.

The Vietnamese version of CHiPs?

Had to try the cyclo (Xe-Clo). Not a bad way to get around, but not for me when cabs are so cheap.

Some more wild traffic pics!

People like to cruise around especially at night. Their way of evening entertainment?

Traffic lights are almost non existant.

At what point do these people say "Honey don't do that with the kids, it wouldn't be safe..."

???

MEKONG DELTA:

We took an overnight group trip to Mekong Delta. There are lots of tour companies in the backpacker area basically offering the same thing, so it was hard to chose or actually see a difference in service. When we asked what the difference was, we always heard the same sentence which should follow us through our whole trip: same same, but different. Anyway, we had a good size group with nice people and a pretty funny guide. On the first day we took a boat trip on the main river and some smaller canals, visited a honey farm and a coconut candy factory, where the whole process from squeezing the coconut juice up to wrapping the finished candy was done manually.
Unfortunately the rest of the first day did not go quite as expected: one part of our group was only on the 1-day trip and took the bus back to Saigon, whereas we were supposed to join another group and go on another 3 hour bus ride further into the delta. We ended up waiting at a beautiful garden for almost 2 hours in order to be crammed into a mini bus with 14 other people, normally seating 12. The trip took 5 hours instead of 3 as traffic is so slow!
The funny thing was, that when we finally arrived at the hotel pretty much everybody from any other tour company stayed there for the night and left for the exact same itinerary the next day.
The second day was a lot of fun, with hours of cruising through the scenic delta.
The drive back to Saigon was alright and a lot shorter. Although this trip made us realize that Vietnamese people do things differently (very inefficiently at times) and that we as tourists have to learn patience, we can look back on a very fun 2-day trip.

Our second day of the Mekong Delta trip- (on the first one we had forgotten our camera). A day of cruising the small and big arms of the Mekong River, stops at the floating market and little factories.

We visited a ricenoodle factory. The dough is baked into "pancakes".

Here they lay out to dry. Once they are dry they are being cut into strips.

Our second day of the Mekong Delta trip- (on the first one we had forgotten our camera). A day of cruising the small and big arms of the Mekong River, stops at the floating market and little factories.