Tales From a Female Traveller

Gooooood Mooooring Vietnaaaaaam!!!!!!

http://au.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-a6zLd1M9bqXYFufi8VqDDClTLg--?cq=1

Or, afternoon as it were when we arrived in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) from Phnom Penh in Cambodia. From the moment you arrive in Ho Chi Minh it's hustle and bustle all the way. The traffic is just incredible.. honestly, if you think you've seen traffic... stand on the sidewalk of a main road in Ho Chi Minh city and TRY to cross the road.. I dare you.
Funny about the road rules in South East Asia.. there AREN'T any. Basically, small yields to big.. which means if you are on foot.. YOU yield to everything. If you DO dare and cross the road do so slowly, keeping an eye on the oncoming traffic and shuffle your way into the chaos.... instincts tell you to run.. because that's what you'd do in Sydney.. or (god forbid).. in our wondering "city" of Gosford.... and you can honestly try your luck.. chances are though if you DO run you'll be hit by a moto in less than a second... and there's nowhere to run to either, because once you're IN the traffic... you are literally IN it... once you step off th curb there's absolutely no turning back.
I liked Ho Chi Minh, and it's a pity that me being sick forced us to skip catching the train to Hanoi because it would have been great to see more of the Vietnamese countryside... it just wasn't to be however.
There's actually so much to do in Ho Chi Minh that it's pretty easy to fill a day, especially if you're walking. B and I decided to do the walking tour that the Lonely Planet recommends and it turned out relatively well, except that the Palace was closed for some kind of worldly meeting adn we decided to skp the zoo and botanical gardens after we'd walked ALLLLL the way there because the entrance fee was too high, and I wasn't sure I was ready to see animals behind bars. There was a protest going on at the Palace, we could't get information on what it was and I was ushered away by a policeman.. my instincts were telling me to get out my camera and start shooting but I didn't want to have to pay off more cops and I was too tired to make a run for it after he caught me taking illegal photos... so I refrained...
We visited the War Museum.... which was actually pretty interesting for the most part. A lot of the museum focuses on the Vietnam war and is told through photography, so I took a special interest and made sure I looked at every photo and read every caption. A lot of photo journalists, including some Aussies were killed or went missing in action and their photographs are of particular showcase here. I'd like to find out more about one woman photojournalist who dared to venture into the hot zone and eventually got killed for it. I'll never forget the photo of her laying on her stomache after being fatally wounded in cross fire while a priest reads her her last rights... it's just so surreal, standing there looking at an actual, real life photograph of a person in their last moments... and inspiring person too. So... I took more time than I usually would at this museum because of my interst in the subject matter.. B got pretty bored and I found him outside sitting down with a drink waiting for me.
The rest of the museum is filled with tanks and planes and other such war machines and there's even a guillotine.. fun that one... and a replica of the cages they kept prisoners of war in. There's a whole section dedicated to Agent Orange... photo's of kids with deformities... the story of twins born connected at their wastes... (like catdog) and how they now live after being successfully separated.
It's very strange to walk around these museums that fill the tourist routes around South East Asia and realise that all their main museums focus on war, not culture, not history, not natural history.. war... we are so used to art and culture museums that it's easy to forget that wars actually happened, and unless you visit the War Museum in Canberra, it's easy to brush over it. yet here.... it's so prevailent. War is everywhere... in the photography, in the bookstores, at the temples, you can't escape it. I have never truly known war. Sure... there's a few of them going on right now that Australia is involved in... but us.. as normal people.. have never known "war". And that's something to think about when you meet people from South East Asia, most of them in their life times have experienced war first hand... and it's hard not to wonder in places like Vietnam and Cambodia when you look at or speak to the older people.. were they in the war? Did they keep prisoners of war? Were they in the Khmer Rouge? Or were they victims? And the fact of the matter is.. you just don't know... war is everywhere... but you never ask about it. It's never actually spoken about. You just learnt hat it happened. It's personal yet so objective.
After a few good hours at the museum we decided to leave, those types of places just drain you. So we ended up going back to the main backpacker area where we were staying and decided to do a bit of shopping. B and I both bought those famous conical hats the Vietnamese wear and we were told so many times how great we looked. I bought two silk dresses too, one for my Mother and the other for myself and was showered with flattery at how "beautiful" I was.. I'm not sure what these Vietnamese define as beauty, but I sure as hell don't call a sweat covered, stinking and dishevelled backpacker remotely pretty.... nice people though.
Now, the other thing you simply MUST do besides buy a conical hat while you're in Vietman... is experience a classic form of transport. Yep, you guessed it... a ride on a rickshaw... I felt SOOOO sorry for my driver because I must have been so heavy... but there's something so nice about being peddaled around in peak hour traffic... that's VIETNAMESE peak hour traffic... that I just loved every second of it. Sure we looked like rediculous tourists... but who cares right... when in Saigon...
B and I even watched Superman at a really nice Coffee House... I had to sit on the floor because there weren't enough couches but I was fine with that.
All in all... in the short time we were there.. I really liked Vietnam. The people, the traffic and the food.

posted by Lucyspeak @ 9:22 pm