'Same Same' is a phrase heard all of SE Asia and I only discovered its meaning whilst in Vietnam. 'Same Same But Different' is used by sellers of every description selling fake or forged stuff. It has transferred to everyday use and even when looking at a food menu if something is the same price it's always 'Same Same'. The town of Mui Ne is what I would describe as being 'Same Same But Boring'. There were beaches just like Nha Trang and Hoi An, but unlike Nha Trang and Hoi An it has absolutely no character. I was glad to only be their for one day to be honest.
So other than its nice beach, there's not an awful lot to say about Mui Ne (or myyy kneeeeeeee! as we called it) so I'll skip straight to Saigon. Ho Chi Minh city (or Saigon as it's called by everyone here) is a massive metropolis of a city. It's very noisy and not too expensive either. We spent 2 nights here giving us one full day to enjoy the city. Following the walking tour map offered in the Lonely Planet weset out to see the sights. There's a huge indoor market where I found myself buying more stuff I probably don't need, but it's so cheap!! We went into the best ice cream parlour in existance, Fanny's. Fanny's was brilliant! It cost a fair bit but you can get just about any ice cream combination ever. The fact that it was so hot was excuse enough to spend a ton on ice cream. We continued our walking tour and it took us over to a pagoda and on to the War Remnants Museum. You need a couple of hours to see the museum. It's not got a whole lot of information on the actual war itself it's mostly 'Look at what the nasty Americans did to us'. It was really interesting though and some of it really hard to take in. They showed a replica of the cages they kept war prisoners in and the torture methods they used, agent orange victims, the guns, bombs, and other weaponry used, and so on.
I've also started to get a strange hayfever type illness. In the war remnants museum my eyes were so red and puffy that it probably looked like I was crying, not that there wasn't cause not to! Piriton seems to have fixed me up though. That evening we went for some street food and it was back to the backpacker basics of point and hope with the menu. Worked pretty well. We walked around some of the markets for a couple of hours before heading home. Before we called it a day we organised ourselves for the remainder of our stay in Vietnam. We booked ourselves in for a trip to the famous Viet Cong tunnels (which we are going to tommorow) and booked our bus out of Vietnam and into Cambodia. We also arranged to get some motorbikes.
The following morning we had some breakfast, checked our map, got our motorbikes and drove out of the city. It's the same type of bike from before. 100cc manual fake (Same Same But Different) Honda. Driving out of one of the most densely populated areas in the country on motorbikes wasn't easy and we kept losing one another, but in the end we got out of town and started driving south. Once you get onto the open road and let loose it's so much fun. We didn't stick to the speed limits mainly because no one does since the speed limits are ludicrously low. 20km/hr in the towns and 40km/hr outside. We stopped a couple of times and it took a total of around 2 hours to get to our first destination My Tho. Arriving in the town we immediately saw the difference to everywhere else we've been to in 'Nam. No tour operators, no sun glasses salesmen/women, no tourists! Bliss!
We set down our bags (we only took our small bags for this expedition) and went for a traditional lunch of Pho. Pho is Vietnams speciality and is a noodle soup with lots of veg and meat, and it tastes amazing! We met our soon-to-be fried Truc who owned the cafe we were eating at. After lunch we drove outside of the town to the snake farm. We got a bit lost on the way but got there eventually. The farm has a lot of snakes, which we took pictures of whilst they got angry with us. It also had some bears they were nursing back to health, ostriches, otters, and loads of birds. After looking around we decided to stop there for dinner and try another Vietnamese speciality - snake! They guy didn't speak any English and we had a bit of fun miming snake actions to try and get some equal understanding. He went off and we sort of looked at each other, ready to just give up, until he came back with a massiv elive snake in his hands. He pointed at it and mimed eating. Me and Andy nodded ferverently getting really excited whilst Alice, who had gone completely white, and Briony, cowering on the other side of the table, stared at the snake. We saw our guy with the snake a few minutes later also in his hands a pint glass with some clear liquid in it, and a pair of scissors. We followed him round back and watched him snip off the snakes head and drain its blood into the pint glass!!
It took a long time for the snake to cook but it eventually came out chopped in neat slices in a sort of meaty broth dish. Our guy told us to put the noodles in our bowls and poul the broth on with some bits of snake meat. The snake meat was really nice. It tasted a bit like pork but a bit fishy. We also ate the snakes intestines and liver, which weren't so nice. The snake skin was really chewy and a bit sickly but it was okay. This was one of our most expensive dishes since we came away travelling but was definately worth it. It cost 500,000VND, around 17 pounds, so not too bad. It was dark by the time we finished so we had to drive home in the dark for the first time. We went slow and were fine. We went for a rooftop drink at a bar, which enjoyed playing a strange mix of music, dance and techno stuff. Bit strange in its setting.
We went back to Trucs the following morning for breakfast and agreed to take his boat tour of the neighbouring islands across the Mekong. We boarded his boat and he took us first to the island where he lives, Pheonix island. He took us through the island and we tasted some fruit picked from the source then and there. We also tried this strange leaf thing that tasted a lot like lemon! Out on the other side of the island our boat was waiting for us and it took us to Tortoise island. We tried some more fruit and visited the Coconut Candy factory. As far as factories go this has to be one of the most primative. It is simply and small machine for crushing coconuts and another small machine to mix it with sugar and other such ingredients. Next to that is a table with some women packing the finished sweets. Truc was a lot of fun and though we bought some, he decided to steal more off them!! We then drifted round some small rivers coming off the Mekong and it was absolutely incredible. It was like floating through the middle of a jungle. We stopped for lunch and enjoyed Elephant fish. The 1 and a half kilo fish came to us intact, but deep fried. A guy that worked there helped us with it. You take off the meat, put it in some rice paper with noodles and vegetables, roll it up and dip it in tamarind sauce. It was really good and the guy stayed with us chatting about his life. He'd learnt English by himself and wanted to practice it. He convinced us to stay there for the night.
It was a sort of homestay where the family lived there but they had another building with some rooms in it. It was basically a guest house but because it is in a really remote place (right on the Mekong and away from the city) they named it a homestay. It was great fun. We lay out on hammocks by the river until it got dark and then sat on a little bridge watching the bats swoop along eating mosquitoes.
Next day we hopped back on our bikes to Ben Tre. Again we got split up when we arrived but it didn't take too long to find each other. We had some food and went to a pagoda by the lake. There wasn't really much in Ben Tre and we had already decided to pay it a visit before heading out to Vinh Long. The Lonely Planet however had given turned us the wrong way. We went by the direction on the map in the book, which led us to no where! After 2 hours of scouring the rouds we saw no way to Vinh Long other than to go back to My Tho and take the highway from there. As we were driving randomly in a direction that we thought was to Ving Long we hit some roadworks. The roads were horrible and if you break on them the bike skids out really badly. Unfortunetly Briony and Alice did just that. Briony was driving with Alice on the back and they skidded out and the bike toppled. They were completely fine bar some grazed knee's but they were a bit shook up so we stopped for a drink.
Back to My Tho we went and by the time we got there there was little point in heading out again. So we scrapped Vinh Long and stayed another night in My Tho. Truc was happy to see us again and we were happy to see more Pho in front of us. Next morning was this morning and we got some breakfast before heading back to Saigon. The drive didn't seem to take as long as before though we were worried that when we got back they might notice the scratches on the side of Alice and Brionys bike - we had signed a contract of sorts to rent the bikes which stated they can charge us $500 dollars should anything happen to the bikes. As it was they didn't notice and everything was good.
So back in Saigon again and we are internetting to try and sort ourselves out for Australia. If anyone has any useful info on finding work or a place to stay let me know. I've just noticed this internet cafe is surrounded by fish tanks.
PS. Sorry Paul, I realised that it was the jacket and shirt I bought that cost $45. The suit and 2 shirts was $95 I think.
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