Since Barb and Holly's flight home was late in the evening, Neil and I spent one more night in Phnom Penh before catching a morning bus to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. When we booked the tickets through our hotel, we were told a shuttle would pick us up an hour before the bus' departing time, so woke up at the crack of dawn and repacked our bags. We were at the lobby right on time (fine, maybe two minutes late), but when the receptionist told us the shuttle had arrived, we got a fun little surprise. Because of the election protests and the hotel's proximity to the Prime Minister's house, the shuttle couldn't get anywhere close to our hotel. The road to the hotel is always blocked by a guarded security gate, but now instead of a one block walk, we were treated to a half-mile jaunt carrying everything we own. The other passengers didn't seem too excited to see us when we finally arrived.
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| Gate leading to our hotel. According to Neil, taking a picture of armed guards at a military check point when tensions are high is a bad idea. I'm not sure why. |
Again because of the protests, there was no good way to get from our location to the bus depot. Our shuttle driver spent the next hour dodging barricades and driving all over the city. Our van was definitely the last to arrive, and people were anxious to leave. Not to worry though, there was on-board karaoke to lift everyone's spirits! Can you imagine? Not only did we have a seven hour bus ride ahead of us, but we also had to experience terrible, terrible songs, music videos and passenger singing. Thankfully the loud, tinny music only lasted for the first half hour of the trip, and everything went smoothly after that.
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| Everyone, sing along! |
When we arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon, which is shorter to type, so we're just going to call it that), we weren't sure where we were being dropped off or how close we would be to our hotel. This is when we made rookie mistake number one. As soon as you step off any form of mass transportation, you are immediately swarmed by a dozen cab drivers just waiting to take your money. Since we weren't familiar with our surroundings, we just picked a driver, gave him the hotel address and off we went.
One crazy-expensive cab ride later, and we were almost at our hotel. For all we knew, he just did 16 dollars' worth of driving around before dropping us off around the corner from where we started. For added fun, in broken English the cabby told us that we needed to walk down a random alley to find our housing. It's not quite as scary as it sounds, but yes, we spent four nights living down an alley.
In Vietnam, cities are filled with streets, lanes and alleys. Just because cars can't fit down the alleys, doesn't mean they aren't utilized for everything just like streets. They're cramped with hotels, apartments, stores, nail salons, food stands and scooters ready to run you over. The scarier part was that we had booked a one-star hotel. It had good reviews online and was close to things, so we took a chance.
Our gamble paid off. The Cat Huy Hotel was clean, and the room was big. It wasn't the rats' nest I was afraid to find. It's a one star because there are no amenities, no elevator and the towels were just plain tiny, but those things were easy to ignore. Well everything but the lack of elevator. We were on the fifth floor, so that got old fast.
Aside from painful bus karaoke and an expensive cab ride, we had made it to Saigon and found our hotel. We even managed to fit in a reasonable dinner. In the morning, we were ready to take on a new city all by ourselves.
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| I tried to get the cab's information in case he stole our bags. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for over charging. (Plus you can't really read anything on the tag) |
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| Welcome to our alley! |
Aside from painful bus karaoke and an expensive cab ride, we had made it to Saigon and found our hotel. We even managed to fit in a reasonable dinner. In the morning, we were ready to take on a new city all by ourselves.
Check out that view!
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