Saigon: June 2015
I know it’s called Ho Ching Minh City, but the locals still call it Saigon, and I think it sounds prettier.
fun times. yummy Saigon. Thanks Xiu
We didn’t know it, but we had signed up for a gastronomic adventure! One of Javier’s friends, Khoa, is originally from Saigon, and had called his sister-in-law and asked her to take us around. When we first communicated with Xiu, we asked her for recommendations on what to do. She said that she didn’t really know what there was to do, but she knew where to eat. At first we thought this was kind of a weird response, but figured we’d meet her and go from there.
Holy moly. It all makes sense now. Xiu knows where to eat! She took us to places we would never have found on our own, or be willing to try. Our first meal in Saigon was at a restaurant recommended by our hotel. It was a nicer place, and therefore had many tourists, as well as some nicely dressed local people. It was good and clean, but nothing amazing. After our meal, we walked to the presidential palace.
Independence Palace
It was built in the 1970s and boy, does it look like it! We were both underwhelmed by the palace. They have some rooms decorated with the original rugs and chairs, and a balcony that overlooks the grounds. The palace is mostly open-air. So, we were basically walking around outside for a couple hours. It was hot. After visiting the different floors, and reading about all the meetings that took place between US officials and the South Vietnamese leaders, we made our way towards the exit. On the way, we passed by a room that was showing movies. As soon as we opened the door, we could feel it…airconditioning! We took our seats, watched some of the old footage, and took naps. We are such bad tourists.
Notre-Dame Cathedral Basilica of Saigon
On the way home, we stopped by the Notre-Dame Basilica, aka Basilica of Our Lady of The Immaculate Conception, which was made entirely of materials imported from France and then walked to the Saigon Central Post Office. Inside the post office are several stalls and other booths selling artesanal crafts. There is only a small area that functions as an actual post office.
The next day we ate…all day long. Xiu told us she would meet us at our hotel for lunch.
yummy Saigon. Thanks Xiu
When she arrived and we were all introduced, we hopped in a cab and she told him where to go. We had to walk through a tiny corridor that had nail shops on either side. There were women sitting on the ground or tiny plastic chairs trying to get us into their shops. Javier and I looked at each other silently asking, “where is she taking us?” The tiny dank corridor opened up to another, roof-less corridor. There were people milling about, going in and out of shops. Xiu took us into one of the restaurants. She asked us if we ate everything. We said, “What’s everything?” 🙂 She rattled off the meats she was planning on ordering, we were good with that, so when the waitress came, Xiu ordered us a feast. EVERYTHING WAS DELICIOUS. We had been living off of pho since we arrived in Vietnam. Neither of us knew the different types of food nor how good it was. If only we had known earlier!!
Phuc long Heaven
After an amazing lunch, we walked back through nail alley and crossed the road to the central market. Here, Xiu took us to a juice place, and ordered us strawberry juice. Again, not something we would have tried on our own, but she told us it was clean and safe, so we gave it a shot. We liked it so much, we went back another day. After juice, we took a cab to a coffee shop. Siu asked us if we liked Vietnamese coffee, and we told her, we were in fact, IN LOVE with Vietnamese coffee. She took us to one of her favorite spots. She giggled as we exited the cab, and I asked her what she was laughing at. She pointed to the sign. The coffee shop is called, ‘Phuc Long.’ Phuc Long has become one of our favorite places not only for its amazing coffee and one of the best milk teas we have ever tried, but also because we just love the name. It brings a smile to our face every time.
Saigon Opera
After coffee, Xiu suggested we go to a hookah bar. Javier and I are not big hookah partakers, but we went and the place had a really cool vibe. It felt like we could have been anywhere in the world, but didn’t really feel like Vietnam. We stayed there for a couple hours before Xiu had to leave. We decided to split, and planned to meet again for dinner. Javier and I walked around our neighborhood and relaxed in our hotel until then. Xiu showed up at our hotel right on time, and the three of us jumped in a cab. Again, she told the driver where to go, and it felt like we drove for quite a while. We got out on a busy street and followed Xiu to one of the many restaurants, where we found a little table on the sidewalk, and started looking at the menu. Again, Xiu asked if there was anything we didn’t want to eat, and when we said no, she ordered enough food for a small army. I was a little nervous at first. I didn’t realize we were at a seafood place, and while I normally love seafood, sometimes it can be a little too fishy for me. I had never tried Vietnamese seafood before, and was therefore a little leery.
yummy Saigon
Again, EVERYTHING WAS DELICIOUS…except the snails. 🙂 She ordered everything from fish to crab to squid to mussels, clams, and octopus teeth. That’s right…octopus teeth. You may say weird, I say, one of the most delicious things I ate in Vietnam! For the finale, sea snails. We tried them, but let’s just say, they weren’t our favorite.
After a truly amazing meal, we took another cab to the backpacker district. Here, Xiu took us to a place that serves fresh juice. They have just about every type of fruit imaginable. I say, “A place that serves fresh juice,” but in reality, you show up on the street, some guy takes your order, and disappears.
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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
There are a few small plastic chairs lining the alley, but for the most part, people just stand around on the sidewalk and wait for their juice. This is what we did. They were busy and it took a while, when we finally received our juices, they were cold and oh so refreshing. After juice, we said good night and planned to meet up again the next day. Javier and I decided to walk back to out hotel and stopped at the Ho Chi Minh statue in front of the Saigon’s People Committee Building. The best part about this is it’s a pedestrian-only street. We walked as far as we could -you can’t actually walk up to the statue, it’s guarded by armed guards, and once we couldn’t go any further, we stopped and watched the lightening show.
The next morning, we slept in. We were waiting for Xiu to take us on another adventure. She arrived for lunch and took us to a really cool place. The architechture was really unique. It felt like we were in a tree house. Lunch was a set meal, and was different than what we had already eaten. After lunch, Xiu took us for tea time.
Tea time. Ho Chi Minh City
There’s this cute little tea place on the second floor of a rather ugly building. If you didn’t know it was there, you’d walk right by. We sat at a bar facing the square below. I had Lavender tea, and Javier, something else. The three of us sat and had tea time. Who would have thought? We chatted with Xiu a bit, and heard an interesting opinion on Vietnam. Xiu said she actually thought life was better under the French. She wasn’t alive then, but she says if you read about that time and talk to people who have lived under both, Vietnam is not doing better since the French, but worse. I wasn’t expecting that. After tea, scones, and conversation, we decided to rest and meet up again for dinner.
More street food
For dinner, Xiu suggested Chinese/Vietnamese food. Everything she had suggested up until now had been delicious, so we had no reason to question her now. While the food was good, it was not nearly as good as the previous days- I would have been happy with more octopus teeth. 🙂 After dinner, we went to a bar in the backpacker district where we met with some of Xiu’s friends. Everyone spoke really good english, just like Xiu. They’re all upper class kids, and went to english-speaking international schools all their lives. Her friends were cute.
Friends
They’re all around Xiu’s age, which is about 10 years younger than us, so it was a little different for us, but they’re good kids, so we had a good time 🙂 When our ears could no longer handle the music, we said good night and started walking home. We almost stopped at a western bar that was blasting Bon Jovi, but instead settled on a jazz bar. When we arrived, the music was really good, what they didn’t tell us was that the band was on its last song, so not more than 2 minutes after Javier received his drink, the live music was over. What a let-down.
After a few days of eating our way across the city, Javier and I took a break. Xiu was busy for the next couple days, so we took the opportunity to relax. It was raining, so we found a nice coffee shop and blogged most of the day. We also signed up for a tour the following day of the Cu Chi Tunnels. We tried to see a show at the opera house, but unfortunately, that didn’t work out. No problem, we had a long day ahead of us, and instead went to bed early.
We took the tour bus to Cu Chi. On the way there, we passed by a small town with eateries on either side of the road. The interesting thing about these eateries…they serve dog. The menus posted outside have pictures of the different types of dog offered. They’re usually pretty small.
The tunnels of Củ Chi
At the Cu Chi tunnels, we found the museum to be very well done. They have old destroyed U.S. tanks and trucks on display. They have recreated shelters and have very life-like mannequins dressed up as Vietnamese soldiers going about their business. They have also built a display of all the different boobytraps. These things are intense. Crude in design, and built to inflict serious pain. The worst part…most were not created to kill, but to maim. Pair this with south Vietnam weather; the infections must have been horrendous, says nurse Jackie. There was a shooting range, where for a fee, you could pick up any automatic rifle, buy some ammo, and fire away! No thanks. We also learned a few tidbits. Such as…I always wondered why American soldiers called the Vietnamese soldiers “Charlie.” I heard it in movies, but didn’t know where it came from. Well, if you’re like me, I’ll tell you. Before Vietnam was called Vietnam, it was called Viet Cong. The Americans referred to Viet Cong as VC or Victor Charlie. Hence, the name Charlie.
The tunnels of Củ Chi
We saw the little trap doors where the soldiers would enter the maze of underground tunnels. We walked through the tunnels ourselves and it was really hot and cramped under there. The soldiers must have been pretty tiny. They had kitchens down there, beds, meeting rooms, all with adequate ventilation. Some of the air vents were little holes drilled into the bottom of tree stumps, they looked like termite holes, or something of that nature. Brilliant. They told us stories about U.S. soldiers finding the trapdoors and entering the tunnels only to get lost, and find themselves trapped underground.
We were both quite impressed by the museum. It was by far one of the better one’s we had been to. On the way back, we started talking to the guy sitting next to us (I cannot for the life of me remember his name.) He was really nice and from Malaysia. Perfect! We would eventually be passing through. We opted to get dropped off earlier and asked if he wanted to come with us and grab some lunch. He did, so the three of us jumped off the bus and went to the same lunch place Xiu had taken us on the first day. We ate and talked, and he kindly wrote down all of the places we should see while in Malaysia. After lunch, we went our separate ways with him going to a museum, and us walking back to the market for some strawberry juice.
Weasel poop coffee
While walking around the market, we found the famed Kopi Luwak coffee. This is the expensive coffee that is first eaten by the civet, which looks like a weasel, the civet poops out the beans, they are collected and roasted, and cost a ridiculous amount of money. At one place we went, a cup of poop coffee was $8. Neither of us like coffee THAT much.
On our walk back home, we stopped by another Phuc Long for some more coffee (we were properly addicted by this point) and finally made our way home. What an experience we had in Saigon! We were truly blessed to have been introduced to Xiu. We try as much as possible to connect with local people when we can. I cannot express how much better the experience is with a local than by ourselves, as long as you’re game to try the octopus teeth. 🙂
To see more pictures of Ho Chi Minh City, click HERE.