SE Asia Day 7

January 30th, 2009
Today is a big travel day. We travel to Ho Chi Minh(Saigon) via Jetstar Airlines. Jetstar is owned by Quantas so the plane is fairly new, but it is packed and all the seats are closer together, but we felt safe. We arrived in HCM and were so happy that it was finally warm! My one pair of jeans can probably stand on their own by now. We met up with Danny and Charlotte at the guest house Char had booked for us, Ngoc Thou. It was perfect, clean, ac and good location and best of all $15 a night! Saigon(most southerners still call the city Saigon and not Ho Chi Minh) seems much less chaotic and the architecture is less standard than in Ha Noi, The streets and streets of tube housing has been replaced by everyone type of architecture you can think of.

We arrive at the address our guest house is supposed to be and immediately this guys starts following us and asks us if we need a place to stay, or want to sign-up for a tour. We continually say "No!" but he keeps following us. So we are immediately on guard in Ho Chi Minh, what doesn't add to this is that we can't find our hotel, there is an alley in the spot that the hotel should be. At that point the guy that has been following asks "Where are you going? Where are you going?" We finally break down and show him the address...and he points down this alley. We say "Thank You" and head down the alley. It's sketchy...there are people hanging out of their homes just staring at us, a dirty Indian restaurant and the smell of poo is in the air. Kevin actually stops about 20 feet in and says "Yea, I don't think this is right" but we keep pushing. And finally we see a sign for the Ngoc Thou Guest House. Sweet! We arrive and the family that runs the guest house is expecting us. They are very friendly...kind of speak English...and the guest house is clean, cheap, has AC and funny enough, each room has a tv with HBO! We dropped off our stuff and met up with Dan & Char to catch-up on the last week. They went to Hoi An, a beach town in the middle of Vietnam known for it's tailors. They had a bunch of clothes made for them, cheap and perfectly fitted for them. They look awesome!

After a much needed Happy Hour....discovering a new favorite beer Saigon Red(5% alcohol!) we headed to dinner. Chad & Dan had met a couple Swedish girls who had recommended a really good place that had authentic Vietnamese. We walk up to it and it's called....Quan An Ngoc...the same place we loved the day before in Ha Noi, looks like we really will get to eat here again. How funny, it's a chain! The place has a long line of people outside waiting to get a seat, with most people being Vietnamese, so that's a good sign. Apparently if you are a foreigner you don't wait in lines as they ushered us in and gave us a seat in front of everyone else waiting. The food was great again, mine was decent, however I did get a blended strawberry shake that was probably the best fruit snake I have ever had. After dinner we decided to walk up a few blocks and....eat again..specifically desert and drinks. Here was born a new tradition the 5 of us are calling second dinner. Hey we're on vacation! We drank a fair amount of Red Saigon until we were ready to pass out, wondered back to the Guest House and collapsed in bed. Not before Danny decided he wanted third dinner, which was a fertilized duck egg. Considered a delicacy in Asia, he said it didn't taste like much but did crunch when he bit into it...yum how appealing.