Ho Chi Minh City April 11-14

After leaving Singapore, we went to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) in Vietnam. The first thing you notice is the number of motorbikes and scooters everywhere. The roads that are two lanes each way have the large vehicles in the inside lanes and bikes in the outside lane. The mass of bikes at an intersection can be tremendous as the bikes line up for the light to change. Many bikes carry 2 people and are driven as taxis.

Our next experience was becoming a millionaire by going to the cash machine (no, not the slot machines in the hotel). Since the exchange rate is about 16,000 VND (Vietnam Dong) to the dollar, a withdrawal of just $100 US gives you over a million dong. The notes have values of up to 500,000 dong, but we only got 100,000 dong notes. Another interesting observation was the use of US$ in pricing and payment. Many of the vendors at the market priced their products in US$ (at least for us), or at a minimum would take the dollar in payment for items

With nothing planned on Tuesday, so we took the hotel shuttle into the city center and went to the local vendor market called Ben Thanh Market. You can find all varieties of goods at this market, such as handicrafts, shoes, watches, fabric, clothing, bags and food. Again, prices are low to begin with, so bartering is not very necessary.

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Day 2

Wednesday began with a city tour with our guides Phu and Bao. We headed off to China
Town and stopped at a temple, very similar to those in China. Incense was burning throughout, and offerings of fruits were given to the gods and placed on the alters. This temple was dedicated to the gods of the fisherman. Prayers are often made for the safe return of the local fisherman every time they go out into the ocean to fish.

From there we walked over to a wholesale market in China Town, which was laid out by product. Stalls and stalls of hats, then dishes, then hair accessories, cleaning supplies, etc. Crossing the streets here can be quite an experience, as there are very few stop lights to control the traffic, so you just kind of work your way across lane by lane.

Next we went back to Ben Thanh Market and wondered through again and picked up a few things. Being time for lunch, we then went to Pho 2000, a famous local noodle house. Bill Clinton ate there back in 2000, and there were numerous photos on the wall of the event. Amazing that we can come all the way over here and eat where a president has eaten, but never in the US have we eaten in the same place as a president (unless we happened into a McDonald’s that Clinton had gone to at some time). Pho is noodle in the Vietnamese language.

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Day 3

On Thursday, we visited Cu Chi, an area north of Ho Chi Minh famous for the underground tunnel system built starting in the late 1940’s. The Cu Chi tunnels stretch for about 200km (130 miles) in a spider web configuration. The tunnels were built out of clay and connected various rooms together. These rooms served as eating, kitchen, sleeping, and meeting areas for the Viet Cong. During the day, they took shelter in the tunnels and rooms and then moved out in the night to do all of their activities.

Elaborate systems for ventilation, camouflage and concealment, and protection (booby traps, trap doors, etc) protected the inhabitants from their enemies. Barbed spikes were made from the casings of unexploded bombs. The openings were very small, preventing many of the Americans from even having the capability to fit into the openings. Smoke from kitchens would be exhausted over 100m away after being cleansed to make it almost invisible.
Some of the rooms were at ground level, while others were up to 8-10m under ground, which offered better protection from the bombings. We crawled through a couple of tunnels connecting various bunkers. The bunker roofs have been lifted and openings enlarged to make them accessible to all. Actual tunnels remain the original size and you have to stoop halfway over to walk through them.

The evening ended with a trip to Ngon restaurant. This was a Vietnamese buffet style restaurant, where they take your order and go and get your food and bring it back to the table. The food is already prepared at each of the individual food stalls that surround the eating area. There were about 20 different stalls making the various foods, such as soup, stir fry, barbeque sticks and different desserts.

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Day 4

Today we toured the Mekong Delta area of Vietnam. It is about a 1-1/2 hour drive from our hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. On the way, we stopped at a Buddhist pagoda, which is the largest such pagoda in Vietnam. This temple is somewhat unique in that the architecture is a combination of Oriental, French and Vietnamese styles.

Next we got on a riverboat to cross the upper Mekong River. We went past a floating fishing village and saw many boats in the river, both riverboats and ocean vessels. There were large drive-on/drive-off ferries constantly going from one side of the river to the other. The area we were at was about 50 km from the ocean and 170 km from Cambodia. The Mekong River is the 8th longest river in the world, at over 4000km from its starting point in Tibet. Our destination was Unicorn Island, one of 4 islands in the river in this area.

Our first stop on the island was a small restaurant that specialized in honey tea. This is a combination of honey, mini limes, and bee pollen mixed in with green tea. They also provided candied coconut strips, lotus seeds, ginger and a type of peanut brittle. We next moved down to a candy shop where they made coconut candy. The coconuts are split and then the meat is separated from the husk and broken up into small pieces. They are then put into bags and squeezed to get the sugar water and oils out. The sugar water is mixed with powder and to form a paste, which is put into trays to form the coconut candy.

A walk through the jungle brought us to another place for a snack. This time it was fresh fruit, including mini bananas, mangos, pineapple, jackfruit, sapodilla, and longan. We then listed to some music and songs played on traditional instruments. One instrument only had one string and made a different sound depending on where it was plucked. The kids tried playing it, and found it very difficult to get the sound to come out crisp.

From here we jumped into some small canoes and traveled in some narrow creeks back to the edge of the main river. There were people at the front and back of the canoe paddling and controlling the boat. In some areas we could barely fit between all the boats tied up along the creek. We put on traditional Vietnamese hats (conical shaped with a tie under the chin) for the ride up the creek. They do a good job keeping the sun off your face and neck, but they got caught easily in the wind, so have to be tied on tightly to be effective.

Back on the river and time for our lunch. We had elephant ear fish that was wrapped with cucumber and noodles in a rice paper wrap to make a type of spring roll. The shrimp were the largest I have ever seen—about 6 inches from tip to tail. We also had a soup with pasta in it, fried rice and some large chips. On the way back across the river, we had coconuts milk right from the coconut. After drinking the milk, the coconut was split open so that we could eat the meat.

Vietnam has been a very interesting place to visit. It has not been over run with tourists yet, although the tourism industry is growing all the time. We felt comfortable in the places we visited, and enjoyed meeting the people along the way. The food is unique and delicious.