(Note: The Idiots are now in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. This episode describes an evening last week in Saigon…)
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The sun was low when the Idiots arrived in Saigon, a day late and 31 hours after departing their hotel in Bali. Though they spent all of that time sitting in cars, buses, airports and airplanes or sleeping in the hotel in Kuala Lumpur, they were exhausted. There’s a kind of mental fatigue that kicks in when good plans go bad and outcomes are uncertain.
Still… they had managed to reschedule their tour guide in Saigon, and the hotel held their room. Once they touched down in Saigon after a nice flight in upgraded Premium Economy seats – a flight only marred by an extremely loud hum and shudder unlike anything they’d heard before – they were excited to begin their Vietnam experience.
The Idiots usually practice “budget travel” so in the past they might have tried an Uber or bargaining for a wildcat taxi. This time they splurged a little on the relatively short ride into downtown. The hotel sent a driver and $19 was a small price to pay to exit immigration into a cacophony of competing voices to see their names on a sign held by a guy who had waited an extra hour for their plane to arrive.
First impressions of Saigon... crazy traffic, a mix of cars and trucks and thousands of motor bikes. People who have been to Saigon previously say it has improved greatly and that drivers have now begun to pay attention to traffic signals – a welcome change. When they remarked to their driver about the long waits and how difficult driving must be for him, he informed them that the traffic was actually very light as this was the last weekend of the Lunar New Year celebration and he was pleased to have such a leisurely drive!
Lunar New Year is celebrated all over Southeast Asia. In Vietnam it is called TET and the Idiots couldn’t help but remember the TET Offensive that occurred in 1967. The Viet Cong launched attacks on virtually every military base in South Vietnam at the same time. The Idiots are grateful that their friend Frank completed his Vietnam tour of duty about a month before TET. His base was very severely damaged during TET.
Today Lunar New Year is a joyful event in Vietnam. Many folks have a week off from work and streets and homes and public buildings are decorated in red for luck and yellow (the color of gold) for prosperity. In Vietnam, apricot trees bloom in bright yellow for TET and are used everywhere for decoration. Some people own their own trees, but many homes and businesses rent apricot trees in containers from specialty suppliers. The Idiots saw many potted trees being transported on the backs of motorbikes, returning to their “homes” to await distribution for the 2018 New Year celebration.
In this photo, a typical “Happy New Year” street banner and stretching beyond one can see a few arching “apricot blossom” decorations. Saigon has thousands of these in various colors and themes along various city streets… not too different from Christmas decorations in the US.
The Idiots arrived at Anpha Boutique Hotel… a small hotel overlooking famous Ben Thanh Market, the largest and busiest in the city. They like to think of themselves like the peaceful Buddha in the picture… but for the past day and a half they’d felt more like the Koi climbing the vertical waterfall…
And still more “You’re not in Kansas…” The Idiots have never stayed in a hotel that had to spell out the rooms as “No Durian” zones! Durian is the infamously good tasting – awful smelling fruit of SE Asia. (And no… the Idiots have not tried it. The closest they came is one spoonful of Durian ice cream... and one was enough!)
The market was closing and the Idiots were due for a nap. While they dozed, the area around them transitioned. The huge market building closes, but businesses spring up like mushrooms to create a gigantic Night Market. The streets and sidewalks disappear as tents and carts and vendors fill every available space with commerce of every type.
One can find manufactured pop-up cards in the US, but the Vietnamese versions are handmade and amazingly detailed.
Saigon is a 21st century city with lots of modern buildings and elaborate public art installations like this psychedelic display in the huge Ben Thanh roundabout.
But if one looks past the ground floor shops and street stalls, it is possible to catch glimpses of the French colonial period.
The Idiots were hungry. They passed permanent restaurants, but in Vietnam, street food is king – especially at the Night Market. During the day this is just a patch of pavement in the middle of a busy street – at night it becomes a restaurant with a team behind a slight partition turning out delicious fresh food from a menu with perhaps a hundred items. Idiot He had prawns that were swimming in a bucket until they went into the wok. Idiot She had “frog legs” with lemon grass – but in Vietnam it really isn’t just the legs – and they weren’t kidding about the lemon grass!
A gourmet feast, accompanied by some good Saigon beer – Idiot She likes the green label, He the red… and then it was back out into the sensory overload of the Night Market… and soon to bed.
