I arrived last night in Saigon (Ho Chin Minh City or HCM) after a comfortable flight from Paris via Bangkok. The plane was packed until Bangkok, but then there were only about 50 of us who continued on to HCM. Luckily, and very exceptionally, I slept most of the way. However, afterwards, i did catch quite a bit of the film "American Dreamz", which actually isn't that ad.It includes a very caustic sketch of Bush and Cheney.
Although I arrived at about 6 PM, it was already very dark. I took a taxi to the hotel Annie Goulvent had suggested and have a very clean room for only $15 a night. Spent the night in the room but was up early this morning to do a city tour. I'm half way through it. We stopped at 12 for lunch, and I took advantage of the time to come to an Internet cafe. Only about 20 US cents for an hour! We've already seen Notre Dame Cathedral and the Post Office--both relics of French colonialization. We also visited the Reunification Palace and the War Remanants Museum. These later two are both explained from the Vietnamese point of view, which would make for an interesteing "social history" or sociological study in itself. Our guide is a university student in tourism. She's very sweet but not very knowledgeable. My fellow visitors are a young FRENCH COUPLE (the gal is of Vietnamese descent) and 4 rather loud Australian women from Sydney. We don't stay long in each place, but taking the tour saves a lot of walking and wear and tear. i hope to go on a tour of the Melong Delta tomorrow.
Will write again soon. Hope you're all fine. The weather here isn't bad. About 25 degrees, but the town feels very polluted. Numerous people are wearing masks, and I can feel it in my eyes.
Cheers for now,
Hilary
posted by Hilary @ Sunday, October 08, 2006
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