Notes from Saigon

Saigon.

The first thing you notice is the traffic.

The streets crawling with motorcycles, only they don't crawl. It's a fast parade.

Saigon begins with a semi-traumatic taxi ride: a confused driver, an even more confused passenger, and a meter that thinks it's a rocket. Prices jump from 14000 to 20000 as we take the long route around town, and then from 114 to 150. The increase in numbers seems to be accelerating.When we finally arrive at a hotel (not the one where i'd made the reservation, as this one has no record of me) I have a slightly negative impression of the city.

After a reasoned confrontation over his amphetimized meter, the concierge tries to broker a deal, escalating into a threat of future attack by him and his friends when I leave the hotel. I conceed and fork over slightly less than $20, which is something like 300,000 dong.

In the evening, I walk around the backpacker district. It is throbbing with locals out on the street drinking beer, pairs of tourists slinking around self-conciously, and composed of countless shops, bars, restaurants, and art galleries.

Saigon is clearly a night city, more than anywhere else i've been in SE Asia.

I sit at a Kebab stand for a two hours, joined by two dutch sisters who tell me about traveling in India. They come from a city outside Amsterdam that sounds vaguely like Harlem. They are very nice: experienced but not jaded travelers.

Then I strike up a (or am strucken up with) conversation with a lively australian swimming instructor from Melbourne. He offers a colorful lecture on seducing thai women, which goes on for two hours.

We hang out with the guys who own and run the Kebab stand, the prices falling and the portions increasing. I stupidly ask about the face on the money, which is Ho Chi Minh, of course.

"Uncle Ho," I reply. The owner leans in and whispers "my brother."

I suggest that we are brothers, which makes me related to Ho Chi Minh. He likes this and we shake hands.

I pay for my kebab (15000 dong, less than a dollar), and walk back to the hotel.