Ho Chi Minh City and the Mekong Delta . . . trying to catch up on blogging a few trips -- here's a quick look at Vietnam. We had only a long weekend to check out Ho Chi Minh City (stilled called Saigon by many) and the Mekong Delta – just a taste, but it was a great introduction to a fascinating country.

The first thing that knocked us out in Ho Chi Minh City was the mad swirl of motorcycles and scooters pouring through the streets, sometimes with three, four, even five people aboard. Tiny little kids, old grannies, whole families were racing along like a nation of Dennis Hoppers. Check out the toddlers standing between their parents, the infants sleeping . . . the architecture, thanks to the French colonial influence, is reminiscent of Paris at times, with broad, elegant boulevards. And the food was dynamite, even better than Tu Lan on 6th Street inn San Francisco, if you can believe that. We even ate pho at Bill Clinton’s favorite pho joint, Pho 2000, where they’re still trumpeting the news of Bubba’s visit back in, you guessed it, 2000.

We spent our first day in the stunningly beautiful Mekong Delta – it’s like a big, tropical Venice, with canals and tributaries criss-crossing villages and fields, dotted with all kinds of small boats and floating markets. We went for a bike ride in a local town, visited a coconut candy factory, and ate yummy food, some of which was even identifiable! We passed through traditional rice fields along the way . . .

Ho Chi Minh City is a sprawling boom-town, with ubiquitous pictures of Uncle Ho still everywhere (he died in 1969, btw). He’s always pictured in a white jacket, and with his grey hair and goatee against a red background, Ho is eerily reminiscent of Colonel Sanders, at least to me. And yes, there are now plenty of KFCs in Vietnam, maybe because they trust that familiar face?

We hit the usual tourist sites: the shops along Dong Koi, the Fine Art Museum, the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, and saw lacquer-ware being made. The museums are mostly in beautiful old French colonial buildings that are slowly falling apart, and it’s too expensive to air-condition them, so they just leave the windows open and it’s HOT.

In Cho Lon (Chinatown) and at the huge Ben Than Market, I frequently had to contend with the Vulcan Death-grip of vendors who really, really wanted me to stick around and check out their goods (just the usual stuff like Lacosse knockoffs, dried octopi, whatever). I’m not kidding – they would just grab me and hold on for dear life, and it was all I could do to wriggle free in as gentle a way as possible so we all still had our limbs attached. Nonetheless, we found these to be vibrant, amazing neighborhoods.

We visited The War Remnants Museum, too, but we took only a very few photos, mostly because it’s such an overwhelming place. It’s not a sophisticated museum, but it is tremendously compelling and disturbing, and you get a powerful take on what the Vietnamese call, of course, The American War. I met and talked with a multiple amputee, the same age as me, who was injured by a landmine as a young boy. He was a friendly and positive man, not embittered. We left with a sense of what a waste the war was, and what a lasting impact it had on this country; how sad that 30 years after “The American War” ended in Vietnam, we are again attempting to export democracy by force to a population that for the most part wants us to get out.


I think we needed some form of spiritual uplift and connection, so we also visited an English-language mass at the Norte Dame Cathedral, a Buddhist service at the Xi Loi Pagoda (famous for its activism during the war – monks set themselves ablaze here in dramatic protests), and saw chanting at the Jade Emperor Pagoda – here’s a blended video of both Buddhist experiences.

We want to go back already – in short, Vietnam is breathtaking. We’re hoping to visit the capital, Hanoi, in the Fall.