Good morning, Saigon

So I spent the New Year holidays in Vietnam. I wanted sunny, perfumed, exotic and unexpensive holidays - girls be ambitious - so I booked a cheap flight to Ho Chi Minh City, aka Saigon.

Saigon from the ground

I have to say : there is nothing left of the old wooden houses, the gracious bridges, the elegant atmosphere portrayed in the vintage movies with Catherine Deneuve. Saigon is now made of concrete and wires, and roads... roads... roads. With thousands of motorbikes on the streets. It's noisy, busy, polluted... Fascinating of course, but very far from the "charming" atmosphere sold by the guidebooks (never trust guidebooks, never). Still, the iconic Vietnamese conical hat appears everywear like a musical leitmotiv, enchanting the most trivial views of the city.

Saigon from the sky

When tou're a tourist and you have dollars in your pocket, you clan admire Ho Chi Minh City from the business district highest tower. Through the thick pollution cloud and the dust raised by the motorbikes. As you can see, except for the few colonial buildings in the central area, nothing remains from old Saigon. Ho Chi Minh is a busy, functional modern city.

Parks in Saigon

After only a couple of hour on the frantic street, I was already looking for oasis. Thanks God, Saigon offers the best, widest, cleanest, most quiet parks you can dream of. Suddenly there's nothing around you but giant trees and green palm leaves. And it's almost empty, as if the rest of the world was to busy to enjoy the sweet shadow and the blissful silence. Parks are definitely what I prefered in Saigon.

This one even offers open-air free gym equipment ! How cool is that ??

Colonial flavor

Being French, I couldn't avoid to go and see the famous Notre Dame de Saigon Cathedral, built in 1880, and entirely made of Marseille red bricks shipped from Southern France (what were our ancestors thinking, I really wonder).

In the rest of the town, you really need to open your eyes to spot the charming buildings among the general mess.

Another strange experience in Saigon : pagodas. Guidebooks sell them to you as exquisite, must-see masterpieces of Buddhist art. Well, I can't say there's no interest in visiting it, but when you have travelled Japan, Thailand or even Taiwan, Saigon's pagoda look like small, poor and colorless things. It's just local temples, not oustanding sightseeing spots - in my humble opinion.

Vinh Nghiem Pagoda

Jade Emperor Pagoda

By the way : what do you eat and drink in Saigon ?

Coffee

Vietnam is one of the first country in the world for the production of coffee. You can sip delicious and cheap coffee anywhere, anytime. As a fervent tea-addict I usually don't drink coffee, but I loved the traditional way to drink it in Vietnam : with plenty of sugar and milk !

Fruits

It's not a scoop : South-Asian countries have the best exotic fruits and you can get it for cheap on the markets - if you can bargain. And if you can bring it home to peel it, otherwise it can make you sick.

And at the restaurant ? Well, one of my fav food in the world... Springrolls !! Fresh or fried, I take it all !

Next stop : Phu Quoc. Stay tuned !!

Comments

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L'Asie du sud-est m'a toujours attiree, je n'ai malheureusement jamais eu l'occasion d'y aller. En particulier le laos et le vietnam. Saigon (je dis bien Saigon), me fascine. J'ai en tete le film l'Amant. Que l'on aime ou pas le film et hors debat colonialiste, son esthetisme et sa photo m'ont donne une image de cette ville irresistiblement attirante. Les photos d'epoque aussi. Malheureusement, tu ne fais que confirmer ce que je savais deja. Mais ca ne m'empechera pas d'y aller si j'en ai l'occasion! ma photo preferee est celle de la facade de maison verte, je ne sais pas, c'est celle qui me parle le plus!