Saigon - The end of a journey...

A pleasant flight and rather scary landing approach later, we touched down in Saigon, described as a slumbering giant with one eye firmly pointed towards development and modernisation. We got into a taxi and headed to the city centre. Now we thought that traffic was chaos in Hanoi, but it was nothing compared to the hugely hectic movement of scooters, trucks, buses and taxis we were witnessing in Vietnam’s largest city. There was a distinctively more modern feel about Saigon. Gone were the decaying buildings and rusty motorbikes. A few ultra modern skyscrapers littered the horizon, with many more being built and appearing like mushrooms on a warm humid autumn day. Country folk had traded their bicycles for scooters but still roamed the streets trying to sell their fruit and veg. Modern hotels were at every corner, with flashing welcome and “we are the best” signs. Street vendors were busy pestering tourist, trying to sell photocopied guide books, fake Zippo lighters and designer sunglasses. It was quite extraordinary to see all this activity among the scorching heat, though after lunchtime it was not uncommon to see market vendors asleep on the corner of their stall. Saigon markets were a tiring experience, as we discovered when trying to do buy Christmas souvenirs for family and friends. First they were huge, with small stalls all compactly squeezed next to each other and more than once we looked at a piece of merchandise, asked a price only to find out that we were talking with the wrong vendor! There must have been ten people per square meter densely compacted into this market. Secondly, every single one of them would pull us into their corner, saying “come into my shop, I’ve got best in Saigon and Vietnam”. Then there was the whole price negotiating component, which I must say Kiri had managed to refine to a very fine art indeed. She got us a few bargains, especially on the beautiful lacquered wood items! I must emphasize though that the experience was far more pleasant, despite the ever so stinking stench of durian fruit, than a shopping trip on Oxford Street! French colonial architecture is very present throughout the city centre. It's very easy to imagine what it was like for French "Colons" (colonials in English) as they sat at the terraces of hotel and cafe, sipping their aperitif whilst talking about the colony’s events of the day. We also visited a fair share of temples, pagodas and museums. But we were both knackered after nearly three weeks of travelling and found ourselves heading back to our air conditioned hotel room early afternoons to evade the heat and indulge in a quick cat nap. Well that was until we experienced one of Vietnam’s regular power cuts, which in this instance lasted for nearly 12 hours, depriving us of the so precious air conditioning! The amount of sweat that poured out of my forehead that day would have been sufficient to irrigate whole paddy fields! Among the more memorable museums we visited was the War Remnants Museum, which contrary to any other war or history related museum we had visited so far with they self glorifying stories of Communism beating American Imperialism displayed a very neutral point of view. Among the remnants of American or Chinese and Soviet built war machines displayed in the museum’s court, were photo galleries depicting the horrors of the French and American conflicts as well as displays of guns, rifles, grenades and other killing and maiming devices that we humans are so clever at making. A whole section was dedicated to the freelance photo-journalists that had been killed reporting the events to the rest of the world. Unsurprisingly it was American and Indochinese journalists who had perished in bigger numbers, followed by French journalists. We also learned that Korea, Japan, Australia and, to our surprise and ignorance, even teeny weenie New Zealand were part of the American coalition. The more I read facts and saw pictures, the more it became clear that America’s sad war history was very clearly repeating itself in Iraq… The futility of these conflicts was obvious for all to see. But there were also photos of hope, of damaged lives being repaired, of charity work and messages of peace. Those who know me well will verify that I have a tendency to Happy Snap when taking photos. But this is the first place where I refrained from taking pictures, as photos of tanks, unexploded bombs and landmines, shredded clothes and helmets, as well as other war paraphernalia, weren’t my idea of holiday shots. I thought it best just to keep these as very personal memories… At the end of this three and a half trip, both Kiri and I were longing for a return to modern and familiar civilisation. On the positive side, we visited a beautiful and fascinating country with its wonderful cuisine, its rich history and spectacular landscapes and architecture. On the negative side we grew tired of being constantly heckled for bike rides, tacky souvenirs and fake goods, of the often very unpleasant smells of bad sanitation, not to mention the hurtful act of always being pointed and laughed at because of our rather larger bodies… Don’t get me wrong though, we had a incredible trip and will cherish the memories of it all for the rest of our lives as well as recommend all of you reading this to visit the country but we were very glad to return to our kind of world when we got onto the plane for Singapore then to our final destination Auckland, New Zealand, where a new life chapter was about to begin…