Ho Chi Minh City. That’s what it’s called officially, but I have yet to hear any native call it that. I don’t think anyone idolises Ho Chi Minh anymore, unless they are required to for employment.
I was staying in a tiny alleyway off Bui Vien Street, a street dedicated to transferring money from international travellers to the pockets of needy locals.
Bui Vien Street does provide just about anything a visitor may require. Food from everything from cheap local fare to overpriced Indian staples. Alcohol at a bewildering level of price points. Clubs with pretty local girls who will love you for either a short time or a long time, depending on your budget and your level of self-denial. Obviously, I felt at home, one could spend months here and not feel a moment of culture shock, and judging by the comfortable stance of some of the Westerners, clearly many only leave the street under sufference.
I had a cheerful and cheap dinner of Cantonese fried rice, washed down with three excellent Beer Saigon Greens. The bill came to less than the borderline inedible pizza I had in Dalat, and I tipped moderately, but enough that a few beers could be bought on the way home for one of the staff.
A walk to the other end of Bui Vien Street showed more nightclubs than I can remember seeing seven years ago, one of which had three very attractive, but very bored local girls dancing on podiums.
The next morning, I made my slow way to the War Remnants Museum.
As is said often enough to become a cliche, history is written by the victors, and the War Remnants Museum reflects this. Almost gleefully, it has a whole section dedicated to the horrific effects of Agent Orange, which is entirely justified, but at least the deformed fetus in embalming fluid has been removed at some point in the last seven years.
Another section was devoted to photographers from many countries, many of whom had died during the conflict, including one of my idols, Robert Capa- “If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”. He died how he lived.
Another section featured artwork from children, which tugged on the heart-strings, even though I knew I was being manipulated.
I couldn’t help but notice the faces of the people walking around, many of which I felt, perhaps no better than myself, were only there out of a sense of obligation and were just ticking the box.
After dinner I returned to my hostel and walked up the stairs to check if my laundry was dry and was promptly invited into a drinking session with a sizeable bottle of homemade vodka. The wielder of this vodka was Dave, a Vietnamese-Australian, and his conspirators to this irresponsible drinking were two Russians hiding from Putin’s draft and Greta, a Lithuanian, who was smarter than the rest of us put together.
The rest of the night is a blur of drunken debauchery that need not be documented for the reputation and future marriage and employment prospects for all concerned.
Adrian's Got The Moose 