Good morning SE Asia!: 05/12/13 - 07/12/13 Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon

We had planned to take it easy on our first day in HCMC. There were only two things that we had already planned - we had to collect our bikes from the bike shop and we had tickets booked for the Ao show, a Vietnam themed acrobatic performance show, later in the evening.

We got up fairly late and ventured out to take in the city. We were going to have a look at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, but were told that it is currently closed, as he was away getting cleaned up in Russia. Bad timing for us, so we decided to take it easy with the old sight seeing and make our way to the post office to post Christmas presents for our nieces. In the park opposite the main road just outside our hotel, we notices lots of food stalls and people setting up a big stage. We walked over for a quick look and found out that there was going to be a big international food festival over the next few days. Most stalls hadn't opened yet, but there was food from Malaysia, China, Korea and even France and Germany. Lucky find for two hungry cyclists! Funny though, because when we checked online what was happening in Saigon while we were there the festival was nowhere mentioned. We were looking forward to a little taster session around the world after the theatre tonight and marched on.

Walking down the street, there were opulent Christmas decorations everywhere, which was odd in 30 degrees heat. It was clear, that Saigon is a capital city and it struck us how different it is from Hanoi. Cleaner, wider, streets with skyscrapers and big shops. Who would have thought that the capital of Vietnam seems more metropolitan and organised than anywhere else in the country.

After quite a walk we found the post office. Finger's crossed the presies will get to the girls in time. Walking back, I noticed a Nikon shop across the road. I have had problems with my Nikon J1 camera for a while and wasn't able to use the standard lens any more. It would always give an error message on the screen saying 'lens error - contact Nikon dealer' if you tired to zoom in past a certain point. I contacted Nikon customer services and was hoping for support (the camera is still under warranty), but Nikon was dismissing the problem and refused to help even though Greg jumped through hoops trying what they asked him to do to fix it. Luckily, I still had a zoom lens, but it was annoying as we couldn't take any panorama pics any more. When I saw the shop in Saigon, I thought it might be worth a shot. The guy in the shop, a middle-aged Vietnamese with a single hair growing out of a mole on his chin and reaching down to his shoulders, looked at the camera and knew immediately what was wrong, it was a broken cable inside the lens itself. He was going to be able to fix the camera for only £16.

We rushed back now and got a taxi back to the Korean district to collect our bikes. We had a funny (but probably the world's slowest) taxi driver. We told him about our trip and where we were going to head to next. We said that our next big stop was going to be a place called Rach Gia from where we were going to take a boat to Pho Quoc Island. He didn't know the place at first despite Greg's best efforts to pronounce it Vientmese sounding. He finally typed it into the driver's phone and showed it to the guy. He smiled knowingly, threw his head back like a chicken and made a noise that sounded like a drunk cockerel "Ahhh, Zack YAAAA!" Hard to describe in words, but it was very funny. We really couldn't have guessed it.

The bikes were ready and everything looked okay at first sight. The cycle back, as expected through hectic Saigon traffic, but funnily much quicker than the taxi journey.

In the evening we went to the Ao show. It took place in quite a small theatre although it was the main one in town and wasn't booked out, but the show and the theatre inside were fantastic! It was mainly acrobatic dance which was themed around Vietnamese day-to-day life. There were also a few "true" stereotypes they were playing on and it was refreshing to see them not taking themselves to seriously.

Before we retired for the evening we went to the food market and stuffed our faces with various delicious treats, each for about 80pence. We tried a few new things, huge snails and little barbequed quails (as in the whole bird!), and watched another show. There was a big stage with some kind of very colourful dance show where they were presenting all countries which took part in the festival. What a nice first day in Saigon!

After so much food the night before, we felt a little bit guilty in the morning and decided to find a hotel with a gym and swimming pool which we can use for the day. Greg researched a few places and after some phone calls we found a place not too far away. It was a nice big hotel with a well-equipped gym and a roof-top swimming pool. Spend a few hours there and also had a chat with one of the reception staff of the gym who was interested in what we are doing, but mainly worried about us encountering any poisonous snakes in Cambodia!

In the evening we planned to meet Minh Hanh, a local girl, who is the PA of one of Greg's mum's friends who has an office in Saigon. We had been in touch with her via Email and it seemed like a nice idea to meet her in person since we would be in Saigon. She had originally decided to take us to a local restaurant that specialised in barbecues (each table has its own barbecue), but when she saw the food stalls of the International food festival, there was no doubt that we would have another day of working our way through the countries. Once again it was delicious and we tried to steer Minh Hanh to the stalls that we hadn't tried the day before. One of the more exciting experiences was Laos. We had some kind of spicy salad with grated carrots and papaya, roasted peanuts and LOTS of chillies. Damn, that was spicy! Our faces got redder and redder and I gave in first and had to rush to the nearby yoghurt stand to cool my mouth. Glad we are not going to Laos, I'd starve to death!

Once we were stuffed, we watched some women's Thai kick boxing which was surprisingly aggressive, much more than the men that we had seen earlier. Quite funny though to watch, two petite 1.50m women really going for each other.

We called it an early night, as we knew we had another cycle day tomorrow. We said goodbye to Minh Hanh, it was lovely to meet her, and went back to our hotel. Tomorrow, we are heading towards "Zach YAAAAA!"