Well as all of my vacations begin I need to get to another city to even think about heading anywhere. For this trip we are flying from Shanghai to Ho Chi Minh City then finally leaving from Hanoi to Shanghai. These two flights, reservation for a hotel in Shanghai for the night, and two backpacker’s hostels reservations is all the planning we have made. The trip is Sean, Jake and I. Sean and I are coming from the South to Shanghai, Jake from the north. On the way in, partly in a daze from my recent schedule, I realize I have no idea what time we are leaving to HCMC. After Sean and I check we realize our flight out isn’t until 5pm on the following day, and realize that means we are going to hit up Shanghai hard, because well, we have to.
Jake has already been in town by the time we arrive, and since the reservation was under my name he couldn’t check in. We check-in and immediately head out. Since I’ve talked about Shanghai plenty of times I’ll keep this brief. We went and grabbed some awesome thin crust pizza in the French Concession, then headed to a micro-brewery for a few rounds. After this we got a hold of some of Sean’s friends, and headed to meet up with them in a new club near the edge of French Concession. Now I already have enough experiences with stairs and elevators but this trip will push it to the limits. The club is on the 4th floor so we decide to be lazy. Well we wanted to be lazy at least. The elevator shows up and basically is big enough for 1 Oscar. The sign says 4 people maximum, well let’s test this out. The three of us decide to get in; playing one of those stupid college games to see how many people can fit into a small space. Yeah the doors close and the buzzer comes on GET OUT FAT ASSES. Ok, we get out, Jake and I head up, Sean takes it up. We get there and hang out with the group for some time. I tried explaining to some Chinese where I live they don’t understand. Not because of language, they speak perfect English, no no, it’s just that I live in the middle of nowhere…after this we hit up a new place called I Love Shanghai. And I love I Love Shanghai. It’s like being back in a fraternity. You head to the top floor of this building, walk in and its pool table, beer pong, and bar. What else do you need?
Day 1:
Ok, so Vietnam. I’ll spare you the details of traveling there, just that Sean had a few hints on the flight over that he may be too big for Vietnam. We are there, at the airport and first things first, let’s get some money. The Vietnamese Dong….good god too many jokes were said like we were three middle schoolers laughing every time a dong joke came up. So now that we are well funded dong millionaires, hit up a taxi to get to the hostel. Now some of you may know, I didn’t, Vietnam in my eyes is the unofficial scooter capital of the world. There are more scooters than people…and since it’s a prime night (even though its raining slightly, well more like misting) everyone is on a date. Scooters are driven by the guys, girls arms barely wrapped and they have seemingly one destination. Any park in the HCMC area. Because date night in Vietnam, consists of going to a park, bench of you can find one available, scooter seat if you can’t and make out. But this isn’t just 1 couple or 2, there are hundreds of couples all around these parks, any open spot on bench or scooter slot is taken up by people PDAing the crap outta each other. It was so many locations, I’m pretty sure as a young guy in Vietnam, if you haven’t been able to scrounge up dough for a scooter, well, you are going to have some very lonely nights.
We checked into the hostel, which was nice, near good stuff, really cheap and the manager was extremely friendly. But then we continue down the theme that Sean is too big for Vietnam. We finally get our keys and the three of us start heading up. Room is on the 4th floor, call the elevator. Crap, it’s even smaller than the one we took in the Shanghai club. Ok we know how this one goes, rock paper scissors to who walks up, Sean loses. Jake and I make it to the 4th floor and just hear the complaints coming from Sean. Didn’t think it was a big deal, and then I realized, this stair case isn’t meant for big guys. I show you this picture, but understand, it also wasn’t much better for me…..
Well after we finally all make it to the room, it isn’t exactly as we were told. 1 queen bed and 1 twin bed. Well guess we are going to get cozy here….whatever we are here to see the country, not spend it in a hostel, besides this place is something like $10 a night each. So we head out, figure out with the manager the places to go both during the day and night, what tours to take and where to eat. On pace for tonight, head to a local place for some grub and drinks.
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And Check:
I have always had a thing for Vietnamese food, but let me tell you its fantastic. The flavor combinations they do is awesome. It’s a really special blend of French Cuisine with Asian spices, that you just can’t understand until you dig in. They offer French baguettes with just about every meal, and these baguettes are so flaky soft and incredibly warm, they practically melt in your mouth. Not kidding.
After meals, we decide to go out walking in the neighborhood and find a bar to hit up. We have quite a few options so we just stop by one after the other. Almost all of them have the same things going on, if they are on the main streets they have tables outside, beers and mixed drinks are $1 (or 20,000 dong hehe) and street vendors trying to sell you everything under the sun. This part was pretty interesting because they all seemed to be of the same family. Not because they looked alike (even though they did) but because they would hang out with each other, talk all the time and the age range was pretty insane. The 6yr olds had the flowers (with a ‘Hot Bitch’ shirt and all), the teenager – 20 something’s walked around with the cigarettes, cigars, lighters, etc. and then the 40+ had the bike with food. Bike with food you might ask, oh yes, dried squid, dried river fish and dried stingray. We decided to try the dried squid (or was it stingray can’t remember now) with some hot sauce. Pretty good, obviously dry but had some pretty good flavor to it, and fortunately I haven’t died from it yet. I’m also pretty sure it doesn’t matter if it was squid or stingray, I’m sure it tastes the same slathered with hot sauce.
The rest of the evening was pretty relaxing, walked around some more went to some of the bars off the main intersection, which were about the same price wise, minus the street vendors harassing you and the large crowds of blatantly drunken Europeans. One place we went to we were the star attraction. The bartenders there, tiny little Vietnamese women, decided they had to take pictures and find out everything there is to know about us. I think 1 girl fell in love with Sean, he is 6’3” 325lbs or so, she 4’10” 60lbs, it was a match made in heaven. And the picturing taking was good and all, but remember this is Vietnam. I have been sweating now for a solid 6hrs, just get off me….
Day 2:
Second day we wake up somewhat early to try and get going for the day, so around 10ish we get outta bed and start getting ready. Today we decided we were going to walk around and see the sights on foot. We got a little map from the manager of the hostel with some key spots. But first lunch, and there is no better way to start a day then some simply amazing Vietnamese Pho. For those of you less fortunate that do not know pho, is a soup that has some thick rice noodles, with usually beef and then some basil, lime, bean sprouts and peppers. Well we sat down at the best place around and ordered up. I got a mix platter that had 3 different types of beef all fantastic. Not for the unadventurous though as some of the meat is purposely not fully cooked. It provides a more flavorful meal, and if you want to take a baby step towards it, try it at your local Vietnamese restaurant. It will be good, but mine was better…(neener neener).
So now we are off, walking around HCMC camera in tote with a few choice destinations. Places to go, the former Saigon Independence Palace (now known as Reunification Palace), the Post Office (still don’t know why we were told to go here), the market, and random other stops. As we are walking around, the first place we stumble across is the market, same basic idea that we are used to here in China, except this place the women are way more adamant about you buying stuff from their store. I was in front and they were forcefully pulling me around, it was getting pretty annoying. Keep walking around just making sure they don’t grab my arms and I’ve had enough. Time to go to the palace.
Well before we get to the palace, we find the post office. Ok, cool looking building, right be a nice big church, but besides the photos we ended up taking nothing more of significant note to me. I guess what was curious was how friendly the Vietnamese in HCMC were towards Americans. They saw us coming, and would start screaming America! (to which every once in a while we would scream out F&*K Yeah!, from a movie..). But this was pretty common all throughout the city.
Finally, we make it out to the palace. Huge place, but first time to walk around the lawn. We walked everywhere and saw one thing I wanted to see. The ‘tank that ended the war’. See back in 1973 the US ended heavy military operations in Vietnam with the signing of the Paris Peace Accord. The war was not over, the tank there is the tank that broke through the gates on April 30th 1975, officially ending the Vietnam War, North Vietnam the victor. Continuing around the grounds you can see some Soviet Tanks, Chinese Tanks, and some fighter jets. One of which will be discussed later.
Finally, walking up the palace, the place is pretty big but all wide open. The corridors are all open to the atmosphere and the rooms are roped off only available for pictures. Working our way through we walk through presidential office, various dining rooms and bedrooms, and eventually in the basement is a command bunker complete with radio rooms, map rooms, and staging rooms. Also we walked onto the roof of the palace where you can find a US UH1 Heli and a bomb crater. That fighter jet mentioned before dropped a bomb on the roof of the palace (couldn’t figure out what type of bomb). Small note, that rooftop helipad, is the location of the largest helicopter evacuation in history apparently. NOTE: History buffs can chime in if my facts are wrong, but whatever.
After the palace time was complete we decided to walk around a little more, grab some drinks and make our way back to the hostel. After some showers, and light grubbing, its time to go out. Sean had found an Australian bar on the other side of the city that sounded interesting. Cool, let’s head off. We get there and it’s what you would expect, pool table to one side, tables with people in the middle and darts to the other side. So we sit down and order some beers, I look over, and what do I spy with my little eyes, Guinness. It’s on like donkey kong.
So the next hour or two are spent drinking, BSing, darts/pool, and munching. Cool, Ryder’s cup was on also, so we are watching that. After a while, Sean notices a dude just sitting in the table next to us by himself. He says why don’t we ask him to sit down, sure why not. So he asks and he comes over. Dude is Australian and is in Vietnam for business, cool. What business you might ask, well he designs golf courses. He’s here with his small company just trying to sell a 54 whole course near HCMC. Now I’m not a golfer, Sean and Jake are, so they are asking him non-stop about what its like doing that and where he’s played before etc. During this time, I’m just sitting there drinking my Guinness’es (Guinni maybe?), whatever, while we take turns playing pool. Sean tells our new buddy that I can drink faster than anyone he has ever seen. Guy says prove it, ok, waitress brings us our round, I grab the Guinness, buh bye (for those of you who have seen this before, know what I am talking about). Waitress just looks at the empty glass I have handed her and has no idea what is going on, she is almost starting to look for where the spill was. Can’t find it. After a few minutes of puzzled waitress time, she just asks, another Guinness YUP.
So the night went pretty awesomely, just like it started, and finally the new guy gets up and walks to go towards the bathroom. Waitress comes over and says hey your friend just paid the entire bill WHAT?!?!?! Yeah it was a few million dong (3-5M), we drank quite a bit, no way. He comes over, and we try and give him money say you didn’t need to do that. But said he was happy to, he was just about to go back to his hotel and sleep when we invited him over, and it well worth the awesome conversation. Plus he said he just landed the $25M account for designing those courses. Damn, awesome, you can spare some money then :P. Well now that your generosity is far exceeding ours, we should hit up another place to celebrate. We do, a night club. And frankly you couldn’t do anything. I mean its one thing to go out and dance, but the place was so effin packed, you couldn’t even walk onto the dance floor. Whatever, after a little we decide to leave but our new friend is nowhere to be found. Oh well, see being nice to strangers can do wonder for your finances, maybe not your liver though….
To wrap up the evening we headed back, and the three of us are hungry. Sean sees a little old lady making some sandwich on the street corner near our hostel and goes in for a closer look. Jake and I are taking a look also and here is how the conversation transpired:
Sean: Hey those look pretty good
Oscar: Dude, there are literally flies all over that food
Jake: I just saw a massive rat climb up under that stand
Sean: We’ll take four!
Jake and Oscar look puzzled.
Jake: Sean did you see the rat?
Sean: Oh yeah! I got four because I wanted two.
Ok, well I’m sure most of you would never have tried that food out, but I gotta say it was delicious. And considering I’m writing this quite a few months after I was there, somehow I am still alive also, I would say go for it. In fact, we loved it so much I went down and got seconds for everyone, OH YEAH!
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