Viet Nam the fourth: Day 2 – HCMC
Another fine day in Ho Chi Minh City. We checked out the hotel breakfast, it was pretty good, plenty of local options and no baked beans nor scrambled eggs to be seen. Highlight were definitely the chicken mince skewers that were wrapped around lemongrass stalks.
L and I took in the sights of old Saigon, including the Notre Dame cathedral (almost invisible behind what must be almost all of the metal scaffolding in VN and draped in christmas lights), the much photographed post office, and a look at the Independence Palace from the outside. Then we headed back to the hotel via the bustling Ben Thanh market, where we managed not to buy anything, though I was bemused at the various attempts to sell me sunglasses as I was clearly wearing prescription eyewear, maybe they thought these cheap sunnies could also cure short sightedness?
Lunch was a delicious beef soup served in a steaming stone pot, hot pot style with plenty of greens, banana flower and rice noodles to dunk in and eat with the various chunks of beef, which in true local style included tendons and other bits. The place was just down the road from the hotel, and was packed with locals when we strolled past a little after 12pm, but was almost empty when we came back around 1.30pm.
From there we took a stroll down to the river, which included bravely crossing the 6 lanes of D. Ton Duc Thang, twice. Some streets, though busy, are generally easy to cross as they have multiple intersections so the cars and scooters don’t ever pick up speed. This stretch along the river however doesn’t have as many points to slow the flow, making for much excitement for pedestrians. The riverfront is also perhaps the longest stretch of HCMC that is essentially free from the various street hawker stalls that are ubiquitous everywhere else we’ve been.
Back at the hotel I finished reading The Quiet American, to which I now have mixed thoughts. On one hand, it’s a poignant allegorical commentary on how first European, then later U.S. interests have made a mess of this region through basically being dicks and not caring about the local population (and also underestimating their resilience); but on the other hand, Greene does this by basically creating two very dickish characters while being unable to craft a decent female character in Phuong. I’m also inclined to think that while Greene may have developed an admiration for the Vietnamese people during the years he spent here, he also spent too much time hanging with other Europeans and Americans, as while The Quiet American regularly breaks into French dialogue, he spends a paragraph describing the traditional ao dai outfit without once using the Vietnamese for it. There’s barely any mention of the local food, or customs, or anything other than dumb things white people do. So while The Quiet American might be 4 stars for Literature, it’s barely a 1 star for inspirational holiday reading. File under White Men Writing About White Men Being Dicks.
If Graham Greene had been able to do the awesome motorbike food tour that we did tonight, he might have been inspired to write a very different book. Organised by Saigon Kiss Tours, L and I had over 4 hours zooming through the streets of HCMC on the back of scooters expertly guided by a couple of wonderful ladies (who were, in fact, wearing ao dais). The first stop was for banh can cua, a wonderfully flavoured thick noodle soup with crab, quail egg, blood cake and crab tofu. While it was a little bit of a struggle getting into position on the very short stool before the very short table, the contortions were worth every mouthful. Next stop was for a palate cleansing coconut water drink, with chunks of coconut and deliciously sweet pineapple, with a garnish of orange rind. Again, it was a low seat, but if there is anything that is almost certain in VN, it’s that a collection of barely 1 foot tall seats by the side of the road is a sign of something delicious. After zooming through some busy Friday night traffic, past the Xa Loi Pagoda and intersection where Thich Quang Duc burnt himself to death in 1963 in protest at Diem’s oppressive campaign against Buddhism, we encountered the biggest ban xeo we’d ever seen. Ban xeo are heavenly pancakes, a batter of rice lour and turmeric, fried to thin and crispy and with the addition of prawns and in this case pork and bean shoots as well. We ate this wrapped in lettuce and with several kinds of greens including Vietnamese mint and dap ca, the herb that smells and tastes a bit like fish. Despite the full sized seats, the food was delicious. The next stop was a bit of a stretching the legs and culture stop, among some apartment buildings in a neighbourhood that was extensively damaged in 1968 and then rebuilt, where we could get up close and personal with such things as local electrical wiring, the thin ramp in the middle of the stairs that allows folks to ride scooters up and down, and how the people live (sometimes pissed off at tours using their apartment buildings). The final stop, following some skilful driving through traffic that would have put any F1 driver to shame (in fact, I’d love to see the Vietnam Grand Prix taking place on the streets of HCMC, complete with dodging through scooter and pedestrian traffic) was for seafood at a little place in District 4. There we had what we think were snails with pork fat cubes (the snails looked like mung beans), clams in a thai-style soup, nail snails with noodles, and, possibly just to prove to our guides that we could do it, fertilised duck eggs, and for me a Saigon beer (snails and beer is a recognised combination in HCMC, just ask anyone). The beer was okay, I kept with just the one as I was getting enough adrenaline from the transport, and they were serving it with a large chunk of ice that could easily sink your average ocean liner.
Our guides were great, funny, speaking excellent English (while I stumbled just trying to remember “you’re welcome” in Vietnamese), and full of good history and insights into daily life in HCMC. Would definitely recommend the experience of Kiss Tours to anyone (apparently the kiss comes from the describing the burn mark you can get if you try to rest your leg against a scooter exhaust). I’d also say this would be a compulsory experience for any angsty English writer with hangups about women and post-colonialism.
A good food day, a good travel day. Tomorrow is looking like an early morning before a quick plane hop to coastal Quy Nhon, where we’ll have a few days eating seafood and generally relaxing.