Saigon

I didn't expect to like Saigon at all. First off, it's a big city and I typically hate big cities. Second, I'd heard so many horrible stories of Vietnam, how it was touristy, ugly, unremarkable, and ruthlessly deceptive in ways of business. I'd gotten to a point where I was considering skipping it altogether, despite being a convenient transit back to China. Well, Michelle was game and I didn't mind adding another country, so we went. I'm glad I did.

Saigon was quite nice. It was green, full of parks and trees, had delicious food, and a great riverside setting, with a chilled out vibe that seemed to ignore it's massive size.

Our schedule only afforded us one whole day, but I used the most of it. We strolled around learning quickly how to cross the ocean of motorbikes. Our first stop was to visit "the lunch lady", a sweet, jolly soup monger running a simple stall in the far north of town. She was featured on Anthony Bourdain, so I figured I could not go wrong. She makes a different fresh soup for each day of the week and people flock from all around to try her now world famous soup. Even with directions from Google, she was hard to find. A certain alley looked familiar from TV and I saw a woman who looked a bit like the one from the show. We wandered around undecided if we'd hit the right alley until the sweet old lady, wearing the classic conical hat with a purple chin strap, greeted us with her soft eyes, "You look for Lunch Lady? That's me!" she cutely exclaimed. The soup, Cau Lao, a Hoi An specialty was divine, featuring meaty hand-pulled noodles, prawns, a little liver, an orgasmically flavored sausage, with rice cakes on top in a rich mouth-watering broth. It was easily one of the best soup I've tasted in my life. Thanks again Tony.

The soup lady was very close to a recommended temple by Lonely Planet, which had no appeal to me at all. Thanks again Lonely Planet. Next was the War Remnants museum, a very one-sided but poignant museum on the US war crimes during the war in Vietnam. It was quite informative and tasteful, dedicated to the furthering peace. The museum wisely began with a thank you to the US government for opening diplomatic relations to further the aim of peace between the two nations.

Besides this, we ate more good food, saw the cathedral and experienced our first taste of the un-hospitality of Vietnam. We wanted to mail packages home so we talked to the post office. We timed our trip poorly as we were caught in the monsoon rain. After being trapped under an awning for twenty minutes, a passing peddler sold us some ponchos and we made it to our destination. After talking to the woman and learning the rates, we spent five minutes unpacking our things from the plastic bags, then arranged them into piles for where we'd be sending each package. The woman watched us do this for the whole time, then the second we went to begin our packaging, she shut off the light and told us they were closed. Why didn't she just tell us when we came in that we would not have enough time to get the business done before closing? Be begrudgingly repacked our things for another five minutes and headed back into the rain.