Postcard from Saigon/HCMC

I'm home from my brief vacation in Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. It's weird, I already feel like it was a lifetime ago. I guess it's because Vietnam seems so far away, and life there is so different than I'm used to everyday so my time there seems like a dream.

I've mentioned how it was hot and humid, and that was the challenge for me maneuvering the city in the heat. I stayed primarily in Saigon, where much of the innovation in Vietnamese cuisine is happening. But I did take a side trip to the Mekong Delta to see farmers living along the river that cuts through several Asian countries such as China and Cambodia but ending in Vietnam.

Starting tomorrow, I'm going to start my series of blog posting on my food adventures. I decided that I'll post my Vietnam posts every Sunday and Monday for the next few weeks instead of doing it all at once and turning this blog into a travel blog. So later in the week I'll continue to post recipes and rants about local Bay Area food, but come back especially on Sundays and Mondays to travel to the city once known as Indochine.

As a teaser, I put together this quick highlight reel of just a few of the things I saw. Sorry for the fuzzy quality. I tried to upload a bigger file but it crashed my computer and I lost the edited version of the movie and didn't want to start all over. Luckily I had already exported this smaller file. Hope you enjoy it.

P.S. For all of you with a keen Asian ear, you'll realize that one of the songs in the background is by a Hong Kong singer and he's singing in Mandarin. Yes, I realize I'm mixing Asian ethnic groups, but I didn't have any Vietnamese songs to play and I liked the mood it set. Anyway, the ethnic Chinese are everywhere! ;-)