Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City Motorbike Trip: Day 15 - Mui Ne to Ho Chi Minh City

In the morning I went to the beach in Mui Ne and found a lot of cool shells. I collected them with the intention to give them to my students back in Hanoi as gifts. Shells are usually my favorite thing about beaches. I like to look at their various shapes and colors. Each one is different so I could give each of my students a unique gift without showing favoritism.

While I was sitting on the beach I was approached by a Vietnamese family from Saigon and they asked me to come join them. I started talking to them and the father asked me if I wanted to date his daughter. I said “not really.” They told me I should meet with them in Saigon because they were going there later that day but I didn’t get their phone number.

After the beach I went back to the hotel, washed the shells, packed up, and paid for my room (200,000 VND). I was riding out of the city and I saw some Scottish girls who I had met in Da Lat. They were walking and I pulled up next to them to say hello. They asked if I wanted to join them for lunch and I did. They had seen me play guitar at V Cafe.

After we had lunch and said goodbye it was about 12:30pm so I wanted to get moving. I wanted to get to Saigon before it got dark.

I took the coastal road and it was beautiful. It wasn’t my favorite road only because it wasn’t matched to my bike. My motorbike was a little underpowered to fully appreciate the road. There were a lot of straight stretches and the turns were quite gradual. If I had been able to go faster, it would have been more exciting.

I rode to Vung Tau and ran up the hill to get my picture with the Jesus statue and say a prayer that I would make it to Ho Chi Minh CIty safely.

The road to Saigon got more and more urban and at the same time it got dark. My cell phone battery was getting low so I didn’t want to check the map too much. Consequently I took a roundabout way to the city center and it got a bit hectic. I rode parallel to the city for about 30 minutes; not getting any closer to my destination.

When I finally reached the city, I felt happy that I had made it there safely. On the way into town I drove past a grand opening for a McDonald’s. There were thousands of people, live DJ’s, and tons of crowd control security. It was a huge event.

I rode to the train station and asked if I could send my bike to Hanoi. They said no because it was too late. I would have to come back the next day.

I went to the Saigon Backpacker Hostel. I checked in. It was $8 per night. I met a group of 24 young Christian activists from the US who were attending art school in Germany. They were in Saigon to protest the human trafficking, prostitution, and child prostitution that goes on in Saigon. It was cool to talk to them and listen to them prepare to go out at night and do their activist activities. They were planning to protest on the streets with spoken word poetry, guitar performance, and other forms of art. They also planned to paint graffiti tags at 3am. They were so intense. It sounded like they were planning a sting operation on an international crime syndicate. It was interesting to see the interplay between the issues of Christianity, Vietnam, human trafficking, prostitution, and activism.

I showered in the hostel and then went out to look for the activists but they weren’t in the place where they had said they would be. I had fun walking around the streets. I talked to 5 groups of people. I had a good chat with some German and French tourists. I got a picture taken with 2 hot girls.

I went back to the hostel at 12:30am. I was really tired and had sunburn on the back of my neck.