Saigon . . . First Impressions
June 19/09
It's our fourth day in Vietnam and I've yet to write anything. Still not caught up with Bantayan but write I must. This place is bustling. The first impression is definitely the motorbikes. They line the streets, weaving in and out of traffic, taking shortcuts by whipping up on sidewalks and creating a veritable army as they line up at intersections.
We just passed a pile - I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say there were over 200. And the amount of people they cram on - yesterday we passed a family of 5. That was during our tricycle tour. Way too expensive but a great way to take in the city. We'd walked the day before - finding the Notre Dame Catthedral, a main park, the Market and the War museum (I'm getting ahead of myself!) but on the tricycle of course we covered more ground without absolutely killing our feet.
The first person we met in Vietnam was Pedro. A (probably) 6'5 guy from Ecudor who was on vacation from teaching English and Spanish in Korea. Seemed like a nice guy (he was in our dorm room) - and not too hard to look at ;). We had dinner but then went our separate ways and didn't see each other again much.
Our first day Serene and I decided to just tour our neighbourhood - something we hadn't done much in previous places. And there was so much to see just in shops and checking out hotels for cheaper accomodation that we spent 8 hours in 2 blocks - over half of the time spent looking at paintings. Some really nice works for really amazing prices. We got a few but definitely wished we'd had more money.
Too tired to venture out that night we called it a pretty early night, but in walking back from a quick trip to use the internet I saw the street flooded with Westerners. Mostly men around our age and almost all 6' or taller. . . heaven.
Our journey through our district the next day was an effort in reading a very bad map and an adventure in crossing the insane traffic in this city. At the first major road we followed the guidbook's advice and crept behind a local. A young woman who ended up sticking to us for over half an hour and even ate with us. She spoke virtually no English so Reen and I were both rather confused as to why she stayed but we just went with it.
When we finally found the war useum there ws only a half hour 'till lcose and it took an hour to go through but it was one of the top things on both of our lists for Saigon so we decided to go in anyway. It was a hard place to go to and a hard thing to write about.
The things this country has gone through and the affects that are still evident . . .
The museum held photos not only of people gunned down, tortured, and reaping the effects of the general warfare but also the victims of the defoliant the U.S. goverment used - Agent Orange and the effects exposure had on those at the time and on those through the genetic disfiguration that is passed down through generations: victims of which are seen on the streets daily. Earlier that day we'd seen a number and later that evening a little girl whose face was horribly deformed begging as people came out of the bar at 4am.
The museum is incredibly well done and surprisingly doesn't place, through their displays, as much blame on the U.S. as one would imagien and actually shows a large degree of sympathy in documenting the fate of many of the photo journalists and of the turmoil some of the soldiers went through in carrying out the commands of their superiors.
It's our fourth day in Vietnam and I've yet to write anything. Still not caught up with Bantayan but write I must. This place is bustling. The first impression is definitely the motorbikes. They line the streets, weaving in and out of traffic, taking shortcuts by whipping up on sidewalks and creating a veritable army as they line up at intersections.
We just passed a pile - I don't think I'd be exaggerating to say there were over 200. And the amount of people they cram on - yesterday we passed a family of 5. That was during our tricycle tour. Way too expensive but a great way to take in the city. We'd walked the day before - finding the Notre Dame Catthedral, a main park, the Market and the War museum (I'm getting ahead of myself!) but on the tricycle of course we covered more ground without absolutely killing our feet.
The first person we met in Vietnam was Pedro. A (probably) 6'5 guy from Ecudor who was on vacation from teaching English and Spanish in Korea. Seemed like a nice guy (he was in our dorm room) - and not too hard to look at ;). We had dinner but then went our separate ways and didn't see each other again much.
Our first day Serene and I decided to just tour our neighbourhood - something we hadn't done much in previous places. And there was so much to see just in shops and checking out hotels for cheaper accomodation that we spent 8 hours in 2 blocks - over half of the time spent looking at paintings. Some really nice works for really amazing prices. We got a few but definitely wished we'd had more money.
Too tired to venture out that night we called it a pretty early night, but in walking back from a quick trip to use the internet I saw the street flooded with Westerners. Mostly men around our age and almost all 6' or taller. . . heaven.
Our journey through our district the next day was an effort in reading a very bad map and an adventure in crossing the insane traffic in this city. At the first major road we followed the guidbook's advice and crept behind a local. A young woman who ended up sticking to us for over half an hour and even ate with us. She spoke virtually no English so Reen and I were both rather confused as to why she stayed but we just went with it.
When we finally found the war useum there ws only a half hour 'till lcose and it took an hour to go through but it was one of the top things on both of our lists for Saigon so we decided to go in anyway. It was a hard place to go to and a hard thing to write about.
The things this country has gone through and the affects that are still evident . . .
The museum held photos not only of people gunned down, tortured, and reaping the effects of the general warfare but also the victims of the defoliant the U.S. goverment used - Agent Orange and the effects exposure had on those at the time and on those through the genetic disfiguration that is passed down through generations: victims of which are seen on the streets daily. Earlier that day we'd seen a number and later that evening a little girl whose face was horribly deformed begging as people came out of the bar at 4am.
The museum is incredibly well done and surprisingly doesn't place, through their displays, as much blame on the U.S. as one would imagien and actually shows a large degree of sympathy in documenting the fate of many of the photo journalists and of the turmoil some of the soldiers went through in carrying out the commands of their superiors.
posted by Charles at 1:41 AM
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