After coming out of the War Museum, we went around the ‘prison exhibition’ (I don’t really know how else to describe it). A walk through route showed you real prison cells and photos / stories on the wall talked you through the horrors facing the people kept in these tiny, cramped cells. They also talked through the torture techniques used. Again, these were all stories about the Vietnamese Prisoners of War kept in prisons and camps such as the infamous Phu Quoc Island. No mention of the treatment of American soldiers in the camps in North Vietnam – tales since made highly public by such ex PoW’s as the 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain.

No matter, the techniques used and the states of all the PoW camps were quite simply shocking.

We headed back down to our guesthouse, sipping on a sugary soft drink on the walk to lift our spirits a little bit. By this time it was rush hour on a Friday… and I don’t think I’ve ever seen such apt use of the word ‘rush’ before. Not only did we have to deal with the road crossing scenario, but we weren’t even safe on what little pavements we had anymore! Motorists who were in a particular rush decided to just hop it on the pavement and come trundling along past us. This really wound me up! I wouldn’t even say that Saigon is like LA in the sense that ‘no-one walks anywhere’ – there were a fair few pedestrians around.

After safely returning back, we were feeling a bit peckish so decided to head to the Pho bar on the corner. Twilight was setting in but instead of going home to get freshened up, we decided to head straight there. Having eaten Pho before, I was pretty excited, although I did have a major problem due to the fact that I don’t really eat beef. I knew that most places now did prawn or chicken pho, so wasn’t overly concerned… only to discover that this place served exclusively Pho Bo – beef pho. I decided to give it a miss, but OH tucked into his Pho, and having tried it I was particularly impressed with how flavoursome and tender the beef was. Talking through how to eat the pho – with the herbs, chillies and bean sprouts coming separately and being added to your dish to your taste and through out your meal, we noticed the sky darkening dramatically and the wind picking up. Interestingly, we also noticed many of the motorbikes pulling over and donning a kind of anorak… but one that innovatively covered their bike as well – held on with the helmet. They were stored in a pouch on the bike and every bike had one. Quite impressive.

Anyway, I digress. A storm was a brewing, no doubt about it.

And brew it did. The rain started hammering down, lashing at our (outside!) table. We quickly got moved in and were sent upstairs, up past the kitchens to sit on our own, next to a draughty window. Sipping on my iced coffee… oh how I miss their iced coffees… as OH finished his Pho Bo, we desolately stared out into the now black sky and tried to wait out the rain storm. The roads were looking pretty, with the coloured anoraks turning the headlights into rainbows on the road, however I would have hated to be on the road in that weather. It looked terrifying.

After finishing our drinks, and the food, and sitting there for a further 15 minutes, I pushed for us to just get back. The rain could go on for hours, there was simply no way of telling. Sadly, due to the ferocious sun earlier in the day we had come out sans rain jackets and umbrellas. Ooopsie. Against his better judgement, OH went along with me and we paid up and got ready to run…

Only there was physically no way of running in that weather in unsuitable shoes – flip-flops and dock shoes. The pavements were literally running with water. So we shlepped along, soaked through to the skin within about 3 minutes and being laughed at by a LOT of locals. The route back was a hell of a lot longer than the route there and turning down our little alleyway, the water was pouring off the high, high roof tops onto our heads. Grabbing my (non-waterproof) bag for dear life, all I could think about was not how wet I was, but how wet and therefore unusable my phone would be…

We jumped up the steps to the guesthouse and took off our shoes (the reasoning for having such high porches and guests removing their shoes was pretty clear at this point) and came face to face with a lounge / reception full of guests. And Mr and Mrs Anh. Mr Anh was doubled over with laughter at the state of us, I honestly think we had made his week at this point. We dripped up the four flights of stairs to our room, stripped off, grabbed towels and attempted to dry ourselves. Miraculously, my phone had survived (as had OH’s) but our money was pretty wet!

Such was our first experience with the rain in Vietnam!

Lots of love,

a very dry CatDog xx