Saigon Oi!

Heya folks,
I've just returned from a week away, a sort of valedictory tour to squeeze in *just* *one* *more* *trip* before I set off for the long road home next week and my funds run out completely. Though I've been away from Hanoi for more than a week, it seems that for the whole trip I have been surrounded by my friends-in-far-flung-places, and that has been an unexpected joy.
It all started with a weekend of birthday celebrations (not my own) in Ho Chi Minh city, shared with my expat friends Ashton, Pavi and Devang. As a city HCM has a massively different feel to that of Hanoi, so much so that it seems much like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur; we appreciated the cosmopolitan-ness without feeling too much that we were 'cheating' on Hanoi and the city we know and love.

Walking around Ben Thanh market brought us a stark reminder that we were still in Asia, and we were surprised by the aggressive selling techniques of the storeholders, who would literally pull us into the stalls! One thing thankfully lacking from Hanoi's markets.

As I'm always a fan of a good cityscape (making up for lost ground in KL), we found this one from uber-posh Sheraton hotel rooftop bar, where we went for birthday drinks on saturday.
I decided to stick around for a few days in Saigon, as my bus over to Cambodia was not until midweek. Partly poverty-driven, I set no agenda other than wandering around and soaking up the atmosphere of the city. I met up with some fabulous Vietnamese friends of friends, who did a terrific job of showing me around their city. We had some terrific South Vietnamese food (sorry Hanoi, it really was good) and then a platter of cheap chinese desserts which, though tasty, was not a patch on Hanoi's condensed milk delights (yes! Hanoi-1, Saigon-0).
We deviated a little from *must-do-Vietnamese-things* on the following night when we had an awesome Indian meal in district one followed by cocktails at the Hard Rock Cafe. No, I didn't know there was one either.
It was a great trip that I was lucky to share with some fabulous friends, but by wednesday morning I was getting a little bored and ready to move on to the next bit. Which was handy...

SarahHeadsEast xx