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.
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