I wanteed to tack it onto this trip, knowing I had to come to Bangkok to fulfill the Gaggan booking I made in December 2019 (granted, in theory I could have kept postponing that). Maybe in retrospect, spending the whole two weeks in Korea would have been better, especially after the typhoon short circuited the start of the trip, but I very much wanted my time in Saigon.
I woke up around 11am, sleeping-in in my suite at the Le Meridien. I generally stay at AirBNBs when traveling solo because they are often cheaper and more efficient, but you get a proper hotel like this and you realize that it does just make a difference. It was a calm, leisurely start to the day. Yes, in theory I should feel bad only leaving the hotel at noon, but when you only went to sleep at 4am after a great night out, and you've seen most of the key sites in teh city anyway, it doesn't seem as bad.
Given how late I left, my first stop was lunch and it would continue on my path of retracing various steps I've already walked on prior trips to Ho Chi Minh City. This time to Hoa Tuc, the only thing of note I did in Ho Chi Minh City in 2013, and where I went again in 2019. I wasn't necessarily planning to go this time, but it was on my walk from the Le Meridien to central HCMC, and I got caught up in the nostalgia of it all. The inside was filled be a wedding party having a brunch or something, but the outside was shaded with good use of fans, so it was livable.
The food was great as it always has been. I got one dish that I got each of the first two times, a betel leaf wrapped beef dish where you take the little logs of beef, a pad of rice noodles, pineapple and basil and wrap it in a rice paper wrap for a little roll. This is an immaculate dish, as it was in 2013 and 2019 and remains in 2022. For my other diesh I went off the board a bit with a duck leg curry, which was approaching Indian in taste and components (in the curry were chickpeas and sweet potato), The dish was great, and because this place is authetntically Vietnamese in cuisine, it opened my eyes a bit as to what Vietnamese cuisine entails.
From there I walked towards the heart of Ho Chi Minh City, first past the Opera House and the promenade around it, then to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Unfortunately the church is closed for renovations and heavily scaffolded, but was still a decent picture spot, with the old post office nextdoor. Then was a walk past Independence Palace a nice mix between a clear governmental building, and a nice beautiful park. This middle part of HCMC is really well built, with parks, walking districts and the like. The city is clearly not as well built as a Seoul, but I prefer this to Bangkok, which is a bit to overbuilt despite being admittedly more modern.
The real goal to reach was the War Remnants Museum, a museum built around the Vietnam War. It was probably hte most moving part of my visit last time around, and despite nothing in the museum changing, was equally so this time. It lays out in painstaking detail the lead up to the war, the war itself and atrocities carried out by Americans. It doesn't take too biased a slant (unlike the Hanoi Hilton, which had many clearly staged photos of American POWs playing chess and stuff), but is clear that the Americans helped carry out a bunch of atrocities in the country, inclouding the use of 'Agent Orange' gas that has left generations of misery in its wake. It's all real, it's all stark in its presentation.
The most moving exhibits are the Atrocities of War, which shows what it names says that it will, but photos taken by journalists who covered the war, including many by photo journalists who would die in Vietnam. The Agent Orange exhibit is more jarring, but, and I'm sure I'm stupid to say this, it seems a bit more exploitative to use deformed people and pictures of them to draw out emotions. The Atrocities of War exhibit is limited to the carnage of the war, and is very real in what it shows. Being an American, it is odd to go there and see this laid out so starkly. In the end though I'll give them this (and another reason why I prefer this to the Hanoi Hilton) they have an exhibit about the war resistance in teh US that at least gives the US people credit in that a lot of Americans did not support the war. Overall, the War Remnants Museum is a good museum, and is endlessly effective in showcasing the horrors of war in a fair way.
From there I walked back covering most of the route I just went through, down to Pasteur Street Brewing, which might be one of my favorite craft breweries in Asia. The place had two IPAs, two stouts and the three I sampled were all pretty decent, especially theri double IPA. The place just has a really authentic feel. I come back to that word, and I think the best cities I've visited exhibit this. They aren't overly sterile, or overly pomp, they just believe in what they are, be it here in HCMC, or Jerusalem, or Cape Town.
After a quick stop in the Le Meridien club lounge, I was back out heading towards Anan, a very well reputed restaurant (and rooftop bar) that has only become more so since my trip in 2019. They had a tasting menu, which in reality is just a selection of plates from their standard menu. Their menu is about as creative as any I've seen from this type of place. The tasting menu was excellent, with four starters, including a pork & shrimp taco, a great squid ink calamari dish, a crab roll, and a fresh duck salad. The mains were another take on beef in betel leaf, a shaking beef dish and a pomelo and crab salad. The best dish might have been the desert, which was a rice and dark chocolate mochi ball in a pungent sauce. Overall, while there may have been more inventive things elsewhere on the menu, I was glad to have gotten the tasting menu (only ~$50).
From there, I went back to The Gin House, after a few close by cocktail bars didn't seem as enticing (or one requried you to get food). The Gin House was more packed, getting to tjhe point where they could have used the space they've given up. I'm hopeful that they will be able to expand back again, the palce has all the heart, and the quality in drink, of the larger location, with equally good music. After The Gin House was one last trip over to The Observatory, which was about as crowded as it was the night before, though with a seeming higher ratio of westerners than the day before. The place is as tremendous as always, and to me a great way to spend an evening, night and early morning in Ho Chi Minh City.
