RED ACCORDIONS: We're All Out of Vietnam...We Didn't Expect Such a Rush

Wednesday morning I caught the ferry back from Bintan Island, Indonesia back to Singapore and met up with Jasmine at the airport. From there, we flew to Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam! Technically, three countries in a day for each of us! And our first communist country! My adrenalin began to race again for all the right reasons once we landed since Vietnam immediately exuded a palpable electricity that I'm excited to explore.

Our rooms in the A & Em Hotel come with hot water, flat-screen TV, desktop computer, and free wireless. The decor of the rooms (and the hotel lobby) feels like, as Jasmine said, a stage set in the 90s tinged with baroque but with lots of silver instead of gold.

This made me chuckle (and it's translated too).

The room costs $30 U.S. so by splitting it with Ces (who's coming today!) and Jasmine's splitting hers with Sheryl, a newly acquainted colleague who's also attending the same conference as her, it makes it even more affordable at $15/night. After checking in, we realized we were about to gnaw our own arms off from hunger, so we strolled around the corner to a nearby market and picked an outdoor restaurant, Quan Oc Van (disclaimer: Vietnamese words here will probably be missing the proper accent marks), which was full of patrons.

Jasmine and I both picked crab dishes: Mien Xao Cua (fried vermicelli with crab) for Jasmine and Cua Rang Me (crab roasted with tamarind) for me, along with Cha Gio (a plate of fried, mini-sized spring rolls), and Sai Gon Do (Red Saigon beer). The crab was so succulent, brings me back to when my parents managed a seafood market in Maryland and would occasionally bring home bags of steamed crabs!

It began to rain and the restaurant employees began to stand on plastic chairs, tying up plastic sheets to block the rain, which only half-worked. We had to shift our chairs and move to a new table because we were still getting soaked. Also, the electric cords for the place were precariously plugged into extension cords that hung just below the dripping plastic overhangs. Welcome to Vietnam! I loved every minute...

Today, I walked around District 1 in Ho Chi Minh City in order to find cheap, used copies of Lonely Planet Vietnam. Cyclo drivers approached me right away, trying to persuade me to pay for a ride. One driver followed me for a few blocks, trying this and that tactic to persuade me, going as far as to show me a book of customer testimonials about his transportation services.
The heat was intense, but that didn't stop folks (women especially) from wearing longs sleeves and face masks (mostly in order to stay fair-skinned, which is ideal). Also, you can't be here for more than a second without noticing the endless army of motorcycle riders everywhere, dominating the streets (sometimes the sidewalks too). Crossing the street as a pedestrian has been such an act of faith...you basically have to saunter out into the road slowly and hope/pray that the riders will see you and move around you or stop. Surprisingly, they do.

I stopped by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Building briefly but kept on trucking toward the bookstores.

One of my favorite pics from this trip so far.

An old performance hall of some sort maybe?

I finally found a good used bookstore, Bookazine, that had three copies of the latest Lonely Planet Vietnam and so, after successfully bargaining with the owner, I bought copies for Jasmine and Ces too. At Pho 24 (a Lonely Planet recommendation) I tried the Pho Bo (pho with well-done beef flank). While I don't agree with LP that it's the best pho here (I trust there's even better out there), it was really fresh and yummy.

I waited out a heavy rainstorm for about half an hour and finally made it to the War Remnants Museum, which reveals war atrocities inflicted (mostly by the U.S.) upon the Vietnamese (mostly civilians). The exhibition was immediately so overwhelming and unbelievably sad. I found myself trying to stay composed as I viewed photos of victims who were exposed to Agent Orange, or napalm, or phosphorous bombs, dioxide, mines, dart rockets, etc. Some were directly affected while others (mostly children) were born with serious physical malformations and developmental problems. Then there were those were who died too: entire families, rows of children (sometimes 5 or 6 kids from the same family all dead), remnants of what barely resembled the shape of a human being.

The museum also included photographers' works from the war, as well as info about torture devices (such as the infamous "tiger caves"), historical documents and images relating to Ho Chi Minh and his plight for Vietnam's independence from France, and posters representing various nations' disgust over the Vietnam war. Here is one of the most graphic of the images (with the accompanying caption), along with a poster images.

To decompress after such an emotional museum trip, I walked over to the Golden Dragon Water Puppet Theatre where I met up with Jasmine and Shea to catch the next performance. According to Lonely Planet, it is believed that water puppetry (roi nuoc) "developed when determined puppeteers in the Red River Delta managed to continue performances despite annual flooding."

The performance consisted of short vignette-like pieces that centered around, say, a fisherman trying to catch a fish, or dragons chasing each other. While you're watching, you can't help but to wonder how the puppets are being manipulated (especially since some spat water, or spewed fireworks or smoked cigarettes from their mouths, or danced).

Afterward, we walked through Tao Dan Park and gawked at hedge sculptures like this one.

At Huong Lai, a restaurant "in the airy loft of an old-French era shophouse....[where] all the staff here are from disadvantaged families or are former street children and receive on-the-job training, education, and a place to stay," I tried a dish with "thien ly" (a vegetable that reminds me of a cross between a bean sprout and edamame) with beef and brown rice. So so delicious...one of my favorite restaurants and meals so far!