Ho Chi Minh City part 8

I managed to drag this over nine entries, the first one was blogged on the 28th of January, which was eight weeks ago. Never has the saying "milking it for all it's worth" been more apt, unless you're comparing me to a farmer who squeezed his cow dry which in that case, I suppose it's even more appropri — anyway, here's the last entry on my trip to Ho Chi Minh City which took place more than two months ago.

As promised, here's my best meal I had when I was there:



Goulash from a restaurant selling assorted European food, which I had doubts about visiting because it's located in the backpackers' area and it's easy to think of it as overpriced stuff for the gastronomically-timid or homesick ang mohs and most importantly because you can only eat so much. To be honest, I haven't eaten goulash from other places so I can't rave about how this is "the best goulash ever, I wonder why Hungarians are always so Hungary lol", but this is definitely the best stew I've tasted and combined with the $2 price tag, this is hard to beat.

And they actually put in effort for the bread, which is always a nice thing, because it's so easy to just serve toast with garlic spread on it and people won't give a shit anyway. All the Pho, Banh Mi, spring rolls and unborn duck fetuses I've eaten in Ho Chi Minh City were tasty but the combination of the price, taste, unexpectedness and the fact that I was really fucking hungry made it a damn good meal.



They do pizzas well too. It's sad to see people not eating the crust of the pizza because of the mass-produced frozen pizza dough that Pizza Hut uses so they just presume that all pizzas are supposed to be like that. The crust on this one is fluffy (not clumpy) and I still remember the aroma of the burnt dough.

This is all we ordered because we thought we would have the chance to eat there again since it's just outside our guesthouse but noooo, we had to leave for the airport early next morning and I sincerely hope for the restaurant to still be there when I return to Ho Cho Minh City.



This is the lovely little alley in which our guesthouse was located in. It's always a nice sight after an entire day out in the hot and dusty streets because of how clean and almost dream-like the alley looks, mainly because of the lighting from the row of guesthouses there. And then there's the group of kids who laugh really loudly in the morning while playing some kind of game involving chucking slippers at a pile of slippers. I need to sleep, assholes.



Our room, which is...less than satisfactory because of how thin the walls are (i.e., not sound-proof) and as you can see in this photo, the bathroom door is lacking a doorknob. I believe the room cost US$9 per night so I can't really complain.



I was complaining about the thinness of the walls mainly because of how I didn't want our TV-watching to disturb our neighbours. Also, I don't know which pair of feet is mine as both are equally ugly, which is rather surprising considering how my grandmother always used to laugh at how awkward my feet looks and that actually made me feel like a freak for a while.



This is the owner's son, who lives in England but was back in Vietnam to act all shy and faggy for the camera. Not sure about you but I was reminded of my...friend when I first saw this photograph.



This was taken somewhere near the War Remnants Museum and I really liked how weathered the yellow walls look. So much that the same house appeared in my dreams two months later and a MILF lived there. It wasn't an erotic dream but that really tells you what I think of during the day.



Nice-looking place behind a row of old shophouses.



I think this is a slightly richer part of town as these were many serviced apartments around the area.



What most of Ho Chi Minh City looks like.



This is a common sight and from what I can remember, these are phone numbers belonging to construction people or something like that. This is direct marketing.



Another common sight in the park, people playing what is known to Singaporeans as chapteh. It's really popular there, kids play it, grown men play it, women play it, even old men play it. The guy in green was constantly showboating with his fancy kicks and twirls but I bet his friends hate him, what a moron.



"You have HIV? Hehe."


Alright, that's it for Ho Chi Minh City. I was supposed to travel to Penang and it got cancelled but if nothing goes wrong, that should be my next trip. The glorious street food shall elude me no longer.