Ode To Saigon

When Mark Batchelor found himself in an all-to-familiar power outage, he was left with no internet and decided to spontaneously pick up a pen a paper and whip together a poem/rhyme about his first impressions of living in Saigon.

 ‘I'm still only in Saigon’ were the words of Martin Sheen, when ‘Apocalypse Now’ illuminated the big screen. The romance an intrigue dazzled the eye, the city back then is now a far cry.

As the maze of arteries pump life through every street, around the old colonial skeletons shaped in concrete.

The buzzing of motorbikes with their over-used horns, as they glide majestically in frenzied swarms.

The noises and smells ignite every sense, for some overbearing for the rest of us intense.

As the humidity rises and the storm clouds build, the torrent is unleashed, the monsoons rarely yield. Lashes of water spill from the sky, how in the world does this city stay dry?

So thank you Saigon for being a good host, as we all lift our glasses and drink to this toast.

Wherever you’re from or why ever you’re here, is often different and never so clear. Just enjoy the city, there’s little to fear as long as you never stray far, from the cheap cold beer.

If you have a poem, article, picture - anything you want to share with the Saigoneer audience, email it to: contribute@saigoneer.com.

[Photo via Galen Stolee]