Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh City

We didn’t quite believe it but when we arrived in Saigon it wasn’t raining, not just that but it was clear blue skies above us with a large yellow blob I remember they used to call the Sun. Saigon has been officially called Ho Chi Minh City since North & South Vietnam were unified in 1975 after the Vietcong swept south, but the centre of the city is still known as Saigon. We had booked into the Yellow House a cheaper hotel for three nights in the backpacker district (Pham Ngu Lao) before we moved into a nice hotel for a few days over Christmas. The Yellow house had all the facilities you need with a decent breakfast thrown in, right in the heart of the busy bars and restaurant district.

That afternoon we wandered down to the Dong Khoi area where we had stayed the last few times we were in Saigon, not too many changes apart from a few new 4 star hotels, some expensive fancy boutiques and a lot more beggars. We had hoped to return to the Majestic Hotel, still our favourite but the prices had jumped well over our budget and if you stayed over Christmas you had to pay for their Christmas Banquet. We had a quick look in but we felt like kids peering through the sweet shop window without any chance of getting our hands on the goodies inside.

We didn’t get much sleep on the bus the night before so after dinner we had a short walk around the night market before heading back to watch the final few episodes in the third series of 24, in case you were wondering Keifer Sutherland saves America from doom. Next morning we walked to Ben Tanh the central market, we didn’t last too long as we got fed up with being pulled at by a string of stall holders as well as being shouted at. The favourite hollers ranged from ‘What you looking for Laydeeeee!!!’ to the downright cheeky ‘Need T-Shirt Sir, We Do Big sizes!!!’ we escaped without opening our wallet or purse not because we didn’t see anything good but more because we couldn’t be bothered bartering in the scrum.

We had lunch in a place called Pho 2000 which sells super sized bowls of real tasty beef soup; once again the place isn’t much more than a glorified canteen but the food brought us back on more than occasion over the next week. Hanging pride of place above us was a framed pic of Bill Clinton and a gaggle of grinning staff. Either Bill has similar tastes to us or he’s got a gang of doppelgangers circling the planet looking for free food as we’ve encountered more than a dozen similar photos on our travels.


We were quite surprised to see all the large stores with massive Christmas displays and gangs of Santa Claus clad staff trying to tempt you in. We saw hundreds of Vietnamese families pulling up alongside the stores in their motorbikes with their young kids dressed in Santa outfits jumping off getting a few photos snapped in front of the shop displays before getting back on their bikes and on to the next store. Some of the displays were quite inventive; my personal favourite was the Santa Band with an Elvis Costello lookalike. The Parachuting Santa was also quite good.


We received an email from Penny & Pete who we’d met at the Chinese/Laos border saying that they were going to be in town for one night before they headed on to Bangkok. We arranged to meet them at the GO 2 bar along the street from both our hotels. Whilst sitting in the bar, the three Irish girls we met on the bus between Hoi An and Nha Trang passed by and we agreed to meet them later on that weekend.
Pete & Penny are trying to see as many bands as possible on their year trip and have been noting everyone they see and rating their performances, so we headed off to Sheridan’s Irish bar which had bands on most nights of the week. When we arrived the only seats available were right next to the singer, so we climbed up on to the high stools and ordered up a round of beers. The singer was an American called Mike and he played a good selection of songs from the sixties and seventies. Pete had requested a few songs and when the singer asked him to sing along to “Behind Blue Eyes” by The Who, Pete was straight up there singing with great gusto obviously loving the moment. We all enjoyed the rest of the set even though it did finish quite early at 11pm.


We made our way back to GO 2 for a night cap and said our goodbyes to Penny & Pete and thanked them for another good night. They had also made up a mix CD up with loads nautical related songs by artists like Neil Young, The Beach Boys, The Byrds and many other acts from the sixties and seventies. We headed back to our hotel, but on our way along we noticed a crowd of guys from Cork we had met in the Sailing Club in Nha Trang, so we stayed out for one more drink. The guys from Cork were obviously having a good night as they started singing, after a few Irish folk songs they dedicated a version of ‘Flower of Scotland’ to us. Next thing they started singing ‘500 miles’ by The Proclaimers so we made our excuses and got to our hotel before they sang any other songs that would embarrass any sane Scottish person.

Next day we walked over to the Cambodian Embassy to apply for our Visas, this we thought might take about an hour in total. After getting to the Embassy we handed over our passports, photos and completed all the relevant forms in duplicate. We were then informed that we should have brought a photocopy of our passport. The official said we would have to go and get it done somewhere on the main road even though we could see a photocopier a metre behind him. After getting the copies we approached the desk with all the forms and the cash for Visas, when he saw that we had Vietnamese Dong he said we would have to pay an extra £5 each. So we decided to go and get some money exchanged into dollars as we were sure the extra was going straight into his back pocket, this added another 30 minutes to the transaction. Finally we handed over all the forms and money to find out that due to public holidays the next day service would not be available and we would have to pick up our passports up late on Monday afternoon. By the time we had got back to our hotel we had lost half a day and decided to have a quiet night as we were changing hotels the next morning.

We got lots of strange looks from all the streets sellers as we marched through central Saigon with our full backpacks on in the sweltering heat, but it wasn’t too long before we were in our massive room that we had treated ourselves for Christmas. The room in the Bach Dang hotel had a balcony and a free internet connection, so it was quite useful for sending out all our Christmas emails and to watch the Celtic game on Boxing Day. After unpacking we hunted round a few bars to see if we could book Christmas dinner somewhere for Sarah, Jo-Jo, Lorraine and ourselves. We had noticed Sheridan’s were advertising a Christmas dinner with all trimmings, so after a quick look at the menu and a phone call to the girls we managed to get a table booked for 7:30.

Joanne and I then went our separate ways for a few hours to try and get each other some small Christmas presents that we could open the following morning. After dinner we met up for Christmas Eve drinks with the Irish girls who brought along another couple John & Vanessa also from Ireland. We started off in the ?? bar which was quite expensive so we returned to the Eden bar which we had been in the last few nights. There weren’t enough seats for the seven of us but Chin the bar man rustled up a few extra seats and an extra table, and we had a prime spot on the pavement to watch all the nights shenanigans unfold.


The girls worked out that it was cheaper to just order a bottle of Vietnamese vodka and share cans of coke & 7-up, I decided to stick to the beers for the time being. As it approached midnight Chin started bringing out shots and trays of food, which soon disappeared but where soon replaced by even more of the same. Sparklers and cigars were brought out as we lit up the new Christmas morning, Lorraine attempted to start up a chorus of The Pogues’ "Fairytale of New York" on numerous occasions, each time getting slightly further as we were joined by another crowd of Irish girls we had met the following night. It now felt more like Temple Bar than downtown Saigon as John belted out a breathless rendition of the Irish Rover and Lorraine tried to show the street kids her best Riverdance moves. I’m not sure exactly what time the night finished but after escorting Lorraine back to her hotel we jumped in a taxi back to ours.

We still managed to wake quite early the next morning and exchanged the gifts we picked up the previous day. Joanne had managed to pick up all the practical stuff I was needing, things that I always put off buying as well as some brilliant cinnamon tic-tac’s which went down a treat. I wasn’t sure how Joanne was going to react to the bottle of Scorpion wine that I picked up for her, especially as it looked identical to the one that bit her in Mexico. I think she preferred the painting set but it was a fun morning if slightly different from our usual Christmas morning’s back home.
For breakfast we headed to a nearby pub called Underground for their large English breakfast, just what we needed to soak up all the alcohol from the previous night. It was quite strange sitting in the blazing heat and sunshine knowing that it was Christmas day, it crossed my mind many times that day that it was the first time I had ever missed Christmas day at my parents. We both talked about how we’d miss my dad’s bad jokes and his great cooking and all our usual Christmas stuff.

It was strange the build up to Christmas for us, usually back home the shops and adverts are full of it by early November and by early December Christmas nights out are starting to happen but over here apart from the odd occurrence it seemed to creep up on us just a few days before. Everything was opened so we headed for a walk after breakfast but it was so hot and sticky we decided to head back to the hotel to chill out in our air-conditioned room and try to recover for our upcoming meal that night.

Just before we were about to leave for Sheridan’s the skies opened and we had to don our cagoules and keep our eyes peeled for all the rapidly appearing puddles in our path. Once inside we talked briefly to John & Vanessa who had booked their meal for a few hours before ours, but were planning on hanging around until our meal was over. It was a set menu of Pea Soup, Turkey & all the trimmings plus mince pies and ice cream. You also had some Mulled wine on arrival plus as much wine as you wished during your meal and an Irish coffee to finish.

The soup was great as was the massive servings of turkey, I think Joanne was a little disappointed with the mince pies but we were grateful for having anything as we didn’t know how Christmas dinner was going to pan out this year. As the remains of food were cleared away John & Vanessa joined us and we talked about the previous night festivities and filled in some of the blanks before we set about creating a few new ones from tonight. At one point John & Sarah got up dancing but the manager was being quite unhelpful and some of his other customers/friends were becoming quite obnoxious so we decided to head to another bar.


We had one more drink in the Geko Bar but as it was getting late and the girls were heading to Cambodia in the morning we decided to wrap it up early. So we now had the sad but now familiar routine of saying goodbye to new friends hoping that our paths might again cross on our trip now or sometime in the future. Back at our hotel we had a surprise as my brother had taken loads of pics of Christmas day back home and posted them on the web, so it was great to see my niece & nephew with their presents and everybody having a great time.

Next morning after a long lie we went to the War Remnants Museum. We had visited this museum on our first visit but it was only our second day in Vietnam and we wanted to have a second look after knowing a lot more about the country, the places and the people. The Museum shows the Vietnamese side of the war for independence against the imperialist French and American. The first section has lots of stats about the American’s involvement in the war. I’m not sure of the accuracy but I will repeat a few here anyway:

• 7,850,000 tons of bombs dropped over Vietnam
• 75,000,000 litres of defoliants (inc. dioxin) sprayed over Vietnam
• 325 Billion Dollars spent by the US Government on the War
• 58,000 American Soldiers died during the War
• Over 3 million Vietnamese were killed
• Over 4 million Vietnamese injured during the War

The museum quotes a lot from Robert S. McNamara’s (US Secretary of Defence under Presidents Kennedy & Johnson) book “In Retrospect – The Tragedy & Lessons of Vietnam”. One quote from the book was repeated quite a few times throughout the place “Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong, we owe it to future generations to explain why”, maybe someone should invite Mr Bush along.

The second section had hundreds of photos from the conflict mainly reproductions from glossy American magazines from the sixties, along with exhibits from other photo journalists who shot the conflict. There are also accounts of journalists, photographers and television news crews caught up in the action. Outside there are US tanks, helicopters and Jet planes all either caught by the Vietnamese or left behind when the Americans went home in 1975.


The last exhibit room examines the legacy of the US Air Force spraying large areas of Vietnam with defoliants. Alongside jars with horrifically deformed foetuses are dozens of photos of children who were born with physical and mental defects due to the effects of defoliants in the food chain. The museum also recreates the cells that the Americans kept their Vietcong captives in; this was a bit Madame Toussuds and didn’t really add anything to the overall experience. The museum is very one sided but it says it’s purpose is not for inciting hatred, but just for learning lessons from history. The museum’s pamphlet optimistically but probably slightly naively says “Human beings will not tolerate such a disaster happening again, neither in Vietnam nor anywhere on our planet.” The museum is well worth visit and probably shows the other side of the war we’ve seen in the Hollywood movies.

Later in the afternoon we arrived at the Cambodian Embassy after taking a few wrong turns, probably just as well as we still had to wait for our passports and Visas. We then headed back to Pham Ngu Lao to book the bus to Cambodia, once again it started to pour so after hiding in a Restaurant for an hour we jumped in a taxi back to the hotel. We had a lazy night in drinking a cheap bottle of sparkling Wine we had bought for Christmas and snacking on cheese and biscuits, while I watched the Celtic game and Joanne caught up with her diary.

Next Stop Cambodia