Day 1 in Sai Gon

And Sài Gòn… I thought I would never come to this city again after my last visit in 2016. But there I was and came back to Singapore with several mosquito bites and blisters in my soles.

Day 1, Sunday (11th): Unsure of any on-board meal, I ordered a bowl of plain noodles at the T2 food court and couldn’t finish it. No appetite in Singapore. I took SIA’s SQ184, leaving Changi at 13:30 as scheduled. The flight was half-empty, something I’d probably never experienced on a SIA flight for many years! Some turbulence over Singapore, but it went smoothly all the way to Sai Gon. A meal was served but I couldn’t finish this either.

Tân Sơn Nhất Airport seemed to be the same, more or less. The immigration officer of the line looked tired with so many people he had to process. But at the arrival hall, there were counters for taxi booking. I should’ve booked one there, but I didn’t because I thought it would be easy to take a “Grab” taxi. Then, I found out Grab offered only motorbike-riding services, not suitable for someone who had a suitcase, no matter how small that was. Or so I thought. I really should’ve booked a taxi at one of the counters as the driver I ended up with was one of those taxi robbers, just like the one who had stolen my 4,000 yen from my wallet three years ago. For the money for (perhaps) the parking fee and while I was trying to find the correct bank notes, he tried to grab my wallet. I resisted hard because that was exactly how I was robbed last time. As I resisted so hard, he gave up and asked me to get out of his car. I was happy to do so. I took another to go to the hotel and paid 250,000 dong. Too much maybe, but I was safe.

I had never stayed at a place (guesthouses and cheap hotels) with a window in Saigon. This time, just the same. Little wonder Sunrise Central Hotel was so cheap especially when its location is considered (along Ly Tu Trong, near Chợ Bến Thành), which was probably an ideal to walk around District 1 of Sai Gon. The size of the bedroom was fine, and its bathroom, partly because of the bathtub, was quite large. A problem of this window-less room was that it was either all bright with the lights on or all dark with them off, confusing me about what time it was.

I had let my friend in Saigon know about my trip, and she set the time for our meeting for dinner at 6:00 pm, giving me some time for settling down at the hotel. And she postponed the time to 6:30. No problem with me. The Vietnamese restaurant, “Bếp Mẹ Ỉn,” which she had chosen for dinner, was near the hotel and I had no trouble finding it. She was already there when I reached the place. We shook hands and had a gentle hug. Her friend joined us perhaps 15 minutes later. We all had a good time. Or so I hope. And something astonishing to learn is that my friend, now married, sees her husband, working in New Mexico, only once a year. After her friend left on a Grab motorbike, we walked around the night market before we said good night to each other at the hotel. Did I talk to her about enough of what’s been happening to me, or not happening to me? Thanks to her and her friend.

At the intersection of Lý Tự Trọng and Trương Định, to the west side from the hotel, I found three Japanese restaurants, a ramen shop (Ringer Hut), an udon shop (Marukame Udon) and an izakaya (Maruman) and a Singaporean sushi restaurant (Sushi Tei). Sài Gòn being contaminated.