Vietnam!

Welcome to Vietnam! This is the first post with a bunch of photos - we've been trying to find enough internets to upload these - now, two weeks in, here they are!

We arrived late at night, dodged scammer taxis, and found a driver to take us to the hostel, My My Arthouse in the backpacker district of HCMC. This hostel was situated in the middle of a city block, meaning that you have to take at least four zig-zags through alleys barely wider than our backpacks to get there. The next morning, we had our first standard Vietnamese breakfast. There are two options for traditional breakfast - pho or french bread with omelet, always with sweetened tea or coffee - since we avoid pho (at least in the mornings), we've eaten bunches of baguettes so far.

Notice the bike on the right moving against traffic.

Rush hour on a small street

The first step to getting anywhere in HCMC is crossing a street, which is listed as the #1 attraction in the city. It takes practice and a bit of reckless abandon - you just start walking out into traffic at a slow, constant speed, and allow traffic to flow around you. If you change speed or stop, be prepared to have a pile of motorbikes honking at you.

We don't understand this fruit.

Bonus points if you can find a fruit you recognize!

We hit up some local markets to check out local foods - it's always exciting to see the raw materials and dubious sanitation techniques that are going into your food - we saw fish, squid, and entire pigs being hacked apart by old ladies with unnervingly large cleavers.

At this point, we started hitting up the local sights, pictured below:

A generic sidewalk in HCMC. Large sidewalks allow street vendors to sell all kinds of stuff without disrupting traffic.

Tank of lucky turtles at the Jade Emperor Pavilion - for good luck, locals feed little fish to the turtles, which amuse themselves by eating all day long. Like us.

This could be a city library in anytown, USA. But most city libraries don't have American War helicopters on top.

We visited the Reunification Palace, the center of the South 

Vietnam government until the invasion of the VC at the end of the Vietnam War. The palace was preserved with original items from the era - in particular, the furnishings were fascinating, reflecting influences from both Vietnamese and Chinese styles as well as the jet-set international cycle of the 50s. 

Note the black line drawn through the military insignia on the side - they take national military pride very seriously here. This is one of the Viet-Cong jets that bombed the palace in 1962.

After this, we visited the "War Remnants Museum," a several-story museum dedicated to artifacts and pictures from the American (Vietnam) War. This was such a powerful museum that we have a separate post for it that we'll publish when we can recover it from Nathan G's computer.

The HCMC cathedral (officially Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica). Built by French colonists in the 19th century, this medium sized cathedral was a highlight, mostly because of the madonna statues with fantastic neon-light halos.

After we had our share of markets and war-related spots, we decided to take advantage of the great exchange rate, and spent a day relaxing (eating) and drinking. We hit up bakeries, ice cream places, pho shops, trying all sorts of tasty items.

Is that a pineapple in that pina colada?

Damn....that was a strong singapore sling

Forest likes green things!

After three days in HCMC, we got on a soviet-era night bus (purple with polished aluminum accents and lace curtains) for our trip to Angkor Wat. Hang around for pictures from Cambodia!