Girls' weekend trip to Vietnam

A dear friend of mine from San Francisco was in Asia for work so we decided to meet up somewhere nearby for a weekend.  After studying a map and seeing what would work, we decided on Vietnam as neither of us had been there.  Turned out we were in Ho Chi Min City (the old Saigon) for the 40th anniversary of what Americans call the fall of Saigon and what the government calls Reunification Day. 

We had a whirlwind trip of just three days and made the most of it.  Despite getting solicited for a bribe by immigration on our way in (Courtney's visa wasn't valid until midnight and we were there at 10 p.m.).  She managed to effectively act like she had no idea what he was asking and get through without forking any money over.  I was glad I didn't have to bail her out of jail for bribing a government official!

Our following morning market trip and cooking class was cancelled due to the 40th anniversary celebrations which meant that we could linger and watch the military parade a bit from our hotel room, wander through the parade grounds and hit the main market on our own in the morning.  The parade consisted of some floats but mainly lots of military people in different types of uniforms marching in lockstep high steps.  There were military propaganda posters everywhere all over the city - they definitely had a very retro look to them and we couldn't decide if they were meant to have that feel or if the government was being earnest in its propaganda approach.  The government made a very big deal about the anniversary (anti-American comments made by prime minister and everything!), but most people we came across didn't seem to think the anniversary was so celebratory.   They were just glad that the traffic was greatly reduced due to the holiday.

In the afternoon, we started our whirlwind "how much of Ho Chi Min can we see in 12 hours" tour.  We were picked up by two super sweet and knowledgeable young ladies on mopeds and off we went (our husbands were a wee bit concerned about our safety after hearing that - but we wore helmets and our drivers were very adept at safely weaving through the traffic although one giant roundabout and all left turns made me a bit nervous!).  We saw lots and lots of the city.  We had a 3rd moped follow us around with a photographer.  So we felt like celebrities with our own paparazzi.  We loved our tour guides - they were perky, optimistic, ambitious and just delightful. 

By early evening, we turned our sightseeing tour into a street food tour (same tour guides) and off we went trying all kinds of yummy (and definitely unique) Vietnamese food.  This part of our trip was  the highlight for me (even if I don't care to eat a baby duckling egg again....).  We went into late at night on this day and got back just in time to see glimpses of the fireworks from our hotel room.

Up bright and early the next day for a boat ride, war tunnel tour and countryside bicycle ride.  Courtney lobbied for getting breakfast at the hotel before we left but I pooh-poohed her concern and said we would get breakfast on the boat.  I should have followed her advice as going for a 1/2 day bike ride on a bad sandwich and diet coke wasn't our best move.  But we rallied.  We saw the Cu Chi Tunnels after our 2 hour boat ride up the Saigon River which was beautiful.  The Tunnels are where the Viet Cong hid and did their guerrilla warfare against the US and South Vietnamese soldiers.  Our guide warned us about the documentary they show there - he said it was pretty anti-American and he was right.  Our time there was very sobering - realizing that we were standing where so many people fought (and what we only know about from books and movies).

After seeing the tunnels, we hopped on bicycles for a country tour through the rice paddies and villages.  Our tour guide for the tunnels and the bike ride was just the opposite of our two tour guides the day before - surly, a bit grumpy and definitely not a fan of Americans.  His parents fought on the northern side and saw some bad stuff so I definitely understand where they are coming from.  He just took off on his bike and pretty much left it to us to keep up with him. We didn't get much of a description of what we were seeing either.  But the exercise in the humid spring weather and seeing the countryside was a lot of fun and seeing someone slaughtering rats (yes, for food!) was something we didn't expect to see.

Our van broke down (in the fast lane!) on our way back to Ho Chi Min so we had to scramble to get into a hailed taxi to get us back to our hotel.  We dined at one of the nicer traditional Vietnamese restaurants that night which had a wonderful ambiance, but... the food, while certainly yummy, was really not nearly as good as the street food we had the day before (and which probably cost a tenth of the price!).

The last day we spent the morning at the War Remembrance Museum (which had me in tears...), back to the market to get gifts of Vietname coffee and then to get Courtney into a taxi back to the airport.  My flight wasn't until hours later so I was able to squeeze in a wonderful afternoon at a cooking class.  I needn't have worried about going on my own - our group really bonded and we had a fabulous time cooking and eating some more amazing dishes.

A super, super quick trip but such fun with Courtney. Jake and the girls held the fort down over the weekend just fine!

40th Anniversary propaganda posters and billboards all over the city

Many streets were decorated for the holiday

And lots of lights at night

Off we go on our mopeds - that's me!

The southern Vietnamese like their sweet food - this is Vietnamese coffee dripping into sweetened condensed milk

The city was better off with us *not* driving!

We zipped through a lot of "streets" about as wide as we were

In front of the old post office

Notre Dame cathedral

Our 2nd (of 4!) Banh Mi sandwiches - traditionally served for breakfast but this street food version was the best of the bunch that we tried (has meat, cucumbers and pickled vegetables, mayo - kind of French/ Vietnamese mixture)

Lighting a prayer wick at a Buddist temple.  You light the bottom of these Christmas tree shaped incense twirls and it takes a week for them to burn up the spiral

All the others incense spirals burning

Lovely, green and lush city

Market wares

Lots of raw meat at the market

The ample raw meat at the warm and humid market made me think that these made a safer purchase option!

I can't remember what this fruit was called but it was delicious.  We tried so many types of fruit that I had never had before.

We saw so many food carts on these motorbikes.  We also saw people driving these mopeds one handed while holding a tray with full bowls of Vietnamese soup (Pho) on them.  They probably didn't spill a drop (I never had my camera handy when we saw them).

Us threatening to drive off with the moped (our drivers made it look so easy to zip around the city on these!)

But we decided to stick with our experienced guides.  We had these guides for something like 10 hours and at one point I asked them if they were mad that they had to work so long on a holiday and they cheerfully replied that working with us wasn't like work, it was like hanging out with friends.  We thought it was probably more like hanging out with fun aunties (these guides were quite young - in their early 20s) but we liked their description!

The first course of our foodie tour.  Papaya salad with some kind of dried/ smoked meat.  This woman has been selling the same one dish off the same corner for 25 years.  They were all very proud that she had sent her son to college in the U.S.

"Real" street food as we dine on our salad on the sidewalk.  It was delicious but a little spicy

Second food stop (and we got to to help make them!) - crispy pancakes with pork, shrimp and bean sprouts cooked in an eggy batter.

Then we wrapped them with lots of greens and herbs before wrapping them in dried rice paper - some had a very pungent flavor.  This dish was delicious, too.

You can see the dried rice paper in this photo and how our pancake and greens are wrapped inside like a crispy spring roll (I didn't know you could eat rice paper without softening it in warm water).

Ok, this is where we (I!) are digging into the "I can't believe I ate that" moment

Cheers with our egg cups

Sipping the egg juice (I thought Courtney was with me all the way but she confessed later that she just pretended to sip!).  After I found out what it was, I realized once again that I was traveling with a smart, smart lady.

Eating my baby duck egg.  14 day old duck egg.  I just thought it was a variation on an egg.  I ate about a 1/3rd of it.  It was egg like with a white park and a darker part (that wasn't particularly yellow).  All with an egg-like texture but very rich.

And... then... our guide pulled *this* out of her baby duck egg.  NOT AN EGG that I ate....  Yikes.

On to happier and less stressful food items.  3rd stop was famous for quail wings.

4th stop was this amazingly delicious crab curry-like soup dish.  This was the best item of the night.  I'm pretty sure I could have licked all the bowls clean of this.  Wow.

Digging in and getting very full

Dessert (5th stop).  This was kind of like a snowcone on a plate with fresh fruit.  Very light and refreshing.

Two other desserts - the one of the left was a green tea ice cream with these delightful little jelly-like balls and the other was a coconut with a clear gelatin inside.  All very yummy (but we were so full at this point we could only nibble).

The end of the night with our wonderful guides from Back of the Bike tour.

Next day on a boat heading up the Saigon River.  The river had all these green plants floating down the river.  The boat driver would avoid them if he could but sometimes they were so thick we just barreled right through.  It would then gum up the rotor and then he would have to put it on reverse to spit out all the plants from the propeller.  You can see the path through the plants on the right that we just made with our boat.

Villages along the river.  We also saw people with baskets in the water collecting something (clams maybe?)

The plants our boat had to go through

He is demonstrating how they used camouflage to hide the tunnels.  Now you see him....

.... now you don't

Damaged US tank.

They had all these torture whole which would pierce you if you fell it.  They looked awful....  Also it didn't help that they had a shooting range at this place so you also heard the pop-pop-pop of automatic weapons...

They deepened the tunnels so that tourists can fit (they were originally very small).  Courtney made it down for this photo and then decided to go up and guard the opening to make sure that I emerged - she wasn't sure she trusted our surly guide who didn't seem to like Americans very well on this anniversary of the war (what a friend!).

My legs were very sore after hobbling the 50 meters or so to the other opening

Made it!  They also didn't have nice metal stairs for the original tunnels either

Bike ride time!

Rubber tree grove

Rice paddies in the background.  We didn't take many photos on our bike ride as we had to pedal, pedal, pedal to keep up with our guide who wasn't too inclined to show us much.  "Are those the rice fields?"  "Yes" V-e-r-y informative (and so different from our experience the day before).  Maybe he really was ticked to have to work on their national holiday???

Cooking school!  First course fried spring rolls

We got to use this fun tool that turned some kind of green vegetable (I never was good with details...) into a soft ribbon like shape that curled when it got wet

Preparing the 2nd course salad with quail eggs

2nd course

3rd course - crispy noodles with a delicious sauce with vegetables