Day 45/46 Travel/The Heat is ON in Saigon

Actually. There is no heat. There is lots of rain. Kind of a bummer. I have a snotty cold too, which doubly sucks. Time to regroup here for a day or so and hopefully they will both pass.

Yesterday I left Phnom Penh at noon, only to arrive in Saigon 12 very long hours later. I took a speedboat to Chau Doc, a small town in the Mekong Delta near the Cambodian border. The boat was really nice and only got really choppy in a few places. 5 hours later, I took a bike taxi to the bus station and got on a mini-bus bound for HoChiMinhCity. A delightful 6 hours later (not really- it was 6 hours of no roads and rain and bridges thru the Delta- we stopped at one point to have some food and I ate with the bus drivers because all the buses and drivers looked the same to me so I was afraid I would lose him if I let him out of my sight- the bus drivers got a big kick out of me at their table) I got off at the bus station in HCMC and took a motorcycle guy to a hotel that my friend Lonely Planet recommended. It was booked so I found another. And then passed out.

1.Everyone wears the conical rice paddy hats. I thought that they were exaggerating in the guidebook because not as many people wear them in Thailand and Cambodia... only the farmers and workers... Here the ladies on the street wear them!

2. Bowls of Pho- 2 and counting.

3. Absolutely zero tourists and NO ONE speaks English. I have been kind of spoiled the past 6 weeks being able to speak... Lucky for me I didnt forget how to grunt and use my adapted hand signals. Still a tad scary since this place is so random and I was really comfortable in Cambodia.

4. Women here wear one color or pattern. No mix and match like everywhere else... Ladies wear full polyester pant suits cut from one fabric... SO it is all leopard print... or all red or all floral. Kind of strange.

5. Hungry and have no dong... Yes. The Vietnamese currency is the dong... And I don't have any and have no idea where there is a bank or ATM... I have Chinese, Lao, Thai and Cambodian cash though... I keep confusing it. Oh well. First on the list is some money.

6. I have ESPN in my hotel room. Whoa baby. Who's excited...

7. Need to find a train station to get a night bed to Nha Trang, where I will hopefully spend a few days getting bronzed and scuba diving once the cold disappears.

8. Coffee and food. Sorry I already said that.

9. I know ABSOLUTELY nothing about this country except for pho and the war. But I only know what Platoon says about the war. And I know that here they call it the American War. And Uncle Ho which is recent knowledge. And I am reading a book about a Vietnamese-American guy that rides his bike from Saigon to Hanoi so maybe that will help a little. And I have a whole list of Vietnam War movies that I need to watch when I get home... added to the Thai and Cambodian ones too! Anyhow, hopefully over the next two weeks I will become a little bit more educated.

More to come.