Gooood morning Vietnam!
The photos do not capture the chaos of the streets in Ho Chi Minh City – sometimes still called Saigon. The teeming of thousands upon thousands of scooter riders. They skilfully weave in and out of any place possible. They take traffic lights to be recommendations only. Red lights can be gone through. If you don’t go directly through a red light you can jump your scooter onto the pavement and go around the red light. No problem. One way streets are recommendations only too! Pedestrian crossings are everywhere but people don’t stop for you. You confidently and deliberately cross there and the traffic will skillfully navigate around – well so far anyway.
Went to Ben Thanh markets. Clothing, tropical fruit, food of all description, electrical items. Woman tried to sell us a T-shirt. She started at 320,000 dong (about Au$20). But we had seen one, pretty much the same for 55,000 dong. We told her that so she dropped the price to 60,000 then 55,000. We weren’t happy with the tactics so we walked away – she called us liars! Not sure what we had lied about. Went to the other stall and bought T-shirt for 55,000. Marked price, no haggling.
Sat and had coffee and brunch – watching the world go by (steamed rice, salad and a chilli/veg dressing plus honey braised pork) was the same price as the coffee – about $2.75 @. And they were good.
We got soaked to our undies coming home – but all good. Skin is waterproof.
Travelling Gomezs 