I take it back – Vietnam had the best food. I realized it when I got back to Vietnam and had a lot more food options.
When I was hanging out in this restaurant after my dinner, two groups of guys walked in, sat down, and ordered vodka and chicken feet. Chewing on chicken paw must be a popular late-night snack for guys just trying to have a good time. Gather ’round the good stuff.
For a very long time in Vietnam, I couldn’t find any ice cream. Then, in the South, and especially in the Mekong Delta region, lots of ice cream. Ice cream man in his ice cream motor scooter – I waved him down to stop when I saw him (Kem on the side). Really cheap and pretty good most of the time. The ice cream tasted more like ice than cream, and sometimes it came served in a bread roll – creamy and in a cone is much better.
Cycling in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam was great. The roads are fairly quiet and lined with hammock rest stops, it’s flat, the people seemed less inclined to rip you off (prices were even cheaper than what I came to expect), and there’s lots of bridges, boats, and water.
The air smelled salty and fishy. Drying food along the road was common in Vietnam, and in the Mekong Delta, drying fish was very common. Every day I got really dirty from truck exhaust from cycling on the road — I wonder if these dried foods get encrusted with black spices.
I took some secondary roads, and it mostly paid off. I cycled through quaint villages on quiet roads, but sometimes the road turned to rubble, which made me work hard.
Welcome to my lair, population: 1, activities: remove layer of grey from skin, scrub stinking clothes in the sink, watch HBO, and pass out.
I actually got this meal in North Vietnam, but I forgot to include it in the blob. The lady brought out a little of everything. The meat-fat pie on the right was bad. It was chewy and cold. The little onions at the top were delicious, and so was the pork and eggs. She also brought out a heaping pile of bok choy, which was plentiful like the rice.
After eating too much Pho in the North, I really got into the Vietnamese sandwiches in the South. Banh Mi stalls were set up all along the road when you’d go through a town. The ingredients were on display, so you sort of knew what you’d be getting. I would point to a meat, or eggs, and then the lady would do the rest. She’d usually ask me if I wanted other particular ingredients, and I liked to skip the hot peppers when I could.
They were typically 10,000 dong ($0.50 USD), but a few times, the lady was too honest and charged me only 8,000 dong ($0.40). I really liked these for breakfast with egg. The bread would be warmed over a charcoal fire, and the egg would be fried. The baguette bread was really tasty.
I spent 3 days in Saigon. I liked the city a lot and it was cool to stay in Charles’ apartment instead of some hotel or hostel.
I did some touristy stuff. I went to the Reunification Palace which I remembered from war movies – you know that footage where a helicopter is on top of the building and it’s overrun with people trying to get out. When this place got taken over by the North, it marked the end of the war – the Fall of Saigon. Visiting it was pretty boring though.
I went on an organized tour to visit the Cu Chi tunnels (yeah, “coochie”). The idea of this large network of tunnels underground that the Vietcong used for living in and for attacking the Americans is pretty awesome, but I didn’t get a whole lot out of visiting them. Plus there was a really annoying American guy in my tour group who thought he was really interesting and had a question about everything, like he spoke for the group. And his wrist was stacked with bracelets – very free-flowing, wannabe, Southeast Asia tourist. The booby traps were cool though.
I think the best tourist thing I did in Saigon was to visit the War Remnants Museum. I already wrote about it in the Aftermath of Agent Orange post, but it was really eye-opening to see photos of the war – some really gruesome ones I’d never seen before. Did you know that three Americans burned themselves in protest of the war?
I needed a shave so Charles brought me to this massage place because he and his friend wanted to get facials there. I wish I had had the courage to take a photo of this place. It was packed with beautiful Vietnamese girls wearing bright-red skimpy dresses and looking bored. Their boobs were busting out, and I felt nervous walking in. I felt my heart beating faster. While Charles and his friend got worked on by these girls, I was assigned a guy to shave my face.
On Valentine’s Day (it’s celebrated in Vietnam too), I went out with Charles and his friends to a club named Lush. We got a plush table with bottle service. Totally not my style but I guess you have to be a little showy in Saigon. I noticed a lot of older white guys there with young Vietnamese girls. That’s pretty cool.
Yeah, I know this photo sucks.
In between my meals at KFC and Pizza Hut, I went to some authentic places to eat.
We had some chicken wings and this crepe with shrimp, egg, and sprouts. French influence with a lot of Vietnamese modification?
That’s Charles.
Charles’ apartment where I spent some time recovering and eating.
Zip-locked napkins from the delivery place. Now I wouldn’t dream of using a napkin that didn’t have an airtight seal.
The view of Saigon from Charles’ apartment.