Ho Chi Minh City

We left Phnom Pehn yesterday at about 7am on a bus headed for Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon). The ride was split in two segments; four hours to the Cambodia-Vietnam border followed by two more hours to HCMC. Leaving Cambodia was much smoother than entering, although we did fall for a scam. Upon entering the stamp station a guy in uniform(really just a glorified pair of coveralls) and sporting a badge waved us over to fill out some paperwork. We knew as soon as he started filling the paperwork out for us that it was going to cost. It was just a customs declaration form like every other country we've been to, but everyone going through the lines had to pass through these four guys. Most of the information on the paperwork was straight off our passports and anything else was simply a matter of their imagination. For example, Nicole is currently a Salesperson. She didn't even know it until yesterday. Pretty exciting. Apparently not looking as professional as Nicole, I became a student - must be the facial hair. It only cost a dollar each, but it was still annoying because we should have seen that one coming.

After passing through the visa checkpoint we had to wait in line to receive our Health Quarantine certificate. The very official looking document states: "Health quarantine service certifi[sic] that the health condition of this passenger is good, not infected with any infectious diseases. This certificate is hereby issued to exit/entry." The 'rigorous' medical inspection consisted of paying 2,000 dongs. If you don't have any dongs, you had to pay a dollar. One dollar is worth 16,000 dongs, so we were lucky because I had a few thousand dongs in my pocket. Once we got to the city it was easy to find an ATM and we took out about a million dongs.(My dad used to say that the only reason I took French in middle school was because I got to say "oui, oui" and not get in trouble.)

Past customs and entering into Vietnam was similar to returning to Thailand from Lao. We weren't in Cambodia for as long, but we both felt strangely uneasy and moving on felt really good. While we both feel a little odd being in a place that we only know from learning about the war, HCMC, at least, is very comfortable. The city is well lit and much more vibrant than anything in Cambodia - even a bit more than Bangkok. Motorbikes make up about 95% of the street traffic and we are constantly asked if we want a ride somewhere. It was getting a little old until we decided to imagine that,"Hey, man, you want motorbike?" or "You need book, man?" actually translates into,"Hello, how are you?" and that the appropriately polite response is,"No, thank you." For some reason it's a lot easier to say that 100 times with a smile on your face. All it takes is one no thank you to stop them from asking - not nearly as annoying as the Cambodian motorbikes.

Huge swarms of motorbikes make street crossing an adventure, too. There are some traffic lights, but somehow there is always a stream of motos flooding the streets. The only way to make it across is by slowly walking through the traffic and avoiding eye contact. If the rider knows you see them, it's your responsibility to move. Otherwise, they drive around you. Oddly, the system works really well. But it still takes a bit of nerve to walk out into the middle of traffic on a busy street.

Providing an interesting contrast, we saw the same after school scramble of parents picking up kids at the curb. Instead of minivans, however, hundreds of motos packed the streets, filled up with up to three kids and a driver and the scooted away.We spent our first evening finding a hotel, wandering the city, and investigating travel options. It's looking about all but certain that we're going to take the Trans-Mongolian railway rather than the Tibet-Nepal-India option we had earlier discussed. The route fits better with our time line and puts us very close to Germany in time to meet Sara. The Russian visa could be a bit of a hassle, but not too bad. Scott, it looks like your Lake Baikal comment could happen. The more we read about the trip, the better it sounds. Nicole has read some books about Mongolia during the trip and is really looking forward to some time there as well.

Today was more planning and orientation to the area - we're probably going to spend close to month in Vietnam so there's not much of a hurry. After a fairly slow start we made our way to the Reunification Palace and then the Museum of Fine Art. As our guide book so accurately describes, the palace looks like the lair of one of James Bond's arch enemies. The entire building has kept it's original 1960's style of plush lemon chiffon aplostry and golden rod carpent. Lovely. Add to that Batphone-esque telephones, stuffed tigers, and some abstract art and viola! A bonefied lair.Aside from the kitsch, we were given a tour of the building and shown a short documentary supposedly of the building, but really more about the war. The history lesson continues on our trip and this one will be, as with Cambodia, unpleasant. Similar to hearing the Lao version of the American War, there are a host of alternative perspectives from those commonly available in the US. On a positive note, the people here have been wonderful - on par with Thailand but not quite as burnt out on tourists as Thais in Bangkok. We've only been here a few hours, though, and nothing outside the city yet.