Saturday in Saigon

i arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) around 0830 and walked over to the coffee shop in the international terminal. It’s a short walk, with a wide sidewalk to keep you out of the traffic, unlike Yangon’s airport. I found a seat and ordered a coffee with milk. When my drink arrived, I wondered where the milk was. It wasn’t worth waiting for, so I took a sip. “Oh, yeah, this is Vietnamese coffee,” it dawned on me. I put my cup down, grabbed the spoon and stirred the condensed milk at the bottom of the cup. Between the sugar and the caffeine, I was certain I would be running in high gear all day.

Kim, Carolyn, and Russ were easy to find, as was our tour operator. We had a quick hello and were whisked away to our hotel. Russ and Carolyn have been in Singapore for a few days, my flight was less than an hour from Nha Trang, but poor Kim was just getting in from 28 hours of travel. We got checked in and our goal was to keep Kim awake until 7pm. We started with a noodle shop for lunch. We decided it was best to minimize the number of street crossings, so we set out to round our block. Before we got half way, we slipped into a spa for massages. We all decided on the head-neck-back-shoulder massage for 30 minutes and $8. We were escorted up to a room with four massage tables, where we each were matched with our massage therapist. Suddenly, I saw Kim taking off her shirt and noticed Russ’ was off already. I smiled at Kim and pulled mine over my head, then handed it to the guy working on me. I jumped face down onto the table, and he politely unhooked my bra. Now, I was beginning to experience a little Turkish bathhouse trauma, but no one else seemed to be bothered, so I just went with it. It actually turned out to be a great massage, and we were all very happy for stopping.

We did some more walking, before peeling off into a coffee shop. Kim was starting to fade and it felt cruel to force sleep deprivation, so we eventually went back to the hotel. Kim fell asleep around 6pm, and I finished the night with some reading. We officially start our tour tomorrow, and I’m excited to get out of the city and see the countryside.Read more