The city of Motorbikes

Although Ho Chi Minh City (HCM) is less populated thanTokyo (~ 7 million people), you FEEL the population here more! This is a city of very few cars and a crap load of people on motorbikes! Apparently, Toyota Camrys are $100K, which seems odd since they come from so close. Although there are some traffic lights, they are not always obeyed especially by the motorbikes. I really wanted to rent one in Nha Trang where it was less crazy, but Adam vetoed that :(. I think New years eve was the most insane sight! There were so many people in the core that you felt like you had motorbike exhaust coated on your legs and it took forever to walk  1-2 city blocks because of all the motorbikes. A family of 4 and sometimes 5 can be seen riding on one bike - with or without helmets. Apparently helmet use became the law a couple of years ago but you'll often see kids without. We aren't even parents and it makes us cringe when we saw that happen.  There is no McDonalds, Starbucks or other major American chains here, which made more sense as we learned more about the history of the country and this city. Although we learned about the Vietnam war as teenagers, I remembered very few details and just realized that Vietnam is communist! The mass amounts of Russian and Chinese tourists makes more sense now. Ho Chi Minh is actually a person and the former leader of the Communist party from formally North Vietnam, who defeated South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh City was formally called Saigon and most non-communists will still call it Saigon. We finally met up with Anh and Jimmy who were traveling with both their families. It was interesting to hear their immigration stories and the experiences of their family members that still live in Vietnam.  Apparently under the communist regime, only one family member can get a visa to travel to a developed country, so there isn't any chance that will leave the country. People under 30 also aren't allowed to leave. Although our parents struggled when they left East Africa, our religious leader, the Aga Khan, had made arrangements with Pierre Trudeau to get them into Canada easily. Anh and Jimmy's parents left as refugees during the Vietnam War and Anh's parents haven't seen some of their siblings for 31 years! We visited the Reunification Palace, War Remnants Museum, and did a 1/2 day tour of the Cu Chi tunnels, a short drive from HCM. The Cu Chi tunnels are a network of tunnels that were built for the people to live underground during the long Vietnam War. We went through one of the tunnels but I pretty much had a panic attack since I was so claustrophobic. I can't believe people used to live there! All of the historical "facts" are very anti-American and pro communist, as would be expected but there is a lot of probably unnecessary propaganda too.  We also went to a water puppet show, which was very interesting to see. Although the whole thing was in Vietnamese, it was interesting show and very different from anything we had seen before.  Shopping at the markets was very handy with Anh's Vietnamese speaking, bargaining loving sisters! They really know how to get stuff done although there isn't a lot of things we were interested in buying. The more we travel, the less we buy because you realize that you won't use half of the stuff when you get back home. If anyone has any requests, please let us know! We stayed at the Intercontinental hotel this time, which was very nice. Anh and Jimmy stayed at one of the A&EM hotels (many locations), which seemed like great value for money - nice, reasonable, free wifi and breakfast in a good location.  A post is not complete without my food report! When we met up with Anh and Jimmy, we just followed along but went to some good places to eat and were introduced to more dishes than we would have without them. My favorite meal was at Com nieu Sai Gon, a Vietnamese Gastronomy Experience - the battered tiger prawns were absolutely divine! I'd skip Pho 24 - it's a chain but very bland, in my opinion. Black Cat had the best burgers Adam and I have ever had with beef imported for Australia. Apparently it's on CNNs top 10 places to go to eat before you die - I wish we went more than once! Apparently the top of the Rex hotel and Sheraton hotel are nice but they were all ticketed events on NYE and no one felt like going clubbing.  I realized that I didn't include a food report for Nha trang! We went to Ganesh (Indian and pretty good), Nha yen (Vietnamese & average) and The Grill House (mixed cuisine, juicy King Prawns!).