Day 4 & 5 & 6 & 7: Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang

So yeah, that about sums up Ho Chi Minh City.

........

Jokes. Here, have some more pictures of this lovely, classy city:

All in all, there's not much you can say about HCM City. It's crowded, it's overpopulated, it's dirty (there are giant rats in the streets) and everywhere you turn, there is a suspiciously pungeant smell in the air (which is often accompanied by a squatting, skinny half-naked old man). Don't judge me. I really did try to like HCM City but I guess I'm just too much of a first world brat to be able to wholeheartedly embrace it.

I did make a few new friends though (plus had enough time to catch up with an old one):

Da Nang on the other hand...

...is beautiful.

We recently joined a tour to Da Nang that will go on for 3 nights and 4 days. (If anyone's confused, today is day 7 of my overseas trip.) We spent today catching a plane from HCM to Da Nang and then sightseeing with the tour group. Unfortunately, the tour caters mostly to Vietnamese speakers so my sister and I just kind of float around uselessly while the guide tells everyone else all these interesting facts/jokes about the different destinations. It can't be helped. After all, the only thing I can say with confidence in Vietnamese is "eat banana" and even that can be taken the wrong way.

Nothing says "I'm the biggest, baddest Emperor there ever was" better than a giant, phallic-y looking statue erected in your courtyard.

 

According to my mum - who translated what the tour guide told her - there is a simple reason for Da Nang's cleanliness. Cash rewards are offered by the government to people who can report the location of homeless people and as such, homelessness is reduced. Brilliant! Imagine all the money you could make if that law was implemented in HCM City...

Well you didn't expect me to leave Vietnam without pulling this pose at least once right?

This cat kept following me around and mewling for food. I had none and had to shoo it away. It made me feel like I'd kicked a baby... repeatedly.

We had time to visit a specialised pearl jewellery store where we were encouraged to buy stuff after receiving a 15 minute lesson on how to distinguish between fake and real pearls. Valuable lesson, that. After all, I'm constantly buying expensive, exotic pieces of jewellery with the millions of dollars I have saved up in my bank account, you know?

After dinner, we were treated to a cultural performance whilst sailing down the Perfume River in a dragon boat. We got to release little paper boats with candles in them into the water but in my opinion, that wasn't the best part. The most entertaining thing was seeing the performers immediately switch off their "cultural mode" after having sung/played for us. The ladies just stopped pretending to smile, plopped down on a plastic chair, pulled their iPhones out of their handbags and began talking really loudly whilst flicking stuff off their fingernails and totally ignoring the audience they'd just performed for. It was hilarious. 

Anyway, I've gotta get to sleep now. I'm waking up at 5:40 am tomorrow. Hope everyone's well in Australia! I miss you guys...

P.S. Waving at Vietnamese guys from the back of a van and making them fall off their bikes was way more fun when Nancy was here to do it with me LOL. It's just not the same.

P.P.S. Oooh look, a hobbit!

Nah, jokes. That's just my grandma :)