| Jun 28, 2005 - Saigon (aka Ho Chi Min City, aka Uncle Ho's town) and more.
| (click to enlarge)
 |  | (click to enlarge)
 | | (click to enlarge)
 | | show all 5 | | Rush hour in Saigon | | Paul's descent into a Cu Chi tunnel | | Row Row Row your boat gently down the delta | | |
| Ok, Saigon is much different than Hanoi. More enjoyable on many levels as follows: it is actually navigable vs. the winding nondescript madness that are streets in Hanoi, the heat and humidity are about half as much (which feels 'cool' at this point) and rarely do you see people wearing the triangular hats (although this was actually charming in Hanoi.) The motorbikes are still everywhere and we still take a deep breath before crossing the street. The vibe is more cosmopolitan as are the dress and attitudes. We did have some fabulous food here. We found a courtyard restaurant with terra cotta flooring and live palm trees that had food stations making fresh food. The menu was pretty descriptive so all we had to do was order from our waiter these tasty snacks of noodle bowl with fresh herbs, spring rolls and Paul's favorite the mung bean dessert. (for someone who shares the love of the dark chocolate as deeply as I do - I cannot imagine how a 'bean' dessert could possibly satisfy?)
Our most notable side trip was probably the Cu Chi tunnels. Cu Chi town was a big strategic area of contention during the Vietnam War. We took a day trip to see this and actually got to crawl through some of the extensive tunnels used by the Vietcong to evade Southern Vietnamese and American troops. At first this sounded like fun until the dark tunnel shrunk in size by about half the diameter during the approximately 20 minute crawl. Not to mention there was a woman crawling between Paul and I (in single file) who began to panic. Just as dogs dig holes in the ground to get cool in the heat, I imagined these tunnels would be cool...wrong again, it was like a sauna. If this wasn't enough stress, after our crawl they played a movie made in 1956 documenting what a quaint town Cu Chi was. "A place where families came to swim and escape the heat of the city, a place where childhood memories were made...until the crazy attacking indians, the Americans, came and destroyed this lovely place with their bombs." I think we felt holes stared into the backs of our heads by the rest of the nonAmerican tour group.
Interestingly, Paul got a one-on-one moment with our tour guide (a school teacher from the Mekong Delta area who once upon a time had to go to a re-education camp after fighting for the South) and asked why these Southern Vietnamese (Vietcong) living in and around Cu Chi, were so loyal to the Communists in the North. To which our guide looked around to make sure no one was within ear shot and then answered "because they are uneducated farmers." Interesting...
We took another side trip to the Mekong Delta (because we didn't get enough of the Mekong during the 12+ hours on the first half of our trip leading to Laos ;) This journey was good. We took a ferry boat to a smaller boat which took us to a little village where they make coconut candy (free samples!!), then on to another village of bee farmers (also free samples!!). The next thing we knew we were being rowed in a canoe type boat by locals and ourselves wearing the triangular hats. We went to another village where they had tropical fruits (again, samples) set up for us to try and the locals sang some songs to us. You can imagine this was a bit touristy, but cute anyway. The next thing we knew we were on a bus up to Chau Doc (closer to the Cambodia border which we were to cross the following day.) Well, they dropped us off at another roach motel and the only other decent looking hotel in the town square was booked. As you can tell, I survived to tell this tale.
The following morning we were cheated out of breakfast (was supposed to be included in the package yet the hotel denied it.) and picked up by our next tour guide and taken to another boat on the delta. We saw a minority Muslim village where they weave silk scarves using an old fashioned weaving machine made of wood. We also saw a floating fish market where they were actively making the fishfood out of bread, spinach, and snails all mixed and heated in a giant metal mixing bowl. (These ingredients sound relatively benign but the smell was absolutely foul and I swear lingered in the air for miles down the delta.) The gigantic and overcrowded fish went absolutely flipper wild in the water when that stinky paste was dropped in there. We saw more everyday scenes of life on the Mekong... floating wooden shacky houses, kids swimming, skinny boats loaded down with everything from people, grains, motorbikes, what have you.
Perhaps I'll appreciate the Vietnam experience more in retrospect and for the comedy of several things that happened, but overall I think we were both ready for our next destination... |
| |
| |
