Day 2: Arrive Ho Chi Minh City, 10 p.m. Crash at Madam Cuc 127.
Day 3: Day in Ho Chi Minh City
Stepping out into the street was like living the game "Frogger." Motor bikes are EVERYWHERE and there is rarely an occasion in which it is "all clear" on either side of the street. I almost caused a few accidents and was almost hit a few times, but this seems to be the norm.
In addition to dodging motor bikes, we did a walking tour of the city. Highlights include the Ben Thanh Market (although I preferred the local market just outside the hotel--women skinning toads and scaling fish in bare feet was a unique sight), the Museum of Ho Chi Minh City (not my favorite), the War Remnants Museum (you will never view the Vietnam War the same way ever again), the Reunification Palace, and the Notre Dame Cathedral (surprisingly plain on the inside). The food was the best part of the walking tour. Quan An Ngon is a must (the bun cha and che suone sa hut luu as recommended by the New York Times was amazing) and so is the Temple Club (get the Hue Springs rolls!). We tried the pig ears at Quan An Ngon--not the dish I would recommend. It tasted like...cartilage. Maybe the fried version would be good, but you can forego the steamed version. Trust me. The walking tour took us about 9 hrs, plus another 2 for dinner at the Temple Club.
One reason the food is so good.... A local market on Pham Ngu Lao St.
Meat hanging in the Ben Thanh Market.
The Reunification Palace.
A small sampling of the parade of motor bikes.
We are heading out on a 2 day tour of the Mekong Delta tomorrow. Off and on rain all day today, so hoping tomorrow will be a little dryer.
Day 4/Oct. 4:
I'm awake at 4 a.m. Another hour and it should be light out. The city starts early here (museums open at 7am), so not being fully adjusted to the time change isn't terrible. At 7, the hotel serves breakfast ( a free roll with jam and Vietnamese coffee). I still haven't had pho, so I may grab a bowl for breakfast. We have our cereal and pizza, they have their pho.
There is a group of 12 year old Australians staying at the hotel who are on a "pilgrimage" through their school. Yesterday I had breakfast with the group leader. They came to volunteer at the local orphanage, which is run by a nun and is partially funded by the government. The nun's MO is to open new orphanages, get them established using private funding, and then move on, leaving the government no choice but to continuing operating it. Kudos to her for scamming ways of getting money for the kids. I asked their group leader if the children ever get adopted. "Never." It houses mostly children who have agent orange exposure and are severely deformed as a result. He offered the example of a 21 y/o the size of a 2 y/o. The War Remnants Museum had pictures depicting children exposed to agent orange. As an American, I am sad to say I have been hanging my head low after visiting that museum. It is anticipated that the effects of agent orange will last for generations because dioxin changes the exposed individuals's DNA, so the effects get passed onto the next generation. They list the death toll from the war at 3 million.
I have a few hours before the tour picks me up. I'm going in search of pho and a nearby Pagoda. I may take a motor bike "taxi" to get there--eek (mom, ignore this comment).
A quick tutorial on toad skinning. He pulls off all the skin in one swift move. I hope I never need to use this new skill. The toads in the pan are still alive. They tie their legs so they can't escape.
A few snakes, gutted and ready to go. Yum!
Jade Emperor Pagoda.
A statue of the general who defeated the Green Dragon inside the Jade Emperor Pagoda in Da Kao. The Pagoda was outside the main tourist area and by far the hardest to find. I risked life and limb crossing the street in my attempt to see it. I finally hired a motor bike to take me there, mostly because I didn't want to cross another street as a pedestrian. Below is one of the intersections I crossed in my attempt to get there. I think I stood on the corner for a good 10 min gathering the courage to cross. The $2.40 I paid for the motor bike to take me across the last street to finally get to the Pagoda and then back to the hotel was worth every cent.
The crazy round about.
This guy was a like a ninja. The bikes just keep coming. Don't let the crosswalk fool you, it means nothing.
Turtles outside the Pagoda.
We left for our trip to the Mekong Delta around noon. The ride was three hours, mostly through rural areas. Our guide, Anh, is from the Mekong Delta. Her family owns a fish farm and she is very knowledgeable about everything in the Mekong.
This was our boat that took us through the delta, one of the poorest areas in Vietnam. Our first stop was the floating markets (below). Villagers come via boat to sell their fruits and vegetables, mostly wholesale, on the river. They stay and live on their boat until they sell all their produce (around 5 days) and then return to their village.
Large families live on these boats and sleep in hammocks. The kids in the Mekong don't start school until age 7, whereas in the other areas of Vietnam they start at age 4. It costs about $600/year for university and $50-100/year for grade school.
The guy waving was super friendly. Most of the boats have these eyes painted on them. It was initially done to make the boat look like a huge crocodile, to scare off the real crocodiles. But over the past 300 years, they killed off all the crocodiles (in part for food and in part because they are dangerous). Now the eyes symbolize how they are looking forward to the future.
We stopped along the river at a rice paper making store. The workers gave us a 101 on how to make rice paper, rice puffs, rice wine and coconut candies. They also make cobra wine that has ginseng and "lots of vitamins." Of course we had to try the cobra wine. It was strange drinking alcohol with dead animals soaking in it, but it pretty much just tasted like cheap tequila.
Drink up for a long life. Cobra wine
Yes, those are snakes in the wine bottle but we are drinking the cobra wine. I was thankful for the small cups and some tea to wash it down.
Hard at work making rice paper. A lot of work goes into those suckers. They don't waste anything. They use the rice husks to heat the stove to make the rice paper, then the ashes from the rice husk to make fertilizer. They also mix coconut husks in with the ashes for the fertilizer. They use coconut or parts of the coconut tree for everything from brooms to cooking to beauty treatments.
Making the puffed rice. They use sand to make the rice pop, then sift out the sand.
Collecting mud from the river to use in their garden as soil.
A fish trap. The tide changes about 6 ft between low and high tide. The fish swim in at high tide, then get caught in the trap when the tide goes out.
A home along the delta.
A gas station.
We toured the local nursery and the brick making factory.
A large oven for baking the bricks. It takes 45 days to bake bricks for making walls and 60 for floor bricks, plus another 5 days for it to cool down. Yup, they use the rice husks to heat the ovens.
A machine for stacking the bricks in the oven.
Anna with the pieces of pottery commissioned by Europeans.
Sunset along the Mekong River.
Dinner in Can Tho, a local beer, then off to bed at the Kim Tho hotel. 7 a.m. pick-up tomorrow for a trip to the floating markets at Cai Rang.
Oct 5:
The floating markets at Cai Rang was a unique sight. Again, it is mostly wholesale. Smaller boats come to buy a variety of goods to reach the smaller villages. There are other boats selling goods to the merchants who come to sell their produce. My favorites were the boats selling lottery tickets, the floating bar, and the boat selling pho.
A boat selling pineapples. The going price was 25 cents per pineapple.
You can tell what item they are selling by looking at what is hanging on the pole.
Dragon fruit.
A whole lot of something.
We boarded one of the boats to sample the pineapple.
There is fierce bargaining and a thorough inspection before they purchase. An insult, "your pineapples are small," helped her negotiate a good price.
We were clearly fine with the size and likely paid too much for ours.
For sleeping.
Boat selling bah mi to the merchants.
Lottery tickets!!
The best mini bar out there.
Sweet potatoes.
Out fishing.
Dad, this one is for you. I know you want to know what kind of motor runs the boat.
A boat heading to the smaller areas the larger boats can't access.
Anna on a "monkey bridge" over a fish farm pond. They call it a monkey bridge because you walk like a monkey when you cross it.
Anh and me doing the monkey walk.
Catfish galore in the pond. Oh, and Anh gave us the inside scoop on the poop. I had to ask. About 40 years ago, they had structures over the fish ponds for human excrement deposits, if you know what I mean. A little exercise in recycling. They stopped this practice in Vietnam, but she said parts of Cambodia still do it. Her joke is, "how can you tell which pond your fish came from in the market?" "You look at the eyes of the fish to see if they are looking up." A little Vietnamese humor. Oh, and she said it is socially acceptable to pick your nose in public. They like to role booger-free. I can respect that. No pics of that yet.
We also visited a tropical fruit garden along the delta.
Water lilies.
Hanging bitter melon.
Jack fruit. No picking allowed.... But yes, I'll buy one bowl of each.
Stacks of mangrove trees. They soak them in water for 30 days to make them strong and remove the smell, then use them as stilts for their homes over the river. Anh says they last 20 years. I have no idea how soaking them in water makes them strong. She also told us to ask for "breast" milk if we didn't want sweetened condensed milk in our coffee. We are pretty sure she meant "fresh" milk.
Heading back to Ho Chi Minh city. Tomorrow we leave for Cambodia.
A chef making sticky rice balls at a rest stop. Hollow tasty balls of deliciousness sweetened with coconut milk.
We didn't try the chicken feet....
We did one last journey through HCMC.... We tried to get Anna in to see the Reunification Palace. No such luck, but we tried.
The post office, again, but at night. Seems to look much better at night.
Inside the post office. Uncle Ho, on the wall, watching over things.
The opera house at night. They wouldn't let us in. :(
Drinks on the rooftop at the Sheraton Saigon. I paid as much for the drink as I did the hotel, around $12.
Worth it for the view.
What $12/night ($24 double occupancy) gets you in accommodations. It isn't the Sheraton, but it works. Pho dinner, bread and jam breakfast included in the price.
now you've tried a beer that i've never had!
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