I found some long pants made from very light fabric at Columbia Sportswear. Not only did they have zipper and velcro pockets, they have zippered legs from just above the knees, so you can convert them to "shorts" real easily. They protected me from sun and mosquitoes, but didn't keep the heat in, so they worked quite well.
I eventually got to the point where I could cross streets on foot at the intersections or even in the middle of the block. Wait for cars to go by, then hold out your hand like "please let me pass", and the motorbikes just go around you. You might have to stop in the middle of the street if traffic from the other direction doesn't yield to you conveniently.
You're staying just a couple streets away from where we stayed, at A25 Nguyen Trai, across the street from a Catholic church "Nha Tho Huyen Si".
Ben Thanh market you must see. While walking through the market I smelled durian fruit, which I like. I put my nose close to the fruit, took in a big whiff, added a big smile for dramatic effect, and suddenly my wife yelled, "What do you think you're doing?!!! Don't you EVER do that again!!!" I had no idea what was wrong, and she said, "You do that, you don't buy, they gonna curse you!". She wasn't thinking about "curse" meaning cuss me out, she was thinking they'd put a hex on me. Be careful about markets in the morning... especially if you're one of the first customers and you don't buy anything. They take that as a bad omen to start their day.
Two days in Saigon might be enough for Saigon (unless you have friends there, as we do now), but it's the rest of the country that's fascinating. We found my wife's old house, where she lived for a few years before she came to the US. We saw the old cathedral under renovation so we couldn't go inside. |
