This will be the day that we’ll leave for HCM. Woke up early and headed for breakfast. Took some pictures of scenic Dalat before breakfast.
Our rooms :
After breakfast, we met up with the driver and headed to the waterfalls. However, there was a landslide and the falls were closed for the day. It was then that it dawned upon me how dangerous the mountain roads could be. In addition, the driver actually stopped halfway and headed to one of the random Buddhist shrines to pray for our safety down the mountains. Erp. Disturbing when a local starts doing that.
Ca Phe Su Da. The powerhouse coffee of Vietnam. I made the mistake of taking this during the stopover, and it woke me instantly, making me unable to sleep during the rest of the trip back to HCM =/
We arrived at HCM after a 6-7 hour ride. We first checked in at our hotel, AnAn 2, and got our stuff before heading to Andy’s place for a short look. Here’s a view of his apartment surroundings. Feels a lot like 60s Singapore.
Headed next to District 1 for some seafood dinner at the Benh Tanh Market.
Some pickled mango dish :
Fresh seafood :
View of the market from where we were sitting :
Huge tiger prawns. I think we paid something like 10 bucks for each. Better than the 400 dollar bill that the American tourists were charged at Newton. Really delicious, and the staff were friendly.
Had a steamed crab too
Some ‘leaf drink’. Apparently it’s good for health but I didn’t really take to the taste. Stella loves it though.
After dinner, we headed to a couple of pubs for drinks and to listen to some music. The first place that we headed to featured live bands, and it was a real nice place to hang out, just that one has to be there early to get a seat. Fantastic music too I must say.
Us :
Andy and Tin :
After that, we headed off to two other clubs where we all got quite high from the alcohol. Unknown to us, Vietnam has some sort of curfew for its people. So it came as quite a shock when we reached our hotel to realise that the shutters were down. I call it the where-the-fuck-is-my-hotel moment. As a matter of fact, the entire street’s shutters were down. Somehow we managed to find a small bell at the side of the doorway and pressed it before a security guard opened the shutters for us. In addition, I was stopped by the same guard because he thought that I was bringing back a ‘girl’ to my room. It was only after Stella and I explained that we were both guests that he let us head up. Hilarious.
The next day, we woke up early and waited for Stella’s parents to arrive.
Stella checking out the maps for places to go for the day:
After her parents arrived, we headed off to look for some breakfast. Strangely, we didn’t find any pho places. Turns out that we walked the wrong way, but we finally ended up at pho24. This is a country wide chain that specialises in traditional Vietnamese food like pho and other stuff. Prices are on the high side by Vietnam’s standards, but the food was good.
After lunch, we attempted to head to some of the museums and churches, but realised that most of the public locations were closed for lunch till around 1.30pm or something like that? We had to sit at some cafe for almost half an hour to wait for them to finish their lunch. It was a bit of a blessing in disguise, as we got some time to take a break, before heading in the hot sun to our next destination, the War Remnants Museum.
To keep it short, the WRM gives one a preview of some of the most horrible parts of Vietnam’s war torn history. Here, there are several galleries showing scenes of torture, mutilation, and death inflicted upon the people of North Vietnam by the combined forces of the South Vietnamese and the Americans. If you are looking for an objective viewpoint of the war, you’re probably in the wrong place. As all museums do, the galleries tell a story, and it’s one of victimization, loss and death. It doesn’t mean that one should dismiss all the accounts inside as complete fluff, just that it’s something to bear in mind.
Also around the museum are displays of live war machines, left over from the war.
Tanks :
AA batteries :
Choppers :
Apologies for the highly graphic pictures, but that’s probably the best way to show the effects of war :
A resistance flag protesting against the use of Agent Orange during the war. Agent Orange was a experimental fertilizer that the Americans used in the war by literally pouring and spraying copious amounts of it over rivers, forests, and villages. This led to an unspeakble destruction of the land, and effects that continued over generations such as deformed births. When the American public found out about it, many students took to the streets protesting against the use of chemical weapons, adding to the already growing disillusionment of the war. Among them were wives of the GI’s themselves, who had inadeverntly suffered the effects of the toxin on themselves and their own families.
After the museum, we headed back towards the hotel, where we took a little rest, headed to the tailor to make measurements for some clothes, and then met up with Stella’s friend, Jun Ming, for dinner. After dinner, we basically walked around the area, taking some pictures along the way.
This is some cultural centre I think.
All of us :
The more upmarket areas. Branded stuff are more expensive there than in Singapore. So there’s really no point in heading there to shop for branded goods.
A statue of Ho Chih Mihn, with a boy sitting in his lap.
We also headed to the riverside, where one could pay to have dinner and a cruise upon one of the cruiseships anchored along the harbour. The people seem to be enjoying themselves, judging from the ruckus they were making from all the singing and dancing.
Finally, we headed back to the hotel, and bought some supper from a nice lady operating a store just outside our hotel. This is something like the Chinese chai tao kway, except not that salty and the taste coming from a packet of sweet sauce that is provided with the food. Great oily way to end the night.
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