Day 2 in Saigon

Our group was supposed to meet at noon today for a walking tour of Saigon, but things change.  Since I know no one here, I was surprised by a knock on the door.  It was the bellboy with a message that our start time had changed to 4.  With a full day, I decided to hire a private guide rather than just walk around again.  I made one phone call, but before the guide could get back to me, I got a phone call from Suzanne, my new roommate.  Although I had specifically booked the hotel where the tour group was staying and requested when I checked in to be able to keep the room ... easy to see where this is going.  I moved in with Suzanne and she asked if I wanted to walk around for the day.  When the guide called back, he charged more than Suzanne wanted to pay, so we went out with me as the guide based on my vast experience from the day before.  Suzanne was afraid to cross the street without holding my arm.  She was as awed by the traffic as I was, but couldn't believe that we should just step into the river of motorbikes and trust them to go around us.

Suzanne is a 40ish elementary school student from New Zealand who loves the kids and teaching but hates the administration.  So she is taking a sabbatical year.  She has traveled much more extensively than me in this part of the world.

We walked around the sites I had seen yesterday and then a few more.  Then we decided to get massages before our afternoon meeting.  There are spas on every block and girls outside with flyers.  We stopped to talk to one women whose flyer said an hour massage was $16.  Suzanne was trying to decide between full body, shiatsu, etc, when I pointed out that a two hour back, feet, and head massage was $24, so we went for it.  Meanwhile, another young women stopped to listen to our deliberations and joined us.  She was an elementary school teacher from British Columbia who loves the kids and teaching but hates the administration.  So she is taking a sabbatical year.  (Where have I heard that before?)  She was on the last day of three months traveling around.  So they walk the three of us around the corner into an art gallery/frame shop.  We sit down in the back and sign papers.  Then we go up the narrowest winding staircase to an attic room with several massage tables separated by curtains like in a hospital ward.  The three of us lie down on tables no more than two feet apart and can talk during the massages.  It starts with these tiny but incredibly strong Vietnamese women crawling up our legs and digging their knees into our tushes while massaging our backs from behind.  It was different than any massage I have ever had but two hours ... what's not to love.

Back at the hotel we met our group for orientation and then had dinner together at a "traditional" Vietnamese restaurant that is clearly for the tourists.  The man next to me got one of their "set menus" and they just kept bringing him more and more dishes, some recognizable, some not.

The rest of the group includes a young (fortyish also) Indian doctor couple from New Zealand, and everyone else is my age.  Two couples from England, one more from New Zealand, and a woman who I think is British.  The one British couple that I sat next to at dinner were interesting.  She is a family law judge; he sold a business a few years ago and is semi-retired, so he says he is a kept man.

I thought I had managed to get onto Vietnamese time and fell asleep at 10, but awoke at 4 and realized I was not going back to sleep.  So I came down to the lobby to write this and talk on the phone without disturbing Suzanne.  With the time difference, this is the actually the perfect time to try to reach people.  At 8 we are meeting for our first tour and bike ride.  The tour is to the Cu Chi tunnels used first by the French and later the Viet Cong in "infiltrate" the South.  Since it is a two hour ride to the tunnels and we are coming back here tonight, I can always sleep on the ride.  Apparently at some places where you visit the Cu Chi tunnels, you can shoot AK7's.  The British kept man wanted to do that since, as he said, he lives in a very restricted society.  The guide, however, says it is not recommended.  Something about guns being dangerous?  The guide, Binh, speaks perfect English but his answers seem to be non sequiturs to the questions asked so we are never quite sure what he is telling us.

6:30 AM.  I have been up for hours and it is still half an hour till breakfast.  Is this how the other half lives?