Saigon, Ho Chi Minh to tourists

Our life of peace and serenity in Hoi An, Vietnam was once again about to take a turn back to the chaotic world of Vietnamese urban life. We had planned, and tried to book train tickets from Hoi An to Saigon, which was the old but very much alive and commonly used name of Ho Chi Minh City. The train in Vietnam was something that I really wanted to experience, and I had all but convinced Hannah that it would be an enriching experience. The name "Reunification Express" just sounds like something you have to do, at least that was my argument. The journey by train from Hoi An to Saigon would take at least 20 hours but we were prepared to accept that fate. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones with that plan. All sleeper coaches on the train were sold out for days before and after our required departure and rather than sit upright in a cattle car for 20 hours we decided to make other arrangements. Luckily (for Hannah) flights from Hoi An to Saigon were inexpensive and quick, so that became the new plan.

We arrived Saigon without issue and our awaiting car took us to the center of the Saigon expat and tourist activity, District 1. We were immediately ambushed by blocks and blocks and streets and streets of literal chaos. Bars and clubs blared, restaurants (mostly makeshift or street food stands) bustled with activity. The Vietnamese seemed to take many things from their French influences including baguettes, smoking way too much, and setting up chairs in one direction along busy streets so patrons can sit, smoke, and drink while watching the chaos on the street pass them by, which is why Saigon is commonly referred to as "the Paris of Asia."

We had booked 2 nights in Saigon in District 1 at the Beautiful Saigon 3 Hotel; in case you are wondering there are indeed at least another 2 of them. We didn't want to overbook our stay in District 1 as we had heard that it could be a crazy place and we thought we may want a bit more of a local scene during our stay in Saigon, so we left ourselves the option of booking the final few days elsewhere....which would turn out to be one of our trips missteps. Entering the Beautiful 3 we were indifferent...nothing to rave about but nothing to complain about. We didn't notice until the following morning that there were no windows at all in the hotel room, and we never thought to look or ask. We soon realized how much a window changes a hotel room. We would wake up each morning and have absolutely no idea where we were, what time it was, if we had missed the day, or we should just go back to sleep.

We dropped our bags and in the true nature of squeezing every bit of excitement out of a night in Saigon I convinced Hannah that we MUST IMMEDIATELY head to the Saigon Night Market. Night Markets in SE Asia were a staple of every city we visited. We were beginning to realize that you can transplant a Luang Prabang night market in the middle of Bangkok, and staff it with vendors from Saigon and it would be exact same market. They are all selling the exact same Chinese made trinkets and T-shirts. The only major difference is that the beer T-shirts have a different brand of beer imprinted on them. Hannah was in no mood for a night market and as soon as we arrived I realized that neither was I. We lasted 10 minutes and headed back to our hotel's busy street (which was getting progressively crazier) for our first Saigon street food experience.

 We sat down at a decent looking Pho Bo Vietnamese Beef Noodle Soup stand and in 3 minutes were served an amazing bowl of Pho by the sweetest mother (~70 yrs old)/daughter (~50 years old) pair. We loaded up our bowls with hot chili, bean sprouts, and basil and went to town. At that moment Hannah and I both had a silent agreement that we be eating at this soup stand at least once a day. We hardly noticed that directly behind us was a bar that, like most bars in Saigon's District 1, was also a brothel.

 

We spent the following day wandering around several of Saigon's neighborhoods, checking out a few of the sites, but mostly just enjoying the diverse parts of the city. We were very impressed with Saigon, the Western and French influences were very prominent. The streets in many areas were wide with sidewalks that were comfortable to walk on, unlike Hanoi where it was probable to get killed (or burned) by a moped even when on the sidewalk. There were high end areas such as the Dong Khoi neighborhood that were reminscient of 5th Avenue in New York with a combination of high end shopping as well as plenty of opportunities to buy Mark Yacobs bags or Louis Wuitten purses. 

As you walked down these ritzy streets we were continuously offered manicures and pedicures by girls handing out flyers. We are quite sure that all Westerners look alike because it was not uncommon to pass by and say "no thank you" to the same person 5 times but still have them attempt to hand you a coupon. I began telling them that I just had 3 manicures and couldn't possibly have another, but they still insisted. Walking through the rain we were insistent on finding a local beer joint but we somehow ended up on top of the highest end bar in Saigon having 12 glasses of $12 wine. Sometimes it's hard to be a tourist.

Much as we have loved every other Vietnamese city that we visited, we also loved Saigon for many of the same reasons. We rarely found ourselves eating at a restaurant in Vietnam. Our meals were almost always grazing on street vendor foods as we walked around town. We did find a great restaurant through our brother in law Eric which happened to have locations in both Hanoi and Saigon called Quon An Ngon. We ate there twice in Saigon toasting Eric both times, but everything else that we had worth mentioning was at a roadside stand.

 

After 2 nights in the crazy District 1 of Saigon Hannah and I were looking for a more local, less touristy scene. We did our normal extensive due diligence and decided it best to stay at a hotel located in a neighborhood further out of the center. As the taxi drove us to the hotel we tracked diligently on Google Maps. We were a bit surprised and unsure what was happening when the taxi passed the hotel, or what we thought was the hotel and continued driving for another 20 minutes. We finally arrived at the hotel and Hannah and I both looked at each other with that common unspoken phrase, "have we made a huge mistake?". The hotel was not only 20 minutes by bus from anything that we'd want to see or anywhere we planned on going, but it was also accessed by back alleys. As we walked along the alley to get to the hotel chickens roamed freely on the streets, the screen doors of the local homes were open and the residents laid in plain view on mats on the floors, and women sat in the streets washing dishes. The hotel itself appeared to be very nice, and the hospitality of the manager was very welcoming. We explained the truth, Google Maps had told us the hotel was 20 minutes closer to the city center, and this probably wasn't going to work for our 3 nights remaining in Saigon. She was fully understanding, refunded our money in full, and within 30 minutes we were back in a taxi headed back to District 1.

My trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels was another great way to see the Vietnamese propaganda machine in action. The tunnels hold complex mazes and underground structures used by the Vietnamese when fighting the Americans in Saigon. We learned about all the ways traps are constructed and many other tactics the Vietnamese used to defeat the American invaders. The best part of this excursion was being able to shoot whatever crazy automatic machine gun I wanted to. I chose an AK47 and M60 machine gun. I have absolutely no idea if I even came close to hitting the targets, but it was a blast regardless.

Here I am doing my best to fit into a hole made for much smaller people.

Here is a video of me shooting a massive machine gun and hitting nothing but loving it.

For the remaining time in Saigon we continued to eat incredible food on the street, having a regular dinner at our favorite Pho soup stand. We visited the War Remnants museum where one can see the finest in captured American artillery and weaponry including planes, tanks, and more, displayed in the proudest fashion by the Vietnamese. Also on display were room after room of pictures of the damage done by Agent Orange, not an uplifting exhibit to say the least.

We also took in a cockfight.

I also exercised my alter ego and played Adam Sandler for a couple of star struck Vietnamese girls.

Saigon marked the end of our amazing adventure in Vietnam. We have loved Vietnam, loved the food, loved the craziness, and the overall organized chaos that makes a country like this so exciting. We definitely would like to return to see more of this country and eat as much as possible.

Bangkok - The Hangover IV

This wasn't my first rodeo in Bangkok. I knew, sort of, what to expect, where to go for the sights, and where to go for the shock value. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect of our visit, we only had a few days here but it was our first stop in Asia, so the excitement of culture shock was upon us. Bangkok was a first good stop in SE Asia to acclimate and get used to the new foods, culture, attitude, filth, and beauty...if those two can even be in the same sentence. Hannah hadn't ever been to Asia and we were both incredibly excited to experience all it had to offer together.

We arrived Bangkok early morning on August 1st, 2013. The 11 hour Thai Airways flight from Capetown was easily the best flight we had taken the entire trip. The food was amazing, the flight attendants were pleasant, and there were unlimited on demand movies on the entertainment system. We could have stayed on this flight for 20 hours. When we landed it was so early in the morning that we decided not to take a 300 Baht ($10) taxi to our hotel, but instead, we'd try out the public transportation which involved a train for 45 Baht/pp and then a tuk tuk ride from the last stop on the Bangkok Skytrain (motorcycle/moped/pickup truck device, named for the sound it makes, "tuktuktuktuktuk"). This entire trip would save us about $5. When the Skytrain dropped us off at the Phaya Thai station in downtown Bangkok we realized the taxi may have been a better decision. We walked in the 7am sweltering heat through rush hour traffic in the busiest district of Thailand looking for a taxi or tuk tuk to take us to our guesthouse, which we incidentally had no idea where it was. We finally found a willing tuk tuk driver and we piled into the back of the vehicle and made it to our hotel.

We stayed in a little zen mecca of a guesthouse near, but not too near, Khao San Road backpacker hell. The place was called Phranakorn Nornlen, which called itself a "vintage style family guest house in Old Bangkok". The place was decorated with an old vintage style, each room with its own unique touches like old televisions or radios, a rooftop bar, and a large area in the outside lobby for sitting, having coffee, reading, etc.

They were expecting us at Phranakorn!

Our first mission in Bangkok was to check out the area around the Phranakorn guest house, and see what local street food and markets were in the neighborhood.

Street meat adventure #1 of many, sausage on a stick with obscenely spicy peppers.

As we wandered we attempted to walk to the Khao San Road area, but we soon realized that we were much further than we had thought as Bangkok is so large that only a fraction of the streets show up on maps. After walking about 30 minutes (20 in the wrong direction), we decided to abort and go back to see if our room was ready.

The next day in Bangkok was spent doing much of the same thing that we did on the first day. We wandered around our area and went to Khao San Road and thanked Buddha that we weren't staying there, but more about that later. We did end up in a modern, Western style, shopping mall in the Sumkhumvit business district of Bangkok thanks to Hannah's cousin Jillian's recommendation. It was here that I lost my battle with masculinity. I got my hair buzzed and watched Hannah get a manicure and pedicure for a nominal amount of money. I decided it was time for me to clean up my act and go metro (meaning Hannah decided my safari nails needed some cleaning), so I got one too. I then spent the next week telling everyone I saw, many people several times, how soft my hands and feet were occasionally asking them to feel for themselves.

Hannah had been planning to wait for Japan to get hair colored but after the amazing job this place did on our manicures and pedicures she decided to chance having them color her hair also. The risk was there since no one spoke english, but the low price and excitement of something new overruled the risk. The resulting color wasn't bad at all, but it was quite a strange coincidence that it looked nothing like the color Hannah selected yet looked exactly like the hair color of the woman doing the coloring. As Hannah said, mimicry is the strongest form of flattery...not sure how to say that in Thai.

The next day the real Bangkok experience took off in high gear. Hannah's work buddy Drew, and his lovely fiance Alicia, flew out from Singapore and met us in Bangkok for a very low key, tame, weekend jaunt. We met them at their hotel, a beautiful resort called The Siam on Friday night. That first night was merely a taste of what was to come. We ordered delicious Thai room service and emptied the mini bar, getting back to our hotel at 2am.

The following morning we met up at The Siam and started the day with some coffee made from refined elephant dung and brewed in a special contraption that looks like a meth lab. The coffee wasn't bad, but we didn't want to spoil the elephant dung taste with cream and sugar, so it didn't appeal all that much.

We then took The Siam's boat to the first of a couple of temples and markets.

 

We did the obligatory visits to Bangok's main tourist attractions which were the temples of Wat Pho and the Grand Palace. We quickly bored of dodging tourists and attempting to navigate the passageways so we made up a game. The winner of the game would end with the most pictures of tourists giving the Asian smile in their pictures, which looks like a peace sign and bunny ears. The game quickly got out of hand with Hannah offering to take every Asian tourists' pictures as I lurked in the background waiting to take a picture of Hannah taking a picture of them giving the peace sign. We then evolved the game into simply taking pictures of tourists doing ridiculous things. The afternoon rains cooled us off and none of the 4 of us really minded walking around fully soaked...especially because we were wearing clothes on loan from the temple.

This didn't count, dq'd due to incorrect finger direction.

The rules didn't state that we couldn't take pictures of ourselves.

 

Bless you my child.

 

Khao San Road is basically an entire district in Bangkok where backpackers converge and locals avoid like the plague, unless they are trying to sell useless, Chinese made trinkets or bracelets embroidered with popular english expressions like "rape me", "i f*ck you", "eat my sh*t, "I'm a c*nt", etc. We tried to tell the vendor that what he was pedaling was not only stupid but offensive to most people, but as expected it fell on deaf ears. We can't imagine anyone ever buying or wearing such things.

It was clear that things were going to get ugly fast. We didn't really have a plan when we arrived to Khao San Road after a stop into 7-11 for a few beers to take on the street. As we walked into different vendor stalls we found some spectacular pink guitars that were begging to be strummed. As I played this horribly tacky instrument the woman selling them became more and more aggresive. She finally snatched that thing out of my hand so fast all of our heads spun. Maybe our reaction time was dulled by the beer, but it was more likely that she was a ninja.

We stopped into a brutally touristy streetside bar and at Hannah's request (demand), ordered a 4 liter "tower" of beer. So, here we were, in the most shittily touristy place in all of Bangkok having the time of our lives with a tower of beer on our table.

Rather than attempting to find a local place with a risk of wasting our time searching and ending up with a bad meal for one dinner together, I convinced the group to venture across town to a hotbed of nightime activity in the Sukhumvit area of town. I had been to a restaurant years ago called Cabbages and Condoms which I recall having an interesting theme, fit for 4 drunk college students (which is what we were behaving like), and decent food. I'm not one to give myself a pat on the back, but this was a great call. We had a blast, and Drew proved himself yet again to be able to make a complete ass out of himself but somehow not annoy, rather entertain, everyone around him. When he blew the condom up and let it fly around the restaurant I was sure we were either going to jail or at least getting ejected. Instead, he got giggles and laughs from the table of Japanese girls whose plate it landed on. It somehow became commonplace for one of us (meaning Drew or Hannah) to arrive at the table with 4 shots of whiskey, and the intervals between when this happened grew shorter and shorter....the night was young.

Safety First!

Drew, please don't.

The crew posing with Captain Condom.

From here things got really out of hand. We walked less than half a mile down Sukhumvit to Soi Cowboy, the famed Bangkok location of decades of debauchery. The street is lined with club and bar after club and bar of ladies of the night...and ladyboys of the night... dancing, putting on bizarre shows with ping pong balls and candle wax, acting out scenes from James Bond movies, and worse...much worse. The four of us bounced in and out of a few clubs and bars and when the ladyboy lactated we felt like we had seen it all and nothing could top it...so we went into a bar playing live music and rocked out to hits like YMCA and Bon Jovi. The blur continued until after 2am when the bars closed and we made the right decision which was to call it a night.

The following morning hurt very badly, but we made it to The Siam to have one final lunch with Drew and Alicia before they headed off home. We bid farewell with the hope of seeing them again somewhere in SE Asia before our next hop to Japan.

That evening marked an important turning point in our trip. Our good friend, and constant project of a human, David "Cherry Tree" Kirschenbaum met us in Bangkok. He flew out from LA to spend the next 2-3 weeks with us on the journey to northen Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam.

 

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