November 2nd
we said good bye to Sareth last night, going to miss his funny sayings in the different accents... "Oh really, I didn't  know that" with his cambodian english versions of aussies, English and Canadians was priceless.  near the end of the tour  his Thai english version of " I love you long time" came out.   Our new leader Thinh Bui has a hard act to follow.  we met the rest of our group tonight, Fran & Tim, newlyweds from Aus., Debra, Martin & Paul from the UK, and Thoi a Vietnamese from Aus.
It was a hot humid day, I checked the weather forecast which was expecting a "feels like" 44C with chance of rain. the 6 of us from the Cambodian tour were off to a late start for our free day in Ho Chi Minh,  the city is nothing to write home about. we began the day around 9:00, this is our free day and not a very exciting one. we safely walked to the French pastry shop on the next block.  Nice hot latte and a pizza bread kind of thing and we are off. Michael was voted our leader by default, he had the map.  we herded across the numerous arms of the roundabout, safety in numbers (we are actually becoming to master the art of road crossing in Ho chi Minh).  We managed to find the War Remnants museum, I think we may have overpaid the 15,000 dong, or $0.75, it was pretty Micky mouse but we sweated our way through it.  we then navigated to the Cathedral Notre-Dame built from 1877 -1833 from materials imported from France; Post Office which boasts a ceiling by Gustav Eiffle; past independence palace; opera house then headed to the Saigon River.  Megan had a moment and almost passed out so we stopped for refreshments riverside.  Michael had a chance to practice his Vietnamese rejections to hawkers.  One guy had a board full of sunglasses, after a few rejections he switched to watches and smokes...still no.  next a very pleasant girl with a stack of Vietnam travel and history books.  Michael with all his charm said he read them all.  the girl chuckles and proceeds to unwrap a Vietnamese phrase book, big mistake, Michael is now armed the most important word for a tourist in Vietnam.... "Khong" pronounced "Kom" ..English translation .."no!". "no, no, no" he repeated in Vietnamese.
Megan, still not feeling well, took a taxi back to the hotel while the rest of us continued our city tour.  Hem feeling a little peckish (2:30 and no lunch yet) suggests KFC, why not, the sky is overcast, it's humid as hell and rain is on the way.  we just made it before the rain came pouring down, great timing as Megan had the umbrella. We ate our lunch and watched the hundreds of scooters at the intersection; drivers using their poncho to cover not only themselves but passengers and bikes too. when it cleared up we made our way to the Ben Thanh market.  the market is absolute crap. I have never seen so much crap shoved in one block, and the same crap throughout the entire market.  "you want shirt lady?" as crap is thrust in front of my face as i walk the narrow lanes.  the smells around the food section were boarder line revolting. Laurie was sweating like a pig, it was hot and humid, the rain a few minutes ago only brought down the humidity a little.  when Laurie is standing still it's usually because there is aircon or a fan nearby.

  I think scooters out number any other vehicle a hundred to one, I am still fascinated by the roundabouts. Instead of car-parks there are scooter-parks everywhere even underground' entrance is narrow that cars would not fit.  From what I can tell, a parking attendant is paid to park and guard the scooters which are parked on the sidewalk when not in the parkades, make sense right?