Vietnam Day 1 - Saigon

Just got back from Vietnam on Wednesday. One of my most intense travel ever, actually managed to do and visit everything I had planned to. It's hard not to fall in love with this beautiful country with its friendly people, fantastic food and low (or none) admission prices.

4.5 days in Vietnam was of course not enough, so we only managed to visit Ho Chi Minh City and Da Lat. Dreaming of a 3 week tour up (or down) the whole coast from Sapa and Hanoi down to the Mekong Delta near HCMC.

Ok this is gonna be a very long winded entry as I try to log down every single sight, taste and feelings that I can remember.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Me being the cheapo, took tiger airlines ($278, not v cheap ok) whereas someone else took his company-given SQ flight.. Well, it was only 1 hour 40 min ride and there was no one beside me at all so I had 3 seats to myself! woohoo. Never taken a plane from the budget terminal before and have been warned by JY that it's really BUDGET. But it was ok, I was pleasantly surprised to see DFS shops there.. though I didn't get anything. Bought a tuna puff from polar puffs, and went to Guardian/7-11 to pick up hand lotion, pochai pills, panadol, ice mountain mineral water and a Twix chocolate bar. No food served on plane leh. All ready!

Saw the most beautiful sun rise above the clouds. The clouds actually make out the silhouette of trees in a jungle.

Somehow I find Saigon a much more beautiful name than HCMC. So anyway. Saigon is smack in the middle of the fertile delta region in south west Viet Nam, which I suppose is why it's so rich.

My samsung's living world Vietnam wallpaper. Too dark to tell what it is. In fact it looks like the Singapore one with the merlion. Check it out abit later when the sky is brighter.

Took the lift to the 2nd floor to wash up, then had a leisurely breakfast at the cafe while waiting for pb who was to reach 2 hours after me. I didn't wanna order pho cos it was the airport and prob expensive and nosso good and we were prob gonna eat it for the next 5 days (which we did) so I had a boring 'bread with fried egg'. Ok I actually read it as 'fried bread with egg', or french toast.. so I was a lil shocked when they gave me a whole baguette and egg. Luckily the baguette was really good, it had a hint of honey in it, yummy.. Plus coffee, it came up to about 70 000 dong (S$6). Not cheap at all, but it's the airport.

mozzy bites =(

I saw a stream of singaporeans coming down inclusive of pb's colleagues, but no sign of pb.. And I realized it was the wrong flight, that was some jetstar flight. After a while more, pb finally reached!

yayyy. off we go!

it was so hot in the taxi and dunno y the driver didn't switch on the aircon. After we suggested that, he switched it on but it wasn't working too well so it was still hot and stuffy.

The cab fare was about, S$7 from the airport to Sheraton Saigon in District 1. Not too far, just a straight road down, but the traffic was really slow. Left our luggage there with the concierge, and we couldn't check in yet so we ignored his company's briefing and left to explore the place.

pb tempted by roadside stalls

Didn't quite dare to eat from roadside stalls yet. Maybe on the last day. We walked towards the Saigon River to see if there were any cruises etc. Weather was blistering hot and we didn't like it very much. The original plan was to walk around the whole day cos the sights were pretty near the hotel (on the map) but we hardly walked 2 streets and felt tired already. It's the weather lah.

Just as we were feeling hot and sweaty we bumped into a cyclo rider near a hotel next to the Saigon River. These are similar to trishaw riders, and they have a list of places to go to in english which they point out to you. I read that it's supposed to be what, $1usd an hour or something in some travel forum, but i guess that was a long time ago (2003?) and they wanted to charge us 100 000dong (sgd9) an hour per person. We knew that it wasn't cheap and it was negotiable but we are too lazy to bargain so we just accepted it. I looked at my watch and it was 10.45am.

It was scary at first, riding on a cyclo along a road with heavy traffic all around you. But after a while you kinda get used to things. We never figured out which traffic lights you have to obey, cos some were obeyed and others were just ignored. The left turns baffled me the most. Imagine the whole cross junction filled with cars. A stream of motorbikes/cyclos/cars (us included) try to turn left, while oncoming traffic goes straight.. So the left-turning party just keeps inching forward, drowned in a myriad of horns. Bit by bit, they inch til they WIN and can continue with their journey and the oncoming traffic are forced to give way, while probably inching forward at the same time.

It's like water, it just flows. Same way with people crossing the road.. I've read about how to cross the road in forums, and it is totally true. Imagine the whole street full of motorbikes in motion.. To cross, just look ahead and walk at a steady pace. the motorbikes will SIAM4 you automatically! It's magic. In fact if you stop or panic and run, they get confused and don't know what to do. I couldn't help panicking and running a lot of times. Don't do this with cars though, cos they don't usually give way and travel faster. The motorbikes generally go very slowly so it isn't as dangerous as I imagined.

First up, the War Remnants museum. It's the furthest main attraction from our hotel and I can see why they brought us here.. I mean, the further they go the more they earn right.

Their museum consist mostly of photos.. some gruesome. A couple of jars of deformed foetuses by exposure to dioxin.. And a french guillotine. It felt so morbid that I didn't take any photos.

pb on a cyclo going AGAINST traffic


students

Next the cyclos riders decided to bring us to some pagoda which I have no idea where it is. I'm sure it is freaking far, scully it takes 2 hours to get there.. =p

Right from the start, I felt uneasy about the cyclos being so friendly and all, and also for not commenting about the time. We weren't prepared to give them a few hours worth of $9/hr, very ex leh!

So instead of the pagoda, I whipped out my HCMC map and we decided to get them to bring us to the next place (around the corner) and then probably stop the tour.

Reunification Palace, named in memory of the successful negotiations between North Vietnam and South Vietnam that ended the Vietnam War in November 1975.

After this photo the cyclo rider took for us, we told him that we wanted to end the tour. 200k dong each. what? it was about 11.45 then. Exactly an hour. They said, it was 1.5 hours so it was 200k dong per person. We said no such thing and handed them only 2x100k dong. Luckily this happened at a crowded area, right outside the palace. They kept hounding us but we just ignored them.. Felt a little harassed, but I'm glad we got to experience a cyclo ride without getting cheated too much, it was a pleasant ride!

Right there someone was selling coconuts so we bought one for 10000 dong. Ok let me clarify first that throughout our whole trip we were being ripped off like crazy but we can't be bothered to bargain and it's still pretty cheap so it's ok, as long as we're happy. Later in the day we bought 2 more coconuts, they cost 8000 dong and 20000 dong. Haha. They're the small coconuts you see in pasar malams, and they all tasted really sweet. lovely.

I didn't wanna look at the map in the middle of the road cos it screams 'tourist, come and rip me off' so we sat down on a stone bench opposite the Reunification Palace to read it. Didn't work. A boy came over with some shoe shine equipment and hounded pb to shine his shoes. Actually pb's shoes really needed some polishing, but fresh from the cyclo experience, we weren't too keen on such activities.

We later heard from kj that his 50 000 dong shoe shine became 200 000 dong (almost $20) after the polishing and he had to get hotel security to help him get out of the sticky situation. The boy asking pb was really insistent though, maybe because his shoes were really dirty hurhur.

Walked in the direction of the hotel, picking up some sights along the way.

Notre Dame Cathedral (and coconut number 2)

Vietnam was a French colony in the 18th century, thus the presence of strong french influence.


Central Post Office


inside the post office


tried the tapioca cakes from this little stall opposite the Parksons shopping centre


piping hot and delicious.


many locals were sitting around at the park there, having a drink or a roadside-packaged meal

We went into the parksons mall to look for a foodcourt-meal. Clean + aircon sounds good to us. Had our first pho bo and spring rolls at pho-chain 'Pho 24'. Loved it.

opera house

We popped into LV and Gucci cos they were there and it still wasn't time to check in yet. I had picked up a 'Water Puppet Show' brochure somewhere and we asked the concierge at our hotel to help us book a ticket. I found the concierge really helpful esp since we can't speak Vietnamese. The tourism business also has very close links with the hotel, cos they actually sent the tickets over to the hotel immediately. Because we went to walk around the hotel and weren't present to collect the tickets, the concierge paid for the tickets for us first and printed a letter informing us about the tickets and were going to slip the tickets into our room. Call me suaku, but I found that really efficient.

It was only 2 and we had visited everything we wanted to see. Yah, I think we're not cut out for city-visiting cos we're not history/architecture people. Unable to check in til 3, we wandered out towards Ben Thanh Market. Supposed to be very near, but after a few streets we decided to cab instead. Cab in HCMC is real cheap.. each journey to and fro Ben Thanh Market area is like, $1.

still no filter on my coffee. but yummy.


ever-hungry pb and coconut number 3. the pho here was way more flavorful than the one at the foodcourt. I guess the dirtier it is the better! I bet the roadside stalls' pho should be the best!

pb was gian for durian, but we decided to try custard apples before cos we seldom see them in spore. we walked around in the market and asked if the custard apples could be eaten, and they all said 'tomorrow'. Don't know if they were so honest, or if they didn't know what we were saying.

there wasn't anything much for us to buy in the market, the clothes were not appealing and we weren't in the mood for art+crafty things yet, so we left the market to explore the surrounding area.

Found our custard apple! It tastes like a drier soursop and has freaking lot of seeds. Gave up after a few bites.

We happily (but consciously) spat the seeds on the floor.. Erm, I don't know if it's allowed but the floor wasn't too clean in the first place. Did induce some stares from the people, but there weren't any dustbins around! Not our fault!

Ventured into an alley and witnessed 2 lady shop owners/assistants from neighbouring shops get into a fight! One of the lady's clothes seemed to be torn and she was holding it up, the other rushed into her shop to retrieve something. We thought she was going to get a knife or something, but she returned with a bottle of water (?) and held it high as if it was a knife.. Lots of verbal exchange as passers by watched and pulled them apart.

Ok i'm surprised I didn't take any photo of that.

road crossing


pedicure cafe!

The women here are generally neatly dressed, many of them have manicured nails, often with nail art. A manicure typically costs abt $3!

our city view

Went back to the hotel to take a long bath and a nap, before setting out for our water puppet show feeling clean and refreshed. The cab driver didn't seem to know where the place was.. Had to point it out to him in the map a few times. Luckily we managed to reach the place in time for the show at 6.30pm. Notice that it's already very dark at 6+.

It was really cool that both the music and the singing was done live, and very well done indeed. The lively performers were smiling throughout the show and they also looked at each other with expression.. that made the show much more fun. They could easily have done without that and played from a cd or something but it would have been 20 times less interesting.

Although we didn't understand Vietnamese, it was loads of fun.. and the puppets were so skillfully maneuvered it was easy to think that the puppeteers were swimming below them or something, although they aren't obviously.. they're all behind the screen and they manipulate the puppets via poles. Really skillful. The show lasted for 50 minutes and consisted of different choreographies and stories whose titles were written on a brochure in English so that we could figure out what was happening. Stuff like 'children playing', and 'fishing'.. heh.

very smiley percussionist and singer


enjoyed ourselves for 4usd each!


i bought the 'fairy' puppet for 50 000 dong. i bet it's way cheaper in the markets but what the heck. it's quite cute, there's this string to pull and the 'fairy' hands move up and down =)


life size puppets outside the theatre.. their limbs can actually move.. damn fun

Went down to Sinh Cafe to settle our tour for the next day. It's a very popular and well recommended travel agency in the backpacker district which was quite lively. For the same tour, I saw websites which sell it for say, $50usd per person.. and Sinh Cafe only sells it for $7usd. cool stuff.

At a cafe opposite Sinh Cafe. Finally I get a filter on my coffee!


crab soup (with real crab in it), caramelized pork with garlic/spring onion, and coconut curry shrimp (prawn).


flambe bananas worms

After a satisfying dinner, we walked along the streets, absorbing in the atmosphere. Amazingly only one day had passed, and we felt like we had experienced quite a bit of HCMC already. Fantastic.

A peddler rolled his bicycle of dried cuttlefish along and we just couldn't resist so we went up and pb made the sign of 'one'. We gulped as he took a piece of dried squid, opened the lid to the charcoal and started pressing the squid on the charcoal. Huh? charcoal can eat one meh? pb and me looked at each other as the seller took the squid and started grinding it through that grinder thing.. and our line of sight went back to the seller's not-so-clean fingers touching every square inch of our squid.. Hmm. well we ordered so we can't back out. Maybe we'll try just a small bite.

It was delicious and we swallowed every part of it. =)


Bia Hoi, where they sell cheap fresh beer.. it was pretty crowded though.

we found another place selling '33' beer from a tap. it cost 5000 dong (50cents) per beer! I think the actual beer brand is '333' so I suppose this was self brewed or something. Tasted like tiger. It was served with the loveliest coconut peanut thing. We sat down on the little stool and faced outside the shop just like how everyone was doing, looking out into the street.

Suddenly we heard a shout of 'HUR!'

huh? There was a little boy in a chinesey costume holding a stick of fire and he started to put it in his mouth!

Another 'HUR!' shout as he took a green snake and put it in his mouth too! This boy has the best showmanship ever. He fully captured all our attention, and it was really entertaining.

Of course the entertainment wasn't free. A group of ang moh backpackers next to us said, 'Hey, he's not bad!' and threw a bunch of usd in his pot. pb and me contributed a couple of dollars too. I think the boy must make quite a lot! The next day, we saw him in the same lane, cheekily squatting and hiding behind a motorbike from his playmates. Really cute. hope he doesn't get hurt or anything during his performances.

After the beer we walked a bit before deciding we were way too tired for more, and we took a cab costing $1 back to our hotel for a good rest.