We quickly got the hang of this bustling city of ten million inhabitants. The first small feeling of success we felt was crossing the street without getting killed by the myriad of motorbikes flying by.
On Saturday we did nothing but walk around the city, visiting the Ho Chi Minh City museum, then a nearby market. Surprisingly we didn't get lost, thanks to Alex's innate sense of direction. Then yesterday we booked a day tour to visit the Cu Chi tunnels. Getting there was an adventure in itself.
First, one must understand that when you're told to take a certain bus at eight o'clock, you don't expect there to be dozens of buses, many of which are going in the same direction. So finding the right bus is a challenge. But then we realize we don't have the receipt confirming our booking that I've left in my pocket in another pair of pants in our room. So Alex runs back. When he comes back a few minutes later, out of breath and drenched in sweat, he reminds me that we had locked away all of our possessions in a locker in our room, including my pants. So after I hand him the key to the locker, he runs again. When he comes back again, he takes a very long time to recover. You see, our room is on the fourth floor of a very tall, skinny building, with no elevator.
Clearly, we'd missed our bus. When we tell those responsible for the tour, they call the tour guide, who picks us up by motorbike a few minutes later. So we rode separately on this machine likely to cause injury or death to the tour office. From there a woman walked us to our small bus parked on the side of the road. We were very grateful for all the help we'd received.
After that, apart from the tight squeeze in the bus and the lack of air conditioning, it was a good day. We didn't even burn in the blistering 35 degrees Celsius, which felt like 45 degrees with the humidex. The tunnels were great; we got swarmed with propaganda and Vietnamese pride, and were amazed at the Vietnamese people's resilience during the war against the Americans. We explored the complex layout of tunnels and the many traps they had made.
We finished our evening where we always did the last three nights, in the little restaurant across our hotel which served food that we looked forward to every day. During the night, at around 4:30 am, we were once again woken up by a man ringing a bell incessantly in the temple next to our hotel, presumably a monk.
I am presently writing from a sleeper bus heading to Chau Doc, a city from which we'll be taking a boat in the morning to Phnom Penh in Cambodia. We were told the bus ride would only take three hours, but it looks like we're looking at six. But, as we keep telling each other, "it's an experience," like so many others.
