Vung Tau to Saigon

Well I'm back in Saigon. Now I know why the Lonely Planet : Vietnam travel book didn't have much info on Vung Tau. It's because there isn't much to do! There's the big jesus, and a few resorts but I didn't feel like hitting the beach. In Ontario for comparison lets say London is Saigon (big stretch I know) but if that were the case, Grand Bend would be Vung Tau meaning that there's nothing to do if you live there, but it's nice for a day trip on the weekend. Not sure what Toronto's equaliviant would be haha.

Before I forget again, yesterday I forgot to mention that my tour guide wanted to take me to a restaurant to let me try local food. It was a seafood place down along the beach which was nice. I went to the washroom since we'd been on tour for the last two hours and he said he'd wait for me. I come back out and he was gone. Some other Vietnamese guy asks if I'm ready to eat and I told him I'm waiting for my friends. He let me check out the menu while I waited and there's nothing that I want, all sea food and I'm not a huge fan. I tell him I'm going to see if our car was still here, me being worried because all my stuff is in the truck. The car is there, so they (my driver and guide) have to be somewhere. I chit chat with this guy and tell him about the tour and he said after we eat he'll show me a hotel and get my set up. It finally hit me that this guy I was talking with WAS MY GUIDE!!! Jesus hahahahaha. I felt like a moron but played it off since he never detected that I didn't know it was him, he thought I had friends I travelled with from Canada coming to the restaurant hahahahahaha. People have different facial features, skin tone and the like, but they share the same qualities like hair colour, eyes, etc and in this case he looked like all the other asians in the restaurant I thought he was someone else. Also didn't help that the servers wore the same colour shirt and hand out menus haha.

Last night around 10pm I went hunting for a bar. I found a few but all their doors were closed and I didn't hear bass thumbing beats so I assumed they were local watering holes. I skipped them and ran out of possibilities. A cyclo driver bugged me for a ride and I asked him where the best bar is and he told me he'd show me. On the way he told me that he could take me to a whorehouse haha. I told him I just wanted to drink haha and he understood. Again talks about the whore house and I just want to drink. Whore house, I just want to drink and guess where he takes me?! You guessed it, the best bar in town like I asked! Wait no, he took me to.....WHORE HOUSE!!! Hahahahahahahaha. So yea I realized what it was told him I just wanted to drink. The good thing is that he didn't charge me for the ride. The bad thing was that I had to rewalk 2km to get to where I was before he picked me up! I wanted a drink of anything since it was hot out at 10pm and walked into some french bakery but it was jazzed up like a bar and lounge. I don't like the taste of beer. I drink it for the purpose of getting drunk though or while I'm out being social. But I was thirsty and wanted something to fix that. Oddly enough they had Tiger beer on the menu and I foolishly had one. I was just going to get pop or juice or something and walk down the block back to the bars. In this place, there's not a soul and their closing up and it dawned on me this place was boring as hell and I gotta finish up and get out. I go to pay and the lady didn't understand. I told her I bought the beer and I want to pay so I can leave, that I want my bill and how much. She tells me and I hand her the money. She doesn't understand. Someone got someone who is better in english and they came out. I explained I bought the beer, I'm trying to pay for it and I'd like to leave. This goes on for five minutes and finally I'm allowed to pay and get the hell out.

I finally do but I was still thirsty. I ran into a street vendor who was selling drinks and I grabbed a can of... the name escapes me but my fight with the vending machine the other day was over the same brand. Turned out to be black licorish (which I hate) and rootbeer (which I love) so they cancelled each other out.

I went back to the places that looked closed and opened the door, they were all full of people and music and I was at "Rock And Roll Bar" so it was good music. Inside everyone was Vietnamese (obviously) but the bar had a few Australians as Nui Dat and Long Tan are in the area. There were two young guys and two older Aussies which I assumed were former vets that stayed after the war, as they knew all the staff. I was drinking ba-ba-ba beer and it was only $1.30 a can. During the war it was only Ba-ba Beer and Ba is 3. Wartime it was 33 Beer and now it's 333 Beer for some reason. I googled it and one article said the Russians made them change it (why I don't know) and another article just guessed at it like the brewer had 33 wives, the average person drinks 33 liters of beer a year, etc. It was the only kind of Vietnamese beer they had so I had to have it. It was nice having some 1960's and 70's music come on too and as usual everyone wanted to test their english haha. Some old western with Charles Bronson was on in the background and some 1990's drama. Then I saw a face I haven't seen in years, Lt. Myron Goldmen!!!

I'm a North American sitting in a little bar in Southern Vietnam, 1960's music on, drinking cheap Vietnamese beer and Lt. Myron Goldmen from TV's "Tour of Duty" (a famous Vietnam War drame in the late 80's/early 90's) was on TV in that 90's drama hahaha. What are the odds of that!? The only thing crazier is if Stephen Caffrey walked in, got drunk, unloaded his pistol into the dart board and get a medal for it like when that happened on the show! It was a good time but I headed out. A moto driver (a girl which I've never seen as a driver) wanted me to jump on and i love it when they do this... You tell them where you want to go and ask how much, and they tell you "It's up to you!" with a big smile. I tell her I'll give her 2,000 dong and thinks about it, but her i don't know, moto bike pimp who was another girl said no. I didn't mind because I knew the route well by then and it helped sober me up.

Near the French cafe place I heard a meowing sound. I checked it out and it was a little kitten. I heard another and it was it's sister. A few meters away their mother saw me and took off. I put the kittens together and they started following me. What the heck am I going to do with two kittens!? I told them their in the wrong country haha and someone left milk out for them. I found a 3rd but everytime I tried to move it with the others it would try to scratch me and I gave up on it.

I start walking and I'm close to the hotel, I pass one and a lady comes out and says she has a room for me. Hotels are always trying to make you switch to go to theirs. I told her I already had a hotel and showed her my keys. She told me this is my hotel and i said it's not, the name on the key was another name and we got into it for a few seconds. Finally she shows me that I'm in her hotel and that yes the key and name of the hotel are different but I'm in the right place hahaha to which I could only repeat saying Xin Loi (Sorry!) haha.

I caught the hydrofoil to Saigon and the seas were worse than yesterday so we had plenty of bumps and jumps on the water, which I liked and I took a few videos of them. Get to Saigon and a man goes to grab my things. I told him I got them but he insisted. I kept trying to grab my stuff but he brought them off the boat for me. I thanked him and shook his hand and went to leave. Then he asked for money for chop-chop (food). I had 2,000 dong and gave it to him and he told me 20,000 dong. Wait a second, I know this isn't Canada but homeless people don't get to tell donators how much to give them. If it was that easy they wouldn't be homeless anymore haha. Someone asked if i wanted a taxi and I wanted a convient reason to leave so I went with the taxi driver. The man tries to stop me but I kept going and he finally yelled something to the taxi driver. The driver translated it for me saying that he carried my bags so I have to pay him 20,000 dong. I thought he was doing it being a nice guy, if I knew I'd have to pay him I would have grabbed my stuff myself, which I was trying to do but he stopped me from doing so! haha. I gave him the money just to shut him up and as it was raining I wanted to go to my hotel.

I toss my stuff in the cab and asked how much and he said that he had the meter to tell me. Now that I've been here for a while I know where things are and this guy takes me for a ride away from my hotel but then he goes back on course, just took me the busier and slower way. Cabs in Vietnam aren't paid by fuel usage but in meters and it's like .10 a meter in dong. We get to my hotel and it cost me 172,000 dong ($9 CDN) when the ticket from Vung Tau to Saigon cost me 180,000 dong and leaving Saigon it cost me 2,000 dong to get from my hotel to the docks. Again I paid them to get out of the rain. I walked up to my hotel and the lady is surprised to see me because she thought I said I was coming tomorrow. I told her I told her I was coming today since Vung Tau was boring (I emailed her yesterday after supper and got a reply back by then saying they'd hold my room). My room is now booked and I'm in my first "home" the night I just came into Saigon. The good thing is that she's sorry and gave me free water and tomorrow at 7am she's going to give me their biggest room they have.

Seems like a lot of crap has happened today, and I didn't realize it until now haha. I don't think I had a bad day so far, just rather odd. I gotta crunch the numbers for the shipping costs and check to see if there's any cheaper way of doing it as I'm not excited to pay that much for shipping. Tonight I'll get something good to eat and maybe hit the Rex hotel which was popular during the Vietnam War, if the weather holds out. Take care.