September 20, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
For our first full day in Ho Chi Minh City, we got an overview of the city, dodged rain (sometimes heavy), went to the Fine Arts Museum, and took a food tour for dinner.
The night before we went to sleep pretty early, but all in all it wasn’t too bad. We were eventually awake only an hour or two before our normal waking time, so most of the 14-hour time difference (or 10 hours with one day difference).
Our hotel offers a buffet breakfast, so we went downstairs to check it out. Other than some scrambled eggs that I asked to be cooked, we mostly stuck to the savory part of the breakfast. They also had some desserts, one a sort of rice cake (coarser and a bit sweeter than mochi) and I also grabbed some kind of coffee-flavored jelly. The latter was gone before Melody could get there, but she came back to the table with a small glass of flan, so I jumped up and grabbed that too. It was a very nice breakfast.
Bitexco Financial Tower
Our day was mostly flexible since it looked like it would rain here and there. We thought we would walk over to the Bitexco Financial Tower and go to the Saigon Skydeck on the 49th floor (out of 68). We weren’t sure if there would be a line, but figured we had plenty of time that waiting would be a problem, and if it was way too long, there were other things we could do in the area. There ended up being only a couple of people in front of us, so we quickly got our tickets and into the elevator.
Upon exiting, we saw that the windows did go all the way around the floor, following the irregular shape of the building. Even though there was a bit of overcast, we still had a great view in all directions. While we were looking out, I happened to get a text from my cousin who used to live in Ho Chi Minh City. I sent her one of the photos I had just taken, and she sent the photo back circling the building where they used to live. Quite the coincidence that I picked that one photo to send her!
At various locations around the floor were displays that showed what buildings were visible. The images would zoom in and pan, but I was able to get each display to zoom all the way out so I could snap a picture to help me identify the various photos.
Partway around was a small exhibit of dresses called Ao Dai. There were some from the 1970s and the 2000s. There was also an example of a four-part Ao Dai from the 17th through 19th centuries which was popular with northern countryside women.
Just as we were finishing our circle around the Skydeck, we started seeing raindrops on the windows. When we got back to the ground floor, the rain was pretty heavy, so we decided to stay put for a little bit to make a strategy for what we were doing next. My cousin reassured me that the heavy rain doesn’t last long, and sure enough, the sun was peeking through in a few minutes. We headed out to find the Walking Street.
Nguyen Hue Walking Street
The Nguyen Hue Walking Street was only a couple of blocks away, so we quickly got to it. Since we were only about a block away from the far east end, we went that way, crossed to the north side of the street, and then started heading west. Normally the center is a public square, but what we saw were a bunch of tents being set up for the Green Growth Show. My cousin sent photos of what looked like for the Tet New Year festival, and the flowers looked so much prettier than the tents.
After a couple of blocks, we got to Fahasa, a bookstore. While there were a lot of books we recognized that were translated into Vietnamese, there were several tables of English language books near the front door. We also went upstairs to look at the supplies and toys.
Heading out of the bookstore, we went next door to the entrance to the Café Apartment building, which is just like it sounds: an apartment building that was converted to have not only cafés but other shops too. The shops on the street side have their signs showing just outside their locations, and there are additional shops on the courtyard side.
As we entered, we saw a lot of parked scooters (not unusual; they seem to be tightly parked anywhere they will fit) and a line of people towards the end of the entryway. It didn’t take us long to figure out those people were waiting for the elevator, so we went past them to the stairs. We knew the café we were looking for was on the fifth floor, so we found that floor and walked around to the entrance of Saigon Oi, a cute place that we’d seen described as “Instagrammable”. We ordered lunch and drinks and had an enjoyable meal.
Once we were done, we continued up the stairs to check out the other floors, then doubled back to the ground floor. Once there, we crossed to where the tents were being set up so we could get a better look at the whole building. After that, we continued west to the beginning of the Walking Street and saw the People’s Committee Building. We then started south to find a café to spend some time.
Maison Marou
Our ultimate destination was the Fine Arts Museum, and we found that the chocolate store Maison Marou was very close. We both ordered their special hot chocolate and since we got a free topping with each, we chose marshmallows and chocolate boba. And since the desserts looked so good, we split a tiramisu.
There was free wifi so we connected our devices and hunkered down next to the cocoa bean raster for a little while. Before we were ready to leave, we picked up a couple of chocolate bars and a couple of coffee ganache truffles (the latter which never made it into our bags).
Fine Arts Museum
Our food tour was supposed to meet in front of the Fine Arts Museum at 5 pm, so we decided it was a good opportunity to go through the museum beforehand. After we purchased our tickets, the woman at the front desk recommended that we start from the top floor. We found the lockers so we could stash our backpacks and then looked for the stairs. We had seen a red spiral staircase in our guidebook, but the stairwell we saw was squared off, going around an old-fashioned elevator that was no longer in use.
On the top floor, it was obvious that the description of this museum as being open-air was true. Even though there were shutters on the windows facing the courtyard, you could feel the heat and humidity inside. The first couple of rooms we saw had no protection, so the paint itself was exposed. Later on, we saw paintings with glass that looked pretty well sealed, and then we came across rooms that had closed doors so the environment could be better controlled. Good thing, since there were some national treasures in those rooms.
The upper two floors have a large gallery on the front, smaller galleries on the sides, and a connecting path at the back. Restrooms were at all four corners of each floor. On the main floor, there’s no connection at the back, but you can go down a short flight of stairs into the courtyard to look around.
The collection of art was quite interesting. A lot of modern art from different decades, but what I found interesting was the art created around the Vietnam War. Several pieces depicted the common people being displaced or displaced, and there were also some communist-style sculptures. Most of the descriptions were somewhat neutral on the war, but one piece described Gia Dinh as the “patriotic movement against the American imperialism of all classes of people”.
After we were done, we had some time before we needed to meet the food tour, so we sat down for a while. Looking at the brochure some more, there was a building that we didn’t recognize. I asked the information desk, and it ended up that we were inside only the first of three buildings, so we went outside and went all the way to the third building. Once we stepped inside, we instantly saw the red spiral staircase we had seen in the photos. We once again went up to the top floor and worked our way down. The third building was much smaller than the first, and since we were starting to run short on time, we breezed through each floor.
Since we still had a little bit of time, we decided to do just the first floor of the second building. As it ended up, the stairs to the upper floors were blocked off, so that was all we could see anyway. These pieces were very colorful and striking.
Once we got outside the second building, we wandered around outside looking at the sculptures in the garden. There were a few more minutes left, so we went back into the first building to sit on a bench.
Food tour
We were supposed to check into the food tour a few minutes before 5 PM, so we headed to just outside the front gates of the Fine Arts Museum. We saw someone with a shirt from the company, so we walked up to him. After we introduced ourselves (his name was Tan), we started walking. Wondering if we were the only people on the tour, he said yes, since the day’s drizzle caused everyone else to cancel.
When we booked the tour, we knew there would be a lot of food, but we were hoping that we would be able to get away with smaller amounts of several things. At the first stop, we had a beef soup called bò kho. The broth was steeped with curry leaves. Tan explained that was the smallest size they had, probably trying to reassure us that we wouldn’t be expected to eat a full dish at several places.
We proceeded to a kiosk that sold roasted duck. Tan gave us a tray with some duck and cucumbers in sauce, as well as another tray of bread. After we finished that, he brought out some BBQ pork, which didn’t seem as sweet as Chinese char siu.
Back on foot, we went to have drinks, a passion fruit soda for me, a mango smoothie for Melody, and a coconut drink in a coconut for Tan. As we sat there, Tan explained that we were in the middle of the afternoon rush hour which could last up to three hours.
Next up was dim sum, with all of the dumplings having pork with different additions, such as corn, shrimp, or tapioca. And we weren’t done! The next spot was beef wrapped in leaves that was grilled over hot coals. It’s served with thin rice noodle sheets which you roll the beef with, including vegetables with it. As we were finishing up, he got kumquat iced teas for us, which were quite refreshing.
Our last stop was for dessert. Tan called it Vietnamese creme brulee, and instead of a crispy torched sugar top, it had crushed ice. The ones he ordered were also topped with a coffee-flavored sauce, and it did hit the spot.
We walked a little bit more and just like that, our food tour was done.
Back to the hotel
Like many people use Uber or Lyft in the states, the major player in Ho Chi Minh City is Grab, both for transport and food delivery. Tan made sure we were able to hail a Grab car, and with so many drivers, a car was there in less than a minute.
I mentioned that Ho Chi Minh City had a lot of traffic, but nothing brings it home like being driven in it. Our ride from the airport was busy but other than gently easing into a lane filled with scooters, it was relatively uneventful.
Our Grab ride back to the hotel was, well, more exciting. First, the driver went through a signal, did a U-turn which would not be kosher in the States, then turned right so he could avoid the No Left Turn. He continued to wave through traffic, and it truly seemed like the scooters were swarming into any open spot.
At one point a car was trying to get into a left turn lane, but that didn’t leave much room for the driver since there was a tall SUV to our right. He got close to the SUV, rolled down his window, and looked to make sure he could clear the other car. Not only did the driver’s mirror just clear, but the passenger mirror nicely fit underneath the SUV driver side mirror, overlapping by half.
As we were starting to get closer to the hotel, I saw that his phone was routing him to drop us off on the wrong side of the street. Not only that, but he was supposed to turn right in less than 100 meters but he was in the far left lane. No worries, he started easing his way over, and eventually cars let him into each lane. For the final lane, he eased over through the scooters, which gave way.
Right turn made, he moved all the way left so he could make the left turn. He saw that the hotel was on the other side of the street, so he passed the hotel and pulled into a large driveway. He then turned left into the far left lane of the direction we were just going, meaning he was technically going the wrong way. He once again worked his way through lanes of cars and scooters, and stopped directly infront of the hotel’s door.
We headed back up to our room, and were actually able to stay up much later than the night before, boding well for future days.
