Ho Chi Minh City in 5 days, Nov'07

At the end of 5 days in HCMC, I found myself reluctant to leave. It could be due to the fact that leaving meant returning to home  and work and a reality which I would prefer to escape from. Or it could be that despite the frantic nature of the city, it still managed to work some charm over me.

The unforgettable traffic. Met an Aussie lady at a travel agency there who exclaimed that she had just arrived and looked completely terrified by the state of the traffic. 4 million motorbikes in this city, with the authorities making no apparent effort at curbing its  dominance on the streets. Let me pose this scenario - Imagine yourself trying to cross a road. There are very few traffic light junctions so you have to jaywalk. Jaywalking means walking onto a road with motorbikes, cars and buses approaching you from every possible direction. And they won't stop for you. So what do you do? You walk nonchalantly across the road, without stopping, in a straight line, and the bikes swerve to avoid you. Felt like we were risking our lives each time we had to do that. A nightmare for those of us used to law and order on the streets (which I think applies to like - 100% of the tourists??).

The people. In our country we emphasise greatly on service standards and the attitude of those working in customer service is very very important (often being the cause of great displeasure and endless complaints from disgruntled customers). The stallholders in HCMC would often call out to passers-by to drop by their shop and buy something, but I've come across one who was unhappy when my friend browsed too long without buying anything, another who nudged us firmly out of her shop after we made our purchases, and several people who rush by and shove into your shoulder without a sign of an apology. But this is not to say we never got smiles and good service from the rest. It's just quite...disconcerting to be treated in a brusque manner by certain shopkeepers. Makes one wary.

The tourists. In HCMC one finds a vast number of Caucasian tourists, many from the States and Australia. They come in droves and greatly outnumber the Asian ones. They are also the ones who get the most attention from roadside peddlers selling anything from cigarettes to hammocks. Found that they were a lot more persistent with the "ang mohs", often making repeated pleas to the hapless folks. For us it would just be once. Also, I just need to get this said - my friend made this very acute observation that LP (Lonely Planet) needs to get itself updated as it is religiously read by the vast majority of travellers and some of them adhere strictly to the LP code. A good example is what happens during mealtimes. Once upon a time part of Asian culture involves "popping" the plastic packaging of the cold towels that are provided during meals. Nowadays the only "pop" sounds we hear during meals comes from the foreigners, or more accurately, the LP reading lot. Guess they are not aware that we dun really do that anymore? The power of LP, indeed.

The safety. It is not safe to walk the streets of the city. We met a couple from Singapore during one of the tours (which is a good time to meet and chat with tourists from other countries, or better still, from your own), and the wife had her bag snatched by a motorbike thief even though it was slung across her shoulder. The risks involved in mere walking kinda make the whole experience quite novel, especially for someone like moi who is used to drifting around in a daze. So this would not be a place I would want to live in, but it's a cool travel spot coz there's always stuff to look at, people to talk to, things to do.

Highlight of the trip has got to be the Cu Chi tunnel experience. No amount of reading about them can illustrate the whole experience of crawling through the tunnels. Am just glad that I didn't do it on my own. Size of tunnel is very reflective of small built of Vietnamese people. Is it in the genes or something, or maybe it's the food, coz I saw a grand total of zero obese locals, maybe with the exception of the auntie selling the adidas shirts.

Learnt a lot more about the art of bargaining but am still an atypical female when it comes to shopping, esp. for clothes. Got quite smitten with the products of the handicraft industry though, which offered a limitless range of bags, lacquer wares, paintings.

The culture. Of course I still know next to nothing about their ways, and it's an interesting one which comes from decades of oppression by foreign invaders. I have great admiration for their resilience and their simplicity. The concept of stress seems like anathema to the locals (instead, the state of the traffic is what makes travellers panic), and some of their relaxed ways do rub off on us. 

This experience might have made a coffee drinker of me, but I suspect my tastes would be limited to the sweet Vietnamese variety. I'll probably visit Hanoi next, and several people do recommend a cross country journey from Vietnam to neighbouring Cambodia...so might pass through HCMC again in the near future. Until then, I'll have the bags and my fabulous "ao dai" for the memories.