Goodnight Saigon

I see that I’ve been terrible about keeping up the blog. We have come all the way through Vietnam and this is our last night in Ho Chi Minh City. I guess it’s been all those rooms with cable TV… Actually, I’m picking this up the next day, as I watched a movie on HBO last night (Lucky Number Slevin) instead of writing this.

We traveled south from Hanoi (first back to Hanoi from Cat Ba island) on the “open tourist bus”, which, for 28 bucks (US), provided us with transportation to Ho Chi Minh City, with stops at all the tourist towns on the way. We just had to confirm our seats the day before we wanted to leave for the next town. The $28 also bought us sleeper tickets on the overnight bus from Hanoi to Hue, our first stop. It was pretty comfortable (see photo.) Hue was a nice town – historic as the center of one of the country’s most powerful dynasties (see photos of remains of palace complex) and as a site of heavy fighting during the American War (which is known to Americans as the Vietnam War) being near the former North/South border and DMZ. Not being war buffs, we didn’t visit the DMZ.

Our next stop was Hoi An, which is a beautiful village with narrow streets and well-preserved architecture. Unfortunately, the rainy season was extended this year and the town was subject to heavy flooding. It also rained the whole time we were there, putting a damper (or “dampness”) on our visit. We never did venture out the 5km to the beach – the weather didn’t make it seem worthwhile.

Our next bus trip was an overnighter (and we were too cheap to shell out the extra $10 each for a sleeper bus) and hellish trip to Nha Trang – a beachside resort town. Again, the rainy weather didn’t allow us to enjoy the beach, but we did enjoy walking through the town during the breaks of good weather. After two nights in Nha Trang we were off to Dalat, a touristy village in the mountains north of HCMC – about 1500 meters high. The weather was nice and cool, and the bus ride was incredibly scenic, but we weren’t thrilled with the town.

As for HCMC (Saigon), we were a little concerned that the city would be totally overwhelming (like Hanoi) with the screeching traffic, and high-pressure sales pitches. Well, we both liked it better than Hanoi – perhaps because we were used to the traffic and the hawking by then, but we also had a nice hotel in a good location, and the weather began to improve. We visited the Ho Chi Minh museum to learn a bit about the man’s life and legacy (he’s an icon here) and the War Remnants museum, which documented the atrocities of the American/Vietnam war. Chilling, especially as I kept thinking we (America) didn’t learn a damn thing from the experience.

And now we are in Cambodia, having taken the bus directly from HCMC to Phnom Penh. We didn’t get here until late afternoon (yet another case of a 6-hour bus ride taking more than 8 hours) but so far it looks nice. Fortunately, though, the movie on HBO tonight (the Ice Harvest) isn’t al that compelling, so I was able to write this….
Will try to provide more frequent updates in the future.