A long weekend in Ho Chi Minh City

With Chandra having a day off from work,  we took the opportunity to visit Vietnam.   We chose Ho Chi Minh City because the fares were relatively cheap and we have heard many good things about Hanoi,  so we are saving that for a trip with friends.   We are big fans of Vietnamese food and our trip did not disappoint.   It turns out that a lot of the food we are familiar with (pho, vermicelli noodle salads,  banh mi,  broken rice plates,  coconut milk/rice flour pancakes) is street food in HCMC.   Most of this post (and the next one, which details our street food tour) will be dedicated to food.

We arrived in HCMC in the evening of Mid-Autumn Festival.   We ended up taking an adventurous walk through the center of town to a park,  where we knew there was a mid-Autumn celebration.   Here's a short video of the traffic situation - it's a bit different from Minneapolis!

There aren't a lot of traffic lights with crosswalks,  so often you need to cross a street that looks similar to the video.  It's not for the faint of heart...you just cross slowly and confidently and hope for the best :).    We arrived at the park in one piece.  Here is a picture from the festivities:

After the festival,  we walked to a nearby restaurant.  I'm eating noodle salad with a variety of egg rolls and coconut juice.   The first of many good meals!

The next day we started bright and early for a day of exploring. Our first order of business was a few cups of authentic Vietnamese coffee.   We'd seen it on TV many times but never had it.  It was well worth the wait!    Here is a picture of Chandra's first Vietnamese coffee,  at the popular local Vietnamese coffee chain,  Trung Nguyen:

Vietnamese coffee is served using a simple drip filter approach.  Instead of paper filters,  it is a metal strainer (with much bigger holes).   The coffee to water ratio is much larger than drip coffee,  resulting in a rich flavor but only a small amount of liquid.    The coffee can be served hot or on ice,  and traditionally is served with sweetened condensed milk.   The taste is intense and actually tastes like a really rich mocha!   I don't know if they are adding chocolate flavor to the beans,  the flavor comes from roasting or the different beans (robusta instead of arabica) or what...but it is delicious!

We wanted some food with our coffee,  but Trung Nguyen didn't serve western style pastries or breads with their coffee.  So we went a few of their breakfast offerings:  a stir-fried noodle and a noodle salad.   

After breakfast,  we made our way to the tourist center of HCMC.    We started with the Reunification Palace.   

Ho Chi Minh City was the capital of south Vietnam and was called Saigon before it fell to the north Vietnamese.   The Reunification Palace was the home and workplace of the president of south Vietnam and was called the Independence Palace while Vietnam was separated.    It turns out there is a lot of that mixed terminology in Vietnam.   Another case is the Vietnam War,  which in Vietnam is now generally called the American War.    Here is a model of a tank that was used by the north Vietnamese to seize the Independence Palace during the Fall of Saigon:

Here's a sweet 70s style rec room.   You play bridge at the table in the center of the picture, mah jongg in the bottom left corner,  and smoke cigars/drink in the rocking chairs in the lower right corner.   Unfortunately,  I don't have a good picture of the disco room.  

The roof of Reunification palace was a helipad where they evacuated south Vietnamese leaders/staff right before the Fall of Saigon.   

 As France colonized Vietnam for significant portions of the 19th and 20th centuries,  you can see a lot of French influence in the food, culture, and city planning.    There are a lot of French-style boulevards with large round abouts.   Near the center of HCMC is a mini-Notre Dame:

The Opera house is another beautiful building that looks French.

The central post office used to be a train station with a distinctly European-looking architecture.  Many of the markets have a similar type of facade. 

Dinner that night was at highly recommended restaurant (Cuc Gach Quan) in a residential neighborhood in north HCMC.   Some of the highlights were the cute fish pond and lanterns in the front yard of the restaurant,  fresh fruit juices with sugar cane straws,  and sauteed morning glory,  a SE Asian green vegetable.

We spent most of the next day on a street food/market tour.   That will be the subject of the next post. That night we went shopping at the night market for some souvenirs and we had a delicious dinner at the market.

  Here are the kids with their spoils from the  market.  That is a Gangnam style shirt for Paul Eli and a Vietnamese Coffee billboard for Esme. 

Last morning in HCMC,  with more Vietnamese coffee in a cute cafe right outside Reunification Palace. 

Next post:  The Saigon Street Food Tour!