Good Morning Vietnam!

And a movie experience like no other.

Once again we had time to kill on the day we left Cambodia, so we thought we’d try another movie. The only English speaking movie screening was Bad Boys: Ride or Die starring the Hollywood slapper, Will Smith.

It was billed as an action comedy movie, not our usual genre, but there was very little choice.

Our tickets to the 4DX theatre were fairly expensive, but we had no idea what we were about to experience. I have since learned a 4DX presentation allows the film to be augmented with various practical effects and the whole theatre becomes involved in the movie. The effects are synchronised with the action on screen so that the seats move, wind blows, lights flash and smells are released. A maniacal South Korean invention that gives the movie goer (victim) full sensory connectivity.

As you can imagine Mrs F and I were totally unaware of what was happening, and the first chair lurching and blasting wind was quite alarming.

The movie was action packed with car chases, helicopter crashes, gun fights and crocodile attacks, every one of them accompanied by dramatic theatre effects.

Mrs F and I were tossed about in our seats like rag dolls in the mouth of a Doberman. We were blasted by wind and had our kidneys jiggled with every gunshot.

At one stage Mrs F thought she was going to lose control of her bladder as it was shaken like a cocktail.

All of this was accompanied by a music score so loud it felt as though you were sitting in the orchestra. There is a warning that the elderly, pregnant woman, epileptic and those of a sensitive nature shouldn’t partake.

Two hours later Mrs F and I stumbled out of the 4DX theatre for the first and last time.

See it in 4DX at your peril...

My last meal in Cambodia was Hainese chicken and rice. It was more expensive than it was in Singapore, the home of this dish. In Singapore I got a plump, juicy, chicken breast, whereas this contained just a thigh. The ‘athletic’ bird had jaundiced coloured skin and looked to have died of malnutrition. Unfortunately, this dish was emblematic of a lot of what we ate in Cambodia.

In the evening we flew into Ho Chi Minh City (ex Saigon) and even at 10pm the traffic was heavy and chaotic. The city has a population of 9.3 million and is the biggest in Vietnam. The drivers here really are expert. The traffic is as loose as I have seen it, almost completely random, and it requires nerves of steel and psychic abilities to navigate through it.

Driving (or crossing the street) in Ho Chi Minh City is not for the faint hearted.

On our first morning we took a walking tour guided by a tourism student who volunteers to improve her English. The American War is still a big deal here and there are multiple museums and sites dedicated to it.

In 1966, Mr. Tran Van Lai (alias Nam Lai, Hero of the People's Armed Forces) bought this house and the two beside it, as a place to store nearly two tons of weapons transported from the suburbs to Saigon for the Saigon Rangers in preparation for the General Offensive. The weapons were hidden in the secret basement of the house at No. 287/70 Nguyen Dinh Chieu Street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City. The car used to transport the weapons is on display in the house next door (left).

While our guide wasn’t even born when the war happened, we could see her justified pride as she explained how the Vietnamese beat the greatest power on earth. She was well aware of New Zealand’s role in the war, even to a level of how many personnel we committed. It was more than 3000.

She asked why New Zealand became involved and I couldn’t give her a plausible answer, except to say we were lackeys of the Americans at that time.

The War Remnants Museum was formerly known as the Museum of Chinese and American War Crimes, but in 1990 it was changed to Exhibition House for Crimes of War and Aggression. Then in 1995, following the normalization of diplomatic relations with the United States and end of the US embargo in 1994, the references to ‘war crimes’ and ‘aggression’ were dropped and the museum became the War Remnants Museum.

We are loving the food in Vietnam, lots of variety and the use of fresh ingredients. We went to an average priced restaurant and had a really good meal of assorted appetisers, caramelised pork clay pot, and slow cooked duck, accompanied by drinks and excellent service, for $32 NZ. Less than the cost of one main course in New Zealand.

The food markets are even cheaper, and some say produce the most authentic tasting food. We went to a street food market and had char sui steamed rice pancakes, and the famous Pho soup. The only disappointment was that we couldn’t sample more dishes, as we were too full.

We found it very difficult to make a choice at the Ben Thanh Street Food Market. So many options.

The Vietnamese language is extremely difficult to master as it uses several tonal levels. A word may look the same but if said in different tones it has several different meanings. For instance, the word ‘hello’ in Vietnamese if said with the wrong tone also means ‘shut up’. Likewise the word Pho, the famous soup, if mispronounced can mean ‘prostitute’.

So greeting a stall owner and asking for soup incorrectly could come out as, ‘Shut up, I want a prostitute’.

We went to a market this morning and purchased a couple of things. You must, of course, bargain for everything. My go-to position is whatever they ask for, offer them half or less. It’s not as though we can’t afford to pay the asking price but it is more an expected little dance you enter into.

The store owners’ bargaining skills are far better than ours, and we will end up paying more than the locals, but I’m fine with that as long as everything is done with good humour, and we don’t become too invested with getting the cheapest possible price. It’s all fun.

This morning the stall owner asked where we were from. I said, ‘New Zealand and we are very poor and known for our meanness’.

When negotiations were getting crucial I pulled out: ‘Mrs F and I won’t be able to eat dinner tonight.’

When we finally settled on a price, I sighed and said, ‘We’ve just enough left for soup’.

She got the better of the deal, and we paid too much, but it was great fun and everyone was smiling.

We are very much liking Vietnam and we have only just started.

Mrs F interjects

Ho Chi Minh private walking tours with young volunteers is a not for profit organisation run by Saigon Hotpot. For just $3.50 they paired us up with the delightful Han, a third year tourism student who has been guiding tours for two years. She was a very confident English speaker, and when she found out that Mr F had been a tutor in tourism and I had worked in communications, she said: “You are my dream clients”.

This perhaps doesn’t say a lot for her other clients. However, it is a great concept and I recommend using this organisation if you visit Ho Chi Minh City.

We would never have found this old coffee shop, down a side street, in busy Ho Chi Minh City without our lovely guide, Han.

She took us in to District 3 to a busy coffee house that opened in the 1940s and is still run by the original family. The place is a favourite with locals and the owner showed us how they make Vietnamese coffee in clay pots, heated over charcoal.

It is a strong brew but when condensed milk is added, it’s delicious!

The charcoal burners are lit at 5 am, and from a tiny kitchen (I was against the other wall taking this pic), hundreds of cups of coffee are produced everyday. Just drinks, no food.

Hẹn gặp lại   (See you again)

Mrs F