About 60 seconds later, I noticed the sea of motorcycles. Looking out of the taxi, I could see that there were about six other cars in sight on the road, and about three hundred thousand motorcycles all driving on top of each other. I drive a motorbike in Bangkok and so I figured on renting one here in Saigon, but after seeing the traffic and they way they drive, I changed my mind. Motorcycle Taxi's would have to do. Theres no way I'm playing bumper bikes with this two wheeled hoard of crazies!
The cab stops and I look around for the Hotel Thuy Thangy or wherever it is that I am staying but I see nothing. The cabbie tells me "You out here." I look again, see nothing of a hotel and ask where it is. Again "You out here", to which I involuntarily reply "the fuck you say." He points me at a dark alley next to an abandoned high rise project with plastic sheets for walls, "You go there." So out I go, the cab leaving me behind almost before I could close the door. I am realizing that showing up in Vietnam at night time was probably my first mistake. Being the only white guy with a backpack headed for the dark alley, I might as well have had a big neon bulls-eye on my back. I see light from an open door and head in, all the while cursing airport security for not allowing me to travel with the knife that is religiously clipped to the inside of my front pocket. The place was kinda shitty and looked nothing like a hotel. I cleared my throat and called "hello !" and someone immediately came down the stairs and threw me out of their house, all the while pointing farther down the alley and yelling "Hotel over there!" and saying lots of other indecipherable things that I will only assume were Vietnamese curse words. This alley is like a funnel, growing smaller and tighter until I'm walking sideways to get between the parked motorcycles that have been crammed into it. Here I find the "Hotel", I get my key and head up to my room.
I remember the advert for the hotel said there was a minibar in the room, I found it, and it was fully stocked.
So off I went into the night, in search of beer and adventure. I had pre-decided that this would probably turn out to be a vegetarian weekend for me because I know they like to eat dogs over here. If they were willing to fry up man's best friend, theres no telling what else you might find on your plate. I tried and tried to cross the street but I just could not manage to make it against the sea of motorcycles. I found a video of a kid crossing the street in Vietnam, let this be an example of what it was like for me (only on a friday night). I think you will find it to be quite an eye opener!
A few hours later I'm across the street, in a bar pretending to watch the soccer game like all the other dudes and enjoying some cold "Tiger" beer. I still stick out like a sore thumb but I'm not going to appear concerned about it in any way, although discreetly my situational awareness is buzzing something akin to spiderman. Three beers in and suddenly my vision is filled with the image of a long legged asian man in short shorts and a frilly tank top standing WAY to close to me. If these shorts were cut any higher, you might mistake them for a belt. He is shaking his ass in my face and waving some money all the while bobbing his head in a "yes yes" motion and smiling at me wildly. Again my hand wanders to the knife and the knife's not there. I am pondering the notion of what will happen to me should I have to whack this guy in the melon with my beer bottle. The other men have a slight look of disgust but they are ignoring the show, so I follow suit and keep my eyes on the flat screen tv and the soccer game going on up there. A few more disco moves and finally the bartender takes pity on me and barks some thing sharp resulting in the micro shorts man moving on to bother someone else.
All in all it was a good evening, good beer, and a good soccer game. It would have been better to have watched some American football of course, but I do support soccer and many other women's sports.
Back at the "Hotel" around midnight, lying on the bed when some caring person came and made sure my door was locked. I was just thinking of sleep when I heard the door knob turn and creak. The would be guest found the lock to be working and decided to leave. Perhaps this was the same person that climbed to the third floor to check the locks on my window several hours later. I didn't get much sleep but I did take in alot of Vietnamese television. I was refreshing to see television that was so much more progressive then Thailand TV. I expected the media to be very restrictive, but it was alot more free then what I see on the tube back in Bangkok. In fact in most ways the Vietnamese culture shows much more progress then the Thai. On the flip side of that coin, the Vietnamese are also much more rude and even threatening at times, in Thai being polite and showing respect is an important part of the culture. I grabbed a shower around sun up, managing not to touch any electrical wires that were protruding into the tub. It was the hottest water I have had in three months and I stayed until the entire bathroom was a steamy mist.
The room had a view of a hotel that I really should have stayed at, but if you look down onto the metal roofs of the shanty's below, you can imagine the dark alleys that wind through them, and me trying to find my way the night before.
The room did come with this bit of art on the wall:
And this masterpiece on another wall:
In the morning I asked the hotel "clerk" the location of a museum nearby and she made a map for the motorcycle taxi driver, who in turn looked at the map and hauled me off deep into the city. He dropped me off and of course there was no museum to be found. I was now in some random place in the city but that really doesn't matter does it? I started my trek and walked wherever the wind pointed me until I was dripping with sweat. Here's a few of the things I saw while wandering about:
Finally I stumbled across this brewery and I knew that I had found my spot to rest until it was time to catch my plane.
Here is where they brew a euro-beer called "Lion". It was pretty good beer and there were several foreigners like myself enjoying a brew here. A couple of Australians came to sit by me and tell me all about how much the Vietnamese people hate Americans and how they were surprised that I was even let into the country at all. Then they went on to tell me all of their anti American jokes and such. In the end it turned out the worst people I met in all of Ho Chi Minh City were these two assholes from Australia. Just as they had run out of jokes and insults these two fat white women arrived (who I assume were Mrs. asshole number one and two) and told the Aussie guys when, where, and how to sit, and marched their men off to some table closer to the buffet. With those two out of my hair it was back to the business at hand.
The beer was tasting better and better and the air conditioning was a blessing. Lion Brewery, next time I am in town, I'll be back to see you again !
Wandered around a bit more until it was time to head to the airport. It really didn't matter to me that I had no idea of where I was at, I knew all would be fine with a taxi and the words "international airport". I flagged my cab and hopped in with my instruction and away we went. It only took a minute or two to realize that this driver was hopped up on meth or crack or speed or possibly all of the above. He was a mess to observe sitting idle in traffic, but being as whacked out as he was sitting idle was not really an option for him, he'd drive with two wheels on the sidewalk if he had to, just to keep go go going ! It was a blessing in disguise, the traffic could have really held us back, especially in a car (with air conditioning woohoo!) but this crackhead race car driver was relentless and just kept pushing and pushing and honking and honking while the sea of motorcycles slowly parted before him. I should have asked him if he had a business card. I could use a nut case like him next time I am in Saigon.
Waiting in the airport the sky went from light to dark in a matter of minutes as a monsoon like storm came in and dropped enough water to literally flood the tarmac. I took this picture because I was alarmed at how fast the daylight disappeared. About 10 minutes after this shot everything outside the window was under about two inches of water.
I really thought that leaving Bangkok on this little 24 visa/boarder run I would be experiencing the full on third world living that is Saigon. As I ride the train back home to my neighborhood in Suan Luang, I realize that it is Bangkok that has its gears gummed up in a slow progression while a few of the other developing countries around are starting to pass it by. There are still countries like Laos and Cambodia that are quite under-developed and I'm sure there are many places in Vietnam that are still primitive, for lack of a better word, but Saigon is well on its way. Its congested streets move much smoother, the food, the fashion, even the architechure is much more diverse. The television is pleasantly free of all the irritating sound effects that is Thai TV and surprisingly alot less censored for an asian country, especially one who's passport boldly reminds you this is "The Soviet Republic of Vietnam".
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