3 january: saigon/ho chi minh city

today we reached the pinnacle of travel efficiency. we started the day early thanks to time zone differences and worked out at the hotel gym. quite impressed with ourselves on that front. we then hit up the delectable buffet at the hotel, including an amusing array of asian and western favorites. since we're far from sick of the food yet, we leaned asian: pho noodle soup, fried rice and dumplings. at 7am.

then headed out for a day tour with mr. dinh the quang. saw everything saigon has to offer from a tourist perspective: opera house, city hall, post office, 'reunification palace', war museum (totally disturbing), lacquer factory and two of the craziest markets we've ever visited. by market, we mean warehouses filled with every good you can picture being sold in chinatowns the world over, organized in 8x8' stalls, with absolute crap piled in every square inch up to the ceiling. claustrophobia set in multiple times. and the sales people were not afraid to physically drag you back to tell you that you had missed their unique wares (fake louis vuitton wallets, giant woks, costume jewelry, brazil soccer jerseys, dried fish, 20 lb. bags of nuts...you get the picture). amazing.

probably the most amusing interaction of the day was when our tour guide out of the blue asked andrew "what sport do you play" as an entree to comment "you in good shape. you very attractive." he's a 50 year old vietnamese man, for the record. andrew was on cloud nine the rest of the day.

also of note, we ate lunch at a place called pho 2000, a much heralded lunch spot here in saigon. beyond having some pretty good pho, its claim to fame is actually the fact that bill clinton ate there approximately 10 years ago - which they like to remind you of by hanging poster-size photos of the occasion approximately every 10 feet around the restaurant. slick willy loves his pho!

all of this was accomplished between the hours of 9am and 3pm, we'll have you know. then we took a nap.

nighttime activities included a stroll around the the 3 block radius trying to find one particular restaurant that continued to elude us thanks to improper labeling on a map. we took a break at the rooftop bar of the caravelle hotel, the oldest 5 star hotel in saigon, and enjoyed an amazing view with our san francisco-priced tiger beers. a good view will cost you, even in vietnam. luckily beers elsewhere range from 50 cents to 1 dollar, so it all evens out in the end.

next up: free day in saigon