Around 12:00 Justin, Doug, and I got off the ship and started walking around Saigon. I dropped off all of my film to be developed because at $3 a roll I couldn’t afford not to. I’d be paying an arm and a leg back home and this way I also wouldn’t have to be worried about my film being ruined by any X-ray machines. So I dropped off 18 rolls and prayed that they’d turn out just fine – which they did.

Pineapple vendor in Saigon.

After we’d walked around for a bit we stopped in this little restaurant that served typical Vietnamese food. I ordered three orders of spring rolls; one crab, one vegetarian, and one shrimp. They all tasted amazing, but I’m not totally sure if it was that the food was really so good or if it was because I was starving at the time.

While we were there we had our first taste of the local Saigon beer. The beer was a little on the weak side @ 3.6%, and there wasn’t really anything too special about it. It tasted like an average light lager.

After our lunch we all walked around the city some more. I bought some local fruits that I’d never even seen before. Some of them tasted pretty good, but others I could have passed on. After walking the market we stopped for some tea and got some energy back.

Around 4:00 I went to go pick up all my pictures so Justin and I decided to meet up later to get some really nice massages. This would have worked out, but when I got the bank the ATM machine ate my card. Then, after getting into an argument with the security guard I reluctantly left to go find Justin. He wasn’t where he said he’d be, so I just rode around in a rickshaw trying to find him. But doing that in Saigon is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

So I headed back to the ship to take a little nap since I was very tired from the long day I’d had. I slept for an hour and then grabbed a little dinner on the ship. Then my buddy Jono and I decided to go out and have a few drinks and see if we could find something exciting to do. We walked around for a bit and soon came to a small liquor store and bought a small bottle of whiskey for 14,000 Dong (~$1). The whiskey went down real smooth, and as soon as we were done with one we were ready for another.

While we were on our second bottle we decided to sit down and have a few cold beers from a little street vendor. We tried talking English with the guy but all he wanted was to take us on a tour of the city and take us in for a massage (all in an attempt to make money). So we drank our beers, paid, and got out of there.

Me, driving the boat on the Mekong River.

In no time Jono and I found another little place to have a beer. This time we were in luck as the proprietor spoke rather good English. We talked for a long time and he told us all about his experiences during the war. Then Jono and I got a couple beers for the road and hit the pavement. While we were walking we constantly had to turn down offers to sell us Ganja, and I wondered if it was even illegal there.

After walking a bit we came up to yet another little drinking hole right on the side of the road. There we met a number of interesting individuals and street vendors. All the men there were playing some sort of card game that for the life of me I couldn’t understand. After talking to the locals Jono and I eventually purchased a big bottle of Snake wine, and the local guys sorta challenged us to drink it.

So, in a rather stupid drunk decision Jono and I proceeded to drink and entire bottle of the Snake Wine. I must say that it is by far the most disgusting drink I have ever had the pleasure of tasting. The bottle itself was filled with three dead snakes and the wine tasted just like you would imagine Gardner snake to taste. But we had to drink it because our manliness was on the line ;-). The locals were all very impressed with our resolve. In Vietnam they only drink the snake wine on special occasions or to prove how tuff they are.

After doing more and more drinking we eventually got so drunk that we convinced two of the guys to let Jono and I drive around with their rickshaws. In retrospect this was a rather dumb idea but for some reason at the time it seemed perfectly safe and totally fun. So Jono and I drove around for a bit and almost died a few times in really heavy traffic and then eventually stopped at another little street bar. There we bought both the guys a few beers and had a few more ourselves. While we were there we also bought all kinds of foods off the street. Many of them were good, but some I questioned if they were foods at all. At this time we noticed how late it was getting (and since we had an 11:00pm government curfew) and decided to make our way back to the ship.

We got back to the port at around 10:30 and decided to have one last beer before going in to join all the other SAS kids. After we finished those beers we went into the port and met up with everybody. My memory after this point is a little foggy, but I do remember most people thinking that Jono and I were crazy for having bought the bottle of snake wine.