At last I got to see the Gia Long Palace last refuge of Diem. It's in the geographical heart of Saigon and was once the very centre of all that happened in the city. It has a long history since being built in 1890. Seems like veryone has used it as their main governing residence, the French,Japanese, Vietnamese, and even the English possessed it at various times. Diem moved there in 1962 after his other Palace was bombed by mutinous airmen.
 Diem ordered deep tunnels to be built underneath and he escaped through one of these when a coup threatened, unfortunately they are not open now . Enough with the history I hear you say. OK so I left there and wandered through the gardens decorated with two fighter jets and one helicopter through to a cafe where I sat sweating in a beautiful garden. I thought I would revist old haunts from last time and tried to find the Bier Garden on Dong Khoi and got hopelessly lost. As a Melbourne boy I am used to the streets running nhorth south and east west but here they run at all angles and the sun being so high in the sky it's hard to tell south from north. So I ended up at the Ben Thann market again and had a beautiful seafood and noodle soup. 
Taxi back to Pham Ngu Lao street and a sit in the park. Two shoeshine boys come up and start pestering, before long he had my sandals off and was cleaning them. Oh oh rip off coming. How much, how much I kept saying, you wait you wait he kept saying. These were new sandals by the way and he starts putting a new part sole on them. Oh well sit back and think of England. Before long the Smiling Trickster who has been bugging me to clean my shoes at the hotel came up . Kid about 15 big smile talks a little English. Then a lady selling candied fruit comes over. Then a lady selling maps and all sorts of crap comes. Then in the distance I see 4 shoeshine boys approaching. Gee I'm so popular. So the guy cleans my clean sandals and puts a patch over the heel that didn't need one, puts insoles into the shoes which were unnecessary and wants some exorbitant figure for the work. I beat him down and still get ripped off. 
 By this time the whole gang is around me and one sees my battered old hat has some holes around the crown. He offers to stitch them up. Hell I'm the one who is going to get stitched up I think.
He pulls out some thread and a needle and starts stitching with lots of banter going on between the boys probably about what a sucker they have landed. He finishes the job and asks for a million! $50! I laugh, I know I can beat him down but I'm going to be a sucker anyway. I tell him he's dreaming and he's joking and offer 200000 $10 which is too much really. He goes down to 400000, I offer 300000 and he says 350000 which I settle on. What a sucker! The Smiling Trickster says he will do my shoes at the Hotel tomorrow and seeing he has been at me for so long and missed out this time I agreed.

  Tonight just for a change I will go to 5 Oysters bar, there are a few items on the menu I haven't tried yet.