My Travels - Ho Chih Minh - Part 2

And so the day arrived to depart. I was thrilled! I met Uma directly at the airport. After checking, we went to have some sinful breakfast. My cousin joined us shortly after his flight. We chitchatted for a while. The time came to say our goodbyes and we were off...

We arrived in Ho Chi Minh City at 8.30am, which is 9.30am Singapore time. The time difference is just by an hour. Airport transfer had arrived and was waiting for us. That's what I call Efficient! Two boys stood amongst the crowd holding cardboard. The cardboard read Thanh Long Tan and our names. Once all formalities like identity check were done, we moved to the car.

Now, the car was no Ferrari but we could deal with it! It was a black Toyota SUV, which was in urgent need of washing...no joke! Traffic was busy that morning. When we stopped at one of the traffic lights, I turned back to have a view of the traffic. I realized there were more motorcyclists then motorists around us. I do recall reading about this. Besides buses, taxis and bicycles, motorcycles were another common way of moving around in the city. You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, there’s an approximate of 3.5 million motorcyclists in the city. Mind you, there are 7,750,900 people living in Ho Chi Minh City and these numbers are increasing each year.

So after what seemed like ages to me - we arrived at the hotel! Quickly we checked in, dumped our stuff in our room and were off. First stop - Ben Thanh Market! Our tummies needed filling- we were dying of hunger! A five-minute walk from our hotel was all it took. Not to brag but we were quite impressed with our sense of direction skills. 

The Market was bustling with activities. Everyone was hounding us to patronize his or her stall.  As long as you give eye contact, they come after you. It took us a while before we settled at a cosy stall. The menu was overwhelming. They had a wide variety and we didn’t know what to have. 

Finally, Uma settled for  “Mien Ga”, a Vietnamese Chicken Glass Noodle Soup. And I the Chicken Rice dish. The chicken rice was nothing fabulous! I couldn't say the same for "Mien Ga" however.  I tried a bit from Uma. It was what you call -yummy... flavoursome...mouth-watering even. You could taste the freshness in the chicken and the soup was light and delightful.  Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of what we ate...not surprised!! For drinks, I had their local coffee, “Ca Phe Sua Nong”. I am an avid coffee drinker and believe me I was left speechless. Mon Dieu! What a gratifying meal to kick-start our day!

Now that our tummies were filled, it was time to move on to our next destination – Notre Dame! We approached the locals for directions and they were nice enough to guide us. Seemed simple but just one problem. We had to cross a major main road to get to Notre Dame. This major road was nothing like the ones you find in Singapore - it was daunting! 

It seems there’s a trick to crossing roads in Ho Chi Minh City. You have to be daring to take the first step, give eye contact to approaching vehicles and they’ll slow down for you.  And how did we learn that? From the pedestrian in front of us. Believe me, it worked! 

Along the way to Notre Dame, we approached several times by taxis, cyclo drivers and coconut sellers offering to show the way to us. Isn't it amazing how helpful everyone was? Don’t be fooled by that though. The hotel staff did warn us about them. They pretend to be helpful and show you the way. Then you end up paying for a service you didn’t ask. You cannot retaliate back, as they’ll bring you to an unknown side street and demand the money from you.  Trouble was not in our interest, so we kept away.

Notre Dame Cathedral

Half an hour walk was all it took to reach. I was mesmerized by Notre Dame's beauty. French colonists built this magnificent Cathedral from 1877 to 1883. Till today, what stands out most, is its lively bright red wall. The red bricks used for the wall were specially brought down from Marseille. Let’s not forget, the granite statue of Virgin Mother Mary. There was something about the way she stood there ~ calm, beautiful and motherly. I spoke to the lady selling candles. She briefly told me how powerful the Cathedral was and it was claimed that Virgin Mother Mary’s statue shed tears on her right cheek. It happened in the year 2005. Some say it took place and some denied it ever happened. I explored the interior of the Cathedral for while more, drinking in all of its beauty. Just before we left, I said a small prayer & lit a candle for Mother Mary. Being in the church itself was far too overwhelming. That's why I left so quickly.

Central Post Office

Up next, was Central Post Office. Can you believe it, was right next to Notre Dame! It seems, the Central Post office was known to be the oldest building in Ho Chi Minh City. When I entered the building, it felt as though I had time-walked into a 20th-century railway station in Europe - the ones you see in the movies. I loved it!

In truth, there was nothing much to see in the Post office. All we did was play around in telephone booths, admired their maps on the ceiling & looked through their portrait stalls. We spent less than twenty minutes and we were out!

Ho Chih Minh could be ranked as one of the most expensive city to live in, but I find it backwards in many ways. The Vietnam War has long ended, but people are still living in the past. There’s not been much progression. But then again, I’m a city girl and could lack knowledge of third world countries challenges. 

Lunchtime and We noticed most of the tourist attractions were closing. We headed back towards the hotel to grab some lunch and rest. While walking, I noticed the streets were filled with graffiti. One that caught my eye was an attractive Vietnamese girl wearing the Non-La, Vietnamese hat. The artwork was alive, her eyes were even more alive. I couldn’t stop staring.

Just next to the graffiti, there was a stall selling Vietnamese meatloaf. We had that for lunch. I took the biggest and messiest item on the menu and had no regrets. The ingredients were mainly vegetables, chicken breast meat and eggs with an unknown sauce. It was absolutely delicious. To quench our thirst from the scorching heat, we had a yoghurt smoothie with strawberries. Good wasn't the word to describe the smoothie- it was an understatement. Mind-blowing is what I call it!

Lunch made us heavy and sleepy and we couldn't move on. We decided to come back and visit the rest of the attractions tomorrow. Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped for a foot massage. Price seemed reasonable, dirt cheap to be precise. Location wise, very dodgy, but we went in anyway. Sigh! Big mistake. Once the massage was over, the man at the counter asked, correction demanded 200 dongs as tips. After much debating, we offered 50 dongs and walked out and looking back. Whew!! that was a close shave...

Soon after, we reached the hotel, tired and in need of rest!

It was evening when we next headed out. We went back to Ben Thanh Market for dinner, this time to the night market. 

Night Market

After dinner, we walked around. I noticed that outside of Ben Thanh Market, there were several stalls set up selling artifacts, clothes, portraits, etc. Word of advice, keep your belongings close.

When buying things at the night market, the trick to getting a good price is to haggle. However, you have to buy the item. Do not haggle for the sake of it or you will end up angering the locals. I did just that and the lady got nasty and called us crazy. We simply ignored her by walking away. There was nothing much to see after that, so we went back to the hotel to have an early night.

War Remnants Museum

The next morning, after breakfast, we took the same route back; this time towards the War Remnants Museum direction. We reached the Museum in no time. What interests us most were not the fighter planes, helicopters nor tankers, it was the Agent Orange section. The museum displayed several photographs of the Vietnam War including Agent Orange. It was disturbing to see the impact of its effects. It affected many men, women and even children.

It was a sad yet enlightening experience. We were starting to get restless and so I left the Museum. After the war museum, we had nothing much to see and wondered what to do next? We had so much to kill and we were starting to get bored.

We ended up booking a day trip to Mekong River the next morning. It was too late to go at that moment, so we settled for the next day. 

For the rest of the day, we walked around aimlessly, had another massage. This time, it was at a hotel. We decided to save all our energy for the Mekong River day trip tomorrow.

Day –trip to Mekong River

At 8am in the morning, there was a chartered bus that fetched us just outside the hotel. In the bus, there were couples and families from countries like Denmark, the United States and Dubai. I ended up making friends with them and that made the journey less boring. The guide was quite friendly; he kept us occupied with Ho Chih Minh’s or Saigon’s history. Soon after, we reached and took a boat ride across to Ben Tre province. Our first stop was at Turtle Island, where we got to see how coconut candy was made.

We proceeded back to the boat and went to a fruit orchard next. We took a horse ride through the orchard and stopped over for lunch at a small kampong. We had a huge spread for lunch, consisting of Vietnamese local delicacies. We got to try two types of fresh spring rolls -Pho Cuon, Goi Cuon. The rest of the dishes were just steam and fried fish, noodles and steamed pork with glutinous rice. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Up next, was to Unicorn Island. This time, we took small paddleboats through a river creek. The highlight at Unicorn Island was the bee farm, where we tasted honey wine. We were also served with banana brandy & fritters and snake wine. I didn’t drink the snake wine but I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of it. It was now time to leave; we went back the same route we came.

Overall, I didn’t enjoy my Mekong trip, because all we did was patronize tourist spots which had nothing much to see.

Disappointed as to how the trip was turning out. I still tried to make the most of it. Since I was left with one more night, I went back to shop even more at the night market. I ended up buying beautiful portraits for my room. Feeling very satisfied, I headed back to the hotel to get ready to leave the next morning. Not before stopping to try one of the sweet delicacies; glutinous coloured rice with coconut milk and sugar. It was a sweet way to end my night.

The next morning, I bid farewell to all my hotel friends and left for the airport. If you ask, how I felt about my whole trip to Ho Chi Minh City. Apart from its nostalgia effect on me, I also enjoyed their food and the warmness from the people. But that was it! 

My conclusion, I don’t want my experience in Ho Chi Minh City to affect my overall opinion on Vietnam. Maybe, I went to the boring parts of it or it could have been the extensive research I did before making the trip. Sometimes, knowing too much takes the fun out of appreciating a place, a moment or a feeling.  

Having said that, I truly believe it’s a beautiful country and I will be back again to explore other parts of it.