32 hours in HCMC

Earlier this week I spent 32 hours in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) on a quick trip for Hiram College. I took my first domestic flight with Vietnam Airlines (after another discount airline never processed the cost of my ticket with them).  For those not familiar with Vietnamese geography, HCMC is about 1,000 miles south of Hanoi.  Think of the distance between Hiram, OH and Orlando, FL.

Here's a picture of the Vietnam Airlines plane to HCMC.  Eventually almost every seat would fill up on this plane.  Each day there are more than 30 daily flights between the two cities.  You can pretty much pick what time you want to go and they probably have a flight.  The flights were full too, which surprised me.

When I arrived, my first impressions in HCMC were that it felt less crowded than Hanoi, and the buildings aren't all stacked up on each other, and even the traffic seems less hectic.  Ho Chi Minh City is also a commercial center of Vietnam as opposed to a government capital like Hanoi.  There is more of a middle class in HCMC and more economic activity.  It also feels more "Western".

My first day was spent at the college fair and relaxing in the evening at the "On Top" bar, which I chronicled in blog posts below.  My hotel, the Novotel, was very nice:



I was amused by the mini-bar in the room.  Everything you need: whiskey, pringles, mouthwash, and condoms.

When Libby and I were looking for apartments in Hanoi, we noticed that it was common for the shower and bathroom to be right off the main room, and that it was mainly windows for walls.  It was the same thing in my bathroom at the hotel, although there was an option for privacy.  Still a little weird:

In the evening I walked home from the college fair to the hotel and saw a little of the HCMC night life.  

So after a good night's sleep, I woke up the next day to explore a little of HCMC before my flight that evening.  I had an ambitious agenda with two restaurants and four sightseeing attractions.

I started by walking to the first McDonald's in Vietnam, since some of the classmates of our kids back home had asked about it. Surprisingly there are no McDonald's in Hanoi but three in HCMC. And even more surprising was how similar everything was -- the layout of the restaurant, the menu, the Happy Meals promoting a movie (the animated "Transylvania Hotel 2"). Americans would feel right at home here in this version of McDonald's.  "Fast food" means something different here, and a "drive thru" is non-existent, yet McDonald's in Vietnam is pretty close to a McDonald's in America.  The menu has a few slight variations -- they have a Chicken Muffin during breakfast and a Pork Burger the rest of the day -- but it is pretty close.  The prices are also comparable.  A Big Mac Value Meal is 85,000 VND, which converts to $3.79.

They also have these motivational sayings on walls and tables in the restaurant.  That is something that is very common in Vietnamese restaurants. Plus, coffee drinking is very big in Vietnam, so the coffee station at the McDonalds was much larger than in the States.  I liked that.

Once I got a few pictures for the kids and had a delicious Latte at the McCafe, it was time for me to have lunch, and I decided to try the most famous street food in Vietnam, The Lunch Lady. This stand was made famous by Anthony Bourdain several years ago when he went there for his TV show, and the kids -- especially Finn -- has wanted to try it since. So I hiked over to her stand, which was surprisingly modest. She could have been selling T-shirts or something, but she just goes about her business making good food. Today it was a chicken dish with greens and noodles:

It isn't just the Lunch Lady. She has a team of seven people that work there to help with food prep and deal with customers. But she is clearly in charge. While I sat there and ate and watched, she moved quickly from station to station and only said about 10 words the entire time. No one asked me what I wanted to eat either. I sat down and they put lovely egg rolls and spring rolls in front of me with lots of sauces. Then the chicken came out, because that is what was being served that day. Also, while it felt like a traditional street food stand, it was obviously a lot bigger due to the crown they get. And she makes a ton of food, which you can see getting ready behind her.

After lunch I tried to hit a couple of museums but they were closed for lunch. While walking to the post office and the HCMC Notre Dame Cathedral to kill time, I ran into this guy:

And this guy reminded me why I LOVE VIETNAM. I was walking to the post office when a motorbike approached me and asked if I needed a ride. After repeatedly telling him I'm walking, and convincing him that yes, I knew where I was going, he tells me that he can get me a young girl. I laugh, but he insists and shows me a picture in his wallet of the woman he can take me to. I said I've been married 20 years and he said, "you come to Vietnam, you have to have fun."  One of the more amusing interactions I've had while in Vietnam.

I eventually made it to the post office and the cathedral.  This square also turned out to be the touristy part of HCMC, feeling like a little bit of the Old Quarter in Hanoi:

When the museums did open up again, I started at the Independence Palace. This is where the former president of South Vietnam lived and worked (and before that, the French leaders). I was surprised at how the Vietnamese government treated this place. Although it looks very dated (reminded me of Hinsdale Hall, actually) they obviously keep it maintained and show it off.  They even use it for their own government functions every once in a while. I thought since the South lost they might raze the place or turn it into something else, but they haven't. I also like how there is no front door -- you can just walk right in. I saw this in several buildings, which I guess they can do because of the weather.

This is how the palace used to look and how it looks now:

Looking out the front of the building from the balcony:

The ornamental room where the South Vietnamese government used to receive ambassadors.  The last official ambassador received was from Japan in mid-April 1975, about two weeks before the fall of the government:

The roof:

The game room and theater:

The underground bunker, which had the maps of Vietnam up right before the reunification of Vietnam in 1975:

One other museum I went to was the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, but that deserves another separate post.  It was a very disturbing look at America's involvement in the Vietnam War.

From there I went to the airport to try to convince Vietnam Airlines to put me an earlier flight but no luck. So I enjoyed some Saigon Phơ at the airport and waited a couple hours for my plane. When it was finally time to board, we just took a bus out to our plane, and it pulled up to this one that says "Cambodia Angkor Air". I had no idea why we weren't at a Vietnam Airlines plane, but when I got on and showed the flight attendant my boarding pass, he got all serious and said, "Uh, wrong plane." When he saw the look on my face he laughed and said, "just kidding!" He got me. The inside of the plane said Vietnam Airlines although there are still some instruction that are not in Vietnamese.

My last meal on plane was beef rice with steamed veggies and great fruit (slice of pineapple, watermelon, and dragon fruit). I paid $59 for this flight, it is 1 hour and 45 minutes long and took off at 7:30 pm. A meal like this would never happen in the States. The food was excellent too.