Third full day in Saigon, and our 30 day visa doesn't seem like enough.
Vietnam is much more like it - after paying the 'I'm new in town' tax via taxi from airport and first couple of nights accommodation, we explored the city and here's some reasons why our daily budget goes much farther than in Thailand.
Firstly, the beer! We've been drinking surely the cheapest beer in the world, 'Hoi an' (fresh beer) at 5000Dong a glass - thats 17p, and we've read you can find it at 2000Dong.
Secondly, the coffee. Holy cow pat in a glass Vietnamese coffee is real, real tasty. It's got a chocolate soup kind of quality and they serve it with still dripping through the cafetiere, I guess because it takes so long to filter through. You can buy one for 6,000 - 15,000 Dong
Thirdly, the food. Vietnamese food are adaptations of Chinese and French food, with much more herbs. From street stalls there's freshly baked baguette sandwiches for 10,000Dong, or 'Pho' (Noodle soup), or 'Nem' (Spring rolls) that they roll infront of you and contain fresh basil and mint leaves, onions and nuts, which come with sauce at 2000D each. I could write much more, and Kae and I plan on doing a cookery course up north is Hoi An, where it's cheaper.
While these 3 things are cheaper than second hand chips, hotels, courses and transport are relatively expensive. You pay for these in US$, and hotels are $10 if lucky, $20 if not. Cheapskate, you say? Too right.
The Vietnamese new year 'TET Festival' is on 14-17th Feb, and like the French in August, everything stops. Interestingly, everyone in Vietnam becomes a year older during the festival, so it's also a nationwide birthday party. This means Kae and I are booking ahead. We leave Saigon tomorrow, stopping at 2 beach towns over 6 days, and hopefully arriving in Hoi An - an olde worlde town - for TET. Accommodation seems hard to come by so I've followed in Dan's tracks and joined couchsurfing.com
While in Saigon, we visited the Fine Art museum, zoo and botanical gardens, which were all just shy of dull. Much more interesting was learning how to cross the madcap roads - the key is you walk very slowly into the middle of the constant swarm of scooters and taxis and buses, and make eye contact. It's easy, but that doesn't mean it's not completely mental.
Being in the city is fine but stressful due to the continuous hussling, selling or begging. It'll be good to get out tomorrow.
A big post, this one, but I could write more. Kae and I are meeting a guy, Laurence, who shared a taxi with us from the airport, who(m?) we bumped into today for lunch.
Also, the language is nuts. It's more complicated than chinese and on top of that it's mainly tonal, so depending on whether you raise or lower your voice as you say a word, it means completely different things. Lonely planet reckon you can accidentally 'make crude remarks about your genitals when attempting to say thankyou'. I've been saying thankyou (c'am on) as much as possible ever since!
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