Saturday Night in Saigon

We arrive a few days early to acclimatize before the tour starts.  Gary, our tour leader calls by the hotel to see if we fancy going shopping with him,  which we do.  We flag down 3 cyclos, those terrifying bicycle rickshaws, that mount the passenger up front where they are a prime target and off we go.   Our drivers are delightful company, two of them are ex South Vietnamese army, the other an Amerasian, having a Vietnamese mother and African American father, all are excluded from other more lucrative forms of employment by their backgrounds 

Making our way back to the hotel they stop outside what appears to be a warehouse.  We are encouraged to enter and find ourselves in a vast room containing only a coffin mounted on an elaborately decorated catafalque and a small group of people sitting around a table eating.  Our mischievous drivers manage to get the bewildered mourners to invite us to join them the deceased’s image smiles down on us from his perch atop his coffin and despite the sad occasion and language barrier we all get along famously.   He was only sixteen when his life abruptly ended in a motorcycle accident 

Suddenly the irate owner of the establishment arrives but she quickly calms down and urges us to take photographs, which somewhat reluctantly we do.  Our new friend the funeral directress asks if we would like to visit with 'Madame from Thailand’ who is going home to Bangkok tomorrow, perhaps we would take her photo before she leaves'.   Like lambs to the slaughter we are led to the mortuary where 'Madame from Thailand' is indeed ready for her trip home, her final trip anywhere in fact.  She is lying in her best clothes, fully made up with a heavy bunch of bananas on her stomach

 Slowly turning green I find my exit blocked by 3 grinning cyclo drivers.  Tony at a loss for something appropriate to say asks if the bananas are food for her final journey.  Through their laughter they manage to mime that the bananas are to prevent her stomach from bloating.   No we do not have any photos of Madam and a visit to the mortuary never did become a feature of Passages or Eldertreks tour to Vietnam