Can Tho – Where to, Gumshoe?

Can Tho/Saigon (Day 102): Back to the Big City!

June 10, 2016

It was our last morning in Can Tho before heading back to Saigon (I’ll call it Saigon now instead of HCMC, since we’re in the south). The lady downstairs reserved seats for us on the 1pm Phuong Trang bus, so we had a bit of time to get something to eat for breakfast/lunch. We wanted to eat somewhere close by and both agreed that we wanted more of the Bun Bo Hue. The one bowl that we shared yesterday wasn’t enough.

We found a seat inside the restaurant this time and ordered two bowls. As we were eating, the ladies began packing up the soup for the day. It looks like they open for breakfast and then close during the day and probably open again at night. We’ve learned that almost all Vietnamese dishes that we’ve had can be eaten at all times of the day. There’s no distinct “breakfast food” or “dinner food” food. Tim and I both agreed that this Bun bo Hue has been our favourite noodle soup so far. It’s too bad it’s our last day in Can Tho. The broth is amazing, all the meat is cut to order, and the noodles are perfectly cooked. Tim drank his broth and mine (I usually stop drinking my soup when I don’t have any noodles left).

After a delicious brunch, we headed down the street to take a peak at “Saigon Bakery”. The hotel had a list of restaurants/shops close by that they like and the bakery was on the list. It looked good but it was just like a Chinese bakery with sweet buns. We were full from the noodles and didn’t really feel like buying anything for the bus ride. We went next door to a coffee shop and both got ice coffees instead. The man and woman at the coffee shop didn’t speak any English so we had to try to act out what we wanted (he understand that we wanted coffee but we had to describe ice coffee and to go). The girl behind the counter thought this was hilarious and was just standing behind him laughing. Tim asked for milk (“sua”) but the guy didn’t understand. Luckily Tim pulled out Google Translate and typed out milk to show the guy. Obviously Tim originally pronounced it incorrectly, so the guy didn’t understand. Then Tim showed him his phone and the guy said it properly and the girl started laughing harder. In the end we got what we wanted and everyone had a good laugh.

We headed back to the hotel and packed up and went downstairs to wait for our shuttle bus to the bus station. The shuttle bus finally came around 12:15pm (supposed to be at noon). There were already some passengers in the van when sat down. The bus driver went on to pick up 10+ people. The bus was super cramped (as per usual). We finally made it to the bus station at 12:55pm. We ran into the station to the Futa Bus counter to get our tickets. There was no line up. It was basically how aggressive can you be to get to the counter first. Since we ran directly into the building before a lot of others, I helped Tim block out people from the side so he could get in there first. Then I took his bags and stood back to get out of the crowd. Only one of us needed to be subjected to that. I sat back and took pictures.

Our seats for this bus ride were 10 and 11, so we weren’t at the front of the bus for the ride back. This bus driver wasn’t as crazy with the horn as the other one we had, so the ride was a bit more enjoyable. It took closer to 4 hours to get back to Saigon because of traffic. There was really slow WiFi on the bus, so I spent the four hours sleeping a bit and then reading old blog posts. Taiwan seems like so long ago! I was reminiscing about the high speed trains in Taiwan and Japan while sitting on the bus. If Vietnam ends up building their high speed rail (eventually), the ride from Can Tho to Saigon would probably be less than an hour (171 km distance) instead of 4.

Tim mentioned that he feels like Vietnam, from what he’s seen so far, is what Taiwan was probably like in 20-30 years ago. Even now, while walking around Can Tho and Saigon, it does feel a bit like (a dirtier/chaotic) Taiwan. The street food culture, the look of many street restaurants, and all the scooters. Taiwan had a lot more scooters pre-MRT days and a lot more stray dogs just like Vietnam. Tim took some videos and will show his parents to see what they think.

We finally arrived at the chaotic Saigon Bus Station and didn’t want to take another one of the Phuong Trang shuttles so we just got into a Vinasun taxi (one of the honest/reputable cabs) and took it to the Platinum Hotel. The bus station is farther away from District 1 than the airport, so our cab fare was 150,000 VND = $8.50 CAD. We’ve taken two VinaSun taxis and both have been good/not sketchy at all. Their meters are actually legit!

We were welcomed back to Platinum Hotel and asked how Can Tho was. We’ll be staying here again for the next two nights (in the same room as before) before flying to Danang. We got the rooms for even cheaper this time at $28 CAD/night. We settled in and looked up a place to eat for dinner. One of our favourite Vietnamese dishes to eat at home are the dry vermicelli bowls with grilled meat and spring rolls (bun thit nuong) so that’s what we were going to have for dinner. We found a place that was about a 20 minute walk from our hotel so we set out to find it.

The restaurant’s name is Chi Thong and it was on Co Giang Street, which turned out to be a really cool street with a ton of street food. It was basically just locals walking around and we saw sugar cane juice for only 5,000 VND (half of what the price is usually in more touristy areas). We’ll probably keep this street in mind for future meals. We finally made it to the restaurant and sat down and ordered two “buns” and two spring rolls. The bowl was filled with fresh greens and herbs on the bottom and everything was super refreshing. The spring rolls were really delicious. I think we’ll go back again when we come back to Saigon at the end of our trip. Our dinner was 119,000 VND = $6.80 CAD for our two bowls, two spring rolls, and a soda.

We headed back to the hotel for the night, chilled out and watched some Vietnamese TV. Actually, there were a ton of English channels with Vietnamese sub titles. We watched “England & Ireland’s Next Top Model” and “Fast & Furious 7”. I’m starting to pick up on Vietnamese words… Mainly food and drink related. It’s a lot easier for English speakers to learn Vietnamese words since they use the same alphabet vs. many of the other Asian languages. It’s just the pronunciation is probably off but at least you can try to say the words.

It’s almost been a week since we’ve been in Vietnam and it’s been growing on me. The best thing here is definitely their variety of good food. I’ve enjoyed every meal we’ve had so far. It’s hard for me not to keep comparing it to Thailand since it’s the only other SE Asian country we’ve been to together. I’m actually enjoying the food in Vietnam more than Thailand (it’s also a bit cheaper for the most part), but I do think Thai people overall are much friendlier.

Steps today: 8,000

Can Tho (Day 101): Mekong Delta and Street Food

June 9, 2016

Today was a long day. We set our alarms for 4:30am since we were getting picked up by the tour company at 5am outside our hotel. Luckily we were still slightly on Australian/New Zealand time and had been waking up fairly early any how, so it wasn’t that painful.

We were taking a tour with EcoTours, which was recommended by Chloe. It made planning really easy having someone recommending tours or hotels to you. I had emailed EcoTours booking our tour and they were very quick at responding to confirm. They said they would pick us up at 5am outside the hotel. As we were waiting, a guy on a scooter comes by and asks us if we are waiting EcoTours. He then got on his phone to speak to someone. He was speaking Vietnamese so we didn’t understand. Then a taxi pulls up and he tells us to go in the taxi to go to the dock and he will pay for it. We go into the cab and he drops us off at the water. The guy on the scooter pulls up behind and pays for our ride and leads us down to the dock. At this point I was thinking in my head, what if this is a scam and this guy just goes around to hotels picking up tourists who are waiting for a tour and pretending to be them? (Tim: paying for our cab would be quite the long con…)

We go down to the dock and there’s just the two of us. I guess since it was a recommendation I didn’t do much reading on Trip Advisor so I didn’t realize the tours were very small and not a large group. Before getting on to the boat, I asked the guide more directly if this was Eco Tours and he said yes and he knew our room number that we had to send them just in case we didn’t wake up I guess. Since he knew our room number at our hotel, I finally relaxed and went on the boat.

Our guide’s name was Phi and our boat driver for the day was a middle-aged lady named My. Phi’s english was not that great, compared to Thoai’s (from yesterday’s food tour) so it made trying to listen a bit hard. Maybe he was super sleepy when he approached us this morning but I think if he introduced himself and said right off the bat that he was from EcoTours then I wouldn’t think he was so sketchy (Tim: The first thing he asked us when he pulled up was “EcoTours?”). It definitely took him a while to talk more (likely wake up). Our driver couldn’t speak any English but she was very sweet, smiled a lot, and made us some really nice palm roses.

We signed up for the 6-7 hour Mekong tour, which takes us to two floating markets, a rice paper factory, rural countryside, and through smaller canals ($23 USD/person included all meals and snacks). Phi told us that it’s a holiday in Vietnam today so the markets may not be as busy and the second floating market (the more local one) may even be closed. This was fine with us (we had no idea it was a holiday in Vietnam) since it was just nice to be out of the city.

Our first stop was the Cai Rang Floating Market. This is the biggest and busiest floating market in the area. This is also the floating market all the tours go to, so there were a lot of other larger tour boats there as well. Phi told us since the motors of boats are so loud, people can’t scream out to show what they have so they put what they’re selling on a pole to display it. We saw various fruit (durian, watermelon, green mango, jackfruit) and vegetable (mainly yams) vendors. Before getting to the floating market, Phi warned us that Vietnamese floating markets are not as pretty as the ones in Thailand because they haven’t been built up for tourists (yet), where as the ones in Thailand are usually not actually functioning markets any more and vendors just want to sell to tourists. At Cai Rang, it’s mostly wholesale vendors. He was right. The floating market wasn’t “pretty” like the pictures I’ve seen from Thailand.

We had breakfast at Cai Rang in a restaurant on shore at around 6:15am. We ordered two bowls of soup noodles and ice coffees. It was all very tasty and a good way to start our day. After breakfast we continued on the Mekong to a noodle factory where we got to watch how they made rice noodles (for pho!). It was interesting to see how they made the noodles and it seemed like a very tedious and primitive way to do it. Phi said they make on average 700kg/day. Since it was a holiday week, he said they were probably making less than 700kg, but they usually make more the previous few days to ensure they had enough for their customers. The sheets of rice paper looked light, but after holding one they were heavier than I thought (3 sheets = 1kg).

After we left the factory, we got back on to the boat and continued on to the Mekong and made our way to the second floating market, Phong Dien, to see if they were open. Phong Dien is a local floating market, where vendors are mainly all from the Can Tho area. As compared to Cai Rang, where vendors come from all other areas (which is why it’s bigger). You can tell where the boats are from by their initials on their boats, as it tells what province they’re from. The only thing that was open was a cafe, where Phi bought us drinks. Tim got another ice coffee and I got a coconut.

We continued down the Mekong and got into smaller canals which was really nice and calming. It was still really early so the sun wasn’t crazy hot yet. They gave us “rice farmer” hats to wear, which saved me. They also said they could put the top on the boat up if we wanted to, but as westerners who think we really like the sun/want to tan, we said to keep it down.

Us with Phi and My before it was unbearably hot outside — Us with Phi and My before it got unbearably hot outside

Our next stop was to walk around the countryside. The walk along the country was nice. We saw a few houses built out of water coconut leaves (apparently they last for around 2 years), some locally grown fruit (jackfruit, green mango, coconut), and a lot of roosters. Apparently cock fights are extremely popular in Vietnam and people can sell their roosters for a lot of money if they win fights, so a lot of people in the country raise them to be fierce fighters. After about 30 minutes walking along the river, we got back on to the boat. Our driver had made us a bouquet of roses out of palm branches. She’s super talented! They were so pretty and perfect. In addition to the roses, she also made us bracelets, a grasshopper, and a crab during our tour.

After the countryside walk, we continued on the smaller canals and eventually made our way back into town around 11am. The last leg of the boat ride was super hot. No wonder Vietnamese people wake up early and then stay inside for most of the day and then go back outside at night. I would too if I were a local.

On the boat ride back, we were talking to Phi about real estate (typical Vancouverites) and asked how much things cost here. He said houses in the city are very expensive, and showed us his boss’ house that’s in a prime location by the river. His house was 17 Billion VND ~ $1 Million CAD. I was actually surprised houses in Can Tho could go for that much. He said the property he is looking to buy would be more in the $10,000 CAD range. He works two jobs, does the boat tours in the morning and then at night he works in the restaurant right on the river (the boss with the $1 million house’s restaurant). We asked if people borrow money from the bank to buy houses and he said they try not to and rather borrow from friends or family. He said you have to pay a lump sum (Tim: bribe) in order to even get the loan from the bank (bribery is clearly a common occurrence in a Communist country).

We got off the boat, said our goodbyes, and walked to find something to eat for lunch. Thoai had recommended a Com Tam restaurant to us during our walk which was close by but he said it was only open earlier in the day and at night. We tried our luck and walked past it and it was open! We both ordered the broken rice with grilled pork chop and egg. She gave us soup, which was quite flavourful. Our lunch was 58,000 VND ($3.30 CAD). We paid an extra 3,000 VND for the eggs ($0.17 CAD). When we got our food, they tried to show us what sauces to put on (kind of like we were playing charades showing what the sauces would taste like through animated facial expressions). Tim dumped a lot of fish sauce on his rice and they all laughed at him and said in Vietnamese probably something like, no that’s too much! It’s going to be too sour! (since they kept making a sour face). The man who was hysterically laughing showed what a reasonable amount would be to pour on the rice and I poured that amount. I would probably pour a lot like Tim on at home too. Lunch was delicious and definitely hit the spot.

We walked back to the hotel and spent the remainder of the afternoon booking flights and hotels for an upcoming portion of the trip. It felt good to not do anything. We sat on the bed and were on our computers researching and planning while listening to rave music blaring from the stores downstairs.

When looking at our itinerary for the next few weeks, it made me a bit tired. This portion of our trip is probably going to be the most tiring part. Even though we aren’t constantly “go go go”, we do want to see a lot of things during the next month. If there were better intracity transportation between cities in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, it would make things easier. I wouldn’t want to take buses everywhere (I’m not a young backpacker any more, not that I ever was one before), so our only option is to fly. We’ll see how our flight on Vietnam Airlines goes. They’re part of Skyteam which is comforting, but overall, the three countries we’re going to don’t have the best local airlines. At least in Thailand they have Thai Airlines and Bangkok Airways which are really good/reputable. I was really tempted to just skip over Cambodia and Laos, and spend a month in Bangkok or Chiang Mai and just chill. The compromise was to cut a few places out of Cambodia and Laos and spend about a week in a resort in Phu Quoc (Vietnamese island) before coming home. Biggest thing I’ve learned from being away for 3+ months is that traveling can be super tiring when it’s longer than a 3 week vacation (Tim: 3 week vacations can be pretty tiring too). We both appreciate days where we don’t do anything and catch up on North American TV shows.

Dinner time came quickly so we decided to check out the roof top terrace at the hotel to catch the sunset. It was just behind a building already but the sky still looked pretty. We decided to go to the Bun Bo Hue restaurant that was recommended by Thoai and the hotel for dinner. When we got there, we just ordered one bowl to share since we wanted to try to find other food to sample and didn’t want to fill up on noodle soup. One bowl was 30,000 VND = $1.70 CAD. I like bun bo hue at home so I was excited to try it here. The soup and meat were delicious. I can see why this place was super busy with locals all the time. The bun bo hue’s in Vancouver usually are already spicy but this one you can put as much chili as you want. I put in two small scoops and it was about as much spice as I like in mine. We’ll probably come back for lunch tomorrow before heading back to HCMC.

We walked towards the night market and tried a couple of different items from stalls that seemed pretty busy. We tried a grilled spicy banh mi baguette. This is something that is from Can Tho but now can be found in other places in the south (said Thoai). They grilled the flattened baguette, cut it up and put a couple of sauces on it along with green onions and fried scallions (5,000 VND = $0.28 CAD). It was tasty but I probably wouldn’t order it again. It reminded us of the green onion buns from Chinese bakeries at home.

The other food we tried was a grilled rice paper. It seemed interesting and we saw a few stands selling the same thing. We just went to the one that had the most people lining up for it. They piled spring roll filling on the rice paper, broke two quail eggs on it, added some sauces, stirred the mixture around. Then they put the rice paper flat on to the grill. When it was done they folded it in an half and put it in a bag. This was pretty tasty (10,000VND = $0.57 CAD), but I think we both prefer our rice paper to be fresh or deep fried rather than grilled.

After the night market, we headed back to our hotel and called it a night. It was a really long day and we were tired. It’ll be nice to sleep in tomorrow before heading back to the big city. I really liked Can Tho. It’s still a big city but not as crazy as HCMC and the people here are very nice (didn’t try to quote you a different price from locals).

Steps today: 16,000

Can Tho (Day 100): Crazy Phuong Trang Bus & Mekong Food Tour

June 8, 2016

Even after writing that today was going to be Day 100, Tim and I both totally forgot about it. I guess it wasn’t much of a milestone after all. This morning we made a second attempt to find the Com Tam stall for breakfast. We walked to where the lady’s stall should have been at around 8am and she was still not there. We think she is probably on vacation. Since we have a bunch of other days in HCMC, we can always try again then. We walked back to our hotel and ate breakfast at the hotel instead.

Our plan today was to get to Can Tho, a city about 3.5 hours away from HCMC in the Mekong Delta region. The hotel booked seats for us on the Phuong Trang bus. The tickets cost 100,000 VND = $5.65 CAD each. A cab took us to the Phuong Trang bus office where we would catch a shuttle that would take us to the actual bus station.

When we got to the Phuong Trang bus ticketing station, I was not expecting what we drove up to. The bus ticketing station was run down and full of people waiting for shuttle buses. Then when a shuttle bus would drive up, people would rush to the bus and try to get in before people even came out. It was pretty chaotic to say the least. Tim went to the ticket counter and showed them the slip of paper the lady from the hotel gave us and they issued our tickets. She told us to wait 15 minutes and then get on one of the shuttle buses.

We got on to the crammed shuttle bus with our large backpacks on our laps. After about a 10 minute drive we got to the HCMC’s bus station and it was even more chaotic than the ticketing station. There was a large room of people waiting for their buses and there was no departures board or schedule of any kind. We stood outside so we could see the buses that pulled up since we couldn’t understand the Vietnamese announcements and it didn’t seem like there was much order. People would just run up to the bus and the bus would continue to move even when they were trying to load the bus. The buses also drove up really close to where all the people we standing.

We didn’t take any buses when we went to Thailand so I can’t really comment on how it was there, but this was definitely my most “roughing it” travel moment. I told Tim that I felt that way and he semi rolled his eyes at me. I think it also felt more chaotic for us because everything was in Vietnamese and when we looked around there were no other obvious tourists or westernized looking Asian people. In my mind I was expecting way more backpackers at the bus station, but I guess Vietnam is still nothing like Thailand in that sense.

We finally spotted our bus, loaded our bags, and got on the bus as it was moving to down the queue of buses. We were seated at the front of the bus which was good because we had a good view straight out the front. In hind sight, I’m not sure if this was a good thing or a more nerve wracking thing – but it definitely added to our entertainment for the ride. The bus was full and our journey to Can Tho would take around 3-4 hours. When we were all seated, the bus attendant came around and gave us a bottle of water and a wet wipe. There was wifi on the bus too which was a nice surprise.

About 5 minutes after leaving the station, the bus pulls over randomly (Tim: or not so randomly) and two guys jump on the bus. I guess they’re friends of the driver? They come on the bus (obviously not paying for a ticket) and both sat on the steps right beside the driver and the bus attendant. I suppose this is normal practice in Vietnam.

Tim and I both fell asleep but were woken up to the bus driver honking like there’s no tomorrow. When we woke up we realized there was also Vietnamese music playing quite loudly and music videos and concerts were being shown on the TV. Even when I tried to close my eyes, I would get very startled by the continuous honking (bus’ horns are really loud, especially when they are leaning on it). From our four days here, it seems like everyone is just horn happy and it’s more of a honk to say “hey, I’m here”, not a “eff you” type of honk. Highway driving isn’t much different from city driving as the bus weaved in and out of traffic narrowly missing scooters. Since we were up front, it was a bit nerve wracking and we had a lot of “wtf” moments. We are definitely not in a first world country any more.

After about two hours we arrived at a rest stop, which is a Phuong Trang bus stop. The building was full of food vendors and snacks. We shared a banh mi (15,000 VND = $0.85 CAD), which wasn’t very good, and a sugar cane juice (12,000 VND = $0.68 CAD). Since the announcement for how long the pit stop was going to be was in Vietnamese and no one on our bus spoke English, we quickly bought our lunch and stood outside making sure our bus was still there.

We learned later that the bus attendant would pretend to count that everyone is in their seats but in reality they had no idea and would just leave you behind. As we were leaving the parking lot, a frantic man came up to the front to tell the driver that we were still missing some people. That’s when we the driver and attendant realized that they were missing 4 people! The bus driver reluctantly pulled over and the 4 ladies came running for the bus. When they came on the bus, the bus attendant and driver said a bunch of stuff in Vietnamese (that didn’t sound like it was something nice) and the lady said something back (in an equally annoyed tone) then took her seat.

We finally arrived in Can Tho 3.5 hours after we left HCMC. Phuong Trang provides free shuttle transfers to your hotel or your final destination within the city once you arrive at the bus station. We waited about 30 minutes for a shuttle bus to our hotel. This shuttle bus was even more cramped than the one in HCMC. Luckily, we were the second ones to be dropped off.

We checked into our room at Hotel Xoai , and signed up for a “free” three hour food tour that started 6:30pm. We basically just got into our room and got changed and went downstairs to meet for the food tour. We booked the cheapest/smallest room here for $14 USD/night. The room was very small but very clean.

We went downstairs to meet the tour guide, Thoai. We read a lot of reviews about our hotel on Trip Advisor and majority of them raved about the food tour at the hotel. Since it’s down season right now, we were lukcy and had a private tour with Thoai, a 28 year old Can Tho local. He was extremely friendly. knowledgeable, and his English was good.

The first stop we took was a “nem nuong” (BBQ pork sausage) restaurant, called “Nem Nuong Anh Map”. Thoai ordered one order of nem nuong for Tim and I to share. It was our first time having a dish like this so we were excited to try it out. The waitress brought a dish of the BBQ pork sausage on a bed of very thin rice noodle patties, greens, and all the assorted fillings. We were supposed to roll everything up and dip it in the peanut sauce. There were so many different flavours and textures in the rice wrapper which was so delicious. I love all the fresh greens and herbs – it’s very refreshing!

On our way to the next stop, we crossed a park that was filled with children and teenagers roller skating around and a zumba class going on. Since it’s so hot during the day, it seems as though everyone comes out at night to enjoy the outdoors. Thoai said zumba is really popular right now in Can Tho and that only woman exercise in Vietnam (Tim: men just sit around and drink).

Our second stop was to eat a special “bean muffin” that’s native to Can Tho. Thoai told us that only two restaurants in the city make these muffins and the one we went to is his favourite and the most popular. Since there were still other stops to go, Tim and I just shared one to try. The restaurant is called “Banh Cong Co Ut” and I think the muffin is called “banh cong co ut”. The muffin is deep fried twice and is made out of green bean, taro, and shrimp. The muffin came cut into fours and Thoai told us to put it in a mustard green leaf, along with lettuce and pickled vegetables, then dip it in fish sauce. This was probably my favourite snack/dish so far.

Our third stop was a street corner restaurant called, “74”. They specialize in claypot dishes and a Can Tho “special meat”. Thoai asked us if we wanted to try the “special meat”, we said sure but told him not to tell us what it was until after we ate it. In addition to the special meat, we tried the beef and egg claypot. The other choices were an eggplant or tofu. The beef and egg hot pot came boiling on a portable stove. Thoai stir the raw eggs around and covered it with a lid until the eggs were sort of a scramble. There was a sour and spicy dipping sauce to dip the beef in. The beef, onion, and egg were very flavourful and the beef was tender. Restaurant 74’s patrons were mainly middle aged men drinking beer and having a claypot.

At this point we were pretty full. Thoai asked if we wanted to try an “egg coffee”. We declined since we had to be up at 4:30am the next morning for our Mekong Delta tour. Thoai showed us where the egg coffee was for us to try tomorrow.

For dessert, he took us to a well known sticky rice lady who only sets up at night. She makes both a turmeric and black sticky rice and scoops both into a waffle (like a burrito), adds dried coconut, sugar, and a bit of salt. I really like mango sticky rice for dessert so this was something very different than what I was expecting. It was really good and Tim even liked the dried coconut in it (he usually isn’t a fan of dried coconut flakes).

Our last stop on the tour was to grab a drink at a cafe. Thoai and Tim got beers and I tried a fruit smoothie. Thoai listed all the fruits and I tried one that I’ve never heard of before – sapodilla. They blended the fruit and added some condensed milk, it was delicious and refreshing. Thoai said a lot of people get the sapodilla smoothie with espresso. We sat on the street on plastic chairs and chatted for a while.

It was nice to be able to speak to a local (around our age) and ask what life is like living in Vietnam – more specifically (Tim: or more broadly?) a Communist country. He talked about the differences between the people in the north and south (people in the south don’t call it HCMC, they still call it Saigon. But people in the north call it HCMC..makes sense), how hard it is for educated millennials to find decent jobs in Vietnam (without bribery), corrupt police, and their horrible hospitals (basically lack of trust in anything government related). He described their hospitals and how the only doctors who get jobs in hospitals are ones who have connections to someone in the government or who could pay the exorbitant bribes to get a job (nothing to do with skill). We told him that makes sense because Lonely Planet and our insurance says if we get injured/sick in Vietnam we should fly to Bangkok for treatment. He laughed and said people here don’t even want to go to their own hospitals. Any how, we learned a lot from Thoai and it reinforced how lucky we are to be Canadians.

We walked back to our hotel and Thoai marked down more of his favourite places on a map for us. I’m happy we decided to take the food tour with Thoai. We got to try all this different food we wouldn’t have found ourselves, learn more about Vietnam from a young adult’s perspective, and learn how to pronounce some Vietnamese words.

It’ll be an early morning tomorrow but we’re looking forward to seeing the Mekong Delta.

Steps today: 11,000