Safe and Sound in Saigon

Hey everyone. This update is from our hotel , The Thien Xuan. We had to stay in a suite tonight because the regular rooms are booked up. We should be able to move tommorrow. I am totally overwhelmed right now, so I'll start from the beginning (especially for those who are coming to Vietnam in the future).

We arrived at Tan Son Nhat Airport (Saigon) after a 2.5 hour flight from Hong Kong. Before you exit the plane the stewardesses will give you a declaration form to fill out and carry through customs. I was really nervous about this because I had heard people had problems sometimes coming through customs and immigration. The form was really easy to fill out. You have to keep it with your passport at all times while in Vietnam. Once we got off the plane, we had to walk down a long corridor that leads to a large open area where immigration officials have numerous lines set up. I assume they are military people, and many of them are younger. You have to wait in line until they call you forward and then they will look at your passport and visa. They want to know how long you will be staying and where you will be staying. Some people are detained longer than others for questions, but we went right through. Next you go on to collect your baggage then proceed to customs before you exit the airport. Here they will x-ray all your belongings and remove a portion of your declaration form to retain for their records. Once you clear customs you may exit the airport. It is like a mad house once you go through those doors(see picture above). There are hundreds of people standing there either waiting on someone or just watching people walk out. There was a staff person from our agency holding a sign up for us. I didn't have much trouble finding him and he led us out to the taxi.

We rode the taxi back to our hotel and boy is that first trip an experience. No amount of people telling you about the traffic will prepare you until you see it for yourself. There are 1000's of motorcycles and I am not exaggerating. People blow their horns non-stop and for no apparent reason. Chaos is about the best description I can think of. Multiple lanes of traffic merge at intersections with no signal lights. Just a lot of stop-n-go and horn blowing. It's no wonder foreigners are not allowed to drive here. It would take some time to learn this stuff. You would be amazed at what some people haul on these motorcycles. I saw one with a full size bed mattress on it. It is amazing. It is also very noisy here. Vehicle noise and horn blowing are the constant background. This picture is out of our hotel window. It is a side street so it is not as busy. This is a four way intersection with no signs or signals. People just come and go all 4 ways without stopping. It's pretty neat to watch.

The hotel is really nice and I think we will enjoy staying here. I hope to go out today and see more of what is around our hotel. I'm sure we will get something to eat later on, but I am wore out with only 7 hrs. of sleep in the last 48 hrs., and that was in an upright airplane seat. Well that's all for now, more later!