This isn't exactly the same situation, as I don't have too much 'new' to do in HCMC, but I definitely think tthere is some merit to making the last day quite packed. It allows you to easily avoid feeling burned out, or what is a more acute fear for me, more depressed when a trip is nearing its end. As it is on these two week trips, generally by the last few days I'm burned out enough to want to return home, and as weird as it seems to say, somewhat missing work. That's certainly the case here - granted I have a rather hectic travel day tomorrow with three flights and two lengthy stopovers.
Anyway, on to the final day. My rough outline of the day was combining new sites with old (i.e. places I've already gone) restaurants and new breweries/bars. The sites were split amongst 2-3 pagodas and temples I didn't see last time around, and shopping areas and markets that I didn't do last time either - more-so because I didn't really have an inclination to do so as much pre-apartment.
Some of the pagodas were a bit of a bust as two of the four I went to were closed, and while you could sneak through some nice pics, it was a bit disappointing. The two I did get to walk through in good details were quite nice though. The first was fairly small, in classic HCMC style just built into what otherwise is a standard fare busy street. It was Confucian in nature, replate with a lot of red, chinese characters, a whole lot of incense being burned (some good, some a bit more unwelcome), and a pond with no lie ~30 turtles, in luding many giant ones. The turtles were behind a cage so you had to contort a bit to get a good picture, but I for sure did that.
The other temple was much larger, and is known enough that I'm somewhat surprised I didn't see it last time. It was a more standard Vietnamese style pagoda temple, with multiple large temple buildings, large statues, including one 20-foot tall white buddha, a bunch of grave sites with swastikas (always a bit jarring, though I don't blame them and if anything credit then for not letting what the Nazis did ruin a symbol of peace). The whole complex was quite serene and beautiful, if not for the unabating humidity that was beating down - a confluence of where we are in the world and impending rain that by the forecast should have been here throughout my stay but somehow was held at bay.
From there I headed to lunch at Cuc Gugh Ngon, which is a beautiful restaurant serving up elevated traditional Vietnamese food in a stylized semi-open layout, made to look like a traditional (though fancy) Vietnamese house. The menu is lengthy, so I took their suggestion on a chicken-based salad, which was excellent and super refreshing, and I ordered a braised beef lemongrass stew, which was excellent - surprisingly sweet and the beef was braised very well. My only quibble is they left a lot of fat in the dish, which I'm sure helped the sweetness of the curry, but wasn't so great when roughly 40% of the meat is fat.
From the restaurant, I finished my shopping experience in Ho Chi Minh City, along with essentially finishing the shopping for hte trip. Mainly this was done at a store named Saigon Kitsch, which is selling Vietnamese-themed products directly at tourists. The bottom floor is, as the name implies, a bit kitschy selling stuff that veers towards tourist trash, but the second and third floors have great handicrafts, including a lot of classic posters. The place isn't cheap, especially for the posters, but it was well laid out, inviting, and a great place to wander aroudn aisles and see everything they have.
From there I went to Winking Seal Brewing, which had a location close to Saigon Kitsch and let me go indoors right as the skies got incredibly threatening, ahead of them opening up with a true rainstorm, the type that the forecast always predicted but never came the last two days. Huddling up in Winking Seal was a good time, the place is laid out well, with great craft options, including a super good Double IPA. They also had an adorable logo, as you would think with the name Winking Seal.
Dinner, for what is effectively my last non airplane meal of the trip, was at Noir: Dining in the Dark, a place I went to last time as well, but knew I had to go back. For the basics, the place makes you eat in a pitch black room, and I mean truly pitch black - mimicing blindness. As an added layer, the place hires a staff of sensory deprived individuals, with the main waitstaff being all blind themselves. It's a bit of piling on, but also the food is excellent. The hook is that you don't know exactly what you are eating until after the meal when you are brought back into the light they go through picture by picture what you ate.
In my case, the first course was a series of four mini-salads, from two raw preparation (shrimp, tuna), a duck salad, and a durian-based salad. The next course was two soups, one a chicken consomme and then a Vietnamese style prawn chowder, with a passionfruit palate cleanser on the side. Then were four mains, a fish dish, a crab pasta, a beef preparation, and a pork curry. Again, what makes this place elevate beyond the gimmick of eating in the dark is the food is actually very good, with smart preparations, interesting flavors - even if this time around everything required a spoon or fork, whereas I distinctly remember last time having a few things able to be eaten with your hands. The three dessert items were a honeycomb cake, a brownie ice cream, and a passionfruit pannacotta. On the whole, the place has great food, a great concept, and is doing a great service by giving a staff of people that would otherwise struggle to get solid jobs.
My last couple stops were first one last brewery - Heart of Darkness, which started in HCMC, but was successful enough here to expand first within Vietnam, and then out to Singapore and Bangkok. I can see why as they had a pretty sizable tap list, a lot of IPAs (two of which I tried, both quite good), and a solid theme including playing heavy metal. I can see it being very successful here and elsewhere, though part of that is because it isn't all too Vietnamese. The last stop was one last cocktail bar, this one named Snuffbox, a speakeasy down an alley off a busy road.
The place is on the second floor, up a truly dirty staircase (some of this was due to rain), but you go past the large wooden door and the place expands and improves tremendously. Snuffbox had a great dark decor, was split across levels with an open atrium, and has some really interesting cocktails mixed up by talented mixologists. The place was fairly empty - not too surprising given it was a Sunday night around midnight, but for me it was a perfectly calm, beautiful place to end my last touristy part of the trip.
