I'm melting...the Wizard of Oz theme continues.

I am the girl who walks into a gym and becomes flushed and sweaty just at the sight of the exercise equipment. You’ve probably seen me or someone like me at your gym - red-faced and panting with sweat dripping all over the equipment and sometimes innocently landing on a passerby. I don’t glisten or glow. I don’t perspire. I sweat ferociously and unapologetically. You get the point. So what was I thinking when I requested that we start our trip in southern Vietnam? I am currently in Ho Chi Minh City aka Saigon in southern Vietnam, and I am wilting! It is mid 20sC (mid 70sF) at its lowest and mid-high 30sC (mid-high 90sF) at its highest with a 60+% humidity.

Up for an adventure, I took the local bus to Chinatown (Cholon, district 5) this morning and proceeded to walk the streets somewhat mindfully, although it probably appeared aimless, in search of pagodas, historical landmarks and some good street banh bao. I managed to successfully find all three. 

Heaven

Hell

However, by the time I was finished, I had walked back three of the five kilometers to my hostel and had no idea how or where to catch the bus back. So I reluctantly committed to completing the task of returning to my Saigon home a pied as it was the shorter distance. Now I was told earlier in the week that Vietnamese don’t walk; they ride motorbikes. 

The parking lot of the local movie theater

However, those who are out on the street appear sweat-free, and unlike me, they are often wearing pants, stockings/socks, shirts and jackets, and masks as “protection” from the “dust”. How is this possible? While I am taking an outdoor shower in my own sweat, they are casually eating a steaming bowl of pho on the sidewalk with not a single reflecting point of budding perspiration on their brow.  

Needless to say, upon returning to my district 1 home, I decide to embrace my overheated state and order a bowl of Pho soup with added chili and hot sauce. After all, if I am to be a foreigner for the next year, I might as well start the process of becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Hot, yummy street food goodness!