May 28 and 29, 2013

Yesterday (May 27) was the Jewish holiday Shavuot which is the celebration of the Giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai seven weeks after the exodus from Egypt. It also commemorates the grain harvest of the early summer. Our friends and fellow passengers Bruce and Karen, who conduct the Friday night services on board, arranged with the ship to have a Shavuot breakfast in the Grand Dining Room. Harvest festivals featured dairy dishes because cheese was produced in that season. So the food consisted of all dairy items. There were three tables of passengers and each table shared the reading of the Ten Commandments. Here’s the lovely food that the chefs prepared. We could also order anything from the regular menu.

We also had another cooking demonstration – this time it was with the Oceania corporate culinary director who is on the ship for a short time, Tino Daab, and the Toscana chef, Lorenzo Favero. The dishes were Malaysian Fish Curry with Coconut Risotto and Risotto Ai Funghi Porcini.

We didn’t book any organized tours in Ho Chi Minh City as we have been here several times before. We decided to explore on our own. Much of the fun in being here is in the simple pleasure of absorbing its flurry of activity. It is full of sights and sounds and is growing rapidly. And…the motorbikes! You almost take your life in your hands when you try to cross the street! There are a few more traffic lights now but it is still pretty treacherous. You see everything on these motorbikes…eggs in a huge stack, dogs, mountains of stuff for sale, fruits and vegetables and sometimes entire families or animals bound for market. Truly a unique sight.

The city is Vietnam’s center of commerce and the country’s biggest city but the administrative capital is in Hanoi. While the name was changed to Ho Chi Minh City, many of the millions of people who call it home still refer to it as Saigon.

The Insignia is a small enough ship that we can sail right into the center of the city, on the banks of the Saigon River. Here is the city as we arrived about 10:30 AM.

Our ship is across a bridge from District 1 which is the center of the city. On our first day, we made plans to have dinner with Erin and Mui, so we set out in a taxi across the bridge with the plan to go to the Ben Thanh market. We walked around the city, went to the market where there is just about evetything for sale, went to Saigon Center where we cooled off and had drinks. I have had a right hip issue which bothers me only when I walk up stairs, so I bought a new pair of walking shoes since I suspect that the ones I brought with me got too worn down and that is causing the problem. I also bought a new charm for my Pandora bracelet (guess what it was… a motorbike!) Norm had seen a shirt in Hoi An at a shop but they didn’t have his size. We went to the branch of the shop here, but they didn’t have the same one. No luck there.

We took the pedicabs to the Saigon Center. The heat is oppressive and we had already walked a lot.

The Saigon Center has a very cool robot that keeps the floors spotless!

On our way to the restaurant, we went to the Opera House for a photo. There was a promotion going on for a product called Varna which is apparently some kind of nuritional supplement. They took my name and phone number and gave me an envelope of it (the photo on the package looks like dried fish to me and of course I cannot read the ingredients.) I have to plug it in to Google Translate, but I don’t think I will be trying it!

But they had 6 stations set up and if you went to all 6, you would get a prize. I went to three of them, here are two pictures! I don’t know what they do with the pictures…

Here are the pictures of the Opera House and City Hall, both have a French influence and are very beautiful.

We met Erin and Mui at the Hoa Tuc restaurant which was recommended by Lindsay, a fellow passenger who has friends here. It is in an area known as the Manufacture Courtyard. At the end of the 19th Century, the Governor of Indochina decided to exercise control over the refining and sale of opium and this building became the warehouse for opium and later, the Red Light District. In 1975, the buildings were split into housing and now feature several restaurants.

Here is the menu of what we all had for dinner. It was delicious and the only non Asians were some other people from the ship.

For dessert we all shared a creme brulee with black rice and durian ice cream with mangos and black rice. We all liked both but agreed that we might not order the durian ice cream again! It doesn’t smell bad like the fruit – which is banned on public transportation- but it wasn’t our favorite.

We took a taxi back to the ship – we were pretty tired and hot.

Today (Monday, May 28), Norm and I went out early, walked across the bridge and had a few goals in mind. A haircut for him, fresh flowers for me and finding mangoes. I am happy to say we met all of our goals. We have a fairly early departure – 2:30 PM – so we wanted an early start and a good walk.

My new shoes felt great. We walked all over the area. We stopped at the Rex Hotel for drinks at the Rooftop Garden Bar- the iced coffee here in Vietnam is quite famous. It is very strong and has added condensed milk which makes it very delicious!

We found a wonderful flower shop and watched as they created a bouquet with the flowers I chose (with some help from one of the staff).

Then we found a place for Norm to have a haircut, and I had a wonderful foot massage with an additional head, neck, shoulder and back massage. Norm also had the head and neck massage. Delightful! They gave us Jasmine tea and a kind of chewy cake while we were there.

We are back on board to sail at 2:30. We have a day at sea and then we will have a day in Ko Samui Thailand.