SaigonRPGQuest: Embrace the Chaos and explore Saigon
(Note that while Saigon was re-named to Ho Chi Minh City in 1975, almost everywhere and everyone referred to it as Saigon, even down to the airport code. So will be referring to the city as Saigon for the remainder of this post).
Due to my own stupidity, I decide to change my phone password to something difficult in the likely scenario my phone is get to pickpocketed, even though they’d probably just wipe it anyway..and couldn’t get back in to the phone and locked out. So I arrive in Saigon with no access to my phone 11pm on a Friday night. The events that followed felt like a video game, namely an RPG at times with unlocking items and accessing new areas etc. Also the weather mechanics were very varied as I went in rainy season, it would bucket down rain for an hour or two normally around midday than be sunny for the rest of the day, incredibly humid also.
I get through the airport and need to get a taxi, I can’t use grab (Uber) because of the phone situation and know the taxis can be dodgy there so I try to remember the two taxi company names that are trustworthy (Vinasun and Mai Linh) but to make matters worse there is fake taxis (not the good kind) with Vinasum and other bogus names. Again i can’t access my phone to double check conversion rate but I just think 500k should be plenty…and I was right.
Trust Taxi Driver?
> Yes
> No
> Yes
Taxi Driver overcharges you, Lost 950,000!
Get going and he tells me it’s 95k..then later 950K, I don’t have my phone handy to argue the conversation rate anyway and I don’t want to get stranded in Saigon at night with no phone..so he let me stop at the nearest atm and I got another 500k out. Ended up costing me just under $60 AUD, which may be the case for a taxi in some cities, in Vietnam it should have been closer to $16 for that trip lol. Lucky that’s all that happened as he could have taken me to wrong location etc. Not my best moment. I saw an old Australian man and his elderly and disabled wife get out of a taxi later on this trip also (Vinasun at that!) screaming “Fucking Rip Off!” at them. It’s one thing to rip my dumb ass off, but an old/disabled couple? Wow.
He at least lubes me up while fucking me as he tells me about Saigon and places to visit etc and took me to my location, though my hotel was in an alleyway so short walk to entrance, lucky no one around and I made it in fine. Stayed in Pham Ngu Lao near Bui Vien Walking Street, basically Backpacker central so great location to start your journey as a first time traveler as it’s right near SIM card and motorbike hire shops.
Get to hotel with my travel money card (It has pre-loaded VND on it) and meet my favourite person of this trip, Friendly innkeeper. I walk in to the hotel and see a guy smoking and chilling at one of the guest tables..no one at reception. Turns out he’s the reception guy and he helps me out. In most businesses in Vietnam they don’t wear uniform so you’d see someone having a nap or chilling on their phone/smoking thing they are a customer and it’s the person that works there :lol:. It’s customary for hotels and motorbike hires to hold on to your passport in vietnam, but that definitely wasn’t happening so I made sure I had a photocopy of it & he was fine with that, as losing passport is a nightmare by all accounts.
Pay for Hotel? (Full HP/MP Recovery)
> Yes
> No
Yes > Card Declines!
I have just enough to pay for this hotel on said card. He tells me there’s a 3% fee…
It declines. He lets me try to get on my laptop and access my online banking to transfer the money over…log in to online banking and it wants SMS verification. FUCK, again I can’t access my phone. I just decide to pay for one less night for the moment and thankfully it approves.
Go up to my hotel room, it’s decent considering I paid about $245 AUD (3.9 million VND) for 11 nights, have a private bathroom, fridge, closet, TV and good sized bed with fast internet. Probably cost me that for 2 nights at some hotels in Australia :lol:. Have a shower to try to relax but there’s no hot water, so just call it a night stressed out about the phone and online banking situation.
Pham Ngu Lao district discovered!
I venture out the next day and as soon as I step outside guy tries to put sunglasses on my head as he carries around a huge board of knockoff sunglasses. Every 10 steps a motorbike drives by me and someone offering me something/asking where I am going. The most common street vendors were the sunglass sellers then the shoe shiners,fruit balancers, prostitutes and lastly the saddest of all the fan-girls. Little girls who walked the streets selling those Japanese fans and other various stuff..the money they are given are just given to the adults in control of them so it’s not advised to give them money as it doesn’t help them.
I walk through the garbage filled streets dodging the countless parked motorbikes and make it to an ATM. Pretty sure at one point guy was about to swipe my wallet from his bike until I moved it at last second, Either way it made me super conscious of never having things in my pocket while there.
Get the VND that’s left on of my travel card and get some food at the convenience store then hurry back to my hotel, with the same encounters as the way there. I ask at reception if I can make an international call, unable. I’m stressing to the max about this situation and I start the Metallica thread to kill time as I’m frantic-tic-tically trying to find out any way to call my bank from a laptop and trying to remember the difficult password I put on my phone. I put a support ticket in with apple and they said they will get back to me in 24 hours.
Almost made the mistake of rinsing my toothbrush off with tap water, some claim it’s safe but considering I could hear the guy in the hotel across from me vomiting for hours..I didn’t want to take any chances.
The next day is more of the same as I’m pumping through Metallica albums, and I’m told my apple account won’t be able to help me out until mid August?! I am so screwed.
Then later on I finally had my euraka moment
Use Apple Watch?
> Yes
> No
> SMS unlocked! Online banking unlocked!
I was contemplating not even bringing my apple watch as I don’t use it often which is probably why it didn’t occur to me. But I am so happy I did. Finally get into my online banking, transfer money and access all the stuff I have that has SMS verification. Call apple via my apple watch, explain the situation and give them an extensive amount of details..still can’t help me until August.
Relieved I can access my banking, I venture out a tiny bit more but I still don’t have a phone so I have no way of contacting anyone/no GPS and I’m in a different country by myself where I don’t speak the language. Not envious of people who did solo travel before mobile phones. So i feel like I’m in the tutorial mission as I haven’t unlocked the phone item yet or have the cross-road ability yet, so I spend my time finishing the Metallica thread in Pop Culture, PW here to save the day and keep my sanity.
If you’re wondering what is the big issue with crossing the road in Vietnam, you just have to find a gap in the incoming traffic and walk through it like so.
So doing this the first few times was terrifying to say the least, but other than almost being hit by a bus I feel like I got the hang of it as I’m still here writing this post. So I put some points into luck and took my chances crossing the road to check out the nearby phone shop as they had good deals online.
I didn’t want to take my laptop with me to show the phones I was looking at/check conversation rate as I didn’t want my laptop to go missing and i’d be even more stuck, so I had to keep looking and make mental note of the prices which were in the millions so trying to remember the amounts was a nightmare, felt like Will Smith in the Pursuit of Happyness (sic) going back to my hotel remembering the prices. I also found a tourist information centre nearby that had a free map. Also had the displeasure of seeing a guy using the park as a public bathroom at 11am near a busy road..and he wasn’t peeing. I got a map though!
upload picMap unlocked!
I get paid again and find a great deal for a cheap phone on the GioGidong website and it will be delivered in 2 hours! Bargain! Just input your Vietnamese phone number and we can help you out. I ask the hotel staff but they don’t really understand, in hindsight I could have just bought a SIM card first and used that number but I just gave up and went to the phone shop again.
Paid $140 AUD (2,291,618.34 VND) for a new phone, which aside from accommodation was by far the biggest expense on this trip, my taxi ride being in second place :suspic:.
You have earnt “Phone” Item!
GPS/Grab unlocked! You can access areas outside of the tutorial area!
Went to the Saigon Center that day and in the coming days went to Bitexco Financial Tower, Saw HCMC City Hall and the opera house as well as Landmark 81 which is the tallest building in Vietnam later in the trip. Also to make matters even better my tax return went in the same day. Also side note about Vietnam, having pale skin is considered beautiful and wealthy so you’ll see people strive to be as pale as possible, tanning salons would never take off there. So it was odd seeing this familiar looking white looking woman on a perfume banner..only to realize it was Zendaya albeit heavily photoshopped :huh:.
Landmark 81
Landmark 81 View
upload picCity Hall
upload picHo Chi Minh Statue
upload picOpera House
upload picBitexco Tower
upload picBitexco View
upload picIndependence Palace (FKA Reunification Palace)
Returned to my hotel room and to help me celebrate unlocking the tutorial mission:
A Rat Has approached! (Disease Risk)
Went downstairs to tell them but my man the friendly innkeeper wasn’t there yet, so had to resort to using google translate. Lady gives me a shocked look and I’m hoping it’s because of the rat not because it butchered the translation. My man rocked up and they told me they took care of it, never saw it again so I’ll take their word for it. Definitely should have put a lot more skills points into communication, so many people said everyone could speak English in Saigon because of the tourism, definitely wasn’t the case so had to rely on pointing at signs a lot :lol:
upload picWent to the generically named “asiankitchen restaurant” right near my hotel, they had an extensive menu and most importantly they had pictures so I frequented there a lot. First time I went there tucked in the corner of the restaurant is a baby just chilling in his cot while people dine and if the husband/wife were busy their other soon who could have been 13 at most would take the orders. Definitely the most chill place i went to in Vietnam even though the street vendors would still walk into the restaurant to try and get you to buy stuff as most places you can just walk into with no door. Was so confused when this lady walks in to the restaurant with a big briefcase and opens it up….
To reveal Cigarette packets she was selling for 50k VND, which is just over $3 AUD and people would still haggle the prices :lol:.
Get a GrabBike (Low Gil cost, Permadeath risk)
> Yes
> No
> Yes, (You are afflicted with fear!)
Because it could take 10-15 mins to get a Grab car at times I started using the Grab bike option instead as it was insanely cheap (like $1.10 AUD) and you’d get a ride almost instantly as there’s motorbikes everywhere. I’ve skydived, been on the world’s fastest rollercoaster and at the world’s tallest building as well as having been thrown about and off a ring/house hold objects in wrestling…
Never had I feared for my life more than the first time I got on a Grab Bike. I’m given a helmet but i’m not wearing biker gear and we just zip through the streets somehow avoiding collisions with the hundred of other motorbikes, stray dogs, pedestrians as well and other vehicles.
upload picOne point rider is seemingly about to be in a head-on collision with a truck and at the last moment he weaves out the way and we were fine, also wasn’t a great feeling when we were in a buses blindspot and it starts turning in your direction but he honked and got out of it, all is well.
The motorbike rides in Vietnam felt like Jedi knights, they saw everything 10 steps ahead and would make split second decisions to avoid disaster.
While the UAE had a very aggressive driving style there still was road rules and I saw the aftermath of 15 accidents, in Vietnam where it’s just minimal rules and complete chaos…didn’t see anything go wrong :lol:. So not my wisest move to keep taking them to my destinations but hey, i’m alive!
upload pic
upload pic
upload picThe War Remnants Museum (FKA Exhbition house for US and puppet crimes, exhibition house for crimes of war and aggression) was incredibly misleading and basically a big propaganda piece. I don’t want this to turn into the “Vietnam political thread” but look up reviews for yourself of this place and you will see numerous examples of claims this museum makes refuted.
Obviously they aren’t going to sign the praises of the USA but the misinformation was immense.
It was cool to see some of the weapons and vehicles but other than that it was incredibly graphic photos of dead men, women and children…which is the reality of said war but they definitely have a different attitude towards the harsher side of life there.
For example i went on Tiktok there and amongst the videos I was recommended which were mostly people doing dances to Vietnamese songs and comedy videos, there was one of a woman taking her last breath as she died..then it cut to her funeral and everyone sending their regards etc in the comments. If you filmed your friends dying breath and uploaded it on Tiktok in a western country you’d get an extremely negative reaction.
upload picTail end of the trip was mostly drama-free except for when I went to Aeon Mall in the Tan Phu district. For those unaware I have red hair, blue eyes and colourful tattoos which you’re not going to see much of in Vietnam. Because my hotel was in a tourist hub no one really seemed to care but when I went to this mall it was different. People staring at me, someone taking a photo of me and group of boys excitedly ran up to me to ask my name and say hello. I went to Timezone and two little girls came up to me and said hello and just stood watching me play one of the games…I just walked away and let them play the game I was on.
Big mistake as they kept following me around Timezone, they knew hello so hoped they understood Bye-Bye. I said Bye and left Timezone, walk to another section of the mall and i hear a clapping noise behind me. It’s said girls, still following me. I walk back to Timezone because I have no idea where their parents are and having two little Vietnamese girls follow me around a mall doesn’t look great when I’m an adult male by himself & it’s very evident they aren’t my children :lol:. Hoping I can find someone at Timezone that spoke English (I just pointed to get credit on a card) to explain what is happening but luckily I managed to escape them before it escalated to that.
Also had the experience of getting a haircut in Vietnam, I looked into reputable barbers/hairdressers as like a lot of massage places there..they offer adult services.
Getting a haircut at most places you get extra service but nothing suss as i’ll explain below.
Found out one was right on Bui Vien walking street which is right near my hotel, walked in with a picture saved hoping I could explain what I wanted. Walked in said “haircut” and the guy sat me down and started cutting my hair with no further questions. Ended up cutting my hair similar to how I get it cut anyway so could have been a lot worse, worst case scenario i’d just get my head shaved bald when I got back, my hair grows super quick any way :lol:.
So I got my haircut, face shaved with cut throat then gel and cucumbers put on my face then laid down on a table and got my ears cleaned (which was heavenly), then face and hair washed and sent on my way. Definitely a different experience of getting your haircut, especially when it cost well under $30 AUD :lol:.
Final Area
Bui Vien Walking Street
I don’t have the best quality footage so not my video but said street i’m referring to
Finally the most chaotic part of Vietnam aside from the street vendors, endless motorbikes flying passed you and listening to endless honking was the Bui Vien walking street. If you’ve ever been to Times Square just imagine that with all the dudes with flyers/mixtapes etc but instead a straight road and signs for restaurants and offers for “massages” and street walkers aplenty hand in hand with old white guys. Luckily I managed to find one of those selfie attachments to my phone so If anyone tripped to steal my phone out of my hand, it would be attached to my finger..so that made me a bit more relaxed with taking photos and videos in general but especially here as it’s a pickpocket heavy area.
Every 10 seconds someone would wave a menu in my face, or offer me a massage and grab my arm..some of the menu people would even step in front of me when I made it clear I was avoiding them. Got a few pictures and videos but got out of there instantly. Can see the appeal to a group of guys that love partying and drinking to that street but aside from the visuals it wasn’t for me. Especially as even though it’s meant to be a “walking street” one of the few places in Vietnam you can’t ride your motorbike, still people constantly going by which I still had to be mindful of when trying to avoid the menus and massage offers.
Overall Saigon was a very chaotic place, you either need to embrace the chaos and harness the constant “Go! Go! Go!” loud and fast energy or it won’t be for you. I don’t regret going but also feel like I failed in my quest of really embracing the chaos and enjoying quite a different side of life. The poverty aspects of it were sad to see, especially when the lockdowns decimated a lot of the tourism which just made a bad situation worse which makes you understand why people had to resort to pickpocketing & scamming people. However I was very obviously just a mark in the carny sense of the word so had to be on high alert at almost all times so can't say I ever felt at ease to take in some of the wonder.
Embrace the Chaos Quest:
Failed
Return to Australia safe and sound Quest:
Accomplished!
Now to go back to bartending simulator
…tl:dr Vietnam is chaotic for a solo traveller
