An evening and a day in Saigon... only because I am bored

Hi again all

To be honest there is not a lot to tell you at the moment, but I am bored so please bear with me! And don't expect that I will be this up to date once I reach Egypt, who knows how hard it will be to get onto a PC! Right now I am on the hotel's only free PC again. Hogging it. And NOT feeling guilty, so there!

Well, maybe a tiny bit....

So I am still here in HCMC, killing time until my flight tomorrow afternoon. I've kept myself occupied thusly:
* Trying to find a pair of crop jeans that won't fall off me like the pair I brought from home (despite the fact that I haven't had any stomach issues whatsoever, travel has had its usual effect on me and I've dropped a fair bit of weight already! Yay! Better than Jenny Craig! must be all the walking)
* Reading a book in the park and rebuffing a date with a local, manicure, survey and cyclo ride in turn. Eventually gave up and went back to my airconditioned hotel room.
* Visiting the Reunification Palace (tourist duty now officially DONE, there is nothing more listed in the Lonely Planet that remotely interests me)
* Eating and drinking with fellow tour group-ites, all of whom are now gone :((
* Recovering from the above

Have to tell you about the jeans, though. Shopping here is an adventure. I bought my "genuine" Tommy Hilfiger jeans from the Banh Thanh market, which is a little like Istanbul's Grand Bazaar in size, but much grottier. And hotter. And filled with ridiculous quantities of Stuff (mainly Crap). With really tiny alleyways. Well, OK, maybe not THAT much like the Bazaar after all! People in this particular market are probably the most pushy people I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. I would pen the name of one alleyway "the Alley of Many Hands", as every person you pass grabs your arm and physically tries to pull you into their store.
"Madame, very cheap!"
"What you looking for, Miss? I have!"
"T shirt, Miss?"
"Embroidery, Madame? Very beautiful, hand made."
"Handbag, Madame? Come look, just look!"
Really, it's nuts. I tried at first to be methodical about it but it's such a rabbit warren you just end up giving up and wandering aimlessly. I think I passed one store four times at least. Entirely unintentionally.
So back to the jeans. I entered the first stall and looked at a couple of pairs of jeans. Now as you all know, I am not the tiniest person in the universe, even after having dropped a few kilos. But in comparison to the average Vietnamese lady I am the Jolly Green Giant. They are completely fascinated by me, my skin (which gets stroked every now and then by complete strangers), my height and most of all my dimple. I think it might be something to do with a slight resemblance to the Happy Buddha *lolz*! But back to the shop.
The first woman measured me and presented me with a pair of jeans that looked Very Small. But I figured hey, you've lost a few pounds, may-be.... so I tried them on. Of course, trying on jeans in 35 degree sweaty heat is fun anway, but add on the fact that you are a) wearing really inappropriate entirely lace underpants b) you are trying to stand behind a (short) curtain held up by the salesperson and c) stand on one leg while trying to maintain some sort of modicum of modesty while forcing on jeans at least three sizes too small....and you get the picture! NOT easy! So the first pair proved to be Very Small, the second Very Ugly and still Very Small (worried looks exchanged by the sales ladies) and the third just plain Wrong.
So onto the next shop, where I repeated the whole process. But this time they measured me a little better and it was fair less painful. The jeans I ended up buying needed to be cut down, so once the bargaining process was completed (Dad, I got them down from $350000 VND to $190000 (around $17 AUD), be impressed!) I followed my jeans out of the market, across the road to the tiny tailor shop where the jeans were presumably made. Yes of COURSE they are genuine! On the spot the little tailor, sitting on a stool in a back room with an ancient sewing machine, cement floor and curtain, cut the pants down and sewed them up. I love Vietnam!

Otherwise in the last day or so.... the Reunification Palace was OK, not much to tell there really, Google it if you want history, my memory sucks....

Dinner, on the other hand, was great. What is it about me and food! I ate rice from a coconut and we had beers in no less than three different venues. Lucky I had nothing planned for today! My tour buddy was good company, lolz... drinking while sitting in deckchairs on the side of a roundabout in Saigon is not a bad way to while away some time! On a sidebar, it always strikes me as weird that I drink so much beer when I travel. I don't at home. Maybe just trying to keep up the Aussie spirit abroad! My tour mate is Aussie also and he's probably what you'd call a beer connaisseur, so we did the country proud.

Anyway, I am going off to see if I can arrange to get my boarding passes printed for tomorrow.

Love youse!
D x x