hcmc is a loud city.
i mean, most large cities in asia are loud – but i think its the combination of the actual motorcycles (not scooters) and the trucks driving through the center of town. despite the small size of hcmc’s district 1, it’s not extremely pedestrian friendly as the sidewalks are even more torn up than shanghai’s. i find the it both more chaotic (lots more motorcycles) and a lot less chaotic (cleaner and drivers tend to follow the rules) than shanghai.
i didn’t do much after i got in yesterday – the last few days at work had been a non-stop mess, and then tuesday’s travel day included a 2 hour health check-up, 30 minutes of wandering around in the rain trying to get a cab. (yes, i didn’t book ahead. yes, it was the day before a national vacation. yes, it was raining. yes, that was dumb).
it was so tiring that i actually spent the night at the hong kong airport instead of trying to get to town, eat, and getting back.
so yesterday i just walked around the center of town (district 1) to get a feel for the town. well that and eat.
i had lunch at one of the very many numbered pho chains – this one pho 2000. what everyone tends to say about pho – or maybe its just me – seems to be true. the pho in the us is better on the meat side, as this meat was clumpy and tasteless. however, the soup and noodles were fantastic. the noodles had just the right amount of give for rice noodles, while the soup was complex and bright with the basil, lime and sirracha style chili sauce adding the to the depth of the broth.
the center of district one is full of these great old colonial hotels – like the hotel rex and the hotel continental (where grahame greene stayed while writing ‘the quiet american’)
can’t really have a city named ho chi minh, without a statue of uncle ho himself.
the french were bastards, but they left some fine buildings behind. this has been turned into the people’s national committee building
after a day of walking around, i was really craving com which is a rice with meat dish (i chose grilled chicken) and banh mi the famous vietnamese sandwich on soft french rolls. why can’t the chinese learn to embrace the sandwich?
and here’s my banh mi being prepared.
one final thing – i’ve heard vietnamese being spoken for a long time in my life. one of my friends in junior high was nat nguyen. then obviously university introduced me to a lot more vietnamese people. i’ve never really listened that closely, but now that i’m surrounded by it, it really sounds like i can almost understand it. it sounds like a cross between thai and cantonese – which would make sense given it’s geography between southern china and thailand, but it really isn’t intelligible.
ok, off for day 2!