Is it Saigon or Ho Chi Minh? Well, the locals use Saigon – and thats also the historical name of the city. It is ofcourse related to the Vietnam war – or as it is called here – The American war.
The Vietnam war as ‘we’ know it was between the communists of rhe north and the americans of the south vietnam. Yeah, a few more was involved, but all in all that was the base of it.
As everybody know (?), the north won, the americans lost – and so the winning guys of the communist side changed the name to Ho Chi Minh for obvious reasons. As dar as I inderstand, there is no political ‘thing’ using eithernof the names, it just has two – Ho Chi being the official one. (or HCMC for short)
We have checked into our pretty nice AirBnB apartment in the Toa nah Ben Thanh tower, and just outside its loaded with resturants and bars. We had decided early on that today we where going for the local pho. Pho is pretty much a tastefull broth with loads of greens and a selection of meats. It tasted awsome, and this will probably be our go-to breakfast every day in Vietnam.. supertasty! (ca 20 NOK a bowl, and that was a ‘large’)
We stopped by Saigon Kitsh, which is a fancy souvenir shop. Mentioned in tripadvisor – so we put it in the route, its nice to have a few points of interests when out walking.. Nice enough shop, great if you actually want to pick up something differet than whats in all the other stalls.
We difnt have to many plans fo today, just walking the streets and se whats what. I had made a note to stop by the Apartment Cafe’s. This is a large apartment building that has been converted into lots and lots of cafe’s and a few resturants. So a bit differet, kinda cool.
Right under the DOSH sign in the picture, there was a ‘local beer’ sign – so, nothing more to think about. – the sun and humidity is hard, so better stay hydrated.
Some pics from the Apartment Cafe, entrance area is on the left hand side of the building – the massive bookstore on the ground floor being kn the center.
You know, its fine – I get it. Its kinda cool entering a building that looks trashed. Walking up dirty steps, finding a door to a cafe/bar and then, when entering – its supernice and clean. But the thing is that its like that everywhere, it feels like a way to justify that you throw rotten fish and diapers out the side of your house. If you stop and look at all the shit – you end up with a feeling that there is no feel for community and neighborhood.. they keep it nice and tidy inside theire box, and then just dont give a flyin fuck when they go outside.
So the Apartment Cafe building m, nah, I dont know. The cafe’s inside are cool enough, I would recomend a visit. And you will probably think that its cool entering a door and going ‘into an oasis’ – but all the shit outsidd is not setup as decor, its the actual product of garbage beeing dumped anywhere.
But anyways, stop by – the different shops inside are nice. And they all have a different feel. We had a couple of beers and juices, very nice – and a great place to hang around plannkng youre next move.
After a few drinks we stopped by a bahn mi place, this is essential vietnam eat – and we are going to try a lot of these. They do sell these back home to, but back home they use a regular baguette and not the super crispy fluffy bread they use here. We will do a bahn mi special when we havw tasted a few mire. These where supertasty!
Saigon is a very lively town, there is things going on everywhere. And there is TONS of coffee spots, Vietnamese are crazy for coffee 🙂
We walked about a bit and just looked at stuff.. tons of strange fruit.. I specially look forward to taste dorian – the stinky fruit that is supposed to tase excelent. Picture of it beliw, the one with all the spikes.
A few more pics from our walk
