Xin chào (Hi ! Hello!). It was an inexpensive yet fruitful travel that satisfied our curiosity.
For P29,000.00 – including food, accommodation, local transportation, airfares, and three different tours – we got almost a 100 percent of what we expect in Vietnam.
Let’s start with the food since it is one of the many reasons why people travel.
Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City to be specific, is a place for noodle lovers. Better than all the noodles I’ve tried before, Phò is simply addicting that you crave for more especially come the next meal.
Mixed with fresh mint leaves, basil, and bean sprouts, it is often served with thinly sliced pork, chicken or beef.
Quynh Thi Ngoc Le, finance manager of Qatar Airways in Vietnam, treated us for a dinner in a small restaurant that serves delicious Phò. Spinach and mixed vegetables (cooked fresh) are also common in almost all restaurants in the city. And match it with their naturally sweet coconut juice always served cold in a shell.
For people who want to have an excellent cup of coffee, Highlands Coffee is the right place. Note that there are no Starbucks and Mc Donalds in Vietnam, only Jollibee and KFC.
GOLDEN WIND
I and my fiancé Jane made sure we picked the perfect place to rest and sleep. At $24 per night we stayed at the newly renovated Golden Wind Hotel which is located along Pham Ngu Lao Street, a five-minute walk from the Ben Thanh market.
Hotel staffs are friendly and speak English well, attending to all our concerns. Guests are given unlimited and free wifi access 24/7. Breakfast is free. Ms. Loan and Ms. Thang of Golden Wind provided us the right information on what tour to take. She recommended the half-day Cu Chi tunnel and the whole day (via bus) Mekong Delta tours.
DELTA FORCE
There are a hundred reasons why you should take the Mekong Delta Tour – it’s like you did not visit Vietnam minus the boat ride with your special someone, the gust of fresh air, the bike ride before having a sumptuous lunch, mingling with other tourists and locals, taking videos and photo shoot and a lot more.
It was indeed an inter-island boat ride filled with thrill, excitement and fun.
For Lionel Ritchie as he wanted us to call him, our humorous tour guide says we should try the fried Mekong fish (tastes like the “tilapia”) for our lunch.
It is wrapped with fresh vegetables on a rice paper that makes a spring roll which five of us including two Malaysians and a Vietnamese shared together.
After a short rest, we immediately went to another island where local boats are waiting. This time, only four persons are only allowed to ride a small boat going to another island. Locals there entertained us, sang traditional Vietnamese songs while we eat mouth-watering fresh fruits – pineapple, papaya, pomelo, and longgan.
HISTORIC CU CHI
November 12, 8:30 a.m., we’re bound for Cu Chi, a small town where the famous tunnels were built by the Viet Cong.
While in the bus, our tour guide Ken tells us why motorbikes dominate the major roads and streets of Ho Chi Minh City.
“After the war, most Vietnamese have no money and they just ride small bikes. Then came the motorbikes, if you had one, then you are already rich. If you have two motorbikes, you also have two ladies,” Ken says in a jest.
He says that Ho Chi Minh City has a population of around eight million. Out of this number, five million have motorbikes.
However, he laments that at least 300-400 road accidents happen in a month, and an average of 10 accidents a day.
Ken also notes that Ho Chi Minh City’s population could reach 10 million by the end of 2012 because of migration.
“A lot of Vietnamese from the north (Hanoi) are migrating here in the south to work and stay here for long,” he says.
Finally we reached Cu Chi, a small district in Ho Chi Minh City. We paid 160,000 Vietnamese Dong (around P320) as entrance fee for the two of us. The Cu Chi tunnel is one of the famous battlegrounds of the Vietnam War, but it is now a popular tourist spot.
Ken showed us the deadly traps built by Viet Congs that killed thousands of American soldiers. Among these include the folding chair trap, swinging up trap, dog trap, window trap and the klipping armpit trap (see photos).
After listening to Ken’s stories about the war and the life of locals inside the tunnel, we had the chance to try gun firing before having our lunch. Jane and I could imagine being hit by AK47 bullets. We bought 10 bullets pegged at 350,000 Dong (around P700). We wanted to try the M-16, M1 Garand and other machine guns but bullets were a little bit expensive.
Then we tried going into the tunnel but we only managed to finish the 80-meter mark. We felt how hard it was for Vietnamese to live inside that network of tunnels during the war. It has less ventilation, limited space for movements, no electricity and the risk of getting bitten by insects and poisonous centipedes and scorpions.
Ken says that locals could only go out of the tunnel during night time to look for food.
After watching a documentary film, we went back to the city proper for a side trip at the War Remnants Museum, Saigon Square (just like the Divisoria in Manila) and at the popular Benthan market where cheap Nike and The North Face items are being sold.
UNITY AND NATIONALISM
After having dinner in a local restaurant just a few meters away from our hotel, we saw hundreds of Vietnamese bike riders pass the street where we were, holding the Vietnam flag yelling. They were obviously celebrating.
We were clueless then, until one foreigner told us that Team Vietnam won against Brunei in the South East Asian games in Indonesia.
It was not a championship match and yet proud locals were so jubilant that they would go to the streets to celebrate the first win of their comrades. “This win is for our country!” shouted a young lady in the dialect as she joins others in waving their flag.
Now I know why the Americans lost to South Vietnam in the war. It was not about might, bravery and sophistication. It was about nationalism.
MORE PLACES TO VISIT
We wanted to go to Dalat City, one of Vietnam’s known vacation destination, but a five-day stay was not enough to visit all the best places there like Halong Bay in Hanoi.
Anyway, Cebu Pacific’s seat sale promos would stay and there are more reasons for everyJuan to fly and visit again this promising and vibrant nation. “Learn, love and live,” a line from the movie “The Three Musketeers” says it all.
Ta.m bie^.t (Good bye). Ga(.p la.i sau nhé (See you later).
