Back in Vietnam: HCM
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| It was my third trip to Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon |
On my first two tours of Nam (feels kinda cool to say it that way) I prearranged a visa. On Semester at Sea visas for Brazil, India, Vietnam, and China were handled by a private company specializing in that sort of thing. The second time around I applied for the visa in Vientaine, the capital of Laos. According to our Internet research Vietnam was now offering visas on arrival to tourists who applied online through third party companies. You simply handed over your personal info - name, date of birth, passport number - along with a fee to a random company via the Internet. The company then sends you a letter of approval to hand over to immigration once you arrive in Vietnam.
If you think this sounds pretty sketchy, that makes two of us. Mike and I read up on it on different travel forums and it seemed legit. We had to pay the company about $15 for their efforts, and once in Vietnam we'd need to pay $45 to immigration for the actual visa. This was opposed to applying in advance at a Vietnamese embassy and paying $100. So we thought, what the hell, it's worked for other travelers so let's give it a shot.
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| You'd think they'd make it easy to get the visa...more $$ from tourists! |
When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City, often still referred to as Saigon, we proceeded to immigration where about 50 other tourists were waiting, all of whom had the same plan we did. Things proceeded slowly but aside from the hour wait our visa was processed without a hitch. For those of you who may want to take the visa on arrival route: remember to have US dollars, as they are the only currency accepted for the $45 fee (I guess economics trumps ideology!). Also the visa on arrival only works if you are flying in to either Hanoi or Saigon.
I probably talked about this in a previous post about Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) / Saigon, but it bears repeating: there's really nowhere else like Vietnamese cities when it comes to traffic. It may not have the worst traffic jams (lots of people can make cases for their city), or even the craziest congestion (nod would probably go to India), but it's certainly unique. 90% of the vehicles on the streets are motorbikes. If you think I'm inflating those numbers check out this video of traffic in Saigon. Mostly motorbikes, a few cars, buses, and bicycles. A generation ago it was mostly push bikes, and as the economy continues to grow there will be more and more private cars, but for now the streets are still dominated by motorbikes!
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| crazy rush hour traffic! |
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| some of the millions of motorbikes in Saigon |
It's hard to say how many motorbikes are on the road in Saigon; a lot would be an understatement. I've seen numbers ranging from 3-6 million, with the median probably being 4 million. Not bad for a city of less than 8 million people (wiki)! The pictures and video may look chaotic, but there are surprisingly few accidents, at least serious ones. On account of the congestion drivers rarely go above 30 miles per hour, so it's pretty easy to stop or dodge those idiots weaving through traffic. After driving motorbikes on several occasions (thankfully not in Saigon) I can say that even if it's hard to tell, there is a definite system in place. Driving is like organized chaos, but it works!
Mike, Sam, and I spent two nights in HCMC dodging traffic, shopping at the markets, munching on street snacks and enjoying cheap beer. My two favorite things in Saigon are food stalls and Bia Hoi. On most street corners, especially in the tourist areas, you can find street vendors and small restaurants selling extremely cheap sandwiches, smoothies, and a variety of Vietnamese dishes. A couple dollars will go a long way!
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| Street vendors don't have much overhead, and you don't need to worry about renting restaurant space! |
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| Banh Mi is a popular street food, particularly in touristy areas of the south. The perfect sandwich? That's debatable, but for 50 cents or less it's one damn good deal! |
Bia Hoi, or fresh beer, is most common in the north of Vietnam. Small shop owners brew their own beer, sans preservatives, and serve it up on draft nightly. A new batch is made each day, hence no need for preservatives. These shops typically have small plastic tables and chairs on the sidewalk outside their storefronts. If things get really busy you might even see chairs lined up on the street; just one more thing for the moto drivers to dodge! Although the actual draft beer variety is less common in the south, plastic chairs come out in full force in Saigon as well, just with bottled or canned stuff instead.
So technically a lot of the places in HCMC don't offer Bia Hoi, it's the same sort of beer you could get in the convenience store. Bia Hoi is fun to say though, and it's kinda caught on as a blanket term for the cheap beer stalls across Vietnam. The best part of these street side pubs, regardless of whether or not it's the home-brewed variety, is the price. In Saigon 50 cent beers are pretty average. It's not uncommon to see 25 cent brews in some areas of Hanoi. Throw in a couple Bun Cha sandwiches for a dollar and you have yourself one damn cheap night out!
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| Typical beer selection at a streetside bar; you won't find the home-brewed variety as often in Saigon, but they are still super cheap. |
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| Outdoor cafe in Hanoi; can the chairs get any smaller?! |
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| Street scene in the tourist area of HCMC, where plastic tables and chairs often spill out over the sidewalk and onto the road. |
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| With Sam (top left), Mike (center), and a fellow backpacker we met at our hostel |
From Saigon we took an overnight bus north to the beach town of Nha Trang. I'd been there before, but it was a good final spot for Sam, who only had two weeks of vacation from his job in Baltimore. If you're going to escape the frigid winter (and this last one was COLD), a beach town would be the perfect getaway. More on the beach soon.
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