Day 4. Vietnam Diary – Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon

Upset tummy, AK47s, another pork overload (now temporarily vegetarian)

10:35. I definitely have a slightly delicate stomach (by which I mean bowel). Nothing restrictive, but I’m aware it could go in a direction I’m not keen on. My plan for an early walk/museum/coffee/breakfast went to plan but I got distracted when I got back to my apartment (which I’m due to check out of at 11:00). I discovered that wearing black or white is not good in Vietnam. Black is associated with darkness, evil and filth. White is purity, death and finality. Today, I wore a long white floaty thing over a white (striped with red and black) vest top and thin black trousers. Yesterday, I also wore a long white top over black leggings. So basically black and white. I’ve now unpacked and re-packed. My top is now white but with lots of bright colours, pinks, reds, yellows and blues. I am still wearing the black trousers. Almost everything I’ve brought is black or white. On the first full day, I wore dark blue with coloured bits. I feel uncomfortable at the thought of wearing black and white. Red, yellow and gold are all good. They are not my colours. Sky blue, pink and purple seem good. Grey seems, well, grey; unclear. I have some grey trousers and one pink top. I had initially considered packing a bright pink kurta and a brightly coloured top (both a Pakistani brand, Khaadi), very colourful/bright/patterned, but I swapped them for the black top. Gah! The photo below would not normally be deemed remotely fit to post and share and is one of my more bizarre photos. I was extremely hot and perilously close to overheating. I look hot and uncomfortable because I was. If my hair had a mind, it would express how unstylish and strange it felt. I am holding a replica AK-47, which is slick with black grease. This is my “wrong” black and white outfit. If I were ever a missing person, this is the last photo I would want anyone to distribute to the press, for how I look but also for the fact of the surreal setting!

I’m now sitting in the shade outside Uncle Nick’s, a coffee shop almost next door to where I was staying. I’ve checked out and left my rucksack.

The museum-of-sorts that I went to this morning was at 270 Vo Van Tan (or ish – I marked it on Google Maps and that’s the address Google Maps saved – it’s not named as the “museum”). The sign outside reads 287/70 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, Ward 5, District 3. The house was bought to store an arsenal of weapons, including AK47s, B40s, carbines, pistols, grenades, TNT, C-4 etc. They built underground tunnels, concealed weapons inside doors and woven baskets. Overnight on the Tet (new year) festival in 1968, they set off to attack the Royal Palace as part of the infamous Tet Offensive.

I’m not entirely clear what happened but the group that set off from that secret bunker appear to have been chased back to the house, where there are bullet holes around the front door. I couldn’t quite work out whether they were chased back there or it was a separate incident. The house is sort of interesting, but I’d like to know more about how it was used. Climbing down into the tunnel/bunker is interesting, though very, very hot, by which I mean even hotter than the very, very hot outside temperature. The original piece of red and white chequered flooring is down there. The pieced used now to reveal the steps down into the bunker is lightweight and much easier to open and close.

The museum is informal, open when, I assume, someone is around to man it. I was told there was no entrance fee but I did give a tip of 20k vnd (I have no idea if that was good or bad but it was the same amount as my coconut water the day before … though probably that’s not a good gauge?!). There is another museum of sorts next door, which is also a café. I was a bit confused about just going in off the street and walking around. But by the time I got to the second museum area, where the car is, I was far too hot. There are some more hidden steps in that second “museum”; I just saw the displays in the front room. Do not underestimate how unofficial and informal it all is and that you could go there but it will be closed. It is, however, worth visiting.

I left the apartment to walk there at 07:45 this morning. As soon as I walked into the busy road, my first thought was something like, “Oh no, not the traffic”. It’s impossible to walk without awareness of the terrain and, what hit me (not figuratively, fortunately), the mopeds/scooters. They come from all directions. My 15-ish-minute walk to the museum (I had planned to have breakfast at the café opposite [I wonder why I thought that was important to point out at the time?!]) incorporated crossing a lot of busy roads. I don’t really know how but I got across all of them. Walking times are massively affected by duration of time spent at the edge of busy roads wondering which scooter is most  likely to hit you. Somehow, though horribly vulnerable, it seems like two-thirds of the adventure is over once you’ve made it to the middle of the road. Every now and then, there are traffic lights and a green man. Bikes still go across but they are definitely more likely to acknowledge you have the right of way (but you don’t, because the pedestrian is definitely bottom of the road and pavement hierarchy, even when there are pedestrian crossing lights. As for zebra crossings, hahahahahahahaha, they just serve as road art).

The longer I’m here – has it really only been two full days?! – the more I notice what we tourists wear versus locals. I am not, nor ever really have been, a shorts-wearer. Most tourists wear shorts. It’s hot. I’m not sure I’ve seen a single local wearing shorts. Right now, everyone I can see is in a uniform, darker shades of plain colours, loose-fitting and probably cotton. I’ll look out for what people are wearing when I’m in a busier area.

It seemed a nice idea to choose my second place to stay while I was actually here, so I’d know where I’d like to spend more time or to stay somewhere I hadn’t yet visited. Now it’s time to move on a few miles away, I feel unsettled, as I did a bit last night when I packed and this morning when I unpacked to change out of my harsh black and white outfit and repacked.

Oh, just seen a Vietnamese woman on a scooter wearing flip flops, black, baby pink and white loose shorts and a pale purple, lightweight, cotton hoodie.

I will have about three hours of being homeless at a time I’d actually quite like to be sitting quietly in my room over the hottest midday hours. Hmm, always want what you can’t have?!

I’m not sure what or how I’m writing now is what I’d planned. I think I thought it’d be more profound – hmm, really?! – and definitely less “and then I had [my 57^th coffee].” Maybe as the days progress, it’ll change.

Excellent, a woman has just ridden past in what looked like a head-to-toe onesie which I think had an entire snakes & ladders board all over it. No shorts. And no flip flops. I hope it was a snakes and ladders board, I love the idea of that. I had thought about buying a few non-black items of clothing but her pattern choice is a step too far, at least on me.

I’m on a low wooden stool that my bum, back and knees have had enough of. It’s time to use my Grab app and brave the move to my next accommodation.

It’s now 13:39 and I’m in a very hip coffee shop, 96B Cafe and Roastery. I’m awaiting an expensive coffee. I think its value is slightly lost on me but I believe the coffee beans are Vietnamese. I’m not sure how it’ll arrive. I really shouldn’t be drinking yet more coffee but somehow iced coffee and hot coffee with condensed milk don’t seem particularly caffeinated. Hahahahahahahaha, very wrong, I know; Robusta has higher caffeine properties than my usual Arabica beans.

I am hot. I needed air conditioning. I’ve just been to a pink Buddhist temple, Chùa Ngọc Hoàng (Jade Emperor Pagoda), which President Barack Obama has visited. Tomorrow is a Buddhist festival, Vesak, which is the day of the full moon in May. In the year 623 BC, the Buddha was born on the day of May’s full moon. It’s a day, tomorrow, to commemorate the birth, enlightenment and death of Siddhartha Gautama, AKA Buddha.

My coffee is taking ages. I feel out of my depth. I’ve no idea how it’s being made.

I ordered a Grab car to my next accommodation. He was a nervous driver, which made me feel nervous, in an entirely different way to being driven by the scooter rider.

I like the feel of my previous area more, but it’s probably more that it was my first Saigon home. I left my rucksack and a few groceries in the new place and was directed to use the loo in a room. I hope that isn’t my room. It was horrible. Ground floor, a bit dirty, bad ground floor/smoke smell and not at all like the pictures. I think that I have a bigger room higher up in the building. I really do hope so.

I’ve just looked at Google Maps to see how far it is to my accommodation from this coffee shop, which I got to in a very roundabout way to allow me to walk across the river and to the pink temple. It’s 700 metres, which should take ten minutes. I think Google Maps is nowadays much better at giving times that factor in, say, crossing crazy busy roads.

I have now booked a hotel for two nights in Hue. I then have a bus at 05:15, ugh, for about 14 hours, ugh, arriving in Hanoi shortly before 19:00. I will then have – I think it’s seven nights – before my flight home. Do I stay in one place or two? I now think one, but when I looked previously on AirBnB some nice-looking ones were only available part of the week. I’m really feeling unsettled with my current really-not-that-big-an-upheaval.

My glass flask of very good black coffee definitely had more caffeine than my previous drinks. That’s what you get for a 95k vnd coffee (about £3).

I did notice quite a few people, mainly women, wearing shorts. Patterns are big. Most jeans I’ve seen have been pale and ripped, and ripped in a way that makes them a compromise between jeans and shorts. But saying that makes me sound old and sensible. But old and sensible is actually quite good, hurrah. [Really?! I just sound curmudgeonly]

I’m currently thinking about what makes us feel comfortable in one place over another in the context of being, say, in a foreign country. The apartment block that I was staying in was tall [well, tall as in thin and about four storeys]. No accommodation on the ground floor (actually, a scruffy, dirty “space”, off which was a laundry room). The stairwell led up to two flats, then two more, then mine on its own at the top. The stairwell was unattractive. But I suppose the flat was an oasis of loveliness and, as AirBnB reviewers had said, looked at least as good as the photographs. Like my new place, it was along an alleyway off a busier road. Actually, my new place has a much less frenetic road nearby. The reception area is no worse than the previous place. I suppose my new place is more of a small hotel than a small apartment block. And the room I happened to go into because of needing a loo, was horrible. So I should stop fretting and get going, optimistic I’ll be in a different room.

It’s now 21:32. I’m definitely having some kind of come-down day. I’m lying on the bed in my new place. I like the area, it now transpires, I prefer the air conditioning to the last place … hmm. And that’s about it. Oh, it’s fine, but it feels unloved, not particularly clean (but the bed is OK) and lacking any character. It’s a two-bedroom apartment. I have one bedroom as my unpacking/changing room and the one nice-looking photographable room as my bedroom. The bathroom is an afterthought, a loo stuck at the end of a rectangular room with a wash basin. The shower cubicle is also the loo/wash basin. And it’s weedy, though the water is lovely and soft and my hair is now very soft. I should have stuck with AirBnB rather than going through booking.com.

But I think it is also my mood today. I feel strangely untired (maybe all the coffees?!) but I’ve not had more than a few chunks of proper sleep since Friday. And my stupid CEX B-grade Samsung isn’t turning on and, when it does, not for long enough that I can convert some USD into VND on my Wise banking app. And neither can I do it on my trusty new £100 Samsung A05S mobile because I need to authorise the app from … yep, the phone that won’t [expletive] turn on. Agh!

Maybe my mood is also affected by my having overdosed on pork. Again. I felt over-porked after last night’s pork-many-ways banh mi and this morning, in the atmospheric cafe opposite the bunker house, Cà Phê Đỗ Phủ, I sort of accidentally ate a heavy, porky breakfast of cơm tấm. Cơm tấm is a breakfast dish that is common in Saigon. From my perspective, it is broken rice with various pork elements. It is really tasty, but more of a brunch, lunch or even dinner for me. I was extremely sweaty when I sat in the restaurant (it appears to be connected in some way to the “museum” opposite) so it wasn’t a massive surprise when my “hot coffee” came out as an iced coffee, along with iced tea, which I now realise is often presented instead of cold water. The cơm tấm came with a small bowl of clear broth with a few chunks of (probably) pork and some matchsticks of a vegetable that looks like a cucumber. Possibly due to my being so hot and sweaty that I looked like I would pass out at any moment, a member of staff seemed to take charge of my comfort and wellbeing, moving and adjusting an electric fan and also Googling the vegetable in the broth that I kept frowning at. He approached me to show me a photo of winter melon (same family as cucumber). It’s a shame the soup had meat in it as the taste was otherwise delicate, and slightly cucumbery. One day I will forget how “ugh” pork overload is and I will happily order and eat cơm tấm again. Unexpectedly, broken rice is very nice; I like the slight bite.

It rained a lot, fortunately after I got back from dinner. I went out just after 18:00 to go to a vegetarian restaurant I’d liked the look of when I was out earlier. It’s called Fam Fam and was exceptional, and the antidote I needed to pork.

Anyway, the roads and pavements were wet and dirty and I felt a bit overwhelmed by not being able to understand what was being sold at the food places I walked past – I’d thought of stopping off somewhere closer than Fam Fam, but with the mood I was in, it was for the best to have somewhere to ultimately aim for if all else failed, which it did. Luckily, two of the major junctions I needed to cross had pedestrian lights – as I’ve said, scooters will still try to charge you, even on a green man, but it’s significantly more likely you’ll get across in one piece and in a timely manner.

It ended up really well, the restaurant was cool, ie air conditioning, clean, friendly, English on the menu and amazing food. On the way back, I stopped at an outdoor bakery kiosk and the young woman spoke enough English to allow me to choose a sweet cake. I say sweet because, as with the birthday “mixed platter”, not all sweet-looking cakes and tarts are sweet. The banana bread I opted for was wonderful, and that sticky, delicious mini loaf was 15k vnd (less than 50p).

But as my stupid mobile buzzes itself on and off constantly, yet to stay on, I have a suggestion of a headache and I feel annoyed about not liking this apartment.

I’ve also barely spoken to anyone since Friday – entirely my choice/decision; old school travel – and I am now a year older.

See, I’m definitely having a kind of bad day, I sound a bit sorry for myself.

I am, however, going to talk about my amazing dinner that was even worth walking out for in the post-rain-wet, dirty and busy nighttime streets of Saigon. I ordered pho tron. Pho means a soup made of beef or chicken broth with rice noodles. Tron means mixed. Pho tron as a dish is dry, so not a soup (so I suppose the definition of pho was a bit misleading). It is a combination of rice noodles and not-meat, a kind of deconstructed soup-pho with a pouring sauce rather than soup. It’s good. The vegetarian dish I had at Fam Fam consisted of a delicious soya sauce-sauce, lots of cucumber slivers (I think cucumber rather than gourd), two amazing crispy wonton filled with a delicious mushroom paste, crispy-on-the-outside, soft-inside tofu slices and a sort of sliced thing (I know, a bit unhelpful as a food description). There were a lot of herbs, roasted peanuts, chilli and all-round healthy-feeling deliciousness. And, very importantly for me post-pork-overload, no pork, and not even any meat. I also had a minty lychee drink with chia seeds. Chia seeds seem to be quite the thing and entirely pointless to my point of view.

I can’t decide whether or not to do a cookery class here. I’d said that was something I definitely wanted to do, but I’m not in the mood for being with strangers (the class I most like the sound of is four hours, 35-ish kilometres out of Saigon and includes picking the herbs and vegetables from the farm and going to a market). But I think it’s more about eating the food, socialising and being given the recipes rather than detailed cookery teaching.

Hmm, maybe tomorrow I’ll be more cheery and can book something – it’d be for Thursday as I’m leaving on a 15:00 train on Friday.

In an attempt to cheer myself up, I gave myself a face mask sheet treatment this evening. Now my face feels almost as soft as my hair.