Eatopia In Vietnam
Pulkit Vasudha
I had planned to arrive in Ho Chi Minh City in fading daylight, so I could guiltlessly gawk at the horrific reminders of the Vietnam War. I had expected a city struggling with the lingering pain of war, its people maimed and crippled by Agent Orange, and the economy buckling under imposed communist rule.
Instead, I found souvenir bullets and old propaganda posters on sale for voyeuristic tourists like me, and streets lit by neon billboards advertising Italian clothing brands, posh spas and chic restaurants.
As I got sucked deeper and deeper into the chaos of Ho Chi Minh City, or Saigon as the locals still call it, its sights, sounds, and smells invaded my senses. Defying all principles of town planning, Saigon’s labyrinthine alleys are an endless maze of higgledy-piggledy houses, crammed in tight spaces, floors built on slanting roofs, much like Ron Weasley’s house in Harry Potter.
In Pham Ngu Lao, the backpacker district, locals and tourists crowd in narrow spaces, sipping 10,000 dong (Rs 25) beer, de-shelling snails, oysters and clams, barbecued on every table. Wide, conical hats peer from behind piles of giant coconuts, dragon fruit, jackfruit and pomelo. At pushcarts, vendors slit French baguettes to make banh mi sandwiches, my favourite meal in Vietnam so far.
Women in pajama suits, the unofficial national dress of Vietnam, dole out pho, the national dish of Vietnam. The incredibly healthy noodle soup full of herbs, and meat, can be spotted on sidewalk restaurants at breakfast, lunch, dinner and anytime in between.
In the margins of all the street activity are rows of restaurants — dishing out Italian rigatoni to Hyderabadi biryani. Perusing the menu outside a happening Balkan restaurant, I found scorpions, crocs, ostriches and king cobras on offer. Reluctantly, I backed away — unable to wrap my head around endangered animals simmering in the kitchen.
In Cholon, the Chinese market, cobras, geckos, gingerroot and beetles appear strangely suspended in traditional medicinal wines. Sacks full of giant cinnamon, star anise and camphor took me on an olfactory roller coaster ride while neon coloured noodles made me swivel around again and again, camera steady in my hands.
Once the headquarters of American insurgency against the Communist forces of the north — before it was annexed and rechristened after the father of the country — Saigon is now the financial capital of Vietnam, and for good reason. It wears proudly its allegiance to capitalism, symbolised by the city’s sprawling downtown, luxury hotels, fancy cafés, shopping malls, and hundreds of small businesses everywhere.
Back in the city, after a first-hand experience of the Cu Chi, I headed to the War Remnants Museum, or the ‘The House of War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government of South Vietnam,’ as it was once called.
Apart from the helicopters, tanks, guillotines and undetonated explosives, the most potent reminders of the atrocities of war were the photographs taken by war journalists. The most chilling of these, to me, was one of an American soldier holding upside down the body (or what remains of it) of a civilian charred by the defoliant napalm.
Shriveled at my own voyeurism, I decided to leave behind the prison of war memories. Outside, on Dong Khoi Street, the central vein of downtown, Saigonese motorbikes swarmed wide, tree-lined streets, having effectively and rightly put aside the memory of a gory war.
Rustic showrooms full of lacquer ware, eggshell inlays, gorgeous ceramic vases, silk roses and hand-woven textiles beckoned this compulsive souvenir-shopper.
Something tugged at my kurta, a toothless smile invited me to try her banana waffles, baked right on the street in idli-steamer like contraptions. The whiff of banana and butter was hard to resist. I squatted beside the old woman for some street-side indulgence.
Magically, another vendor appeared with a café sua da, the heavenly Vietnamese condensed milk coffee doused over crushed ice. Happy, I let this unique Saigonese experience sweep over me. Beyond the memories of Cu Chi and war, there was still so much to explore in Saigon.
Source: The Asian Age
All photos courtesy Seonaid Burns
