It is kind of hard to sum Saigon up in words. Ordered chaos may be close, but doesn't give it justice. It's a pretty overwhelming place. Rural regions make up about 90% of the city's land area and only 25% of the population. The other 75% is crammed into the remaining urban 10%. Yikes.
Close your eyes and imagine what the Serengeti looked like during the days of the great migration: Thousands of zebra, wildebeest, and giraffe galloping in herds across the great plains of Africa. Now, imagine that instead of animals those herds are really small Vietnamese men and women on motorbikes and instead of the great plains they are on city streets.
Crossing the road is an adventure in itself. One strategy is to wait for a Vietnamese family and cling to them for dear life. We watched it unfold from a rooftop bar. You wait for an opening and you take a small step into the flow. Then another step. As you walk (slowly) the herd will split to the other side and envelope you. You continue until you make it across. It's actually kind of fun!
It started pouring about 3 minutes into our cab ride from the hotel. Of course, we forgot all of our rain gear. We went down to an area called Pham Ngu Lao, which is kind of the backpackers district. We intended to start a bit of a Lonely Planet walking tour, but decided to have some spring rolls and wait for the rain to stop. We then made our way to an amazing indoor market. Kind of the shopping mall of Saigon. You can get everything form t-shirts to souvenirs to lunch to a manicure to soap to bulk dried shrimp.
As we started off to find a lunch spot recommended by a friend, the rain started again. We tried to wait it out but eventually just started walking in the rain. After about 30 minutes of unsuccessful searching we made our way back to the hotel to grab something quick nearby. Mental note: Maps and street numbers don't really help in Saigon.
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