The day has started with the terrible reality of having only 1 clean t-shirt left. I need a laundry service but so far I haven’t stayed long enough in any guest house to be able to have it back in 1 day. Anyway, I left the guest house around 8.30am together with a real character that I briefly met for breakfast in the hotel: the man named Antonio, is an Italian gentleman of approximately 70 years old, emigrated to Australia when he was 20. His accent was so strong that he reminded me one of those movies of Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese, in which the usual stereotypical Italian-American speaks with that strange accent that the world nowadays is able to recognize everywhere. His accent was so strong even for a fellow Italian like me that I honestly struggled to understand him. When I asked him to swap into Italian, I realized that it was actually even worse so I kindly swapped back again into English without letting him noticing it. Or so I think. He was in Saigon waiting for his wife who went back to Italy after many years of absence (in a very small town in the south of the country). He chose Saigon because he was always very curious to see it and too bored to go back to Italy in a small town ‘full of old people’. Bless him. His manners are extremely kind and he seems to be always very calm and happy. The Vietnamese women who run this guest house seem to love him to pieces, especially after he decided to spend 3 weeks in their place. They spoil him and play with him like if he were the man of the house. But he truly deserves it. He walked with me from the hotel to the museum and on the way we had a very nice chat about Australia, his life there, my life in London, and Italy, or at least the way he remembers it and the way he remembers how it was when he left. I was going to a museum but at the same time I realized I was talking with a mirror of the times of the early post-war Italian society. Great stories and anecdotes blended with nice humour and lots of patience. Thanks Antonio!
When we arrived at the war museum we were immediately welcomed by 2 huge American tanks left outside the door like if they were guarding those who were trying not to pay the ticket. Considering that the ticket costs approximately 70cents of a dollar, I thought it was worthy paying it without facing the fury of the tanks. Despite my silly jokes the museum was excellent in its horror. A collection of pictures, weapons and documentaries to testimony the brutality, the suffering and the uselessness of the Vietnam war. Even if every pictures was commented with a slightly propagandistic (but totally justified) comment, the main goal of the museum is that to shock the visitor with crude images and real weapons.
I decided when I left that the next museum I will visit will be something slightly more happy than the last two I have visited. I met a Vietnamese guy outside who offered me a full day ride to visit the best places of the city for only 10$. I accepted considering also that I didn’t have much choice if not to go by foot or to get a proper taxi which would have cost me probably double as much. The truth is that driving a motorbike in Saigon means risking your life. And risking my life for 10$ I thought it was a thing I had never tried before. 80% of the population cannot afford a car so the only way is to use a scooter. I have never seen in my entire life so many scooters on the street all driving at the same time. It is seriously an experience that will change the way you see the traffic in your own city forever. Probably only Mumbai is equal or worse than Saigon. There are practically no rules. When the traffic light is red, people stop but obviously if you are in a hurry you are justified to cross the street. If the road is one way, everyone is going in the same direction, but once again, if you are in a hurry or you cannot really be bother to take the long way, why not taking a shortcut and start driving into the other direction when you see approximately one thousands motorbikes heading towards you? This was my driving experience in Saigon. I think I must have risked my life 10 times, basically one per each dollar I paid; but then I looked around and I saw for example a mother with 3 kids on one scooter driving like if the Moto GP Championship had just started on the street of Saigon. However, the good thing was that I really managed to see the city and its inner jewels as a local person, off the tourist beaten track. My driver, with whom I enjoyed also a good lunch in his local canteen with his fellow workers, took me to visit the hidden markets, the Chinatown temples, the cool cafes for Vietnamese people next to the river and the Independence palace, making risking my life on his motorbike a risk which was worth taking. Finally he left me in front of a blind massage centre very close to my guest house, where a blind woman gave me a very good massage for only 2$. I returned back to the guest house for dinner. I had a shower, a good meal and now I am writing these lines in my rooms overlooking the lights of the streets and buildings that I have seen today. It has been a long day.
I am heading to Hoi An tomorrow crossing all central Vietnam. 24 hours ride in a sleeping bus, with a long (uncomfortable?) seat and a bag of dried mangos to eat on the way.
I have already changed so many places and seen and done so many things and it is only day 7. I am trying to seize every single moment. I have been travelling a lot by bus and this gave me also the chance to see a lot while travelling. So far I haven’t had the chance yet to experience the nightlife, neither in Bangkok nor in Saigon; but I am sure I will make it up later on.
It is a funny, strange, complex and beautiful world the one we live in.
Goodnight.
TWIMO
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