Day 476: Ho Chi Minh City

This is the bus from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City at a quite nice cafe stop just before the border.  The border crossing was very smooth and easy with the Mekong Express bus crew having everything well in hand.  Just go where you're told!  So, after seven hours and a lot of listening to music and looking at scenery, I am here in Ho Chi Minh City, probably more often known as Saigon. Wow, this place is really hopping - and I'm right in the middle of it. I can walk pretty much anywhere I need to go, which is great, because the taxi, tuktuk and bike drivers around here have got themselves a wicked reputation. If that were not the case, I might have hired them just to drive me across the roads.  There is a system of sorts to crossing the road but it depends on careful timing and matching of speeds between several people at once.  I'm starting to get used to it.

The alley my hotel is on.  Nice and quiet.

Bui Vien is the back street full of little restaurants.  Not as trafficky as it looks.

The green strip down the main avenue.  Not really as quiet as it looks.

The obligatory phallic skyscraper

The river

I've decided to be really active for the next days, because then I plan to go somewhere quiet and work for at least a week.  I am leaving here tomorrow morning on a Mekong Delta tour I booked through the hotel, then back for a couple of days seeing stuff in HCMC.