Get me out of here!
Trip Start
Jan 19, 2005
1
20
35
Trip End
Feb 23, 2005
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Monday, February 7, 2005
Feeling the after effects of the night before, I spent the morning trying to become human again. I caught the tail end of breakfast, went looking at CDs, and sat by the hotel's rooftop pool.
I really think I've seen enough of Saigon and am looking forward to getting out of here. It's definitely the nicest big Asian city I've seen, but I feel like I've been here a week.
Fortunately we're leaving Saigon today (around 7pm), but there is also a downside. I guess we were unable to get seats on the overnight train to Nha Trang, so we are now taking a 22 seat mini-bus. Sounds all fine and dandy, but it's really not going to be. I'm thinking it'll take about 12 hours to get there, and we'll be driving through the night. The chance of me getting a good night sleep is slim to none.
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to catch up on my sleep when we arrive at the beaches of Nha Trang.
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An update:
Just a little update on the events that followed after I wrote the above message.
After eating dinner we got word from our tour guide that the mini-bus was going to be late, as it was stuck in traffic. As a result, we had some time to kill. A group of us headed a block from our hotel as we were trying to figure out why there were so many people out and about in Saigon.
Being the eve of New Year's eve, the streets of Saigon were bustling. Along one road, city council set up some flowers and back-drops in the middle of it. Apparently, the sole reason for this was to allow people to get their photo taken with the props. I guess the Vietnamese love taking pictures. The place was packed.
As we negotiated our way through the throngs, our little group of Westerners became a bit of a spectacle. Many people failed to hide their curiosity about us. One group of kids followed me for a bit and continued to marvel at my height. I even had a couple of people who wanted their photos taken with me. Being the star of the show, I didn't want to turn away my fans... so I obliged.
Lastly, in regards to Ho Chi Minh City, I've never seen so much traffic on one street in my life. Absolutely unbelievable. It felt like I was playing a live version of the game "Frogger" when I made my way across the roads.
Thanks to all the traffic, our bus was quite late. We finally got out of Saigon around 8:45 pm. However, luck wasn't on our sides. About 30 minutes later, we had to pull into a mechanic. The tire was "lub-dubbing" all over the place, and it sounded as if it was going flat. We were stuck on the side of the road for about an hour.
It was fixed and we carried on our way. We didn't arrive in Nha Trang until 5:45 am. I had had a brutal sleep on the bus, so I grabbed some breakfast and went back to bed for another 6 hours.
I knew sleep was going to be essential, as the next day was the eve before Tet (aka New Year's Eve).
