Last day in Saigon

We finished the previous day off with a lovely Korean meal, which was by far the most expensive meal we've had, but thought we deserved it after getting the blog up-to-date. Ah, those were the days! We decided it was OK to eat Korean since we're not going there; we've been avoiding the temptation of cuisine from any country we are going.

We also discovered that the reason all the travel agents appeared to have moved address is that Joanne was looking at the Hanoi page in the information booklet, which would not have worked at all in most countries, but in Vietnam all the same street names are used in every city, which can be quite confusing when travelling from place to place.

Anyway, apologies for not blogging for so long, but we're now in Cambodia and the internet speed is not generally good at all, it's too hot to sit around on a PC, and it's also a lot more expensive to get online. Anyway, I'll do some now. Also, I've made a wee change: I've deleted all of the places from the map that we've not yet been, so you can easily see where we actually are. I'll update the map before doing anything else. I'll post our intended schedule soon, so anyone who wants to meet up with us in, say, Rio, will know when we plan to be there.

I've built up a few wee observations about Vietnam that I keep forgetting to write about in the blog, so I'm going to try and round them all up now.

The first thing, which I don't think I've mentioned, is that the coffee is really really good. And cheap. It's extremely strong, but very compex and tasty. Even the iced coffee is really strong (we ignore that advice about avoiding ice). Apparently Vietnam is the second exporter of coffee after Brazil and they are very proud of their coffee.

Asians sit on their haunches

Another little thing is that the Vietnamese sit on their haunches a lot. It seems to be the most comfortable, relaxed way for them to stay in the same place, but it looks like knee-breaking, thigh-straining agony to me. Joanne's theory is that their smaller frames makes it easier. People did it in China a bit too, but you see it all the time in Vietnam.

Game played everywhere (note guy's back)

Another couple of things, both captured in this photo is that you often see men playing a board game at the side of the road, and you often see people with circular marks all over their skin; we have since discovered that this is the result of a therapy where glasses are placed all over the skin, after holding a flame in them, and when the air inside cools and contracts it causes them to stick and draw some blood out.

Another weird one is that they seem to lose their cool quite often. We've seen plently of shouting altercations, rising to screaming on occasion. The only reason this is strange or remarkable is I had believed Asians generally do not like conflict and losing your cool means losing face, which is the ultimate fear. Anyway, they don't seem to mind losing face here.

I've been surprised to see lots of Americans here. There were quite a lot in China too, which was also surprising. I would expect them to avoid the great evil of communist countries, but when I asked on American guy about it he just said "No, we love it!" but he didn't seem to want to elucidate. There are also loads of French and Quebecois, which I suppose must have something to do with the collonial links, or maybe indirectly because of Tintin; but definitely more francophones that you usually find on holiday.

The last thing worth remarking on is the wearing of masks. We also saw this in China and Hong Kong. I put it down to disease after we saw an public information advert in Hong Kong advising that you should wear a mask if you are ill. Pietro seemed to confirm this when he told us that they've become very illness aware since avian flu and SARS. However, we have also seen women wearing long gloves that cover the arms and women often hold a book or folder up to shade their faces when riding on mopeds, both of which suggest that most women wear all this stuff to stay white; we were told that "here light skin is more beautiful". One final theory that someone told us is that people who are doing work they deem below their status tend to cover themselves up as much as possible, so that they are effectively in disguise. True enough people selling wares on the streets are often very well covered, but I had put this down to the fact they are in the sun for longer. Anyway, we've been finding it very hot since arriving in Saigon, so the idea of wearing loads of extra clothing is horrible!

For the whole time we were in Saigon there was a wake on the corner of the street our hotel was on. Three days of music pumping out and people sitting around drinking. I thought that it was a young person (and assumed a moped accident) as there was a huge picture up of a young man, but we were told that they have a ceremonial photo taken when they are in their prime, so that they will always be remembered that way.

Grapefruit salad

Anyway we started our last day in Saigon with a cup of tea thanks to the kettle we'd bought the day before. We had tea all the time in China, but none of our rooms have had a kettle since, so we decided it was time to add to my huge pack, although the kettle's not really that big. The great Saigon food continued with a grapefruit salad for breakfast and a custard apple shake.

Water apple (Man Giong in Vietnamese)

Then we headed off to the supermarket in search of (non-whitening) moisturiser for Joanne and pro-biotic yogurts which are meant to combat the digestive damage caused by the doxycycline we were about to start as a malaria prophylactic for the Mekong Delta onwards. On the way to the supermarket I bought what I've since discovered is a water apple; a strange tasting fruit like an apple crossed with a carrot. At the supermarket I got a chance to look for the Vietnamese for fruits I wanted to identify and for some of the herbs that come with all the noodle soup dishes i.e. most breakfasts. On of the herbs tastes like coriander, but isn't, one like tarragon, but isn't, and another one tastes like cinnamon. The cinnamon one was the only one I've been able to identify: Vietnamese Perilla (Tia To in Vietnamese).

Soya and Ginger syrup

When I saw durian crisps at the supermarket, I just had to buy them, even though they were quite dear, after all I hadn't found any real durian.

Jack Fruit

On the way back from the supermarket I saw someone selling strange cups of stuff from a stall, so I had to buy some of that too. It turned out to be hot soya with ginger syrup over it; really nice. Just as we were walking away from that stall I saw someone selling durian, so I bought a small bag of pieces. It was surprisingly cheap for such a delicacy and I didn't notice it smelling quite as much as I expected. Then when I got home I found out why: I had bought jackfruit! Jackfruit is delicious, but I had wanted to try durian.

Fanny Ice Cream (L-R: Anise, Chili Chocolate, Green Tea)

The afternoon was spent following the Lonely Planet walking tour. After all the walking we'd done the day before, we realised that we had already been along most of the streets the tour follows, but we persevered nonetheless, taking in the rooftop bar at the Rex Hotel, where the beer was a ridiculous 60,000 dong. It took us past a couple of nice buildings, past Fanny Ice Cream (snigger) for lunch, where I had one scoop of anise, one of chilli chocolate, and one of green tea; very nice, but again way over our usual budget.

Joanne at the War Remnants Museum

The walk also took us to the War Remnants Museum, where there is lots of captured American military hardware on display, as well as plenty of photo displays. Who would have thought that the Americans would be capable of such war crimes, atrocities, and human rights abuses? Unfortunately we only got about halfway round the museum when a guard told us it was closing and kicked everyone out. A pity, I was looking forward to the gallery of torture by the Americans. They quoted a statistic in the museum, which I cannot reliably remember now, but I think they said that on Vietnam they dropped twenty times the quantity of explosives used by all parties in the Second World War. Anyway, the walking tour finished off at the Sheraton Hotel for rooftop sundowners. The price was ridiculous: we spent significantly more on two (cheap) beers than we had on the expensive meal the night before, but the view was excellent from the 25th floor.

On the way home we stopped off at a food market, which looks like it is in transition from a place for locals to one for tourists only, but it's still fairly cheap and the food was excellent. We had some more of the fantastic Saigon style ("fresh") spring rolls, which are just prawns and fresh herbs and bean sprouts wrapped up in rice paper, steamed, not fried. I think the key is the fresh ingredients, but they always taste exactly the same: delicious. I followed that with a green papaya salad, also very nice, and a sapodilla shake, which is a bit strange: caramel flavoured fruit. As soon as we stood up our chairs were gone as a bus load of Japanese tourists arrived. We passed another market on the way back to our hotel, where I bought some t-shirts. They really think the tourists are stupid. I tried on a t-shirt sized L, which they told me fitted. I said I thought it was a bit small and I'd prefer an XL, which prompted on of the ladies on the stall to disappear into the back with the t-shirt I'd just tried and reappear with a very similar t-shirt with a sticker saying XL fixed over the label. Amazingly it seemed to be the same size as the L.

We rounded the day off by changing some dong to dollars (yuk), as we thought they'd be handy in Cambodia until we could get some local currency. On the final stretch back to our part of town (which is very back-packery, a bit like Khao San Road in Bangkok) we passed a restaurant with Jochem and Marty, and now Marty's cousin, who had joined them. We managed to towns without bumping into them, but clearly they were still following us...

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The Happy Couple on February 19, 2009 from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

from the travel blog: Michael's Round-the-World honeymoon

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