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Welcome to Uncle Ho's City
by Amanda O'Neil - Amanda@mytravelbug.org : Traveling in Vietnam
How is everyone? Vietnam is exciting, hot, overwhelming, extremely poor, monosyllabic and the biggest lifestyle choice I have ever made! How do I get myself into these situations and where will this lead me?


WELCOME TO SAIGON- THE NATIVES ARE FRIENDLY
Hello lady! hello! hello! (I walk on)
Madam, madam where are you going today? A man gestures to his xich lo (cyclo).
Hello lady! You want a ride? (I wait to cross the street and a motorbike stops short in front of me.)
You want a ride? Where are you going? ("Forward," I mutter to myself.)
You want a taxi? (I am standing in front of 3 taxis waiting for my van ride to school.)

Ho Chi Minh City is an assault on the senses. It is definitely like no city I have ever been to. The sights, smells, sounds are all different. We aren't in the Industrialized world anymore. Labor is cheap, the weather is hot and the cost of living is barely eked out. There are about 8 skyscrapers in HCMC topping off around 25 stories. I find my house by looking up and locating the "luxury serviced apartments" across the street. They are 12 stories tall.

On the sidewalks and in the alleyways everything you can imagine is bought and sold. I walk out my alleyway and I can buy: fruits, vegetables, meat, bread, rice, sauces in clear plastic bags, chickens yet to be plucked, chickens tied to trees yet to be killed, eggs raw, eggs hard broiled in the ground, soup and other meals eaten on tiny plastic stools at tables that stand a foot off the ground. Children sell gum, old women sell lottery tickets, men sitting on xich los and motorbikes lazily offer rides, boys offer to shine my sandals, women offer fabric and shirts. Barbers set up mirrors on worn stone walls and chairs facing them. Manicures are available on the sidewalk. Mechanics sit on every corner with a small box of worn tools waiting to fix passing motorbikes while their assistants sit by rubber tires and liters of petrol. Small dogs lie in stainless steel bowls with the potatoes. Food is carried on yolks with small scales ready to measure the fruits, rice and meat.

On the streets: motorbikes, cyclos, bicycles, cars, minivans, buses and trucks all share the road. 85% of the traffic is motorbikes going in every direction. Everything is carried on motorbikes- great steel rods 20 feet long, 4 family members with children in the middle, women loaded with the day's shopping and fruit bags hanging off handlebars, chickens on their way to market, piglets in baskets on the way to slaughter. The Vietnamese only worry about what is in front of them. They do not turn their heads or concern themselves with stoplights, which really should come in yellow for slow down, not stop. Traffic circles are amazing- everyone heads for the middle and motorbikes use cars as lineblockers. Beep beep go the buses, cars and minivans to motorbikes two feet off their front bumper. Blare go the trucks to let you know you should move away from their heavy loads and dubious braking abilities. Not a helmet in sight and nobody driving over 30 miles an hour- that somehow makes it exciting and not at all scary.

The smells of HCMC are of stale fruit and waste and grit. Every day I come home covered in chalk from teaching, sweat from humidity and grime from the city streets. Avoid the puddles like the plague- which they may carry although Cholera and Malaria instances are relatively low. In the city, perhaps a mention of Denge Fever but not often. So many people work on the streets there are some pay-bathrooms to relieve themselves but most just find an empty bit of stone wall to pee against. The dogs of my boarding house yelp when I come down the alleyway- not always but often enough to feel like homecoming.

The average salary in HCMC and Hanoi is $1,300. Outside the cities it’s around $390. This is a highly agricultural and labor heavy economy. Human labor is cheap, unemployment high and everywhere you see people working at menial tasks- sweeping the sidewalk, standing around for parking motorbikes at a shop, guiding you into a shop… These are just my first impressions of life in Vietnam.

Editor's Note: To view Elizabth's pictures go to http://www.pbase.com/mytravelbug/amanda_oneil


Street Market
City Hall
Post Office