Hot Day In The City

Ugh... was so hot in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). But there were things to see so yesterday I packed my water and trotted off.

First a bunch of us headed out to see the Cu Chi Tunnels where the Viet Cong gorillas dug tunnels for shelter from the US Bombs. Was very interesting to see the propaganda tinged videos and their whole take on the war. Kept referring to the US as "the American Enemy" and had us sit through a brief documentry on the "American Killer Heros" along with a listing of how many they personally killed. I could see that some of the American tourists found this a bit hard to take. But honestly, what did they expect? Hugs and cookies?

Aaanyways, after that we scooted back to the city and dispersed. We didn't have long before the overnight train and everyone had a few things they wanted to get done. I headed straight for the main government post office for two reason: #1 - It's a neat building with wonderfully preserved colonial architecture and #2 - I needed stamps. :D

Most of the buildings in Saigon are a bit of a let down, they're old, moldy, falling apart. And there really isn't any noteworthy architecture to speak off. The exception being a few buildings like the post office left over from the French. The rest are hastily constructed pastel nightmares or stark communist blocks covered in Vietnam's signature flag. But really, the whole communism thing is really kept to a minimum here. Sure you see a few big pictures of "Uncle Ho" (Ho Chi Minh) around the city, but it's not like you're choking on the propaganda here. Hardly notice it at all in the countryside.

Saigon does have one other notable feature. It's telephone/electrical network. This stuff is everywhere! Massive black bundles of cables snaking through the streets resembling either noxious pasta or long strands of matted hair. Absolutely inescapable, it really is everywhere. My god I'd hate to have to fix something if it went wrong! And talk about your fire hazards!

So after a tour of the market to pick up some fruit we romped off to our train. Interesting trip. We were all in the same car and shared berths together. Actually pretty nice. Hell the toilets were nicer than some of the hotels we've stayed in. Didn't sleep much tho. Maybe it was the asian sized beds, the sensation of movement, or a combination of both. I just couldn't stay asleep. Regardless we arrived at 5am in Nha Trang. Now I know I complained about Sihanoukville being a bit souless, but I take that back. Sihanoukville is just trying to make a buck, it has nothing on this place. It is 100% a resort town. Local restaurants are hard to find and off the beach. Shops are extremely high end. I mean... the beach is manicured every morning! Most of the crew headed back to bed when we hit our hotel. But being awake already I thought I'd have a peek around. So I headed off on my own to the beach. Despite the obvious mega money that this place is swimming in it was neat to see the beach in the early morning. However it was far from empty. In fact it was full of locals. My guess is they're all wealthy Vietnamese here for their holidays while the tourists are away (it's not high season here). But the really neat thing is what they're doing at the beach at 5:30am in the morning. Exercising and badminton! While the badminton games looked fierce, the exercising looked more like calisthenics, lots of leg waggling and head nodding. Pretty funny to watch. But there were lots of smile and a few even looked like they were appraising my possible asset to their badminton game. I guess height is a good thing!

But for there rest of the day I think I'll take it pretty easy. I've been fighting a bit of the ol' tummy troubles for a few days now and I think it's finally caught up to me. Time to relax and take it easy. Good thing there really isn't much else to do!