Vietnamese Food

Tuesday, December 29 – We need to find some Vietnamese cookbooks before we leave. The food is incredible. There’s such a diversity of dishes from the different regions of Vietnam – Southern, Central, Northern – and being in big cities like HCMC makes it possible to try it all.

So far, the pho has been a bit of a letdown – we’ve had better pho in Canada, or maybe it’s just what we’re used to – but it seems to have less richness of flavour here in Vietnam. Of course Pho is actually from the north, so let’s wait until we’ve had it in Hanoi before making our minds up.

As for the rest, well, let’s just say it’s an amazing place to eat. Here are just a few of the dishes we enjoyed in HCMC.

Traffic

Monday, December 28 – One of the MOST interesting everyday things we saw in HCMC was the traffic. Strange to say, but it’s so remarkably different here than where we’re from. Guess that comes from the motorcycle culture.

Luckily we had a taste of it in Cambodia, but it wasn’t nearly as busy there as it is in HCMC. There are cars and busses, but the motorcycles just swarm the streets in a ceaseless parade.

Oh. And they’re not just limited to the streets. During rush hour, they hop up on the sidewalks too. Any way they can get through the throng. Makes life as a pedestrian somewhat hazardous.

When the sidewalks aren’t crawling with rush hour motos, they’re pretty much blocked by parked scooters, street vendor stalls, and sign boards. So you’re often scooching out into the street to make your way on foot wherever it is your going.

And crossing the road is no picnic. You basically just walk across – through the throng – slowly and steadily. You keep an eye out for cars and busses because they have the right of way, but scooters will anticipate you and slow down/go around you as long as you keep a constant pace. Don’t even attempt to change direction suddenly while crossing the road.

It’s the same in Cambodia, but as we said, much less congested. So it was good practice for us to try street-crossing there before we got to HCMC.

Check out these short videos – one showing the motos on the sidewalk, and another with a POV shot of us crossing the street.

Familiar Setup

Monday, December 28 – Walking back to our hotel after the walking tour, we came across a building that had scores of barricades and blockades set up around it. In that way, it was reminiscent of the US embassy in Ottawa, and Junkii just started to remark on the similarity when he saw the stars and stripes.

Guess they have a standard set-up for US consulates around the world.

Walking Tour

Monday, December 28 – HCMC doesn’t have a ton of style. It’s a bustling metropolis, but there’s no royal palace, no old quarter, nothing remarkable in terms of architecture and history. Perhaps that’s due in large part to the years of conflict in the area. But whatever the reason, there’s little to do in the way of tourism. Even our Lonely planet guide book had little to recommend for filling two days worth of visit.

On day one we decided to take the self-guided tour set out in the Lonely Planet guide. It took us the better part of the day (although we started late) to get through the walking tour. Here’s a rundown of the few sites we saw:

• Ben Thanh (Central) Market: Another huge covered market selling everything from soup to nuts. Truth told, we’re a little marketed out.
  
• The War Remnants Museum: Basically a photo gallery chronicling the independence of Vietnam and the atrocities committed by Americans. You can imagine it was a bit one-sided, even if it’s mostly true. The most interesting part was a gallery called Requiem that featured the work of photojournalists (from both sides) who died in the war. Requiem alone was worth the price of admission and felt like a more balanced and even-handed portrayal of the horrors of war.
  
• Reunification Palace: the place where the Viet Cong (North Vietnam) finally defeated the Viet Minh (South Vietnam) and reunified the country. In fairness, we didn’t take the tour. The guidebook made it sound kind of boring – especially for a couple of Vietnam History Neophytes. Plus the museum was closed for lunch when we arrived.
  
• Notre Dame Cathedral: Just an old church – recommended by Lonely Planet for its architecture. And really, that’s all we saw of it.
  
• The Main Post Office: Probably one of the prettiest examples of colonial architecture in the city – and that’s not saying a whole lot. Here we found two things of interest: A giant painting of Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) watching over his postal workers, and a bowl full of paste for brushing on stamps (self-adhesive stamps haven’t made it to Vietnam yet).
  
• The Jade Emperor Pagoda: An old Chinese Buddhist temple located along the walking tour. We would eventually see several more examples of Chinese temples on day two.
  

Happy New Year – Over and Over

Sunday, December 27 – Wow. The people of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) really like New Year. We arrived at our hotel only to find it’s situated directly across the street from a huge park; a park filled with sound stages and kiosks all aimed at ringing in the new Year over the course of about a week.

All this is good news for us – mostly. We were in HCMC just in time to witness how Saigonites celebrate. We were able to immerse ourselves in the culture and the food. What could be better?

On this first evening, we tucked into a huge helping of Banh Xeo – a crepe stuffed with shrimp and other goodness – and Junkii braved the street vendor carts to try to order us some deep fried dumplings (no small feat given the language barrier).

The only real problem with the festivities was the volume. The organizers had set up the (very loud) sound stages within about 20 feet of one another – so cacophony is a good word to use here. It was pretty much impossible to hear one act when the nearby stage was in use. The performers must have been pissed.

The fact that the celebrations were right across from our hotel wasn’t a big issue – the festivities generally wrapped up around 10pm. But on our last night in Saigon, we had to get to bed early because we had a 6am flight. Earplugs were needed, but that’s a small price to pay for getting to play with the city residents.

First Order of Business

Sunday, December 27 – after our arrival, we were hungry. Our first order of business was to grab a bowl of pho – the Vietnamese beef noodle soup that is pretty much a staple meal for us every weekend back in Ottawa.

Our guidebook recommended Pho24 – a pho chain restaurant – near our hotel as having the best pho in HCMC. Wrong! It turned out to be flat and tasteless. We would eventually find a better pho restaurant, but this was our first taste of the city.

Arrived in Ho Chi Minh City

Sunday, December 27 – Bit of an adventure this morning. After a nice flight from Siem Reap to Ho Chi Minh City, Junkii and I decided to take the recommendation of our Lonely Planet tour book and take the public bus system from the airport to our hotel.

Always fun to try to figure out public transit in a new city where you don’t speak the language. But actually the language barrier only proved a problem at the beginning of the ride, when the bus driver had trouble explaining we needed to pay extra for bringing our backpacks on the bus. Once that was sorted, it was all pretty straightforward.

We had grabbed a free local map at the airport and were able to situate ourselves once the bus got rolling. We knew where we were the whole time, so we were ready when the driver flagged us to get off at our stop – a mere 2 minute walk from the hotel.

We checked into our hotel – which seems to be one of the nicest in the popular backpacker area of town. And now we’re off to scout our surroundings. We’ll let you know what we find!

Apsara Dance

Saturday, December 26 – For our last evening in Siem Reap, we splurged on dinner and a show. Our tour guide told us about a restaurant that featured a buffet highlighting many Khmer dishes (including desserts) and featuring performances of traditional Khmer dances.

The food was good – especially considering it was a buffet – but the dancing was less interesting. Still, it was nice to see and a good way to spend our last night in Cambodia.

There’s still a lot of Cambodia we haven’t seen yet – lots of temples to see and villages to visit, not to mention some reportedly fantastic secluded beach islands on the ocean.

So yeah, we’ll be back to Cambodia sometime. Anyone want to join us?