After a quiet and nature filled last couple weeks in Cambodia, we moved into Vietnam. We were both super excited for this country, for many reasons. It was the first place on our trip so far that I hadn’t yet been too, we had a number of big activities and things we wanted to do in Vietnam, and we also had 6 weeks in Vietnam, rather than the 30 days we’d had in Thailand and Cambodia, which gave us much more time to explore.
Right back into the hustle and bustle
Our first stop was Ho Chi Minh, a city full of rich history and culture. It was a bit of a shock to the system jumping back into such a busy city after a few weeks in the countryside of Cambodia. But we absolutely loved it. Despite loving the outdoor adventures we’ve had, both Chris and I seem to also really enjoy the bustle of big cities.
Much like Bangkok, people say to only spend a couple days here and then move on. We ended up spending 5 night here! We had one day packed full of touristy sightseeing; the famous post office, the (scaffolding covered) cathedral, the fine art museum, book street etc. We did a lot of walking that day, but it was really fun and of course stopped off for some banh mi sandwiches and coffees along the way!
While in Ho Chi Minh, we also did a combined tour of the Mekong Delta and Cu Chi Tunnels. The Cu Chi Tunnels part of the tour was really interesting, we learnt lots about the US war with Vietnam, how the Vietnamese built these tunnel for protection and to move around conflict zone’s undetected, and also what life was like for the US and Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
After the visit to the tunnels the tour continued south down to a part of the Mekong Delta. We first took a small ferry boat across the Mekong to the other side, and this is where the tour turned into something very much not mine and Chris’ thing. It was essentially 3 hours of being taken to various shops, restaurants and warehouses to be shown different food and product goods to sample and be asked to purchase them. First we saw bees kept on the island, and were given a sample of honey in jasmine tea, then we went to sample some chocolate made on a different island, then some coconut candy, then some rice wine. All very delicious, but it just felt so very inauthentic and overwhelming touristy. The Mekong has such rich history, strong involvement and significants during the wars, it connects three countries etc. so much we hoped we’d learn more about, but instead just walked through various upselling opportunities and learnt nothing about the area, its history or even why they have things like bee farms or why they make coconut candy here. Which was a real shame.
An incredible food tour
However, on our last night in Ho Chi Minh, we had a very different tour experience. A food tour. Oh wow this was fab! We thought we’d joined a group tour, but it ended up being just me and Chris. We were met with two final year university students on their mopeds, who were our guides for the night. In total we spent 4 hours with them, travelling between districts of Ho Chi Minh, trying various dishes. This was such a great experience, we saw new parts of the city we hadn’t yet seen, we of course ate some delicious food, 11 dishes infact! But more than anything, it was just so special and wonderful to spend 4 hours with these two students, we learnt so much about their lives, what it’s like living and studying in Ho Chi Minh and we shared our own experience of travel and living in the UK. It was just such a rich and wholesome experience and I’m really glad we got to do it.
Food wise, everything we ate was delicious! We tried a mix of things we’d seen or even tried before, such as a Banh Mi, but also some more adventurous things like snails, and things that without this tour I’m not sure we’d have ever known how to order or eat, like Banh Xeo - which actually turned out to be one of our favourite Vietnamese dishes, along with Bun Bo Hue which we discovered on this tour too. I even had the chance to cook our own Banh Xeo at a street food stall which was really fun!
Banh Xeo in its basic for is a crispy fried rice pancake that has a pork, shrimp and bean sprout filling. It’s served with lettuce leaves and greens, rice paper and fish sauce. You combine the pancake and some leaves and wrap it in the rice paper almost like a spring roll. And Bun Bo Hue is a little like Pho, but a variation from the central city Hue. It much more tomatoey and richer than Pho, and served with beef and crab meat in one bowl.
Below are the photos of all the dishes we tried:
Chè chuối: Bananas wrapped in sticky rice and covered in coconut milk
Bún bò Huế: Beef noodle soup, from Hue
Bun xeo: Crispy rice flour pancakes topped with pork, shrimp and beansprouts.
Bò lá lốt: Ground beef wrapped and cooked in beetle leaves
Cơm Cháy Chiên Giòn: Crispy Rice Crackers topped with Pork floss
Ốc Bươu Nhồi Thịt: snails stuffed with pork and lemon grass
Bánh Tráng Nướng (I think is the name!): Sweetened rice paper cracker topped with dried banana
Bánh mì: Vietnamese sandwich
Bánh flan: Vietnamese version of a French Creme Caramel
This food tour was a definite highlight of our entire trip so far. It was just fab in every way!
Educating ourselves on Vietnams complex and hard history
One of the important things to do in Ho Chi Minh is to visit the war remnants museum, to learn more about how the French colonised Vietnam, the role of communism in the country, how the north and south became divided, and overall the Vietnamese war with the US. Much like S21 in Cambodia, this was a hard visit, but an important one.
History is neither my strong suit, nor something I’m naturally drawn to, I generally just find it really hard to remember details, and as a visual learner I just struggle to join the dots of event in my head when I just read things. So, my knowledge of Vietnamese history is not as advanced as it should be, so I learnt a lot from this visit. Such as learning about the agent orange chemical attack from the US onto Vietnam, sometime I had never heard about before. We learnt how devastating this attack was at the time, but more significantly that it will effect up to 5 generationson, with devastating birth defects and disabilities for those who's parents were contaminated with agent orange. Many of whome didn't even know they'dcome in contact with the chemical weapon. We spent maybe 4 hours at the museum and could have easily spent longer. Out of respect, like at S21, we didn't really take any photos inside the museum, just of the outside.
I have to say, this trip overall has definitely sparked more of an interest in history, and desire to take more time to learn and educate myself on important history. In true service designer style though, I think what I need to do to help myself learn history better, is map out a sequence of events in order and now they relate to each other. I can learn and remember details about individual things, but not how they link. Throughout Cambodia and not Vietnam we've learnt so much about the US war against Vietnam and how it affected and destroyed Cambodia and also Vietnam, but even now I get lost in the sequence of events and when things happened where.
That was our first week-ish in Vietnam and we absolutely LOVED Ho Chi Minh. The food was delicious, there is so much to do and see, so much culture to take in and learn about. I can’t wait to come back one day! Goes to show it's not always right to follow what everyone says, only spend 2 days there. Even after 5 we could have stayed longer!
Next we head to a mountain town called Da Lat, which along with a couple other stops, I'll cover in my next post.
Thank you as always for reading.
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