Ho Chi Min

We caught the lovely 2am sleeper bus from Mui ne and passed out, waking up at 6am in busy Siagon.

Tierd, dazed and confused, we stumbled into a taxi and made our way to Lonely Planet's pick place to sleep.

Maddame Cuc

What a delightful stay we had here. There was no room ready at 6am so they offered us a free breakfast. This included a huge baguette, strawberry jam, endless plates of banana's to munch on and a much needed Vietnamese coffee.
I took it upon myself to squish the banana's into my baguette with the strangely pink jam for a delicious fill.

The view from our hotel balcony in Ho Chi Min

We were given the one option left, the very top room with a balcony!

The steep climb up the never ending stairs was not so great in the humid heat but it was so rewarding to have a view of the busy street below.

Peter and I were going to start the recommended Lonely Planet walking tour in the intense heat and humidity. We walked for about 15minutes and were drenched in sweat and couldn't read the map due to fatigue. Under these circumstances, we contimplated giving up and finding the closest place with cool beers.

It was at this moment that a little man with his Rickshaw came over to ask to give us a tour of the city. The price looked excellent upon first glance and so we agreed.

four hours later and after seeing almost all of Siagon, we realized we were each paying that great price per hour! It ended up being $12 each! oh my.

they were pretty fantastic though and we made ourselves feel better by saying we were simply contributing to the locals and making a huge difference in their lives.

It was ironic that we decided to travel this way, considering we had been making fun of every lazy-looking tourist we saw sitting comfortable in rickshaws while skinny drivers struggled to lug their load.

We had officially become 'those tourists' and we possessed no shame about it!

so for $12 we saw two Chinese pagodas, China town and two very famous and equally boring markets that did not sell anything of interest to us. We only saw one Vietnamese Buddhist temple and the rest of the time I was confused that we had somehow crossed the border and had made it into China.

I was delighted to try one of these cold treats the school kids were so very found of. We sat down on the little plastic chairs ready to enjoy, when all of a sudden....the police came buy and the women at the stalls all around us (including ours) started frantically packing up shop and grabbing our chairs out from underneath us! We thought maybe a bomb was about to go off in the city and they got pre-warning or something. It was amazing how quickly all of these thriving shops disapearred and we were left standing with our glasses half empty, trying to make sense of the situation.

Alas, we did and the police left. The ladies unpacked their shops as fast as they had packed them up, gave us a giggle about the whole ordeal and insisted that we sit back down to finish our 50 cent drink.

Hair cut and shampoo for $5

In Vietnam, $5 gets you an hour head massage with shampoo and conditioner, a facial and sliced cold cucmbers placed all over your face. After this luxourious treatment, you get your hair cut.

In my case, I had three girls blow drying my hair and fussing over me all at once!

Do I wish I lived in Vietnam? silly question!

We ended the day (our one day in Siagon) with our free dinner at our hotel (Pho and spring rolls) and then sat on our balcony and had the last of the SoJu Peter had kindly brought from Korea.

We went out later for beers around the corner from where we were staying and a massive wave of de ja vue. It felt exactly like Khoa San Road but maybe what it was 10 years ago. It was packed with tourists, cheesy American bars and clubs. We enjoyed our seats on the main street watching the bustel of people from all over the world.

Every evening Peter and I would pick up some known and unknown fruit to cut up and devour every morning. There were so many fruits we enjoyed that we don't know the name of.

I wish I could eat tropical fruit for this price every morning!

Mangosteen-If there's 7 on the outside...

There are 7 on the inside!