Viet Nam the fourth: Day 1 – HCMC

And we’re back to South Seas Asia, Viet Nam again. A quick 12 day jaunt for me (L has a few extra days at the end as she doesn’t need to go straight back to work) for food, shopping, and generally soaking in the VN vibe.

The day started, as these trips generally do, with the damn early Singapore Airlines flight out of Perth. Our various alarms were squawking at 3.30am, mine being the traditional friendly posh English voice quoting Henry Rollins, “Smile, you’re travelling”. Sadly works every time. Fortunately the packing was done, as a trip like this can be done fairly lightly (enough linen shirts and underwear for 6 days, a couple of pairs of shorts and shoes, toiletries, medications, and electronic devices and chargers). Plus a couple of books, the late Michael Bishop’s awesome novel Unicorn Mountain, and Graham Greene’s VN novel The Quiet American (actually on it’s second visit to VN, as I didn’t get around to reading it on the last trip, one of those classics I keep meaning to read).

Flight was uneventful, which is how I like them. The choice of Korean movies on offer wasn’t great, little in the action genre, more comedy and historical — I tend to be a bit hit and miss with Korean comedy movies, and historical is a bit heavy on less than 5 hours’ sleep. There were a couple of police-action movies, The Roundup and its sequel The Roundup: No Way Out, featuring Ma Dong-seok strolling around and punching people, just the right level for the flight. The meal was the western style breakfast (scrambled eggs and sausages), as the Asian choice was something that, even if it was prepared by an expert, would be a hard sell for me: fish congee. Congee, I’m not much of a fan. I get it, I understand what it’s about, but savoury rice porridge isn’t really my thing. I’ll eat chicken congee if I have to, but fish is possibly taking it too far.

We had 5 hours in Changi, so there was a a bit of time lounging in the lounges, checking out the latest travel retail whiskies, including a 10 year old Lagavulin that I really should go looking for reviews, and L got a Singapore Sling made by a robot, which tasted fine. Changi is well on the way to recovering from COVID, there are a lot more shops open, Lotte have sorted out their duty free spaces and showing a better range than previous visits, hence the robot bartender.

Then it was 2 hours to Ho Chi Minh City, HCMC, or Saigon if your atlas is old enough. Watched a Singaporean film on the plane, What the Heist, a comedy action movie that was a bunch of silly fun. Was exceptionally bemused that the gent sitting next to me, also Australian based on the accent, had brought along The Quiet American for his trip reading. I was running low on conversation points so didn’t ask, but it looks like I’ve stumbled into a cliche.

Then it was through customs and into VN, where spruikers by the dozen offered to sell us SIM cards and order us taxis, but seemed to ignore us after a few “Khong Cam On”, possibly realising either that we’ve been to Vietnam before and know a bit about getting around, or just figuring others looked like easier sells. The driver we’d booked through the hotel was quite amusing, advising us that his car was different, in that he rarely used his horn so it was still in good condition, and also provided a couple of food suggestions.

Down the street a bit they are setting up a stage and sound system, possibly for NYE. It has good bass, the windows rattled for a while, but it seems that we’ve gone quiet for now. Otherwise it’s about time to crash, before a fairly easy morning then a food tour in the evening.