First, we wanted to meet a friend of ours who lives there (Tuyet), and second we had to leave Thailand to get new Thai visas, and, of course, neither of us had been to Vietnam!It was great to finally meet Tuyet. We've been corresponding somewhat irregularly (my fault) for about a year. Unfortunately we were only in Vietnam from Monday to Saturday and she works those days, but we did meet several times for lunch and coffee and she was invaluable in procuring us transportation back to the airport (she actually chased down the bus we were riding on, on a motorcycle, to make sure the bus was heading to the airport-- it wasn't so she found us a motorcycle taxi instead). Good times!
The most striking thing we remember about Vietnam, however, is the rain! Now, supposedly we've been in the rainy season here in Bangkok for the last few months. However, that's generally meant it rains every day for a few hours--but often it's in the evening so it's not really disruptive of our day-to-day life.It's also the rainy season in Saigon, but, based on our Bangkok experience, we weren't really all that concerned--or prepared!
We arrived in Saigon in the morning and the rain started on the bus ride from the airport. Actually, strike "rain" from that sentence--it was more like a torrential downpour! However it stopped long enough for us to find our hotel--and then started up again while we were having brunch.It didn't stop.
Our first purchase (besides brunch) was a couple of ponchos--which we almost immediately donned for our walk across town to the Thai Embassy. Luckily, the rain only lasted a few hours that first day and we didn't need to use use our ponchos again.
The next few days, though, the rain started and just never stopped! We needed to return to the Embassy and we kept waiting for the rain to at least slacken off--it didn't! When we finally flagged down a taxi the water in the street outside our hotel was lapping over the sidewalks. In the center of the street motorcycles were stalling out because their engines flooded--it was insane.
This was a rainy season!
We went touring in the rain, walked to the Thai embassy in the rain, walked to the Canadian Embassy in the rain, walked to our hotel in the rain, walked back to the Thai embassy in the rain (yes, we spent a fair bit of time at the Thai embassy!), took motorcycle taxis to a school where we volunteered to teach English in the rain, went shopping in the rain...I think you get the point!
The rain was lovely, but I am quite glad to report that it did stop for the last two days we were there (mostly). That was lucky, 'cause we went out of the city touring that day. We went to the Chu Chi tunnels--tunnels used by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The tunnels were really interesting--they've been enlarged twice, but as still so small that I don't know how people could have used them!As per usual, we have lots of great food memories from Vietnam. We went out for lunch twice with Tuyet and had some AMAZING food. Fish wrapped in thin rice paper, shrimp cakes, Vietnamese pancakes, papaya salad...yum. We also went out with Gavin, a friend from Australia, and had barbecued beef and, while thinking of Obelix, wild boar! The boar was fun to try, but the beef was better. :) The food in Vietnam is an odd mix actually. It's quite Asian in many ways, but there's an odd French influence too. Baguettes and soft cheese, for example, are very prevalent!
Our two most interesting food memories were chicken eggs with partially formed chicks in them and dog (sorry Lindsay!). We bought the eggs off a small street stand down the road from our hotel. A friend from the States, Teddy, was planning to try them so we joined in (see previous picture)! Tuyet helped us buy them, showed us how to eat them, and then laughed at our faces while we ate. :)
The eggs weren't all that great, but, sorry to all dog lovers out there, the dog was actually quite tasty--as long as it wasn't dipped into the shrimp sauce that is. There's a whole street of little local restaurants where dog is the only thing on the menu. Luckily we were having lunch with Gavin who speaks Vietnamese, so we easily ordered some barbecued dishes with pepper sauce. It tasted a bit like lean beef... It was alright! Oddly enough, while the rest of the city has stray dogs and cats, we never saw any around that street of restaurants at all...
