Zelma’s Trip

After leaving the Windsor Plaza hotel I headed by taxi to the backpackers’
area of the city. I went to two ‘hotels’ which were full and wandered
round like a gormless idiot looking for somewhere to stay. I came across
another ‘hotel’ which was also fully booked and they phoned all of their
partnership ‘hotels’ which had no spaces either. I was beginning to feel
a bit like I was in Bethlehem or something. So I wandered around some
more and after countless offers of a lift decided that I would take one.
I went to get on the back of a motorbike and as the guy put my bag on the
bike decided I wanted to live beyone 28 and gave up on the idea. Then I
came across a guy on a “cyclo”, basically a bicycle with a bucket seat on
the front which you sit in. He said that he knew a good “hotel” and,
despite the fact that my guidebook said to avoid such situations (as the
person who takes you often gets commision and they mark the price up) I
decided it was a good plan.

You are possibly wondering why I keep writing “hotel” with inverted
commas. This is because they are called hotels but are basically hostels/
guesthouses. Places described as hotels here are not necessarily what you
would associate with the title of hotel in England. Right, now that’s
cleared up I’ll stop with my inverted comma thang.

When I got to the hotel I got a warm welcome and was informed that it was
$12 USD for a room with air-con or 10 for one with a fan. I was shown one
room which was fine, had a bed and an adjoining room with a shower. I
remember thinking, I bet the floor would all get really wet and think I
must have done that old transparent thinking thoughts to facial
expressions thing that I am so good at as he then showed me another one.
He apologised for it not being cleaned but said it would be if I waited an
hour. To be honest I couldn’t quite see what the fuss was about. The
room was lovely, had a double bed and ensuite with shower, bath and
toilet. There were funny touches like the pipe above the bath had fake
ivy wrapped around it to try and conceal it. Now why didn’t I think of
that before I got the pipes boxed in in my spare room! I meant to take
some pictures of the room but forgot. I may ask if I can when I get my
bag this afternoon. There was also a television which weirdly had more
channels than the one at the previous Hotel (that one’s a proper one so
gets a capital H!). In all fairness I loved the time at the hotel. The
whole family were so welcoming and it was beyond adequate and clean. In
terms of the prices, around $120 ish dollars for the first hotel or $10
for the second I know what I’d choose! If anyone is visiting Saigon I
would strongly recommend it. It’s in the backpackers’ district as I said
and is called “Betty” (9 Do Quang Steet, District 1, Ho Chi Min City
(Saigon), phone (84) (8) 8.360219). It also has free internet access but
it’s slow. If you do stay there I do not recommend plugging anything into
the USB ports if you use the computer. I tried to charge my Ipod and it
killed it. Fortunately it has now been resucitated and it turned out that
the evil machine only drained its battery. The USB port also managed to
give me a few electric shocks.

I followed the owner back downstairs and asked if he recommended anywhere
for tours. He asked which I was interested in and before I knew it he had
phoned to book me on one and was rushing me out the door and onto the bus.
I suddenly realised that I had left my bag in the hallway of the hostel
and that I had no idea of the name or really where it was as he had taken
me a weird back route down alleyways to the coach. Anyway, I tried to put
these thoughts out of my mind and concentrated on the trip.
As we pulled away the tour guide began to talk about the trip. I didn’t
quite catch whether he said it was two and a half miles or two and a half
hours. It transpired it was the latter. It was fine though as the
journey was an excursion in itself. It was really interesting to leave
the city and go through the outskirts and smaller areas.

We visited the palace first. It was an amazing place full of colours so
gaudy they really shouldn’t have worked together. At one end there was a
huge egg/ ball with an eye on it enshrined by pillars and more amazing
colours. I don’t think my description will do it justic so it’s probably
best I shut up until I upload the pictures of it. We went upstairs and
waited as various different religions and denominations came into pray.
It was really amazing to observe. If you look in the pictures you’ll see
that the different religions wear different colours, again I’m rubbish and
can’t remember which is which.

After the palace we travelled to the tunnels. The Cu Chi tunnels were
used by the Vietnamese during the Vietnamese War to evade the Americans
and as vital transport links. It was really interesting and amazing that
they had kitchens, hospitals and other unimaginables underground. We were
shown an entry to a tunnel to go through and for some reason I went in
first. It suddenly got a whole lot narrower than I thought and I had
second thoughts. I went back out and tried to psych myself up. There
were two other English girls on the trip who I had been talking to who
were also not entirely convinced. In the end we waited for other people
to go through and then went in. I went in first and, as the tunnel
dropped down a couple of feet and narrowed, I met someone coming the other
way. I had a bit of a freak and said, “I need to get out” to the girl
behind me. She said that she couldn’t go backwards as her backpack was
wedged against the top of the tunnel. The person coming the other way
signalled that we could go right and get out and pointed towards a dark
unlit tunnel. I went down there and it transpired that someone had closed
the hatch. Although it was a bit of a heart-rate booster I’m glad I went
through. It’s even more amazing that people spent so much time
underground when you realise that the tunnels have been widened for
tourists to go through. The original tunnels we saw were tiny, many
designed that way for the Vietnamese frame and much harder for Americans
to access. When we all emerged safely from the tunnels our thoughtful
guide informed us that he had previously taken someone their who had a
heart attack and died. Well I guess it’s better to have found out after
the event!

When we got back to Saigon I realised that my worries about not knowing
where my hotel and bag were were very accurate. I wandered round for ages
with countless people offering me lifts. They would have been very
helpful if I knew the name of the hotel. After about an hour I bumped
into one of the English girls from the trip who found it very amusing that
she and her husband had been to an internet cafe and had dinner in the
time that I had spent ambling around like a goon. She did show me where
they were staying though and said that I was very welcome to stay with
them if I couldn’t find the hotel. One of the problems was that when I
left it was light and when I returned it was dark and everyrthing looked
different. I had also not explored the city at all at this point and
didn’t know my way around. I started trying to remember what it looked
like and remembered it was blue and had bikes outside. Although this was
not really very good in terms of narrowing places down it was enough as I
found the hotel. Needless to say I slept very well that night!