Showing posts with label Ho Chi Minh City. Show all posts
Morning Pho in Ho Chi Minh
Sometimes when I’m eating my routine breakfast of cereal and coffee, I dream of a steaming bowl of pho and a large glass of Vietnamese ice coffee.
Earlier this year after a long train ride, I arrived in Ho Chi Minh early in the morning with friends, dirty, sleepy and very grumpy. After dropping our bags at the hotel and realizing we could not check in and clean ourselves until the afternoon, we walked around the city in search of food. Our previous meal had been instant noodles, in which I had only eaten the noodles. Near our hotel we found a street where people were setting up shop. I wish I could remember where this was. We wandered around peeking in at little stores, stalls of vegetables and carts filled with mangoes. Cart and stall owners talked loudly to each other and gestured towards us to buy and eat.
A middle aged lady was preparing pho out of a metal cart. She had all the ingredients she needed in her small space: a pot of boiling water, piles of noodles, stalks of leafy greens, an assortment of meat and odd shaped ingredients we couldn’t quite make out. I ignored all my mother’s advice on avoiding street food or non bottled drinks (with no regrets). In turn we each pointed to the ingredients we wanted and she piled them into the boiling water. While we waited for our pho, we ordered ice coffee at the cart to the side. We took our big bowls of pho and mugs of ice coffee and sat on plastic stools at a metal table in the alleyway behind the pho lady. One in our group had to conduct a work call and talked loudly in English over the street noise about adult things like pricing sheets. The rest of us happily munched our food in silence.
There is nothing like 8am pho when the sun is bright and the street is busy.
Overnight Train to Saigon
We decided to take a 16 hour train ride from Danang to Saigon. When we first got on the train, I was not feeling good about the situation. We’d done a 16 hour bus ride two days earlier, and I’d just about had it with public transportation and dirty bathrooms in Vietnam.
We booked five berths in one room. When we arrived at our room, people had just left, so the bed sheets were already used and crumpled. I felt sick. We had a sixth roommate, a Vietnamese young man who didn’t seem to speak English or pretended not to in order to avoid us. He climbed onto the top bunk and promptly shut us out. We were a bit paranoid, but I think he was probably more scared of us than we were of him.
After a few hours, we took a tour of our home for the night. To the left of our room were the higher priced berths and to our right, lower priced seats, leading to the kitchen at the very end (which was open in the back revealing the track disappearing behind). As we walked back towards the kitchen, keeping balance with the movements of the train, it was almost like we were passing different worlds. Inside each room, families ate their meals, children crawled over their parents, and people slept in every position conceivable. When we reached the room of benches (the cheapest seats), we walked over people’s legs stretched out over the floor or across the aisles. Finally, we arrived at the kitchen. We noticed the hygienic state and decided no dinner or instant noodles would be the best option for this voyage.
On our way back we investigated the toilet situation. At first, I just saw the squatties that splashed water when the train lurched. I reached a deep level of sadness until I saw the toilets I’m more familiar with, still disgusting, but at least with less chance of losing balance and falling in. I vowed to only drink liquids when necessary.
So the next hours passed, and we played card games, charades, and talked. Our Vietnamese friend did not join in. At one rest stop, two of my friends ran out to grab instant noodles before the train left again. I had a moment of panic contemplating what would happen if they didn’t make it back in time. But all was good and so we ate, dirty, gross and refusing to drink too much water to avoid the toilets.
Needless to say, I did not sleep one wink that night. I’m a bit of a clean freak and I’ve never been able to sleep on transportation. Between my friend’s snores, the feeling of dirty sheets, and needing to pee but refusing, I lay there contemplating my life decisions for a good eight hours.
With an hour left at about 5am, I braved the bathroom. I returned to my bunk, my friends asleep around me, and stared out the window. Those 20 minutes may be one of my favorite parts of the trip. They made the previous 14 hours and the following day of exhaustion worth it.
I’d spent so long in my own head, consumed with petty worries about dirty toilets and bedsheets. I felt so much lighter in forgetting about myself and observing a city I didn’t fully understand and had never seen before.
Motorcycles were lined up at traffic lights, people were scurrying in and out of homes, and the sun was slowly rising on Saigon.
April in Review
Danang
,
Hanoi
,
Ho Chi Minh City
,
Month in Review
,
Myanmar
,
Saigon
,
Yangon
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This month I spent a day in Indonesia, a weekend in Myanmar, and a week in Vietnam. I am exhausted and a little broke, but I'm learning so much.
1st row: Mekong Delta, Reunification Day in Saigon, beach in Danang [Saigon & Danang, Vietnam]
2nd row: view from a coffee shop, street pho, selling flowers in the street [Hanoi, Vietnam]
3rd row: biking near Yangon University, Yangon from a rooftop, Ministers' Building [Yangon, Myanmar]
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