Experiencing the city

My first day of my new life in HCMC and on reflection of the day, I've mostly been learning about money and how far it goes here. I'm still struggling to get my head around a currency that is measured in thousands. One GBP is roughly equivalent to 33,000 Vietnam Dong, and all money comes in note form, from the smallest 500 (approx one pence) to the largest, 500,000 (approx £15). Jessica told me that there used to be coins as part of the currency, but they were removed because when people dropped them on the ground they wouldn't bother to pick them up again. All the Dong I have with me are in 100,000 notes, each note worth about £3. I asked Jessica how far this could get me, as we travelled by bus to the district supermarket in the morning. "A meal, if you go to the restaurants for locals", she told me. But our 45-minute taxi journey from the airport last night had cost 300,000 Dong, an illustration of the two parallel economies that exist for the wealthy foreign community and for the rest of the population. With the fastest growing economy in Asia after China and India, Vietnam has a growing population of foreign professionals such as Jessica concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City. And for these, prices at bars, restaurants and supermarkets can match those in the UK. Jessica explained that she would always chose establishments aimed at foreigners, despite paying up to twenty times as much for the same thing you could get elsewhere. It's for the atmosphere, the style, for feeling safe- the whole experience, she explained.

At home Jessica was going through her detailed expenses log, reporting the day's shopping. She encouraged me to do the same, as she had taken control of my spending money, which she will give back to me as a monthly allowance (dependent on good behaviour, of course). Jessica was scrutinising the costs Thuy had recorded in the log, and I heard her reprimanding her:
"What is this?"
"It is a bone for Happy"
"Where did you get this? Why didn't you get a receipt?".

Later in the day Jessica travelled into the city centre with me, where she left me in a busy street armed with a map, as she had to go to a meeting. With three hours to kill, I walked up Dong Khoi street, which provided me with a short walking tour of the major sites of the city. I passed the Opera House and up to the Central Post Office, an impressive building decorated with colourful flags above the entrance and, inside, a smiling portrait of Ho Chi Minh  looming above the queues at the desks. Outside the post office is a square with a small garden where a man sat feeding pigeons flocked all around him, some resting on his head and arms, and nearby a bride posed for photographs in front of the cathedral, unconcerned by the noisy traffic whipping all around the square. The Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral was completed by the French in 1880, soon after their conquest of the southern regions of Vietnam, known then as Cochinchina. A century prior to the French occupation, the practising of Christianity was outlawed in Vietnam and attacks on missionaries was used by the French as an excuse for invasion. Today, Catholicism is a minority faith in Vietnam with little influence on the modern culture, although French influence remains deeply embedded.

Leaving the cathedral and post office, my final destination was the Reunification Palace, a site I was very anxious to visit. It was here that the Vietnam War (or American War as I should say) came crashing to an end as North Vietnam Army (NVA) tanks drove through the gates of what was formerly the South Vietnam Presidential Palace on 30th April 1975. Inside the grounds were model replicas of the tanks from those famous, chilling scenes, one a Russian design and the other Chinese.

In the evening I met Jessica where she had left me earlier, just as a downpour of warm, heavy rain began. We waited under shelter for five or ten minutes until it had died down, then headed out to eat. We walked past a decrepit concrete wasteland in the middle of the city, with a pit that I thought must be a drained swimming pool and, next to it, a knackered seating area. Jessica told me this had once been a sort of park, built by the government but poorly done, with cheap materials and had never been maintained, so that now the 'pit' area was being used as parking space for countless motorbikes.

We crossed the road from the derelict park and, in stark contrast, immediately entered the smart AB Tower building, where Jessica planned on taking us for a drink on the rooftop skybar. We were greeted just as Jessica made her way confidently for the lifts, and asked if we had a reservation. Jessica said that we didn't, and were only here for drinks. After some negotiating, she agreed that we would eat dinner although we hadn't booked a table. At this point the woman helping us noticed my shoes, a pair of flip flops that were once white but had recently been through several puddles. "Errm..." she said, and I was convinced we'd get turned away, but instead she said "It's ok, we have shoes", and found me a pair worn by the waitresses to wear to the restaurant. They were much nicer than my other ones but I still felt scruffy as I noticed my leg was covered in dirt from the rainy streets. Nonetheless, we enjoyed a delicious meal with the most impressive skyline views I've ever seen. As we ate our dessert on the outside terrace, we talked about the wealth and poverty in Vietnam. "Ho Chi Minh City is totally artificial", she told me, referring to the playgrounds of the rich such as this place. I agreed that it was very nice to experience some luxury for my 'welcome dinner' but that I want to see the real Vietnam, and hoped to travel north soon to experience some of this. In the meantime, I will try to  better understand the economy of this country, different from the other 'Asian Tiger' countries with rapidly growing economies due to its communist politics, and to find out how the relationship between politics and economy works here.

Tomorrow Jessica will fly to Taiwan and won't return until the middle of next week, so I shall spend the day at home doing some reading and researching. In the evening I will be met by friends of hers who are kindly taking me to Mui Ne for the weekend, a seaside town some four hours' drive away where they are doing a 10km run on Sunday morning. I have agreed to attempt a 5km run, after which I will probably spend the rest of the day on the beach recovering.