Christmas In Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City - Part 2

Upon our return to Saigon, which for the uninitiated is what all the locals call Ho Chi Minh City, I went to see a dentist for my Mum said dental care is awfully cheap there. Although I was shocked to learn that I required 4 fillings, the knowledge that at US$50 the cost of the procedure was less than half that in Singapore eased the trauma somewhat.

That quick jaunt left us just enough time to see the rest of the city. We visited Benh Thanh (or Central) Market, which although apparently steeped in history, was not really my kind of landmark as the exterior was unspectacular, the interior hot and humid and the stalls as well as the selling tactics of the proprietors geared towards making some money out of relatively wealthy tourists. My friend on the other hand, who just loves street markets and/or bazaars of any sort non-air-conditioned, found this place charming.





I kind of like this picture though... Could pass of as a fruit stall in the digital world of the movie Tron...



That said, I was a lot more enamoured by the statue of one of Vietnam's historical heroes, some Tran general, if I'm not wrong (the Tran Dynasty presided over one of Vietnam's golden ages)....



Lunch was at a place famous for one of Vietnam's lesser-known delicacies (as opposed to the ubiquitous Pho) - Banh Xeo. It's some kind of savoury flipped pan-cake with additional ingredients in the inside - think salty thin-skinned Mee Cheng Kweh with Tau Gay (bean sprouts), prawns, meat and onions in between. It's nice, don't get me wrong, but being virtually a carnivore, I just wished there weren't so many veggies in between.




We also had plus-sized Cha Gio (Vietnamese Spring Rolls)...



And some meat dish. Apparently, you're supposed to take the meat, wrap it up together with the bean sprouts in rice paper and then yet again with some leafy vegetable and then dip it into some flavoured carrot syrup.




I however like my meat pure and unadulterated so I ate it wrapped only in rice paper, leading to resigned sighs from the two accompanying females.

We all downed the food with the aid of the traditional Vietnamese plum drink. This was the real thing, compared to some of the outlets in Singapore who mix plum puree with ice cream soda. But why my friend wanted to take a picture of the drink together with the carrot syrup she only knows.



Our hunger satisfied, we continued our tour of the city centre. Now, I may have said somewhere else that I have a soft spot for wide open spaces and/or boulevards flanked by stately buildings, so the city centre, once the seat of French political power and cultural influence in Vietnam, was the closest one came to that in Saigon.





This is, I suppose, what would pass for Saigon's Central Park...



And in it, a statue of 'Uncle Ho' (yes, that's what the inscription says) himself.



This is the central Opera House....



And the spot of green right outside it, which, in the crowded urban areas of Saigon is a bit of a rarity.



That was just about it for our Vietnam escapade, though we just about had time to indulge in some ice cream in one of the several ice-cream parlours in that area... It was not grand but above average...



All too soon, however, we had to go to the airport to catch our night flight back to Singapore. But my Mum would not let us go without a send-off dinner at one of the popular Pho places in the city - and boy it was crowded. For some reason, I can't seem to find most of the pictures taken at that place, suffice to say that the picture below will not do justice to the value-for-money deal one gets over there. That is to say that one may yet find better quality at the top end Vietnamese restaurants in Singapore, but have to pay upwards of 10 times more in the process of dining there...



And that, in a nutshell, was Christmas in Vietnam...

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There may of course be those of you, like my friend, who wondered why we did not go and see some of the more obvious attractions, like the old Presidential Palace and some other war memorials. The answer is that my Mum grew up in South Vietnam during the war. She had gone to study in New Zealand and it was there that she met my Dad, resettling in Singapore. During that time, the fall of Saigon meant that she was separated from her family for many years, what with communication only possible by way of letter and telegram during the late '70s and early '80s. For years, the money she sent back was crucial in helping her family get by.

She often remarks that it is sometimes unnerving to see the young in Vietnam, in Saigon, so carefree, so pampered, so demanding, oblivious to the fact that their parents had forcefully resisted the 'enemy' but to no avail. To this generation, Vietnam is Vietnam - as it has always been and should always be. Speak to some of the older generation however, and sensitivities may run high. To many of them, the Vietnam they knew was South Vietnam, whose capital was Saigon, and whose fall to the Communist North shattered for them the life they had known.

That is why my Mum did not bring us around to see the war memorials, for there are already enough things to etch its consequences deep in her memory. That is why in going to Vietnam, when talking to elders, some sensitivity may be in order.