Merry Christmas 2022!

It was a quiet and low-key Christmas this year, but that's exactly what I needed.

My wife and I both had to work on Christmas day, but we celebrated the evening with special Christmas ice cream, Mexican hot chocolate (Abuelita, of course!), and a viewing of Rick Steve's European Christmas.

Food in Saigon

My favorite part about traveling in Vietnam is the food!

In fact, the amazing dishes that we ate when my girlfriend (now wife) and I were traveling in Vietnam is what inspired us to start our side project, The World of Street Food!

The World of Street Food

Com Ga, a basic but filling dish of grilled chicken served with rice.

Banh Mi Hong! This was the best banh mi I've ever had (and that's saying something, because I really love Vietnamese banh mi). Banh Mi Hong is famous for their pate, and their sandwiches are made with their special freshly-baked bread.

Banh Thit Nuong is the southern version of bun cha (my favorite northern Vietnamese dish). Grilled pork is served with rice noodles and vegetables, and the dish is almost always topped with a fried spring roll.

One night we got hungry, but it was too late for us to want to go out. Instead, we ordered this dish, which is a sort of spicy mixed salad made from shredded rice paper, herbs, spices, peanuts, and quail eggs.

A coconut coffee is perfect when you need a pick-me-up in the middle of the day. The Vietnamese coffee is blended with fresh iced coconut for a cold and super refreshing drink.

We had one more banh mi during our trip. It was also amazing, and completely stuffed with fillings. In fact, it was so big and filling that we could only eat half of one at a time!

Coffee at the Secret Viet Cong Cafe

During the war, this unassuming coffee shop doubled as a secret hideout for the Viet Cong!

What looks like a typical southern Vietnamese house full of antiques and relics from the war era was actually one of the most important spots where Communist sympathizers and Viet Cong forces would meet and make their plans.

One of the tiles on the floor comes out to reveal a hidden basement where weapons and ammunition was once stored.

Now, it's a coffee shop and house museum, and it's really fascinating to visit!

We ordered some fresh iced coffee, and climbed the creaking wooden staircase to the second floor where we took a seat by the window and enjoyed the relatively cool breeze.

There's a wardrobe in the corner of the second floor that looks absolutely normal. Even when you open it up, it just looks like a regular wardrobe... but it has a secret!

You can pull open a hidden trap door at the bottom to reveal a secret passageway leading down into the basement. If police ever came around, the Viet Cong would run here to hide!

It's an interesting piece of history. The war in Vietnam is long over, and for the most part, you can almost forget that it ever even happened when you're visiting. The country has rebuilt and moved on, but places like this cafe are fascinating reminders of the turbulent days of Vietnam's 60s and 70s.

Bến Thành Market and a Morning Walk

Our second full day in Vietnam started with a brisk early morning walk to Ben Thanh Market, dodging traffic and motorbikes the whole way.

Saigon's largest market goes back to the early 17th century, when merchants and traders set up shop together near the Saigon River. The market as we know it was formally established by the French colonial government in 1859. The current building was constructed in 1912 and renovated in 1985.

It reminded me a lot of Central Market in Phnom Penh. It makes sense; both markets were built around the same time by the government of French Indochina.

The Blog of Michael Desrosiers: Wat Phnom and Central Market

I was hoping to find a thriving local market but was slightly disappointed to just find row after row of souvenir stalls. I know that people are just making a living and will sell whatever makes them the most profit, but it's kind of a shame to see this historic old market just full of t-shirts and souvenir junk.

After barely surviving the chaotic walk to the market, I was in need of a coffee. We took a walk towards the river and stopped at another cafe apartment on the way.

I decided to order a coconut coffee.

Even though we spent a month in Ho Chi Minh City a few years back, I guess we never made our way to the riverside! I kind of wish we had. It was a lovely and peaceful place, quite different from the hectic traffic and chaos that was all around us.

Like in Bangkok, there's a river boat system called the Saigon Waterbus that runs up and down the river each day. If we had had a little more time in town, it might have been fun to have taken the river bus to the furthest stop and back in order to get a different view of city life.

For nostalgia's sake, we decided to walk to Saigon Center, a shopping mall where we had spent A LOT of time during our month in Saigon. It was the rainy season, and we would often have to duck into the mall to get out of the sudden rainstorms which would break over the city. We also did our grocery shopping there and would walk around the mall to pass the time if we didn't know what else to do.

The Blog of Michael Desrosiers: Raining in HCMC

I don't know if we just missed it before, but this time we followed some people up the escalators past what we thought was the top floor to the roof of the mall to discover a very nice rooftop garden area! I also wish we had known about this place back in 2018! Our big problem with HCMC back then was that we found it very stressful and had trouble finding somewhere to relax. If we had known about this rooftop, I imagine we would have spent a lot of time up there with a cup of coffee.

My second impressions of HCMC are more or less the same as my first. It's a hectic city, and an exhausting one. There's a lot to see and do, but I still find it a little overwhelming and, to be honest, less interesting than Hanoi. There's still a lot of southern Vietnam that I haven't explored, and I'll definitely be coming back to Saigon someday, but I think my next visit to Vietnam might be to another part of the country.

Ten Thousand Buddhas Pagoda

There seems to be a temple everywhere you look in Vietnam, but as we were leaving the Museum of Traditional Medicine, one particular pagoda caught our eyes from a distance.

The towering pagoda of the Việt Nam Quốc Tự, or National Pagoda of Vietnam soars above the surrounding neighborhood and can be seen for quite a distance around.

The pagoda is open for visitors on the 1st and 15th of each month, but we weren't there on the right days. It was quiet, save for the few brown-robed Mahayana monks who were going about their business on the monastery grounds.

After a short walk, we came to Chùa Vạn Phật, or the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas. We really had no idea what to expect. The name had sounded interesting, so we had followed a map down a narrow alleyway to a very nondescript-looking building at the end.

It looked like a temple, but we really weren't sure that we were in the right spot. However, an old man sitting outside gestured that we could go inside and walk up, and so we did so.

The temple is a narrow building several stories tall, each one home to a shrine. It was a very popular place as well, and we passed families praying, lighting candles and incense, and leaving offerings at small family shrines off of the main hall.

Every floor was different, and as we climbed higher up the dark stairs, the shrines became more and more elaborate.

We finally arrived at the top to discover exactly how the temple got its name! The walls of the upper shrine hall are filled with tiny niches, each one containing a small golden Buddha.

Built in 1959 by two important Vietnamese Buddhist monks named Thich Dieu Hoa and Tang Duc Bon, the temple is not only a place of worship, but also somewhere that local Buddhists can come to listen to teachings, study Buddhist theory and theology, and participate in the temple's charity organization.

I was amazed by the impressive design of the temple! I had never seen anywhere like this before.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves! I just wish I had had a better camera with me to do this place justice!

The Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine

I'm a big museum guy.

In fact, the weirder or more obscure the museum, the better!

During our recent trip to Ho Chi Minh City, my wife and I decided to visit the Museum of Traditional Vietnamese Medicine. My wife is a veterinarian, and her sister is a pharmacist, and so our house is rather a "medical" house. We thought it would be fascinating to see where the medicinal tradition of our region came from.

Opening the door to the museum, we were greeted by a friendly curator who handed us a map and directed us to the third floor. Exiting the antique elevator, we came upon a shrine to two of ancient Vietnam's most renowned and venerated doctors (Hai Thuong Lan Ong [18th century] and Tue Tinh [14th century]). The two doctors are considered to be the fathers of Vietnamese medicine.

The museum was built within an old house, and each room held an eclectic collection of herbs, medicines, and artifacts. 

One room was dedicated to herbal foot baths! During certain times, visitors can even try this relaxing treatment, but this part of the museum wasn't open when we were there.

Many of the exhibits consisted of powders, tinctures, and things in jars - along with a short explanation about what each medicine was used for. Some of them were creepier than others!

Snake wine is common throughout Southeast Asia and is still used for a number of traditional remedies. It's also popular with tourists as a souvenir with which to scare their friends back home.

These ginkgo roots were carved to look like powerful sages. I don't know the significance. Perhaps it's to give the medicine greater potency.

Before leaving, we were given a cup of mushroom herbal tea to enjoy. Apparently, it's really good for you!