Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon, was warm, tropical and sunny. I was ecstatic that I might actually return with a limited tan, proving that I had in fact actually been at an longitute equal with the Carribean. And yes I can tan, though it requires a very delicate balance of timing, any miscalculation verging on complete self-immolation. I had packed SPF 100 just in case I had to walk an extra few blocks down the street under the hot sun.
Down the street from our hostel was a flower market, beyond that was a bazaar selling anything you can imagine, for a bargained upon price. We chose to head in this direction on our first day. The flowers were prepared for Tet, the Vietnamese new years, which was now in full swing. We found an entire park filled with various flowers for sale. I was not nearly as familiar with the variety as my friends Katie Agren and Richie, who knew something about horticulture. I noticed dragon fruit plants and felt proud of myself, but just about anything that grows in the hot temperatures of that area could be found that day.
The flowers were sold in bulk to either families or business owners to celebrate Vietnams largest and most important holiday of the year. We had anticipated the hustle and bustle of the holidays as it was similarly occuring in China. The streets were full of jubilant passerbys, street vendors and taxi drivers. Katie D. and I attempted to use their good humor as a way to get cheaper prices at the bazaar where we soon arrived.
When I said the bazaar had everything I meant it. The entire market was located within a very large building, with walls made only of the products any given merchant was selling. There was food, clothing, perfume, bags, hats, souvenirs, trinkets and all kinds of random things you can only find in Vietnam. I had been looking for a few request items for my sister Rose. They were easily found along with some smaller presents for my Chinese friends. Katie D. and I tried to work together for the right bargaining technique. It was surprisingly difficult. At various points Richie and I had to let the girls do the bargaining altogether, since as all the merchants were only recently post-adolescent girls they kept getting personally offended by our aggressive bargaining (meaning we were stubborn). One girl actually crossed her arms and ignored us altogether, her back facing away from us. This caused a great deal of laughing on our part, rather more than it should have. She was trying to be cute and ostensibly offended by our requested price. Our laughing did not help, she began to give us angry looks and we were left with no option but to walk away. The girls were much more adept at getting sympathy or a smile, and often brought the prices down below half the original price, which is what we were going for.
We left the bazaar with most of the things we had hoped to pick up along the way. I grabbed two bags of real coffee, a few presents and a hat. None of us were overly interested in buying souvenirs, though we picked up a few to bring back for friends.
Saigon's War Museum was the other major stop we made in Saigon. It is filled with pictures, videos and evidence of the ravages caused by war. Two exhibitions were exclusively devoted to those affected by Agent Orange, with horribly mutated bodies of immediate or second generation victims. It was difficult to watch, but I couldn't avert my eyes. My trip to the museum coincided with my completion of Slaughterhouse Five, turning out to be excellent timing, his dark humor rang through my head each time I passed another picture.
Outside the museum and to the right was a model of the Tiger Cages, formerly used as prisons by the South Vietnamese and French, depending on the time period. They existed off the southern coast of Vietnam, on an island called Con Son. I had heard about them through my father, who had helped uncover them before a Congressional delegation sent by Nixon arrived in 1970. Soon after the delegation left pictures of the torture and mutilation were featured in Life magazine.
The model cages allowed you to walk atop the grates just as the prison guards had once done. I pictured the guards walking above there victims, occasionally stopping long enough to spit on their prisoners. I didn't do any spitting but I could imagine what kind of facial expression might have been looking back up at me, it made me cringe.
Our stop in Ho Chi Minh city had also been our last chance to grab some great western food for a cheap price. On our last night we headed to a small Vietnamese restaurant owned by an older couple and her daughter. She served us the local beer and terrific food. After getting to know her a bit and pretending to understand what she was saying (by then we had mastered several of the most essential getting around words in Vietnam- Hello, how are you, numbers 1-1 million, where is the bathroom, great!, etc.), we got in a bit of a quarrel. Richie had made the mistake of telling the elderly matron that he was married to Katie A. But when it arose that they did not have wedding rings, Richie made a feable but fullhearted attempt to explain that the two did not quite believe in the traditional custom of marriage as an institution. This was beyond them and therefore proved only to cause them shock and disbelief. The matron spent the rest of the night berating Richie, mostly in fun but also slightly in shock, for as she said, being out having beers when he should be saving that money for a wedding ring. It was entertaining as hell and we all had a good laugh.
The next day we all hitched a cab to the airport. We were sad, but we had a two week training course coming up back in China and we would see eachother again soon. I left Vietnam completely satisfied and wishing only that I had had more time to spend in the tropical sun of Ho Chi Minh city.
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