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16 June: Saigon

Today was a day of sleeping in, we had planned to get 9 hours of sleep just to regain some of our losses. Problem was everyone didn't think so, at around 4h00 or 5h00, someones alarm went off, it didn't stop. After about 15 minutes of being completely awake, I got up wandering around the guest house to see if I could find the room where the alarm was or the owners, no such luck. I got back into bed and in the end it stopped after another 15 minutes and we were able to sleep once more.

We woke up for the second time around 09h00, taking our time to finish up, before starting to catch up on heavily behind journals. Later we headed out to a restaurant for lunch, we were still new to Saigon cuisine, the waiter advised us to try Banh Xeo Thit Ga, a pancake folded in half with meat, accompanied by a bowl of leaves and a spicy sauce. Not knowing how to eat this delicacy, we asked her to show us, you take a small piece of the pancake and roll it up in the leave, then dip it into the sauce. The taste is new, but refreshing taking into account the limited options we had had in the past few weeks. The dish was even large enough for 2 people to eat. After the lunch we ordered fruitshakes for the both of us, but it wasn't a patch on Cambodia's, at least we have another 6 weeks to keep trying. We remained in the restaurant for another 2 hours while Leanne read a lonely planet Vietnam book we had just purchased of the street and I continued writing. It had started to rain and the restaurant was on the corner of a street, allowing us unfettered views of Saigon city life. We could even go on the internet at the restaurant to check mail and other sites.

When the time of hunger came again we headed out looking for Pho Bo, one of the best known dishes of Vietnam, we found one not far from where we stayed, Pho 24 was its name. Between the two of us we shared one Pho Bo and a Tom Yam vegetable soup, much nicer than Thailand as its made with stock rather than plain water alone, hence a lot more tasteful. They tried their old trick of placing wet wipes on the table and even charged me, I just said we didn't use them and weren't going to pay and they accepted that.

Later the evening we headed for the undercover night market, unfortunately it closed at 19h00 and we were a little late for that. We stopped at one of the outside restaurants and tried their crab and shrimp springrolls, which were a little oily for our taste and fried rice with pork and shrimp. The pork was red in colour so Leanne decided to avoid it, the dish itself also didn't taste like much. After dinner we walked through the market's outer sides past flower shops with huge bouquets and fruit stalls some with huge lemons.

On the way back we heard loud music from the center of the park, can you believe, there's a platform with benches on the side and huge speakers placed at the corners. Many people are trying to learn Latin American dancing with one instructor, some with more luck than others. It looks more like people of all ages just dancing to the music, some with no rhythm, but still a very lively atmosphere.

About 20 minutes after standing there we catch one of the better dancers eyes, who briskly walks over to us. He explains that there's actually a class going on, we had planned to join in dancing our own breed of RSA style sokkie, but to our dismay it was not to be. We walked on further having an urge for something sweet, the best we could find was a chocolate ice cream which hit the right buttons. Back home we settled in for the full day that lay ahead tomorrow.