Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: Vietnamese Cooking Class and Chinatown

On July 30th Mads and I took a Vietnamese cooking class. I had taken a Thai cooking class while I was in Thailand and really enjoyed it. When I was in Hoi An (Vietnam) my Contiki tour group took a Vietnamese cooking class but I was still sick (from food poisoning) and was unable to attend.

The class size was only 10 people, which made it very interactive and easy to follow.

We started off making fresh spring rolls with shrimp, pork and rice noodles, with a peanut dipping sauce. They were super easy to make, and very delicious! All you have to do is use rice paper to roll together lettuce, basil, mint, bean sprouts, rice noodles, pork and shrimp. You use some water to make the rice paper sticky so it’ll hold the ingredients together when rolled. Then for the peanut dipping sauce you mix together peanut butter, hoisin sauce (black bean sauce), water, garlic, chili and crushed peanuts.

Next on the menu was a water spinach salad with prawns, fried shallots and garlic. This salad was interesting to make: we used a splitter knife to split the water spinach into long, fine pieces which then curled when placed into ice water.

The salad also contained onions, carrots, shrimps, garlic, shallots and peanuts. The dressing was easy, and was made from mixing together kumquat juice, sugar, fish sauce, water, garlic and chili. The salad was very fresh and delicious!

Our last dish was lotus fried rice in a lotus leaf. We were all given small portable stove tops to cook with.

For this dish, you cook together a collection of ingredients including chicken, sausage, shallots, garlic, carrots and onions in a wok and then add the rice. Once it’s all well blended and cooked, you put the rice inside a large lotus leaf and wrap it up.

I was surprised how easy the dishes were to make, and I’m definitely going to make them at home!
In addition to the cooking class, we decided to do a bit more touring of the city. Mads took me into Chinatown so I could see the Cho Binh Tay market, which is very similar to the Ben Thanh Market, except that this market has very few tourists, and is manly for locals, while the Ben Thanh Market is packed with tourists and souvenir stands. This market was very chaotic and busy, but it was interesting to see the local Vietnamese people going about their daily business without the interference of tourists.

The most interesting and eye opening experience at the market was my visit to the washroom. This might have been the most local Vietnamese place I have visited, with the fewest tourists. I had been using the washrooms in Southeast Asia for months and have gotten quite used to the lack of sanitary and clean toilets. It’s normal to have no toilet paper, and it’s also very normal to see “squatter” toilets (basically a hole in the ground where you squat and do your business into).
But after visiting this local market, I realized that the toilets I had been using my whole trip have been cleaned up for tourists, while this bathroom was definitely for locals! I was shocked (and honestly quite grossed out) when visiting the washroom. Basically the womens washroom is a large room with just a couple of private stalls. People don’t really use the stalls though… instead they squat in the open room and urinate on the floor. They then pour water all over the floor to wash it down. I had to walk through the wet, urine-filled floor in my flip flops in order to get to a private stall. Once I left the washroom I thoroughly washed my feet and flip flops with tap water outside before proceeding with our touring.
We then stopped at a park in Chinatown where we could admire a dragon fountain:

From there we headed over to the Jade Emperor Pagoda, built in 1909 by the Cantonese.

Our last touring stop was the Sheraton Hotel, where we took the elevator to the very top so we could have a good view of the city:

A motorbike parking lot:

These past few day have been harder knowing that my travels through Asia are coming to an end. I have had such an incredible trip, and an especially amazing time with Mads. I’m sad to say goodbye to her soon!

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: Reunification Palace

On July 28th, after my visit to the War Remnants Museum, I headed over to the Reunification Palace (formerly known as the Independence Palace). This was the home to the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.  This was also the location that marked the end of the Vietnam War, when Communist tanks crashed into the gates of the palace, and a soldier ran into the building, up the stairs, and hung a Viet Cong flag from the 4th floor balcony on April 30, 1975.

The palace is built with modern architecture which makes it stand out in the city. The inside of the building has been preserved almost exactly as it was that day in April 1975 with very spacious chambers which are all nicely decorated.

The basement of the palace is a series of tunnels and telecommunications rooms that were used for military activities and as a bomb shelter.

On display outside the front of the palace are the first tanks to attack the palace on April 30, 1975:

After visiting the Palace I walked over to the Notre Dame Cathedral, built between 1877 and 1883 with materials imported from France. In front of the cathedral is a statue of the Virgin Mary. Unfortunately the Cathedral was closed, so I was unable to visit inside.

Next to the Cathedral is the Saigon Central Post Office, the largest post office in Vietnam, built between 1886 and 1891 by the French architect Gustave Eiffel (who also built the Eiffel Tower). Inside the building reminds me of European railway stations.

I continued on my walk, and went past the Opera House, built in 1897 by the French architect Eugene Ferret.


City Hall was my next stop: the office of the Ho Chi Minh People’s Committee. The building was built in 1908 by the French. In front of the building is a statue of Ho Chi Minh.

I really enjoyed touring around the city, but I couldn’t help notice the significant gap between the rich and the poor here. Most of the population is poor here, the prices for food, products and services are very cheap because the average household income is about $32 US per month. Some of the houses along the river are in such poor condition:

Yet, although so much of the population is poor, I still found a collection of very expensive stores and restaurants that seem so out of place in a city like this. See the photos below for the Louis Vuitton and Versace stores.

I suppose in every city there are the very rich and the very poor, I have just grown to really like the Vietnamese people an culture, and find it so sad to see such a gap in wealth between the people.
Ho Chi Minh City has been great so far! I’m really happy I’ve finally been able to see the major sights in the city, and experience the city not only as a tourist, but with Mads as an expat living in the city.

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam: The War Remnants Museum

On July 28th I headed over to The War Remnants Museum, formerly called “The Museum of American War Crimes” (the name was changed when relations with the US improved). It is a museum that exhibits photos and artefacts mainly relating to the American involvement in the Vietnam War. 
Since the Vietnam War was so recent, many people already know the history of it, but I’ll give a very brief and simplistic summary. The Vietnam war took place from November 1955 until April 1975 in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, and it was fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The North Vietnam was Communist, and was supported by other Communist allies, while the South Vietnam was not Communist and was supported by the United States, and other anti-communist nations. In the end, the North Vietnamese took victory over the South with the capture of Saigon by the North Vietnamese army in April 1975, and Communist governments took power in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Visiting the museum was difficult, as many of the photos showed awful events and treatment of the Vietnamese people by the Americans. I realize that war is not meant to be peaceful, happy or pretty, but walking through the museum and seeing photos of suffering people and such great destruction is heartbreaking.
Outside of the museum a number of US Military aircrafts and machinery are on display:

Inside the main building there were a number of photography exhibits showing the brutality and effects of the war, specifically focusing on the actions of Americans in the war.

In the photo below, some American troops are performing one form of water torture, where a rag is placed over someone’s face and water poured on it, making it impossible to breathe.

Another form of torture was to drag prisoners behind the tanks:

The museum also showed photos of all the destruction within Vietnam caused by bombings and raids by the US.

In the photo below you can see bomb craters through the countryside of Vietnam:

One of the saddest areas of the museum for me was the exhibit on Agent Orange, it’s use in the war by the US, and how the Vietnamese people are still suffering the effects of exposure, and will continue to suffer for generations to come.
Agent Orange is a herbicide used by the US Military during the war, and it’s main purpose was to wipe out the forests and rural land, forcing peasants to flee to the US dominated cities. During the war the US Military sprayed 12,000,000 gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as part of Operation Ranch Hand. Agent Orange is highly toxic and caused as estimated 400,000 deaths and 500,000 children born with birth defects in Vietnam alone.

Below are photos of US troops preparing to spray Agent Orange through Vietnam:

The museum also showed photos of the effects of Agent Orange on the Vietnamese people, and the children who were born with birth defects.

I was so saddened while looking at the photos and seeing how these innocent Vietnamese people were impacted so severely. But what is especially saddening is that the effects are passed down through generation, causing birth defects for many generations within families. The impacts of Agent Orange will continue to be a major part of thousands of Vietnamese people for many many years to come.
By the time I finished visiting the museum I felt so sad. Living in Canada, and so far from Vietnam, it’s easy to only get one side of the story – the American side. But I believe that it’s equally as important to see the reverse side, and the major impacts that the war had on the Vietnamese people. I will not place blame or point fingers, as all parties involved in war suffer greatly, but I am happy I was able to be exposed to this perspective of the war.