Apocalypse Now

Night clubs in HCMC are fucking mental!

My first true experience of HCMC night life was absolutely mad. I went clubbing with the Canadian Andy and a British Andy I met while having beer with Canadian Andy. Funnily enough, I was also having beer with two Stefans from Germany at the time.

Clubbing in HCMC is bloody expensive. Some of the drinks cost in excess of $100, but we knew that would be the case and decided to drink before going to the clubs. This turned out to be an experience in itself as it was the first time I tried the famous (infamous?) 'bia hoi'. Draught beer which comes in a plastic 1 litre container and costs anything between 3000d and 15000d (R1-R5). The first sip makes you wonder why you bothered to buy it at all, but that changes quickly. It has a very strange taste which lingers long after you've swallowed it, but the taste isn't bad and by your second bia hoi you're used to it and probably won't go back to the lagers on offer.

So after chow and a couple of bia hoi, Andy, Andy and I decided to go to the club in HCMC, Apocalypse Now. Apo as it is affectionately known is the standard bearer for all clubs in Saigon. It has been around forever and has some of the best DJs on offer. There is no entrance fee, but drinks are so expensive they make your kidneys bleed just looking at the price list. We walked into what can only be described as a wall of noise. The DJ was thrashing heavy beats together like a madman and people were going mental on the dance floor. The atmosphere was intense.

I should explain something, it was (Canadian) Andy's last night in the country and his plane left at 5AM so he didn't want to bother with renting a room if he was going to leave so early in the morning. He thought it would be a good idea just to stay up until he left. We agreed.

After about an hour in Apo, we headed out to see what else was on offer. Just down the road from Apo was a little place called the Factory which was also incredible. The DJ was better than the DJ at Apo but there was less of a crowd and, once again, the drinks were way overpriced.

We stayed at the Factory until about 01:30 and decided to head back to our hotels. (C)Andy has a terrible sense of direction and kept trying to tell us where to go, but he was always pointing in the wrong direction. I had brought a map for such an eventuality and had checked the area out before just in case we needed to walk back. We did walk back and it wasn't far. I imagine we'd still be walking if (C)Andy had tried to direct us back, though.

This particular blog post has taken a lot longer to write because I keep getting distracted by the guy next to me. He's playing some kind of Dance Dance Revolution for computer. The clubs were mad, but this guys hands are just mental. I don't know how he does it, but his hands are literally moving faster than the speed of light. I can't even see what his hands are doing.

Get your dong out
Oliver