Our morning dose of Pho, and then it was out into the town. It was our last few hours in Hoi An.

Vessels from the other side of the river canal. Old Town, Hoi An.

Tiny live-aboard. Old Town, Hoi An.

Big and small. Old Town, Hoi An.

Verticals. Old Town, Hoi An.

Oil lamp on foot bridge. Old Town, Hoi An.

Flowers on a building in Old Town, Hoi An.

Bow-joss. Old Town, Hoi An.

Yellow on yellow. Old Town, Hoi An.

Vibrant colours. Old Town, Hoi An.

Red on green. Old town, Hoi An.

Walkers and pedallers only. Old Town, Hoi An.

Street restaurant, Hoi An.

When we arrived back at our hotel to check out; we found out December 1st must’ve been the official start of the Vietnamese Christmas Season. In the time between breakfast and lunch, the staff had put up their Christmas decorations.

Christmas starts on Dec 1 at the Phuoc An Hotel, Hoi An.

And the decorations couldn’t possibly be complete without the Christmas Ducks?!?!

Quacky-Christmas from the Phuoc An Hotel, Hoi An.

A Christmas Lotus blossom at the Phuoc An Hotel, Hoi An.

After checking out, we had a couple of hours to kill before leaving for the airport. So, we decided to try out the Heritage Bar at the Life Heritage Hotel and Resort… now known as the Anatara Hoi An Resort (http://hoi-an.anantara.com/). The bar/lounge at this hotel was very elegant in an old-school British Colonial-way. It really conjured up images of bars and colonial times in places like Hong Kong and Singapore.

Heritage Bar patio at the Life Heritage Hotel, Hoi An.

Tree lanterns over the Heritage Bar patio, Hoi An.

Koi Pond in courtyard of Life Heritage Hotel, Hoi An.

Heritage Bar interior, Hoi An.

Heritage Bar interior 02, Hoi An.

Heritage Bar interior 03, Hoi An.

Enjoying a final cigar and drink at the Heritage Bar, Hoi An.

The Heritage Bar was a fantastic way to cap off a very enjoyable week-well-spent in Hoi An. But alas, it was time to go. We picked up our bags at the Phuoc An hotel and then cabbed it over to the airport in nearby Da Nang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Nang). After doing the trains, automobiles, and motorcycles-thing; it was now time for us to try the plane-part. We booked a flight from Da Nang to Ho Chi Minh City on some no-name regional carrier for $50 USD each… cheaper even than our overnight Gulag-train from Hanoi to Hue! So, it was with no slight trepidation that we checked-in at the Da Nang Airport. To our great relief and very pleasant surprise, the aircraft was a reasonably new Boeing 737 and the pilots were even “round-eyes”. I was more than half-expecting an old, beat-up Russian turbo-prop-job piloted by chain-smoking, rice wine-swilling ex-Vietnamese Air Force fighter jocks.

We made it safely to Ho Chi Minh City and cabbed it to our hotel. It was a tiny family-run place but it was clean and noted to be close to the, “Backpacker Section”, of town. Did I mention that the place was tiny? Well, it was so tiny, they couldn’t possibly fit an elevator in the hotel. But no worries… they just used an electric hoist to pull the luggage up to our floor.

Luggage-lift in Saigon.

Our luggage arrives on the floor, Saigon.

By now you must be wondering why we are using “Ho Chi Minh City” and “Saigon” interchangeably. While we were in Hoi An, Eron asked a local about that very subject. The response was that, “Only those from the North and tourists call it Ho Chi Minh City. We in the South call it Saigon.” This, in itself, was a good enough reason to use the city’s former name but the real reason was made clear to us once we went out to find dinner. We came out of the hotel to find ourselves on a deceptively quiet little laneway. This laneway led us to a gate. We walked through the gate… and whoosh! *cue the LP of psychedelic rock music* It was like we were sucked through a time-portal and spit-out into a full-on Kubrickesque “Full Metal Jacket” 1968 Saigon. There was competing music blaring from bars and restaurants on both sides of the road. The lights and flashing neon of every colour and description were near seizure-inducing in intensity. The smell of illegal substances drifted in the haze. And the “Come-on Girls” in front of the doorways enticing potential customers into the establishments.  Then there were men, lots of them, staggering about in some sort of weird drunken ballet – some wandering solo, most in groups, some bending over to puke, and others with a girl(s) in their arms. And the girls; Asian girls of all shapes and sizes but invariably young and wearing their “uniforms” – very short dresses/skirts or a body-hugging “slit-up-to-here” Cheongsam and tall stiletto heels. We both literally had to shake our heads to stop the vertigo-inducing sense of deja vu; we had both seen and heard this very scene before… in every Vietnam war movie of the past 40 or so years. Now, we had it in 3D sense-surround and smell-o-vision! I recall, at the time, I even told Eron I had to physically look down at myself to make sure I wasn’t actually wearing olive drab fatigues and holding a 24 hour pass. This is why this city will always be SAIGON to us.