Super Sunday in Saigon

Sarah and I were up at 4AM on Sunday, unhappy that there was no chance for the Sunday New York Times since it wasn't even Sunday in New York. We decided instead to eat breakfast at 6AM, then I went to write. By 8AM we were at the concierge desk asking if there were any special Sunday markets. I was dreaming of Vanves (Paris).

"Have you been to Ben Ty?" asked the concierge.
"Went there yesterday."
"Really? In the 5th District? I thought you went to Ben Thanh."
Oops, that bad ear of mine.

I don't even know where Saigon's 5th District is and had already been lamenting the fact that the 1rst District is so modern and sophisticated, with little local funk to it. Off we went, totally across town for about a one half hour tour of real people and their hoods. Just watching the families out on their motos was enough to make you stare or gasp. Sarah spied a family of five on one moto. I liked the family of three, with the two year old child up front on Dad's lap, very calmly sipping from a juice box while Dad tore through the traffic wtih a vroom, vroom, vroom.

The market area was an enormous village of commerce unto itself; we wanted to jump out of our moving cab just to get into the action. Like proper ladies, we waited for the driver to pull up to a market building decked out with blue and white tiles and a tower and a hammer and sickle flag. We understood immediately that this was the wholesale market as most items were packed in celo in groups of ten or 12.

Our first conquest was 'silk' charmeuse, as I have been actively copying an Eileen Fisher shell that I recently bought in Manhattan for some outrageous sum. We bought two yards of four shades of nuetrally earth tones (mushroom, butter, burnt siena, dusty pumpkin) and paid $20 USD in cash. At the time, we thought the top could be made from one meter and we would each have four (we were wrong on the math). Never mind.

We bought props for our group-- packs of ten worked fine for this-- and were most happy with the flip-flop socks with one articulated toe; $5 for ten. We took lotsa pictures and fled when the revenge of the durian became too severe.

We went back to 'town' and met up at the InterContinental Asiana for our brunch date-- our friend Hong E has agreed to take us to her secret sources, but we needed to be strong so we ate from the massive buffet and stocked our plates with shrimp, lobster, sushi, roast beef, yorkshire pudding, tien ly flowers (similar to brocoli) and then hit the chocolate fountain for a low cal dessert. Vueve Clicquot was poured endlessly through the meal ($35 per person including Champagne) and we sobered up with coffee before we hit the road.

Alas, Viet Nam has no Starbucks (or no McDonald's).

We changed into our hot-weather hunting clothes while Hong E sailed forth in stockings, high heels, a shift and blazer with her Birkin on her side. She is a size 0 and a perfect example of the face of the new woman in Nam, gorgeous, stylish, smart and well-spoken with flawless English skills and Audrey Hepburn appeal.

First stop was Toan Thinh, a silk shop unlike others I had seen in VN, because the quality was so extraordinary. I asked if the silk had been screened in Japan (known for its high quality printing methods) but was told all the silk came from VN. Hmmmmppph! Why didn't they just make silk, not war?

The store is located at 180 Ly Tu Trong, Ben Thanh Ward, District 1, which is to say it is in one of the shopping streets jutting out from the Ben Tranh Market and therefore easily reached by all. This is inf act the area we set out to find on our first day when the taxi driver from the provences got hopelessly lost.

The store had two floors of elegant and expensive looking silks with a few random bolts of home furnishings fabrics and a handful of bolts of pastel shades of linen. Sarah bought a gorgeous textured black silk for about $10 USD a yard-- a big splurge but the silk was stunning and let's face it, Sarah has such a good eye that she is immediately drawn to the best in town.

Hong E (whom I plan to rename Hannah except I know this is not pc of me) expertly led us around the area, side stepping the crumbling sidewalks in her stilettos. We were on the way to another fabric shop-- one for men-- but made a detour when we spied the merchandise in the windows of Dung Hien Optical (241 Le Thanh Ton) which boasted dozens of novelty eyeglasses frames in the window. I paid $5 for a pair of 60 for a girlfriend (no names, please) and then later regretted I didn't buy 30 for my son's next birthday. Hopefully I can get back there.

The mens' tailor and fabric store had suitings, shirtings and a wall devoted to a gelato inspired selection of linens. Fabrics were priced by country of origin; they suggested two meters for a normal man's shirt and in the case of my special order (for Santa Claus) two and a half meters. The fabric cost $25 USD. Then we went next door to Lan Vy Tailor (217 Le Thanh Ton) and unloaded our satchel of fabrics and samples.

Each piece of fabric and its accompanying sample are bagged and tagged. The customer is given a receipt with a swatch of each fabric sample. The items will be ready in a few days and delivered back to the InterConti Asiana for us on our return from Hanoi.

Hong E took us then to some favorite shops on Dong Khoi, the main shopping street, we were able to return to the Art Alley to buy the paintings we wanted (Hong E negotiated a better deal for us) and we collapsed for tea in the Asiana hotel lobby.

We ended our one perfect Sunday in Saigon with drinks on the rooftop terrace of the Saigon Saigon Bar atop the Caravelle Hotel and at the Hoa Tuc restaurant, tuc must mean tucked into a courtyard you won't find unless you know it's there. The courtyard property was once part of an opium refinery and now houses three restaurants a cooking school and a skin care studio.

We fell into bed just in time to catch Conan on CNBC and drift off dreaming of our new clothes.

Taxis in Saigon

Since our days on the road are so filled with adventure and emotions, I have decided to break apart the blogging into possibly useful bits of info and intelligence.

While our first day in Saigon began with perfection-- warm croissants from the oven, the best breakfast buffet of my life (we're at InterConti's new Asiana Saigon hotel which just opened), our day fell into abyss shortly thereafter as we ventured forth.

We have been to Saigon before; we somewhat know our way around town...at least, around District 1 and the main downtown areas. Therefore we met with the Chief Concierge for some In the Know insider's shopping tips (an InterConti specialty) and got the addresses of some tailors and fabric shops behind the famed Ben Tranh Market in the heart of District 1, downtown Saigon. The hotel got us a taxi and went over the directions in local speak and with map in hand.

In short order I spied the Saigon River (not a good sign) and admitted to the rest of the girls that I was lost. Sarah announced that we were driving in circles and waved the map in front of our driver. He attempted intellectual conversation with us in Viet Namese. My V-N vocab is fewer words than my usual ten words in ten languages motto (i'm still on a word a day program here) so we could only shrug. In desperation we began to shout Ben Tranh to the driver, just to get to the market and be somewhere.

We arrived, shoved $5 USD in his hand and took off, wondering what the hell he was thinking-- was it a cheat or did he truly not understand where we were going? We shopped, we bought, we calmed down.

Back at the hotel, I reported the incident to the concierge. In no time at all, he had found the errant driver, the driver had returned to the hotel with a refund of basically half of our money and his deepest apologies. Seems it was his first day on the job and he has just arrived in town from the provinces. Badda bing.

The hotel's location is so central that we walked to most other destinations. At one point, the Chief Concierge even walked us to the famous Pho 24 cafe for lunch (merchandise on sale there includes baseball cap with the words 'magnif-pho-cent') and we were out and about discovering all the changes in town on foot. We collpased for a quick late-afternoon nap and then went back to Ben Tranh Market around 5pm.

This time, the hotel car dropped us and our chauffeur of perfect English told us to only take a M-Taxi back home, or someone else would cheat us. The market closed at 5:30PM and we went into the twilight and the stream of outward bound moto traffic to find a cab. The last M-Taxi pulled off as we arrived at the taxi stand; there were no more in sight. It was rush hour. We figured how seriously could we get cheated by another taxi, an extra dollar or two?

And so we stepped onboard the no-name taxi with the meter running and our taxi card in hand, the driver pulled up to another taxi to ask where the Asiana is located. This hotel is so new that many drivers don't know it... or they think it is the Continental, a totally different hotel in the heart of town. At least someone knew where to go (we could have told them by then) and we arrived at the hotel.

The meter read 92 and therein begins the problems. 9200? 920.000? How about three bucks US, which is totally fair-- this was a short distance and totally walkable. I hand over thre dollars. The driver insisted on dong. Uhph.

I will not draw out the story since no one comes off as too bright. Sarah had her cheat sheet and we knew sort of what we were dealing with, but the driver screamed and insisted and plucked bills from our hands to the point of having a total equal to almost $14.

We were chagrined to admit any of this, as we felt a lot of the problem was our fault for not understanding how many zeroes go into the money and for not speaking Viet Namese. Finally we confessed it to KVF, our travelling companion. She admitted the same thing had happened to her.

May it not happen to you because for $14 you can buy dinner for two.

Good Morning Viet Nam

I am of the age when no one much wanted to come to Viet Nam and yet a handful of us girls began our milegae run on United with flights from SFO to SGN. Sure, they may have renamed it Ho Chi Minh City, but to airport people and most of us, this will always be Saigon.

It fell, but it's back...and how.

The trip seemed longer than ever before; I must be getting old. One ambien later, they were just serving the noodles and there were six hours to go...to Hong Kong. Once in Hong Kong we had two and a half hours in the airport, thankfully in a portion of the airport we know so well that we were already dreaming of more noodles at the Taiwan Beef Noodle Company.

Our companion Karen Fawcett, hereafter known as KVF, insisted we go to the Untied Lounge where we got free noodles. I nonetheless insisted on my bubble tea from the Taiwan Noodle Company and ordered warm almond. I was not pleased to instead get the half and half combo of hot tea and coffee and the reminder that when in a foreign country, always point to the carte. Even when people say they understand you; they don't.

I read the new Peter Mayle book on the flight from HKG to SGN. Naturally, or un-naturally as it seems with my Kindle, the Kindle died enroute from SFO to HKG and while I had charged it totally before leaving town, these little suckers do not hold the charge that is advertised. Maybe it burns at a different rate at 39,000 feet. I was reading a fascinating book about the American wine industry after Prohibition and World War II as background for Born to Shop California Wine Country but was happy enough that Sarah finished her book enroute to HKG and then lent it to me. It's also about wine-- The Vintage Caper-- and as a French resident. I find it is especially fun to read.

We arrived in HCMC, did the formalities and went to the luggage carrousels-- there being two different bins, one for premier travellers and one for hoi poloi. I would have thought us in the second category but there was a print out attached to a Unied Airline sign with the names of all the premier/ priority guests listed on it. We were named to Bin 5. Talk about your basic security leak. Needless to day, our luggage-- and everyone e;se's-- came to the other bin, #6. Mine was the last to arrive.

Watching the arrangment of 1/2 suitcases and 1/2 cartons made you wonder just what people were bringing back home...some boxes were marked Dell; others said Home Depot. I was certain I saw my manicurist with a box filled with acrylic nail powder.

Yet the team that really caught my interest was the group of monks, or monkettes, or whatever one calls a female monk. They had shorn heads, wore long brown robes and Eileen Fisher coats that were most chic. They went through the CREW priority lanes and claimed heaps of brown cartons at the airport. Possibly they are manicurists in disquise.

We were smart enough to ask the new InterContinental Asiana Hotel to send a van for us, since the arrival onto the street was much like that in Delhi. Midnight madness...with smoke. Half and hour later we were meeting Georg, the new General Manager and ooohing and aahing over the gorgeous new hotel, in a high rise downtown.

Sarah and I consumed everything in the minibar and then fell into our beds. Visions of tailors all over town danced in my head.