The lucky bunch attending the upcoming Byron Yoga Centre teacher training and retreat in Vietnam will spend ten days in the salubrious Life Resort, set on a near-private beach twenty-five minutes drive from Quy Nhon town. Before arriving at Quy Nhon, students and teachers are most likely to fly into the thriving port of Ho Chi Minh city, otherwise known as Saigon.

“My first impression of Saigon when I visited two years ago was of a bustling, westernised city,” says Stephan Kahlert, meditation and yoga teacher at Byron Yoga. “I wondered what the Vietnam war was all about?” It was Saigon’s western influences and capitalist heart that caused it to become estranged from the communist north until the final undignified withdrawal of the US in April 1975. Signs of the war, known here as the American war, are now few in this thoroughly modern city, yet commemorated with considerable sensitivity and a skilled serve of politics at the War Remnants Museum in the city’s central District One.

The French colonial-style Oscar Hotel where Stephan and other Byron Yoga teachers will be staying is also in district one, in the wide Nguyen (pronounced ‘win’) Hue Boulevard. Just opposite is the well-known Rex Hotel which hosted many American officers and press briefings during the war. The Saigon River, the famed Ben Thanh markets, the Notre Dame Cathedral and the People’s Committee Building are all a short stroll from the Oscar.

“Another vivid impression was of motorcycles bearing down upon us whenever we went to cross the road,” adds Stephan. Crossing the wide boulevards of Saigon takes considerable skill – and courage. Adopt the local method by moving slowly and consistently across the street and watch as motorcyclists swerve around you. Thriving streets packed with markets, shops, tiny alleyway cafes and vendors selling from stands-on-wheels and with goods spread out on crowded pavements viewed from the back of a motorcycle is an experience not to be missed. Hitching a ride on the back of a ‘moto’ or ‘Homda’ is the easiest and most common form of short-trip transportation in Vietnam. Be sure to agree on a price beforehand – usually 20-25,000 dong, about one dollar and thirty cents Australian.