Night Walks - Saigon

My prolonged absence here manifests how lazy I become nowadays. It's just today that I finally got the desire to scribble down few notes of my night walks. Saigon is not the city I really took fancy of but since I live here I might as well share my experience. Writing about Saigon and my experience here is quite complex though, so let’s narrow it down to my night walks. The thing is no matter what colour is your skin it is quite safe to walk around the city at night.

If you want to capture colourful images then go around the city’s main area for tourists. Use your imagination and join me as I came out from the office at Saigon Trade Center walking towards the direction of Le Duan Street.

An expensive pizza at Hard Rock Café would be a good start to get ready for a long walk around the city. Hard Rock Café is located at the ground floor of Kumho Asiana building. I was walking along Le Duan Street and when I saw the newly opened Kumho Asiana building I remember Tim Scott, a good friend I met in Hanoi. He is working at Hard Rock Café, so I thought it would be nice to say hi. I went down but Tim was not there and my pride told me I shouldn’t go out not buying anything, so I ended up having an expensive pizza. Had it not been good I’m sure I’ll never stop complaining about it but because it was the best pizza I ever had in Saigon, I came out smiling. It’s not that it’s very expensive though but my point is I can get a pizza buffet in Pham Ngu Lao for the ones I paid at Hard Rock Café.

Lost on what else I want to do after that pizza stop, I sit down in one of the benches in front of Notra Dame Church where beggars and persons with disability were hanging around. Looking at them made me feel so privileged in life. Besides the lights from Diamond Plaze and the old post office across plus the elegant beauty of HSBC building behind me were nice backgrounds to the activities of the people around me. It made me think about life, how cruel and sweet life could be for various individuals.

A lottery ticket offer from one of the vendors though sent me off from my chair. Vendors can be very annoying they won’t leave you alone, so I left and walked towards Dong Khoi Street. In Dong Khoi, there’s the new Vincom building with expensive shops and spacious park outside. When it comes to shopping I am quite cheap, I don’t go for expensive one but I went inside Vincom building just for the sake of entertaining my eyes to that expensive display. Ten minutes staring at 240usd-worth of dress was enough for me to get bored and left heading towards City Opera. Few snap shots of the significant buildings around kept me busy. Then I decided to stop by few bars otherwise I can’t help spending money collecting fancy handicraft bracelets, my weakness.

In Dong Khoi Street, there’s Ice Blue Bar where I can describe as bar for old expat executives, the boring type. Few meters from Ice Blue there’s Hi Fi disco, 2nd level of the Russian market building. Then there’s also Jaspas worth spending the entire night with its cozy atmosphere. However, my trip for the night was to go around check places, so I just had one glass of lemonade at JASPAS then go around Ton That Tiep Street.

At Ton That Tiep I passed by Phatty’s Bar where most of the native English teachers working in prestigious language centers are hanging around. Spending 4usd for a drink was not my cup of tea, so one drink at Phatty’s then I had enough. Like I said I go for cheap prices except perhaps when I’m buying fancy handicraft bracelets.

From Phatty’s I went straight to Pham Ngu Lao where I spend the rest of the night sitting and chatting with friends at AK Hideaway Bar owned by an English young lad, Mat.

Hideaway has cheap drinks but the atmosphere is ok, maybe not cozy but for a bar yeah I’ll go for hideaway. If you’ve been to Hanoi’s Red Mau’s, Hideaway has the same aura, cheap drinks and nice people to talk to. I remember a statement from Mathias Baumgartner, a friend of mine in Hanoi. He told me once he doesn’t like hanging around at Red Mau’s because it’s full of backpackers and native English teachers who earned only few dollars for themselves. I hanged around with him to expensive places like Sofitel where one drink would cost at least 10usd. We used to visit 17 saloon to listen to Filipino band where a beer would cost me 4usd. If Mathias is reading this blog now I’m sure he’ll say you never change MicMic. Of course, I will only spend 1usd for a drink of vodka and orange not 20usd. Why would I spend much when I can have the same fun for 1usd? What do you think?

Messing around Laos

Laos is one of the destinations I have been eyeing in the past, and luckily today, I’m in Laos backpacking all the way from Hanoi.
I was planning on the route suggested to me in the Thorn Tree Forum, travel from
Hanoi to Dien Bien Phu by public bus - grab a “xeom” from there to Tay
Trang and cross the border to Luang Prabang.
Looking into Laos map, however, gives me the feeling that I need at least three weeks to get me to Vientiane on that route, unless I’ll go on a marathon trip overland.
For me, marathon trip overland is like “a journey to hell.”
Well, this is Southeast Asia and those that can stand long distance journey are mostly locals, which means, you will be with them 48 hours.

It’s not that I don’t like to be with them because I love Vietnamese and Lao people, after all I am Asian. It’s the bad habit that I can’t stand, like spitting a loogie everywhere. You can hear the sound “quack, quarst” from people every now and then that sometimes when I get off the bus I lost my appetite remembering all those yellow phlegm you can see on the floor, or worse on the wall.
It is that kind of experience that makes me decide to take the shortest distance in crossing the border of Vietnam and Lao, which was Hanoi- Vinh and cross the border of Nam Phou to Vientiane.

I’m a big fan of lonely planet, so I used its book as my guide in backpacking. The book says the Hanoi-Vinh-Nam Phou-Vientiane route is a 24-hour trip which for me is tolerable.
I bought a 20usd bus ticket in Hanoi and at 5pm on Wednesday, February 3, I found myself with a group of American backpackers. We waited for our ride to the bus station that showed up an hour after. The travel company said we will leave at 5pm but our ride came past 6pm. It was okay though since we started getting to know each other, sharing backpacking experiences and expectations of our trip, so we don’t mind waiting.
I was the only Asian in the group, so I asked them to back me up if I was thrown in the middle of the road walking to the borders as I read stories of tourists being dumped on the road. The group I was with, however, was quite warm and friendly that I don’t have trouble getting along with them.

At 7pm, the bus picked us up along the road of Tran Thu Do where we walked at least 10 minutes from the highway to get into that remote street. It was not the kind of bus that everyone was expecting but because this is Southeast Asia, we knew shits can happen, so we all decided to make the most of our journey.
We arrived at the Vietnamese Frontier in Vinh by 5am and we have to wait for the immigration people for an hour before queuing in to get departure stamp. At the frontier, we were all instructed to pay 1usd or 20,000vnd which we inserted to our passports.
We don’t know what was it for, but to be positive on everything, we just thought it was a departure tax. After getting the departure stamp we queued in outside the Vietnamese frontier building where immigration officer would check whether it is really us in the passport before they’ll let us go walk towards Laos border.
We walked around 500 meters to Nam Phou (Laos border) immigration building on a dusty road passing through a small bridge where trucks and busses passed by.
My advantage of being Asian was that, at the immigration building of Nam Phou, I don’t have to queue at the visa upon arrival window instead, I went ahead like locals or Vietnamese. The rest of my group were getting their visa and paid 36usd for it while I took mine for free, although, I have to pay an entry fee of 1usd or 10,000 Kip.

I was exempted on visa payment since I am a Filipino national and under the bilateral agreement between Laos and Philippines we are given free visa for a month.
The departure and visa processing took us three hours at the border, so it was almost 9am when we left. Here’s the thing, if you go by bus bring food with you otherwise you’ll be starved because the bus driver won’t stop for breakfast and lunch. None of our group knew about it but fortunately we have cookies and snacks we bought in Vietnam that we shared until we reached Vientiane by 4 pm, an hour early than the 24-hour trip as published by Lonely Planet.
By the way, don’t drink a lot of water while on the bus because it’s not like the buses in Vietnam where toilet can be found inside. The bus has no toilet and worse the “pee stop” was just everywhere along the road. No proper toilet, so you have to go through the bushes and hide unless you are a man where you can just stand near a tree and that’s it.
We were laughing at it, making a joke to wait for civilization for personal necessities to avoid encountering snakes. Well, it was an experience worth laughing at.


In Vietnam it is easy to find accommodations because there are hotels, guesthouses, hostels and dormitories everywhere even during peak season, so everyone was confident to immediately find a place to live with, which means none of us pre-booked a hotel.
Unfortunately, it was not the case in Vientiane, hotels and guest houses were fully booked that it took me almost an hour walking with my backpack to look for accommodations.
I visited 14 guest houses before I found one available room for 100,000 Kip (around 12usd) at Youth Inn at the corner of Fa Ngoum Road across Mekong River. There are cheaper guest houses like Chantha as recommended by Lonely Planet but if you want to get rooms in those places better book in advance because it’s always full. My room at Youth Inn, however, was spacious and clean. I don’t have problem with AC and hot water plus the fact that I can view the sunset at the Mekong River from the window outside my room was perfect for me. My only complain is that they don’t have toiletries except toilet tissue but the rest are ok for the price I paid for.

Before coming here I research a lot about Vientiane and read a lot of nice stories about places to go and things to do. But here’s the thing everyone has different taste that sometimes those stories you read online might fall short of your expectations.
For example, I read a lot about massage and spas and after a day of walking around the city, I did register myself for a massage. And for me, it turn out that Philippines still has the best spas and massage, cheap but world class facilities.

I’ve been walking around Vientiane for hours with only a map on hand, visiting different places but my camera screwed up, so I kept going to look for camera repair shop. But all the camera shops I went into have no repair services, so I decided to go online and look for camera repair shop. My search led me to Samsung services in Vientiane, unfortunately I was told that their one and only technician often comes to work twice a week, if not will never show up for work in one week. Desperate to have pictures, I went around to all digital shops listed online but the common statement I heard, “bring it to Bangkok,” so I gave up. By the way, establishments here accept Thai Bath.

Anyway, to get rid of my frustrations for not having pictures of the great sceneries I saw around, I cracked a joke, telling myself “Ha! Micmic don’t mess around with men in saffron robes or your camera will be cursed and won’t work.” Ummm actually having just experienced winter in Hanoi I find Laos so hot that I decided to wear my t-tank top and shorts in going around temples. I know it is inappropriate dress for temples but I have no intention of going inside and get a close encounter with the monks, so I thought it’s alright since I saw a lot of tourists wearing shorts and sexy top anyway.
At the temples, I just avoided the look of the monks I encountered, so I won't feel guilty about it. I took pictures of the temples despite my inappropriate dress but then few minutes after, my camera stopped working.

“Duhh! My camera went straight to hell and saved the monks from distraction with my shorts and t-tank top.” LOL… well cracking a joke out of it is the only way to appease myself. Look, I’m here sitting in a café across the Mekong River, drinking cold Pepsi, waiting for the sunset which I have been dreaming to capture on my small camera since the day I arrived. How would you feel if you’re camera fails you? But then again, that’s life shits can happen, so the best thing I can do to avoid frustration is smile and crack a joke out of it. I took few shots though before my malnourished camera gave up on me, so have fun! I’ll just try to get some nice shots next time my feet landed in this country again. Cheers!