On Our Own Interesting City

When I last visited Vietnam, I like any other budget-conscious adventurer stayed in the aptly named backpacker district of Saigon. I instantly fell in love with the locale, waxing poetic about its compact semi-grungy charm, and how amazingly tasty street food was available at every corner, at a price cheaper than your budget McDonald's meal back home. For the two to three weeks that I was there I subsisted mostly on Banh Mi, Pho and iced coffee and loving every moment of it. I'd think to myself, why do we not have all these romantic little conveniences back home? What did we do differently?

Flash forward to about a year later, I'm walking along Makati Avenue headed toward a meeting. I cross Buendia which to me seems like a borderline between two totally different cities. There is a marked difference between the size, style and even nature of the buildings and establishments on either side. Whereas on one side, majestic glass-walled edifices rise, the opposite's are notably stockier and stunted. One is full of corporate offices and shopping centers, the other caters to restaurants, bars and...other entertainment-oriented businesses.

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Two Overhead

Alas, sleep beckons when I am most inspired. The past two days since I returned from my travels have been spent in front of the laptop, processing and processing. Souvenirs have gone yet untouched, clothes still tightly packed in the bag in which they traveled a thousand miles.

Before I depart for the Land of Nod, however, I leave with two shots that particularly caught my attention - one colored and one black & white. I normally do not have the opportunity to do overhead shots as much as eye-level shots or a perspective slightly below/above the subject, so these interest me.

This was shot inside an art store. The (slightly cute) saleslady had wanted to show me more of her artworks in the store's second-floor warehouse, to which I gladly obliged. The view from the top fascinated me, as well as the caged cat at the bottom. It wasn't until Pau pointed out though that I should take a shot of it that I actually whipped out the camera and took it. Thanks, Pau.

I took this while checking out the open-air atrium of an old preserved tube house in Hanoi. The old man was doing calligraphy pieces and scenic artwork, all by hand, which were then sold for the preservation of the house. Word is, the city has plans to restore a lot of old houses to their...well, old glory. Beautiful stuff. Although, the particular house I visited used to be a rich man's house so I guess I've seen the best of the best already.

Two weeks worth of photos to comb through and process. I wish that sleep were unnecessary. It's really during these lonely hours that I become really productive.

Quaint Little Hanoi

Spending time in Hanoi, quaint or quiet would probably not be the words you would first use to describe the city. Between the rushing tide of the two-wheeled demons and aggressive taxis, it’s very easy to get the feeling that Hanoi is the product of an oversaturation of both tourists and the normal populace (it being the capital and all) – nice a few years (or decades) ago, but a bit too crowded nowadays.

Admittedly, I thought just as much during my first day there. Navigating my way through streets that never seemed to intersect each other at 90-degree angles and fighting the surge of people rushing everywhere seemed to have taken its toll on me. In an act of exasperation I sat myself down in a small café near the lake to cool down and unwind. I watched the people go to and fro under the cool shade of my umbrella and it was there that I realized that I was approaching this the wrong way.

After I had stood up and left that café, I went at my own leisurely pace, letting the crowd ebb and flow around me. I no longer tried to keep up with the frantic ant’s pace that seemed to possess the city of Hanoi, which I had previously been doing. In this I saw Hanoi for what it was, an experience of raw culture as opposed to the adrenaline-filled vacations that other destinations offer. It wasn’t about surfing off the perfect wave, rafting down the river inside a used tire, or even going to the ruins of a temple to marvel at its splendor. Hanoi’s beauty was in experiencing Vietnam life the way the Vietnamese live it.

It was all around me. Eating pho ga from a fat old lady handling the food with her bare hands, walking around the Hoan Kiem Lake watching the lovers whisper sweet nothings to each other while imagining how many young men said their goodbyes to their sweethearts on those very shores just before being called to the front lines, or even shopping for old propaganda posters, all these gave me a glimpse of what it was like to be Vietnamese. When one absorbs a culture, when one sees firsthand how life is for another race, that is, in my humble opinion, when one can truly say one has been to a country.

There are still many aspects of the Vietnamese culture that I have not yet seen, many heartwarming and many heartbreaking. I’m sure I shall get more peeks into our indefatigable Asian neighbors' personality as I continue my journey, but for what I have been allowed, that which has been shared to me by the many Vietnamese characters in this play, I am truly grateful.

The Man With the Violin

I write today from the quiet little town of Hoi An. Pau, Patch and I arrived here after a grueling (yet interesting) 22-hour bus ride which involved delays due to the bus’s battery dying on us, two extremely irritable bus drivers/conductors, frequent shouting matches between aforementioned bus drivers/conductors and a certain male passenger, and many more absurdly unique events which continuously poked my consciousness as if to constantly remind me where exactly I was.

It’s been a fast-paced 5 days in Hanoi, which by the way has lived up to my expectations of the city. If you thought that Saigon was crazy and full of motorbikes, Hanoi is about 2 notches above it, both in craziness and number of motorbikes. Sure, back here we see individual motorbikes go up on sidewalks to avoid traffic, but imagine a SEA of them on the sidewalks. I also saw a car up on the sidewalk at one point in a particularly nasty traffic snarl.

Like a Vietnamese version of Morgan Freeman in Bruce Almighty

Last September 2 marked the 65th Independence day of Vietnam. Apparently, the man responsible for this was Ho Chi Minh, who had an Emilio Aguinaldo-like role but is revered like Jose Rizal. A quick trip to the Ho Chi Minh Museum confirmed this significance. Uncle Ho, as he is so affectionately called much to my amusement, pretty much built modern-day Vietnam, with his roles in the struggles against both the French and the Americans, as well as leading Vietnam into unprecedented economic growth into this day and age.

I was therefore half-expecting a spectacular display of national pride as I woke up that morning. Although I didn’t exactly get what I was looking for (my search would have been more fruitful in say, North Korea), I did discover a few nice touches to Vietnam along the way.

The Man with the Violin
After having breakfast, I went to Pau’s hotel to see if they were already up and about. Upon being informed that they had not yet come down from their room, I decided to get an early start and do a bit of Independence-Day sightseeing. The first choice destination was the city cathedral as it was only a 2-minute walk from the hostel. So sleepily I went, trudging along the backpacker-infested alleyways of Ngo Huyen. What greeted me there upon arrival however, ensured that all sloth left in me was melted away.

Seated on the hard concrete right in front of the cathedral gate was an wizened old man in a cowboy hat with a violin in hand and a crowd in the other. They were all seated around him in a circle, singing what appeared to be an old Vietnamese song about Uncle Ho. As foreign as Vietnamese is to me, I recognize Uncle Ho’s name when I hear it, and I can only assume that the words ‘we,’ ‘love,’ and ‘you’ were there at some point. He’d change songs every so often, stopping to teach the words to those in the group who didn’t know the lyrics, mostly the younger ones.

Ho two, as I had mentally referred to him by that time (he looked like…guess who?) also catered his entertainment to the foreigners passing by, inviting them to sit with him for a spell and promptly proceeding to play their respective national anthem. One woman in particular stood out as she did just that - stand to attention - as Ho two started playing the first few notes of Das Deutschlandlied.

Watching him play so enthusiastically and spurred by national pride (he did not ask for a single cent from anyone during the 45 minutes or so that I was there) made jealousy pull at my heart strings, as I longed to see that same thing in my beloved Philippines, perhaps with Ang Bayan Ko or even seasonal melodies such as Pasko Na, Sinta Ko sweetly wafting through the wisps of air at Luneta, rather than La Bamba at a cheesy restaurant (I used to request that ALL the time as a child. I have no idea why).

I’m sure that these people still exist here, hidden as diamonds in the rough along the streets of Manila. I take it upon myself to find them, maybe just to listen to them play, maybe to sing along a bit, and maybe to give them an affectionate pat on the back and tell them how much that meant to me.

Gastronomical Memoirs, Part 2

I must say, Vietnamese life has impressed me for the most part. The most glaring aspect would of course be the cuisine. Never in my life have I seen a country with such a healthy diet in this day and age. Then again, there are many other countries that I have yet to spend time in that have an overall healthy set of national dishes (I’m thinking of the Japanese), as well as a host of others whose menu is unfamiliar to me.

Still untouched by the evil clutches of unhealthy fast food, Vietnam’s charm that had me hooked was the presence of street food vendors abundantly scattered throughout Saigon that sold a variety of dishes one would not expect to be sold on the streets. Within an arm’s reach from my hotel (ever so conveniently located along De Tham Street in the heart of the backpacker district of Saigon), I had access to:

Pho – Vietnamese noodle soup. Rice noodles in a murky broth, topped with leeks, cilantro, mint, and either beef or chicken. Normally costs VND 20,000, which is roughly USD 1 or PHP 45.

Banh Mi – Baguettes filled with roasted pork, sausages, cilantro, cucumber, and various other vegetables. You normally have the option to add cream cheese for an extra VND 5,000 (PHP 11). Adding cheese is highly recommended. Highly. Banh Mi goes for VND 15,000 with cheese (PHP33.75)

Stir Fried Noodles (whose name I forgot)– Another great way to satisfy those hunger pangs after a few rounds of Saigon beer. This dish is fried noodles (no shit?), topped with pretty much the same assortment of greens as Pho or Banh Mi, doused with sweet/spicy sauce and topped off with a fried egg. VND 20,000 (PHP 45) is usually enough to score you one of these.

Other little delights also abounded on the streets, such as frozen yogurt sold in bite-sized packs for only VND 5,000 (PHP 11) or Ca Phe Sua Da (iced coffee with condensed milk) for VND 10,000 (PHP 22.50) per glass. Not so common but equally as delicious were the strawberry shakes. I suspect other types of fruit shakes are sold throughout Saigon but the ones we bought at only had strawberries. It’s your normal garden variety strawberry shake, made with your normal garden variety blender (yup, still on the street) but with one exception – instead of using refined sugar to sweeten the shake, the vendors have a sugarcane press right there which extracts the juice from sugar canes and gives the shake quite the distinctive taste. It’s almost as if the sweetness comes guilt-free. Almost.

Strawberry Shakes, sans the guilt (but probably still with the calories)

And oh, for dinner that other night, we had:
- 5 different types of snails (cooked in different ways – grilled, with butter sauce, with some other type of sauce reminiscent of gata)
- HUGE HUGE shrimp. The heads alone were longer than my middle finger, I shit you not.
- Bo Luc Lac. Salpicao meat cooked with onions, bell peppers and tomatoes. Really tasty, although I highly prefer the Bo Luc Lac in Ba Noi’s, my favourite Vietnamese Restaurant in the Philippines. Ba Noi’s Bo Luc Lac is cooked a bit differently and served with crispy basil. Plus you get to dip it in a mixture of salt and pepper, which is awesome.
- Fried rice. By this time, I was too preoccupied with the taste of the food to really care what was in the rice. All my mind can extract from itself now is that there were clams in it.
- Shrimp claws, formerly belonging to the shrimps mentioned above. These were almost a foot long each, making for one intimidating shrimp.

An Incomplete Gastronomical Memoir

I'm definitely in Saigon.

"Welcome back", Saigon almost seemed to mentally tell me, through memories of last year's brief encounter rushing back into my consciousness even as new ones were being forged as we walked to the Ben Thanh Market. Pau's childhood friend Philip, who was now based in Vietnam, had ever so graciously volunteered to take us around the city.

After the hotel's free breakfast in which I discovered that the ketchup here is labelled simply as tomato sauce and tastes accordingly, we waltzed our way down to Pasteur Street (yes, that Pasteur) to eat at, of all places, Pho Hoa. For those still clueless, the idea of eating at Pho Hoa in Vietnam is sort of like going to Italy then ordering from Pizza Hut. The local version however was completely unrelated to its more commercialized namesake as we soon found out after tasting the difference in a huge steaming bowl of Pho with everything on it and 3 glasses of what I think is spelled Cha Da. It's basically tea with ice.

The feast continued shortly after in Ben Thanh Market itself. Finding ourselves surrounded by food stalls, we couldn't help but help ourselves. Philip had what looked like fish-based rice cakes brought to us, which we greedily gobbled up. A local store owner was overjoyed when Paulo and I tried his spring rolls (a healthy, tasty, AND cheap snack at VND 5,000* each) and upon discovering how good they were, got everyone else to buy from him.

Dinner later was even wilder......

......but that's another post for another day. I shall return to this when it's not 3am.


*As of August 29, 2010 USD1 = VND 19,500; VND5,000 = approx. PHP11.25