Meeting Miss Saigon

When I imagined Vietnam, it was images of rice paddies, verdant jungles, decaying tropical cities and me desperately searching for something vegetarian to eat. This actual place is a revelation. 

Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City is a clean, green, modern, vibrant, walkable tropical city on the grow. Everything you need or want is easy to find and attain. The people are friendly, generous and helpful. They touch you gently for emphasis or just connection as they speak with you. The tourist hawkers are polite and not persistent. Even the bajillion scooter drivers let you go or just scoot around you. 

The scooters are everywhere, even more so than in India. The streets are full of scooters, there are scooter only lanes on major streets, scooters line the sidewalks, buildings have underground scooter parking, people park their scooters in their front living rooms. There are scooter deterrents built in to foil them and anyone needing accessibility for wheelchairs or strollers at lowered curbs. Scooters are the deliverers of supplies to restaurants and take the food deliveries to people, they are the taxicabs, the family vehicles and the way you take your pet out for a spin. People love it when you notice their pets riding the scooters. If they’re stopped, they will sometimes pick up a paw and make the pet wave at you.

Social life is on the street. Any street, no matter how tiny or busy. That’s where friends and family gather for meals, cool drinks and to socialize. Driving through to the Mekong Delta the roadsides were dotted with drinks places filled with plastic seats and hammocks for people to congregate. With so many people and their adorable little fluffy dogs on all the streets, it feels extraordinarily safe to be out.

After all the kerfluffle with me trying to get US dollars, no one will accept them. We went out in search of Vietnamese Dong (tee hee). Inflation is such that I am a multimillionaire. A Dong multimillionaire.

The food and drinks situation is problematic. Problematic in the sense that there is too much that is delicious and wants me to consume it. Even the table water is frequently flavoured with pandan leaves to give it a subtle toasted grassy vanilla aspect. 

Vietnamese coffee is famous around the world, and reasonably so. Iced or hot, it is strong, sweet, creamy and smooth. Variations you can find have had their beans pooped out by animals: civil cats, weasels or even elephants. I have had coffee from a weasel’s colon and it was pretty darn tasty. 

Refreshing iced teas are also a specialty and I have never seen such an amazing variety. Every restaurant, ever present 7-11 and street cart has a vast array of fruit or flower options in green, white or oolong bases. K has developed a taste for kumquat in tea and I keep exploring all the floral/fruit combos. Sitting down to cold tea on a hot day is a little bit of heaven on earth. 

I was legit worried about the food scene. As a vegetarian, I don’t find many options on Vietnamese restaurant menus at home. Everything has fish sauce or animal stock in it and I expected the same here. If you ask a Vietnamese meat-eater, they will tell you it’s a meat country and they don’t think there are any places for you to eat. If you look around, there are heaps and loads of chay (vegetarian) restaurants and even options on a lot of regular menus. I think they forget there is a large vegetarian Buddhist population amongst them. I’ll have to do a whole post on the food to do it any justice. Hell, just the options at 7-11 and Circle K could be their own thing.

The craziest thing we found straight away our first night is our neighbourhood party street. We are staying on a tiny little side street in District 1 and the first main street back from us is a carnival by night. We walked around the corner and whoa! Neon, laser light shows, throbbing disco lights, deafening music pumping and throngs of people on this closed off to non-scooter traffic street. Low tables and chairs fill the sidewalks in front of the bars, Indian restaurants, night clubs, massage parlours (specializing in foot massages), ice cream parlours and convenience stores. Restaurants have cute girls in anime costumes trying to beckon you within. In front of the open front dance clubs ripped boys in sunglasses gyrate wildly on platforms alongside tiny scantily clad girls in platform shoes so big they can’t lift their feet, swaying haphazardly to extreme dance mixes of Ed Sheeran songs. The live bars seemed to have a thing for black-clad, big haired classic rock cover Vietnamese bands done in a metal style. It’s all quite something. It’s a grand place to find a table, grab a Dragon beer and go deaf.