HCMC

Ho Chi Minh City or HCMC, it’s the largest city in Vietnam and the most crowded. One of the first things you notice is the motorcycles, everywhere! There are over 3 million motorcycles and around 300,000 cars in a city of 9 million people. Traffic is sort of a free for all and pedestrians by no means have the right of way. Crossing the road is a bit of a challenge at first, but then you realize you just have to go for it and the traffic will go around you.

Putting new soles on my sandals cut out of old motorcycle tires

There’s a reoccurring theme in SE Asia- people manage to do so much with the little they have. After all the walking we’ve been doing, my sandals were starting to fall apart. The front was peeling off and the back heals were worn thin. Two industrious young gents approached me on the sidewalk noticing my pathetic sandals and offered to remedy the situation. They had little repair kits and immediately started repairing my sandals. We haggled (I mean Melissa haggled, she’s a bulldog) over the price and for $5 they repaired my sandals good as new right there on the street. They put new soles on the bottom of the sandals made from old motor cycle tires. There are little vendors like this everywhere.

Typical houses along the Mekong

When we left Vietnam, we decided to do so by boat, up the Mekong River, the lifeblood of SE Asia. The river starts in the Yunnan Province of China and zig zags through Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia before fanning out into a delta and eventually dumping into the South China Sea some 2700 miles later. We took a small boat up the Mekong into Cambodia. The river is teeming with life; peoples’ homes are built on tall stilts all along the river. The stilts are used given that there are drastic changes of the water level during the raining season. People fish in the river, bathe in the river, do laundry in the river, and perform every aspect of commerce imaginable. One of the highlights of Vietnam was visiting the floating market. It’s a wholesale market that takes place completely on the river. Each boat at the market has a long bamboo pole sticking straight up in the air with one of each of their items for sale tied to it so everyone else knows what you’re selling. Items like watermelons, pineapples, carrots, and even livestock! Most of the people have traveled many hours in from both directions on the river to get to the market. Each boat comes fully loaded and leaves fully loaded with new goods to take back to their villages.

Whatever is hanging on the pole is what's for sale

Woman selling watermelons 

Cutting a pineapple up for us

Mixing coconut batter

Cutting the cooled batter

We made various detours into some of the villages to check out 
the different things being made by villagers. We went to a family run shop that makes coconut candy. The whole family has an assigned task, young and old. Coconut candy is a production, first opening the coconut, shredding the pulp, separating the oil, and then finally mixing the pulp into a batter. The batter is laid out in a big thin sheets and when it’s cooled, it is cut into small pieces and wrapped in edible rice paper.  The candy is soft and chewy, rich and coconutty, needless to say Melissa was all over it.

The sad reality for most families is that child labor is necessary to survive.

Rice paper drying in the sun

Pouring out rice batter to steam

Another stop on the river was at a family shop that makes rice paper, a mother and son operation. It’s a hot, I mean hot and exhausting process they do 7 days a week. Rice grains have small husks on them which are removed after drying in the sun. Nothing goes to waste in Vietnam and the husks provide fuel for this family's small furnace. Rice is ground to flour and made into a batter. The mother and son work as a team. The son pours and spreads the batter on a burner; he then steams it. The working area is well over a hundred degrees and sweat just pours off you. The mom lifts each thin rice paper with a wicker rolling pin and then lays it out to cool. The rice paper is then dried in the sun before being packaged for shipping.  It’s humbling to see how hard most people in Vietnam work for such little money in harsh conditions.

Hot rice paper coming of the burner

Rice husks fuel the furnance

Our boat captain crawled into the engine compartment

Traveling up the Mekong into Cambodia was like a scene straight out of Apocalypse Now.  As we left the Vietnam border the boat had some mechanical problems. It was around 7 in the morning but already close to 90 degrees. Our poor captain was stuck working in the hot and tiny engine compartment while we were baking in the heat of the sun. After 1.5 hrs we were back on our way again. We were guzzling water as it seemed to get hotter with every hour. We stopped at the Cambodian border for our visas and then traveled 5 additional hours up the river to Phnom Penh. Vietnam was fantastic and we frequently reminisce about our time there. 

Hanoi, Vietnam

Bowl of Hot Pho awaits you in Vietnam!!

This is easily one of my favorite cities we have visited so far.  They say Hanoi was like the Paris of Asia in the 60’s.  The city streets are lined with locals eating and drinking, not in outdoor terraces like in Europe, but rather on little plastic stools on small, jagged sidewalks, alleys, or anywhere you can possibly situate yourself.  The food is also being cooked right where one set up shop, in several large, steaming pots usually with a variety of greens and other things we didn't recognize.   The buildings are old French colonial buildings that have charming cafes and small mom and pop stores.  Walking around the city is fascinating as it’s so different than anywhere else I have been.  It’s so colorful, vibrant, and busy all at the same time and has a thousand different food smells as you walk. 

feather dusters

street side dining

street side poker

bun cha

The Vietnamese work so hard all day, everyday, in the heat, in the rain, and often fall asleep at their post.  Their labor is also fascinating and so different than home.  We simply enjoyed soaking in the culture of this place and of course at a lot of PHO.  Supposedly, Hanoi is the birthplace of pho, but there is some controversy over this.  We went to a few hole in the wall places and a few actual restaurants and we found that they do NOT use plum sauce here.  So, for those of you who love that bit of sweet with your salty, you may be disappointed.  For us, the pho did not disappoint.  It was delicious none the less and as predicted better in the streets.  Another favorite was the bun cha.  Fresh rice noodles, broth, grilled pork patties, a massive plate of Asian greens including lettuce, basil, mint and perilla, and last but not least fried spring rolls.  It’s pure bliss.  Another thing I fell in love with was the fresh cane sugar juice.  AMAZING!!  Fresh cane sugar is pressed through this crusher and reveals the best quencher on a hot day. 

Cane Juice

Another thing you will notice in Hanoi is the motorbikes and bicycles.  They dominate the city and Nathaniel got some cool pics one afternoon stroll…Nathaniel also got into his first altercation here over someone swearing at me.  I didn’t do anything wrong; the point is, he was about to get into a fist fight for me and I of course told him it wasn’t worth it.  Also, the guy was like 5’4”!  I frequently like to tell my husband that he’s a big, strong man now.

Lastly, it’s so incredibly cheap here.  For perspective, we usually eat for about $3, take a taxi for a few bucks, and have amazing accommodation’s for  about $30.  This is also the first time I have EVER slept in a round bed.  Recommended ;) If you happen to make it to Vietnam, Hanoi should not be missed.

street side boba tea