How we spent most of our 11 hours in Saigon

The first thing that hit us about the south of Vietnam was the heat. It's unbelievably hot here - like sun-baking-find-your-45spf-sunscreen-asap-where's-the-nearest-air-con hot. And that's just 8:30am. So when we discovered that our Lonely Planet had a section on "Water Parks in Saigon" we were instantly intrigued. Unfortunately, we only had our day-packs on us which were lacking our bathing suits. Luckily Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City has plenty of sports stores carrying the latest fashions in swimwear. At least, the latest fashions from the 70s. With our new bathing suits in hand, we hopped on the first bus to the Saigon Water Park and endless hours of refreshing entertainment.




The waterpark itself was great - lots of slides, a lazy river, a wave pool. But the most hilarious thing (aside from our bathing ensembles) was the kids! Apparently the water parks mainly attract the under-12 crowd. I guess our first clue should have been the 1/2 price admission to anyone under 1.4m. While I can't say we weren't tempted to bend down just a little, dignity prevailed and we forked over the "tall" admission fee. Anyways, so not only were we the only non-Vietnamese people there, but we were also the only people not born in the 1990s! At first there were a lot of stares and giggles. Obviously we thought it was our bathing suits that were the source of hilarity, but it turns out it was just us. Once we attempted to try out our few lines of Vietnamese, we were soon big favourites! On the lazy river we were swarmed by kids all hanging onto our inner tubes and asking "Where are you from" "What is your name" "How are you" (occasionally confused with "How old are you"), and "Sing us a song!". Needless to say after a few rounds of Row Row Row Your Boat and Happy Birthday, it was clear the Alyssa-and-Emily-Travelling-Circus had once again come to town! All in all a spectacular and unexpected day in Vietnam.

PS. If you thought this was funny, guess what we did the day before in Nha Trang!