A Vietnam trip has been on our radar for some time so we were both really excited to finally make it over there– relatively soon after Thailand and travelling without Luca and Scout it seemed likea real treat. In late November we headed on our first Vietnam adventure. We arrived around 10:30pm and on the drive from the airport to the hotel the chaos that are the roads in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) held our attention the whole way – four and five people on a scooter, really young children standing on their parents laps with no helmet, lots of crazy helmets but really it was the sheer volume of motorcycles and scooters and the almost anything goes attitude that was the real eye opener.
Our hotel, the Rex, was a large colonial looking building on a really beautiful square and to make Kelly feel at ease the street level of the hotel had stores for all of the big luxury brand labels. We arrived late and were looking for a bite but the concierge put us off going out of the restaurant telling us how dangerous it was. We went up to the rooftop bar instead, good view although mostly of a massive intersection (roundabout) that took the crazinesson the road to a new level – I could have watched for hours (I eventally did as we had breakfast up there every day we were in Saigon and I made sure I could see the road).Breakfasts at the hotel were ordinary, not bad, just not great. They were the only meals I can say that about on the entire trip. Overall the food was magnificent.After breakfast we hit the streets and the first task was to cross the crazy intersection we got so much amusement out of watching while at breakfast. No stop lights you just have to get thecourage up and go for it, all the while motorcycles honking at you and missing your legs by half inches.Things on the street are very different, lots of people sitting around making food and eating, a few beggars, lots of little stores but even in this tourist friendly part of town no US/Euro chain stores. I can only imagine what it was like just ten years ago, seems like a lot of development has taken place in Saigon and a lot more is underway. Lots of interesting street food but at this stage I wasn’t up for the challenge.
On our walk we came across a street market (Ton That Dam) aimed more at the locals than tourists. The market primarily sold produce and meat, the meat not being in refrigerated storage had a strong smell – not for the last time I thought Kelly would keel over.
We got out of the local market and headed for the Ben Thanh Market. For the first time we saw a lot of tourists but still the markets were pretty crazy. The aisle’s between thestores are tiny, there were stalls that had t-shirts, others that had bags, some that had women’s hair accessories, wine made with cobras or scorpions still inside the bottle, belts , seafood - almost anything but each stall had it’s speciality, there were probably 1000 stalls and none were general. Kelly started to get her bargaining grooveon from this moment and she saved us a lot of the entire trip. She is brutal. At one stage Kelly made an offer on a dress for Scout that was about 10% of what the vendor started at, the vendor started to laugh so Kelly started to walk, all of sudden the other womenatthe stall jumps up and blocks the way and the first lady blocks Kelly on the other side (literally made it impossible for Kelly to move without shoving them into their stall). Even with this pressure selling Kelly wouldn’t budge and the ladies eventually gave up and agreed to Kelly’s price. The first of many victories.
We spent the rest of the day cruising the streets and seeing the sights. The river that runs through the city is another eye opener. It was running fast and was carrying a lot of debris, definitely a bitofpollution but mainly full trees and foliage a real hazard for small boats I would think but still there were plenty of small boats out there. It was cool to see the large propaganda posters still have their place even though the country appears to have embraced a capitalist economy with as much passion as Australia or the U.S. One thing that we did not see was anything to be worried about – seems like the concierge from the hotel was more concerned about drumming up business for their restaurant than telling us the truth when we asked about going out on ourfirst night.
As I said earlier the food was amazing and the first day set a trend for our time in Saigon, we stopped for lunch twice on top of dinner and breakfast. Kelly made the arrangements for dinner and we ate at this beautiful old place (The Temple Club) that had really cool tiles on the floor and again great food. I was thinking nice to have at least one expensive dinner while we are in Saigon – three courses and cocktails cost us less than $20 between us. We also found a great ice cream place on our travels so after dinner we did it up nice and enjoyed some ice cream at Fanny.
We had done a lot of walking and were in bed early.Having covered off a lot of the Lonely Planet ‘must see’s’ on the first day we had to go a little further into the bustling burbs to see the things on our list for day two. We legged it again (have to work all of this food off somehow).
First stop was the War Remnants Museum. Our first reaction was Luca would love this place. There were at least 50 actual U.S. tanks, planes, helicopters, mounted grenade launchers and flame throwers from the “American War’ as it is called over here. I’ve got to say the museum was generally a let down, lots about the brutality of the US and how agent orange is impacting people in Vietnam even today, a really great area dedicated to war photographers from all sides with some amazing photo’s – but nothing that would given an insight into the day to day life in the jungle for the VC or NVA or how much ingenuity went into building the underground tunnels. The war ended nearly 40 years ago and the Vietnamese people don’t seem to think anything of it, it is ancient history, they are more concerned with making a buck, so the blatant anti-US sentiment at the museum definitely seemed out of place.
Now for the clanger of the day. I had read somewhere that there was a really cool Chinese Pagoda (The Jade Pagoda) that we should see. It was a long, long, long walk in 95 degree weather. For the first time we doubted ourselves while crossing the road on the way there and nearly got mowed down. When we finally made it to the Pagoda, what a disappointment! It was really sketchy, there were old people selling these nasty looking turtles for people to throw into this pond (more like a well) that had four fold more turtles in it than it should hold, there didn’t appear to be any moving water in/out of the pond so it was really smelly.
First stop was the War Remnants Museum. Our first reaction was Luca would love this place. There were at least 50 actual U.S. tanks, planes, helicopters, mounted grenade launchers and flame throwers from the “American War’ as it is called over here. I’ve got to say the museum was generally a let down, lots about the brutality of the US and how agent orange is impacting people in Vietnam even today, a really great area dedicated to war photographers from all sides with some amazing photo’s – but nothing that would given an insight into the day to day life in the jungle for the VC or NVA or how much ingenuity went into building the underground tunnels. The war ended nearly 40 years ago and the Vietnamese people don’t seem to think anything of it, it is ancient history, they are more concerned with making a buck, so the blatant anti-US sentiment at the museum definitely seemed out of place.Now for the clanger of the day. I had read somewhere that there was a really cool Chinese Pagoda (The Jade Pagoda) that we should see. It was a long, long, long walk in 95 degree weather. For the first time we doubted ourselves while crossing the road on the way there and nearly got mowed down. When we finally made it to the Pagoda, what a disappointment! It was really sketchy, there were old people selling these nasty looking turtles for people to throw into this pond (more like a well) that had four fold more turtles in it than it should hold, there didn’t appear to be any moving water in/out of the pond so it was really smelly.The only saving grace was that on the long walk back we ran into the lunch place that only had two things on the menu and was full of locals. We sat down ordered the two things on the menu and immediately wanted more. When we made it back to the hotel, we did a little relaxing by the pool with a Singapore Sling (I know, another country but they are nice). Kelly ended the day with a foot massage.
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