The Mountain Dude: Saigon - With The Locals

Chapter 1: Saigon

An eventful year's almost gone and xmas is just in 2 weeks. That means also: the yearly trip to Asia is close. It's my 5th trip to Asia and I´m getting better in packing. This time i tried to travel as light as possible and finally my luggage was less than 10kg for a 4 week long distance journey. Here my top ten things for light traveling in hot countries:

Backpack: Deuter Guide 35+. Made for rough alpine missions. Ultra solid, thin and unbreakable.
Pants: north face convertible pants. They are not as nerdy as they seem. These zip on/zip off pants look as good as they are functional and pretty comfortable.
Towel: Meru outdoor towel in large, fast drying and solid. Very useful (not just to dry your body), you can also use it as a blanket, a pillow, beach towel and as a emergency protection against mosquitoes
Jacket: North face fleece with zipper. Its usually pretty warm in tropical countries. In high altitudes, in planes or in colder nights you will be happy to have it.
Head lamp: Black Diamond Spot. Brings light in the dark with 90 lumen up to 75metres. Many options like red lights, dimmer and short distance LEDs and both hands are free.
Flip Flops: The ultimate weapon for your feet against the heat
Sleeping bag: Cocoon travel sheet. Keeps you clean in dirty sleeping places and warm at night.
Tooth-brush/paste, shampoo, earplug, deo, mosquito spray
Pillow: Cocoon air pillow. perfect in plane, train, bus and boat. Stops your head knocking against the window on bumpy roads
And last but not least slip slop slap http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAu5wCTEBt0

add 3 underpants and 2 pair of socks and I´m ready to go

Friday the 13th, 10pm, thank god I´m not superstitious, Thai Airways flight TG 925 is ready for departure. Via Bangkok I went to Saigon, Vietnam, my Asian country no. 7. 12 hours and a bunch of singhas later I arrived in BKK. The smell of Asia was crawling in my nose and I was pretty excited to see Joanne after 10 months again.

Singha beer!

sunset in Bangkok

After 3hr stopover in BKK and another one hour flight, I finally arrived at Tan Son Nhat airport in Saigon. The official name of Saigon is Ho Chi Minh City, named after the leader of the Vietnamese independent movement, but the locals keep saying Saigon, so I do as well. Almost on time, Joanne picked me up and we took a taxi to city center where her aunties owns a house. It took a while until I could believe that we were really meeting again after 10 months and 16000km between us. My first drive in Saigon was incredible, I´ve seen a lot Asian cities but this traffic was definitely the worst. Thousands of scooter on the streets, some cars between them, everybody honking and driving randomly through the streets. On our 40 minutes drive, I saw two accidents. Thank god the average speed is very slow, so if someone crashes or is falling down, they usually just pick up the scooter and continue their trip. I guess it´s kind of normal to fall down from time to time. Bruises and scars seemed to be standard.

Same, same, same but different... Saigon seems to be like the average giant Asian cities. You can find typical street restaurants everywhere, modern shopping malls, crowded markets and of course a backpacker street and a Chinatown (Cholon). But, Saigon is much more than this! Saigon is a pulsating super-fast growing city with a dramatic past and exciting future! Saigon is with more than 6 million scooters and no public transport system, the stuff nightmares are made of. And Saigon is, with its friendly and helpful people, a place where you can feel at home.

We were lucky enough to see the city through local eyes. Watching the weekly lottery¹, eating chicken feet for breakfast and drinking beer with Joanne's cousin Alan and his friends are just a few things which i´ll keep in my mind forever. We stayed in auntie "Purple's²" house in district 1, just a 10 min walk from Ben Thanh market and Saigon river. The house was typical for Asia: narrow and 4 levels high. Joanne's relatives were just awesome, we got a warm welcome, they gave us good advice, brought us with their scooters to many places and took care of us the whole time. I should explain that the Vietnamese are pretty certain that their country is the most dangerous in the world. But after 2 weeks in Vietnam I can say for myself, I never felt uncomfortable at any time. The worst things in Vietnam are probably the undetected landmines and the poison of agent orange in some areas, thank you for that America.
We had several breakfasts and dinners with her family and I got a good understanding of Vietnamese and Chinese dishes. After a couple of days I even started to like the unusual breakfast.

¹The Vietnamese lottery is pretty famous in Vietnam. This government lottery is kind of a social program for poor, old or disabled people. They buy the tickets from licensed distributors (like auntie purple) for a lower price and try to sell them on the street. If you want to help those people just buy a ticket.
²Joanne and I had nicknames for her aunties due to easier understanding. So her auntie with a blue scooter was auntie "Blue", auntie with purple scooter auntie "Purple" ...

Following some impressions of Saigon