So yesterday I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, at about seven in the evening. I was exhausted, and somehow upon getting off the bus, the squid I'd eaten for lunch ceased to bother me. I had been in some pain for hours while riding, and couldn't do much about it as rest stops were always short, and apparently these rest stops don't have proper porcelain thrones.
Annnyway. I got into Saigon by bus, and at this point, taking my luggage out of the bus, is probably where I lost my jacket. I paid some good money for it, and it was pretty good, but now it's gone. It had been attached loosely to my backpack; it either got taken off intentionally, or just fell off somewhere else along the way.
It's not that big of a deal, really; I don't think I really need it for the remainder of my journey.
The remainder of my journey looks like this, roughly:
Go to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, shoot RPGs and some guns, and maybe go to Sihanoukville Province. Hopefully all within a couple weeks, hopefully less.
Return to Vietnam, maybe visit the southwest shoreline; return to central and then northern Vietnam, stopping along the way at a couple national parks, My Son Sanctuary, and hopefully both my previous hosts in Hoi An and Ninh Binh. I hope to spent a couple days (at most) in Hanoi before flying home.
An option for travel has arisen recently in the form of a deal for $160. Basically, you pay the flat fee for flights on Airasia, which covers Cambodia and Vietnam (I don't yet know how well), allowing me to make a few flights between countries or within countries for a pretty reasonable price. The downside is that I assume flying requires me to be more scheduled than I have been as of late. I bought my bus ticket to Saigon only several hours before I got on the bus, which apparently isn't the best idea (I got the last seat on the bus).
Anyway, as of now, I'm only moderately enjoying Saigon. It's a bit hard to be optimistic and content coming from Hung's homestay to something completely different and altogether more chaotic. Ho Chi Minh City is very big and I'm sort of in the center of it, yet sort of in a more beat-up part of town. Also, I'm directly in the flight path of the nearby airport, so I occasionally hear an airplane flying overhead. I grew up in Minneapolis, which probably makes this a familiar and almost invisible sound. It doesn't bother me.
I was at my most content on the bus back to the homestay; the supper I ate was delicious, but it was the most expensive supper I've eaten in Vietnam as of yet, and combined with another few purchases today, I exceeded my budget for today rather a lot. I hope it doesn't affect the rest of the trip much.
I don't really like the big city very much. I took a few photos for a couple of other travelers, and managed to put my knowledge of photography to good use. I enjoyed that, but in this particular homestay, you have to be let out by one of the hosts (the outside gate is padlocked), and the more downtown area of Saigon, as well as most tourist attractions, are several kilometers away. I should have taken the bus going to the Notre Dame Cathedral this afternoon. Taxi: 114,000 dong. Bus: 6,000 dong. That's not even thirty three cents.
I managed to get a couple more gigabytes of data for my phone today, despite language barriers everywhere. It seems like, despite its size, Saigon isn't that fond of English. Most of the other tourists I saw weren't Caucasian, but rather Asian. I kind of like this, but I guess it might result in less prevalence of English.
I hate to knock on my current accommodations, but I have yet to meet my host, they do not offer breakfast (free or otherwise, unless I'm mistaken), and of course, I can't leave the house unless one of them happens to be around to open the gate.
When I was planning this trip, I felt somewhat trapped, restless, and I really just wanted to get a bungalow or something by a beach and sit there for a week, reading books and listening to the ocean. This city kind of makes me feel like that again. I'm occasionally searching for an affordable beachside place which I could just be alone at for a while.
Anyway, I'm well as can be expected, and while I really do just want to leave Saigon a bit, I think I'll stick around, see the Cathedral, the War Remnants Museum, ride the bus a lot, and probably visit the market. It should be kind of colorful, if it's anything like Tam Coc or Hoi An's.
I apologize for the lack of pictures. I managed to get a couple, but I'm just not up for extra effort and stress at this point. I just want to go to sleep and start off tomorrow quickly.
I need a banana pancake.
EDIT: Added photos. I'm attacking the problem of my computers' speed, and thus am staying up late. Again.
!Noah!
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