Child labor in Ho Chi Minh City and the football crazy Vietnamese

If I had written this post about Ho Chi Minh City directly on the morning after arrival, it definitely wouldn't have been very positive 😅...

The location of the homestay and the welcome by the hostess were very good and friendly 😊. The homestay was located right in the center of the backpacker district and due to its micro-location, in a mini side street, it was still very quiet 👍. As a welcome, there was a short Saigon briefing (old name of Ho Chi Minh City) with a map with many useful handwritten tips and recommendations, such as sights or good restaurants etc. 😋.

So on my first evening I went to a restaurant recommended for its chicken curry. The curry was really delicious, but it pushed me to my limits 😂. If you've ever desperately tried to separate the chicken meat from the bone with a knife and fork in a restaurant, you haven't tried it with chopsticks yet 🙄😅. Unfortunately, there were also no napkins. Since the chicken pieces were already in the curry, filleting by hand was also not an option 🤷‍♂️😅. Well, it took a little longer, but in the end it somehow worked 😉.

After fortifying myself, I strolled through the city a bit and visited the Night Market. However, it was actually just a huge clothing market with counterfeit clothes and therefore - because of my enormous passion for shopping - ideal for me 🙄🤦‍♂️. I noticed that the further south you move in Vietnam, the more proactive the salespeople become by touching potential customers. Sensationally nice feeling 🙈🤢! After this great shopping experience, I went to the backpacker area around the Bu Vien Walking Street for an after-work beer. What awaited me there was grandiose 🙈. Over a kilometer, bar after bar lined up, with each bar turning the music up so loud that you couldn't understand your own thoughts 😳🤪. In the small side alleys of the Walking Street, there were also all sorts of spas and massage salons, with all the "masseuses" dressed provocatively 🤔. When you passed the masseuses, they would hook onto you and then try to sell their "massage boom boom" to you 🤦‍♂️🙄... The first time it might be fun, but after the 10th time it's just annoying 🤬...

Due to the crowds on this street, the activity there was very interesting to observe. In addition to the massage phenomenon mentioned above, unfortunately, there were also many children out and about late into the night trying to make some money 🤔. For example, there was a 4-year-old "fire breather" out and about at half past two in the morning. After his performance, he got a scolding from his mother because no one wanted to put anything in his hat 😡. In another situation, a crying girl of maybe five years old came to a table full of English people. She offered the English people chewing gums and tissues that her mother had given her a short while ago. However, since the English people had no need for such things, but had observed the situation described above with the little fire breather earlier, they gave the girl the equivalent of about 20 cents. The supposed mother then went to the child and simply took the money away from her and pushed the girl away. When the English people confronted her about it, she said that the girl wasn't her daughter at all and then walked away laughing 😳🤬. To top it all off, on my short way back to the homestay, I saw a mother lying on a cardboard in a driveway with her newborn baby, while rats were running around beside them 😳. The mother seemed very heavily drugged and was lying three meters away from the baby.

When comparing the different places in Vietnam with each other, one is immediately made aware of the extreme social disparity here on the first evening. Somehow you have to expect something like this in less developed countries, but I would have gladly done without this experience 😠.

To avoid being disappointed again on the second day in Saigon, I treated myself to a scooter guide during the day. Just like in Beijing, I noticed that such a big city (about 10 million inhabitants) is simply too big to explore on foot 👣. Here I hired Manh. He approached me on the street near my homestay. If you want to do something like this here, the proactive nature of the Vietnamese is not so bad 😉. You just have to stand somewhere for two minutes and you will be approached five times and in the end have free choice 😂.

Manh and I cruised through the city for three hours and I actually got to know many beautiful corners of Saigon 😊. For example, there are very beautiful Buddhist temples, many impressive colonial buildings that somehow don't quite fit into the cityscape (e.g. a replica of Notre Dame) and, in contrast, huge modern skyscrapers 🤔. It should also be noted that 80% of Vietnamese describe themselves as atheists. In contrast to Thailand (80% Buddhists) or Bali (85% Hindus), religion plays a very subordinate role in everyday life here 🧐. Personally, I see this as the explanation for the negative situations I have encountered here, which I have not yet come across in other similarly developed countries. In general, a religion usually creates communities, regardless of their belief, that are supposed to prevent a slide into such social strata, or at least try to pull people out of them....🤔

In the evening, it was time for public viewing of the South Asia Cup against the Philippines. The Vietnamese are really crazy about football in a positive way 😂😅. Every little chance in the rather mediocre match was celebrated and cheered so much that it was extremely funny to watch. Thanks to the ultimately well-deserved 2-1 victory, they made it to the semi-finals and so I (with Manuel and Helena, two German long-term travelers) also experienced a big victory party with a scooter procession. Here, all Vietnamese people gathered on the Walking Street with their families to celebrate a big peaceful and non-asocial football festival. Some came on their scooters with up to 5 people, while others were practically naked and only painted with the Vietnamese colors 😂. Every few minutes, red flares would go off and you could hear the honking of 8 million scooters from all directions 😅. In the end, it was a very reconciling ending to a - in my opinion - very "unusual" city 😎.