Vietnam: Saigon
“Saigon. Shit…” — Ben Willard, 1969
A lot has changed here since the Captain’s apocalyptic bender, but there’s probably a lot that aint, too. Ancient cultures can be like that.
We are crazy about the current version of this place. And we’re entitled to that opinion with zero else to compare it to. Tomorrow we leave to begin exploring the rest of Vietnam, but for the moment we are are entirely spun out on Saigon.
Neither Patti nor I have been in Asia before. Maybe it’s all like this, but I guess I kind of doubt it…
I have a weakness for a zoomy, chaotic, dirty city. The hustle, the smells, the commerce great and small. The barking is incessant here— food, body work, counterfeit Addidas. There’s no visible sex or drug trade, but pretty much anything else you want is here, for cheap. But don’t stop walking if you don’t want a shoeshine.
You can read all you want about the motorbike culture in Vietnam, but until you’ve swum in it, it cannot be fully understood. Tens of thousands (millions city-wide, actually) of 150cc scooters zig-zagging through every street, alley and sidewalk. Not only are there no lanes, but there doesn’t always even appear to be an agreed-upon direction. Add the odd bicycle, a few cars and a bunch of equally anarchistic pedestrians and it’s a real dance. Yet somehow it works, like a school of fish. There are plenty of wheezy 150cc horns— but no glares or flip-offs or furious oaths. Maneuvers you’d get shot for in the US happen at every ‘intersection’ but there’s no rage here.
About anything, really— as far as we could tell. The United States government had a prominent role in roughing this city (and country) up pretty bad (during our lifetimes) but there’s certainly no perceptable animosity toward Americans here. Not to mention the Chinese, Japanese or the fucking French.
There are scars. The architecture is a tangle because so much of the older stuff was rubbled by war. The food is a delicious riddle which benefits from the Imperialsim that wrote its recipes. Even ol’ Ma Nature has extracted her pound, unleashing 16 typhoons on the country during the wet season of 2025 alone, causing hellish flooding the likes of which Vietnam has never seen.
But by all accounts, these hardy and hearty people just get up in the morning and light a candle, then get to work cleaning up, again. It’s just what they do. It’s what they’ve always done.
I could go on (and on) but we need to pack for the next leg. The EZ Rider Motorcycle Gus guys pick us up at 8am to start our 6-day bike trip through the Mekong Delta and into the central highlands to DaLat. Talk to you then!
