Vietnam - Day 2 - Ho Chi Minh | Main | Vietnam - Days 4 & 5 - Coco Beach
Cholon - China Town
We read up the guide books and decided a trip to Cholon to see the Pagoda temples and the markets would be a great trip, today has been another hot and steamy day so after a quick breakfast we started to walk, and walk and walk our way about 15km by my guestimates down to the Cholon district, the area is distinctly poorer than other parts of HCM that we visited and quite different.
I don't know what this is that he was selling but it looked a bit like a massive pine cone with white jelly kernels inside which he cracked open with his machete and sold in small plastic bags to passers by.
We were the only foreigners in the street markets, which were selling daily produce, fresh fish, meat (lying chopped up into rough pieces and out in the open - un-refrigerated of course) a huge range of vegetables and fruits and other household items, we havent seen many general stores let alone super markets so many people do all of their shopping in these places.
The temples were fantastic and seem to be in full use rather than tourist destinations - the spiral incense was an amazing sight, in fact the clouds of incense as you entered was quite a unique experience for me.
We wandered up one of these narrow alley's lined with shops and stalls - this one was entirely beads, button's and lace - Eve found some beads to make decorations with which really pleased her, what is amazing is that even thought these alley's are only wide enough for one person to push through at a time and they were full, the scooters keep going up and down them - a testament to the crazy driving in this city.
We stopped at a small roadside café for a drink and a break from the noise, heat and steam which was desperately necessary before continuing our adventures trawling through side streets. This part of town is definitely dirtier and reflects the communal wealth but there were still amazing scenes, the street which had nothing but bolt after bolt of fabric (lots of polyester) was quite amazing, as was the numerous bike repair guys sitting on street corners with various tools, tubes and compressors fixing the scooters and bicycles as they pulled in with punctures and minor issues. Another surprise for us was the bike wash places where they cleaned scooters with high pressure hoses and rubbed the down afterwards.
We visited a department store again to get us out of the heat - which was good, nice cold air gave us a brief respite and then a taxi back to the hotel. The pool at the New World is actually very good and we went back twice today for beer and a relaxing swim. in the afternoon we went to the Danh Sinh market which was full of army relics - bit like a massive disposals store, quite odd however we did manage to find a great door knocker and I added to my collection of watches.
Antique Street
We then went back to a street we found yesterday and looked at some amazing antiques, we even bought a few small pieces which we are fairly confident we can bring back into the country - some dragons painted gold, some 60's china fish and a wooden gold painted turtle. (all for $23 USD) I then went looking at watches (again) while Eve went and found some amazing beads.
Dinner
after another swim, a freshen up and tackling the traffic (tonight Sunday night was the worst we have seen since we arrived - absolute madness, bikes going up the wrong side of the road on the pavements on the street just flooding every space, the only good thing being that with so many scooters out there they were moving very very slowly. We ate in one of the night market restaurants and had an amazing cook your own soup, meat, fish, vegetable thing (which tasted fantastic) while we watched the world pass by at 2km per hour. Somebody said that there are 4.5 million scooter in Ho Chi Minh city - you have no idea how many that is until you see them pouring like ants from every where, filling every possible parking spot, bikes carrying 2 adults and 2 children, carrying ladders (sometimes three), pushing small foot powered trucks along, or my favourite was the guy who had been to purchase 2 big screen TV's for Christmas and had strapped them both (one on top of the other) on the back of his scooter (I have no idea how he was planning to ride it).
The view from our hotel on Saturday night
This city is ingenious in that the people use everything they have, the kids are out with the parents each night (many in Santa suits, even some parents) helmets are a new thing here, they were made mandatory in the middle of December so helmet shops are quite crazy places and seem to be a major fashion item. The ingenious nature lends itself to the way the same space is used for different purposes day and night, or how the building sites just continue building 24 hours a day, or how the garbage is collected by people sweeping everything up and recyclables are collected by other people and other poorer people will recycle old sacks and cardboard for different purposes.
One of my favourite and regular sights is the souped down scooter, gone is the 50 or 100cc engine replaced by something so small it looks possibly able to power a sewing maching (15 - 25cc) as the bikes rarely travel over 30kph I guess it turns out to be a frugal choice!
Posted by crispin at December 23, 2007 04:18 PM