Well, Ho Chi Minh City is not the kind of place you want to be in when you've had 2 hours sleep, may have drank a little too much the night before and you're far too hot. Our taxi driver from the airport told us it was a small city where 20 million people live and 5 million motorbikes & scooters are on the roads. That was before he tried to rip us off. We agreed $9 (they use a lot of US dollars here) yet 10 minutes later he was saying it was $12 plus a toll fee. Not a massive difference but our hostel had told us to pay $7-8 so we were already paying too much. It wasn't the time to argue as I thought he might throw us out in the middle of nowhere but when we got out at the hostel we gave him $10 and he didn't put up too much of an argument which surprised me. I think this is going to be a common theme. Even at the street markets for food, you can see the menus hung up on a wall in Vietnamese with prices of around 50-80p but when you look at the English menu the prices are about £1.50 for the cheapest meal. Again, it doesn't sound a lot but why would I eat at a market which may potentially give me food poisoning, in the heat, surrounded by flies and possibly rats (saw some massive ones hiding in a drain earlier!) when I can be in an air conditioned, clean (hopefully!) restaurant for cheaper. You just get accosted everywhere as well. Walking through the local market this morning was awful, you couldn't pause whatsoever!! Even with the bars and restaurants it's terrible, you feel so under pressure you don't want to even look at a menu! They have motorbike taxi's here too, on every corner there'll be a group of them. They'll shout 'Motorbike motorbike' to get your attention but will then whisper some kind of drug they're selling! There are also a lot of people just selling stuff wandering the streets. I had a woman begging me to buy a book before, which was pretty horrible. There are also a lot of people with limbs missing but I'm kinda getting used to it. There were a lot in Thailand and it'll be the same in Cambodia and Laos. You hear a lot of stories about them being owned by a gang who leave them to beg at tourist spots every day to earn money that they don't get. The worst stories involve Cambodia and Laos, where parents will take a limb off one of their children for money from the sympathy of tourists as they'll think it was due to a land mine. I'm not giving money to any of that. Plus, if we gave anything to everyone like that we'd have no money left! Not that we're rolling in it anyway, contrary to what SE Asia thinks!
Anyway, the traffic is really hectic. Far worse than China. Tired and scared of it yesterday after an overpriced and not nice vegetable soup, I hated Vietnam and just wanted to stay in. I am slowly getting used to it though, you wait for a reasonable gap (so hard at a busy junction where there are no traffic lights) and don't walk too fast or too slow. The bikes go round you and you just get out of the buses way! The other way is to wait for a local to cross, to shadow their wisdom as a guide. Though for me I prefer to swap the wisdom to use them as a shield. A kid running over a busy road and back earlier to get something whilst we waited for ages was a little embarrassing. Made worse by a woman about 70 having a leisurely stroll through motorbike mayhem.
Our hostel is not so much a hostel but part of a family's home. They are a very nice family apart from the two little yappy dogs that growl at us every time we come and go. The mother of the family is the one that runs it and she is pretty crazy!!! Although it is quite like being at home, every time we come down the stairs she asks where we're going. It makes me smile!!!! When we head out on Saturday for the 2am CLF KO, I better tell her what time we'll be back so she doesn't worry! She is very helpful with telling us where to go and gave Ben a banana breakfast this morning (I don't like them). We're on the third floor and opposite our room is a nice little terrace with a hammock and a table and chairs to relax in.
The thing that was confusing me the most in my tired state yesterday (and maybe still a little today!) is the currency. £1 in Vietnamese Dong is 33,633. Ouch. Drawing out 2 million from an ATM was amusing yesterday, until working out it was only around £30!
Tomorrow we are heading on a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels used in the American war as a network of safety underground. We also have a trip booked for Friday as well which is a full day on the Mekong River, heading to different islands to see rural living including bee keeping, tropical fruit tasting, and the wine tasting sold it for me!
Apart from the bad vegetable soup I've had a nice pork noodle soup, spring rolls with noodles and a very good chicken noodle soup so far. I think I've lost weight and Ben agrees, so maybe after a few weeks of noodle soups I'll lose more! I've not lost as much as Ben though-we had to buy him a belt today as all his shorts kept falling down!! We bought it just off the street from a guy who then measured Ben to put the belt holes in himself, it didn't have any. Don't worry though, I'll help feed him back up.
P.s. Ben drank last night so he didn't even manage 1 day for his 'big ban' of beer!