Next stop following Singapore was Vietnam where Michele continued to take photos of Trent shoving food into his mouth. We started in the popular southern city of Saigon, also known as Ho Chi Mihn City. We immediately booked a street food tour, watched Good Morning Vietnam because who doesn’t love a Robin Williams flick, and freshened up our our Vietnam War knowledge.

Vietnam, widely known for their delicious food was a perfect place to continue binge eating. Our first food tour in Nam (yes, we said first) was meh, just okay. Given the mind blowing food we had heard about, we weren’t overly in love. But, since nobody likely has (nor should they) any sympathy for us, we will survive.

On the plus side of the tour we walked through the old quarter and were able to explore the oldest apartment buildings in the city, as well as try some funky street dishes. Still nothing blew our minds. We’ve had better. You know you’ve been traveling a little too long when what would otherwise be the highlight of the trip gets poo-pooed because it wasn’t mind blowing (somewhere a tiny violin plays sad songs in the background for us). The tour helped give us our bearings on eating around Vietnam, but for the remainder of our time in Saigon we crushed so many bahn mi sandwiches that we lost count, along with sticky rice wherever we could find it. Adventurous? No. Delicious? Yep.

The best part, every meal basically cost $1 or less. They were the real deal. The Whole Foods bahn mi ain’t got nothing on these questionable Viet-street sammies. Luckily, still no food poisoning issues thus far in our trip. Kind of crazy given the haphazard choosing of places to dine, we have grown particularly fond of alley food. Was that a rat that just ran over my sandwich? Nah, just a large mouse… Carry on!

So, I’m sure some of our more astute readers may realize that Vietnam has more to see than just street food vendors. Indeed, kind of hovering around us the whole time was our recent history with Vietnam, specifically the war. Embarrassingly, aside from the most basic of facts we really didn’t understand a lot of the intricacies of the war. Surprisingly, Trent’s high school, Edgewood (Go Mustangs!), history department didn’t cover the finer geopolitical aspects and nuances. Surprising for southern Indiana education, no? It may have been the whiskey bottle hidden in the history teachers drawer, but who can say for sure!? So, to brush up on our history, we plugged our way through Ken Burn’s docuseries, the Vietnam War. You can find it on Amazon, it’s really really well done. This was in preparation for Saigon’s war museum. It may have been one of the most well-done war museums we have seen. It was even more interesting to see the point of view of the country we were at war with, instead of the “slightly” biased view of our history books. Incredible photos that tell a devastating story of the toll of war and the people involved… It’s one of those museums that hangs with you for a few days. If you make it to Vietnam, this museum is a must.

After Saigon, we headed to Northern Vietnam to visit the capital Hanoi for a few days. We contemplated over and over if we’d cruise the junk boats through Ha Long Bay, which is probably the top tourist thing to do in Vietnam. Problem is it was expensive and about 4+ hour car ride there, then you either come back that night or early the next day. In the end, we decided to save our money. After all, we had been through the Norwegian Fjords and it doesn’t get much better than that. So, instead, we toured the Tam Coc, which the Vietnamese consider the “Ha Long Bay on land.”  

For this tour, we rode bikes through the incredible countryside of the Ninh Binh Province, taking photos of the farmers working tirelessly in the rice paddies and then hopped a small row boat and made our way down the Tam Coc River, ducking our heads under caves and watching in amazement as our boat lady (official name we think) rowed the entire way using only her feet.

To be honest it was quite touristy, with a lot of pressure to buy random trinkets or snacks, but still worth the trek. Fun fact: The area, Tam Coc, is where King Kong: Skull Island was filmed.

We had about five days in Hanoi, so we decided to give one more good ol’ college try to the street food tours, this time for Northern Vietnam cuisine. Thank goodness our stomachs were still making decisions for us, our “second time’s the charm food tour” was so much better. This time, two badass Vietnamese girls, Moon and Vivian, picked us up by motorbike and drove us around the old town area and French quarters of Hanoi, hopping off periodically to sit on tiny baby stools on the side of the road to try the local faves.

It’s a little hard to describe what it’s like riding a motorbike through the streets of old town Hanoi, but to say it was chaotic would be generous. There is apparently only one rule: There are no rules. Stop lights? Who cares. Drive on sidewalks? Why not. It’s basically a constant game of chicken. Sounds scary, but we felt oddly safe with our drivers, they grew up here and knew how to handle the madness with ease. Not only was riding around in the rats nest of other motorbikes awesome, this time, the food was incredible to boot. Another score for our inner fat kids.

Hanoi was lively with festivities happening all over the old quarter. Live music, people dancing and lots of eating, everywhere you turned. We enjoyed Hanoi more than Saigon.

Cambodia:

After ten days in Vietnam we move on to our next stop in the magical mystery tour, Cambodia. We would have loved to have explored more of this country, especially given its recent tragic killing fields history. But, our time is starting to run short so we opt instead to stop at huge bucket list destination, Siem Reap, to see the unreal temples of Angkor Wat.

Siem Reap had a real pleasant, almost funky vibe to it. Tuk tuks are the main form of transportation, there was fun (but kinda touristy) street called “Pub Street” with tons of bars and cafes that comes alive at night. Some food vendors sold various kinds of deep fried bugs and spiders. We wish we could say that we tried them all, but, well… nope. Don’t judge us, when you go to Cambodia you can eat all of the creepy-crawlers your heart desires. These two kids are happy with their decision.

We took one of our few days and rented bikes and took a relaxing ride in near 100 degree weather through local villages to what’s known as a “floating village”. Basically a fishing and boating village on the river with a bunch of houses floating on the water. It was actually pretty neat, they even had tents set up with pool tables so the locals could relax and play some outdoor eight-ball. We always like getting out of the main tourist areas and seeing what actual Cambodians lives are like, at least as much as we can.

While Siem Reap was a pleasant surprise, the highlight, without a doubt, was Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is a massive, like death star massive, complex of ancient Buddhist and Hindu temples hidden in the jungle of Cambodia.

It’s the largest religious monument in the world covering nearly 500 acres. Describing it doesn’t nearly do it justice, so we’ll leave it to the hundreds of photos below to deliver the goods. It doesn’t get much more Indiana Jones than this folks.

We’re now on our way to Thailand for a few weeks to celebrate Trent’s birthday on a beach and volunteer for a week at the Elephant Nature Park , something that Michele has been looking forward to even prior to this trip! Get excited everyone.

Side notes:

• Dog meat restaurants are still popular in Vietnam. We passed many restaurants where fried dogs lined the windows, while other dogs were chained up outside, ready to join them. It was difficult to see. Visitors beware.
• Something that caught us off guard was the, let’s call it bathroom freedom, Vietnamese people have. Be prepared while walking around to witness lots of weeing on the side of the road, literally right in front of you. We stayed right next to Truc Bach Lake and people, men and women would pee right into it. And then fish out of the same water. Sushi anyone?
• So far in SE Asia, we’ve been lucky to enjoy lots of markets selling local goods, souvenirs, and the like. Vietnam was no different, but a word of caution: the quality of their products are not good by any stretch. Stalls upon stalls selling the same crap, all grabbing at your arms to pull you towards their booth. Slow moving, grabby people. Trent’s dream come true. Save your money for any other country in SEA.

Quotes:
“I felt something rumbling so I’m going to use the restroom before the Australians get in there and wreck it.”

“Bring you coffee,  pretend I’m a dog… You’re very demanding in the morning.”

Click Below for Photo Gallery