Saigon

Picture shows my room mate in Saigon... Only kidding. I was really tired yesterday after getting the nightbus from Ha Tien to Ho Chi Minh city. It took 7 hours, and I didn't really sleep on it. When I arrived I had no idea where I was, took a taxi to the Phu Ngam Lau area which is basically the tourist area. Staing at the Ngoc Minh guesthouse, which is off a narrow street from the main road. Today I took a walk round the city. Although it is heavily built up and there are thousands of bikes, there are also some quite nice parks. The traffic is not totally chaotic, there are a lot of one-way streets and traffic lights that even the motorbikes obey. When crossing hte road you just have to wait for a small break in the traffic and go for it, helps if there's a local crossing too. I got asked a lot whether I wanted a motorbike or my shoes shined but after Bangkok and Siem Reap I'm used to it, don't make eye contact and keep walking. It felt rude intially to ignore people but it gets very tiring saying no thanks to everyone you pass.

I went to see the War Remnants Museum. Outside are some models of tanks and planes used by the US army. The picture is from a reconstruction of prison cells used to detain suspected VC sympathisers. There are some barbed wire "Tiger" cages that looked particularly gruesome, and images of tortured victims with teeth pulled out, nails driven into their heads and so on. Most of the displays inside detail what the US forces and their allies got up to during the war. The worst bit was the pictures of children which are thought to have been born malformed due to agent orange. There was a photo of a woman selling fruit, even when the villages where being bombed people were still trying to go about there normal lives.

After that I went round the Independence Palace, which did not have much in it but it wasn't much to get in (less than a dollar). Mainly some stately rooms and some phoney set ups of war rooms and communications rooms and so on. After that I just walked around, seeing the Notre Dam cathedral, Post Office and a quick look in Saigon Square, a very busy mall packed with clothes shops (mostly women's clothing so hundred of teenage girls - scary stuff). I found a vegetarian restaurant which was ok, portions very small though so I had two meals. They charged me for using the towel which was placed on my table, so I'll have to watch out for that in future. Tomorrow I go north, hopefully find my way to Hoi An.

over.