The train ride from Mui Ne to Saigon was par for the course for the developing world: people selling weird foods, a disgusting toilet, and really pretty scenery to watch for hours. After arriving at the train station, we hopped in an Uber to our guesthouse and got our first taste of Saigon traffic. As we lurched and crawled our way through thousands of motorbikes, bicycles, cars, carts, and pedestrians, I wondered to myself: “Oh shit, it’s not going to be like this everywhere, is it?” Answer: yeah, it’s like that everywhere.
After we checked in to our cute guesthouse, got the tour, and had obligatory iced coffees, we made two important decisions about how we would tackle Saigon:
- Contrary to what I normally like to do when traveling, we’re not going to wander on foot a lot. Traffic is just too stressful for walking around, sidewalks are often blocked with motorbikes and carts, and pedestrians are basically third-class citizens.
- We’ll aim to go to nicer spots when we go out. Higher-end places are still quite affordable by Western standards, plus we can take advantage of rooftop bars in warm weather, something we don’t get back home.
We put our new guidelines to the test immediately by getting a Grab (Southeast Asia’s answer to Uber) and going to Shri, a gorgeous rooftop bar with small bites, fancy cocktails, a beautiful menu designed by a British mixologist and artist, and an amazing view.
After a couple rounds of drinks, we consulted TripAdvisor on nearby restaurants and (slowly) made our way to Citadel, where we had an excellent dinner of crab spring rolls, fish claypot, fried tofu with toasted lemongrass, and passion fruit mousse.
We spent the rest of the evening at a bar in the backpacker/party area around the corner from our guesthouse. It was a Friday night, so there was plenty of people watching to be done. We sat outside on the corner, drinking cold Vietnamese beer in the warm evening and watching the chaos of taxis and cars and motorbikes and food vendors and party people all fighting for space in the streets.
The next day was our motorbike city tour, recommended to us by the staff at our guesthouse. The company conducts non-profit student tours, whereby each participant is paired up with a university student with a motorbike. Tourists get a personalized tour guide for half a day and the opportunity to experience crazy Saigon traffic without actually having to drive in it; university students make some extra money and have a chance to practice their English. And both parties get a chance to learn more about a foreign culture. It’s a great deal.
That morning, two university boys arrived at our guesthouse and after introductions and a conversation about where we wanted to go, we hopped on the backs of their motorbikes. Being engulfed in the madness of Saigon traffic is one of the few times during my travels when I really, really wished I had a GoPro or a pair of those Snap Spectacles. There aren’t many traffic lights or stop signs in Saigon, mostly roundabouts and other merges, which means that traffic is a continuously moving swarm all day long. Watching massive rivers of traffic delicately merge into each other without any accidents is a fascinating sight, especially for a Westerner. There was absolutely no way I was taking out my camera or phone while on the back of a motorbike in tight traffic, so I’ll have to refer you to YouTube videos for the experience.
The first stop of the day was the War Remnants Museum, one of the most important sites in Saigon for understanding the recent history of the country. As an American, I felt obligated to learn more about the war, especially from the perspective of the other side. The logical starting point of the museum is the main courtyard, which is full of American war machines: planes, jets, helicopters, tanks, boats, cannons, and other weaponry.
Other areas of the courtyard have some grisly artifacts and stories of prisoner torture. There are stories on the walls of war atrocities, a replica of a prisoner’s cell and the guards’ walkway above it, and even a guillotine.
The first floor of the museum building has various exhibits with details of life in Vietnam before the war and how lifestyles and economies vary in different parts of the country. The real subject matter is on the second floor; the galleries there are filled with stories and photos that illustrate all the horrors and consequences of the war. Other than S-21 (the genocide museum) and the killing fields in Phnom Penh, this was the most uncensored historical content I’ve ever seen. The photography on display in the galleries included dead soldiers, dead women and children, horribly injured survivors, deformed fetuses, and other brutal health effects of agent orange. The pictures and stories include soldiers of both countries, but clearly all the innocent civilians are Vietnamese. Most of the photos come from American sources, so one can hardly make the claim that the museum is Vietnamese propaganda.
The photo most memorable for me was not gruesome in any way, but simply remarkable. In 1967, a UPI photographer snapped a photo of a plane seconds after it had been hit by artillery and seconds before it crashed to the ground. That photo would be impressive today even with the proliferation of high-powered, high-speed digital cameras; the fact that it came from a film camera in the 60’s is phenomenal.
The museum visit was incredibly sobering and depressing, but I still think that it’s a must-see for any American tourist in Saigon. After we left and tried to mentally readjust to modern-day Vietnam, we lightened the mood by visiting the Central Post Office (now partially a tourist site) and the nearby “Book Street”, a walkable alley filled with bookstores, kiosks, and cafes. Normally, an alley with bookstores wouldn’t be that noteworthy, but finding a pedestrian-friendly area in Saigon is no easy task.
Next up was lunch and the boys had an idea they wanted to pursue. They had heard about a quasi-secret seafood noodle soup from a YouTube video and a blog post and wanted to try it. They weren’t exactly sure how to find the exact location, so we stopped at least half a dozen times so one of them could ask a stranger for directions. Eventually we found ourselves riding down incredibly narrow alleys with low umbrellas and awnings, lined with peach iced tea vendors and food carts on either side. (For posterity, the alley is close to the Ho Thi Ky Flower Market.) I’m not the biggest fan of noodle soup, but even I’ll admit that this was really freaking good, especially with generous helpings of Vietnamese fish sauce and chili sauce. It looks simple in photos, but the flavor complexity is incredible.
Our last stop of the day was Thien Hau Pagoda, one of many atmospheric Chinese-style temples in the city. We wandered for a bit, took lots of photos, and made a few prayers via burning sticks of incense.
After the boys dropped us off at the guesthouse and we all settled up, Laurie and I got massages and (carefully) walked the neighborhood a bit before dinner. In Vietnam, Christmas is celebrated on December 24th, so that evening, much to our surprise, was Christmas Eve. The staff at the guesthouse were organizing a dinner in the common area and they had invited some of their friends and neighbors and all the guests to join. They had seafood curry and French bread, deviled eggs, snails, fruitcake, Saigon beer, rum, and even a small grill on the table to cook up pork and okra. We all ate and drank and chatted about our respective countries and I scooped up the house puppy as soon as he got within my grasp.
After the dinner party started winding down, Laurie and I went out in search of cocktails and ended up at The View, a great rooftop bar conveniently located on the street behind our guesthouse. We had gotten a late start on the evening though and they started closing not long after we got there. We finished our drinks, went out in search of more food, and ended up at the nearby King Kebab, one of those small, perfect drunk-food spots, but also the #4 restaurant in the city according to TripAdvisor. Go figure.
While eating our wraps and fries, we started chatting with a middle-aged Asian-American man who was sitting out front with his friend and his very young daughter. The girl, Hannah, was smitten with Laurie immediately and insisted on sitting on her lap and talking to her and trying all our food. You may wonder what kind of father brings his two-year-old daughter to a restaurant at 1:00 in the morning to meet people who have been drinking for hours. A former Survivor contestant, that’s who!
I can personally vouch for the “outlandish humor” and “eccentric behavior” referenced in the first sentence of that wiki page. That said, he’s absolutely the Vietnamese version of the most interesting man in the world. For hours, he told us crazy stories about his life – like surviving on McDonald’s when he was extremely sick as a child in a Vietnamese refugee camp – while we were entertained by the antics of his daughter and all the random passersby. For better or worse, one of his approaches to fatherhood is that he would prefer his daughter meet people late at night after they’ve had a few drinks, when they’re happier and more mellow, rather than during the day, when Saigon daily life is stressful and frenetic.
We didn’t turn in until 3:00 or so, so it came as no surprise that we slept in like crazy. Laurie was leaving for Hanoi that night, so we had to settle on a limited itinerary for the rest of the day. We had a late, excellent lunch at Propaganda, then walked down the street to Independence Palace, one of the most important tourist sites in Saigon. We were on such a slow schedule that day that we arrived at the palace at 4:00, which left us with only an hour to explore the grounds.
The whole day had really slipped away from us, but an hour was still enough time to wander most of the presidential palace, taking in the large meeting rooms, 70’s-inspired decor and furniture, large military maps of the country, helicopter on the rooftop, small movie theater, and underground floor with communications equipment and simple bedrooms. The palace was sprinkled with fascinating tidbits of history, including stories and photos of the Fall of Saigon, which is often symbolized by the moment tanks crashed through the front gates of the palace.
After a brief coffee break and a failed attempt to fit in one more tourist activity, we went back to the guesthouse, Laurie packed the rest of her stuff, we said our goodbyes, and she hopped in an Uber for the airport. I explored some more of the city that evening and left for the airport early the next morning to catch my flight to Bangkok.
In retrospect, I was intrigued by Saigon a lot more than I thought I would be. Once I committed to the madness and energy of the city, I really enjoyed it and suddenly three days, which initially seemed like more than enough time, felt too short. I don’t know if I could keep up that pace enough to live there, but I would definitely visit again.