We cruised up a muddy river this morning to find a city of nine and a half million people which was much more modern, clean and organized than those we saw in Indonesia.
Although it is now officially Ho Chi Minh City everyone we came in contact with called this huge, bustling city Saigon even though it is nothing like the Saigon that many on this ship knew 50 some years ago. One friend who lived here then went out yesterday and had a hard time recognizing anything in her old neighborhood and the guides told us that if we had seen it even ten years ago we wouldn’t recognize it. This city has clearly and statistically been undergoing huge changes since the 90s when, whether due to government intervention or the people pulling themselves up despite the communist government, views differ!, the country shifted to a market economy.
Our guide continually used the phrase “when we were poor” as the beginning of sentences explaining the differences between then and now but the difference between rich and poor is still clearly visible on every street today. The population of Saigon is growing, 250,000 per year now, not so much by births as by farmers moving to the city and that accounts for the many small stalls on the sidewalks where new city dwellers get their start. They are illegal, of course, as is riding one’s moped on the sidewalk to beat the traffic or riding more than 3 on a moped, but no one seems to care.
Dale needed a haircut but, alas, we were on the bus and couldn’t stop here. Our tour was 7 1/2 hours long today and we made only 3 stops, 2 short ones and one for dinner. All of the rest of the time we were in TRAFFIC just getting the few miles from the port into town and around town. Really. It was unbelievable!
We were told that there are 2,000 more mopeds registered each day and it is frightening to think what might happen if even a small percentage of the riders decided to buy a car instead!
Our first stop was at the museum of traditional Vietnamese medicine. It was housed in a lovely and very old building and we learned that they use some one thousand plants for various remedies, some preventative and some curative. Many people still rely on the old ways while taking advantage of modern medicine at the same time.
Our second stop was at a large and colorful marketplace where one could buy just about anything. Dale bought a bag of coffee beans.
It was hard to decide what to buy here!
Our third and last stop was at a very popular restaurant in a beautiful 3 story building in the glitzy part of town. The meal consisted of six courses, all of which were wonderfully fresh and delicious and any one of which would have been enough for a meal by itself. The city seemed to be waking up (if more waking up could be imagined) as evening progressed and it was amazing to watch more stalls being set up on the sidewalks and especially the dance of the traffic. There are few traffic lights here and yet it all works out with the pedestrians crossing the street as they please and the cars and mopeds just coming on and usually not hitting them!
We weren’t the only ones who arrived back to the ship at 10:00 and decided that they had had enough of that traffic for a while. Tomorrow I plan to see the Mekong Delta and hopefully some less trafficked countryside on the way.
Wow, this is absolutely fascinating !! You are one healthy and strong woman to take all of this in and to document it so well. When you get home, you will be so thankful to have taken so many pictures and notes!
phenomenal photos! they capture the pulse of city life. they make me glad I live in a small town in the country they also totally captured my interest for the last 20 minutes the moped pictures brought back great memories of riding one, and of trying to avoid them But there are so many more in Vietnam! Thanks, Jenni, for posting!