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When I had the opportunity to use frequent flyer miles for an overseas trip, I decided to use them to go over a different sea than usual for a trip to Asia in November 2002. Here is a report on that trip to Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
TRIP TO ASIA, NOVEMBER 2002
Amc2004-09-13 14:42:34
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I was going, a man with him took my bag to the right, away from the parked cabs. This was an unmarked, unmetered car; I should have objected or at least asked the fare, but I was too exhausted. The ride gave me a memorable first impression of the city officially called Ho Chi Minh City but still widely known as Saigon, so I will use the latter name. The big impression came in the cacophony of traffic, mostly motorbikes weaving around, most memorably with young women in long white dresses and scarves over their faces to protect themselves from the fumes. Many women were wearing the non la conical hats that I know as an icon of Vietnam but wasn’t sure if I would see in the present-day city. I arrived at the hotel and gave the driver $5, which I understood was the standard fare; he said it was $8, so I gave the difference, frustrated at having mishandled the situation but not having lost a huge amount.
The hotel was the Oscar Saigon on Nguyen Hue Blvd, built on the model of the Champs-Elysees. On Judy’s recommendation, I had used Asia-Hotels to book the hotel, choosing it based on the prices and reviews there and in the Rough Guide book I was using. The hotel looked nice in the lobby and had a friendly front desk staff, but they couldn’t find my reservation. I showed my confirmation e-mail and they said they had a room for me, but I don’t know if they ever found the reservation. The room was a “standard” for $32/night; the window faced a dark shaft, so one couldn’t tell if it was night or day (but it also meant no street noise). It had the generally worn look of the lower-class hotel rooms I remember from France and Italy in the 1970s, but with a private bathroom and television with a great variety of channels: no English-language news, but ESPN and Spanish and Italian channels.
Once I was checked in, I had two errands to run that could have been managed more simply but formed my impression of Saigon as I completed them:
...
See photographs from:
Vietnam Gallery
,
Macau Gallery
,
Hong Kong Gallery
,
Cambodia Gallery
