7/29 The Messenger of Rain in HCMC

Just another day of getting up at six, working my system into the routine. I had always feared of getting up late the night before leaving, and that's why I had set up five alarms, but only to have gotten up even before the first one rang, every time. But we just couldn't be too cautious about these things.

I checked out at seven sharp and took a tuk tuk to the Capitol Bus Station, which was really far away from the hotel, otherwise I would have definitely walked. The young driver suggested a fee of 5 USD, but I had managed to cut the price to 3.

The thing is, I discovered that I only had a 10 USD bill in my wallet when we arrived at the station and I was a bit behind schedule, due to the messy traffic. I got off the tuk tuk and tried to have the 10USD exchanged at the counter, but the cashier said that I could only exchange for Riels... What! I was getting late for the bus, and since the young driver hadn't got any USD to spare, I gave him the whole bunch of 10 USD worth of Riels out of no choice. He was so delighted that he hugged me hard and gave me a friendly pat on the back.

I waved him goodbye and hopped on the bus that's finally taking me to Vietnam, Ho Chih Min City.

Crossing the border wasn't difficult, since the guy in charged of our bus collected our passports and had them stamped together in a bunk. I was lucky to have gotten my visa earlier and that really saved me much trouble.

The bus slowly came to a halt at 2 in the afternoon, about 6 hours long journey, we had arrived at the famous De Tham street and I hopped off, face to face with a sight of backpackers and foreigners. I had heard that De Tham street was like the heaven, or gathering area for backpackers, and I was greeted with many friendly faces. First thing first, I sought through the shops with my eagle-sharp eyes and soon located the Exchange service. It was about a 700:1 ratio between Vietnam Dun and NT dollars, I changed 200 USD and soon became a millionaire owning 4 million duns, ha!

I had a bit trouble finding the hotel that I had booked on the Internet, for almost 99% of the shop signs in Vietnam hadn't got any English on them, but only their language. Luckily I had got the address of Bizu Hotel located on my GPS, and soon checked into a small but nicely equipped room, perfect.

I fought the urge of getting into the bed and rested for a while, for taking long bus journeys were much more exhausting than you could imagine, but I thought it would be better to plan out my schedules, the accommodations in Da Lat, first, which would be my next touring spot.

It was raining heavily by the time I leave Bizu and wandered out, sightseeing and roaming HCMC. The rain came down hard, and the roads were a little flooded. I squinted, in search of the Sinh Tourist Bus office and maybe some shops that would have SD cards in store.

Ho Chih Min City was very much like Taiwan, except for the language on signs, and the people also looked alike. Skyscrapers were everywhere; roads were wide and big, it was pretty nice to be back in the city for a while, leaving the yellow dirt, cows and bumpy roads behind. There were no more annoying tuk tuk drivers that yelled at passengers, poop droppings that lied everywhere... the only things that I found disturbing in this city was that, the drivers just couldn't stop honking! Basically, they honked at everything: cars in front of them, pedestrians, air... my ears felt like exploding. One other thing was that, it seemed pretty casual for them to pee almost everywhere! Was there no shame in that? Or was it their customs...

The nearing shopping mall I could find was about a 2 to 3 hours walking distance from where I was staying, the big C supercenter. Thailand also had one of those, so I decided to pay it a visit even with the long ground between us.

By the way, the streets were covered in tiles which were extremely slippery, I had slipped and almost broke my neck more times than I could keep count. And some tiles were hollow beneath, spraying water and sand if your feet came unluckily upon them. It was like a total minefield.

Finally, I dragged myself to Big C, almost wet from head to toes even with the umbrella. I pulled myself a cart and wheezed around shopping for juices and maybe a SD card for the camera. I was disappointed with the electronic section, but found myself some cool Pomelo juice! Yay! I had never had any of those before.

Back into the rain, but only with a heavier backpack. I still had my eyes on any shops that might have SD card in store, went into many of them but they only came in Micro SD, which was for the phones.

I was really disappointed, and walked with head lowered.

The route was different than the one I had come, and all of a sudden I caught sign of a big shop that seemed to be selling printers a few blocks away. I hurried toward the shop, since it was pretty late and most of the stores were closing, and you wouldn't believe my luck, for I had found my SD card at last! I bought a 16G card, and was happy to have my camera working again.

May the rain rained all day long in HCMC, but the god must have favored me to accomplish all the tasks.