Binh Thanh District, 236,29,2L Duong Dien Bien Phu, Olivier's Place

snip, snip the pretty full-on week at work...
This morning, I packed up my stuff and headed to Olivier's, a friend I met in Australia. Olivier went to Cambodia and will be back on the 25th. Thanks mate, love the hospitality and will return a 1000 times.
After a much appreciated nap, my stomach started to cry for being fed. Hummm, let's look where could I get some nice local food: "Cho Ben Thanh" would be the place. Got out of the house, hopped on a cyclo "Xe om" and headed for a 15 minutes drive downtown.
Ben Thanh Market is a bubbly market full of colors and smells. Shops selling dry spicy beef jerky "thiet bo kho", marinated shrimps sauce "mom tom", dry shrimps and fishes, YSL and Gucci bags, clothes, souvenirs, local exotic fruit and vegies, and my stomach's 1st objective: the foodcourt !
wow! I got to come back here, the food looks so good and there is so many varieties you could eat something different for a month or two.
After at least 1 minute that seemed like an eternity, I decided to settle in front of a ceramic counter and ordered "Banh Beo", a rice paste speciality with crushed dry shrimp and pork, with nuoc mam sauce. The main would be "Bun Bo Hue", a (delicious) typical beef soup with noodle.
I then hopped on a "xe om" and headed to meet my dad's side of the family. My Aunt and her son live not so far from the airport in district 2. I am excited and anxious at the same time as I have never met them before. I dis not even know if someone would be home. Arrived there, the gate is closed, but the window at the 1st floor is open and I think I could hear the muffled sound of a TV. I rang and soon could see my aunt smile over the window's edge.
no words are strong enough to transcript the feeling as I met my aunt. I am surprised that she can speak French, so surprised at 1st that I start to mix French English and my rusty Vietnamese. I then met my cousin Phi Van, to whom i devote a cult as he is one of the rare person I know who does their passion as a job. He is an film animator and works for a company specialized in animated movies. Check this out : http://www.sparx.com/sparx_anim/index2.php
We then joined his wife and headed for a "pho bo" (beef noodle soup) downtown with a coffee. Phi Van then drove me around the city on his scooter where I immersed myself again in the frenetic traffic and neon lights of Saigon by night.

Ho Chi Minh City

1st impression when approaching the landing runway from Tan Son Nhat Airport was a strange feeling of finding some building structures similar of France. Getting closer though, this 1st impression faded away as I comtemplated the density of palm trees along the Mekong river.
At the customs, I soon realised that I will need to pay 25 USD for my entry visa, knowing that before taking off from Melbourne, my credit card got refused while trying to withdraw some USD from the forex exchange before the departure gates: Great, i felt stupid to ask if I could pay with my little plastic card... The customs woman at the desk, the hand full of USD, indicated me a chair that I would be sitting on until all the plane passengers could get their visa and found myself the only remaining traveller in the terminal.
All right, I guess that would be my turn. The woman stamped my visa and asked one of her comrade colleague to escort me to the ATM machine, behind the customs. He took my passport (as if I would be stupid enough to try to run) and led the way. Once at the ATM machine, I had no idea how many Dong to withdraw, as I did not checked the exchange rate. All right, I am now millionnaire with 2 million Dong.
The Custom guy asked me 500 000 Dong in exchange for my passport. wow, that goes fast ;-) I made another stop at the foreign exchange where I became once more multi-millionnaire.

I headed then to the Air traffic Control Center and start working with Mr Trung and his team.

After work, it was night. Apparently nights come early here. I hopped in a taxi and headed to the Hotel downtown in Saigon. There, I 1st tasted the frenetical life of Ho Chi Minh City's traffic which mostly consists of 2-wheels.
there is a tremendous feeling of freedom and madness at the same time:
-freedom for the total absence of helmets, the moto that I would learn from Mr Van "no cop, no stop", the women in skirt riding as amazons, holding their man in front (hence the term "Xe om", or "hug vehicle")
-madness for the density of scooters, the driving style "follow the flow" or "anchovy flock", people driving to/from/across the left/right, overtaking on the wrong lane. In Europe, we drive right, in Australia we drive left, in Vietnam they drive more right than left...
Amazing 1st impression on the land of my ancestors.