It's PHOnomenal!

A little Vietnamese humor there...Pho is sort of their national dish - noodles in broth, with bean sprouts and either pork, beef or chicken. It's cheap, filling and delicious. You can get it anywhere, from a woman on a bike to a storefront to a restaurant. We've had it numerous times and seem to be incorporating it into our regular speech patterns. Such as "I'm quite pho right now"when we've had enough to eat. Or the above titled "Phonomenal." And not coincidentally, our first stop in Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as the local still refer to it, was to get Pho and spring rolls. Our amazing guide, Kiep (much more on him later), asked us if we were hungry, and when are we not?, and took us to a place called Pho 2000, which has a big sign outside saying "Pho for the President!" It turns out that when Clinton visited Vietnam in 2000, which really is the time that the Vietnamese cite as when the relations between our two countries shifted and their economics improved, he and Chelsea ate at this place. His picture is all over the place and the Vietnamese love him. It's considered a pretty famous restaurant in Saigon, and was very delicious.

We've got to say...we were a little skeptical going into Saigon...knowing there are so many great stops on our itinerary and that there was a lot of not so pleasant war history here. But a great guide and good sites made it a very nice two days. It didn't hurt that in addition to the above mentioned Pho that we also discovered true Vietnamese coffee. Oh. My. God. This stuff is so good that words can't even describe (and why the heck did it take us so long to have a guide tell us about it?!?). Imagine the best Starbucks frappucino you've ever had...combined with the best cup of coffee...multiple it by 10 and it may come close to this. It's this amazing blend of coffee, very slow dripped, with water and sweetened condensed milk, poured over ice. It's like we died and went to coffee heaven. It's worth the price of airfare alone, but only costs from $1-$3. We are offering up prayers that Cambodia and Laos have a similar version as we are hooked.

But enough about Pho and coffee...we did see a lot of sites and learned a lot of history, including:

• The Presidential or Reunification Palace: This was the seat of the South Vietnamese government. Very 60s looking. The iconic photo of the North Vietnamese tank knocking through the gate was here.
• The War Remnants Museum: Disturbing and obviously tilted towards their view, but a necessary stop. It made us realize we had some reading up to do on what happened.
• The Post Office: Designed by the same company that did the Eiffel Tower this looks more like a train station. Very impressive. And there is this HUGE portrait of Ho Chi Minh done in stamps.
• Notre Dame Cathedral: Largest Catholic Cathedral in Vietnam. Hard to judge what it was really like as there was a mass going on.
• Lacquer Factory: Not sure the name of the place but it's impressive the way that they make this.
• Cu Chi Tunnels: This was outside of Ho Chi Minh, although considered part of the province. We learned how the tunnel network worked during the war, saw the various traps the VC set to catch the Americans, and even went down into a tunnel.
  
• Cao Dai Holy See: We visited the temple that is the center of this religion, which was developed in Vietnam in the early 1900s and incorporates elements from 5 major religions, including Catholicism, Buddhism, Confuscisim, Taoism and even Islam. The temple itself was really interesting...ornate, colorful and including various elements of all religions. We got to attend the mass which had numerous followers, in various robes signifying the religions.
  
• Rex Hotel: We went to the rooftop bar here. The hotel itself is famous as American military personnel used to do their daily briefings here, which were called the Five O'Clock Follies.
  

Describing Saigon would not be complete without touching upon Kiep, our guide. It is often said that it is the people you meet who leave the biggest impact, and create the best memories. Kiep was one of those people. Some things about him:

• He is 39 years old, has two children (son and daughter) and is an avid bicycler and Lance Armstrong fan. However, he can't get the parts he needs for his bike in Vietnam and needs to order things on the black market. He rides in the morning and told us he will often ride 40 km to get pho for breakfast and ride back home.
• Kiep's father was a doctor, who was trained by the Americans and the puppet government in the late 60s/early 70s. After the war, he was in prison for 2-3 years for deprogramming. He could never practice medicine in Vietnam again.
  
• Kiep's mom, who is still alive and who provided us with a fish sauce recipe, worked as a secretary to the commanding chief of the US. She didn't have to go to jail as she was a woman. His uncle worked for the CIA and left to go to the US before the fall of Saigon. Kiep's sister went with him, to help take care of his uncle's children. They all live in Dallas. Kiep also has a brother in Huntington Beach, CA and family in Seattle.
• Kiep has never been to the US but is going to visit soon. He actually tried to leave Vietnam when he was 16, attempting to escape across the Mekong Delta (part of the Vietnamese boat people). However he was captured before he could get out, and had to sell his watch to get back to his family.
• Kiep refers to the war as the "civil war." In the north, they call it the "American war."This is what we call the Vietnam war.
• He'd like to send his son to study in the US and have a better life there. Many of his cousins are doctors and dentists or work for Microsoft. His uncle and aunt, however, work as janitors at Microsoft.

In addition to sharing many things about his life, we learned a lot about South Vietnam and Saigon from Kiep, including:

• There are 8.5 million people in Saigon and 4.5 million motorbikes. Swarms of them come at you on the street.
• A tire and generator on the street signifies a motorbike repair shop.
  
• Restaurants are typically family run and there aren't really chefs, just the women cooking. His family sends women to his mom to learn to cook.
• We can make our own spring rolls. Kiep took us to a place where we took the rice paper, put the veggies and pork inside and rolled it up. So good.
• Vietnamese love things like baguettes but don't grow their own wheat, so they have to import it from Europe.

And a few other random things:

• The tunnels are claustrophobic and hot. Even widened for tourists, they are narrow. But we still went through them!
• Hot tea cools you down.
• Seeing rubber trees makes us sing the "High Hopes" song. Where is that from and how do we know it? For some reason, we are thinking Laverne and Shirley is where we learned it.
• Tapioca is also grown here. And it tastes almost like potatoes.
  
• Basil tastes like black licorice.
  
• Every region has a different type of rice noodle for Pho.
  
• Vietnam still has infrastructure issues. There are often not direct roads so something 30 km out of the city may take 3 hours to get to. And there are tons of wires jerry-rigged throughout the city for telephone, electricity, internet, etc.
• Rest stops are equipped with hammocks.

Finally, a mention of Saigon wouldn't be complete without listing some of the things we saw on motorbikes, while driving back into the city from the Cu Chi area. Moira took pictures, while the rest of us, including Kiep and our driver, were spotters. It is quite amazing what they can carry, amazing feats of balance, including:

• Animals, such as chickens, pigs an ddogs
• Generators, refrigerators and Air Conditioners
• Dishwashers and washing machines
• 8 Ten gallon drums of water
• Mattress pads
• Huge bags of linens
• Families of up to 5, with seats for the children
• Huge 2" by 4"s
• All kinds of foods, including eggs (how they didn't break, we have no idea)
• Rice noodles
• Bamboo baskets
• Fishing baskets/cages

And the fashion is incredible...we saw women wearing high heels and opera gloves, wearing masks or scarves that covered their whole faces, all decked out for their rides.

It was a great week in Vietnam, with wonderful people, beautiful sites and amazing food. We are in Cambodia now, Siem Reap, and will post again in a couple of days. We are definitely feeling the humidity and starting to get bug bites (they are particularly attracted to Moira for some reason), but we seem pretty lucky with weather so far as everywhere we go we hear of a flood that took place a week or two before.

Megi is staying away and we are having a great time. More to follow in the coming days...