Travelfood

We travelled to Vietnam in December, when the south is dry and warm unlike the wet monsoon rains during the summer months. The northern and central parts of Vietnam were not visited this time, but we did some day trips in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and in the Mekong delta. The most important tourist town of the delta is Cai Be, which is famous for its channels, floating markets and rice fields. This region has all the opportunity to utilize all the good stuff in Mekong river. We also travelled by hydrofoil to coast town Vung Tau, where you are able to sunbathe and relax from the city noise.

Ho Chi Minh City is a huge traffic chaos with its numerous mopeds and few cars. The scale of the moped flow is remarkable and from pictures I have seen that not even monsoon rains are able to stop the mopeds, even if they are driven half underwater. To cross the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh City feels like a suicide attempt but we survived! At most we saw a whole six-head family sit on one tiny moped: husband, wife and four children.

Vietnamese food is well-known so expectations were high and most certainly fulfilled! While Indians and Thais spice their food with different spice pastes and chili, the Vietnamese spice their food with herbs. Pho soup is in practice a bowl of soup, by which you fill vegetables, noodles and piles of aromatic herbs on the bottom and then pour some hot broth on top. The ingredients of Vietnamese food are spiced with sauces and I tried for example ginger sauce and fish sauce. My favorite, though, was bung khao, pancakes filled with pork, chicken, beans and herbs steam-cooked in small rice-paper packages. Vietnamese spring rolls are perhaps less exotic than for example grilled frog but I enjoyed tasting both.

Communism is known for its non-existing service culture. By bureaucratic arrangements it is guaranteed that everyone has a work with minimum wages, but few have the possibility to earn more money with skills, work desire or willingness to serve. In Vietnam there are still traces of a minimum level of service-minded culture. Information is not available and is not given, hotel guests are moved without pre-notice from a room to another, officially tips are not expected but still they look disappointed if a tourist does not give tips and everything is served with tired, non-enthusiastic expressions, which is totally different from for example Thailand. I still believe that this is a transition time and that service-mindedness will rise in the near future.

Asia, exotism, food, travel, travel experiences, Vietnam