SOUTHEAST ASIA 2024 DIARY---FEBRUARY 12 to 15, FROM SAIGON TO THE MEKONG DELTA

My husband and I spent a little over 6 weeks in Southeast Asia this year—Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand—from February 12 through March 26.  We began in Vietnam, and this post shares some of the highlights of the trip, starting in Ho Chi Minh City (fka Saigon) and continuing to the Mekong Delta.  The rest of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand will follow in future posts.

In case you’re thinking of going to Vietnam, here is some useful information.

·       If you are a US citizen, you need a visa, good for 30 days.  You can get one online:  https://evisa.xuatnhapcanh.gov.vn/khai-thi-thuc-dien-tu/cap-thi-thuc-dien-tu

·       Check with your doctor on what vaccinations you may need.

·       On arrival in Saigon, we bought Airolo eSIM cards via their app that were valid in the three countries we would be visiting.  They were super cheap and worked perfectly.

·       We booked all our accommodations and ground transport before we left Berlin through Booking.com.  It was surprisingly easy and we had no hiccups.

·       We traveled by train from Saigon to Hanoi along the coast.  Vietnamese trains are reliable and on time, if a bit old—they still use the tracks and stations built by the French in the 1800s.

·       We used the Grab app for cabs.  That can be tricky unless you can identify your location—in Vietnamese!

·       We used 12Go.com for train and van reservations. 

·       We used Get Your Guide, Guru, and Viatour to book tours.  We don’t usually use guides, but given the language/signage barrier, they were essential in the Mekong Delta, Hoi An, Hue, and for Paradise Cave in Phong Nha Ke Bang.  The guide quality was uneven, but it was better than going it alone.

·       We used Lonely Planet Guide to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, & Northern Thailand.  It’s a pretty decent guide book, but there may be better ones.  This was the best one in English available at our local bookstore.

·       We also downloaded from the Internet all the places where Anthony Bourdain ate in Vietnam.  (Heh, heh, heh!) 

Here is where we went, what we saw, and what we did on February 12 through 15.

FEBRUARY 12, ARRIVAL IN SAIGON (nka HO CHI MINH CITY)

We arrived in Saigon on one of the final days of the Lunar New Year, known as Tet.  Lonely Planet said lots of places would be closed for the week-long holiday and to expect a deserted city.  If what we found on arrival was deserted, I’d hate to see Saigon at full capacity!  

We splurged on the Hotel des Arts-MGallery for 2 nights, using Accor points.  (We usually book with Accor because they accept cats.  Not to confuse you, the cats were not along for this trip.)

Hotel des Arts is a luxury hotel, right in the heart of Saigon, with the best breakfast buffet you will find anywhere (if you can call cooked-to-order omelets, Pho, and hand-made dim sum dumplings buffet food). https://www.hoteldesartssaigon.com/    

The main attraction of the hotel was its location—and its rooftop bar.  You can (and we did) walk to all the major tourist sites from the hotel.  As we’d checked in quite late, we dropped off our bags, turned on the AC (Saigon was still about 30°c with 90% humidity at 11 p.m.!!) and went up to the bar, where there was a DJ and an extremely well-turned out crowd.  It was rockin'!  Saigon is a modern city.  During Tet, its office and residential towers were illuminated in a colorful, pulsating,  programmed light show. 

FEBRUARY 13-- SAIGON MAIN SITES AND FOOD TOUR BY NIGHT

The next day we visited the main tourist sites on foot.  As illuminated as it was by night, by day Saigon was bedecked in fabric flowers, a riot of color during Tet.

First stop, the French Empire-style City Hall, with the obligatory statue of Uncle Ho (as they affectionately refer to him) in front.  He was everywhere in Vietnam, along with exhortative Communist Party posters, which took a little getting used to. 

 Next up, the Post Office, with the obligatory photo of Uncle Ho.

People had gathered in the plaza out front, dressed up in traditional clothing and taking photos of each other—apparently the big thing to do during Tet. 

Then on to the War Remnants Museum.  I took very few photos here, as it was unbelievably upsetting to see the horrors of the Vietnam War, which the Vietnamese call the American War, from the "enemy's" point of view.  I have never felt so ashamed of my country.  It was a very sobering experience and something to keep top of mind as we witness the destruction of infrastructure, devastation of farmland, and mass killing of civilians in Gaza and Ukraine.

Particularly upsetting were the photos documenting the ravages of the defoliant Agent Orange we Americans used to destroy 25% of Vietnam's vegetation (25%!!).  The effects of this chemical warfare--a war crime--are still showing up today in utterly grotesque birth defects.  I took no photos in this part of the exhibition.  It felt obscenely voyeuristic to do so, a further violation of the already-violated. 

 

I did take this photo of a tiger cage, made of barbed wire and so small a prisoner would lacerate him- or herself by moving.  These cages were "invented" by the French to subdue the colonized locals.  Years later they were used by the formerly colonized locals to imprison their own people-- captured Viet Minh soldiers.  This was done with the full knowledge--if not at the direction of--the US.  No, there are no bounds to man's cruelty to man.

After this horrific lesson in recent history, we were glad to have booked something fun:  a food tour by night on motorbikes, with local guides.  We set off to parts unknown with two guides, who brought helmets for us.  Downtown Saigon was absolutely jammed with cars and motorbikes, and the exhaust fumes were dizzying.  Still, it was a total rush to weave through traffic and zoom around Saigon and quite frankly a relief from the unrelenting heat.  Our guides took us on a 3-hour tour of the city, starting with a neighborhood restaurant for a special soup served only during Tet.

Side note:  napkins in Southeast Asia are the same as Kleenex and toilet paper.  Don't ask me.

Then it was on to more street food; this time, Banh Mi, a sandwich served on a baguette, and always containing pâté if it's the real deal.  I wasn't expecting much out of the baguette, but I underestimated the enduring French culinary influence.  It was legit!

Satiated, the next stop was a memorial to Thich Quang Duc, the Buddhist monk who on June 11, 1963, drove his car to this busy intersection in downtown Saigon and then immolated himself in protest of the American War.  Incense and a prayer rug were available to those who wished to pay their respects.

The whereabouts of the monk's charred heart are debated, but his car is preserved in a museum in Hue--we saw it. 

Thankfully, it wasn't all gruesome that night.  At the end of our tour, our guides took us across the river to a new chi chi residential high rise development set in a park along the river.   It was late.  It was hot.  And people were out. 

FEBRUARY 14 -- CAN THO, MEKONG DELTA SUNSET TOUR

On Valentine's Day, we took a van south to Can Tho in the Mekong Delta.  

The drive took about 4 hours and we stopped at a restaurant/supermarket along the way where our driver had a quick lunch

 and we used the facilities.  Insider tip for the ladies:  Never ever travel without toilet tissues!

We had booked a sunset tour of small canals on the Mekong River that evening via Booking.com.  Our guide was An Tran +84923882260, and she was great.  Our oarsman was a local woman who skillfully rowed us for about 3 hours through the smaller, quieter waterways branching out of the Mekong, stopping among the mangroves where the incoming tide lapped at the mangrove roots, and serving us pineapple and pomelo along the way.  An explained that because the women do the cooking, they also do the marketing, and because the markets in the Mekong Delta are floating, women learn to row.  

 

Our tour with An included a visit to the Can Tho night market, which was thrumming on this last night of Tet.

An took us to street vendors she knew and whom we would likely have missed on our own.  Among them was this woman making red mung bean and sticky rice sweets, served like a sandwich between rice flour galettes.

We also bought a kind of Mekong taco from this man, cooked over a brazier.

And we had a second dessert made by a woman making traditional coconut crepes out of rice flour and finely ground coconut, cooked in a wok. (Sorry about your head, ma'am!)

An said the making of this sweet is fast becoming a lost art, but it looked to me as if the locals won't let the tradition die.  (By the way, four on a scooter, while not legal, is standard.) 

FEBRUARY 15 -- CAI RANG FLOATING MARKET TOUR

At 4:30 the next morning, we met Edward Kenway +84877603084, our guide for the sunrise tour of the Cai Rang floating market we'd booked via Booking.com.  Again, our oarsman on the Mekong was a woman.

It was pitch black when we pushed off from the dock, but the day dawned clear and warm.

Everything under the sun is sold from these boats, which might seem unseaworthy, but they're durable and serve both as home and selling space.

Our sampan pulled alongside another sampan where a woman made us a savory breakfast of barbecued meat and rice, served with fish sauce and chilies.  Delicious!

This woman was selling Vietnamese coffee with condensed milk. You can drink it hot or cold; we opted for hot.

Our sunrise tour included a visit to a small "factory" where rice noodles are made from scratch the old-fashioned way.  To get there, we traversed some small canals, which were choked with water hyacinths and plastic--enormous quantities of plastic.  Here are Edward and our oarswoman, steering with her foot.

 

The occasional Buddhist shrine and hundreds of tin-roofed shacks appeared along the river's edge. 

It seems that every home has an altar honoring the family's ancestors.

The rice noodle factory was an open-air, family affair, using traditional methods to mix, cook, dry, and cut the noodles.  Tapioca is added to the rice flour to give the noodles the right consistency before the batter is poured onto iron plates heated by a wood fire.

After cooking, the rice discs are placed on straw mats and left to dry outdoors in the sun.  Some restaurants had placed special Tet orders for noodles in pink, blue, and green.

The dried rice discs are cut into strips on a hand-operated machine that reminded me of the washing machine mangle my grandmother had.

On the way back to Can Tho, we visited a family who live on their boat with their two young daughters. 

Amazing how little space you need, and how you can cook, do laundry, sleep, and send your kids to school--all on the water.

  

Amazing, too, how this woman could be so happy after rowing four people around the Mekong River for about 5 hours. 

 

We asked Edward for a lunch recommendation, and he told us to go here and order the combo plate, which of course we did.  The waste baskets are ubiquitous in these restaurants and are where you deposit your toilet tissue napkin, which falls apart almost immediately.

Here's my husband rolling one.

After lunch, we caught a cab to the van pick-up point in Can Tho and made our way back to Saigon, where we checked into a new hotel in a new neighborhood.  To be continued....

Keep it real!

Marilyn