Ho Chi Minh City. The old Saigon. Where do we start? This was certainly the biggest culture shock thus far in our journeys, but a fantastic experience nonetheless. The first shock - The roads. I have on one word to describe it... CHAOS... and this video says it all:
No traffic lights. Oodles of motorbikes. No rhyme or reason. Complete madness. It took us a solid 10 minutes of standing at an intersection to muster up the courage for our first attempt at crossing the street.
On our second day we fully immersed ourselves in the awesome craziness of this city with a full day tour. The tour began in a local market (a VERY local market) where we soaked up the sights and (pretty terrible) smells of daily life in Ho Chi Minh while our chef purchased items for a cooking lesson. The locals were quite entertained by our presence in the market and from the few vendors and patrons with knowledge of the English language we were asked "How old are you?". We are very accustomed to being asked "Where are you from?" at this point, and we thought it to be so unusual and funny that the Vietnamese people 1) found our age to be such fascinating information, even more so than our nationality and 2) clearly have no cultural qualms about asking someone's age (not that we were bothered at all by it).
After our market tour, it was off to the cooking studio with our chef. I should mention that we were pleasantly shocked, as was our chef, that he is a fellow St. Louisan! It was a bit surreal and certainly comforting to spend part of our time in this foreign land with someone from our neck of the woods. We made a delicious lotus stem salad, Thit kho trung (braised pork belly), and, my personal favorite, Che Chuoi (warm coconut, banana tapioca pudding. mmmmmmmmh.). Once our bellies were full, the next stop on the tour was a spa for a little pampering. We started with a fish spa in which we placed our feet in a pool filled with tiny fish that proceeded to attack our feet. It was a very strange feeling, almost like a very slight electric shock, but we won't say "no" to new experiences (within reason). Next we went for a 90 minute traditional Vietnamese massage... Let's just say it was like no other massage I have had in my life, complete with popping of every joint in my body and a grown man walking on my back.
The real adventure began after the spa when we took to the streets aback motorbikes with our knowledgeable guides sharing with us the "real" Saigon. I can't say were weren't nervous in the beginning given the insanity of this city's roads, but we quickly found our comfort zone and enjoyed the thrill of zipping through each of the city's unique districts. Ho Chi Minh is far, far less developed than Singapore and the few skyscrapers that do exist here seem out of place amid the ramshackle of shophouses and eateries. A few ghostly, half-built skyscrapers haunt the skyline, abandoned mid-project due to financial woes.
Our tour ended with an interesting dinner of local delights, including fetal quail eggs, a common bar snack in Ho Chi Minh. Yes, you read that correctly. We ate boiled, half-formed baby quail fetuses straight out of the shell (this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg) except quail not duck). I told you, we won't say "no" to new experiences, although for some this may be a step beyond "within reason." Lial enjoyed it enough to eat TWO, I respectfully declined after one. Slurping down baby birds really isn't my thing (sorry for the imagery). For dessert we stopped at a little street vendor to sample a variety of fresh juices such as strawberry, coconut, mango, and corn milk (that was a new one, and incredibly tasty!).
The following day we were bold enough to venture out on our own to explore the Ho Chi Minh City Museum and War Remnants Museum, but not before indulging in what I can honestly say has been my favorite meal so far in Southeast Asia: Pho and Vietnamese coffee. We'll start with the pho. For those who are not familiar, it is a soup made with an herb-alicious broth, noodles, and generally either beef or chicken. In Vietnam it is actually considered a breakfast food. We have had pho in the U.S., but it doesn't even come close to the amazingness of true Vietnamese pho, the real difference being the abundance of wonderfully fragrant, fresh herbs. And then there is the Vietnamese coffee. Put simply, it is uber strong coffee combined with sweetened condensed milk, over ice. Heavenly.
As neither of us are history buffs, we found the Ho Chi Minh City Museum and War Remnants Museum to be very enlightening. The HCMC Museum filled in the gaps in our knowledge of the historical and political past of the old Saigon and we were certainly struck by the gruesome images in the War Remnants Museum. Though we were cautious in accepting the biased perspective of the Vietnam War (which is referred to as the War of Western Aggression in the museum), we found the Remnants Museum to be all-at-once fascinating and depressing. Our last stop before the airport was Reunification Palace, the site of the end of the Vietnam War during the Fall of Saigon (though at the time we got there, it was closed and we couldn't tour).
I can't end the post about HCMC without telling the story of being (literally) taken for a ride by a tuk tuk driver (the guy in the picture driving the bicycle while we rode in the back). Essentially he was extremely friendly, spoke English very well, chatted us up and convinced us to take a ride. After taking us to a few of the sights he drove us to semi-uncrowded side street near the War Remnants Museum and quoted us a price more than ten times what he had originally quoted. He was extremely pushy and was clearly going to stand there until we gave him every last penny we had. Needless to say we just wanted out of this situation and gave him most of our money. We didn't have an extremely large amount cash with us thankfully as it was the last day of our trip, but he still left with more than his fair share. I give him props for his con artist skills. Our first tourist fail, but we decided not to let that experience cloud our opinion of an otherwise fantastic trip.
So to sum up Ho Chi Minh: CrAzY roads, incredible food, culturally enlightening, and overall awesome experience.
No traffic lights. Oodles of motorbikes. No rhyme or reason. Complete madness. It took us a solid 10 minutes of standing at an intersection to muster up the courage for our first attempt at crossing the street.
On our second day we fully immersed ourselves in the awesome craziness of this city with a full day tour. The tour began in a local market (a VERY local market) where we soaked up the sights and (pretty terrible) smells of daily life in Ho Chi Minh while our chef purchased items for a cooking lesson. The locals were quite entertained by our presence in the market and from the few vendors and patrons with knowledge of the English language we were asked "How old are you?". We are very accustomed to being asked "Where are you from?" at this point, and we thought it to be so unusual and funny that the Vietnamese people 1) found our age to be such fascinating information, even more so than our nationality and 2) clearly have no cultural qualms about asking someone's age (not that we were bothered at all by it).
After our market tour, it was off to the cooking studio with our chef. I should mention that we were pleasantly shocked, as was our chef, that he is a fellow St. Louisan! It was a bit surreal and certainly comforting to spend part of our time in this foreign land with someone from our neck of the woods. We made a delicious lotus stem salad, Thit kho trung (braised pork belly), and, my personal favorite, Che Chuoi (warm coconut, banana tapioca pudding. mmmmmmmmh.). Once our bellies were full, the next stop on the tour was a spa for a little pampering. We started with a fish spa in which we placed our feet in a pool filled with tiny fish that proceeded to attack our feet. It was a very strange feeling, almost like a very slight electric shock, but we won't say "no" to new experiences (within reason). Next we went for a 90 minute traditional Vietnamese massage... Let's just say it was like no other massage I have had in my life, complete with popping of every joint in my body and a grown man walking on my back.
The real adventure began after the spa when we took to the streets aback motorbikes with our knowledgeable guides sharing with us the "real" Saigon. I can't say were weren't nervous in the beginning given the insanity of this city's roads, but we quickly found our comfort zone and enjoyed the thrill of zipping through each of the city's unique districts. Ho Chi Minh is far, far less developed than Singapore and the few skyscrapers that do exist here seem out of place amid the ramshackle of shophouses and eateries. A few ghostly, half-built skyscrapers haunt the skyline, abandoned mid-project due to financial woes.
Our tour ended with an interesting dinner of local delights, including fetal quail eggs, a common bar snack in Ho Chi Minh. Yes, you read that correctly. We ate boiled, half-formed baby quail fetuses straight out of the shell (this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg) except quail not duck). I told you, we won't say "no" to new experiences, although for some this may be a step beyond "within reason." Lial enjoyed it enough to eat TWO, I respectfully declined after one. Slurping down baby birds really isn't my thing (sorry for the imagery). For dessert we stopped at a little street vendor to sample a variety of fresh juices such as strawberry, coconut, mango, and corn milk (that was a new one, and incredibly tasty!).
The following day we were bold enough to venture out on our own to explore the Ho Chi Minh City Museum and War Remnants Museum, but not before indulging in what I can honestly say has been my favorite meal so far in Southeast Asia: Pho and Vietnamese coffee. We'll start with the pho. For those who are not familiar, it is a soup made with an herb-alicious broth, noodles, and generally either beef or chicken. In Vietnam it is actually considered a breakfast food. We have had pho in the U.S., but it doesn't even come close to the amazingness of true Vietnamese pho, the real difference being the abundance of wonderfully fragrant, fresh herbs. And then there is the Vietnamese coffee. Put simply, it is uber strong coffee combined with sweetened condensed milk, over ice. Heavenly.
As neither of us are history buffs, we found the Ho Chi Minh City Museum and War Remnants Museum to be very enlightening. The HCMC Museum filled in the gaps in our knowledge of the historical and political past of the old Saigon and we were certainly struck by the gruesome images in the War Remnants Museum. Though we were cautious in accepting the biased perspective of the Vietnam War (which is referred to as the War of Western Aggression in the museum), we found the Remnants Museum to be all-at-once fascinating and depressing. Our last stop before the airport was Reunification Palace, the site of the end of the Vietnam War during the Fall of Saigon (though at the time we got there, it was closed and we couldn't tour).
I can't end the post about HCMC without telling the story of being (literally) taken for a ride by a tuk tuk driver (the guy in the picture driving the bicycle while we rode in the back). Essentially he was extremely friendly, spoke English very well, chatted us up and convinced us to take a ride. After taking us to a few of the sights he drove us to semi-uncrowded side street near the War Remnants Museum and quoted us a price more than ten times what he had originally quoted. He was extremely pushy and was clearly going to stand there until we gave him every last penny we had. Needless to say we just wanted out of this situation and gave him most of our money. We didn't have an extremely large amount cash with us thankfully as it was the last day of our trip, but he still left with more than his fair share. I give him props for his con artist skills. Our first tourist fail, but we decided not to let that experience cloud our opinion of an otherwise fantastic trip.
So to sum up Ho Chi Minh: CrAzY roads, incredible food, culturally enlightening, and overall awesome experience.
