Good Weekend Vietnam - Day 3 and Recap

 Day 3

Our last day in Saigon was relaxing after the last two intense days of touring. We started our wandering with an amble through the wet market near our guesthouse.
 

 We continued on to pick up the dress at the tailor and then to the Ben Thanh market to get some last minute souvenirs. We also had time to relax and watch the world go by at one of the street side cafes. I use the word cafe loosely...

This was the cafe where we sat and drank a soda...

Another cafe...we didn't stop here

 After the shopping and relaxing we left mid afternoon for our return to Singapore.

Recap

We had a wonderful time in Saigon and really want to return to Vietnam for a longer period of time. We want to experience some of the other cities and perhaps some of the countryside as well. As I mentioned earlier it is how you imagine Asia to be and has a slow but persistent energy to it.

Below are some last photos with comments to follow:

 Motorbikes were everywhere and everyone had on these wonderfully colored helmets (see photos above) and face masks (for the smog). We were amazed by the uses for motorbikes and as you can see in the photos above the large baskets on the back of some could handle a lot of items. I think the motorbikes really exhibit how much people are embracing modern technology as they want to commute quickly and yet affordably.

The food was absolutely superb and I could definitely take a cooking class and/or make a culinary tour of Vietnam. I really enjoyed the use of fresh herbs in so many of the dishes and liked that these herbs were more of a focus than some of the other cuisines in Asia. I also enjoyed how they kept ingredients fresh instead of cooking everything to death. The food was very refreshing and not overpowering.

The people were amazingly nice, despite the fact that they were not as well off as us and had fairly recently fought a war with America. They were really interested to know about the US and Singapore and they few people we talked to thought that America is the land of opportunity and wealth.

We will hopefully be back to Vietnam and I would recommend a longer trip to the region but it was a wonderful three day weekend for us in Saigon.