Thai Binh Wet Market 14 Nov 2017

Last night Alvin asked that if I would want to wake up early today so that we can go and explore the market just down the road. It is just located not far from the hotel we stayed ~ Cho Thai Binh.

Saigon’s markets seem to exist in another dimension to the rest of the city. In downtown District 1 I was thinking that, the traditional Vietnamese wet market no longer exists and replaced by generic high-end shopping malls. But, the local markets still as bustling, vibrant and fascinating as ever.

These markets play a major role in most ordinary people’s daily lives. Saigon’s markets are highly organized, the produce is local and fresh, and the sheer volume and variety of things for sale is remarkable.

Once you are in the embrace of one of Saigon’s markets you leave the modern façade of District 1 far behind, and enter a more colourful, friendly, and personal world.

We just walked down the street. Nearly reached Thai Binh Market, along the outer edge of the market square there were various kind of food stalls selling delicious street food dishes, and opposite them are fruit and vegetable stalls, all bursting with colour in the early sunlight.

We can’t help but notice that it’s mostly women over the age of 30 who populate markets like this in Saigon. Both the buyers and the sellers are female. There is a distinctly chatty atmosphere; lively but not frantic. Many of the market workers have worked in the same spot for years so they know each other well.

There is lots of gossip and laughter – especially at the sight of a foreigner – but no one hassles you to buy from them as they do in Bến Thành Market. You are free to walk among the produce, soaking up the colours and smells in the cool air and hushed atmosphere: there’s something very church-like about it.

We can hear the sound of the market in full swing: the chopping of meat with shining cleavers on wooden chopping boards; the rustle of grains of rice being portioned out into bags; the slap of live fish being slammed on the counter to stun them; the yelling, laughter and banter between fish mongers and butchers.

After we walked around the outside wet markets, we went into the building. Through the narrow lanes, there was a tight outer circle of stalls specializing is all sorts of dried goods, kitchen equipment and bottled sauces.

At the heart of the building, the meat and fish take centre stage. Behind the building, there is a cooked food corner where customers – many of whom are market workers – dine on various Vietnamese delicacies from noodle soups to sweet bean desserts.

We were so excited watching and exploring Thai Binh Market! It’s on a smaller scale than the other markets, which makes it much more manageable, but it still has all the energy and punch of a big market. Meat, fish, noodles, rice, spices, candies, sauces, fruit, vegetables, jewellery, and clothes are all sold in a relatively small space.

After which Alvin and I were walking back to the hotel and on our way back, we stopped by the laundry shop in the alley to take our laundry.

Mekong Delta My Tho 13 Nov 2017

We left Cu Chi around 11.30am and headed to My Tho. It was about 2 1/2 hour drive through suburban Saigon. It was a colourful outskirt life and paddy fields scenery along the journey leads to My Tho.

I saw something interesting, it was quite an eyes opening to me! In Malaysia, we can see tombstones in the rubber trees or oil palms plantations, here in Vietnam, we can see the tombstones in the paddy fields!

My Tho is an important market town and the gateway to the bustling floating markets of the Mekong Delta. The Mekong River, known as The Mighty Dragon or The River of the Nine Dragons in Vietnam. It is one of the most important rivers in the world.

The Mekong River is the life-line of six countries in Asia (Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and China). It passes through temple cities, lush tropical forests, swamps, rice plantations and boasts of some of the richest and most fertile landscapes in the world.

Our bus stopped at a small dock at Mekong River. Our tour guide gave us a short geographical lesson before we boarded a small boat that took us to Con Phung (Phoenix Island), named after a Chinese mythological figure for our late lunch. All of us are really starving and hungry.

It was really cool. As the motorboat passed by into the Mekong River, we could see houses or ship yards on the banks so you know people are all over the place.

There are kellong along the river as well. They are built by fishermen primarily for fishing or rear the fish purposes, although larger structures can also function as dwellings for them and their families.

It was 2.15pm when we enjoyed our lunch at one of the local restaurants. Our family shared a table with the tourists came from Jakarta, Indonesia.

It feel so warm to me that, other than English language, we can communicate with Malay language. Malay language and Indonesia language is almost the same.

We tried the Mekong Delta Specialty - Deep Fried Elephant ear fish.

A waitress with really deft hands will tear pieces of the fish out with chopsticks and spoon, wrapped the flaky flesh inside a delicate rice paper with lots of basil, mint and vermicelli. To me, it was another new invention to try fish in this way.

Other than that, we had been served with Cơm Trắng (steamed rice), Rau Muống Xào Tỏi (stir fried water spinach with garlic), Cá & Thit Heo Kho Tộ (braised pork & fish cook with fish sauce), Canh Tép Nấu Rau Củ (sweet sour vegetables soup), Chả Giò (deep fried spring roll).

The drinks are not included in our lunch, we have to pay for our drinks during lunch. We just ordered 2 cans of 100 Plus drinks, and we did bring along of mineral waters with us this trip.

The food was average only, but it is due to all of us were so hungry. We finished it all. After the lunch, we went back to the motorboat. Then we were taken to a local coconut candies workshop, and shown how they make coconut candies.

It is all started from to select a right coconut with super fresh flesh, then grate them, press them to extract the coconut cream and milk!

The next step is how to mix with the good quality malt syrup...and this is the maker's secret how much to add the syrup or probably some other ingredients...we never know!

Cook the mix of coconut milk for about 30 minutes. This is the most important step, the cook must stir continuously to make sure the mix doesn’t turn hard. Nowadays, like this workshop or factory, they use a special machine to stir the mix. The mix is cooked until it turns thick.

Pour the mix in a mould covered by a thin layer of coconut oil. Add peanut or durian. Then, the workers cut the thickened mixture into pieces of coconut candies.

The workers would wrap pieces of coconut candies in thin rice paper, again with another paper and put ready candies into boxes.

We saw many other souvenirs which were made by the coconut shells at the factory too, such as rice bowls, piggy banks, coasters for cups and mugs, etc.

We saw the snake wine and banana wine. Yes that is a thing! Don’t believe us? Take a look!

Besides that, there were selling all types of wallets and purses made by wither python leather, crocodile leather and even sting ray leather wallets!

After the factory visit, we were walking for some distance and taking a horse cart to reach a bee-keeping farm and enjoying honey tea.

Bee pollen might be the newest health fad to hit the western world, but here in the backwaters of Vietnam, it is generously spooned into every cup of tea.

Our tour guide explained to us on on the bees and honey, and we were all invited to purchase or buy the honey back to our home country either for own consumption or as gifts.

Moments later, we had the chance to taste seasonal fruits, enjoy traditional folk songs.

The Vietnamese ladies were performing their traditional music (Đờn Ca Tài Tử – a folk art form from Southern Vietnam accredited by UNESCO in 2013 as Intangible cultural Heritage of Humanity).

Then around 4.00pm, we were taking to go for an adventurous sampan ride on one of the tributaries of the Mekong.

We stepped into our sampan tentatively but started enjoying the ride almost as soon as our boat started making its way past lush palm trees and stunning green foliage.

We went down a tiny canal which was pretty cool too. The sampan lady rowed us back to the big motorboat which took us here earlier.

And, it concluded our half day Mekong Delta My Tho trip for the day when we retuning back to bus and going back to Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon at round 4.30pm.

Our tour finished at The Sinh Tourist office 246, De Tham Street about 7.30pm. We felt so tired but very fruitful and satisfying day trip for visiting The Cu Chi Tunnels in the half morning and part of Mekong Delta My Tho in the other half of the day.

Towards end of the day, we went back to the alley and searched for our dinner before we went back to our hotel. We just had the normal pork chop rice, fried rice and fried noodles with sautéed beef.

Day trips such as this are bound to feel ‘touristy’, but one look at the brightly-coloured boats bobbing along the calm waters of the Mekong made us fall in love with the river.

We will definitely be back for more…

Cu Chi Tunnels 13 Nov 2017

We woke up early at 6.00am, because we have to reach The Sinh Tourist by 6.30am. We went to the ABC Bakery & Café.

ABC Bakery & Café is conveniently located at 223-225 Pham Ngu Lao Street. We are just a few minutes away from Galaxy Capsule Hotel, where we were staying.

I was pretty surprise and amazed that ABC Bakery & Café interior design was so nicely done up, and it just like one of the best bakery shop that I used to go in Kuala Lumpur.

There were variety of choices of pastries and bakery products that we can choose from the authentic European-Style bread, Danish and other products. And they were freshly baked from oven as the shop opened as early as 6.00am to 10.00pm.

And the prices are quite economical, starting from only VND 17,000 a piece and getting high quality pastries and breads. We picked 3 to 4 types of buns and pastries so that we could bring along.

We booked a day tour to Cu Chi Tunnels - Mekong Delta (My Tho) through TheSinh Tourist website months ago with VND1,316,000 total for 4 persons, excluding the entrance tickets to Cu Chi Tunnels. The Cu Chi Tunnels entrance fee was VND110,000 per person.

Alvin and I thought it was a great deal, that was one of the reasons why we booked it online earlier. Booking the tour earlier after researches we did online, is one of the ways to save and segregate our travelling budget months before we travel, so that we would not have to spend a lot during the time of we travel.

Our package including transportation air conditioned bus, English speaking tour guide, wet tissues and one bottle of water per person, boat trips, tropical fruit platter and honey tea, lunch, traditional music performance and horse cart. It is excluding travel insurance, entrance tickets and all meals and beverage unspecified in the above.

We reached The Sinh Tourist at 6.30am, there were already a lot of tourists assembled at the centre. Alvin went to the counter to redeem the bus tickets for our booked tour. All the tourists came here for varies of booked destinations, such as Mũi Né, Vung Tau, etc.

We were directed to the tour bus which we have to walk as the bus was parked at Le Loi Street. Our family were allocated at the front 4 seats, may be is because we booked earlier through the website. The bus departed at 7.00am.

Our English speaking tour guide was a Cambodian whom was born in one of the Mekong Delta areas at Vietnam. His name is Tey. He was very friendly and briefed us about the tour of the day, what are the things included and excluded in the tour package.

Tey was humour and talked to us a little bit about the city of Saigon, and the people here. Finally, he was collecting our monies to purchase the entrance tickets later.

The road towards Cu Chi was not really good, most of the road were dusty and bumpy. We can see a lot of heavy vehicles on the road as well. Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City is developing, I think that is the reasons why we can see a lot of heavy machines vehicle on the road.

Surprisingly, I can see all the villages, industries areas or housing areas all the way to Cu Chi, there is no single sight of forests or plantations in the middle of our journey. That is how the country developing. We took a nap in the bus because it took almost 2 hours to reach Cu Chi.

Cu Chi is a district in Ho Chi Minh City. During Vietnam War, there were only several villages scattered around the area. However, the area had became the major battle field, due to the discovery of more than 200 km of underground tunnels used by People's Liberation Armed Force and Vietcom to fight against the South Vietnamese and US armies.

Storage of ammunition, food, hospitals, meeting room, command centers, dining area and other war-related facilites were built underground, far from the reach of enemy, yet near to the heart of the enemy- 45 km from Ho Chi Minh City.

The tunnels connected the nearby villages, Saigon River, border of Cambodia, and greater network of the nationwide tunnels. The tunnels, with the entrances well blended with the surrounding, were excellent for guerrilla warfare.

As retaliation, US army dropped millions tonnes of bombs onto the area. Ironically, these modern weapons failed to defeat the hand-dug tunnels. Cu Chi area is still considered as the most bombed, shelled, gassed, and defoliated area in the world.

There are two areas where you can see the tunnels, Ben Dinh and Ben Duoc. From the online researches, most of the tourists recommended to go to Ben Duoc as they are the best example of the original tunnels.  Ben Dinh still has tunnels but they have all been widened for tourism purposes.

We reached Cu Chi at around 9.00am. We were at the Ben Dinh Tunnels as most of the tourists bus would go. Our bus was one of the earliest tourist buses. After a short briefing by Tey, we took a few minutes walk to the visitor information center.

There was a small exhibition area at the tourist center with the "remnants" of the weapons used in Cu Chi area- napalms, rocket launchers, grenades, rifles etc.

Our tour guide was humourous, informative, and multitasking. He helped to check our tickets at the entrance, guided us through the tunnels site, and explained the history of the tunnels to us all by himself.

Later on, he gathered us to the field or the forest. The surrounding was just like an another ordinary rubber trees plantations to me. I had been to my grandmother’s rubber plantation when I was young as 5 or 6 years old. The feelings was exactly the same.

The first tunnel entrance shown to us was narrow. According to our tour guide, normally there would be a sign pointing to the entrance as only can be recognised by the tunnels people. The sign may be a big tree or a broken bamboo or big leave. The park staff demonstrated his skill to go into the tunnel.

The tour guide and the park staff invited other tourists to try on to jump in to the tunnel entrance. Alvin asked Issac to try on too! Alvin was so bad, that he stepped on the cover after Issac had hidden down to the tunnel, and would not let him to come out!

Then we were led to a bobby trap, that were used mainly to cause serious injury rather than killing the US soldiers.

The reason was, if you killed one, only one was down. If you seriously wounded one, it took another two to take care of the disabled one.

Then, more tunnels' entrance were revealed. Narrow and hard to be seen.

The ventilation holes are well blended into the environment, which may look like an ant hill.

Disposed US tanks that was left behind.

Models of the local fighters were shown along the walkway.

We were brought to the traps workshop. The park staff shown us types of traps and how do they works!

Military uniform clothes making workshop.

The shoes making workshop. It is quite unique as they made it by using the recycle tyres which were on the vehicles or tanks! Vietnamese really creative and innovative!

Weapon workshop extracted the gun powder from the unexploded US bombs, and used it to made anti-tank explosive and grenades. Well, we learned a lesson of creativity, as well as the power of recycle.

20 minutes wandering in the forest, we were led to the resting point in the park.

The shooting range was located next to the resting area, with the bullets could be bought at the office, with a minimum purchase of 10 bullets per time.

There was a shop selling souvenirs and drinks at the resting point. Washroom is available there as well. Vietnamese are very creative. We saw different types of airplanes and car models which are made from the recycle soft drinks or beers tin cans!

Then, it's the time to visit the tunnel- to the best of our estimation 100 - 150 meters long. We went through the first 20 meters only, because we have 2 kids with us. There were several exits at certain distance, so we could get out of the tunnel whenever we felt uncomfortable.

The entrance was about 5 feet tall, we need to bend a bit to get inside. A small staircase in the room led us into a 2 feet tall tunnel. The tunnel seems small at the beginning, and made us feel uncomfortable. We got used to it a minute later, and we could move very fast in the tunnel afterward.

At some of the point, we needed to lay and crawl (yes either face down or face up) over the tunnel, while at some of the point, we couldn't see the person in front of us. But worry not, what we need to do is following the light.

After the that, our tour guide gathered us and we were led to the underground kitchen with the "chimney" channelling the smokes far away from the kitchen.

Tapioca and tea were served from the kitchen or the canteen nearby the exit of the tunnel. The tapioca was very tasty when eat together with the peanut and sugar.

Then, we watched a video about Chu Chi for 20 minutes near the exit also entrance of the Cu Chi Tunnels sites. The park staff was explaining to us, but the video was boring and hard to follow.

We left the room around 10.45am as the tour guide was asking us to leave for our next the destination ~ Mekong Delta (My Tho).

We had no problem walking on the ground, but moving in tunnels was different. Hand bag, camera bag, backpack, and even big bulky camera could be a burden in the tunnel. Well, keep these items in the tourist bus would be a good idea, or even better, not bringing them to Cu Chi.

Some information stated that Cu Chi is infested with mosquitoes, centipedes, and other vicious insects. We prepared insects repellent and some medicines, just in case. Lucky enough, we did not have the chance to apply them.

Cu Chi was extremely warm during our visit. Water was hard to find, so bringing some water to keep ourselves hydrated is important.

Our trip was full with activities, and we did not really have time to sit down in the canteen there to have tea for the whole trip. I felt lucky that we bought some breads, pastries and water, and with that, the children were not feel so hungry.

Cu Chi is really a must visit site nearby Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City. You have never been to Saigon if you never visit the Cu Chi Tunnels!