Trying to hit the road in Saigon

It was not even six o’clock in the morning, when I opened my eyes and I knew that it was already too late…..

As the regular reader of these accounts will be aware, I like to go for a run, and – if staying in a interesting city – then ideally early in the morning, when the air temperature is still bearable and when more sensible people are still asleep ……..

But there is no such time in Saigon……

Stepping out of the door from the comfort of an air-conditioned hotel lobby, 30C and over 80% humidity will hit you and will make you sweat, even before you have decided in what direction you want to run.

This is, if you manage to run at all……

Even at this time, the roads were packed with never ending waves of motor scooters, skilfully maneuvered by both men and women, with every third rider (as it appeared) on a mobile phone, some of them clearly reading or sending text messages.

The only spot of green to speak of on the map in Saigon’s District 1 appeared to be the garden of the Palace of Independence and the Tao Dan Park right behind it.

From there I had also hoped to be able to cross over to the French colonial city hall and then to run along the pedestrianised Quang Truong Nguyen Hue to the Mekong river. But this had to be abandoned, as it would have been near impossible to cross any of the roads inbetween and I probably wouldn’t have lived to tell the tale.

Instead I joined the local crowd and limited the range of my exercise to the small park and to the outside perimeter of the palace grounds.

The park was – as expected – packed with joggers, Tai Chi enthusiasts and a group of middle aged women going through sword fighting routines. A couple of times I passed a dog that was resting on a park bench.

It struck me, that he probably regarded this sea of pointless and seemingly disorientated exercise fanatics with an element of utter disdain….

When I noticed a sign board that listed so many things one was not allowed to do, I considered myself lucky that at least I was at liberty to breathe.

Finally I left the park, heading for the perimeter wall of the Independence Palace.

Sticking just to the pavement here – which was what all the local runners did – the clear advantage was, that at least no roads had to be crossed.

The building in the center of the complex used to be the Palace of the South Vietnamese Head of State. At least until a North Vietnamese tank crashed through its front gate on 30th April 1975, which was universally interpreted as the end of the Vietnam War.

Passing the gate a couple of times, I noticed

– that a full circle around the palace grounds was just short of a mile

and

– that Vietnamese runners appeared to be much slower and had more of a tendency to stop running, compared with European or American runners (it was something I had observed in Hanoi as well).

Just before feeling smug about this, it dawned on me that it was probably not due to a lack of fitness, but a precaution to avoid inhaling too much of the fumes of the nearby traffic……

It was high time to return to the hotel (and to the air conditioning), following an exercise not to be repeated in the foreseeable future.