Have I mentioned the heat and humidity?

Have I mentioned the heat and humidity?

So, it's hot and humid and we walked around in the heat, off and on, for hours. Our first stop was the Ben Thanh Market, one of the earliest surviving structures in Saigon. It is jam packed with stalls selling everything from food to clothing, shoes and purses, ceramics and lacquer ware, tourist trinkets, fresh (and stinky) fish and meats, and food stalls selling pho, bahn mi, etc.  As soon as you set foot in the place you are assailed on all sides by people trying to sell you stuff. We bought t-shirts for the grandsons and even with bargaining and walking away I'm sure we paid more than we should have for them, but I just wasn't willing to argue too much. As it is I tried to walk away at least four times and was dragged back by the seller. Best quote of the day - Don said to one female vendor "I'm just following her" (pointing at me) and she said to Don, "Maybe you should follow me, you might like it better!"

 On the way to the market

 Typical street scene

 The Ben Thanh market. No idea what those crazy, spikey things are to the left.

 Every where you look there are motor bikes for rent.

After the market we walked a little farther on, towards the Saigon River, to the Bitexco Financial Tower. It has 68 floors above ground and a sky deck for viewing. However, you have to buy tickets to the sky deck, or if you have read the guide book, then you would know to go to the cafe or bar a floor above the sky deck, and for the cost of a few drinks you can relax and see the same great view. It was wonderful:

 A word about the air pollution here - it's bad. You can really see it when you're up in the tower, it's just a haze over the city. Almost everyone on a motor bike wears face masks or filters of some kind and so do many of the pedestrians. It was so bad at the street level that I found myself covering my nose with my shirt collar on more than one occasion. My eyes are still stinging from the pollution and we've been indoors for at least four hours.

From the Bitexco Tower to the river is just two blocks.

 I'm not understanding why there needs to be eight billboards all advertising the same product.

 I'm sure that when it is cooler at night that these paths are probably full of pedestrians, promenading up and down the river, however, at one in the afternoon, only crazy tourist people are out walking around here.

Having seen a few architecturally interesting looking buildings from the top of the Bitexco Tower we sought them out once we were back at ground level:

 This lovely yellow building used to be the Hotel de Ville but it is now the People's Committee Hall and is not open too the public.

 We bought crispy fried waffles from this woman.

 We bought coconut water from this woman.

 So, Christmas is everywhere here in Saigon. There are Christmas trees in almost every hotel lobby and decorations like this one in many shop windows.

 Sampling of hand made, pop up greeting cards.

 This seems to be the Starbucks of Saigon.