The last time we were in HCMC was in 2014 and I got pretty sick, and that coloured my impression of it, unsurprisingly. Happily, this time I was able to enjoy it much more and revise my first impressions.
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Saigon
Woke up this morning feeling much recovered from the flu-y bug I’d picked up — thank goodness! I’d hate to waste another day sleeping and feeling sorry for myself, and not seeing anything of Ho Chi Minh City!
We started the morning trying the incredible buffet breakfast at the Intercontinental, which had a spread of various joices, fresh fruit, cereals, hot breakfast items, sushi and some Vietnamese food. The staff were very attentive, and when I hadn’t touched my tea until after I’d eaten, were concerned that it wasn’t a good cup and wanted to replace it! They asked me to fill out a survey, including “what would you recommend us to add to the buffet”, and were very concerned when I wrote down “gluten free bread”. Did I want it right away, or would tomorrow be all right? I reassured her that tomorrow would be fine, so I think they will be scouring the city for gf bread now (or googling for recipes!)
Since we needed a Starbucks mug to add to our collection, we headed out in that direction first up, and found three Starbucks close to the hotel. Yup, the American conglomerates have begun to infiltrate! But at least I got a mug… 😉
One very cool thing we passed was an exercise park – a well-appointed public park with heaps of outdoor exercise equipment. R had a go on a couple of them…
Exercise park
We saw a shopping mall and decided to go in and see if it was any different (no, shopping malls are the same the world over). This one (lucky them) had a school across the road, which had just stopped for morning break, so hundreds of teenagers were racing around the mall. We found a bookshop in the basement which had a few English books, and even had some paranormal novels on remainder that I had to buy – can’t pass up $2.50 books!
While walking, we went past some kind of government building with various war machines out the front – a tank and a chopper at least. I hope there’s more than the tiny padlock on the door keeping this helicopter safe and sound!
Very secure helicopter
Next up was a massage – we went to a lovely place called Temple Leaf, which was reasonably priced and gave a very good massage, including oil, hot stones and a brief Thai-style “throwing around” at the end to crack the back a bit!
A bit of an indulgent day all round, really – lunch was hanging around in the exec lounge for afternoon tea to start – they have teeny weeny macarons! And then after checking out the hotel pool (warm, but not too warm – the only downside is that you have to walk through the fitness room past all the people doing proper exercise) the hotel sent us a cake to celebrate our honeymoon! Awww…
Awww…
After trying out more of the hotel amenities (lounge again, then gym and pool) we started packing for the trip home tomorrow.
And I’m already in the headspace of my next trip, and have been busily booking advance rail tickets for Europe in August! See you then! 🙂
Filed under Vietnam
Mekong Delta to Saigon
Wednesday dawned bright an early, helped along by the roosters, dogs, motor-boats and other early risers…
“pork belly” rice cake
Breakfast was amazing, especially when contrasted with yesterday’s! We had fresh baguette and homemade wild strawberry jam (except me, and I had a great pho style noodle soup), “pork belly” rice cake, which has layers of various consistencies of sticky rice to resemble pork belly, tapioca dumplings, gorgeous little lady finger bananas and green tea and coffee with condensed milk. Amaaazing!
Floating market
We left the lovely Mrs Ten and her family, and took the boat across to see the Floating Market. Unfortunately, it was a lot smaller than we had anticipated, with only a few boats there selling a small variety of fruits and vegetables. The big sellers seemed to be pineapples and sweet potatoes at this point, with the occasional coconut or other vegies.
Herb garden
It was interesting to see these boats though. As well as stringing the washing up across the deck, most had a small herb pot or two somewhere on the boat – obviously fresh herbs are so very important!
Rice paper factory
The next stop was to hop off the boat at a small town to visit a rice-paper factory (literally a sweatshop – really hot and sticky, with people working there for 12 hours a day on the same thing, either cooking the paper, stacking it, counting it, packing it… makes teaching seem very exciting and slack!)
Fish sauce vats
Our next visit was to see the fish sauce factory – ohhhhh stinky. They ferment the fish in great vats in order to get the signature taste of Vietnam… I’m happy to buy it in a nice sealed bottle, after smelling that!
It smelled… aromatic!!
The last stop in the village was at a place which made various sweets – coconut toffee, puffed rice mixed with caramel, black sesame and nut toffee, and a few more, They had a couple of pet snakes here as well, but we weren’t offered a cuddle. T assured me they weren’t just being grown to be pickled in the snake wine!
Coconut toffee
The puffed rice was a pretty amazing process – one guy throws a bowl of rice into a huge wok filled with hot clean black river silt, mixed with a bit of oil, over a very hot fire, and stirs it around until the rice has puffed like popcorn!
Puffed rice
We had a bit of a shopping binge here, with lots of great stuff like coconut wood utensils, the various sweets made in the factory (R bought a pack of the durian flavoured puffed rice snack, of course, while I stuck with the coconut toffees)
Coconut juice
Then it was back on the boat to drink coconuts and head back to meet our bus to drive back to Saigon. By then the cough which had started in the morning had developed into a nice head cold, and I was downing cold’n’flu.
I still had enough stamina to hit the markets with the group when we got back to Saigon, but they were a bit of a disappointment. There were about five shops repeated ad nauseum throughout the markets, with overpriced stuff, much more expensive than elsewhere we’d been. Mental note – next time, buy the souvenir-y stuff in Hoi An or Hanoi!
Last cooking class
Next up was our last cooking class. This was the class that we actually made all of our dishes, rather than just one or two, even though everything was already prepared and cut up for us. We started by making squid salad, then claypot lemongrass fish, then the instructing chef made a “light egg soup”, with tomato and egg and chicken stock.
It was all pretty tasty, but the kitchen was incredibly hot. Given I was already not feeling great, I was completely dead by the end of the night! Instead of joining the others for a celebratory end-of-tour drinks, I had to return to the hotel to sleep. The head cold had seriously taken hold! It seems that I made the right decision though – the group said that where they’d gone, the Rex, was incredibly expensive.
Obligatory cat picture, taken on the way back to the bus
By Thursday morning I’d decided that I was cursed in South East Asia – just like in Cambodia in December, I’d gotten sick! Today was our moving day to the Intercontinental, and basically all I did all day was sleep and down Codral. Feeling a bit better now, so I’m hoping for our second last day tomorrow I’ll be back on track. I have to say, the Intercontinental is worth the price hike – the room is lovely (and we had an upgrade), we can use the executive lounge for evening canapés and drinks, and they gave us a fruit basket and a gift on arrival. Plus there’s a real-sized bathtub!
The view from our room at the Intercontinental
Filed under Vietnam
Saigon to Mekong Delta
An early start this morning, heading off to the Mekong Delta area for a homestay and some local specialties. Unfortunately the hotel, as well as being infested with ants, decided that I’d taken beer from the minibar and also the slippers from the room! It took quite a few denials and T stepping in to convince them otherwise. I certainly don’t recommend Asian Ruby 3 for anyone staying in Saigon. The breakfast is enough to put anyone off, even without the rest – rubbery eggs, raw bacon, soft “crispy” spring rolls…
Uh-oh…
So eventually we headed out on the bus for an hour or two, with only one drama — being pulled over by the police! Apparently our driver had swerved slightly to avoid a pothole, and in the process had driven over the lane line in the road, resulting in a $120 fine and losing his licence for a month! We put the hat around to help out, so hopefully things won’t be too bad for him – $120 is a *lot* of money here.
On the long boat
After a quick convenience stop along the way, we reached the spot on the river where we hopped on our long boat. What a lovely way to travel!
Jackfruit! Not as smelly as its cousin the Durian…
We had a bit of a walk through the fruit orchards on our way to lunch, seeing jackfruit trees, green papaya, and of course pomelo. Interestingly, a lot of the plants in these gardens are in pots rather than in the ground – at least, the smaller cumquat trees etc. Might have something to do with having a high rainfall?
Lunch was at one of the homestay places, which was a collection of buildings on stilts above the river. The food was nice and simple, rice and salad with some meat and spring rolls.
Bonsai garden
The next stop was a bonsai garden, where we tried snake wine (yes, rice wine/spirit sitting in a bottle with a dead snake in it – ewww!) or at least, some people did!
Snake wine
This place also had a pet snake (possibly a carpet python?) as well as the usual dogs and cats, so the more adventurous of us had a chance to pose with Monty, the 35kg snake. Gorgeous!
Monty
Then we were able to take a leaf out of the locals’ book, relaxing in a hammock in the shade while it is hottest… lovely. We are pretty keen to get a pair of hammocks when we get home!
On the sampan
The final activity for the day was to be paddled down to our homestay in small sampans, rowed by local ladies. This was because the tide had lowered and out bigger boat couldn’t get through. Quite a relaxing afternoon.
The river
The homestay was a large farmhouse along the river where the upper level had been converted into a dormitory. There were Western loos and cold showers, but no aircon! Thank goodness for fans, as the weather is still very hot and sticky here. We spent the late afternoon relaxing in the outdoor area in the shade, and then had a quick cooking class to make another form of spring roll, this one a small, thin one which is deep fried.
Cooking class
Dinner was amazing. Like pretty much all the meals we’ve had, we were all stuffed even before the rice came out! We started with the spring rolls, sweet potato chips, and a huge prawn each, and then moved onto elephant-ear fish which we ate in spring-roll style, wrapped in rice paper with lettuce and herbs. After dinner we played a drinking game with the iniquitous rice wine… ick! Too strong and aniseed-y for my taste.
Mrs Moy and her great-granddaughter
We also had some time talking with nearly-80-year-old Mrs Moy (Mrs Ten), who has seen so many changes in the country. It was interesting to find out a bit more about Vietnamese culture, such as how wives must go to their husband’s family’s house, even now, rather than staying near her parents. She said it is sad to have a daughter, because you always know you will lose her. She also mentioned that she was taught elements of Western culture and cooking from the cooperative who oversees the homestays, so that they make the traditional Vietnamese food more appealing to the Western palate. I had thought that apart from putting extra forks and spoons on the table, we were getting pretty standard traditional food, but apparently they tweak it a little to cater to the visitors, such as adding more meat to the dish (Vietnamese people will eat a lot less meat than we do, getting more of their protein from vegetables).
Bedtime was interesting – since we were on the top floor, it was quite warm! We had the fans going, and all the windows were wide open to catch any breeze possible, so we were sleeping under mosquito net canopies. I think most of us were too hot to sleep very well, but we all managed a little sleep once it was cooler in the early hours of the morning.
Filed under Vietnam
Hoi An to Saigon
4am: wake up to get ready for early flight to HCMC
4.05am: realise my tummy is still feeling unhappy after something I ate last night
5am: start bumpy bus trip to Da Nang airport
Good start to the day! After an unhappy flight (I asked the Jetstar attendant for some water just before takeoff and burst into tears at her when she asked me to pay for it, as my wallet was in the roof rack and it was all too hard) we did eventually get to HCMC without mishap.
Reunification Palace
En route from the airport to the hotel, we stopped at a couple of the big sights for a quick photo op – the others were all very understanding of my fragility and made it snappy (hur hur 🙂 )
Outside the post office, looking a little wan
Notre Dame
The hotel let me check in early, and I retired gracefully (relatively) to chew quick-eze and try to sleep my nausea away, while the others headed to the War Museum and the Cu Chi tunnels. And apparently had a go at shooting various Vietnam War-era guns!
By mid-afternoon I felt human enough to attempt lunch, so I ordered what sounded like a lovely bland meal from room service – steamed tofu and mushrooms, and a side of steamed rice. Unfortunately what the menu didn’t mention that it came with a really tasty satay sauce with chilli! I did taste a tiny bit before isolating the blander elements, and it was really good.
The food was what I needed, and restored to health, I had a quiet couple of hours pottering around the hotel doing washing and organising my many purchases from Hoi An.
We tried to have dinner at a local beer hall, but decided to go elsewhere – the music was loud and they turned it louder despite our requests to lower it, the food was expensive and the killer — they had no cold beer! So we headed across the park to a place T recommended which offers some local specialities.
Rice pancake
After a delicious entree of rice pancakes (which were like poached egg-shaped cakes of rice batter with prawns and pork on the top, which you ate wrapped up in lettuce leaf with some herbs, and dipped into the usual dipping sauce of lime, fish sauce and herbs) R had the pork tongue, and I asked for the snails, but apparently they’d run out. I swapped to crab vermicilli in a clay pot, after being assured that yes, they were in possession of crab, vermicilli and a clay pot 🙂
P’s Pineapple Fried Rice
The standout meals were those served in fruit! P had pineapple fried rice, which arrived in a pineapple! T and T both ordered the prawns steamed in coconut juice, so they were presented in a coconut shell!
We head out to the homestay on the Delta tomorrow, so we decided on an early night.
Filed under Vietnam
Two Weeks Away 