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Published: February 6th 2009
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Snake Man
Roel discovers a latent talent to charm snakes...good thing the python was full! Hi all,
As our plane taxis down the runway for takeoff, we notice that the horoscope for Jan. 22 -- Roel's birthday -- in the Shanghai Daily recommends that we not travel that day because we’ll encounter too many obstacles….but it's too late. We're off for Vietnam, and four hours later we arrive in Ho Chi Minh City at 1:00 a.m. A pickup from our hotel, ‘Bi Saigon’, whisks us off to our room, which we discover is on top of a 7-floor walk-up. By the end of our holiday, we’ll be used to trekking up and down stairs - as not one hotel will have elevators—but for now, it’s 3:00 a.m., 37 degrees Celsius, and we have all of our luggage.
Nevertheless, on our balcony overlooking Mini-Hotel Alley we toast our arrival—and Roel’s 61st birthday--with a half-decent Shiraz we’d bought at Duty Free in Shanghai….which feels very faraway now, as does the beginning of this long day. Getting a migraine on landing didn’t help Amy, either, but perhaps on top of awaiting the 9:30 p.m. flight, losing a night’s sleep for Obama's inauguration -- and Bush's boot --perhaps accounts for some of it. Oh well, we wouldn’t have
And nothing like a good drink
Even if it's snake and bird wine....it'll cure what ails you! missed it for the world!
Mini-Hotel Alley awakes early, as we discover the next morning from our perch in the lane-side restaurant. Bleary-eyed we await our sizzling egg and tomato omelets, French baguettes and Vietnamese coffee we'd enjoyed last year in the north, but our breakfast disappoints on almost all counts. Apparently North and South Vietnam don’t meet in the French-meets-east cuisine department. The baguettes are poor imitations of the authentic crispy variety we’d enjoyed last year, and when the omelet arrives it’s sans tomatoes and sizzling rod-iron pan…a bit pallid, even cool. We breathe a sigh of relief when the coffee arrives…dripping into the cup with its own drip maker—a thick coating of condensed milk on the bottom. Ahhh!! One sip and we realize why we’re really back to Vietnam. Strong and sweet…thanks to its French origins Vietnamese coffee is out of this world!
After breakfast we head out to do the Walking Tour from the Lonely Planet, and after hitting a few highlights - the Flower and Street markets, traffic circle with requisite statue—we realize that we’ve been walking in circles! But we continue…soaking up the sights, sounds and smells…that spicy smell that only Asia emits
Life on the Mekong River
A typical method of travel in this neck of the woods. in the heat—when we realize we’re parched and slightly sun-dazed. Exactly at this point a pair of cyclos show up (we’re they waiting?) and offer to drive us to the War Remnants Museum, followed by the Reunification Palace. Warily we ask the price and are told 150,000 dong (about $9 US). Since this sounds fair, and both of these spots were on our walking tour, we agree and jump aboard.
According to Robert Templer, in “Shadows and Wind”, the country is promoting tourism with "war theme parks" of the Vietnam War; nevertheless we find the first stop, the renamed War Remnants Museum, (previously the American War Crimes Museum) to be a unique collection of military paraphernalia and heartrending photos taken from the French and American wars (as they’re referred to). Similarly, the Reunification Palace turns out to be equally fascinating, as it’s the place where a tank smashed through the gates on April 30, 1975, the day the south surrendered effectively ending the war. But according to Templer, the tank on display in the museum is probably a fake, as there is one on display in Hanoi which also claims to be the original one through the gate. However
Boarding for Cambodia
Finding our boat was a challenge...no fancy gangplanks in the Mekong Delta. the Palace is an interesting glimpse into the corridors of power, and we leave satisfied that we’ve at least seen what Vietnam has to offer in the way of war “remnants”, even if some are only fake tourist draws. But then, we reason, Templer’s book is a cloned copy we bought from a boy in the alley…but it’s a great read on life in modern Vietnam nevertheless :-)
After a rather unpleasant fight with our ‘friendly’ cyclo drivers, (they demand 600,000 dong) we’re dropped at Lonely Planet’s recommended spot for the best pho in the city—Pho 24--and the chicken pho is soothing for the sore throats we’re both developing -- which were not helped with our ‘discussion’ with our drivers. But we learn later that the city’s cyclos are driven mostly by war vets, and their ages are definitely ploys they used when guilting us into paying them three times the original price. But we decide not to let this mar our first day, and because we’re leaving in the morning for Cambodia (as we’ve also learned that all tours are closing down after that for Tet) we decide to stick close to our hotel for the evening, and
Waterfront Property
Location, location, location! explore the complex of alleys…a neighbourhood reminiscent of Hanoi.
We enjoy an evening of soaking up the party atmosphere. From our perch at a roadside café it seems as if the entire city is out celebrating pre-Tet, taking the entire family out for a spin on their motorbikes, and we count mom and dad with three tykes onboard as the winners of how-many-can-fit-without-falling-off.
The next morning, counter to Lonely Planet’s recommendation to skip eggs for street noodles (which somehow we can’t stomach at 6:00 a.m.) we chow down quickly on another ‘Bi-Saigon’ breakfast of cool eggs, as our bus for Cambodia is leaving at 7:30 a.m. From our tour guides halting English, we only know that we’ll be driving through the Mekong Delta, where we’ll visit the Cai Be floating market on the Mekong…and that we’re heading for the town of Chau Doc, where we’ll be staying in a floating hotel before leaving early the next day via the ‘slow boat’ to Cambodia...which we upgraded to 'fast' after seeing how slow was slow on a day in transit through the Mekong Delta.
Unfortunately, once we left Ho Chi Minh City we realized we’d neglected to get a
Exploring Ho Chi Minh
Palm-lined streets were the signature here...almost the Riviera. double-entry visa to Vietnam, and were saddened by the fact that since our return flight was from HCMC, we’d be stuck in the airport on the return trip. And now we were grabbling the first bus out of Vietnam in order to get to Cambodia before all tours stopped for Tet.
So for now we’ll always remember our walking tour of HCMC, then the bumpy bus ride through the Mekong Delta, slow boat rides on the river, biking through the jungle for our lunch, and the feeling that throughout the area history is alive. When we were startled by a man jumping out at us from the brush on a scooter, we couldn’t help being aware that only a few decades back he might have been brandishing an AK47.
But feelings aside... it was tam biet, Vietnam and sua s'dei Cambodia!
More later about the fascinating country that's Cambodia.
Au revoir,
Amy & Roel
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Carrie
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Love seeing Vietnam again.
You've forgotten how delicious the noodles were for breakfast on the train from Hanoi to Hue. Along with that amazing coffee....Also lovely to see the flowers for tet. Although I don't remember seeing sunflowers in the North. That is a wonderful photo. Also the one with all the scooters. Is it as scary to cross the road there. It seems that the streets are wider, more posh somehow. Read this blog after the other one. Oops:)