On my second visit to Ho Chi Minh (the last visit was in Oct 06) on 16 Jan 2010, the very first meal I had there was Pho Bong (beef noodles) from a coffeeshop. As you can see from the picture below, a bowl of pho is always served with sides like beansprouts (the white vegetable on the left of the pic) which one can add as much of as one wants to the soup which gives the meal more bite (bean sprouts are crunchy). One can also add a dash of lime and chili to give the soup more taste.
I had a room at The Park Hyatt Saigon facing the Opera House. The room was far nicer than the one at Kota Kinabalu, complete with a LCD TV, reclining couch by the window, a wash basin area with a large mirror, a bath-tub and a rain shower. The location at District 1 is superb ( close to shopping centers and to LV, Gucci etc) and the hotel is new with a very nice swimming pool (small cascading waterfall). The Slog Reviews: 9/10. If I had to foot the bill, I would be USD 280 x (no. of nights) poorer. More of an indulgence than necessity to stay at this hotel. Sheraton which is within walking distance to The Park Hyatt appears to be more popular with travellers because of its lower rates.
A picture of myself at the Park Hyatt's reception area. Mirrors are about the only way to get a picture of myself when I am not travelling for leisure.
1 of us had a brilliant idea and connections of some sort so guess where I had lunch...the casino at Sheraton (Park Hyatt does not have a casino within its premises). And, the complimentary steak which I had was mighty good too - thick and juicy. However, we had to have our meals on a foldup make-shift table next to the jackpot machines as there was only one dining area with just one table. I saw some other punters having pizza and pho but I would think that the steak is the best value. The currency used at the casino is USD.
Below is a picture of the entrance of the city's famous Ben Thanh market. I'd been inside before in 2006 and had no wish to revisit the place again (although it is immensely popular with tourists, esp those who like bargaining). There is an extremely cheap (30,000 VND only) public bus 152 right outside the airport departure gates which takes one from the airport to the south side of this market. From there, one can hail a metered cap to get anywhere in the city. Contrast this to my experience of paying USD 8 for a taxi to Park Hyatt from the hotel (I got a cab from the airport taxi counters outside the departure lounge).
Vietnam has lots of rice paddy fields so it's no surprise that many stalls sell rice. The picture below is my favourite picture of the trip which I took in a market (not Ben Thanh). I am not sure how one can tell the different grades of rice apart really.
I also took the picture below in the same market. A friend of mine posed a very good question - how would ladies be able to try on the undergarments before buying? To that, I have no answer at all. To us, it would look like the female seller is wearing her pyjamas in the day but that is the dressing of the common Vietnamese people during the day. My mother tells me that this was how Singaporeans dressed in the 60s to 70s.
It is common to see scenes like the one below on the streets of Vietnam - women wearing the traditional cone-shaped hats and selling fruits (mangos, bananas etc) on the pavements of the dusty streets. I was told that most Vietnamese men are usually unemployed, drink, smoke and beat their wives while the women go out to work. I have no idea how true that is but indeed there were many women selling all sorts of stuff from fruits to bags to shoes under the hot sun along the road sides. We don't have scenes like that in clean green Singapore. When I go to the less developed countries, I am reminded of how good I have it compared to so many others out there who find each day a challenge to put food on the table for their children.
Most of the streets in Ho Chi Minh look like the one below. There are telephone/electricity wires strung above the ground and the most common form of transport is a scooter/bike/moped. The traffic in Ho Chi Minh is crazy - I usually rent a car/motorbike when holidaying overseas but the safest and easiest way for a tourist to get around Ho Chi Minh is by taxi. Trust me on this - just get a taxi for the first day and observe the sheer madness of the bikes cutting right and left and the cars not following the faded white lane lines on the road. Crossing the road as a pedestrian is a challenge too but a smaller challenger than riding around - all one has to do is to inch forward cautiously when there isn't so much traffic (there will always be traffic) and the bikes will avoid you as best as they can. I wouldn't recommend jaywalking though, especially in Ho Chi Minh - one of the cases I had before was a personal injury case where a motorbike slammed into a woman's legs and broke the bones. Although this happened in Singapore with its first/world class health care, the damage to her legs was ugly and lasting.
I'll end this entry with a picture of a home-cooked meal I had at Ho Chi Minh. The rice sesame cracker (pic on the top left) is eaten with the small clams (pic on the top right) as an appetiser. The main course was pho of course (no one can ever get enough of pho :D) and we had home-made coconut jellies for dessert which tasted pretty much like what you can get in Singapore. It isn't often that one can have a home-cooked meal in a foreign land and despite one of my friends putting it as "From Hyatt to Hovel", I would say that it was a privilege for me part-take and experience in this meal.
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