SAIGON SAIGON

14th Dec 2022

They don't skimp on the decorations here.

This city is just as hectic and more or less as I remember it when I was last here in January 2020. There are a few noticeable changes. The shops and streets in the centre seem cleaner and with more shiny upmarket shops, smart bars and restaurants and they now have modern 'countdown' traffic lights and even pedestrian crossing lights at the major street junctions.

Left: This is still 'scooter city' (they call them 'motos') but there are many more cars on the roads. These cars, often 'top of the range' models, all have tinted windows and are driven by presumably the more wealthy and 'important' citizens in a rather arrogant horn tooting manner. Saigon was designed for 'motos' and bicycles (you rarely see bicycles nowadays). There are also more one-way streets. Fortunately some anarchy still prevails with the motos; if they want to go the wrong way up a one-way street, happily and with no objection, they simply drive the wrong way up on the pavements. You could always walk steadily across a busy street and the motos would calmly flow around you. You still can, but the cars would mercilessly run you down! Such is progress.

Right: Le Loi street which runs for a mile west from the Opera House on Lam Son Square. This has experienced ongoing roadworks for years, but is now impressively open for business. There is also an (closed) entrance to the 'underground Metro' on the left side. This Metro project, partly funded by the Japanese, has been ongoing for at least 5 years and, as I was 'reliably' informed, would be operational, if funding continued, 'sometime' next year.

Left: The front of the vast covered Ben Thanh market in District 1. It covers a few acres. There was noticeably little traffic around, as above, at about mid-day. I don't remember that previously.

Right: Inside the market (chó) are row upon row of 'stalls' interspersed by narrow passages which sell just about anything you can carry, or eat. To wander down the often congested (mostly by tourists) little passageways you are constantly harangued by stall-holders touting their wares. If you know what you are looking for, and adept at haggling, you can sometimes get a very good deal. There are lots of 'designer' goods, mostly fakes, but bearing in mind that many flash designer goods, such as clothes and bags etc., are actually made in Vietnam, there are sometimes 'genuine' products on display at cut-prices. I wouldn't have a clue!

There are also several enormous multi-storey shopping centres around town such as The Saigon Centre, at the Lam Son end of Le Loi. It is a maze of 'designer' stores which sell vastly expensive goods, plus loads of cafés and restaurants. Once inside it is easy to get disorientated and difficult to find your way out! Nothing on sale would interest me, and I much prefer the simplicity of a UK Tescos, or similar. Left: The hideously 'jolly' Christmassy entrance foyer, including a 'Santa's Grotto' with a 'Winter Wonderland' of which they have probably read about in books. Sounds like the 'Winter Wonderland' in UK at the moment is not proving so popular!

Right: Having a sit-down with a couple of elegantly dressed local ladies. 

Face masks! One of my (many) 'bête noirs'! I was conscious that there would be many in evidence; locals usually always wore them riding their motos, against pollution rather than 'bugs'. However they are now compulsory on public transport and much more in evidence on the streets (but not compulsory there, and few tourists wear them). At one point I took a bus and walk up to Tan Binh District in the north of the city, where I once lived, to revisit a few old haunts. There is a very good, easy to understand and cheap city bus service. On entering the bus I didn't have a filthy snot-rag. The smiling conductress told me I had to wear one. I said "I was British, and we don't wear them!". To avoid any unpleasantness another lady passenger generously gave me a spare one, a new one I hoped, (of dozens) that she was carrying. Of course, out of politeness, I put it on, sort of, much to their amusement! 

I still find it amazing, as with the situation during the 'panicdemic' in UK, that the locals here will happily sit, or stand, crowded together in or around a bar watching the football for example, or in a restaurant, without face-nappies, but willingly wear them when well separated, and not even facing one another, on buses or trains (my taxi driver didn't wear one!). The logic escapes me. It always did. It is all rather sheeplike behaviour; unthinkingly following 'the rules' and serves no real purpose.

My visit to 'old haunts' reminded me that no structure stays the same in this place for long, with the exception, fortunately, of the more old and iconic, often French Colonial, buildings. Of the several well used places, bars, shops, restaurants and such that I used to either live in, frequent and enjoy only one was in it's original configuration. Buildings go up, come down and are replaced with monotonous regularity. A Vietnamese, visiting a friend of mine in a German city after a gap of 10 years, was amazed that nothing significant had changed there.

Left: This building, the City Hall, at the north end of the wide pedestrian Nguyen Hue Boulevard, with the statue of dear old 'Uncle' Ho Chi Minh at the front, will last forever, I'm sure.

Right: As indeed will the iconic Central Post Office, just north of the city centre. It was built by the French between 1886-91 and is very popular with tourists. I sent some postcards from here. Unlike in UK post offices, there are seldom long queues!

Left: The elegant interior of the Post Office. The portrait at the end is of 'Uncle' Ho, unsurprisingly.

Right: Several years ago, when they began to infest Asia, a MacDonalds monstrosity was built at the northern end of the Post Office. Along with face-masks, the poisonous universal MacDonalds are another 'bête noir' of mine (the cause of obesity and diabetes amongst otherwise healthily dieting Asians). I was heartened to see that it is now abandoned.

Near the Post Office is the impressive Notre Dame Cathedral (left). Another French construction. Normally a most imposing building, it is now a masterpiece of intricate scaffolding. Think of the man-hours spent erecting that lot! I'm not sure what the problem is. Dry rot? Bats?

Right: Another photo op. Not of my choosing, I hasten to add. These pretty girls instigated it. Why they should want a 'selfy' photo with an ugly old git like me I cannot understand. It seemed to amuse them.

I paid a visit, only because I happened to pass it on Ly Thu Trong street near my hotel, to the Ho Chi Minh City Museum. £1 entry. It contained nothing particularly interesting. Much about local arts and crafts and industry and a section on the French and American conflicts (nothing like the War Remnants Museum). There was a whoIe room, full of photos and documents, dedicated to a bloke called Vo Van Kiet. I discovered that he was a much admired revolutionary and eventually Prime Minister (b.1922-d.2008). He was credited with bringing the dour post Vietnam War  communist system into the 20th century, and rekindled good, and profitable, relations with the West.

Left: The sleeping quarters of a revolutionary soldier. Hmmm! How interesting. I was going to pretend it was my accommodation, but you probably wouldn't have believed me.

In fact, having an elegant interior and a wide sweeping staircase, this building's main function is as a setting for the mandatory 'pre-wedding' photos. Several teams of lovingly betrothed couples with their film/camera crews were in evidence. I gate-crashed one photo shoot. Right: They were more than happy for me to do this.

Left: Parked outside were a few old military guns and vehicles, including this T62 (?) Soviet built tank.

Right: .....and this charming old jalopy; a vintage Citroen in a sad state of dereliction.

Left: One of  the many reindeer-horned waitresses about town. These, and Father Christmas hats, were the favoured head-gear of the staff at many venues.

That will do for the time being. It has taken me three Tiger beers to write it. I am off next, by bus, to the charming city of Da Lat. I will, hopefully, report from there.

PS. Most of what I have written, and will write about from Da Lat, has already been covered in previous blogs, but expect my reader will have forgotten. I don't intend to do all the interesting things in Da Lat that I did the last time. Déjà Vu! Just to relax and admire the flowers.