Smooshed in Saigon

I made it to Saigon and spent my layover in Bangkok taking a massive deep dive off my detox with a soy cappuccino and gigantic diet coke. When I saw a Burger King, Diary Queen and Starbucks all next to each other, I nearly dropped to my knees and started singing God Bless America.  And I mean I literally almost did start singing.  I can’t wait to go back to the Bangkok airport.

Saigon is much nicer during the day than at night, and I arrived at night which made me miss my Happy Paradise even more.  But in the morning the sun was shining and things were looking up.

The main point of difference here versus other cities I’ve visited is that there are virtually no cross walks and traffic doesn’t stop for pedestrians.  It looks something like this when you're crossing the street:

Yes, those are little kids and not Vietnamese Munchkins driving

Now I haven’t seen this mentioned in any tourist paraphernalia yet, but I think the Board of Tourism could really make something of it.  I would love a t-shirt that said “Smooshed in Saigon” and I bet most other visitors would appreciate it as well. 

First stop was the Ben Thangh Market which was right down the street from my hotel, although I managed to get completely lost.   The amount of variety at the market was astounding – from the kinds of rice to the kinds of eggs (black, white, brown and speckled) to the frogs and snakes.  Normally I’m pretty squeamish about this stuff, but for some reason it didn’t bother me.  Probably because it didn’t stink which I don’t understand because nothing was refrigerated.  Here are a bunch of photos from the market:

Baby Bottles at the market!  But no AVENT...Nuk was everywhere and they were asking about $7 USD per bottle which means they would have sold it for about $3.50 post haggling.  I know how fascinating this is for my Philips friends.

Notice this woman is eating her breakfast at her stand.  Stomach of steel.  

After that I met my friend Mike for coffee and then we went to lunch.  He’s a bit of a foodie so he ordered a bunch of really good Vietnamese treats….but one of my favorite things ended up being the Vietnamese Iced Coffee which is sludgy coffee with condensed milk.  It tastes like super sweet dessert and has to be way worse for you than a Frappucino.  I’ve had three of them today.

I took Mike’s advice and avoided the War museum – he said it was over the top depressing and my Spiritual Guide has already given me so much to contemplate that I don’t think I could manage to take on the atrocities of war as well.  In all seriousness, it is truly amazing how kind everyone is here to Americans given our history.

Then I had to go to the cycling shop to make some emergency purchases.  A lady at the shop sent me to a different market to find some rain gear, but I don't understand where she thought I was going, because this is what I found:

It was spooky and bizarre.  Apparently this market is famous for having lots of American war gear – and when I say lots, I mean a warehouse full.  It creeped me out and I left lickity split sans rain gear (it's raining so hard here, what's the point anyway?).

So then I met up with my new cycling team.  There are 9 other people in the group and two Vietnamese guides.  I am probably the youngest person on the tour by a good decade.  The most shocking thing I’ve discovered so far is that the only other Americans on the tour are also from Wisconsin (Madison).  And that’s not the shocking part (but what are the odds??).  What’s shocking is that they’re snotty and mean!  Mean Wisconsinites!!!  I will have none of it – they are tarnishing my home state’s reputation.  And so I am going to kill them with kindness and help them adjust their attitudes.  I have been on the f*&@ing Journey to Happiness and I'm pretty sure they don’t know who they’re messing with. 

There are 4 people from Belgium (2 of which barely speak English which I really don’t get…I think they’re faking it), 1 lady from Vancouver and a very nice couple from London.   I can already tell my meditation lessons will be coming in handy on this tour!  Isn’t it so much fun to practice a new skill!?  Starts at 8 AM tomorrow when we head to the Mekong Delta….