So to start my last Vietnam blog I thought I’d recap some of what we did in the beginning. In total we spent about a week in Hai Phong. Which is the third largest city in Vietnam. It was where Jimmy’s family lives. We spent a lot of time hanging out with his cousins and their cute cute kids. I miss these two so much! It was great just hanging out and essentially “living” in Hai Phong. Every morning we would wake up and walk 2 minutes down the street to get breakfast. We normally got banh cuon, soi thit or bun ca. Honestly could eat these 3 dishes on rotation every morning for the rest of my life. And then we’d get some iced coffee and just chill the rest of the day. His grandma’s house was very close to this downtown area that has a lot of markets and stores around. As well as this dessert place we went to a few times called Quy Linh Cao. They specialize in grass jelly caramel drinks.
I really liked that Hai Phong was a city that had everything in terms of markets and food (and the Vietnamese “vibe”) but didn’t have any tourists. The hustle and bustle without the intimidating chaos of Hanoi and Saigon.
Saigon:
Saigon oi! Remember how worried Jimmy and I were about going to Vietnam? Mainly worried about getting mugged? Well after spending 25+ days in Vietnam feeling far too safe we sort of expected all of those feelings would return upon our arrival in Saigon. Maybe all those warnings we got from our family was specifically for Saigon, the biggest city in Vietnam. And because of this – I barely have any photos of Saigon. I rarely took my phone out while walking around the streets of Saigon. Here is the only picture I took outside in Saigon lol
Some of our highlights in Saigon were:
Shopping! We didn’t want to shop much previous to Saigon mainly because we packed so light we didn’t want to have to carry anything whilst on the go. I wasn’t really looking for anything in particular except for new glasses which I found! We also found a glasses shop that measured our eyes and put prescription lens in for like $6USD :O. Bad news though – for whatever reason I think she got the measurement wrong and they give me a headache so I’m getting the lens redone here at home.
Food! We thought we had the best bun bo hue in da lat – turns out a place near our airbnb also has amazing bun bo hue. We also went to a banh mi place that had the longest line ever. I got some stomach problems prior to eating the sandwich and ended up having to pass on the banh mi. Didn’t want to risk anything just before our 14 hour flight home from Hong Kong to Chicago. We also went to a sweet brewery – full of unique tropical flavoured beers and appetizers. Fried Okra! MMM! Definitely beats onion rings but maybe not sweet potato fries.
Family! I met one of my moms older sisters in Saigon along with my cousin! It’s so strange to meet family you’ve never met and just instantly fall into conversation and care like you’ve known them your whole life. My aunt brought her son along because she was worried I didn’t speak any Vietnamese and would need him to translate. Yay we didn’t need a translator
