4/6/13 - Ho Chi Minh City (Part 2 - Food Time)

You're still with me (or came back for more?) good.  The history part was interesting, but this next piece of the trip was truly one of the highlights of our time in Asia so far.  To be totally honest, it was probably one of the top ten experiences of my life.

Stealing from our friends experience again, we had booked a motorbike/food tour of the city with XO tours. What happens is two Vietnamese girls wearing traditional clothing show up at your hotel on motorbikes to take you on a food adventure all over the city - not just the usual tourist areas.  Of course the first thing they asked (after playing rock/paper/scissors to determine who was stuck with the tall dude on the back of their bike) was if we had ever been on a motorbike before.  When I shook my head no, I'm sure the assumption was made that the tour would be detouring to a local hospital.  Luckily, riding on the back of a bike turned out to be much easier than crossing a street full of them.  To quote Bill Murray, "I just let the boat do all the work" in this case, the bike.  2 minutes later we were at our first stop for some traditional beef noodle soup.

While sitting in an alley on chairs that looked like they were meant to be used at an 8 year olds tea party, we ironically had some tea while we waited for the rest of the group to show up.  2 other couples joined the tour as well (all Americans coincidentally) so we had our own little biker gang for the evening.  The next stop was the market that unfortunately only sold wholesale goods so we couldn't buy anything.  You don't exactly need to come home with 50 umbrellas or 50 t-shirts.  After that, we crossed over the Saigon river to District 6 (I could be making that up, we were in multiple Districts during the evening and I was lost almost immediately) for some Vietnamese BBQ.  They brought out these little clay pots with charcoal inside and a grill on them and then the food started coming!  Okra, Goat, shrimp and calimari.  Probably sounds like an eclectic menu, but it was incredible.  You took the meat, dipped it in some tangy peanut sauce and then wrapped it in basil.  Outstanding.  We even had a local delicacy "jumping chicken." Gold star for whomever can figure out what that is.  Even better, this place gave us our first introduction into Saigon beer.  Can't buy it outside Vietnam which is a shame.  I thought it was better than Tiger, maybe not quite as good as Singha.

The final stop was a roadside stand for some more seafood.  Again sitting in one chair when I could have used about three, we had one of the best seafood dishes I have ever had.  Scallops in the shell with peanuts, green onions and the ingredient that makes almost everything better - bacon!  The best seafood I've ever had were green mussels with lemongrass curry on them at Duke's, in Malibu.  Sadly, they discontinued them because they couldn't find a sustainable grower.  I think their solution needs to be, replace them with these scallops!  We could have eaten these all night and as good as the food was everywhere else, we ordered more.  The only bad part about the last stop was it was too short.  Turns out we were sitting past the stand's zoned in area on the street and the local police were coming..... so we had to bail.  Just another fun twist in the evening, scurrying towards the bikes, one step ahead of the law.


Jumping ahead again to Saturday, we got back from the tunnel tour sweaty, hungry and tired.  We had been drinking a lot of water during the day, but needed some more sustenance.  We tried to stop at the Banh Me sandwich stand near our hotel once we got back, but it was only 2:30 and the store owner showed us 4 fingers when we hungrily looked in.  Guess we would have to wait a few hours.  More to come on this in a bit.  We pondered this for awhile and decided we had had a slew of Vietnamese food the night before, lets go grab some comfort food.  A quick stop in the room determined that nearby in the backpacker district was a bar owned by an American that was supposed to have great burgers.  10 minutes later we tumbled into two chairs on the sidewalk at Cafe Zoom and ordered up two burgers with bacon and a sample 6-pack iced bucket of Vietnamese beer from Hanoi, Saigon and Hue - total cost - about 300,000 Vietnamese Dong ($14). We were in heaven.

2 hours meandered by as well as 100,000 motor bikes going past, 50,000 wires overhead and 6 beers. What had originally been a planned late lunch visit and momentary way station was looking like it might be our final resting place for the day.  This was solidified when two free beers showed up because apparently our burgers entitled us to them.   Well once you have 2 more, you might as well order some more to keep them company in the ice bath.  Time started slipping by like grains flowing through an hour glass, in our case, motorbikes.  The manager from Australia noticed that we had been there for awhile and brought us some homemade chips and salsa and even hooked us up with a special happy hour.  If this place was in Singapore,we would be there weekly.

Finally, after having sat in the chairs on the sidewalk for close to 6 hours (these chairs were actually big enough for me) we decided it was time to head back to the hotel.  It was a bummer for the night to be ending, but in the words of famous TV pitch man Ron Popeil, 'but wait, there's more,' it was time for some late night Banh Me.  The best way to describe these sandwiches is think about something Shaggy or Scooby Doo would make.  Served on a fresh French Baguette (thank you again French Colonizers) they just start loading items onto it.  Different types of pork, pickled vegetables, special sauces, what sure looked like pate, god knows what else.  We saw people eating these at all hours of the day, every day we were there, and I could easily make this a staple of my diet - top 5 sandwich for sure.  With a full belly and thoroughly exhausted from the past 2 days we crashed hard in our penthouse room.  6 flights of stairs, no elevator, might have contributed to the exhaustion. Saigon (Ho Chi Minh) we will be back soon.

4/5/13 - Ho Chi Minh City (Part 1 - History)

That's right gang - its going to be another two part city tour post.  Last weekend we flew up to Vietnam for 48 hours to check out another country.  I have to say, I wasn't expecting much.  We had done our research ahead of time and booked a few tours, but at best I was expecting a poor man's Bangkok, at worst, I don't even know.  Wow, was I wrong.  We had an AMAZING time and are already trying to decide when we can spend another weekend up there.  The trip broke down into 2 pretty even parts - history and eating.  So if you don't give a lick about history, but you do give a lick about food, feel free to check back tomorrow for the foodie version of the trip.

I always like having a window seat when flying into a new place because I feel like you can get a pretty good flavor for your destination just by checking out the scenery for the 10-15 minutes before you touch down.  In this case, it looked like a fairly typical Asian city, sprawling, a few big buildings and in this case, what appeared to be an ancient airport.  Much to our surprise, the jet bridge led us into a very clean, modern building.  Which was actually kind of nice considering we took a bus from the terminal to our plane in Singapore.  Getting our visa was fairly quick - we had applied for one online and the website turned out to be legit.  We handed over our $90 US (which turned out to almost be the most expensive part of the trip) and away we went.  Hopped into a taxi that drove down the right side of the road (thank you French Colonizers) and 20 minutes later we were having breakfast in our boutique hotel in the center of the city.

Our friends had recommended we stay at the Cinnamon Hotel - another great decision.  We could walk everywhere, the staff couldn't have been more friendly, they booked our tour for Saturday for us and for breakfast you could get iced Vietnamese coffee and a fried banana with a Vietnamese pancake on top... this was a good sign.

We had a tour booked that night (more to come in part 2) but nothing to do in the afternoon so we decided to walk to the War Remnants museum.  The hotel offered to call us a taxi, considering it would have been about $3 it would have probably been worth it, but we wanted to check out part of the city on foot.  In Ho Chi Minh City you're hit by 2 things at once every time you step outside.  1) It is hot! and this is compared to Singapore.  The sweat comes automatically.  2) There are motorbikes everywhere.  You can't avoid them.  Everyone jokes that the best way to cross the street is to just shut your eyes and start walking as at least they'll just drive around you.  Its probably 90% true, regardless, we managed to not get run over in our time there which has to be a win.  Anyway, if we wouldn't have walked, we wouldn't have fallen victim to a classic tourist trap and bought some coconuts at a 500% mark-up.  Luckily, they were still cheap, actually cold, and very refreshing.  Kind of like a junior mint.

We walked around the War Museum for almost two hours and the entire time we felt kind of guilty - about the war and honestly for not knowing that much about it.  Its almost like American History curriculum in high school for our generation hits the end of WWII and then just stops.  It was interesting to hear the other side of the story and it makes you want to look for some independent information to try and figure out exactly what happened.

Skipping ahead to Saturday - we took a bus outside the city for 2 hours to the Cu Chi tunnels.  This is where the Viet Cong had their elaborate network of tunnels that went for miles and miles.  They ultimately ended up living below ground for many years and the set-up for parts of the tunnel system were ingenious.  They used termite mounds above the ground for the ventilation shafts into the tunnels.  When cooking, they funneled the smoke away from where the kitchen was and even let it out at night so as not to draw attention. Finally, the tunnels themselves were not American sized, they were Vietnamese sized.  We had the opportunity to go down in one and at every 20 meters you can exit the tunnel system.  I went in first and the guide in front of me was slightly hunched over and practically running.  I was basically crawling on my hands and knees and got out of there as quickly as possible..... and these tunnels had been enlarged for tourists.  I'm getting claustrophobic just thinking about it.  Combined with the gun range they have onsite (the guns are bolted to the range we were told) so you hear gun shots echoing amongst the trees, we were OK with leaving when we did.  Much respect to everyone that was there during the war, just makes me happy to be born after the fact.

The war museum and the tunnels were the extent of our journey back in time.  The rest of the time in the country were spent doing what we do best...... eating and drinking!  Check back tomorrow for part 2.