Saigon Do's and Don'ts
We have been in southern Vietnam with Derek's sister Sarah and her husband Nathan for 10 days now. It has been great to see family (well, almost-family, in my case) as well as witness Sarah's and Nathan's reactions to some of the hilarious ways of life around here. To us, an entire family on a motorbike is starting to look normal, but compared to life in Seattle, this place is crazy. Here are some of the rules to live by that we came up with:
DO walk slowly and steadily straight into traffic in order to cross the street.
DO NOT expect traffic to stop for you. Rather, they (and by they I mean people on motorbikes, which is 95% of traffic) will go around you.
DO NOT put your seatbelt on in the front seat of a taxi. Our driver last night explained that it is only necessary to do so when there are police around. (He did this by holding his hand up and twisting it, like screwing in a lightbulb. In India, this is the most popular dance move, in Vietnam it is the warning that police are around.)
DO have Vietnamese iced coffee at least once per day. It is made with very strong coffee poured over ice, then add lots of sweetened condensed milk. It tastes like an ice cream milkshake! Nathan, who likes his coffee hot and black [insert lewd reference here], disagrees with this rule. He says it is "cheating".
DO NOT ride on a xe om (motorbike taxi, literally "hugging bike"). Take a metered taxi instead. There are 20 deaths per day due to traffic accidents in Saigon alone. We saw one where the guy on a motorbike had gotten run over by a Mac truck. Not pretty.
DO have clothes made by Hon Mai Silk tailors. The woman in charge there, who is about the size of a ten-year-old, is incredibly sweet and seems to have clothing ESP. Sarah got a beautiful black silk dress with hand embroidered beading on it, as well as some snazzy red silk pants.
DO NOT eat durian ice cream. Durian, a tropical fruit that smells like trash, is what causes most Westerners to hold their noses as they walk down the street here. (Well, it's one of many things.) I am not sure why I thought it was a good idea to try durian ice cream. The waiter actually came over to double check that I wanted it. When it was delivered to my table, everyone turned their heads to find the location of the stink. The bottom line: it tasted as bad as it smelled. The gag reflex kicked in. I couldn't finish it.
DO wear a traditional straw cone hat for sun protection. We thought these were cheesy until were baking in the sun on an open boat in the Mekong Delta. The cone provides shade for your whole face and neck. Plus, the hat only costs $1.
DO NOT trust your hotel reservation, even if you have paid for the room in advance. We returned from the beach to find that the one of the rooms we had reserved was not available. Bummer.
DO book all tours out of Saigon through Happy Tours. Derek and I took their bus from the border with Cambodia, and the woman sang to us on board. I was sold. We used them to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels, the beach, and on a tour of the Mekong River Delta. Plus, with every tour, you get free breakfast, or a free t-shirt or free internet. What more could you want?
DO take a flashlight with you to the Cu Chi tunnels. These are the tunnels that the Viet Cong dug near Saigon to ambush the American troops during the war. Now tourists can crawl through them. Non-claustrophobic tourists, that is. I am not sure how all four of us (we have 6 flashlights between us) forgot to bring a flashlight, but between the darkness and the bats and the crawling it was pretty freaky.
DO NOT believe any time estimates. This goes for most of Asia, but when the traffic is as crazy as it is around here (picture trucks passing other trucks on a 2-lane undivided highway in a traffic jam), you never know how long things will take.
DO NOT buy balloons if you are over the age of 5. I thought it would be cute to greet Sarah and Nathan at the airport with a balloon. We arrived and got many puzzled stares from adults. But the kids were worse; they gazed up at us with these sad, covetous eyes. One mother came up to me, said something in Vietnamese, took one of the balloons, and handed it to her daughter. She was not happy when I asked for it back.
_____
Sarah and Nathan leave tonight on the Midnight Plane to Tokyo. They are taking about half the contents of our backpacks with them, so we can look forward to a much lighter load. Derek and I will head up to Hoi An, in central Vietnam, also by plane. It was either a 17-hour train ride for $38, or a 1-hour plane trip for $55. We decided to splurge. There is so much more to see in Vietnam and only 18 days left in our visa!
DO walk slowly and steadily straight into traffic in order to cross the street.
DO NOT expect traffic to stop for you. Rather, they (and by they I mean people on motorbikes, which is 95% of traffic) will go around you.
DO NOT put your seatbelt on in the front seat of a taxi. Our driver last night explained that it is only necessary to do so when there are police around. (He did this by holding his hand up and twisting it, like screwing in a lightbulb. In India, this is the most popular dance move, in Vietnam it is the warning that police are around.)
DO have Vietnamese iced coffee at least once per day. It is made with very strong coffee poured over ice, then add lots of sweetened condensed milk. It tastes like an ice cream milkshake! Nathan, who likes his coffee hot and black [insert lewd reference here], disagrees with this rule. He says it is "cheating".
DO NOT ride on a xe om (motorbike taxi, literally "hugging bike"). Take a metered taxi instead. There are 20 deaths per day due to traffic accidents in Saigon alone. We saw one where the guy on a motorbike had gotten run over by a Mac truck. Not pretty.
DO have clothes made by Hon Mai Silk tailors. The woman in charge there, who is about the size of a ten-year-old, is incredibly sweet and seems to have clothing ESP. Sarah got a beautiful black silk dress with hand embroidered beading on it, as well as some snazzy red silk pants.
DO NOT eat durian ice cream. Durian, a tropical fruit that smells like trash, is what causes most Westerners to hold their noses as they walk down the street here. (Well, it's one of many things.) I am not sure why I thought it was a good idea to try durian ice cream. The waiter actually came over to double check that I wanted it. When it was delivered to my table, everyone turned their heads to find the location of the stink. The bottom line: it tasted as bad as it smelled. The gag reflex kicked in. I couldn't finish it.
DO wear a traditional straw cone hat for sun protection. We thought these were cheesy until were baking in the sun on an open boat in the Mekong Delta. The cone provides shade for your whole face and neck. Plus, the hat only costs $1.
DO NOT trust your hotel reservation, even if you have paid for the room in advance. We returned from the beach to find that the one of the rooms we had reserved was not available. Bummer.
DO book all tours out of Saigon through Happy Tours. Derek and I took their bus from the border with Cambodia, and the woman sang to us on board. I was sold. We used them to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels, the beach, and on a tour of the Mekong River Delta. Plus, with every tour, you get free breakfast, or a free t-shirt or free internet. What more could you want?
DO take a flashlight with you to the Cu Chi tunnels. These are the tunnels that the Viet Cong dug near Saigon to ambush the American troops during the war. Now tourists can crawl through them. Non-claustrophobic tourists, that is. I am not sure how all four of us (we have 6 flashlights between us) forgot to bring a flashlight, but between the darkness and the bats and the crawling it was pretty freaky.
DO NOT believe any time estimates. This goes for most of Asia, but when the traffic is as crazy as it is around here (picture trucks passing other trucks on a 2-lane undivided highway in a traffic jam), you never know how long things will take.
DO NOT buy balloons if you are over the age of 5. I thought it would be cute to greet Sarah and Nathan at the airport with a balloon. We arrived and got many puzzled stares from adults. But the kids were worse; they gazed up at us with these sad, covetous eyes. One mother came up to me, said something in Vietnamese, took one of the balloons, and handed it to her daughter. She was not happy when I asked for it back.
_____
Sarah and Nathan leave tonight on the Midnight Plane to Tokyo. They are taking about half the contents of our backpacks with them, so we can look forward to a much lighter load. Derek and I will head up to Hoi An, in central Vietnam, also by plane. It was either a 17-hour train ride for $38, or a 1-hour plane trip for $55. We decided to splurge. There is so much more to see in Vietnam and only 18 days left in our visa!
posted by Liz C at 12:15 PM
1 Comments:
Hello Liz and Derek,
enjoy your time in Hoi An. It had been my favourite destination in Vietnam - back in the nineties....
Jochen
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