Ho Chi Minh City - Day 2

This is a very hard city to sleep in. Super noisy with everyone honking constantly. It never stops. I gave up trying and wandered over to a nearby starbucks at the foot of a traffic circle and let myself be hypnotized by the perpetual string of near collisions. You really have to see it to believe it.

Which makes my next decision really weird. I hired a rickshaw chariot guy to cycle me to the big market, and he had us right in the middle of the street aka chaos. I thought we'd be riding by the curb. Nope!

Surviving that, i wandered the biggest collection of knockoff you-name-its, bought some souvenirs and replaced my backpack. I was feeling pretty happy about my haggling victories until i got outside and had to contend with a torrential downpour. Normally I'd just call a Grab (uber) but i had no wifi, no cell plan here and no restaurants in sight to leech their information super highway.

Impatiently i opted to run a few blocks (5?) until i found a vegetarian place (eww) and ran in soaking wet. They sat me at a table that seats 4 (odd choice i thought), and 10 minutes later they sat two more locals (Vu and Than) with me haha. This is new! Very fortunately they were incredibly nice and spoke great english. They even insisted on me sampling food from their plates. I love this country, everyone is ridiculously kind.

Later, grabbed a Grab ®️ and went to another brew pub. Another backpacker sat near me and paid for a beer for me as we chatted away. Another joined us and turns out he's going to be in the north when i am so we traded info to maybe travel together later. A local girl joined us too and suggested a great restaurant for Pho.

The other guys took off but i went with her and she taught me how to use chopsticks which i gotta say, i got pretty decent at. We chatted away and turns out her good friend is getting married in two days and i have now been invited to attend lol. This would throw off my loose itinerary, but would be also be quite the experience. Stay tuned tomorrow for what Sean chose ....Read more