Saigon birthday adventures and other things

Saturday 21 November:
Well thanks to the joys of exhaustion and the wonders of a sleeping pill from Nicola, I at least managed to sleep the whole way from Nha Trang to Saigon. I got abruptly woken up as the bus driver hit a massive bump at speed and slammed on the brakes. Felt for sure that I would die from heart failure from such an epic wake up call.
We arrived in Saigon at 6:30am to the joy of morning traffic and having to find accommodation. With everyone charging exorbitant rates we ended up at our first choice for a bargained down price of $24 a night for the 3 of us. But it did include a free roll with peanut butter. Once we were checked in we had a little lie down due to sheer exhaustion - or at least Nicola and I did. Stacey was a champion and organised our lives for the day. Stacey organised to meet a family friend at midday to go for lunch so he could give us the low down on Saigon. When we met up with him at the hostel we decided that it would be great to get a proper Vietnamese lunch for mid-range prices (i.e. slash out as budget travelers) as Clive knew a good place to go. Well we grew slightly worried about his idea of mid-range prices when we went to his chauffeur driven car, and even more worried when the restaurant we went to had live seafood in tanks downstairs! But we rolled with it and just let Clive choose good dishes for us all to share. We then regaled him with tales of our adventures so far and shocked him with how much we were paying for accommodation. When we mentioned we were paying $24 a night and thought it was expensive he thought we actually meant each. No wonder he offered to pay the bill when it arrived - he probably thought we were starving! After lunch Clive kindly dropped us off at the market so we could do some shopping. Unfortunately the market experience only lasted until about 6 Vietnamese ladies tried pulling me in all directions to see what they had for sale - I then demanded that we leave. On the way back to the hostel we ran into some members of the Halong Bay cruise who told us they had $15 a night accommodation. So we instantly headed there to make sure we had a room for the next night - what a saving and the place is absolutely brand new! We then also ran into Mads on the street and made plans to meet up with her later on. Wasted some afternoon hours watching TV and then headed out for some beers while waiting to meet up with Mads at GO2 Bar. Sounded like a good idea at the time until we realised that beers were 30,000VND each - the most expensive ones so far - so we shared one and sipped it slowly while waiting. The one thing the bar had going for it was that it was on a busy corner so we got to watch the world pass by. Mads joined us a little while later and then we randomly ran into Bryce (also one of the Halong Bay crew) so I guess there is a benefit to hanging out on street corners drinking expensive beer. All headed for a great dinner at Chi's Cafe which included mash potatoes for me and they were almost the most amazing thing I had eaten since I left the UK - really strange the stuff you miss.

Sunday 22 November:
First thing in the morning we changed accommodation and then met up with Mads and Bryce. All headed out on a walk along the river to see the sights. It took us a while to work out exactly how to get to the river and when we did we were wondering why we bothered as it was all construction work. We persevered and it payed off with quite a nice morning spent wondering around. In the afternoon we headed to the War Remnants Museum (15,000VND entrance) were we learned all about the Vietnamese war and got suitably depressed. As we were leaving we were offered a rickshaw ride back to the hostel. As we could think of nothing better to cheer ourselves up we accepted. What it meant was that it was 2 girls to a rickshaw and Bryce had his own. This all sounds good in theory until you realise that you really can't actually fit 2 people properly on a rickshaw so it was a bit of a laugh on the way home - and a bit of a scare at one point when we headed straight into oncoming traffic! We then treated ourselves to another truly magnificent meal at Chi's Cafe, and I am sure this will be a trend of ours. Then it was another quite afternoon at the hostel watching Sweet Home Alabama before heading out to meet Bryce for some cheap beer. Cheap beer in Vietnamese is called Bier Hoi and only costs between 3,000 - 5,000VND for a large glass. Totally worth it and much better tasting. Had a bunch of beer and chatted for a couple of hours before calling it a night due to our early morning the next day.

Monday 23 November:
Happy 28th Birthday to Me! Although without a massive run up to the main event this year totally didn't feel like my birthday. Especially at 7am when we boarded a bus to go and do some sight seeing of the Cu Chi tunnels. After a sleepy bus drive there the first thing we did was watch a 20 minute documentary shot during the Vietnam war by the Vietnamese. It was actually pretty funny especially when people took a break from firing guns to grin at the camera. Our favourite line from the film was "fighting to kill the American invaders while working hard to rid Vietnamese from the American invaders by killing them" - you get the general idea. We then got to actually see the tunnels that the Vietnamese used during the war. The ones we saw had been made larger for Western bellies but were still pretty small and we had to shuffle crawl through them. Neat to see but totally glad I didn't have to live in them. We then headed back to Saigon for some birthday cake, which was pretty average, but at least there was cake, and a song which is important. I then treated myself to a birthday leg wax which was a massive mistake and walked out with bruises to prove it. Headed back to the hostel for a super quick change and then off to our favourite restaurant to meet Bryce and have dinner. By this point the staff at Chi's Cafe are greeting us as we walk through the door!
Then it was time for the drinking games to begin! We had bought a cheap bottle of Vodka and mixer earlier on so headed back to our room and started playing. The next people to join the party were Emma, Mike, Johnny, Emma and Danielle from Halong Bay - with then staying just upstairs from us it wasn't a far way for them to go. Plus as it was also Emma's birthday we were all in good spirits. Then got a very pleasant surprise when Andre, Breno and Rafael arrived. Stacey had told them where we were staying and they had promised to try and join us for my birthday. They did, and they had also booked into the same hostel as us - so it was a full house of party people. The Brazil boys also bought gifts! They bought me a silver crown with pink fur and sparkles on and a great plastic trumpet that made very un-trumpet noises. Loved them!
We played drinking games until we ran out and then hit the town - or at least headed down the block until we were convinced by offered of buy 1 get 1 free to go for a drink on the roof of GO2 Bar. While there the girls bought me a birthday shooter - of Sambuca! It was gross but it was drunk and I am very proud of me for that. After free beers we headed across the road to Crazy Buffalo for some birthday dancing which is a mandatory thing really. There was dancing until the early hours of the morning until sore feet set in about 3:30am. Headed home and had a pre-breakfast snack of complimentary watermelon that we had received earlier in the evening. Then bed for a tired birthday girl.

Tuesday 24 November:
Sleepy tired girls finally got out of bed mainly due to hunger and not a lot else. Headed off to Chi's Cafe for an amazing chicken mayo and cheese sandwich with some truly delicious watermelon juice. Great breakfast. We then all wanted to head back to bed for some naps but due to the fact that there was a leaking pipe in our bathroom they were fixing it and there could be no napping with all that noise. We were pretty thankful though that unlike all the other party people from the night before we we not up and on a bus at 7am! So we walked around town a little and watched bad movies on TV. Also booked our tickets to head into Phnom Phen in Cambodia the next day. Dinner of course was one last affair at Chi's Cafe. We really will miss the food from here as it is just such great tasting, big portions for a great price. Early night for all. Cambodia adventures await!