Filed under: Southeast Asia
This photo, taken from the top of the Landmark building in District 1, illustrates Saigon’s changing skyline as viewed looking north from downtown. The city is being expanded, with new urban developments in District 7 stretching the city south and new developments in District 2 easing congestion to the east and north. Thanh Binh District is across the river from District 2 and only a short ride from the Central Business District, where the Landmark sits overlooking the busy Saigon River.
As seen in the picture, a number of new residential and commercial buildings are currently under construction, making the view you see here vastly different than what someone would have seen standing atop the Landmark five years ago.
Filed under: Southeast Asia
Flying back to Saigon from Phu Quoc, you first cross the Gulf of Thailand and then come over the Mekong Delta before descending into Tan Son Nhat Airport. I snapped these photos from the plane.
A few of the many branches of the Mekong River:
The urban sprawl of Saigon. In the background you can see the tall buildings located downtown:
Alison and I spent the weekend at the very lovely Mango Bay resort on the island of Phu Quoc, which is situated west of the Mekong Delta in the Gulf of Thailand, just south of the Cambodian border. The island, famous for its fish sauce and black pepper, serves up some of Vietnam’s best sunsets. Whereas much of the country’s coast faces to the east, Phu Quoc gives visitors one of the few views looking west.
The rainy season had turned most of the island’s roads into mud so we didn’t go exploring by motorbike like we did on our last visit several years ago. In fact, we didn’t do much but go for walks along the beach, enjoy the scenery, and eat grilled squid. And that was perfectly fine by us.
Phu Quoc sunset:
The famous Phu Quoc ridgeback dog on a dirt road near the resort:
Beautiful flower at Mango Bay:
As always, I managed to find a local cafe for an afternoon iced green tea:
The very relaxing Mango Bay:
Filed under: Southeast Asia
After six wonderful days in Hanoi, I return to Saigon tomorrow.
During my stay here, I took several walks around Hoan Kiem, the city’s lovely cultural center.
Hoan Kiem in the sun:
Hoan Kiem at sunset:
Filed under: Southeast Asia
I’ll never forget my first day of Vietnamese class. The professor walked in the classroom at Bach Khoa University in Hanoi and wrote a sentence on the board essentially composed of different pronunciations using the spelling, “ban”. Bạn is friend. Bán is to sell. Bàn is table. And so on. I forget the full sentence now; perhaps I’ve repressed it. Ultimately it read something along the lines of, “My friend sells dishes in a dirty mountain village.” And mind you, he used the spelling “ban” for all but one of the words in the sentence, only changing the pronunciation. I despaired. How would I ever learn this language? To comfort myself, I bought a t-shirt that jokingly read, “The Anti-Tones Alliance.”
I know I’m not alone but it’s always nice to be reminded you have company. This is perhaps one of the better descriptions I’ve read of a foreigner trying to learn Vietnamese:
For seven weeks now, I’ve been struggling to understand and utter the difficult, surprising, and devilish phonemes that make up the Vietnamese language. Nothing in my 46 years of speaking languages has prepared me to make these sounds. It’s been like watching an alien attempt to squeeze itself out of my mouth; as surprising when successful as when it fails.
Filed under: Southeast Asia
I recently began to notice that there aren’t nearly as many internet cafes here nowadays. I thought maybe it just seemed that way because I have wireless at home, so I’m not searching for them and thus not finding them. Yet, for over a week now, I’ve kept an eye out and there just aren’t as many, not even in the alleyways off of main roads, a once common place to find rooms packed full of chain-smoking teenagers hooked up to video games and chatting on Yahoo.
Likewise, I’ve also been happy to see that many cafes, restaurants, and bars offer wireless service, meaning that laptops are becoming increasingly common. As one would expect, supply is meeting demand, with new computer stores opening up. My favorite one cleverly announces, “Stupid Price for Smart Laptops:”
Hong Kong makes an ill-advised move to ban outdoor dining but fortunately, streetfood is too much a part of city life in Saigon for any such ban to work here, at least in the near future. No doubt there have been and will be attempts to clean up the streetfood scene in Vietnam but I doubt they’d ever go as far as Hong Kong’s ban, which even went after terraces at fine dining restaurants. Eating outside is one of the great joys of living in the tropics. And so is ordering a plate of dried squid from the carts that linger around after hours sidewalk bars like stalkers in the night. Get the stinky snack while you can.
Food blogs are extremely helpful in navigating the food of Saigon. The first time I came across Noodlepie, I read it for two straight hours. It was my guide to Saigon’s restaurants when I lived here previously. EatingAsia was briefly based in Saigon but here long enough to point me to a delicious Bánh Cuốn restaurant last week. Next in Vietnam food blogs came Stickyrice, who does a great job covering Hanoi’s streets and restaurants. Then, when Noodlepie packed off to France, Gastronomy filled the Saigon food blog void. Unfortunately Gastronomony has since returned to the states but before leaving, she helpfully compiled a Saigon Top 10 list.
Tonight, I took her recommendation and went straight for the top: Cua Lột, or soft shell crab, served at 94 Đinh Tiên Hoàng, Q1. The soft shell crab with tamarind sauce was delicious. I snapped a photo and posted it below. Take a look at the first photo I posted though. The restaurant’s name is “Quán 94 Cũ”. Quán is restaurant. 94 is the street number. And cũ is old. My guess is that the restaurant was originally just “Quán 94″ but then someone saw how well it was doing and opened up a copycat restaurant nearby. Quán 94 then, to distinguish itself, put the “cũ” in the title so that people knew for sure where to go for the real deal.
Filed under: Southeast Asia
This is a photo of downtown Saigon, looking out across District 1 and what is essentially straight down Nguyen Hue street, even though the street is not visible here. On the left, the tall, pink building is the Sheraton Hotel. To its right is the historic Caravelle hotel, which was popular among journalists during the war and popular among my friends when I used to live here for the all you can eat and drink Sunday brunch. The tall building in the left-middle of the photo is Saigon Center, one of the city’s premiere office buildings. The bulky white building on the right is the newly-opened Hyatt, a beautiful hotel set across from the Opera building, which you cannot see in this photo. The Continental Hotel is blocked from view by the Hyatt. In the foreground is the electricity commission I believe. Construction is ongoing in this neighborhood. You can see the crane on the left. I would guess that many of the buildings in the lower right portion of the photo will not be standing in five years.
