Next destination: Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam. Here, I met up with my brother, Connor to travel around Vietnam for the next two weeks. He had just finished up his exams for the semester and had an extended spring break that we decided to take advantage of.

Our first day we jumped into the action with a tour of the Mekong Delta. Connor and I agreed that parts of the tour were good, parts of it we could have skipped, but all of it was worth the 10$ we paid for it.

Our first stop was a bee farm where they make local honey and are known for their delicious honey tea.

That’s a bit too close for me, but Connor is a cool cucumber
honey tea with kumquat, mmm!

The reason most people do this tour is to take a ride down the Mekong river (rather, a very small distributary of the Mekong river) and enjoy the scenery. Personally, I think the hats make 90% of the journey. Otherwise your just taking a canoe ride.

Maybe not a look I want to immortalize on the internet for eternity, but here we are

Just before lunch we stopped at a shop that made coconut candy. We got to see how the candy was made so that we might go home and try it ourselves…That’s wishful thinking, but I did learn a thing or two about coconuts.

Our guide showing us how to shave a coconut

We also learned that coconut candy was yummy and walked away with more than a few souvenirs and snacks for later. And then it was lunchtime! Connor splurged and got a whole deep fried elephant ear fish. The dish is supposedly a local favorite, and it certainly looks impressive.

A waitress at the restaurant gave us a demonstration of how to make fresh spring rolls with the fried fish.

The finished product. Magnificent!

And then it was up to us to make our own spring rolls. Connor was not one for finesse and making spring rolls sort of turned into making fish tacos.

I’m sure they still tasted good, but Connor get 0/10 points for style

After lunch and an afternoon of lounging, feeding crocodiles and catfish we had one more stop before driving back to the city. We visited a nearby pagoda to enjoy the peaceful beauty of the temples and admire Buddha in his many forms.

So many things to see!

We promptly fell asleep most of the return journey to Ho Chi Minh. But our day wasn’t over yet. I came to Vietnam with one mission and that was to eat delicious food, and there was a banh mi shop in the city that was rumored to be the best in town and by rumored I mean I looked it up and it’s the opinion of a random stranger on the internet. Regardless, the banh mi was delicious, in fact, we went there every day we were in Ho Chi Minh thereafter. They also sold watermelon juice which we discovered was divine, and the combination of watermelon juice and a bbq pork banh mi? *chefs kiss*

The food pictures aren’t stopping any time soon

The next day was much more low key. We visited the war remnants museum for the American-Vietnam war, depending on which country you come from. It was a heavy morning, but I learned a lot of things about the war that they don’t teach you in school, and Connor got to geek out over some of the US military planes they have on display.

In the evening of our second day, we were able to meet up with an old friend of ours who is from Ho Chi Minh. He was an exchange student that my grandparents hosted many many years ago, and it was amazing to see him again, and meet his wife!

Say hi to Hung and Milan! I apologize for the poor photo

Hung and his wife took us out to dinner and Connor and I got to try some very nice and very delicious food. And it gave us some variety from pho and banh mi.

It was an impressive spread

I tried so many things I didn’t know were things that people ate. Like palm fruit, and purple yam soup, and pumpkin flowers. There was so much food and Connor and I were totally stuffed at the end. But the evening didn’t stop at dinner.

It was time for drinks. We made two stops for two completely different vibes. First we went to a classic Vietnamese sky bar, for those views. And it was an amazing view.

And the city is so big! Even from up here!
We also got fancy cocktails

But for a more private, intimate setting we made our second stop at a favorite haunt of Hung and Milan’s which was a bar tucked away in the center of the city. And our drinks were their own view.

Maybe this is normal for people who go out for drinks, but I can’t get over how pretty these are!

It was a lovely evening and Hung and Milan were terrific. It was so good to spend an evening with friends and get to see some parts of the city Connor and I never would have gotten to on our own.

And that was most of our time in Ho Chi Minh. The next day my body decided it didn’t like what I had eaten the night before and I spent most of day three by the toilet, but that aside, our time in Vietnam was off to a great start!