Liberation Day

  Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
April 30, 2009

Today is the annual celebration of the fall of Saigon to communist forces on April 30, 1975. What that means to us is that some businesses and restaurants will be closed or have shortened hours.

Since we were up late last night we woke up late. We showered and gathered up our laundry. We went down for breakfast at 10 to find out that breakfast was over. I don't like missing meals and I was not very happy.

We got our things from the room and headed toward the Guest House/Backpacker area to find a place to get our laundry done. 45 minutes later we found a spot. By this time my head was pounding and I was very hungry.

We took a slight detour to an internet cafe to find the price of wide angle lenses. We had walked up a street near the Ben Thanh Market that had lots of camera and electronic shops. Bill has been dying to buy a wide angle lens and we have not seen any stores that have carried them until Ho Chi Minh City.

By now my head hurts, my stomach hurts and I feel nauseous. So, we pop into what I thought was a mini mart - Lotteria, but it was a greasy fast food place. The next place I see is a Korean restaurant. I ordered fried mushrooms and Bill ordered fried dumplings and a 7-Up. The fried mushrooms were extremely greasy, but filled me up and made me feel better temporarily. Bill did not enjoy his dumplings. They provided us with complimentary water and a spicy veggie dish that I only had one bite of and Bill did not try.

Bill started navigating us to Dan Sinh Market, but took us the wrong way. If this sounds like it happens frequently, I can assure you that it does... LOL! We turned around and found the market. This market has household items, hardware items and army surplus - boots, helmets, lighters, jackets,... Due to the holiday, 1/2 the stalls were closed.

We then went to the Fine Arts Museum. The building has seen better days. It would have been very beautiful - French Colonial style and has marble floors throughout. Unfortunately there was no a/c in the building and the grease in my stomach was taking it's revenge. I began feeling nauseous while we were there and began spending a lot of time observing the displays in front of the fan in each room.

On the first floor there was an extensive display of ceramics - pots, vases, tureens, lime pots, piggy banks. There was also some elaborate copper incense burners. They are really beautiful and would be an incredible souvenir if I can find a small inexpensive one somewhere...

The 2nd floor had drawings, paintings and sculptures that was mostly considered political art. I did like the use of lacquer in some of the paintings (not the small scenes). The 3rd floor included influences from Cham, Funan, Khmer, Chinese and Indian in the sculptures and pottery. Most of the art work was of gods, goddesses, Buddhas and funeral statues.

Overall the museum had some nice works of art. There were no Impressionist pieces (our favourite), brief descriptions and no guide of any type available.

We went to the Underground Coffee shop for some a/c. I had mango juice with ice (like a shake without milk) to try to settle my stomach and Bill had a Tiger draft and a BLT. They gave us free iced tea and peanuts. The service in the coffee shops here is incredible. I began feeling much better after our break.

We went to Ben Thanh Market - I really love that place. I am really going to miss going to markets when we get back home. They are so much fun to explore! Bill spotted some Gio cologne and was deciding whether to purchase or not. As always, the more you buy, the better the deal, so they had Allure and we bought both for 250,000 dong ($18).

It took us a while to find the street with the camera and video game stores, but we finally did. There was only one place that had a Canon wide angle lens and Bill was not sure if it was the size he wanted. The guy wanted $130 USD for it. We decided to look around some more and found a card reader for our camera memory cards (50,000 dong, less than $5). Now we do not have to find a DVD reader, we can just upload pics with the card reader. That should make life easier and we can put some more pics up with the blog.

We decided to take another short rest at Quau Hy restaurant. I had an iced red bean drink with coconut milk and Bill had a Saigon Beer. The drink was not bad, I don't think I need to order it again...

We took a cab to the Ngoc Hoang - the Jade Pagoda. Again, like the Fine Arts Museum it would have been very beautiful at one time, but is a bit run down right now. It was still really cool and very different from other temples that we have been to.

A note about the cab ride - the driver was always over-geared. He had the car in 4th gear before we were at 40 kph and never dropped it into 1st gear. Since the ride I have noticed that sound a car makes when you have it in the wrong gear in many of the taxis as they drive by us when we are walking around. I don't know what requirements are for being a cab driver, but English is not one of them, nor is knowing how to shift properly is not one of them and nor are knowing where hotels and landmarks are. The only requirement I can see is that you know how to use the horn!

This temple was built by Cantonese Buddhists during the 19th century. The architecture is strongly influenced by Southern Chinese elements. It was small and filled with smoke from several people lighting incense. There were some really good, detailed wooden carvings. The statues were made of ceramic.

In the first part there was the Mother of 5 Buddhas and her sons. There were two larger than life guards on either side of the shrine. At the back of the temple, the Emperor of Jade, is a Taoist deity, is encircled by his guardians.

In a room at the side - the Hall of 10 Hells there are wooden reliefs depicting the horrors of Hell. There was also another deities and his guards that were surrounded by large horses. People were making offerings and ringing the bells hanging from the horses' necks.

The last room was The Room of Women and had six women that represent the years of the calendar (like Year of the Tiger) and a temptation.

Outside the temple there was a large incense burner that you light a piece of paper and place it inside the burner. There was also a mostly dried up turtle and fish pond.

We then crossed a large busy street again and walked toward the Botanical Zoo. We decided that we did not want to go in and walked back to the hotel. All in all, I think we did around 8 kms today.

We had some pistachios, apple and peanut butter in the room with Pokka sugar-free iced tea and Coke. We then went down to the business center and I worked on the blog while Bill checked our memory cards. He found out that 3 of our memory cards have been corrupted by the internet cafe in Sihanoukville when he burnt copies of the pictures. OH NO! That would be 3/4 of our trip photos so far and we do not have confirmation of any of our packages arriving at home yet. Good news is that the file sizes are within the right ranges and Bill can view the pictures on our camera. So, all is not lost yet. It still does not give me the "warm fuzzies" though.

We walked back to the area near the bus station to pick up our laundry. We were able to walk there in less than a 1/2 hour now that we know where we are going. Everything looks and smells good! We found an internet cafe/restaurant called Thuc Don that had one computer that can read DVDs. Bill checked all the DVDs and the pictures are all there. Thank God! St Christopher and St Peter are still looking after us!

We were going to eat at an Italian restaurant that we had seen the other night when it started to rain. We decided to go to a nearby restaurant instead. 3A3 Bun Bo Hue was nearby and looks good. The waitress tried to help Bill with his nap sack that is filled with our laundry. She could not lift it off the floor. She was embarrassed and start giggling!

They have a nice service at most restaurants. They bring a nice cool, damp face cloth for you to wash your hands. I like that!

I ordered a pork steamed rice wrapper and Bill ordered sauteed beef in a steamed rice roll. I had tra da (Vietnamese green tea iced tea without sugar) and Bill had Tiger Beer (78,000 dong $5.25). I really liked my rolls. They are like the rice paper rolls that we have made, but they are served warm with a thick gravy-like dip. Bill's rolls looked and tasted really good. They looked like little buns and were served with soy sauce. We both had a beautiful carrot flower on our plate too. 
 
It was still raining, so we hailed a cab back to the hotel for 32,000 dong (around $2). I was working on the blogs and looked up the unique and pretty style of outfit here. Some ladies where a long shear top that has slits around the waist and goes to ankle length. Normally they wear silk or satin pants underneath. This style is called Ao Dai. Bill was checking on the stocks that he recently purchased. One stock is a make-up line called Bare Essentials. It was up, way up, so he sold it! I told him to keep up the good work so that we can stay unemployed longer! We were both on the internet until after 11:00. We can not stay up too late, we are going on a tour tomorrow am.