The Departure

After a mid-morning wake up we slothed our way down to Tom's Restaurant on the seafront below my house. It's a good place for western breakfasts and the location is superb. After eggs and what not, we poked around town a bit more this day, going back to the beach of course, and also finalizing and paying for the flights we had booked for early the next morning.



The weather was good again this day. Before Mom, Dad and Jess arrived I had been a tad fearful that they would be showing up just as the wet season was welcoming itself to town. The fear wasn't realized in Vung Tau though and the weather was highly cooperative while they were here.



This day was pretty laid back, our only commitment was to be at the ferry dock to catch a boat at 2:30, which we did with ease, despite developing a healthy sweat from the 1/4 mile walk from my house to the dock. So by 4pm we were back in Saigon, and found ourselves checking in for a night at the "Canadian Hotel 281". This place is by no means overly 'canadian" in it's layout, design, or functionality, but the rooms were tidy, comfortable and included an in-room computer with internet, a/c, two double beds, cable tv and western style bathrooms, for the price of 35 bucks. This is far beyond my typical budget, but hey, it was on Dad's dime, hehe. So we dumped our bags and wandered into the streets of Saigon's district 1. It was about 5 in the afternoon and the streets were humming with activity, mostly motorbikes of course. This was the first time that the visitors had been treated to the sight of the Saigon traffic melee, having only seen the city from a taxi in the dark two nights before. We were on our way to Ben Thanh, the biggest market in District 1, but by far not the biggest in the city, when the rains came. Luckily we were happening past what would be considered a convenience store back home and settled under the store front awning at a small plastic table, with smaller plastic chairs. All of these places and their neighbours sell bottled beer and that worked just fine for us. In fact even if a place doesn't stock beer, they'll tell you "no problem" when you request it, and then go next door, buy the beer, and charge you what equates to 6 cents more than you would have paid had you been next door yourself, all the while smiling because they've just raked in a tidy profit in doing this. We sat for close to an hour, and had a couple bottles of Saigon Green before the rain let up enough to continue our walk. We made it to the market just as the main part was closing for the night, and we were able to witness the spectacular event that is all of the vendors stuffing their vast amounts of wares into bags and boxes, only to robotically unstuff them all the next morning at some ludicrous hour and spread them across the entirity of their tiny stalls once again. Truly magical. We did pick up a couple things, shirts, and a pair of "super size" (by asian standards) sandals for Dad.

We ate dinner that night at a place recommended by my boss Sarah. It was a vietnamese barbeque joint called "Bo Tung Xeo" and it was quite a spot. The layout is sort of like a big open cafeteria, and the air is thick with smoke throughout, for you see, a vietnamese barbeque restaurant serves plates of raw meat, accompanied by a clay pot, filled with burning coles and topped with a steel grill for you to do your own roastin'. So across the entire place an inumerable amount of table top kitchens were smoldering away and pumping out a delectable aroma. We dined on suckling pig, beef and crocodile meat, and it was tasty indeed. After dinner we walked down the street a block or so, silently letting everyone know where we'd just been through scent alone before hopping in a taxi, no doubt offending the driver, or perhaps making him ravenously hungry, and heading back to the Canadian for the night. The next day was to begin early and be one of the longest of the trip, and after a half-hearted attempt to meet up with my buddy for a drink which didn't work out, we were all dozin' soundly. Wake up was to come at 4am. Ngu ngon! (good night!)