Saigon/Ho Chi Minh

After cruising the South China Sea for a day under continuing grey skies but increasingly warmer temperatures, we turned inland and sailed up the Saigon river for close to 50 miles before arriving at Ho Chi Minh City, or as the locals still prefer to call it, Saigon.

We sailed through miles of mangrove swamps and I was amazed that the river was deep enough for our ship. The mangrove swamps slowly gave way to a typical industrial landscaper as we approached the city of over 7 million.

We docked within walking distance of the city and eagerly set out to explore, only to find we'd forgotten our map and as soon as we stopped were approached by numerous scooter riders hoping to persuade to ride with the. Vietnam has over 40 million scooters and I swear they're all in Saigon. We finally made our way over a footbridge and our next challenge was to cross the street with no clearly defined crossings and scooters approaching every which way. We had been warned about this and advised to just step into the street and walk decisively across the road, which actually seemed to work with no violent squealing of brakes or shouting. This is just the way they do things here. 

We found ourselves on a wide pedestrian only avenue literally covered in floral displays, mostly featuring monkeys of some kind, in celebration of the upcoming New Year (Tet in Vietnamese) on February 8th. 

Everyone was out taking photographs and generally in a very festive mood and it was contagious. We meandered all over before heading to Ben Thanh Market which is a huge indoor market with literally thousands of stalls selling everything from souvenirs, cheap designer knock-offs, fresh meats and products, most of which were I recognizable. We weren't there to shop but we inevitably ended up with a few things in spite of ourselves - they expect you to bargain and we did and ended up paying ridiculously low prices for some quite reasonable items.

She's eating her lunch while on her cell phone sitting in front of quite disgusting looking pig parts!

That evening we went back into town for a great Vietnamese dinner. Not everything we ate was identifiable but it was all good. The crowds were crazy with most of the population out and about with their families on their scooters. It was total mayhem but really fun!