A terrifing day in Saigon

The beer factory

After a whole day hitchhiking with 2 Buddhism drivers from NhaTrang to Saigon, I had a chance to visit the biggest beer factory in the South of Vietnam and enjoy free coconut on the way to there.  

As I was remembered, I arrived in Saigon right after the sun rise, a huge city seemed to wake up after a deep dream, everything so close to me but seem so far. I walked along the high-way to go to the bus station in order to catch a bus then find the way to go to my host’s house, so tired but so excited because I knew I was going to go out of my country and the first time I went oversea. However, the more the city wake up, the more strange things I met.

Firstly, at the first day in Saigon, I hadn’t slept for almost 2 days, tried not falling asleep as possible as I could, but actually I had a quick nap in the park, around 30mins, but I didn’t feel safe when I take a rest here because Saigon’s a chaos, many people warned me about the thief and they’re very aggressive, even the local police don’t want to face to them. The first day in Saigon, I didn’t like as I expected.

Secondly, there are a lot of scams, when I was walking along the street, there is a man who tried to be nice and asked me if I want to find a job and he told he could help me find one but I refused immediately. After making friend with a guy when I had a lunch at the 23/9 Park, I told him about that man. He laughed at me then told:

“He’s a scam trying to find some naïve guys to find a homosexuality”

What was a surprise!

Also, he is one of the good guys that I’ve met in Saigon, even after a few hours, I realized he was gay, yet he took me around Saigon kindly and bought me some cakes to support me. I was very appreciated about his kindness and the way he expresses friendly to me, it was so open and elegant. He presented me a poet as a gift and he’s really good at poet, but unfortunately I lost contact.  How stupid I am!

Thirdly, I experienced a freaking disgusting moment, it turned out that Women are you the main target of sexual disturb. On the way to my host’s house, I bought a bottle of drinking water and tried to ask for a toilet but that f**king old man declined. After 30sec he changed his mind and told me that I can use his toilet, in fact it was not a toilet, when I was using the toilet that disgusting man try to touch my dick, it surprised me and I have nothing to say, running out of that f**king house. I was shocked, couldn’t believe that I was disturbed by an old man having the same age as my dad. At that time, I hated Saigon so much, I hate this city because the people there are not friendly, there are a lot of kind of people, I felt so alone, I need someone and I need my mom, my sister as well as my dear friends. I came up with a question that “Why did I leave everything behind to travel, to meet that kinds of people?”  And I could cry then. Last but not least, after calming down 20mins, I tried calling my host, she told me she could host me anymore and I had to find another host or find some cheap hostel.

“What’s the f**k was going on? Are that enough for today? I’ve been walking 2 hours and experiencing bad things, then finally my host says to me that she couldn’t host me any more instead of hosting her sister. A floor is enough for me to lie down, I just need a rest then I will immediately leave in the early morning but everyone refused me, refused a pathetic boy trying to have a place to stay because he’s so terrified and scared of staying in here.” I told myself.

In a flat where Hoang live with his friends

However, I still have another chance because of Vy, a cute Saigon girl having a lovely accent. We’ve known each other by chance and I couldn’t explain why, at first I made friend with her cousin accidently last year when I was wandering around the park next to the Ben Thanh Market. Her cousin misunderstood me and thought that I was a foreigner. Till then, we still keep in touch together. That night, I called Vy in despair and told her all the things happened to me. Moreover, that is the first time we met each other face to face after a long time exchanging mail with each other. She agreed to help me find a place to stay by asking her friend, Hoang – an interesting boy and super friendly, for arraigning a place for me to sleep.

After one day struggling in Saigon, bad things more than good things happened to me, anyway I still feel happy because at least I’m not alone, I still have friend in here and they are very good to me.

“Hey Saigon, You will never beat me again J” I told myself.