Saigon part 1

It's quite tragic to think that only a week ago Matt and I were sitting in a roof top bar in Saigon watching an amazing Cuban band (!), and yet I almost feel like it never happened.

Work has been rather full on of late.  It has been so nice this weekend to do next to nothing; Ella and I hung out in a mall yesterday (we do enjoy just being together) and today I made a skirt!  Having the trip in the middle of Professional Development days (4 in the last 3 weeks)  plus lots of planning for work was a little crazy.

Anyway, the trip. I did buy a new camera lens at the airport so that I would have no excuses for not taking photos...but it rained nearly the whole time we were there; I have some photos, but not nearly as many as I have taken on other trips.

The foyer of our hotel, the Eden Saigon

My first impressions: Crazy, Frenetic, Busy, Bustling, Mad.  But then, remember, I haven't really visited much of real Asia before.  We got in on Friday afternoon and, after we'd dropped off our things in our hotel room, we went out for a bit of a walk...in peak hour...on a Friday.

The View from our room

The View from our room

The view from our room

 If I'm honest I felt really overwhelmed that first night.  I felt like I was in fear of my life every minute we walked around as motor bikes not only went down the wrong side of the road, but zoomed up on to the footpath to get around the traffic.  I had heard that crossing the road was crazy, but I had NO IDEA what I was in for.  Matt took it all in his stride saying that it was just like Jakarta (in which he spent a lot of time when we lived here before).

An intersection we stood at trying to work out which way the traffic was going

I couldn't get over the bundles of electricity cables... the skinny buildings

 Fortunately we found a good little cafe for our first of many Vietnamese coffees.


I felt exhausted by the time got back to our hotel room (Matt had refused to take a map with us, and with watching out for bikes the whole time we managed to get lost).  I kept thinking that this was the worst place to come on the back of a few very stressful weeks at work.  So we had dinner on the roof top bar at our hotel that night and away from the hustle and bustle I did begin to relax.

A blurry photo, I know, but the rising moon was just spectacular

Another...but look at all those lights!

After dinner, Matt dragged me back out onto the streets again.  This time we got a map from the hotel front desk and headed down into the "back packer" area of town for a bit of a look.  We walked for quite a while and I finally began to relax as I realised that the chaos of the afternoon wasn't the norm.  Unfortunately, even with the map we managed to get lost/turned around and walked a lot longer than we had intended to.

 On Saturday morning we determined to brave it and set out with a map and no real idea as to our plans.  We braved it and crossed one of the really busy roads and then cheated by walking through Tao Dan park...no motor bikes there!

[Having grown up doing a Vietnamese Martial Art with my father and brother (and Matt did it too for a while), we were under strict orders from my Dad to be on the look out for the missing 4th pattern.  Any following comments about the 4th pattern are aimed at him]

I think this may be a missing stance in the elusive 4th pattern

Good old Betthoven

We made our way down to Ben Thanh Markets, but it was starting to rain and very muggy in there and I could just tell Matt wasn't in the mood for shopping right then.  So after fortifying ourselves with another Vietnamese coffee and hiding from the heaviest of the rain, we decided to go and check out the Art Museum which was indoors.

If you are ever in Saigon, I would totally recommend going to this place...not so much for the art which is sparse, but for the building which is just amazing.  I think it cost all of 50c to get in, and there was hardly anyone else there except for a group doing wedding photographs.

the view from one of the balconies

Ancient Vietnamese artifact...Teapot with the lid held on with sticky tape.

Evidence of the 4th pattern

Of course after so much beauty we had to fortify ourselves with another Vietnamese coffee...