The first thing that strikes you about Saigon (officially Ho Chi Minh City, but no-one seems to call it that) is the traffic. Essentially, ceaseless walls of scooters/motorbikes coming at you with no gap. This is where that old hymn seems particularly appropriate - 'cross over the road, my friend; as the Lord His strength to lend' - you're going to need it. If you wait for a gap in the traffic you may be waiting for all eternity. What you have to do is take a deep breath (and maybe a quick last-minute prayer) and step out into the oncoming motors. It's very important to keep going at a steady pace and they should flow right around you. It's a very organic entity really. We often looked for native crossing-buddies to stalk, but sometimes this didn't work. Sometimes they were as hopeless as we are. If you pause or hesitate halfway across, that could be the last of you - so the feeling of triumph and euphoria after every crossing is huge.We'd managed to find a couchsurfing host, Ellen, so we crossed our first road and set off to find her. We'd arrived at night and she lived in the middle of the backpacker district. It was all very reminiscent of the first scene of The Beach (the film) where Leo arrived in Bangkok. After some lazy Cambodian times it certainly was a kick in the armpit.
We discovered several things about Vietnamese food inn those first few days - first, it is incredibly cheap; second, it's really good. Oh, and the iced coffee (a big deal here) is strong and chocolatey and full of condensed milk and sweet and yummy. I have to be careful to ration myself for fear of headaches. Yes, this trip has made me one thing I never thought I'd be - a coffee drinker. Ok, so we have to admit that much of our time in Vietnam so far has been less about the culture and more about the next meal (but then, what's new?). But I've decided this is OK and a thoroughly acceptable way to travel, since coming across Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love in the guesthouse in Siem Reap (unsurprisingly a crap photocopy with several pages missing - I'm not sure you can buy many books that aren't photocopied round here). So yes, we are enjoying our food, and not always local food at that. We'll sneak a pizza or a curry or some pasta here and there. We're not ashamed.
On our first day walking around Saigon we discovered Pho (not pronounced 'foe' - all the vowels in Vietnamese are so heavily decorated it makes English look dead boring) - which is noodle soup. And you know it's the national dish because everyone has a T-shirt saying 'iPho'. But it's so much more than noodle soup. So fragrant, with a bowl of herbs, chillies and limes to add to your taste. I never thought I'd appreciate the watery Asian broth-soups, but it's exactly what you need on a hot day. Coupled with some fiery chillies and creamy coffee to wake you up again.
I probably shouldn't just talk about food, but the spring rolls are also great (very different from the Chinese ones) and there are filled baguette sellers on every street corner, and amazing stuffed noodles and oh... so many things. Food places range from hawkers to a little stall with a small table and child's stools next to it, to little plastic cafes, to tourist cafes, to posh restaurants. When we were in Penang staying with Rick, we met his friends Gerry and Kevin, who recommended a restaurant called Ngon to us. We recommend it too! (On Pasteur, if you're interested.) It's seriously classy - a proper business lunch venue, but in all we probably only spent about £3 each. Yes, we have started to live it up a bit.
We spent a quiet few days in Saigon, not pushing the sightseeing too hard. We visited the old French area (nice post office, nice cathedral), crossed some roads, went to some museums about the Vietnam war, visited a Chinese area full of pagodas and mental street markets, crossed some more roads, and went on a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels. These are part of a massive tunnel complex which the Viet Cong used to be invisible to the Americans during the war. 
Our guide was a veteran who had fought on the South Vietnam side (i.e. along with the Americans) and he was a very interesting chap. It was difficult to gauge his actual opinion of the current regime, but he noted that Vietnam is unlikely to have a revolution like everyone else seems to be at the moment because they're tired of all the bloodshed. They just want a bit of peace, and the communist government isn't actively oppressing them. Nor is Vietnam really communist.
At the tunnels museum we were shown the tiny passages that the guerillas crawled though (enlarged for our Western frames). Even enlarged most people refused to go down them. I conquered my claustrophobia (it would be a pity to miss out after we'd come all that way) and did a quick trip, but it certainly wasn't enjoyable! We were also taken to a shooting range where people could pay extra to fire some guns (we didn't). It certainly added to the ambience of the place. Kevin and Gerry had told us about this bit - and noted that maybe it wasn't the best idea to give an Irishman and AK47 to point at an Englishman!
As part of the Cu Chi tour we were taken to 'look at disabled people' - which we were a little bit suspicious about! It turned out to be a craft workshop which employs disabled people to make lacquered mother of pearl artworks. Despite our scepticism, it was quite interesting. They showed us the step by step stages for the making process. And the stuff was pretty nice, not that I'd buy any of it, of course. You just have to hope the workers get a decent wage.
The rest of our time in Saigon was spent in the pursuit of English conversation and entertaining the belief that we are possibly rain gods. It does seem to be a feature of this trip that wherever we go, we bring spectacular rainstorms. Vietnam so far has been no exception. As for English conversation, these are much sought after in Vietnam. We were on one of our usual food adventures (I learnt that the Vietnamese are particularly into salads) when a lady at the table next to us started to chat. We're automatically very wary of this sort of thing in case it turns into an opportunity for the other person to somehow try to get money from us (bad foreign cultures for doing this to us). But this lady explained that she was an English teacher awaiting her students. They often meet at cafes in this area because there are so many captive foreigners (enjoying their meals) to speak 'foreign' with. (All foreigners are assumed to speak Foreign, aka English. I wonder what would happen if you didn't?) Presently two 8-year-olds tipped up and we discussed the solar system with them. Then they fixated on me having children. The teacher decided that I would have twins, and then gave a re-enactment of how horrible it would be. Nice. It was an interesting evening, and nice to speak to locals in a context where money isn't involved. The next night our host Ellen took us to visit her English class. It was good fun, and we even did the obligatory Tatties and Herring.
On our last night in Saigon we re-watched the Top Gear Vietnam special, and realised we would be following their almost exact same route. In fact, we met quite a lot of people who were actually doing that route on bikes, or who were visiting Vietnam directly inspired by that episode. In their own way they've probably done a lot for the tourism industry here. So next (as decreed by the TG boys) was the mountain town of Dalat. It was built by the French to be a mountain retreat. And it did feel a bit like an Alpine town, until you opened your eyes properly and saw all the motorcycles, and caught a whiff of the smell, and has someone try to sell you sunglasses. But the main thing here was the coolness. The air - so fresh. I almost needed my jumper!Our guesthouse was wonderful. It had all the details just right. Even a hot shower. Let me repeat that - a hot shower! We spent a few days wandering round the town doing not very much - mostly looking for food. We got quite good at negotiating prices, we're quite proud of ourselves! We never get it reduced by much (our price is always inflated due to Foreigner Tax) but it's the trying that counts. It's letting them know that we know they're overcharging us, and that we're not happy with it. My favourite haggling episode was in Hoi An where a market woman tried to charge us more than double what she eventually accepted for some limes. When we responded with mock horror and a 'you must be joking you chancer' she burst out giggling. She knew it would (or at least should) never work, but it's all a game so she had to try. It was a rare occasion where I actually felt on a common level with a local. Usually you feel so separate. Everything is about grovelling and ripping you off and shouting at you from across the street (we do not respond well to 'oi you!' and 'you buy something!'). And responding to everyone's 'hello' and wondering if it's normal for Vietnamese to greet everyone they see, or just Westerners. We've even had mothers wheel their tiny kids out as we pass to teach them to say hello to the white folk. It makes us feel alien and wrong. But this woman's laugh included us for a split second, so we bought her limes (even though they were more expensive than some of the others we'd tried for).
Paul has also adopted a new tactic for dealing with hawkers (who are quite happy to walk into restaurants and hassle you while you're eating, by the way). It's generally a policy of confusing non-sequiturs, like, 'You want buy sunglasses?' 'I can't, I've just been circumcised', 'want books?', 'I'm sorry my grandmother's dead', 'I've already read all of those', 'I can't read', 'my ears are made of cheese'. It seems that in all these countries, we alternately love and hate the locals. We want to live up to our ideal of everyone deserves equal respect as human beings, we really do, but it's bloody difficult when the people you're trying to respect so clearly don't respect you.
The highlight of Dalat was probably a place called 'The Crazy House', which no, was not an institution I was planning to leave Paul in. It was a house designed by a woman with a PhD in architecture and was a bit like the cover of a 70s prog rock album, or Rodney Matthew's 'Yendor' if you're at all familiar with that. It was a structure of concrete shaped into branches and passages through trees and crystal caves, and all sorts of things. Like a fantasy tree house or a place where Ewoks live. Anyway, you'll have to look at the photos. It was fantastic to explore - the imagination that went into it charmed me. It was still under construction but was already beginning to look neglected - with chipped paint and graffiti everywhere.
The journey from Dalat to the beach town of Nha Trang was spectacular in its scenery, but sadly, for various anatomical reasons, neither Paul or I were in a position to enjoy it much. A return to sea level brought a return of the heat, but that was nothing a bit of frolicking in the waves couldn't solve. We were accosted by another English learner ('may I practise English with you?') and marvelled in confusion at a structure that looked like Barbie's Mosque.We had what I think is the best curry since we left Britain (Paul still prefers the Siem Reap one), so if you find yourself in Nha Trang, go to Omar's. We also got ourselves a reasonable deal on some supremely tasty giant shrimps. The way the beach works is that you lounge about all day, and an array of hawkers parade past and pose next to the 'no peddling' sign. They then try to sell you things at ridiculously inflated prices ('my ears are made of cheese', 'I'm not allowed to eat').
The shrimps had been recommended to us, and we eventually offered the lady half the price she was asking. She wasn't having it so we parted company, but later she came back and conceded. I'm glad she did. The shrimps went onto the coals, then onto the sand (an accident, but she coolly washed them off again), then were served up with a dip of white pepper and salt with lime juice and a chili sauce that must have had garlic in it somewhere. On so tasty. Perfect beach food. Spurred on by our negotiation success we bartered some cut price buns. The prices charged on this beach are horrific, but they seem to get away with it.
There wasn't a whole lot of stuff to do in Nha Trang, but we also found some beautiful old streets and a temple of the Cambodian ilk (who builds a brick temple? It's like finding a temple in Leeds). We took a night bus to our next destination of Hoi An which was... an experience. We got on, unaware of the need to take your shoes off and put them in a small plastic bag (obviously that's what you're supposed to do - duh!), which caused a very unpleasant little man to begin a horrible tirade of shouting (oi you!). The Vietnamese seem to have a uniquely unpleasant take on being horrible. Anyway, the nasty man punished us for our unwitting mistake by making us take the cheap seats, which involved a little bunker at the back with 4 narrow beds on a slope (so that we slid forward with every jerk). Everyone else got little bed booths. Grr. We were not pleased. The bus did its usual stopping for hours for no apparent reason and people were stuffed in the aisles so we couldn't get out. The driver drove like a maniac - in short, it was a pretty horrible journey! I think we might give the train a go next time. It was a great relief to escape and find our guesthouse in Hoi An just across the street.
Hoi An is another place entirely, and possibly the nicest place we've been in all of South East Asia. Paul can tell you all about that in the next post. For now we're sitting in our room enjoying the Royal Wedding coverage (yes we are! And not ashamed of it either!) and feeling nice and British from afar.
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