Good morning Vietnam !!!

Before I even had a chance to delve deeper into my one week in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, I was literally lifted to Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh) for a crazy weekend. It took me two hours to get there and the first thing I realized when I landed is this place is HOT !!! I mean really hot …. I was sweating the moment I stepped out from the nice Tiger Airways plane onto the tarmac. There were 8 of us (6 guys and 2 girls) and we boarded a nice van down to our hotel. View from my hotel room on Saigon .... It took us about 30 minutes when we finally arrived. A quick check-in, refreshment and we’re out on the street looking for food. First stop, Pho 24 …. A noodle shop. As usual, I order the one with everything from tripe to brisket, fillet to tendon all into one bowl of nice hot soup. I even taken the liberty to add some more meat and meatball to fulfill my hunger (woke up at 500am, no coffee, no breakfast, no lunch and 3 blardy vodka sprite on the plane makes people get REALLY hungry) After we’ve completed the lunch, we went forth to Ben Thanh market for some Cha Tu Chak type shopping. Got what I’ve been wanting … Vietnamese coffee with the drip cups. Happy camper !!! Bought little bits of here and there as well but generally, nothing that captures my interest that much. What market if they don't have scorpions and cobras ! We then return to hotel to freshen up for dinner which was a Saigon river cruise. The food was bland, Chinese and not interesting but the cruise is quite fun. I also found that they have a dish that I’m very curious though I didn’t order it. (Exposure only once squid). Another interesting thing is our tour guide’s name for that night – “Kunt”… so we’re happily calling her and she also happily obliged !!! Later that night, we leave the boat and adjourned to Rain Forest disco. Typical Vietnamese local disco with loud thumping music but we’re kinda treated like VIPs because we ordered a bottle of Tequila. Here comes the shot … Woo Hoo !!! Had about 8 shots, did some dancing and went to Apocalypse Now disco, another joint but with more foreigners. The club was playing RnB, Hip-Hop and Pop stuffs. Here, more crazy drinking ensued … had about 3 Sprite Vodka or 4 Redbull Vodka first. Then I told them maybe more interesting shots … so we ordered Sambuca … had 2 of that. Then top up with a bottle of Finlandia Vodka which we had about 1/3 of a bottle (among 4 of us, the rest drop off) … before finally calling it a night. Woke up the next day at 700am to prepare ourselves for a trip to the tunnels (Cu Chi Tunnels). Again, extremely fascinated by it because it’s definitely an eye opener how resilient Vietnamese are in war. They totally created the word “guerilla” and perfected it to an art form. They can live and squeeze themselves into holes so small, its no surprise the Americans lost this war. Photos and words cannot describe enough of what I saw but you’ll have to experience it yourself to fully understand the extent of their thinking on guerilla warfare. For the Singaporeans or Malaysians, we need to top up with SHOPPING in the middle of the jungle to make this visit even more memorable. So, finish our jungle thing and went back to city for lunch. Met up with another group of 8 (2 guys, 6 girls) who just arrived. We were heading for lunch when a sudden down pour makes us all scatter like little monkeys. Anyway, the new group decided to try Pho 24 (which we had yesterday) and our group went to a new place called, Wrap and Roll … Here we EAT and EAT and EAT and EAT and EAT … we ate for 1.5 hours and we just laughing non-stop while a new dish was brought up. The food was delicious but the company was great. All of us were kinda IDIOTIC so it’s FUN !!! Completing our lunch, the smart-alec in us chose to visit the War Museum…. Highly graphical images of people dying, cut up and so on. Very depressing and emotional when we’re looking at the images. They show probably one side of the story on how Americans kill civilians and even kids but perhaps on the other side of the world, it will be vice-versa. Nevertheless, WAR is not a profitable to either side except the person who made the bullets. SO, I’M GOING FOR PEACE !!! MAKE LOVE, NOT WAR !!!! Woo Hoo !!! Completing this depressing moment, we immediately went shopping and I needed some clothes badly (didn’t bring enough and sweat too much) so I decided to visit our very own Malaysian brand store, Parkson. Again was let down because it wasn’t as cool as the one in KLCC. Finally found a nice printed T-shirt, a painting and some souvenir. Again, happy camper… Dinner tonight is French (Bibi)… after all, it’s a French colony and I can literally see people selling French baguette on the streets. Strange, but true. I wasn’t entirely impressed with this restaurant and I thought they are just kinda usual fare. Nevertheless, we ate happily … 16 of us … Didn’t go party because we took some time eating and by the time we finish, its quite late. We walk around aimlessly before heading back to hotel to order supper !!! Eat and then sleep. Next morning, fly home !!!! And now back in Singapore typing this. More quirky photos coming next.