First impressions:
- Flow. It's all about the flow. (At least when it comes to crossing the road.)
- There's a lot of energy, and I'm glad I'm not driving.
- Tourist traps are all over (but there are plenty of people who are actually decent and not trying to rip you off as badly as the nice storefronts.
- Sometimes changing money at a pawn/jewelry shop seems sketchy but hey, if they give you the best rate....
- Crossing in groups is better than crossing alone (though still scary when it comes to major streets that aren't well regulated by lights). Tip: Go diagonally across, not straight.
- Food. Beer. Follow your nose and just be wary of how they wash things. (I drank a cup of tea that obviously was used for coffee and wasn't well cleaned on the rim-- and that was a nice-looking open-air cafe! Also, some street vendors really do wash their pot on top of the drain in the sidewalk....) Sometimes those reviews on Trip Advisor are really helpful!
I've only been here a little over a day and a half, but this is a remarkable place. Remarkably polluted, yet there's so much of a distinct culture that you can just feel. This is not your sanitary Singapore with air conditioning. This is your 95+ F with 60+% humidity that has you dripping like a ice cold beer no matter what you do, with people who barely speak English, and well, let's just say that neither myself nor my "bodyguards" know enough Vietnamese to get by. As my Uncle Wilfred put it, we are 4 sotongs (squids = clueless people) wandering through Vietnam. It's the blind leading the blind! Living standards are way different, but it's so fascinating to sort of step back in time into what my sister called "Singapore from the 1970s."
My Bodyguards:
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Food places I'd recommend going to
Cha Ca at Cha Ca Thang Long Restaurant: BBQ'd fish that gets fried in spring onions and dill at the table, and served with rice vermicelli, shredded spring onions, peanuts, fish sauce, basil, and mint. $6 USD (or 120,000 dong) per head, and we got the combo which came with beer, fruit, and tea for $8 USD/head. Pretty awesome.
Quan An Ngon Restaurant: Steamed rice noodle with BBQ pork, fish sauce, and herbs. This is a good place for trying out dishes with fresh vegetables, and offers a fairly decent array of food from all over Vietnam. Not the best steamed rice noodle I've ever had, but it was pretty decent for the price ($6 including a soybean milk).
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