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Vietnam - Week 1

Arrived in Ho-Chi-Minh last week. I know Saigon is not its official name here but everyone calls the city like that, so that will be quicker.

We spent a couple of night there. Coming from Thailand the first impression was quiet intense, much more rough, but also much more vibrant.

Our friend Mark from Toronto is living here since 2,5 years, which was also a reason to come here.

The first thing is obviously the traffic. Hundreds and hundreds of motorbikes going constantly, in a dense and crazy sort of dance. There is no such a thing as walking here. The pavement/sidewalk, or should I call it, the motorcycle parking, is not really a safe place. It is also used as a road when too much traffic, so you really have to watch where you are going.

Mark’s friend Tran had a good way of describing it: “it is a constant bet”.

The traffic lights and crossings are more or less decoration. To cross, you JUST HAVE TO GO. Once you understand this, it is actually possible. Not without sweating a bit of course. From what we can see and what we are told, the city is growing economically really fast. So creatively speaking a lot of cool stuff are happening. A new fancy restaurant on the corner, a cool cafe and design shop, a secret cocktail bar opening in an old colonial building... It is interesting to see how creative things pop out everywhere.

The city seemed to have had always a strong character. “Saigon the hore has been bitten by Hanoi the prude” would say the last Europeans to leave in the 70s after the fall of Saigon to the North.

Well we can have different opinions about this city rushing to catch up time after long years of tight political regulation from the North, but we really liked the texture and energy of this place.

We spent the first day visiting the Vietnamese medecine museum, a small museum in an old house with really gorgeous objects, influenced by many different cultures, China especially. It was really nice to finally see old Chinese looking things, as we could not really see that in China (most old things have been moved or destroyed during the cultural revolution). The museum is in an old house that was transported from Hanoi.

Then we met Mark, who brought us to the cool places, restaurant and bars.‘Saigon is a cosmopolitan city, don’t be afraid to try foreign food.’ He said.And he is right, food was delicious.

Next day, we walked around markets, and went to the fine Arts museum in a huge colonial building, and visit some shops. It is funny because when I imagined what we called “colonial” architecture, I always had Paris, Haussmann style in my head.

But actually, it would more like some sort of palace of South France. Hard to know if we like it, but it is quiet interesting to see! There is a bit of Provence inside, and outside, it is hard to describe. Some of them are refurbished, some not really. The old crappy ones look nice.

Then it was the final South East Asia football cup. We had been warned it would be crazy. Vietnam had done pretty well and people were excited about it. We went to see the match in a bar, nice atmosphere when they won!

So when we got home, we walked on a bigger street, and cheered at the motorcycles starting to go celebrate in the centre...Until the street was COMPLETELY full. It was really craaaazyy. The streets where so full and the crowd so loud, we could not move from where we were. But it was so great to cheer with people, witness this pure happiness. We spent 2 hours on the streets, then tried to cross (which took quiet some time. Actually someone escorted us).

The last day we did all the touristic stuff. Starting with the Reunification Palace and exhibition, which sort of made the job to situate Vietnam historically and politically. The palace itself used to be a political French colonial meeting point to impress and settle in the region, then got partly destroyed and replace during the reunification by this quiet ugly building from the outside, built in the 60s. But then actually the inside was pretty cool. Huge rooms with some sort of James Bond 70s carpet floor style meets suburbs in France and Vietnamese old decoration. We felt we were in some sort of spy movie. (Malthe we think you would have liked it!) Really cool. Then the cathedral, the post office, the avenue... I understood why people did not like the city staying 1 full day in this area. Seriously not the funniest part of the city! Then we ended the day with the war memorial museum. A big collection of War pictures from different photographers, showing the horror of the Vietnam war... In a pretty straightforward way. Torture, killings, malformations due to the orange agent, etc. It is pretty crazy to think that most of the people in their 50s here have lived a childhood of American occupation. After this pretty sad museum, we spent our Last night with fancy Pizza in a beautiful modern architecture and Umeshu in a Japanese Izakaya with Mark.

The next day we took a public bus to Cai Bè, a small city in the Mekong delta.

Bus are even crazier here, which is why tourists don’t take the local bus. But it was cheap and not that bad.

We were staying in a old Vietnamese style house, one of the one you can visit in the region. The guide said the city had not much interest but we actually loved it. The street food was SO cheap (10k for a Bahn Mi or Pho= £35p) so, we ate all the time. We were always full. The region is known to be the “cellar” of Vietnam, producing most of its rice, but especially all the fruits! Bananas, Durians, Plums, Jackfruits, Pineapples, Mangos...More things to eat. We walked and biked in luxuriant vegetation and orchards. We did a tour (not much choice) to go see the main attraction of the city which is the floating market. Sadly because of the construction of a bridge nearby, the number of boats had seriously reduced down. It was a bit sad to see that the tourist industry seemed to have started and then was already fading away a bit. The old houses didn’t seem to host anyone anymore, only tourist groups coming from Saigon for a day at lunch...

So we were alone, again. Ahah.

In any ways we loved being around this place, riding boats in the small canals, going to local markets, eating street food, visiting mushroom and fruits farms.

The Mekong is beautiful and sadly really polluted. People use it literally for garbage, you can see it everyday, people trowing their cans from the restaurant in the river, trash from home... A lot, lot of plastic...It is just not the same definition of what is garbage and where it goes. We have seen ladies in a guest house cleaning really carefully the dead leaves of the trees everyday, next to a pond full of plastic bottles... I was shocked when I saw the first time a girl in Thailand, trowing a plastic bag from the boat directly in the sea, when we went to the island. However it seems Thailand has tried to educate and start on recycling. In Vietnam it doesn’t seem to be the priority yet. It is probably as they always did, but the nature of the waste has changed, making it visible and long lasting. It was the same in China. Too bad when you see this beautiful region which is the Mekong Delta, so intense nature wise.

I am considering buying lands here anyways, ahah. It feels it would not be such a bad thing to retire on a small house next to the Mekong, right?

Today back to Saigon, tomorrow flying to Hoi An.

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