Ho Chi Minh

Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, was our home for the first 3 nights.

We strolled through the city and let ourselves be enchanted by the hustle and bustle. Insane traffic, and even more insane how everyone manages to find their way. Everyone trusts and takes care of each other, and so the whole 'driving without rules' system seems to work quite well.

My highlight on our first day was meeting a Vietnamese grandpa at the main post office of Vietnam. I had already seen a documentary about him before the trip. He sits there every day on his wooden bench, writing/translating letters for Vietnamese people who cannot write, even though he can barely see. But with a huge magnifying glass, he manages. I found him incredibly adorable in the documentary, and when I stood in front of him, that was confirmed. He was very proud when I told him that he is a TV star in Germany and immediately pulled out newspaper articles about himself that he wanted to show me. Then he pointed out that I could take a picture of him 'for free'. Done and done :).

On our second day in Ho Chi Minh, we took a trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. Old tunnel systems from the Vietnam War where the Vietnamese stayed for kilometers during the war. Very interesting to see, and when we descended and crawled through an original tunnel that was 20 meters long, it became clear that only Vietnamese people could manage that. Some Americans who were on our tour dared not try it - they would have gotten stuck...

Today we were supposed to take the bus to Can Tho. We walked through the city with all our stuff, and the rest went very smoothly despite the sometimes very limited English skills of the Vietnamese. So we bought our tickets and headed to the sleeper bus for the 4-hour journey south. After this trip, we can now say that the road conditions here are not the best. We were shaken up quite a bit. But hey, for less than €5, so what!

I was really looking forward to this. Getting out of the city and onto the countryside. Especially to the Mekong Delta, visit the floating markets, and get to know the real Vietnam.