Vietnam 3 : A review in pictures

Vietnam was very good to us, and we’re soon headed back to Indo with an overnight stay in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We’re sad to leave the incredible food and friends, so goodbye and many thanks, Vietnam! Here’s a quick review:

Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon):

• French style urban planning and those culinary staples of French colonialism which make me wish the Dutch had better sweet colonial legacies than the Danish, or Indonesia’s bread-with-sprinkles.
• Christmas everywhere in a Socialist country that is 85% Buddhist. Same in Hanoi and Malaysia, so I’m wondering if the Christmas spirit will overtake Indonesia as well..

Ho Chi Minh vs. Christmas tree

• Motorbike city! These traffic jams make me grateful for the aforementioned urban planning (sidewalks and greenery):

• Visited the Cu Chi tunnels, where the Viet Cong would hide guerilla-style during the war, and then the war remnants museum downtown. A must for historical perspective, but very sobering.

Tiny entrance to the Cu Chi tunnels.

Hue (former imperial capital of the Nguyen dynasty):

• We came to Hue to visit two VIA volunteers who directed us to the good places to eat. Real Vietnamese food is the best cuisine I’ve ever tasted, and I’m so sorry if I become a snob about it when I repatriate.

Tomato-based “winter pho.” It’s cold in Hue!!

• Chrissy and I rented motorbikes and went hunting some emperor’s tombs in the countryside. Here’s some scenes from the Minh Mang tomb, a spectacularly restored UNESCO site. Note the heavy Chinese influence and layouts providing harmonious scenery from every angle; the chi was balanced here, my friends. This afternoon was possibly my favorite part of the week, despite our equatorial selves being unprepared for cold and rainy weather.

• Then we boarded a 15-hour overnight sleeper bus, contracted an eye infection and some chest coughs, and woke up in…..

Sleeper bus!

Hanoi!:

• Pastries, wine and DIY spring rolls.
• Visited the preserved corpse of Mr. Ho Chi Minh himself, embalmed in a simple marble room inside a massive concrete tomb. His wish had been to be cremated and spread in South, Central, and North Vietnam, and we’re not quite sure how he ended up on display, so we have some reading to do.

• Wandered on foot (Indonesian: jalan-jalan) around Hoan Kiem Lake at the city center to see old Vietnamese men in their spectacles and berets and dodge ladies walking aggressively arm-in-arm. Same in the city’s Old Quarter and French Quarter.

• We also booked a one-night tour through our hotel to visit Halong Bay, a recently appointed Wonder of the World, to eat, sleep, kayak, and enjoy the views from a large sleeper boat anchored in the Bay. Misty weather made us wonder if the bay’s namesake dragons were really out there, till I found a real one on our boat trying to chomp down on part of Vietnam’s national heritage:

Dec. 4 – Dec. 9: Phu Quoc Island
Dec. 9 – Dec. 11: Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon
Dec. 11- Dec. 13: Hue
Dec. 14 – Dec. 17: Hanoi & Ha Long Bay
Dec. 2 – Dec. 4 & Dec. 17: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Things Vietnam has which Indonesia doesn’t really [in pictures]

Pho.

Pastries (Hanoi), and this is killing me a little bit. Not pictured on the shelf beneath: real baguettes, thanks to France.

Wide, tree-lined boulevards and sidewalks (Ho Chi Minh City) (again, thank you France).

Public parks (Ho Chi Minh City), and/or places to sit quietly in public in general, and/or a climate conducive to spending the afternoon outside.

Jameson Irish whiskey.

Ridiculous Christmas decorations.

Offerings quietly stuffed next to an electrical pole…

….or a bridge.

Guys who try to glue your friend’s shoes back together when you’re not looking.

Kids who sit on chairs propped on their parents’ motorbike.

Stylish but ridiculously unprotective motorbike helmets.

Chinese-style emperor tombs (Hue – this was worth a blog post all to itself…).

Trees that look like this (emperor’s tombs, Hue).

Winter coats (it’s so cold here! Or have I been living on the equator too long?)

Salted coffee (Hue): A layer of thick syrupy coffee, condensed milk, and salt, which you mix together once the coffee drips and serve on ice.

Mi opla (Hue): Eggs cooked on a hot plate beneath a thin layer of a tomato cream, onions, cilantro, stuffed into a baguette and eaten like a sandwich.

Pork!!

Shark meat (Phu Quoc Island). (Yes, i tried it, but i still hate seafood.) (Those who love it still couldn’t swallow the shark liver.)

Egg coffee (Hanoi): Thick, syrupy coffee served beneath a super-whipped layer of eggs. And for that matter, backdrops to enjoying egg coffee which look like this:

I don’t remember what this is called (Hanoi): Crispy egg omelette with pork inside, which you roll up with greens in rice paper and eat like a spring roll.

Public parks, certainly with pagodas in the middle (Hanoi).

Old men who wear berets and sit in the park to contemplate (I love them!).

Toddlers playing tug-of-war in said public parks. Well OK, Indo has toddlers, but still — tug at my heartstrings a little more, Vietnam.

And till December 17…. me!