Luckily, none of us was hit by a motorbike.
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| I guess this counts as a drive thru restaurants. Motorbikes are literally everywhere. |
The first HCMH story I'd like to tell you is about immigration. It turns out you need a letter from your embassy, which we didn't have until about 24 hours before we arrived. It turns out you need printed photos, which we didn't have until we bought them upon arrival with cash that we didn't have until after arrival. It turns out you need a wad of cash to pay for the "stamping fee," which we also didn't have when we arrived. Fortunately, I was allowed to leave arrivals (to enter the country) without going through customs. It was crazy! And I had to do it twice to gather enough cash to acquire our visas. Shockingly, there is really no blog entry that I can find that breaks this down and explains how to navigate the system.
The second HCMH story I'd like to tell you is about signing up for the wrong food tour. I went through AirBnB "experiences," which has gone well for us before. We met our guides in the lobby of our hotel at 6pm and began walking to the first stop. The sidewalk was about one foot side and frequently interrupted by a phone pole that forces you into the street. At one point I had to yank Ali's arm and push her back onto the "sidewalk" out of desperate fear that she'd be hit by a scooter. When we got to the first stop, we had to decline drinks because they included ice cubes that were likely not from filtered water as well as leafy greens that were dripping in water that was also unlikely clean. At this point the kids staged a mutiny that resulted in all six kids plus Elise and Melanie retreating to the hotel where they eventually ate Burger King.
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| Look closely and you can see the wheels coming off the wagon |
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| Jon learning how to make a rice pancake lettuce roll |
Meanwhile, Owen and I continued on the tour, shoving as much food as possible into our bodies and hoping we'd live to tell about it. The stops included rice pancakes, banh mi, sticky rice with banana, pho, some kind of lemongrass skewer and then surrender. I couldn't take any more. The ingredients were mixing in my stomach to ill effect and it was still 90 degrees at 9pm. But we got to see a nighttime flower market, a neighborhood where American soldiers commandeered apartments for barracks and countless fascinating alleys and side streets.
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| Banh Mi stall (just standing in traffic while we wait) |
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| Preparation of sticky rice |
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| Flower market |
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| Lemongrass skewers being cut |
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| Vietnamese Traffic |
The third HCMH story is one that seems banal to us but fascinating to my parents and their peers: standing outside the Independence Palace and considering it simply as a photo op, more or less without political consequence. The folks we talked to either don't hold a strong opinion about America or don't share such an opinion with Americans.
The fourth HCMH story is that eight out of ten of us (excluding Lily and me) spent Monday on a day trip to the Mekong Delta. In short: three hour bus ride in each direction, boat rides, visits to a brick factory, a sleeping mat weaver and a delicious lunch. Lily had started feeling sick the day before and was clearly not in good shape for hours in a bus. By the end of the day, though, she was hungry and upset that we wouldn't let her dive right back into "exotic" foods!
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| On the Mekong River |
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| A moment of happiness |
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| At the brick factory, where it takes five weeks to bake a batch, including two weeks of cooling. |
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| Primary fuel? Rice husks! |
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| Making coconut candies |
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| Ali, as always, befriended the musician. |
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| Learning how sleeping mats are made |
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| Tuk tuk for a short drive through the jungle |
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| Lunch |
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| On the river |
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| This is, by some measures, a four lane bridge. |
So that's it: three nights in a city that occupies an indelible place in our country's psyche, visiting places whose names we all recognize (Mekong, e.g.) and the main thing we record is near-death experiences with the insane traffic.
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| The driver in blue is making a left onto a busy street by driving against traffic for about ten meters. |
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| This and the picture below are scenes from my walk to pick up lunch. |
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