Vietnam – Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City)

The overnight bus trip from Nha Trang to Saigon was the worst yet. Though not quite as bumpy as the train, there were stops. And more stops. At first, we were delighted that the bus came right to our hotel to pick us up. But after the tenth pick-up, it wasn’t quite so charming as much as an inefficient use of time. Bus stations—turns out they’re pretty efficient, even if they are holes. This particular bus was of the Open Tour variety. Here in Vietnam, you can purchase these Open Tour bus tickets for a set price from Hanoi to Saigon and stop as many times along the route as you want along the way (or something along those lines). Sounds like a pretty sweet deal, but we were full of relief that we hadn’t opted for that travel option. The bus continued to stop again and again and at each stop the lights were turned on and the driver and conductor decided that using inside voices was unnecessary. Unpleasant even through the earplugs.  

And why, you might ask, do we continue with the night transportation? Because it’s still the best use of time. We get in feeling ridiculous, have a shower and a nap and by the time we’re ready to go again it’s noon at the latest. Whereas if we travelled during the day, we’d lose pretty much an entire day. So with the long trips, the night buses will do. Thank goodness the next leg of our trip is only six hours. Definitely a day trip. 

We managed to sneak in to one of the higher-rated guesthouses in Saigon (thanks Trip Advisor and Hostelbookers for your ratings and reviews) and get into our room by 9am. They gave us some coffee when we arrived (at 7am), then we wandered over to a bakery where the lady at the hostel told us the best banh mis are. The banh mi was okay, but still not quite what we were hoping for. After we checked into our room (and they gave us some fun purple kool-aid type drink—love the drink provision) we hopped online and browsed through a few Saigon foody blogs and found a couple of places to try. Then it was nap time.  

And, like clockwork, we hit the town at noon. We went to lunch at a place that does “broken rice” with pork cooked three ways, or Com Tam Bi Cha Thit Nuong Trung Opla. There was pork skin (which was pretty unappealing), a caramelized type pork (very tasty), and pork loaf (which I was sceptical about, but it turned out to be really good).  

Then we made our way to the Reunification Palace, which is the former Presidential Palace originally built in the late 1800’s by the French during their Indochina colonization. It was occupied by the French, then during the Japanese after WWII, then again by the French. When the Vietnamese fought for their independence against the French, the palace was bombed and had to have some work done. The building was bombed again during the war with the US and was a historical site of the overthrow of the South Vietnamese government in 1975 when the North Vietnamese tanks came crashing through the gates (and possibly into the building—that part wasn’t quite clear to me) to take over control of the building (and the country). I don’t think the building is used for anything other than a museum these days, but it’s a pretty cool museum and they run free guided tours every 15 minutes which was fantastic since we wouldn’t have had any knowledge of anything without the guide.  

We got to see meeting rooms, reception rooms, dining rooms and entertainment rooms. We also got to see the helipad and go down into part of the bomb shelter, which was pretty cool. 

After the museum we finally found some decent running shoes in Marcus’s size (yay!) and made a visit to a doctor’s office. Marcus noticed a few days ago that where his arm had been cut back in Vang Vieng, there was something hard inside. We thought maybe some fluids had hardened inside and that it would go away, but they didn’t. For peace of mind, we went to one of the medical centers frequented by expats and foreigners. After the doctor had a poke and did an ultrasound, they determined that yes, there was something in his arm. Stupid bamboo fence. Marcus got referred to a doctor who specializes in hand and arm surgery and we made an appointment with him two days later. Looks like surgery was on the cards. 

After the slightly disappointing (and long) doctor’s visit, we tried our second banh mi of the day, Huynh Hoa recommended by this Saigon street food blog http://www.eatingsaigon.com/. And he was right—it was the best banh mi we’ve had! Lots of meat—like three or four different kinds of pork), cucumber, carrot, lettuce, cilantro (this is one of my standards for a good banh mi—must have cilantro), mayo and chili sauce on a baguette. Though it was a little more expensive than the rest of the banh mis on the street, it was worth it. The line of locals was long and after getting pushed out of the line by those behind us and getting ignored by the people making the sandwiches, a nice lady nudged one of the sandwich makers and pointed at Marcus. After he ignored her and she pushed harder and pointed at Marcus again, we were granted our two sandwiches. Success! 

This food success was followed by another. We visited a dessert place called Trop B that serves up a delicious dish called xoi kem, which is coconut ice cream atop black sticky rice with a few mulberries thrown in for good measure. Three food successes in a day. Not bad.  

Day two in Saigon was devoted to sites about the Vietnam war with the US. When I say the war with the US, I suppose I mean when the country was meddled with by the US. Vietnam isn’t exactly a Russia or a China, and I find it difficult to understand why the US would have wasted so much time, money, and above all human life and sanity on such an endeavor. My understanding is admittedly limited and hindsight is always clearer, but it’s a mind boggler. And as with probably most Americans, I have a personal connection with this event in history. My Uncle Carl, my dad’s little brother, was drafted into the war. The Vietnam War was and still is a defining characteristic of Uncle Carl. He used to tell stories about the war to us when we were kids, or perhaps it was the older cousins or aunts and uncles that told us the stories second-hand. Stories or the horrific, magical and supernatural. Being shot in the leg—a bullet hole on either side of his boot, but no bullet through the leg. A grenade landing between his legs in the middle of the night and not going off. Dreams of his dad, telling him he was there protecting him. And strangely stories of aliens, but these stories are much hazier and I couldn’t really provide the details. Uncle Carl is certainly rough around the edges, a little crazy and also loving. Having seen a few examples of what he saw while he was here, fighting in the Iron Triangle, I can understand how easily one could lose their sanity. 

Our first site of the day was the Cu Chi Tunnels, a system of 250 km of tunnels dug by the Vietnamese during war time. The first 50 km of tunnels were actually built in the late 40’s while the French were still in power and were created as a place to stockpile weapons. Then when the US invaded in the 60’s, the tunnels expanded another 200 km all the way to the border with Cambodia. Our guide, John Wayne (Chun Nguyen, which is hard for Westerners to say so they call him John Wayne), explained that there were three levels of tunnels from 3 meters to 10 meters deep, the biggest tunnels at the top that you can move through bent over (well, I had to do a stooped squat-walk sort of thing, but not so tall people would have been able to scurry through pretty quickly I imagine) and the lowest tunnels were so small people had to slither through them like snakes. We didn’t see these tunnels, but maybe I’m better off not having seen them. Some of the original tunnels have collapsed from rainfall, but quite a lot of them are still preserved. We got to walk through one of the original tunnels (“walk”). I came out after 40 meters, Marcus went through to 80 meters. 40 was definitely enough for me.  

The tunnels zig zagged, both to disorient any non-Viet Cong coming through and also so invaders wouldn’t be able to see how far the tunnels went or how far in front of them their enemies were. There was no electricity nor flashlights in the tunnels, so they are pitch black. Viet Cong used oil lamps to navigate, when they did have lighting. The tunnels were used for many purposes including hiding from and attacking enemies, as cover during bombing (we saw some of the leftover bomb craters—massive) and the tunnels also housed kitchens, hospitals, living quarters and all manner of war-time rooms. They were also used as communication and supply routes.  

The tunnels were a big contributor to the Viet Cong’s success in the war and John Wayne certainly spoke of them with a pride for the Vietnamese ingenuity and wile. We also watched a Vietnamese propaganda video made back in the 60s highlighting the villagers of Cu Chi for their resistance during the war—a woman whose family had been killed by the Americans happily took up a gun to take revenge on the killers; a man who was given three honors for being a great American killer hero. The film showed happy villagers farming, making weapons and patrolling to kill the Americans. It was interesting to see a propaganda video from the other side, to see what they showed the Vietnamese people. None of it was particularly surprising, but it also wasn’t easy to watch.  

What they don’t tell you during the tour, but what you can imagine (and Wikipedia tells you) is that life in the tunnels was extremely difficult. Insect infestation, sickness, malaria, the struggle for air. Food and farming wasn’t easy, and we were told that soldiers lived off of tapioca, which I didn’t realize goes by many other names including yucca and is a cousin to the potato. 

They also showed us examples of the booby traps that were set up for the enemy. Trap doors that give way to spikes to impale their enemies in a variety of ways with demonstrations with a bamboo stick of how they work. A door trap to send spikes into someone as they come storming into a house.

These traps were certainly resourceful, but brutal and I was struck with the absolute barbarism that is war. Of course, the US used different methods. Larger-scale. Carpet bombing, napalm, and razing down the jungle with bulldozers and Agent Orange.   

All of this exposure, on the grounds in which these atrocities took place, made me feel ill. I knew I could go down one of two paths—I could actually allow myself to take in what I was seeing and feel the humanity of it, try to understand what it was Uncle Carl went through, or I could put up a shell and look at it as though it were some distant, unrelated piece of history. Most people smiled in the tunnels, took selfies in front of the booby traps. Obviously choosing option two. But I figured even if I did choose the detached option, somewhere inside I was still going to have to process what it was I was seeing and how it related to me. So I let it in. Felt sick and overwhelmed. I would not make a good soldier and it certainly makes me appreciate those who have faced these situations and come through healthily and sane on the other side.  

My general feeling of disgust was worsened at one of the more unique tourist attractions at Cu Chi. There’s a shooting range where tourists can pay to shoot war guns—AK-47s, hand guns, rifles and machine guns. So as you’re walking through the sites and learning about the war, there’s the echo of guns in the background which was incredibly unsettling. We chose not to shoot the guns. Marcus thought about it, but probably chose not to because he didn’t want to shake me any further. 

The tunnels were pretty bad, but it got worse. After the tunnels, we came back to the city to see the War Remnants museum. Outside there are former tanks, planes and weapons on display. Inside are pictures and details of the war and its consequences. Details on human rights abuses (mostly those committed by the US—we are in Vietnam, and it will be told from this perspective) with pictures. I had to skip major portions of the museum as I couldn’t stomach the photos. A room dedicated to the millions of victims of Agent Orange. People born without limbs, with shrunken limbs, with the appearance of their faces melting off, and all manner of disproportion. Mental illnesses including the story of a little girl who has to be kept in a cage because she gnaws on and eats everything in sight. Pictures of misshapen foetuses. Pictures of families, already dealing with the effects of famine and poverty, also caring for sons and daughters one and two generations away who continue to be affected and misshapen by the ridiculous chemical creation. I wasn’t surprised to see that Monsanto was one of the chemical companies responsible for that hell.  

I wanted to cry. Every time I see someone on the street now who is missing a leg or suffers from some physical disability, I wonder if that’s the source. Needless to say it was a fairly depressing day.

To change the mood, we booked in to a water puppet show. Water puppets are pretty much exactly the way they sound—they’re puppets in water. Wooden and plastic puppets, that is. It’s an ages-old art form in Vietnam that originated with the farmers out in the rice fields as a form of entertainment during the rainy season. It’s fairly touristy, but it was fun. And we sat in the wet seats. We also stopped at the night market on the way home and I made one of my best purchases yet--a $4 orange watch. It's water-resist. It says so right on the watch. We can tell time again! (We both lost our watches in Laos...)

Day three in Saigon, we woke up in the morning and joined the morning exercise regime in the park by our guesthouse. We had ourselves a bit of a jog, watched people in their morning walks, then set off for an appointment with the hand surgeon, Argentinean Dr. Claudio (love that they use first names for their doctors in this office). Turns out, yes, Marcus needed surgery. For the first time in our traveling history, we were going to have to use our travel insurance. Or try, anyway. It is an insurance agency after all. Marcus spent a few hours on the phone with insurance agents and nurses, describing what happened and what kind of medical attention he needed, emailing them documentation and worrying whether or not they’ll actually honor the contract and pay for the procedure (and the various appointments). Regardless, the surgery needed to happen.  

To relax after a somewhat stressful afternoon, we went to have a blind massage. I didn’t think a blind massage was a “thing”, but I have noticed quite a few blind massage places throughout Vietnam, so maybe it’s similar to the popular “dine for a cause” cafes and restaurants that are all over the place here. Proceeds from your breakfast/lunch/dinner go to helping orphans/training street kids in hospitality and the culinary arts/education/etc. It’s tourism with a conscience. I think. At the very least, it does seem logical that massage would be a good profession for those who can’t see. I thought it may even be better than a normal massage since their sense of touch is probably more heightened than the average masseuse. That wasn’t the case, though. Not great. The masseuses seemed to be having a good time, though, chattering away and laughing (my masseuse even cackled) the whole time. Oh well. Worth a try. 

For dinner we decided we’d head further into town toward the skyrises. Marcus had been wanting to have a drink at one of the tall city buildings since Bangkok, so we went up to the 44^th floor of one of Saigon’s big buildings for drinks. The view was fantastic and we sipped on two very tasty cocktails while watching a storm roll in. Lightning. Thunder. And exactly the kind of cocktail I want to try with local flavor infusion. My cocktail was a mixture of lemongrass, ginger, lime and cilantro. It smelled of cilantro and the savory lemongrass, but tasted more like the ginger and lime. I couldn’t stop sticking my nose into it to smell it.  

When we’d had our fill of city views, we descended back to earth to try to find dinner, which was made slightly more difficult since the storm had brought a fat lotta rain. And we’d left our rain jackets back at our guest house. Of course. We stumbled across this ice cream place I’d been wanting to try, so we decided to scurry in and have dessert first. Dinner in reverse. But when I had a look at the decadent menu, I was lured by the ice cream fondue where you get to choose something like 16 flavors of ice cream to dip into chocolate fondue, along with fresh fruit and pieces of waffle cone. It would have been hard to resist my enthusiasm about it. Of course Marcus felt no need to resist, though he probably wished he had afterward. It was heavenly! Coconut, cinnamon, chili chocolate, young rice, passion fruit…and a bunch of other flavors that we’d forgotten when the plate arrived. That was a happy, happy evening for me. And of course left no room for dinner. Worth it. 

The next day was the day of the surgery. We had a big breakfast since Marcus wouldn’t be able to eat for about eight hours. We got big breakfast baguettes at a place called The Hungry Pig which served up DIY bacon sandwiches. Tasty, though not anything particularly special. It was real bacon at least, which is more than I  can say for most other bacons we’ve had here! Then we wandered down the traveller street where there are gads of massage and spa places, and we found one that had recently opened and had half-price happy hour. Excellent! Marcus got a shampoo/head massage and a haircut and I got my toenails done all for under $6. Ridiculous.  

Then we hoofed it over to the medical center for surgery time.

We were there an hour beforehand, the surgery took less than an hour, then we spent another hour there afterward so Marcus could get some good pain medication in his drip.

Putting on a good show, that kid. :) Then it was done! The surgery went smoothly and Marcus felt surprisingly well. I couldn’t believe how well he was feeling, so obviously the surgeon did a good job despite his only giving us a vague summary of the actual surgery. His performance in surgery makes up for the lack of detail.  

After surgery we went out to dinner at this place that gets good reviews from the foreigners, a place where they don’t have menus but rather say their waiters are your menu. In fact, the waiter’s not your menu—it’s a set menu, and he tells you what it is. The food wasn’t outrageous, but it was good.

 

After that we headed to a café/bar that shows movies throughout the day. It was a good way to unwind after a day of surgery. We found a comfy seat, got some drinks, and watched a bad Star Trek-like movie with Will Smith and his son. Meh. Funnily enough, though, Dr. Claudio was also there. Apparently this place is where the hospital staff go to unwind at the end of the day. J 

After the movie we had every intention of going back to our guest house and turning in early. But it was Friday night and the streets were brimming with the weekend atmosphere. The bars and restaurants were out on the streets and people were sitting in the tiny plastic chairs, row after row of people crowding ever further into the crazy Saigon street with food vendors, street BBQs and bia hoi flowing all around. The place was positively buzzing in such that unique, street atmosphere that is so Vietnamese.

We couldn’t resist stopping for just one drink. We ended up sitting next to two American-Vietnamese guys from California who were doing some mission work down in the Mekong Delta. They were really nice guys and we ended up having a drink or two more than intended, listening to their work building houses and making a documentary and we in turn divested some of our more entertaining stories from the road. Great conversation, great company, great location. 

The next day we headed out to take a tour of the Mekong Delta.