Blog7

Blog7

Entry the Sixth: A New Era Dawns

For my last hostel breakfast I went for the Chicken Phở; partly to have something Vietnamese again, partly because unlike the eggs, it comes with a tall fruit smoothie, which is just what you need after emerging from an air-conditioned room into the heat of the day. I wasn't sightseeing this morning though. No, I was packing (the few things that had escaped my suitcase anyway) because I was off to Tom’s apartment, where I would be crashing for a couple of weeks until I got on my feet.

I took a taxi out to the mysterious destination known as “Era Town” somewhere out in District 7, a place of wide, American-style roads, towering apartment complex and expensive shopping malls (like the Lotte Mart I had visited with Tom yesterday) and a world away from the narrow alleyways of the city centre. Tom gave me an address somewhere on a nearby street, as apparently the apartment complex was new enough not to have a proper address that Google Maps and the average downtown taxi driver would recognise.

Welcome to Era Town! The happiest place on Earth!

The place was even further than the ‘main’ part of District 7, past the malls and along a stretch of almost-motorway through a patchy almost-countryside, although it was clear the remaining scrub land was marked out and divided into lots for future development; much of the route was already peppered with half-filled strips of shops. The overwhelming impression was of the rapidly sprawling outskirts of a city on the grow.

I approached Era Town along a huge unfinished entryway, still covered with gravel. The taxi slowed right down and crawled through the complex, apartment blocks towering from either side. Once I was dropped off, I gave Tom a call so he could come and find me and direct me to the right place: the 32^nd Floor of one of the blocks.

The view from the apartment, if you go out on the balcony and lean unreasonably dangerously over the edge, that is. Mostly, the view is of that other tower.

Era Town is an intriguing place. It reflects the development of New Saigon, throwing itself skywards before it can even catch up with itself. The towers are there and the apartments furnished and comfortable, but the cracks are already starting to show. The paint is peeling and pavement tiles are missing, but they haven’t even paved the entryway or finished installing the car park barriers.

The base of each tower is filled with everything a small community might need: corner shops, bakeries, small cafés and restaurants, even gyms, hairdressers, furniture shops and a school, but half the units are still empty, and some open to cavernous interior spaces with unfinished concrete stairwells. The entire block opposite Tom’s is completely uninhabited. The whole place is lit with neon strips at night, proudly proclaiming the name of the corporation behind the development.

The fountains and neon look nice, but the "Era Center" is a completely empty frontage.

I threw my bag into Tom’s spare room and picked his brains for a few hours about everything I could think of at the time. He had a busy afternoon planned – the full time teacher has to plan his weekends meticulously – so a few hours later it was back in a taxi to the centre of town.

I picked up where I had left off exploring the city. I had my first proper Phở for lunch at Phở Quynh, a restaurant Tom had recommended just off Phạm Ngũ Lão and a stone’s throw from my old hostel. Unlike the tasty but straight-out-of-a-packet breakfast Phở I’d been eating over the weekend, this stuff was undoubtedly richer, a larger portion and served with an assortment of raw salad vegetables to plunge into the soup at your leisure and wedges of lime to squeeze over the top. I can’t recall the exact price but it was still only around 40 000 to 60 000 ₫ (between £1 and £2).

It's Phở Quynh, the undisputed Queen of Phở!

After lunch, I walked to Tao Dan Park, the centre’s largest city park, a verdant space in the heart of District 1. I relaxed for a while and read a little of my book (a battered paperback of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: Odyssey Two which I had picked up in Slovenia back in June) but unfortunately, I couldn't sit still for long without being accosted by a beggar. As someone completely new to Vietnam, I'm still wary of pickpockets or anyone else who might want to take advantage of my naivety. Even in Vienna I’d almost been the victim of a pickpocket as recently as March.

Shortly afterwards however, I had an altogether more pleasant encounter with a girl called Nguyet (No, I couldn't pronounce it either), a student at the university who just fancied practising her English with someone who looked like they could speak it. We chatted for a while until it started raining once again.

Tao Dan Park, a verdant space in the heart of the city.

We parted ways and I tried to look for somewhere new to go but my phone had run out of battery. Using the mobile data might be great for Google Mapping your way around town while messaging people, but with regular usage, my phone doesn't seem to last more than about 5 or 6 hours.

I felt pretty lost, to be honest, with no way of double checking my maps to find the address of Tom’s apartment or getting in contact at all! With the rain still coming down, I ducked into a hotel just to get off the streets and had a couple of beers in the bar. I asked the waiter if he had any way to charge my phone, and it looked pretty hopeless until another patron lent me his charger so I could send a message and scribble down that address on a piece of paper! So, whoever you were and wherever you are, random guy in that hotel bar, thank you!

Some intriguing dragon topiary in the park.

There is purportedly a type of beer unique to Vietnam known as bia hơi, which is usually translated as something like ‘fresh beer’. Bia is a loanword derived from the French bière, bizarrely making Vietnamese easier to order a beer in than Spanish (although harder to do everything else in!).

Anyway, bia hơi is a weak lager (~3%) which is almost mind-bogglingly cheap; it can be as little as 3000 ₫ (about 9p), so I was very interested in trying to find some to round off my weekend. My Rough Guide to Vietnam suggested the street De Tham was the place to go.

Unless you go somewhere special, the beer choice in your average bar seems limited to local lager Bia Saigon and Singapore import Tiger. The latter is marketed as a little more upmarket, but not by much; they’re equally uninteresting lagers and I was anxious to find something different.

However, this digression into the potential appeals of bia hơi may seem ultimately pointless when I tell you that my search was unsuccessful. Saigon is a constantly changing city, so it’s perfectly possible that a few years ago, De Tham was a bia hơi paradise, but now it just seemed like an extension of the backpacker drinking street Bùi Viện, with the same boring old beers on offer.

I did spy the cheapest drink I’d seen so far, a 330ml bottle of Bia Saigon for 10 000 ₫ (a still ludicrously cheap 30p), so I went to that otherwise unremarkable cut-price café and supplemented my Sunday night beer with a cheap noodle snack which turned up lukewarm and was quickly cold. But at least the beer was cheap, right?

So, no bia hơi but I'll leave you with a dramatic view down this apartment shaft.

Entry the Fifth: The Legend of Thánh Gióng

The Legend of Thánh Gióng

A Vietnamese folk tale.

A long time ago, in a small and faraway village called Phù Đổng in the land that is known today as Việt Nam, there lived a poor but kind and hardworking couple. Their lives, like the lives of many in their village, were often miserable and difficult, but the country was relatively peaceful, they were recently married and happy together. However, their wish was to have a child, and although they tried and tried for many years and prayed to the Gods for fertility they could not conceive.

One day, the woman developed a severe sickness, so her husband made the journey to Trau Mountain to collect some medicinal herbs and leaves to relieve her pain. But disaster struck in the mountains, and her husband was killed in a fall. The tragic news reached the woman on her sick bed and she cried for it seemed they had spent only a fleeting time together.

In time the sickness passed, and although she was sad and her wish to have a family was over, she knew she had to stay strong for herself and keep working to earn a living. Every day, she went to the fields and worked from sunrise to sunset. The other people of the village felt sorry for her, but there was little they could do to help, for they were poor as well.

In those days, the land was ruled by the 6^th King or Vương of the Hùng Dynasty. The King was a benevolent ruler, but a threat was approaching the kingdom in the form of the formidable Ân warriors, who were moving south and conquering all the lands in their path. The people prayed with all their hearts and minds for protection, with the strong belief that the Gods would hear them soon.

Eventually, the Gods saw the hardworking people and the danger approaching them and finally listened to their prayers. They were angry at the cruelty and violence of the Ân and decided to do something to help the people of Việt Nam. They discussed and debated the situation, and finally turned to the God of War. They asked him if his son was willing to go to Earth and fight alongside the troops of that country when the time came.

Without hesitation, the God’s son agreed, although his father was quite worried for his son’s safety, for this would be his first mission to Earth, and the God did not know whether he would succeed. He helped his son to prepare, and soon the son has confidence and courage and felt more ready than ever. He said a final farewell to his parents and siblings and left for Earth.

Sometime later, the poor woman of Phù Đổng village was working hard as usual on a distant corner of the fields. On her way back home, she saw a remarkable footprint in the wet soil. She gave a start, for this footprint was the strangest she had ever seen. She placed her own foot in the centre to compare.

Although it looked like the footprint of a man, it was larger and deeper than any she had seen before, and filled with clear water, cleaner than any which clogged the furrows in the muddy ground. Could it be the footprint of a giant? Or a God?

The day was hot, and the woman was tired and thirsty, so she cupped her hands and drank deeply from the clear water. Almost immediately, she began to feel faint and collapsed into unconsciousness.

When she awoke, she was lying on her bed in her home, surrounded by friends and neighbours, who were regarding her with nervous glances. She tried to sit up, but felt a strange sensation in her stomach. Looking down she saw a slight bulge. At first the people worried that her sickness had returned, but in the months that followed, the woman’s body continued to swell and it became clear that she was pregnant.

Some of the villagers spoke ill of the woman, and told tales about her, for it was too long since the death of her husband for the child to be his. But the woman knew that the child was a gift, and the Gods had finally answered her prayers. When he was born a few months later, the sky grew dark and lightning crossed the heavens. This was a sign from the Gods to mark the child as one of their own.

The woman named her son Thánh Gióng. Some of the village elders believed that the child was special, and would change the country in the future, but the woman was just happy to have a son she could raise and devote her life to. Finally, she would no longer be lonely.

However, the elders soon lost interest in Gióng, for by the time of his third birthday, although he was chubby and healthy, he could not walk, could not talk or smile, and simply lay wherever he was placed. This made her worried and sad once again, but she loved him all the same.

News soon reached the village that the Ân invaders were drawing ever closer to Phù Đổng village and the heartlands of Việt Nam. They blazed a path through the country, burning towns and cities, murdering innocents and subjecting the people to acts of immeasurable cruelty.

Despite their persistence and tenacity, the armies of Hùng Vương were repeatedly routed. In his desperation, the King dispatched messengers to all the towns and villages of the kingdom, searching for skilled warriors to join the army. Young men crowded around these envoys, eager to prove themselves and defend their homes, and although the army swelled, the Ân moved forward, and no man appeared to be the hero who could save the nation.

Late one night, the King’s messenger finally reached Phù Đổng. As the villagers gathered around him in the central meeting place, he made his speech, reading loudly from the King’s scroll. Gióng’s mother was lulling him to sleep when she heard the messenger’s voice. She looked down at her son and smiled sadly, wondering if her son would ever grow into the kind of man who could join the army and fight for freedom.

At the sound of the messenger’s voice, Gióng suddenly sat up to listen. His mother was shocked. Then something even more surprising happened. Gióng spoke!

“Call the messenger in for me, mother. I need to speak with him.” Gióng said.

Then he was silent again. The woman was still astounded, but she rushed outside and called the messenger in with a mix of hope and anxiety. The man came inside and was surprised to see the small boy sitting up in his crib. The messenger smiled down at Gióng.

“Why do you want to see me, child? I think you might be a little young to join the King’s army.”

Gióng answered seriously: “Go to the King and tell him to forge for me three things: a huge horse of iron, an iron suit of plate armour with iron helmet and a long rod of iron. Then you will see how I fight the invaders for the country’s peace.”

The words from the little boy were so clear, so eloquent and powerful, that the messenger was instantly in awe and felt compelled to obey. He immediately left the village and returned to the capital.

Once in the King’s Palace, the envoy reported directly to the King, telling him everything about Gióng and the strange requests he had made. The King listened well and believed that the boy must be a God-sent hero. He decreed that the order was to be fulfilled, and called all the blacksmiths in the country to the capital and sent men to collect all the available iron that could be found.

The blacksmiths worked day and night in the royal forge melting down the iron and crafting the immense horse, armour and rod that Gióng had asked for. When they had finished, the weapons were too heavy for anyone to move, so the King ordered a thousand of his troops to carry them to Gióng.

Meanwhile in Phù Đổng, Gióng had begun to eat. And as he ate, he started to grow. First, he called for his mother to cook him rice, and he kept eating until there was no food left in the house. His mother then asked for help from the neighbours.

Soon, the whole village was cooking for Gióng. They brought him rice, they brought him bread, and they brought him meat and fish. The more they brought, the more he ate and the more he grew. He grew and grew until his clothes burst, and the villagers rushed to make him some more.

Soon, word arrived that the invaders were approaching the foot of Trau Mountain, only three days’ ride away. The people were scared and prayed that the King’s men would arrive soon. On the third day, the royal guard arrived in the village carrying the iron horse, armour and rod and Gióng finally stopped eating. He stood up, stretched his arms, and stepped out of his house. The villagers gasped. In a few short days, Gióng had become a powerful, muscular giant of a man. He reached the height of a trượng (a traditionally Vietnamese measurement roughly equal to 3 ⅓ m).

Gióng picked up the heavy iron armour easily and put it on. When he touched the iron horse, the great beast sprang to life, neighing loudly and breathing fire from its nostrils. Gióng stretched again, and turned to the royal troops, who were watching in astonishment and admiration. Gióng’s voice rumbled like thunder as he spoke.

“Ride with me into battle, for I am your God-appointed general!”

Gióng grabbed his iron rod and mounted his horse.

With the soldiers and young men following behind him, Gióng rode to the mountains to await the enemy. When he saw the Ân, he led his men directly into their ranks. The rod in Gióng’s hand flashed like lightning, killing a great number of the enemy. Their compatriots trembled at the sight and many more were burned by the fire from the nostrils of the iron horse. The man on the iron horse fought bravely and the enemy died like flies. But the battle was long and fierce, for though Gióng and his men were valiant, the Ân were still dense and powerful.

Suddenly, in the heat of battle, the iron rod broke! But Gióng was not to be defeated. Thinking quickly, Gióng uprooted trees from the bamboo groves growing on either side of the road. He continued to strike at the enemy as he had with his rod.

Before long, the will of the invaders shattered. Utterly broken, they began to flee, trampling over each other in their desperation to get away even before their terrified general gave the order to retreat.

As they fled, Gióng continued to rip clumps of bamboo from the ground and toss them at the enemy troops. When all the Ân were either dead or running, Gióng was declared victorious. He had finally restored peace and order to the country.

After the battle, Gióng rode to the top of Soc Son Mountain, where he took off his armour and helmet. He climbed back onto his horse and flew away, disappearing into the skies as man and horse ascended to heaven together.

To show his deep gratitude to the valiant man, the King conferred upon him the title of Phù Đổng Thiên Vương (The Heavenly King of Phù Đổng) and commissioned a temple dedicated to his memory not far from the spot where he ascended. To this very day, there is a festival each year to commemorate and honour the memory of Thánh Gióng.

Entry the Fourth: Monsoon Season

I didn't take too many photos today, so here's a shot of the skyline from Friday, taken from the balcony of the Gia Long Palace City Museum.

After packing in all of that sightseeing, I had a lazy morning starting with a hotel breakfast, ‘English’ style. On Friday, I had gone for the Vietnamese classic of beef phở (noodle soup), out of a packet sadly, but included in the £14 en suite air-conditioned room and served with a fruit shake and a cup of thick, strong coffee, so who am I to judge? Today, I had eggs, sausages, bread and beans, but with a Vietnamese twist: small sausages slightly larger than a cocktail sausage, a kind of ‘three bean’ salad in tomato sauce, and one of the ubiquitous single portion baguettes.

Around noon, I met up with Tom in a nearby coffee shop. He took me down the road to a phone shop to get my new SIM, which was a relatively easy if lengthy process, during which for some reason I had to show my passport (and had to dash back to the hotel to get it). Before long, I was set up with a Vietnamese credit and data plan for a few thousand dong a month.

Tom had intended to take me over to his neck of the woods, the southern District 7, but as we were heading down the main road on his moped, the heavens opened. Soon, the roads were slick and desperate citizens were pulling over and throwing ponchos on or trying to find somewhere to wait out the downpour. We pulled into a shopping centre called Lotte Mart, a complex with a supermarket, coffee shops, food court and cinema which formed a useful sort of halfway house between the centre of the city and Tom’s apartment.

Think you know rain? Think again.

After the hubbub of the city streets, Lotte Mart was very much westernised, and formed a kind of familiar bubble. We stayed for over an hour in a modern coffee shop like those found the world over, though the coffee we drank was in the Vietnamese style, very strong and poured over a dollop of condensed milk in the bottom. Depending on preference you can have a few sips of pure coffee, and then begin to stir, incrementally increasing the sweetness and milkiness of the drink.

Monsoon season!

I’d been expecting some rain since I arrived, but this was the first I’d seen. It seems to rain at least every other day, and not for very long, although the longer the rain holds off, the longer it’ll last for when it finally breaks. It’s really a similar but more extreme example of the same muggy build up of heat followed by a storm to clear the air that you get during the summer at home, although it’s October now and that pattern shows no signs of relenting for ‘winter’. Sometimes it’s overcast, sometimes it’s a scorcher, but it’s always warm. But at least there’s none of that relentless half-rain that lasts for days in the UK.

We decided to head back into town instead of going all the way to Tom’s, and got a late lunch/early dinner at a chain restaurant I can’t remember the name of. We had another Vietnamese classic, ‘broken rice’ served with a selection of pork: a thin fried ‘chop’, crackling-like skin shavings, and a ‘pork pie’ which seemed more like a slice of quiche than the Melton Mowbray kind of thing you’d expect in England. This also came with a bowl of soup and some sweet and spicy sauces; we had this with soft drinks and spring rolls as a starter for about 70 000 ₫ each, again just over £2 and about the same as the pint of beer I had the other night.

In the evening, I met Tien again and he took me on another scooter tour, whistling through the streets of District 1, but slightly further out than the centre I had explored. We passed some lively streets, and swung by the edge of the botanical gardens, which I shall have to visit sometime.

I didn't take my camera out for the evening, so you'll have to make do with some hastily searched for stock pictures.

We ended up at Ba Cây Chổi, a themed bar and restaurant, which was decorated with a magic and fantasy motif. The building resembled a castle out of Harry Potter, nestled incongruously between sleek, modern restaurants on a street filled with market stalls selling cheap sunglasses. We had a couple of beers on the upper level balcony overlooking the street, and snacked on sticky ribs.

There, Tien told me the story of Thánh Gióng, the legendary Vietnamese folk hero who swiftly grew to become a great hero who rode an iron horse to victory against an invading army.

The interior of fantasy themed bar Ba Cây Chổi.

The night was rounded off with a detour via a canal in a slightly quieter area of town where a lit up bridge slowly cycled through the colour spectrum. Then Tien took me back to the hotel. I grabbed another bánh mì from the bakery chain ABC and spent the rest of the evening in, the last night in the hotel. It was then I realised that the snacks and drinks in mini-bar I’d been habitually eschewing all weekend averaged about 12 000 ₫ (barely 35p). Suddenly I didn’t feel so bad about grabbing some beers, crisps and soft drinks to supplement my sandwich, and the large bottled water was a godsend.

Naturally, I was rolling in thousands of dong.

Entry the Third: Colonialism and Communism

We'll keep the red flag flying here.

Ho Chi Minh City has on occasion been referred to as the Paris of the East, a title which has not only been used to describe its northern neighbour Hanoi, but has been liberally applied to everywhere from Prague to Shanghai. Still, Vietnam was once the backbone of French Indochina and at the turn of the 20th Century, its capital was here in Saigon.

Though other influences have come to define the last seventy years, the colonial legacy lives on in the elegant architecture, the occasional street or bakery with a French name and the prevalence of coffee and the small baguettes used to make the Vietnamese sandwich bánh mì.

Saigon's Parisienne Walkways

It was also interesting to see Communist imagery; the hammer & sickle and the gold-on-red star of the national flag itself; displayed prominently around the city with the knowledge that there really was some weight behind it, for Vietnam is a Socialist single-party state and they remain genuine political symbols. In Central and Eastern Europe, such symbols were displayed as historical and even nostalgic symbols of a bygone era. Here, like in neighbouring Laos and China, it is alive and well.

Excusez-moi, où est l'hôtel de ville?

As I turned to my Rough Guide to Vietnam to help me explore the city; the blend of French and Communist themes were perhaps exemplified by my first stop, the elaborately columned pastel château still known as the Hôtel de Ville, which you may recall from your secondary school French is nothing to do with a hotel, but is the Town Hall. These days, it houses the organisation known as the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, but it amounts to the same thing.

"In front is a statue of Ho Chi Minh himself..."

In front is a statue of Ho Chi Minh himself, the man from which the city takes its modern name, the Communist revolutionary and first President of (then North) Vietnam from 1945 until his death in 1969. The new statue has recently replaced an older one of Ho Chi Minh teaching a child.

Looking down Nguyễn Huệ Street.

Now he stands alone, raising a hand as if in greeting or salute, and faces Nguyễn Huệ Street, the wide and recently pedestrianised boulevard which cuts like a vast skyscraper-lined canyon through the dense city towards the river which still bears the name Saigon.

...et de la cathédrale? Merci.

I then walked northwest, where the 19th Century Romanesque Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Saigon provides a focal point on the square called Công xã Paris, revealing another colonial legacy: the small but significant Catholic minority. I had heard the European style cathedral was a popular place for wedding photographs, and sure enough, I spotted a happy couple doing just that.

"...the dazzlingly yellow General Post Office"

On the same square is the dazzlingly yellow General Post Office, another grand colonial construction retaining its original function, flanked today by more modern statues of revolutionary soldiers. It resembles a European railway station and was designed by none other than Gustav Eiffel himself! Inside, colonialism and communism are once more intertwined; 19th Century maps of Saigon’s streets and telegraph lines develop the postal ambience, while at the back of the hall, a huge portrait of Uncle Ho smiles down upon his busy citizens.

The post office interior.

As I walked back towards the centre of town, the heat of the day brought on a thirst. At the perfect time I spotted a young woman selling coconuts, and for the price of just over £1 she cleaved open a fresh one for me. Perhaps I could have haggled or found one for cheaper, but on my first day that’s a price I’m still willing to pay. Passing the Hôtel de Ville again, I posed coconut in hand under the palm trees, for a tropical tourist moment in my Hawaiian shirt and hat, looking every bit the daft newcomer.

Let's play 'Spot the Tourist and see how much we can charge him for a coconut'

For an early lunch I had an apple crepe and an avocado & dragon fruit smoothie at La Fenêtre Soleil, a breezy café on the upper level corner of a busy junction which despite its French name serves Indonesian cuisine alongside its sweets and shakes. Cool and dim with bare brick interior walls, it’s was the perfect shelter from the hubbub of the busy junction below where a traffic police officer directed a dense convergence of traffic which I later navigated across to reach the Ho Chi Minh City museum.

Sun streaming through the window at La Fenêtre Soleil

The museum fills Gia Long Palace, the 19th Century French mansion which housed the Governor of Cochinchina. This confused me a little at first as the nearby Reunification Palace, which I was to visit in the next couple of days, stands on the site of another purported governor’s mansion. But Saigon was at one time capital of both French Indochina and the smaller administrative region of Cochinchina, which roughly corresponds to the southern third of Vietnam. Thus the city housed two governors and two governor’s mansions.

Gia Long Palace, home of the Ho Chi Minh City Museum

The museum isn’t huge, but features an impressive range of exhibits including: some of the treasures of the Thăng Long Imperial Citadel on loan from Hanoi; histories of industry like carving and metal work from ancient times to the present day; the traditional dress and wedding ceremonies of Vietnam’s many ethnic minority groups; details of the revolutionary struggles against the French, Japanese and Americans; and some detail of the modern successes of the city in the 40 years since the country was reunified.

Highlights from the museum collection

A highlight was the military hardware on display in the grounds outside the museum which is always fascinating to see up close: an anti-aircraft gun, an American helicopter, a Soviet tank and a couple of fighter jets. Similar weaponry surrounds other museums in the city. Unfortunately, the working day was drawing to a close and I missed seeing the bunker below the museum when they started to shut up shop.

 The Soviet tank

I was also feeling a little too tired to read all the information cards after spending the day walking around the city while still recovering from jet lag. I’d have liked to see the bunker and spend some more time appreciating the detail, but as the entry fee is a little under £1 it won’t cost me too much to go back there someday.

Posing in front of military hardware.

I walked back towards the general Phạm Ngũ Lão area (the backpackers’ district) where I visited Huỳnh Hoa, a small sandwich shop famous for its bánh mì, which Tien had recommended. It looked a little rough and ready, but you could immediately tell it was popular from the gaggle of bikes crowding the entrance and the queue inside.

The popular sandwich shop Huỳnh Hoa, famous for its bánh mì, as evidenced by the crowd of people and motorbikes.

It was a takeaway, so I walked back to eat it in the Phạm Ngũ Lão park, struggling through the busy roundabout where a statue of a boy on a horse had pride of place. I would later learn that this was Thánh Gióng, a Vietnamese folk hero. The sandwich contained a pork paté, sliced cuts of other meats, cucumber and chilli. It was spicy and delicious, though I was a little dehydrated at this point, and a drink would have gone down a storm.

"The sandwich contained a pork paté, sliced cuts of other meats, cucumber and chilli. It was spicy and delicious."

That evening, though I was still tired, I went for a couple of beers on Bùi Viện, the bar street. The beer had a mid range price, about 70 000 ₫ for 500ml, so just over £2 a pint. Not dirt cheap, but still cheaper than you’d find in any non-student UK pub (except Churchill’s limited edition Silver beer, a bargain at £1.90 when it was available last year.

I got talking to a trio of British travellers from Liverpool and Edinburgh, one of whom was living in Bangkok. They were only there for another night before heading off to some other place, so they called it a night fairly early, but the Bangkok guy was positive about his time there and told me that I was in for a good experience.

Still a little jet laggy (I know it’s taken me a while to write this blog, but we’re still on my first full day!), I threw in the towel at about 11pm, and went back to the hotel to try and salvage my sleeping pattern. It was just about when things were really getting busy, running the gauntlet of crazy pub crawls. Maybe in a few days, eh?

A final obligatory shot of bikes, here cruising past the Thánh Gióng roundabout.