Things to Do and Eat in My Tho, Vietnam

My Tho is just a short distance from HCMC (less than 40 miles) but it feels like another world. It takes the bus - Hung Hieu from District 5 - about 1.5-2 hours to make the trip (mostly because of the traffic, but also because they make several stops along the way). Fortunately, once you get there, there's enough to make for a relaxing but eventful weekend out of the city.

There's enough here to make for a pretty neat trip, including snakes, temples, statues, food, and plenty of pretty countryside on relatively nice roads - rent a motorbike and get exploring!

Follow me for some highlights...

Book Review: 'The Green Metropolis' and HCMC

David Owen’s amazingly prescient and clear-eyed book from 2009, The Green Metropolis, deconstructs exactly what city planners, environmentalists, and the general population get right about cities… and what they get very, very wrong.

His book offers staggeringly simple reasons to rethink how we approach the twin questions of:

1. “Are cities good or bad for the environment?” and
2. “Cars… OMG?”

His answers boil down to:

1. Very, very, very good, and
2. Yes, cars, OMG.

His arguments, citing a veritable mountain of statistical evidence laid bare in his clear, concise writing, chronicles the rise, fall, rebirth, and future of human cities since the invention of the automobile. He argues that these high-density urban environments are not only more environmentally green, but actually shift the entire conversation from cars and drivers back to fundamental quality-of-life issues for all humans, from the very young to the elderly, and how best to satisfy them.

Owens’ three basic themes are clear: live smaller, live closer, and drive less.

General Observations on Saigonese Architecture

[NOTE: This post goes out to my friend Jenny, who asked me about architecture in July 2013. Excitingly, it's a much more interesting topic than I assumed! So here's the first post!]

I find myself often looking down out my window, which is located on the 3rd (4th, American-style counting) floor of my house, and find myself succumbing to the question that must be difficult for any Vietnamese architect to resist: why isn't the entire lot filled... the entire vertical distance??

There's about half a meter of a small awning over the entrance to the garage... that would give me (or my poor roomies on the other side of the building, in their small, glass closet-rooms) just a liiiiiitle bit more breathing room.

But this is a form of thinking that I had never encountered as a designer. Form really SHOULD follow function, but it's difficult to resist the idea that an object's aesthetic should be at least equally important.

On one level, though, this extreme interpretation of Form v. Function just makes common sense - people are more important than the building, so stretch the building to the farthest corners of the available land, all the way up, and you'll have slightly more comfortable humans.

Not to mention the fact that in the average Vietnamese home, there are many family members, and, all of a sudden, this doesn't just seem like A way to do it, it becomes THE way to do it. Even in parcels of city land that are surrounded by unsold/unimproved lots, the tube house reigns supreme... because the expectation is that this neighborhood will, in time, be just like every other well-developed neighborhood in the city - packed, walkable, vital, and very, very local.

Saigon Sights: Cu Chi Tunnels

One of the more famous sights to see when visiting the HCMC area is the Cu Chi Tunnels in the Cu Chi district some 2 hours north of the city center (and yet, amazingly, still within the city limits of Saigon).

Earlier this year, my good friends Alex and Liz took a Sibling Trip to Vietnam and we visited this unique site. It was sweltering hot, but we got a great half-day trip in and a fairly tolerable guide (sometimes the heat, non-stop narration, aggressive attempts to include you, and annoying co-tourists make you just want to punch them in their tourist-guide faces, but we got a little lucky this time around).

Together, we wound our way through a piece of our shared American/Vietnamese history, and learned just a little bit more about how the American War shaped an influential cadre of Vietnamese

Click through for pictures and (just a little bit of) history!

Vũng Tàu: 30 Hours on the Southern Coast

The entrance to our nearby beach.

Note: I'm currently in Chicago and it's -12 C. These pictures are making me really happy.

Vũng Tàu is about 2 hours south of Ho Chi Minh City, and there's an awful lot there to make an excellent weekend of it. Whether you go by bus or motorbike (and, of course, I highly recommend traveling by motorbike), there's enough to see, tons to eat, beaches to loiter on, and of course, enough Banh Khot to kill a horse (an ok death, I assume).

The city itself is situated on a southern outcropping of the nation, with a few atypical hill-mountains near the shore, and features a relatively compact city center as well as several important historical sites. And Banh Khot.

While we were unable to get a hotel room in the city center, instead ending up in a new guesthouse about 7 km away in an unfinished division, we did have a whole beach essentially to ourselves at night and BANH KHOT GUYS, THIS IS WHERE BANH KHOT IS FROM! And... Jesus?

Click through to check out what 46 hours in Vũng Tàu looks like, as well as some of the most fun you can have for a stoopid cheap weekend not far from the crazy hustle-bustle of Saigon...

Da Lat's Hằng Nga Guesthouse

Lisa's Butt in her New Pants approaching the second spire of Crazy House by cement ivy walkway.
It makes sense... trust me.

Note: This summer took me to many new places... so many, in fact, that I'm only just now realizing that I have a zillion more posts to write about those three short months! Oof.

In July I went to Da Lat (again) with my friends Erin and Lisa. We had a BLAST.

Part of the experience was that we were staying in what I can easily call the most unique guesthouse I've ever seen. It's so absurd, I have a hard time even describing it with words. Even my gift for analogy seems like too fine a point on it when trying to talk about this astounding creative vision.

On second thought, that won't stop me from trying. Click through for a tour of one architect's vision made concrete (literally and figuratively, I assure you) - a kaleidoscope of nature, wire, stone, and wood brought together in an unforgettably eccentric manner.

Freedom of Religion in Vietnam

The Buddha statue in Nha Trang

Growing up as a pastor's son, I've always found religion and its effects to be interesting and worthy of attention, and its role in SE Asia, and Vietnam in particular, is much different compared to how Americans generally regard the practicing of religious principles. In Vietnam it plays a huge role in shaping public attitudes and culture - officially invisible but publicly obvious - and I found myself becoming more interested in the complex dance between the laws of the State and their support, or lack thereof, for various religious groups. This post is an attempt to explore and dissect these relationships and religions in a very perfunctory manner. I do not profess to be an expert, but as an interested observer, this is what I've discovered.

Religion in Vietnam has a long and complicated past that is directly tied to its culture and history. While the country, following in the footsteps of other states established with Marxist-Leninist ideologies, remains officially and almost militantly atheistic, signs of believers are littered everywhere, and there are at least three major religions with a significant amount of adherents, as well as several smaller groupings.

Saigon Sights: Notre Dame Cathedral

[Note: While I'm processing my first week teaching in HCMC's public primary schools, please enjoy some pictures of a fancy church!]

In separate occasions in June and July I took the time to stop by the Notre Dame Cathedral and take a few pictures of this beauty, which lies in the heart of downtown Ho Chi Minh City, not far from my favorite cafe (where I'm writing this) and the Resurrection Palace. Unfortunately they were both on Sundays, but here's a few photos of it. Enjoy!

My Bedroom is Like a Third-World Ocean Fairytale

[UPDATE: The walls are white! There are posters hung! A new homemade light fixture! And... no more finding nemo shades! We feel positively grownup about it all.]

In all the ways that my bedroom is like living in a deep sea children's insane-asylum - the pink coral-colored walls, the Finding Nemo windowshade, the charming children's sheets on the charmingly-sized twin bed made of plywood - the LED lights are by far the oddest feature (yeah, let's stick with 'feature'):

Park Life: Công viên Lê Văn Tám

I couldn't find much info on this statue, which is
a shame - I like the stylized torch on top.

As one Google user states in their review of Le Van Tam Park (presumably a local, speaking in translated Vietnamese):

"Complicated resident with old construction..."

Couldn't put it better myself (well, mayb. This was the first park I fell in love with, and so it's the first public space I'll cover in depth in my tour of spaces that make Ho Chi Minh City unique.

I love parks. They're good for the mental and physical health of residents, they provide much-needed space for groups to meet, socialize, and exercise, they beautify, they breed civic pride, they can boost tourism, and they help create strong, integral communities with a multitude of opportunities for residents to interact, play, and work. They're an important part of any neighborhood, and cities without parks are just downright boring, as well as have more difficult paths to all the benefits I've already mentioned. A park is simply a wonderful thing to have around, and I have a personal interest in community infrastructure and design... which is why it's pretty much the first type of place I tried to find after moving to Vietnam. I was not disappointed - this park is well-designed and great for all sorts of activities.

Movin' On Up! & Up, & Up...

Welcome to my new house!

As far as I can tell, the new place doesn't have a mail slot in the front doors. There's certainly no room for a package in there, I can tell you that. 

As for the front doors themselves, they're HEAVY mothers - both of them are extremely solid in their construction! The outer doors slide and the massive inner ones swing open to allow motorbikes to be parked in the garage (which is right on this side of these doors in this picture. I'm standing where 5 motorbikes could fit parked across. The doors are the width of the whole house.

As you can see from the photo at the right, this area near the doors reaches quite high, although not up into the second story like the space above the bike storage goes. That's a metal frame that is holding wooden shingles. 

By the way... this is not a hermetically sealed living bubble, by any means, like the homes we like to tell ourselves are impenetrable back in the US (as if). But honestly, I haven't seen a ton of bugs (or animal life of any kind) here in the city. There are a few small ants that are in the house - like, REALLY small - but if you keep the place clean they don't hang around. And we'll get to my little house lizards in another post - as soon as I find out what they are!