Livin' Like a Local in Saigon

I went to Vietnam with one of my best friends to document her performance in Saigon. This was a great excuse for me to go away for a month and enjoy life there while working on a project. We spent a lot of time with local artists and friends, who took us to their favorite spots.

1) Beyond the constant beeping & buzzing of motorbikes, these two-wheeled vehicles can't help but command your attention. I saw a family of five (father, mother, baby and two kids, no older than 10), to two girls and their 3 dogs, even a husband and a wife holding a huge TV on her lap, all on different motorbikes. This is definitely a dangerous way to drive, and helmets aren’t mandatory.

2) For the month of December, Vietnam was hosting the SEA (South East Asia) games, which is basically equivalent to the Olympic games. Our first night across town, we got caught in a massive gridlock of Vietnamese fans pouring out on motorbikes to cheer on Vietnam’s soccor team victory. All the main streets became a traffic nightmare. It was definitely a crazy moment for us, especially trying to make our way back home on foot between all the rumbling bikes. But it was great to see the intense, devoted fans.

Quick Tips:

The weather was perfect in Saigon (HCMC) in December. It was hot but not to the point of unbearable, still pleasant. It was a little cooler in Hanoi.

January is the hardest time to travel due to Tet (their new years celebration).

You can use US dollars to pay for things, even your hotel, just remember the exchange difference when paying.

You don’t really need to use a converter for plugs but be careful of bad electrical current, which can short circuit everything.

When renewing visa, it is better to do it at the many travel & tour offices. It may cost more, but its saves you the hassle of dealing with long lines & language barriers.

When sending any type of media mail (cds, books, dvds), officials usually require you to come pick it up and open the items out for them to see. FedEx is the better choice to go with, if sending important stuff semi-fast. Regular postal may take a month or two. But be aware that they will open your package up.

Best Way To Get Around:

You’ll be constantly harassed to ride the xe-om or cyclo. Cyclos are usually made for one person. They are slow. They'll try and price gouge you for the novelty ride. Cyclos are great for moving big items. Try it once if you have to, but make sure to you agree on a price.

The best way to get around the city is on a motorbike (xe-om). It should cost no more than 5dung to ride around in district 1. For me it was hard to get used to holding on close to a total stranger on a bike. But it is the best way to see and feel the city.

Warning, the pollution really hits hard at times. If you don’t want to deal w/ holding onto somebody for dear life or pollution, taxis aren’t that expensive. A minibus ride from the airport to District 1 was .

There are really no sidewalks to stroll freely on but tourists are the majority walkers.

If you dare, the cheapest way to dine the local cuisine is the street vendor. This is authentic as it gets. For the entire month, we were able to eat three meals a day for under $10-12 for two people.

When you hear a young boy clapping a rhythmic tune with two pieces of metal, you can basically have him bring you a bowl of pho to where ever your standing. Some may even provide a little plastic stool for you to eat you meal. He'll walk away but he'll be back for his bowl and chair.

All along the streets of Saigon are what used to be a sidewalk and alley but you'll mostly find a bunch of little stools and tables. We had the best grilled lemongrass beef and cold beer in a long narrow alley in Hanoi. We had seafood made to order in an alley around Saigon. Bowls and bowls of uncooked seafood sits out for you to see, and you bascially point to your choice meat. Then the cook at the little grill beside you can make it grilled, curried, stuffed or whatever way you like it to be. Each dish was small, like tapas, and went great with a cold bottle of Tiger beer.

We spent many late night meals outside the famous Ben Thahn Market. When the sun sets outside, the side of Ben Thahn Market becomes a full fledge outdoor cafe and restaurants. It’s the best place to go with a big group of people and not worry about noise.

Of course, there are the vendors who go up and down the streets, singing out the goods. We had jackfruit gutted out in front of our eyes. I love having fresh coconut juice right from the coconut. And the colorful sweet sticky rice is a treat. I'm always a fan of Vietnamese sandwiches, which cost close to under $1usd.

Of course, eating any of this may be a risk. Sometimes it can even happen at a restaurant. Water is highly contaminated, so it is ideal to drink from bottled water. I unfortunately got food poisoning twice. First from a restaurant in Pham Ngu Lau, and then from an iced coffee with ice, probably made from the local water. So beware and bring some reliable medicine.

This stylish cafe and bar is set in a very zen atomosphere. We were with a bunch of friends, enjoying a cool drink and a live music performance. Lots of woods, open area and trickling water for a nice place to chill after hours. valet bike parking just outside to the left.

The name means "delicious." This was a nice place to try different regional Vietnamese cuisine in an open-air dining area. It’s made to look like a Vietnamese village, with the different cooking stalls set to one side of the restaurant. The tables and seats are low, but that's a pretty common height in the streets of Vietnam. It gets pretty crowded with the younger locals to a few foreigners. A friend and I shared a combination plate of rice noodles and a salad, which went great with a tall glass of fresh watermelon juice outside the warm summer heat.

Once when you walk past the door, curtain and bouncer, you find yourself back in another world. Sparsely decorated with some thai artifacts, dark wooded furniture and dim red lights, it felt like I was in some hip trendy bar in NYC. This is where the Vietnamese get down and dirty fashionable.

The room is divided in three. First lounge. Second bar. Third small dance floor, dj stand and bathrooms. The music was playing 80s alternative when we got there at 7:30pm, hip hop and by the time we left it was just bass thumping techno. Drinks are cheaper between the hours of 7-9pm (lady’s time as they call it), otherwise its equivalent to the states. Yummy spicy popcorn is constantly refilled with your drinks. The patrons were a mix bag, but mostly foreigners and expatriates. It gets body-crushing crowded after 10pm.

For something really different, make your way up the stairs and basically crawl in a low cave-like doorway of Carmen for Latin music.

Once inside, tables & chairs are scattered. A dim and intimate space with candles burning all around. Make sure to find a good spot by the stage. This is a local favorite and a great place to chill and hang with a bunch of people when you want live Latin music. Not sung by anyone Spanish but by incredible Vietnamese singers having fun bossanova style. Very entertaining.

Since we were there in December, one of the singers decided to belt out a Louis Armstrong number for the holiday season. If I didn't look up, I'd be amazed that Louis was alive and well in Saigon. Besides drinks, they do serve bar snacks & fruit plates. This place is open till the wee morning of 4am.

If you want back to college fun, this is the place to go. It's located on the corner of the backpacker district, Pham Ngu Lao. It's got tiki style decoration and Tiger beer signs. Unless you plan to lose your voice shouting at one another, the music is loud day and night. There are pool tables and darts. The Vietnamese wait staff is loud and bold (of course, they want you to spend. But if you don't, plan on being ignored the rest of your visit). Ninety nine percent of the patrons are foreigners. Most like it for the familiar back-at-home bars. Food and service aren't great. Motorbike parking is available just outside of the corner entrance.

For most tourist or foreigner visiting Vietnam, art doesn’t usually come to mind. So beyond the tourist world of the Vietnam War (known as American War in Vietnam), museums, or pho beef noodles, there’s a whole new generation of contemporary artists and performers worth checking out. ur first night in Saigon, we got on a xe-om (motorbike taxi) and headed for an art gallery opening at Galerie Quynh,23 Ly Tu Trang St. A small minimalist gallery tucked along a side street in District 1 not too far from the shopping of Dong Khoi avenue. It’s owned by a Vietnamese-American named Quynh Phan and her partner Robert Cianchi who wanted to promote Vietnam’s new and emerging artists. The crowd was a mixed crowd of foreigners and Vietnamese art-going patrons. With a glass of white wine and a handful of snacks, we mingled around the one room show. Most of the artists were present for their opening. Find out what's new at GQ

If you think of finding art at the Fine Arts Museum of HCMC there isn’t much to see inside the museum itself besides the beautiful French colonial mansion it resides in. Interestingly, it also houses a few smaller individual art galleries within the ground floors. One of the museum resident is the Blue Space Contemporary Arts Center run by Mrs. Tran Thi Huynh Nga. She’s been supporting and organizing contemporary art in Saigon since the late 90’s. The blue space gallery supports not only Vietnamese artists but also collaborating work with foreign artists. The gallery is sectioned into 5 small rooms with one long hall of framed paintings for sale. When I was there, three of the 6 rooms were used for the current installation at the time. Depending on the current exhibit, the courtyard in the center of the building is sometimes used as a performance stage. Otherwise, it’s a recreational shuttlecock court for workers in the building.

Where can you shop, have a drink and look at art all in the same place? Another gallery to check out is Mai’s Gallery on Nguyen Hue, District 1. It’s housed in the very back of a modern home décor and gift boutique. As you walk towards the back, there’s a darkly lit bar and lounge area before you reach the gallery space. The gallery area is small with a small square pool area in the center. It gets pretty hot and muggy during a performance because the industrial fan makes too much noise, otherwise still worthwhile to hang around and checkout the art. See what's going on currently at www.maisgallery.com.

Sometimes the art scene moves outside of the gallery walls. In this case, we were outside on the grounds of Binh Quoi Tourist Village just 20min. outside of the city center. A tourist recreation park by the Saigon River, but also a haven for wedding photography backdrops. I’ve never seen so many couples (there must have been over 20 dressed-up couples) in one place posing for their matrimonial portraits, but that’s a whole other story. The exhibit opening hosted a wide range of artists in a variety of media. By nightfall, the park was nicely lit up by little walkway lamps all along the park. Everyone was having a nice time mingling around the park looking at the different installations and performances. A buffet and an open bar was out for the art patrons, but that was all gone within a few minutes. Nevertheless, it was a nice way to view art in a tropical setting.