Vinasun taxi's are everywhere in Saigon. I've heard there is something like 3 million motorbikes but there must be at least half a million Vinasuns.
Sitting out front this morning and the prickly fruit lady comes by . Thanh comes out and asks me if I want some Loogan, at least thats what it sounded like.When she wrote it on the notebook on her iphone it was Durian and thats what I find so hard about Vietnamese, the look of the word doesnt fit sometimes. One of the best examples is Uc, looks easy but is pronounced Oop. The C has a funny accent above it which changes it. Go figure. Anyway she bought lots of Durian for her family and offered me some. I had heard a lot about it having a stench of rotting flesh but tasting like heaven and so it was. She said don't smell it, eat it as I sniffed it. I didn't think the smell was so bad actually but my nose is probably wrecked by years of smoking. The taste definitely is heavenly, sweet and mushy in your mouth.

  I go to reception and Thanh calls a cab and its at the end of the alleyway in two minutes. So off to Uncle Ho's memorial which I guess was a French built government office at one time. Set in a pleasant park right beside the Saigon River it hosts hundreds of pictures of Ho doing kindly things and making speeches about reuniting the country along with remnants of clothing he wore and even the first rice bowl he ate out of when he returned to the country from France.Piece de resistance? The plastic cup one of the workers drank out of while building a temple to Ho.
I was determined today to see Diems hideout but ended up at Ho's Museum. Gia Long Palace will wait till another day.

Back to the hotel and then out on a Bahn Mi hunt, not that I have to look far . I have a favourite one up the alley and out onto Pham Ngu Lao. $1 for another slice of heaven. I go across the street to Turtle Lake which hasnt been flushed for a long time. Its a bilious shade of green. I was told that this is the rainy season and it hasnt rained for a while. Climate sceptics take a bow. I see a shoeshine boy approach a young dreadlocked American who tells him he has no money to spend on shoeshines but the guy takes of the Americans battered sandals anyway and starts snipping the frayed bits from around the edge. I was interested to see what was going to happen when another shoeshine boy approaches me and won't take no for an answer so I get up and walk. These shoeshine kids are nearly always young, too young or too poor to own a motorbike and get into the Xe Om scam. Them and the sunglass salesmen are the most persistent street vendors. I bought a map today off a young woman who was struggling under a load of crap which she was trying to sell. She wanted 50,000 for the map but I beat her down to 20, when I got home and opened it I realised the whole map was in Vietnamese even the index and the landmarks. Wandered the backstreet and found a shop selling beer, and by the way I hardly ever drink beer despite what you may think from my writings. It was a downmarket shop in thge front room of a house and the whole family was there watching a soap on tv. They got me a big chair to sit in and I watched the passing parade. I got up once and went in with a Xin Loy Xin Loy , excuse me , sorry, can I have an ashtray? The lady just pointed at the ground .

 I love watching the backpackers walk up and down looking for their hotel. It's so confusing here to even find out which street you are in, they are not big on street signs. If I stay much longer and get a better handle on the locality I think I could be a guide, I'd like to help these poor sweating visitors as I know how they feel. 
The end of the day- I go to 5 Oysters again and have a beautiful meal of seafood and veges and a few beers. While I'm sitting at the front counter as I do, a cigarette sales lady tries to sell me some cigs. I bought a packet and she says "Weed?" I asked her how much and it was 400 $40 for a gram, I beat her off and she left. Then another one comes up with a better deal, about a quarter ounce for 500 ($25) and I beat her off. The key I found was saying "zero" to "how much do you want?" Ok then a mad woman has a fight with the cops who wanted to take her push bike off her for some reason. A vietnamese woman gave me the universal signal for crazy by circling her finger over her temple. This mad lady hung around and berated everyone in sight.
Then another cigarette guy came up with more weed and I'm saying zero zero over and over. He even let me smell it and let me tell you it was good, like weed from the old days and by old days I mean 60's. So I fended him off and finished my 333 and paid the bill. Now I'm a regular I get 10 % off, how good is that? And I found out how weed is sold through Vietnam and I must admit I had wondered.