We ended up our stay at Hoi An - one of the Kingdoms of Disney World Vietnam -having drinks with our hosts from Pooh Lee Shah Travel and walking the streets and having street food.
Then it was on to the airport in Da Nang.
On the way we passed the Marble Mountain which has great Buddist significance and just coincidentally has lots of marble that is carved into all kinds of monumental figures many Buddist in inspiration.
Let's be honest all of you that have seen the Hanging Gardens in the pack of the Tower, can't you see one of these modest beauties in the mini-Parthenon?
Next Stop Ho Chi Minh City or as it is still called by the natives Saigon
And let's add another member to our list of Asian discount airlines - Vietjet
After quickly unpacking at our hotel, our guide for the next 6 days...Mr. A...took us out for a bike ride around town. Because of the danger of cell phone theft I was advised to keep my phone safe so sorry no pictures.
Let's divide this post into general pictures of place, pictures of driving, and food
Pictures of Place
Downtown Saigon City scenes...like a modern big city almost anywhere in the world.
But get out of the city just a short ways and the real country comes to light
Scenes of Traffic
Vietnam is noted for its somewhat chaotic traffic. There are actually rules (unwritten) but I will talk about those in a later post. Trying to capture in pictures the mass movement is difficult. Hopefully some of these will give you an idea.
FOOD!
Mr. A had been given very specific instructions by Dragon Lady Pooh and Consort 2B that we were NOT to be taken to the tourist restaurants. We edged into things the first day.
Lotus root salad
Chicken soup with crab meat
In the evening things picked up. We went to this restaurant that is somewhat touristy but has a bunch of stations that all make various kinds of Vietnamese food. Here are pictures of a number of them. Please don't even begin to ask me what each station makes. Each makes a particular dish. You will notice all the ingredients at each station. A dish here typically features a starch (noodles, rice or rice derivative) and/or a protein along with a wide variety of vegetable and flavoring components.
Here are some of the dishes we ate.
A pancake of taro with omelet in it that you wrapped up with herbs and a leaf wrapper
There is this love of layering all kinds of flavors and textures in roll. The dish at the top is meatballs. You take some rice paper, you put herbs and various veg in, you put some cold noodles and a crispy rice cake and finally the meat balls. Then your wrap the whole thing up and dip it into a sauce. The dish on the bottom his snails that have been ground up with pork meat, returned to the shell and then steamed.
Things really started to get more local the next day. After the trip to Cu Chi, we drove back to Saigon and stopped for some Pho, the famous beef noodle soup.
Then Mr. A asked if we wanted to try Beef blood soup which has a raw egg put in side (that cooks in the hot soup). I was all in (Wife was all out).
It was very beefy but not overly strong flavored. Good after drinking food!
Our team - Mr. A on the rear right along with driver Mr. Wang.
Be Prepared...I have more meals and pictures that just finished this evening as I'm writing.
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