From the autumn 2016 trip to Vietnam:
I’ll do my best to avoid channeling my inner Robin Williams here, though I did deplane in Saigon around 7:00 in the morning local time. So, this – and all subsequent sets – will be (almost) devoid of reference to hanging in Danang, a certain less-than-savory woman from the north (though, ironically, Hanoi Hannah just passed away in Saigon last Friday while I was still in the country), or other clichéd references to…Good Morning, Vietnam.
This particular trip (my first to VN) started around midnight Chinese time on 27 September 2016. After a very quick layover in Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia being another country that would be nice to photograph sometime, especially the beaches – I landed in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City early on the 28th. It’s a tossup what they call it, by the way. I’d say the majority still call it by its original name – Saigon – though there are some who call it Ho Chi Minh City. I’ll go with the majority of folks who live there and refer to it as Saigon.
I had two full days there, the 28th and 29th, before flying out on the morning of the 30th. Choosing a random hotel from Lonely Planet (I tend to go budget & find the best available option; usually works out pretty well), I ended up at the Cat Huy Hotel, where I went directly after clearing customs.
This is a hotel in the Pham Ngu Lao area near District 1. It’s down an alley, which was interesting in and of itself. Coming from the airport, the taxi drops you off and send you walking. Each morning (or at least the 3 mornings there), this alley transforms into a very crowded fresh food market, which was outstanding to me. Sadly, though, none of the mornings afforded time to slowly wander and photograph it.
The hotel itself (and its staff) are fantastic. It’s a small hotel with only ten rooms, and the service is top notch. It’s one of the kind of hotels where guests leave books when they finish, so there’s always something interesting to read. One of them (Vietnam: Rising Dragon by Bill Hayton) caught my attention. It’s a non-fiction account of contemporary Vietnam and, while I haven’t started to read it yet, I’m quite interested in it and they let me take it. I hadn’t finished any books so didn’t leave any behind, but was still quite grateful that they let me have it.
In addition to that, they can (and did) help arrange a few tours. These can be anything from day trips to the Mekong Delta – which I would have loved, had we stayed an extra day – to day/night tours in Saigon. (Not to tout this hotel over others; I’m sure almost any, if not every, hotel in cities like these are glad to help arrange such things. I can only say that I was happy here and, if I were to return to Saigon, I’d gladly stay here again.)
The first day I was in Saigon I spent quietly. The only exploration I did was just wandered around the hotel a little, then had lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. (Yes, I know this isn’t Vietnamese food, but it’s a bit of a quirky thing; I think I’ve been to 30-40 HRCs around the world now with shot glasses from all but one that I’ve been to.) That being said, lunch was good, as were the six shots I had, fruity though they were.
The HRC is in the heart of downtown near the U.S. Consulate, in addition to being near Notre Dame Cathedral, the Old Post Office, and the Reunification Palace. However, these would all be for the 29th. Today, I was alone, and waiting for my friend Junyu to arrive from Hong Kong, since she missed her morning flight.
The evening was quiet; we just ate around the hotel and arranged tours for the following day. For $11, we had a day tour with Bao and the driver, Mr. Mao. It started around 8:30, I think? I forget, but it was late enough that I was glad to have pho for breakfast.
On a full stomach, we hopped on one of those small vans that can hold about 10 people and started around the city. The first (and most depressing, by far) stop was the War Remnants Museum. This is, in my opinion, a “must see” – especially for folks from the U.S. It’s pretty much a testimonial of the war from the Vietnamese point of view and, at times, is pretty graphic. The pictures simply show the effects of the bombing, in addition to the use of agent orange, etc. Though it’s completely one-sided in its telling, it does have photographs – and many of them – that show the destruction from the war. (I won’t offer my personal thoughts on how accurate the Vietnamese or U.S. version of history is here.)
The next stop after the hour at the museum was one of the obligatory stops that seem to come on these package tours. It was to a coffee shop/store. Free samples of coffee for all (and for those of you who know me, you know how I feel about that) and stories of Vietnamese coffee.
As an aside, I think I saw that Vietnam is now the largest exporter of coffee in the world (not sure if that’s true; it surprised me all the same). They are very, very proud of their coffee and you can’t walk two meters in the country without passing a coffee shop. Their most famous coffee is “weasel coffee.” It’s pretty much the same as Indonesian Kopi Luwak. The beans are digested by animals – weasels in this case, and only then are they most fit for human consumption. So…coffee lovers, enjoy.
After the 15 minute rest stop, we hopped back in the van and went off to Chinatown in Cholon (District 5). If I recall, I think Bao said the Chinese made up about 4% of the population, though accounted for 25% of the economy. (I don’t know if that’s a current figure or a historical one.) At any rate, the first stop was at a temple that I found rather unimpressive. The Thien Hau Pagoda didn’t seem like a pagoda at all. It just felt like a cramped temple in the middle of a neighborhood. I don’t even think I got a single picture here that impressed me too much.
From there, we went to the Binh Tay Market, also in Cholon. This is a wholesale market that supposedly has a central courtyard with gardens. It may have that, but I wasn’t aware of it at the time, and didn’t see anything that mentioned it. The clock tower is nice, but the inside basically feels like a flea market or an oversized garage sale. I enjoyed walking around the exterior of the market much more as this is where the food vendors were. Munching on some cashews, I managed to get quite a few pictures of various vendors selling various food. I enjoyed that quite a bit.
After the 1-1.5 hours total in District 5, we hopped back on the van then followed along the riverside to a restaurant for lunch. We then went across the river to District 2 – currently almost completely undeveloped and on low/swampy land. (For Shanghainese, think Pudong around 1990. District 1, on the other hand, is like Puxi.) Had we stopped, I may have gotten a few interesting panoramas of District 1 from this side of the river and the emergence of District 2. However, we were on our way to the second (and, thankfully, last) obligatory stop…a lacquer production facility. Though the pieces were nice, I bought none, and politely bided my 30 minutes here.
Next up was the Reunification Palace. This is a peculiar place. Originally, it was the site of a palace built for the French leader of Cochinchina (Indochina). It was called Norodom Palace. Norodom, coincidentally, was the ruler of Cambodia. Later, it became the palace/residence for Ngo Dinh Diem, who ruled South Vietnam. He was so unpopular that his own air force bombed the palace hoping to kill him. (He was eventually assassinated by disgruntled South Vietnamese in 1963. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.)
Before he was assassinated, Diem had the palace rebuilt (with underground bunkers). Successive South Vietnamese used it as the main government building, so on the main floor are the cabinet rooms. The upper floors have reception rooms.
This is a building that is stuck in time – in the 1960s – with the interior decorations to match. It’s not the most attractive place, but definitely worth a visit. The Vietnam War ended here (symbolically, anyway) on 30 April 1975 when Viet Cong tanks crashed through the wrought iron gates. The tanks are currently on display to the right of the main lawn.
An hour at the palace – more than enough time to casually look around – and then we were off for a short drive to our last two stops: Notre Dame Cathedral & the Old Post Office, which are right next door to each other. That was the end of the $11 day trip, right around 4:00. (I forgot to mention, the $11 included admission ticket prices.)
The bus dropped us off close enough to the hotel that we had a short walk and roughly an hour to rest before the night tour (which cost $40). The night tour was drinking/eating and well worth it. Two girls on their scooters, Ha & Nga, came to the hotel to pick us up.
First evening stop, a rooftop bar. I forget the name of the bar, but it was downtown in District 1 and up on the 26th or 28th floor. (Saigon doesn’t have too many super skyscrapers like China.) It wasn’t an amazing sunset, but beautiful all the same with random lightning. I tried a number of times to catch lightning in pictures, but had no luck. However, I think the night panoramas turned out fine. Thirty minutes and two Saigon Specials down the hatch and we were back out on the streets.
Ha took me to the intersection of Phan Dinh Pung Street and Le Van Duyet Street. There’s not much memorable about this intersection except for one thing: in 1963, the Buddhist monk Thanh Quang Duc drove here in a blue Austin, got out of his car, then immediately sat in the middle of the intersection in a lotus position and lit himself on fire, killing himself in protest of Ngo Dinh Diem’s persecution of Buddhists. Nga started to explain the story to us, but when I connected the dots about who it was (I never knew his name), I stopped her. You can find the famous picture online of his self-immolation. It’s one of the iconic pictures of the entire decade of the 1960s.
Next up for us was dinner, though I don’t know the name of what we ate. We had a quick “cooking lesson” on how to make rice paper (kind of a pancake, really) that was part of dinner with vegetables. This was in the flower market, a small street where they sell – you guessed it – flowers.
Between dinner and dessert, we stopped for banh mi (or, up north, banh my) which is street food: a small baguette slathered with mayonnaise, a pepper sauce, and vegetables, and meat…or something that resembles meat, a la Spam. Whatever was in it, it was a delicious little sandwich on French bread.
The last place to stop and eat was another little side street for dessert. We had four bowls of…I don’t know what to call it. In common was that they all had crushed ice on top and were in a cream sauce. The differences was in the jelly. One was mango, one was kiwi, one was coffee, and the other was caramel/flan.
On a full stomach, Ha & Nga drove us back to the hotel where we passed out in anticipation of a morning flight to Phu Quoc Island.
As always, thanks for dropping by and viewing these pictures. Please feel free to leave any questions or comments and I’ll answer as I have time.