James and I have a little different travel style. I’m a wanderer while James is more of a planner (who likes to wander).  I rarely plan for any trips or read about the place where I will visit partially because I’m lazy but also because I enjoy trips with few plans or goals. On the other hand, James consults with numerous travel books beforehand and carries them wherever he goes regardless of how heavy they are. Most of the time James’s well-read knowledge becomes handy in orienting ourselves to a new place (and even teaching a little Lonely Planet version of Korean history to my parents).  However, this time seems an exception.

On our first day in Saigon, we decided to walk around the city. Of course James equipped himself with a local map and a tour book and constantly consulted with his map to orient us to our surroundings. Despite his tireless efforts, the city defeated him for a while. I smile at him for his persistency and told James several times that he needed to stop looking at the map since it wouldn’t help us.

The streets and neighborhoods of Saigon, like many other Asian cities, have evolved more organically over time rather than being centrally planned and grid-like.  They are more like a web rather than a grid. This web of unfamiliar streets plus over 90F and100% humidity threw James off his game a bit even though he doesn’t want to admit that.  Maybe this might be dumb luck or the result of growing up in Korea, but for some odd reason I was able to get around Saigon and even gave him directions and pointed out our location on the map ( trust me this rarely happens!). For me as long as I can get back to the hotel it doesn’t really matter where I am while James wants to know exactly where he is. According to him, he needs to situate himself ☺.

We walked for 6 hours all over Saigon all the while discussing whether James should give up the map and just go down random streets as the wind led us. I told James that he shouldn’t try to rationalize how the streets are organized. This is coming from someone who rationalizes pretty much everything ☺. I doubt that James will give up his map or tour books but I bet our discussion will continue throughout our journey.

Related posts:

1. Experiment of un-lonely planet guide experience