April 8
We woke up very early again today in order to get to our bus
to depart Phnom Penh for Saigon. It is
Easter and the Easter Bunny has found us in Phnom Penh….amazing. This is just another Sunday in a Buddhist
country so not too much celebrating is done on the Easter front. The pickup was
right in front of our hotel and we were then taken a short distance to another
bus stop. We are riding on a Vietnamese
government bus, which we are told is supposed to be nice, but in fact is
nothing special. As we approach the
station, once again we are greeted by desperate vendors hawking snacks,
sunglasses, fruit and they come right up to the window waiting anxiously for
you to depart the bus. They lay claim to
you and will often begin fighting among themselves as to who identified the
client first. We are in for a ride of
about 3 hours to the border with Vietnam and then another three hours to
Saigon/HCMC. There is a bit of confusion
about where our seats are in fact located and we end up having to move several
times, each time a Vietnamese couple opens up the sealed water that comes with
the seat and then leaving it behind for us to have their opened
containers. I kindly return their opened
bottles to them and retrieve the unopened ones with my most sincere smile. At one point, we stop by the side of the road for what I assume is a toilet break and so me and the boys depart the bus to purchase snacks. Much to our surprise, when we look up the bus is leaving very quickly and going onto a ferry. It will not stop for us and we are running behind the bus and trying to get onto the stairs through the open door. Finally, the bus comes to stop on the ferry and we are able to get back on board....whew!! After this excitement, the trip is very uneventful and when we stop
somewhere in the middle of nowhere for lunch, we all pile out to a small
restaurant by the roadside. They offer
pre-made food that is not very good, but since we have had no breakfast today,
we get some noodle soup and rice. With
the small amounts of food we are consuming, daily
exercise and the constant sweating, you might think we had shrunk up like
raisins…..not so! Can’t explain it, but
the anticipated weight loss has yet to materialize. Once we reach the border, we all pile off of
the bus again to depart Cambodia and enter into Vietnam. The transition through Cambodia is quite easy
and we make our way to the Vietnamese side, there does not seem to be as much
organization to how things are done.
Paulie notices that when the border guard examines our US passports, he
nearly throws them at the bus driver to give back to us. I missed this nuance and am only told about
it later by Paulie. We get back on the
bus for the remaining 3 hours and arrive in Saigon around 2:30. We are told that our hotel is very close by,
within walking distance, so we trek around the corner and quickly locate our
guest house called Ngoc Phan Guest House.
The owner speaks good English and is quite welcoming. We are on the third and top floor, which
means a total of 8 flights of stairs.
We struggle with our bags up the narrow stairwells and arrive to a
bright and airy level consisting of two rooms, both for us. We get unpacked, discover the Wifi and before
long are ready to begin our exploration of our neighborhood. We are told that there is a thriving market
nearby (Ben Thanh) and we are within walking distance, so we set out. We get some money at the ATM and decide to
have a cool, refreshing drink to invigorate us.
When we get the bill, we are quite surprised by how much it costs. Everyone has said that Vietnam is very
inexpensive….so we can only assume that we have found the one very expensive
place to have drinks….won’t make that mistake again. We arrive at the market and are quite
overwhelmed with all of the selections.
Each member of our party is trying/vying to go in a different direction
and the maze like passageways through the vendors shops is quite
claustrophobic. We therefore assign each
person a chance to direct us how they want to go and to see what they want to
see. First up is Paulie, who is
determined to locate the spice vendors…..easily done….follow your nose. We arrive to some not too wonderful smells
(rotten fish?) and he quickly spends some of our “Dong” on cinnamon bark and
black cardamom pods- not the kind of things you can get back home. We also select some ground spices and then we
are off in the direction that Sam chooses…..shoes. We find a vendor that sells Toms and he and I
both pick up a pair for $10 each. Great
buy! Next is Annie who must preview
every wallet and purse in the place before making a selection…..not what the
guys had in mind, so they bid us adieu and we are free to spend as long as we
like browsing while they return to the hotel.
We find a shop that has what she is looking for if we can only agree on
the price. She starts at 1,100,000VND
($55) and we end up at 500,000VND ($25).
Not a bad negotiation. In the
end, the lady gets a little ugly and says if we do not buy today we cannot return
tomorrow and get the same price. Oh
well, c’est la vie. We buy it and Annie
is really thrilled. We decide to return
to the hotel and rest up for dinner time.
We get back and climb all those steps, shower and nap before returning
to the bustling street for dinner. As
you make your way along the street, each restaurant has an “agent” on the
street trying to lure you into their restaurant and they can sometimes exert
quite a bit of pressure on you, while you are also being assaulted with street
hawkers trying to sell you tourist books, bracelets, sunglasses, etc or passing
you flyers to entice you to have a massage…..information overload!!! Usually it has the effect of making you want
to duck for cover into the first available seat at any given restaurant. We manage to pass by a few on the lookout for
a place that was recommended by the hotel but we opt to return to one that we
were being sold on by the agent out
front. When she sees us returning she
starts jumping up and down in excitement….now that’s a warm welcome! We settle in and try to get through the
novelal of a menu ( I mean seriously there are 25 pages to this thing). The kids are happy to have some pasta options
and I go for Mexican food. We all are
pretty starved at this point, so we eat greedily and return to our hotel completely satisfied and
sleepy. Good Night Vietnam.
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