The downtown section is still called Saigon and retains much of its French colonial flair. The French architecture is very well preserved and the streets in the downtown area near the Opera House, Notre Dame Cathedral and Post Office wouldn’t look out of place in Paris with its cafes, bakeries, and tree-lined boulevards. Granted the streets are crammed with motorcycles and bicycles. They just passed a law requiring everyone where helmets so there will be 2, 3, 4 people and a baby on the motorcycle they all have shiny new helmets on! Crossing the street here is not for the faint of heart. You’d never think it was a Communist country that had a devastating war thirty years ago. In the downtown area the streets are pretty clean, not much visible urban poverty, clean shops and tons of brand new skyscrapers and financial buildings going up. In the Rex Hotel for example which was the favorite haunt of the American officers and press corp. during the Viet Nam War wouldn’t look out of place in San Francisco or London with its rooftop bar, jazz club, restaurants and Marc Jacobs boutique inside.
I went to the National History Museum, which reminds me of a really old school museum with dioramas, no air conditioning, no audio tour, etc. I saw a water puppet performance which is a small stage filled with water so instead of the puppets being controlled from the top they have poles under the water. It was kind of cool but the human figures had a bit of an “It’s a Small World After All”creepy factor. We went by the former American embassy, which is now the American consulate and suffice to say looks different than the famous coverage of the helicopters leaving the embassy and the South Vietnamese trying get clamor on or over the embassy gates. Down the street from the embassy is Reunification Palace which the former South Vietnamese president’s house. It looks identical to a 1970s Howard Johnson Hotel. As you walk in right off the lobby which looks just like a hotel reception room are famous sites like the room in from which the South Vietnamese called the surrender of the South to the North. In the underground floors they’ve left much of the rooms as they were in the 1970s with the original war maps on the walls, typewriters, switchboards, the presidential bedroom, etc. It’s definitely a bit surreal especially as you exit the palace. There’s a famous photo of the end of the war of the North Vietnamese tank crashing through the gates of the palace. The “original”tank that crashed through is next to the gate but now the gate opens and closes for the big tour buses to come through. A few blocks down were the tanks had rolled down are a bunch of wi-fi Internet cafes!
That night I went to the night, which is jammed with, stalls selling blenders, jeans, knock off bags, intense, noodles, key chains…The stall owners are aggressive to saw the least. While it’s kind fun to do a few times I definitely wouldn’t want to do all my shopping this way. I ate at one of the street side restaurants which was all locals except us and the food was so cheap and good. I had fresh spring rolls, a coconut shake, a rice flour pancake filled with bean sports and shrimp and a fried rice dish. They had a tank set up where you can pick your fish, lobster, etc. and they also had a string that gave me a panic attack because I looked up and looked at a string with frogs on it that then moved! They were still alive! I didn’t get a chance to have anything made since I was only in Vietnam one day at the beginning and an evening at the end.
On my last day in Vietnam I went to the Mekong Delta in the south. The Mekong River goes through a number of Southeast Asian countries. We went to a bunch of markets and temples though after a while unfortunately start to look really similar and less exotic. We saw rice paddies and it turns out that they really do wear the wide, triangle rice paddy hats. We took a boat ride down the Mekong River and stopped at some of the islands. On one island after sampling exotic fruits and listening to traditional music we took a canoe/boat ride down the canals. They eat fresh pineapple with a salt/chili powder on it, which they think is healthy since the chili makes you sweat. We took a horse down carriage through the town to a coconut candy factory, shops and honey farms. They made this amazing tea drink of fresh honey, jasmine tea and fresh kumquat juice. For my last night I went to a wi-fi café and tried to upload pictures unsuccessfully. I made amazing iced coffee, which is this fancy set up of condensed milk and fresh brewed coffee then poured over ice. I’m really going to miss the food here in Vietnam.
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