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

A Day On My Feet

Greets,

As the title suggests, I spent most of today on my feet. In an attempt to have a chilled day, I decided to meander through the city and take in some sights. This wasn't actually my plan earlier this morning, but I met a Canadian guy by the name of Andy Ma and we decided to visit some of the parks and Ben Thahn Market.

The parks in HCMC are amazing. They form little bubbles in the town where people can go and relax away from the pace of the rest of the city. When you step into a park you realise how accustomed you've become to the ambient noise of the city. In the parks it is almost silent and the atmosphere takes a very layed back step to the 'chilled' direction. The parks are so green and topiaried trees are part of the attraction. In one park in particular there were trees shaped like dragons and elephants and foxes/dogs.

Ben Thahn Market was everything I expected an Asian market to be; crowded, cramped and full of cheap knock-offs of Nike and Rolex. I must have spent a couple of hours just wandering through this incredible place.

More exploring to be done now. I'm off to check out the night life as suggested by my uncle.

Dong still dry
Oliver

P.S. Still no luck with finding a PC to upload pics from. I know you want to see them, please bear with me.

The Arrival and First Impressions

I arrived in HCMC yesterday, as you know because you've all read my first blog entry. And if you haven't then you bloody well should.

HCMC is absolutely manic! You've probably heard about the millions of motorbikes, but nothing can prepare you for the sheer chaos of it all. HCMC, or Saigon, is a city on the move. Everything that gets done, gets done in a mad rush and you can't help but get sucked into it. The city is, truly, alive.

And extending my "HCMC is alive" metaphor: Its heart beats at 1000 beats per minute. I arrived in HCMC, went to exchange money and bought a Vietnamese SIM card at 100mph. Then jumped in a taxi with a Dutch man I met on the plane and split the taxi fare to Pham Ngu Lao street, backpacker central. Having not been remotely prepared for my arrival, I didn't have a place to stay. However, within 5 minutes of stepping out of the taxi I had been offered rooms at 3 different guest houses. Telling myself that an astute traveler should never choose the first option on offer, I refused these rooms and headed further down the alley. After another 5 guest houses/hotels I settled on a room at Linh Guesthouse for $10.

I knew that I could get a cheaper room, but for the first night all I needed was to be able to put that damn backpack down and relax. Almost every place offers free WiFi so I've been able to tweet. Strangely enough, I can't access facebook. It appears facebook is blocked in Vietnam or something, because I've tried a number of times from different places to no avail. When I get back to SA I'm going to have way too many notifications.

My first full day in HCMC was today. I decided that the best course of action would be to have breakfast. I didn't sample the local cuisine, or any cuisine for that matter, last night because I fell asleep as soon as I lay down to rest. The cheapest option for a sit down meal is Pho, which is a kind of noodle soup with beef. It tastes strange, but in a good way. I took a picture of my first meal in HCMC and I would love to share it with you, but the computer I am typing this from doesn't have a USB drive as it is 400 years old. You'd think the internet would be slow, but it puts SA to shame.

During my distinctly Vietnamese breakfast I met an Italian traveler and got chatting. We decided to share the costs of a room for tonight so I've successfully organised accommodation for $6. He and I then went looking for the bus terminus and found it. I'll be investigating intercity bus travel tomorrow.For the rest of the day I found a motorcycle taxi, xe om, and experienced Vietnam as the locals do, clinging for life on the back of a motorbike.

Okay, I exaggerated, I wasn't clinging for life and taking a motorbike through the traffic and mayhem to Saigon river, Reunification Palace, Notre Dame (yes, they have one too) and the War Remnants Museum was an incredible experience. I'd recommend it to everyone.

My stomach is now growling. So I must leave you all to ponder whatever it is you want to ponder. I'm heading out for some more pho and perhaps a beer and maybe not pho, but something else. Who knows what other wonders HCMC has in store for me.

It hasn't rained yet, so my dong is still dry.
Oliver

P.S. If I find a computer which will accept a USB I'll upload some photos for your enjoyment.