The address for my hostel was 219/8 Pham Ngu Lao st. If you're wondering what that fraction means, so was I. No such address exists on the street. But on a whim I followed the alleyways and ended up finding it. I guess the system makes sense. I guess. As it turns out I was here too early (11AM) and that they wouldn't have room until 1pm. I figured I'd get a start on the city since Felix would have plenty of time to do Saigon after I leave for home. I asked the staff for a good com tam place (broken rice) and set out. the staff guessed I was from California because i knew what broken rice was and they were like this place is called Com Tam Cali, you'll like it. They gave me a little map with the joint marked and I found it pretty easily. It seems like most of what's to see in Saigon is pretty compact. I got to the restaurant pretty early so I figured I'd check out the market nearby. It was pretty cool and full of just tons of everything included a big food area. I sat down and had some less than clean looking spring rolls that were pretty good and some iced coffee. It's hard to describe the marketplace. Think super clusterfuck for everything you want as far as you can see. Pretty wild stuff.
When I went to the restaurant I ordered a Pennyworth drink out of curiosity and some com tam with shredded pork skin, the pork egg cake, and the fried tofu wrapped in shrimp. The pennywort drink (http://wanderingchopsticks.blogspot.com/2008/02/nuoc-rau-ma-vietnamese-pennywort-juice.html) was the worst thing i've ever had. I think they literally put fish sauce in it because it tasted like crab juice. Literally crab juice. Like in the Simpsons episode where they go to NYC. I killed it just cause they waitress said it was good for me but I wanted to vomit pretty badly. The com tam was good but the portions are nowhere near American sized which is something I was warned about. The pork skin was meatier as was the pork egg cake. The shrimp thing had more water chestnut which is tight. On an interesting note the fish sauce here is waaaaay fishier. Like it's way fishy. It's really super different from nuoc mam at home. Not like bad but shockingly different.
When I finished it was only 12:30 so I figured I'd go for a stroll. This ended up being a 10 hour stroll but let me go through it chronologically ish. Saigon doesn't have auto rickshaws like India. Instead it's full of dudes with scooters who want you to ride on back. I wasn't that keen on it and had nowhere to be so I refused them but literally like 3-5 people a block will ask you. One of these groups after I said no was like well how about this and did the classic sex hand sign (finger through hole made of thumb and index. I found this hilarious and the guy showed me a business card and was like how about her. The girl on the card was an import model from the US named Kaila Yu (http://poohatur.com/wp-content/gallery/import-models-from-the-day/kaila_yu_2.jpg) which was pretty funny. I eventually dodged them by going to one of the many western coffee shops that are now everywhere in Saigon. What's cool is they all have free wifi!
On that note, it's really one of several things that's making Vietnam waaaay more relaxing and easier to deal with than anywhere we went in India. Everything is easier and less chaotic. The traffic is much lighter and everyone obeys the speed limit pretty much. It's hardly orderly by American standards but compared to India's Ihavenocrosswalksandreallyalmostnostoplights it's waaaaay easier to deal with. The AC/WIFI Oasises that he coffee shops represent are such a godsend. When the heat gets to be too much you can duck in to one, use a clean bathroom, cool down, and surf the internet. It makes a huuuge difference. No way I could walk around an Indian city for 10 hours they way I did today. Also there's actually sidewalks here. Most of India requires walking on the side of the street because the sidewalk is either covered in motorcycles or literal flaming piles of garbage. And honestly it's just less loud and less crowded. Here everyone isn't trying to pass each other on the road and as a result the honking is as oppressive. It's still nutty by American standards by compared to India the traffic in Saigon is pretty damn tame.
Moving on, I walked over to the revolutionary museum that was sort of whatever. It wasn't that well stocked and lacked AC or decent fans. Interestingly enough it's a popular spot now for doing wedding photography cause it was a pretty garden out back and one of those classic looking center staircases in the middle of the foyer. Some of the exhibits were interesting for their historiography (how history is written) just for their abjectly political use of terms such as all VC fighters are called patriots in the "American Way of Aggression". I don't deny that there's some truth to this but this sort of obvious politicization of history is something a lot of museums try to avoid despite the political undertones that usually follow any exhibit.
After that I went to the War Museum which was an insane trip. It has tons and tons of really graphic pictures of the war on both sides though with a decidedly "look at what brutes the Americans were" slant. There's insane photos of Agent Orange victims and bomb victims as well as a full scale reproduction of the "tiger cages" that the Diem regime used to hold it's political prisoners. There's also tones of American artillery, planes, helicopters, and tanks that we must have left behind. There are huge exhibits about foreign support for Vietnam during the war as well as emphasizing how much it cost the US in terms of lives and money. There's really great art in there as well as some great exhibits from Japanese photographers. If you ever go to Saigon it should be at the top of your list for things to see. After going through it it's really hard to condone anything the US did during the war. I think we confused an earnest movement for self determination with part of the Soviet plan to take over the world. In any event this is a longer conversation that has no place in this blog but if you'd like me to elaborate we can discuss it at length somewhere else.
Back on track.
Saigon also has it's on Notre Dame which is pretty cool as well as a sweet old school post office. After checking those out I walked all the way to the Southeast end of the pier and then ducked in a shop for some caphe sua da. The guy working there was really excited that I was American and in Vietnam for so long and I showed him a bunch of my India pictures. He called me and Felix handsome which was funny. He also said how Bruce Lee was his hero and some other stuff I can't remember.
After that I had my first pho experience of vietnam and I have to say it was weird and different. The broth was waaay beefier and the meat really had that strong beef taste thats normally absent from pho. The hoisin and spicy sauce were also different as were the mint and basil. It makes me wonder if I've ever really had real pho before today of if this was some weird aberration.
Finally to end the night I figured I'd walk back and on the way in one of the main square on the route there was a huge stage and two jumbotrons set up so I figured I'd sit and see what happens. Eventually I asked this group of two spaniard backpackers and one vietnamese girl and they said it was for the liberty day celebrations. For those of you who don't know, April 30th 1975 was the day the US withdrew from Vietnam and Saigon fell. It's called Black April in the US and Liberty day in Vietnam. Anyways there was a big musical show for free and as the history major I am I really enjoyed seeing how the narrative of Vietnamese history was crafted. It was like a musical basically that started with the Vietnamese fighting of the Chinese in a song, then a traditional dance, then another song about moving the capital to hanoi, then a sort of french song, then a sort of american-y song with soldiers doing balet and then like a vietnam is modern song, then a pop song, then a song about tradition, then a song about birds and I guess the rising of vietnam. I don't speak vietnamese so i have no idea what they were saying but based on the costumes, tone, and images I'm pretty sure I have it right. It lasted 2 hours and was sort of exhausting but you can't knock free entertainment. The dancers were also hilariously off time.
By the start of the show (it took over an hour to get started from when I got there) the two Spaniards had left and I had made three new vietnamese friends with varrying command of the english language. It was really cool talking with them. One of them was from the Mekong Delta, one was from Dalat, and one was from Hanoi. They were all sort of making fun of each other's regional accents and stuff which was pretty funny. The guy from Dalat was a Korean major and was helping Korean companies do business in Vietnam and the girl from Hanoi and the other guy from the delta were econ students at the same school. The girl said she missed home a lot and that her mom calls her once a week but that she can't really call back because the cell phone fees are too expensive.
They talked to me about vietnamese history and about Ho Chi Minh who they called Uncle Ho. One of them was like "he's a great man but had two problems, smoking and bad marriage." we concluded that no one was perfect though.
When I finally got back to the hostel I ended up being assigned to the 6th floor (really the 7/8th) with no elevator. Boy was that a fun walk. The room was cool both literally and figuratively. They folks in there were from Thailand and Seattle and the AC was powerful and awesome.
Vietnam is Dac Biet.
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