Shanghi-ed in Saigon

While checking out this morning I discovered that my tour guide from yesterday Shanghi-ed me from another company. He had charged my hotel for the tour even though I paid for a tour elsewhere. When I showed him my receipt for the tour he took and kept it, knowing that I was not supposed to be in his tour group. My instincts told me this guy was shay and to double check with my travel agent but he insisted I didn't have to pay him anything so I let it go. Anyway, after I explained the situation to my hotel, they took it off the bill.

I spent the rest of the day visiting the remaining sites and eating along the way. My caloric intake fluctuates wildly from day to day. Some days I'm too busy to eat much at all but most days I eat constantly picking something up from various street vendors.

I swung by the art museum which is in a great French colonial building. Outside, but still on the grounds, are commercial art galleries. One that was particularly interesting was called Shades of Grey by a friendly visiting Japanese artist. He had collected tree leaves and painted over them in a solid color. There's something I always enjoy about taking an object and laying a flat coat of paint over it so you can still make out the original, but only after looking closely.

The museum itself had a great collection. It was by far my favorite place to visit in Saigon. The bottom floor was all contemporary art, and all very interesting and creative. The second floor was modern, mostly from revolutionary times and propagandist. The top floor was historical art and pretty limited. It was on that floor that I met Stephanie.

We walked together to the Presidential Palace, through the market and stopping for a delicious fruit smoothie along the way. The Palace is now known as the Reunification Palace. It is a large concrete open style architecture building typically 1960s. After snapping a couple of pictures went to a restaurant Hung had recommended which I now recommend to you as well, Quan An Ngon. It is a restaurant of street vendor food brought indoors. They have little stalls all around the perimeter of the restaurant so you can sit in comfort and watch the different foods being made in a clean environment and all combined into one convenient menu. I would have loved to keep a menu as a dictionary of Vietnamese street food. We strolled back to the post office and Cathedral where I split off to go visit Puoc Hai, the Jade Emperor Pagoda which has no jade and isn't a pagoda.