Saigon Story : Welcome to Uncle Ho's Land

I really had no idea what brought me to Saigon. Just bought the fight tix and thought, "This place is sounds cool." Never browse this place on the internet until 2 weeks before the departure. All I know about this country are: the ruins of the war, communist-socialist country, underdeveloped, John Rambo. I share the same impressions with other Indonesians. It appeared when I was interviewed by the Immigration officer for the passport proposal. He joked, "You're helping Rambo against the Vietcong, eh? hahahaha". Yeah right, everybody doesn't know any shit about this country except the war and suffering stuff, which i think it's exotic.



With the lonely-planet-wikitravel-knowledge, i packed my bag and finally stepped my feet on Uncle Ho's land. This country was underrated. Never thought that Tan Son Nhat Airport could be this modern. Ann, our host in Saigon, told me this airport was rebuilt 3 years ago. Ah, no wonder this could be modern.



We stayed at Ann's place for the first 3 days. Ann's house is just 3 km away from the airport. It's in the northwest of Ho Chi Minh City (the other name of this city, widely used now but I prefer Saigon), in the suburb. It took only 15 minutes to get here from the airport. In the Vinasun cab I was thinking, "Hey, I'm not in Java Island anymore. Here I am in mainland Asia". I was too excited to be there. On the way to Ann's place, I saw a very identical city view here and Jakarta. Lobak said, "Seriously, this is exactly just like Mangga Besar. The people are Chinese looking but they speak completely different language." Yes, some parts of this city are identical with Jakarta. No wonder it's not that different, it's still in the Southeast Asia. Finally we arrived at Ann's place. We got settled and had mouth-watering homemade Vietnamese dinner, and had nice chit-chat before we went to bed.



In the first morning, I was surprised on what I saw in front of Ann's house. The streets in the neighborhood was fulfilled with street vendors, breakfast street-food sellers, and zillions of motorbikes. The streets was like a river with motorbikes flowing on the street. For a person who is living in a crazy-traffic city, I even consider the traffic was insane. You can't even walk across an alley during rush hours. You can find this kind of situation in every street of the city in the dusk and dawn.



After waited for the rain to stop. We went to the city in the afternoon by bus. It took 20 minutes from Ann's to Ben Thanh market, the city central. Again and again, I underrated this city. Unlike my imaginations, everything that catches my eyes was a surprising thing for me. Everything is beautiful as a city, never thought that this country could have such an order city, like Saigon. The city central was fulfilled with French-colonial art deco buildings. Hotels, restaurants, shopping arcade, coffee shops (try Trung Nguyen, pronounced Chung-ngyen, are heavenly good) are in hundred years old building. Not to forget to mention the sidewalks, they're completely wide and clean, no street vendors. This is completely different than Jakarta. When the night came, the city has its own beauty with the city lights, splendid. And oh, almost forgot the parks, there's a park at least one in every block greened by big trees, statues, pavements, and people who are enjoying their time. I really love it with all my heart. Never been to Europe, but I feel I was somewhere in Europe. So nice, so well-cultured. It is understandable if the city is well-preserved because back in the war times, it was occupied by the US Army. Only the northern part, which is occupied by the Vietcong, was devastated because of the war.



Besides the city, I also got the chance to see Mekong Delta. I don't like join the tour but that's the only way I can do to get there. Mekong river was BIG. Maybe for Indonesian Mekong is overrated cause we have big rivers here but for me who only know Ciliwung as the river, it's great. Went cruising along the river, visited islands in the middle of the river, tried the local food and culture were pleasant enough for me.

One thing I found in this city, or maybe this country, is: Ho Chi Minh is everywhere. He's on the Billboards, on the streets, on every ammount of the currency, in the museums, in the heroic stories, and maybe in the Vietnamese's hearts. I was wondering, "Where are the other national heroes? Did he fight by himself? or is he just being narcissistic?" Well, maybe because they're still pretty much communist, there's only one man for the country just like Mao for China or Castro for Cuba. The only thing about this city, or maybe this country (damn! I should've traveled to other cities here..) is it's all about the war stuff, the history, the war suffering, and the hatred of Vietnamese towards the Americans or French (it's debatable). It's pretty obvious when you are in touristic areas. They sell the history lot more than culture. That's what I'm feeling about tourism here.




Gastronomic experience here is amazing. Everything in Vietnam taste so goddamn great. From the all Vietnamese homemade food I tried in Ann's, the restaurants, cafes, until the street food had been mouthwatering and all-time craving for me. I don't mind eating pork so I tried lots of kinds of food here. The Banh Mi -Vietnamese sandwich-, Banh Seo, Pho Bo, Pho Ga, and other hard-to-remember-the-name foods taste heavenly. I could even eat a rock covered by mud here and it tastes really good. It is obvious that their cuisine are strongly influenced by Chinese and French delicacy. Vietnamese food is a very great combination between the meat, carbo, and vegetables. Eating is one of my major activities here. I love eating in everywhere, even eating in the street food in front of Vietnamese schools had become a very great experience. Apart from the enormous usage of basil, I love Vietnamese food.

The thing about traveling is you can have opportunity to meet new people and try to absorb the city's atmosphere. I found the people here are quite nice. Hard to communicate with most of the locals since their English ability is no better than the Neanderthals. Since I don't speak Tieng Viet al all, I found it really hard to communicate with them when I was in shops, or restaurants. One day, when I was in a nice coffee shop near Ann's, I asked the waiter for an ashtray. Before I asked, she ran inside the coffee shop (I was in the terrace) and then she gave me the bill. I was laughing and I told her with my body language that I need ashtray. She nodded and went inside the coffee shop. Then she came out with a smile and.... a matches in her hand. She gave me the matches and I ran out of words of languages. I ended up wasting the ashes on the floor. One American man I met named Darren told me that compared to any other people in Indochina, Vietnamese are bitchier. They don't speak English but they seemed don't want to learn. When we talked to them, they easily angry cause they're frustrated they don't get what we said. Geez...




Apart from the bitchy Vietnamese, I met amazing people here. Met Darren, and American who is currently moving from Seoul to Saigon for a new living. Had inspiring all-night-long conversations and discussions with him about life. Met Collin, and Irish who owns an Irish Bar named Collin's and listened to his marriage stories with his Vietnamese wife and his stories about how hard to manage a bar in Vietnam. And of course, accidental meeting with Ivan is one of the interesting part of this city. I accidentally met him at KFC, he's Vietnamese-looking but I kinda notice that he's Indonesian from his Tokema T-shirt and Consina pants. He ended up being our "local guide" and brought us to nice places in Saigon.
What pleasant days in Uncle Ho's Land


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