The car eased into the left turn directly into on-coming traffic, motorbikes whizzed by on both sides beeping loudly and swerving to dodge our car while a huge bus moved toward us directly ahead. The Grab (SE Asia version of Uber) driver seems completely unfazed and just rolls forward through the three lanes of non stop on-coming traffic slowly making his left turn like he had a green arrow that somehow only he knew about. After about 30 secs we made it through the crazy flow of beeping motorbikes and the car continued on its way to the next intersection and the ominous looking left turn waiting there.
This isn't my picture, but is how it feels most of the time in HCMC
Taking a Grab ride in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) Vietnam is pretty much a microcosm for our week in Saigon. It's such an experience, but leaves you completely exhausted at the end and seeking refuge in some place quiet. The city itself is amazing, filled with wide boulevards, old colonial French styled buildings, impressive cathedrals and opera houses, and long promenades that all come alive at night with what is probably my favorite part about Vietnam… the nighttime lights. It's almost like a different world at night compared to the day. I'm sure part of that is because the daytime temp in Saigon is in the mid-90s F and with the humidity near 80% direct sun felt like it was 1000 degrees. Despite this, we still managed to see a bunch of things during our 7 days in Saigon.
Our rooftop hotel pool at night. Easily the best part of the hotel, which was very mediocre otherwise - Sofitel Saigon Plaza
Friends of the Moonbatz adventure, Cory and Jenny, joined us for this week in Saigon. It was great to have friends to share this experience with given that Kristy and I have now been travelling almost 2 months together including our long road tip from Seattle to Phoenix, so having some familiar faces half way around the world was amazing. Plus, Cory started mimicking some Vietnamese women he saw crossing the street by holding up their arm and walking directly into the onslaught of motorbike traffic, so he saved us some mental energy at each street crossing by taking the lead in the daily game of real life Vietnam Frogger. Besides the crazy traffic, we had a great time in Ho Chi Minh City with Cory and Jenny. Here are some of the highlights of the week in the city:
Did you know that Tet starts the day we fly in?...
Cory texted me a couple weeks before we were set to fly from Chiang Mai to Ho Chi Minh to ask if I knew that Tet started the same day we flew in. Well, no I did not and what is this Tet thing?
We decided to do almost no research on Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon) or Vietnam for that matter before booking the hotel. The timing just worked out that we flew in on the first day of Tet or Vietnamese Lunar New Year. Tet is similar to the Chinese New Year and it lasts for almost a week in which many of the business, restaurants, tours, and bars are closed. It’s the largest holiday week in Vietnam and traditionally a holiday where families come together and return to their hometowns to celebrate. While store and shopping areas can be jammed packed leading up to Tet, in the days directly following New Years (Jan 22, 2023), it was eerily quiet.
We flew into the city on Jan 22nd, and I was amazed by how calm the area around our hotel was. The ride from the airport wasn’t the barely managed traffic chaos I remembered from previously visiting Hanoi, and walking around District 1 could almost be described as a "nice" stroll, although it was still 185 degrees out with 200% humidity (Zach's temp scale). The downside to this momentary peace was that many of the food spots, bars, and tours we wanted to do were just not open or running during this week. The upside was that the Tet flower displays on the main promenade, and around the Opera House were beautiful and prominently featured the Vietnamese animal for the upcoming year 2023, the Cat.
This differs from other parts of Asia that celebrate the lunar new year where it is the Year of the Rabbit. Its seems that no one really knows why Vietnam celebrates the year of the Cat vs the Rabbit like other Asian calendars, although there are some interesting theories: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/21/1150216367/lunar-new-year-vietnam-year-of-cat. Either way, the cats were everywhere and made from some really good displays across the city.
The Cu Chi Tunnels
One of the main activities we wanted to do while in HCMC was visit the Cu Chi Tunnels, and we were lucky that the tour was running during Tet. A remnant of the Vietnam War (The Vietnamese call it the American war) the Cu Chi tunnel system is about 1.5 hrs north of Saigon/HCMC by car or ~1hr by motorboat up the Saigon river (our choice) and is just one small part of the huge tunnel system that the Viet Cong used during the war.
The Cu Chi tunnel system has been turned into a popular tourist attraction, where you can hear about the history of the tunnel system and the use in the war (from the Viet Cong perspective) and go into the tunnels and crawl around. The whole experience was very interesting both from a historical perspective on the horrors of war, and also eye opening to know that people lived in these tunnels for 20 years. We crawled through a 20 meter section and I couldn't even go first without hyperventilating. It was pitch dark and too small to turn around even if you wanted to go back.
Overall while the tunnels were historically interesting, my favorite part was the motorboat ride there and back and our amazing guide Che. He talked non-stop, cracked jokes, and gave our group the "real talk" about Vietnam political system before and after the country opened to more investment in the late 90s to early 2000s. He also has a sister in Seattle that runs a Vietnamese restaurant!... or he did a really good job of selling that story. Either way he was great.
Vietnamese Food, Egg Coffee, and lots of sightseeing
Beep Beep, did I mention that Vietnam has lots of motorbikes? The beeping haunts my dreams! Anyway, while Tet did stop us from doing a cool motorbike food tour during our week there we were still able to see a ton of places and eat a lot of great food. We are lucky that we have good friends like Cory and Jenny that would make the long trip out (Cory), or extend an already long work trip to India (Jenny) in order to spend a week melting in the heat and humidity, crawling through tunnels, eating great food, and drinking amazing beer and cocktails. Some of my favorite moments not already mentioned and places from the week in no particular order:
Homestyle Vietnamese food at super cool spots Bep me In and The Secret Garden.
Egg Coffee and Coconut Coffee at Little Hanoi Egg Coffee, Okkio, and the Mocking Bird Cafe: Mocking Bird Cafe was the top floor of a dilapidated old apartment complex from the period when Vietnam's economy was closed off to much of the world. These old apartments have been reinvented by hip new cocktail bars, live music venues, and cool coffee shops. Called the "cafe apartments" there a few across the city. Okkio is in the most famous one right by Ben Thanh market, while my favorite was Mockingbird Cafe.
Street food Bun Thit Nuong: A simple cold rice vermicelli bowl with grilled pork, spring rolls, and fish sauce. Made on the sidewalk from a little grill. Just sit down and in the little chairs say yes to everything they ask in Vietnamese. So good!
Cool cocktail bars the Rabbit Hole and Summer Experiment: True craft cocktails on the top floor of an old apartment complex down an alley way (like most cool spots in Saigon)
Great craft Breweries: Heart of Darkness, 7 Bridges (Saigon taproom), and Pasteur Street breweries. While Chiang Mai might be the craft coffee spot, Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh especially is a craft beer mecca for SE Asia. Really good breweries that could rival some of the best in Seattle.
Maybe the best food we had in Vietnam, Pizza 4Ps (So good we ended up going to again in Danang a week later.) It was started by a Japanese man fascinated with Vietnam, who loved pizza and thought "why don't we start a pizza restaurant in Vietnam?" They have like 20 locations and all of them are always packed we mostly young people.
That's it for now, we'll have another post soon highlighting next stop in central Vietnam.
