VIETNAM AND NORTH-EAST THAILAND 1991/2

Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City

Saigon - Ho Chi Minh City     From South to North   Hanoi and Halong Bay North-East Thailand

Raymond's Travel Page

This is where we stayed in Ho Chi Minh City. The furniture in our room  is still in plastic wrapping.

When we first arrived in Saigon we went out to get a meal. Our first dinner was Chinese chicken (i.e. very tough) and fried noodles, together with violinists, pianists, singers and mosquitoes. We soon gave up eating out, as our hosts kept feeding us again when we got home. We hadn't realised that meals were included in the accommodation.

View from the terrace

The family (from left to right) - Tam, Lanh, a little girl whose identity and position in the house we are uncertain about, Lanh's baby, Lanh's mother. (And Yoong!)

Same people - different arrangement. (But no Yoong. Raymond instead.)

Tam's Bike - and baby

Lanh with Yoong

Our main mode of transport in Saigon, apart from cyclos, was on the back of a Honda.

Petrol is purchased at little stalls along the road. It is said to be siphoned off from government vehicles.

Saigon's famous Ben Thanh Market. According to the Lonely Planet Guide,  "everything commonly eaten, worn or used by the average resident of Saigon is available here."

Here we are on Saigon's other main means of transport - the cyclo - on our way to visit the Giac Lam and Giac Vien Pagodas - At least we thought we were, until we realised our cyclo drivers had no idea how to get there.

We did eventually make it to the Giac Lam Pagoda, the oldest pagoda in Saigon where monks are buried in ornate tombs.

And this is at Giac Vien Pagoda, with one of the ten monks who live there.

We visited several other pagodas in Saigon and Cholon. Unfortunately we have no idea which ones these are. Our nicely labelled photo album was damaged in a flood. We managed to save the photos but most of the accompanying information was destroyed.

The conical incense in the Cantonese pagoda was particularly impressive.

Similarly these are, no doubt, very important buildings. I suspect the one on the left is the post-office, but I can't be sure. My Vietnamese is not that good.

And here is a statue!

Here's a building we can actually identify - the Reunification Hall. This is our guide, who showed us around Reunification Hall, and Tam, our host, who nearly lost us here.

Hotel Continental - where we didn't stay. This is Saigon's most famous hotel, where Graham Greene's "The Quiet American" was set - and where Lanh is working.

Our hosts would not let us use public transport. The one time we sneaked off and caught a local bus, we met Nguyen Tuan Khoa (Engineer of Hydrology), on his way home from testing mineral water in My Tho. He invited us to visit his parents, gave Yoong a Vietnamese-English dictionary, and gave us the addresses of his cousin in Hanoi and brother in Springvale. Despite the fact that we would never have met if we had not risked our lives by taking public transport, he and his father would not hear of us taking the bus home, and insisted on taking us by Honda. Given the state of the traffic and the absence of any helmets, it's debatable whether this means of transport is really that much safer than the bus.

Nguyen Tuan Khoa - an instant friend

And here is his family - and us.

Cyclos in Saigon

An artist in Cholon doing some calligraphy commissioned by Yoong. We also bought a set of scroll paintings showing the four seasons. (They turned out to be prints.)

We went to Vung Tau for a day trip. Tam and Lanh insisted we be accompanied by Tam's brother. Or was it his cousin-brother?

This is where the "taxi" broke down on the way back from Vung Tau. Fortunately Saigon Tourism came to the rescue.

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