Saigon Day 3

This morning we took our life in our hands and cross the main road by the river and went for a walk along the promenade before it got too hot.  We made it across the road and back again with trauma.

Everyone had told us before we arrived in Saigon, how bad the traffic was. But whether it was the training in Hanoi and Hue, but we found it easier than we thought. The only scary thing was the wide roads and cross roads. You didn't quite know where the next stream would come from.  Also because of the one way roads, they have a habit of coming up onto the pavement and riding whizzing past you.  It's really irritating.

Right next door to the hotel they are constructing the first metro line from district 1 out to district 7 in the suburbs. People we spoke to think it will totally change the city. It appears there are 4.2 million scooters in Saigon. (Occasionally it felt like they were all headed towards you on one go!). But to get people off the scooters and onto the metro will be difficult. They will have to make it very cheap and quick for it to work. The already have plans in for another line to be built. Can you imagine what it will be like when the scooters turn into cars!

In the afternoon visited the Bitexco Tower, that's the one that looks like an ice cream with a CD stuck in the side of it. It is the tallest building in the city with a viewing platform and expensive restaurants at the top.  We just went for a walk instead the main piece of the building and up and down some escalators. Cheap skates that we are.

We had a fabulous evening starting with a water puppet show. I wasn't sure that Rod was going to enjoy it, but we both thought it was wonderful. Of course it is set on water and the large puppets come out from a curtain in the water. We tried to see where the people were, were they under the water?, or did they have the puppets on long sticks!. Whatever, the puppets looked really heavy. Although music played and there was some narrative, it was visual and very funny.  A great time!

The only downside was a rock band tuning up next door. It was excruciatingly bad playing and out of tune which made it worse. But we tried to ignore it.

Next we were taken down to the harbour where we boarded the Indochine wooden boat for a dinner cruise along the Saigon River.  I thought it was going to be really cheesy and a bit naff. But it was a lovely night, good food, some local dancing and fabulous night views of Saigon.