Farewell Saigon

Saigon - heavily loaded, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

This blog is brought to you by FPT Telecom who have provided a couple of free internet stations at Saigon airport. Thanks!

So, we are on our way to Da Nang, the country's largest port, slightly more than half way up this very very long and thin country. From there we will go to Hoi An, which promises to have many old charming houses, has a beach and is quite near some Cham ruins at My Son. We will spend 2-3 days based here and then go briefly to Hue, just north of Da Nang, which has an old citadel, which was badly bombed during the war.

We are flying because this takes just three hours,a s opposed to 23 hours by train. We will take a 12 hour night train - the Reunification Express when we go up from Hue to Hanoi.

We have enjoyed our couple opf days in Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon, even though we have not really given it enough time. We did make it finally to Dong Khoi area last night after a suggestionn from our uncle. A very smart district, with some beautifully floodlit white colonial buildings built in the French tropical style, together with some expensive hotels and smart shops, including couple of art galleries selling some original and colourful paintings. Not too expensive either, and in Holland one would be patying as much for the frame as for the painting with tyhe frame here. However, Fred can breath a sigh of relief as we did not buy any.

Nor did we manage to get any dinner there, the restaurants all closing some time before 10 pm. Plenty of massage and women on offer, but no food, despite someone offering us a woman with whom to have dinner. I understand that the people up north are more prudish and we should not expect to be so much pestered with all these offers of women. I am not sure why in particular Richard and I should be so much the target for people offering to bring us to have sex with young women because we have spoken to other travellers and they have not been as hassled as we have. Maybe because we are two males, of a certain age?

Earlier in the afternoon, we paid a visit to Chinatown, which we had glimpsed on our way into the city as we arrived from My Tho. Hustly and bustly as expected, the place was full of markets, temples, street food vendors and the inevitable motorbikes. We also encountered a number of barber shops which were curiously full of very beautiful looking young women!