This time I went to Vietnam, a Southeast Asian country that lies south of China, west of South China Sea, east of Laos, Thailand and Cambodia. It is a Socialist Republic ruled by the Communist Party. I have some Vietnamese friends whom I met during my school years in Singapore, so Vietnamese people don't appear to be too foreign to me. One of the things that I love about living in Singapore is that the real exposure to the world that I get here; I think if I am still in Jakarta now, my experiences of the outside world will mostly be of vicarious nature. I am going to Vietnam on a tour organised by NUS so I don't have to plan for the itinerary at all, which is really godsend because with FYP monopolizing my days, I hardly have time to do anything else these days. I like the idea of travelling with a group of people; this is new and I've got good feelings about it.
Our first stop was Ho Chi Minh City, otherwise known as Saigon. As the plane started to descend over Saigon, I saw a landscape filled with short, colorful buildings. There were many buildings in Saigon with narrow façade and gaudy colors. They appeared to me like a cross between the colorful buildings in vieux Nice and the extremely narrow buildings along the canals in Amsterdam.
There were A LOT of motorcycles in HCMC. As our bus moved in the city, everywhere my head turned, I saw sea of motorcycles. Most of the motorcyclists wore a cap and cover their faces to protect them from the sun, and maybe the smoke. Kartik made a remark of how impressive the "harmony in chaos" of HCMC traffic was; there were hardly any traffic lights, there seemed to be nothing that enforced order especially in the roundabouts, but miraculously, the traffic actually worked. I say, watching the traffic in HCMC should be part of the itinerary.
We went to the Cu Chi tunnels which were used by the Cu Chi guerillas to fight the Americans during the Vietnam war. We were shown a video about the history of the tunnel that I would never forget; I was quite taken aback by how anti-American the video was, with the remarks like "the brave destroyers of Americans", "Americans are too large to pass the tunnel", and so on. In my opinion, it is more of a video that is shown during the history class for local school children than an educational video for mature, mostly international tourists. It is however, admirably honest of them to show the visitors the opinions against American, harsh as they were without any glossing over with euphemisms or any kind of layers of language.
On a lighter note, we visited the famous spots for tourists in Saigon.
HCMC Post Office
In front of Notre Dame Cathedral with 3 of my new friends
Saving the best for last, I shall now devote my energy to describe the two things I most look forward to in Vietnam : the food and coffee! Almost everyday when I came back to my room in NUS, I would pass the kitchenette and find my Vietnamese neighbors cooking their dinner. I didn't know what they were cooking, but whatever it was, the food always smelled so delicious! I can't wait to try Vietnamese delicacies. Moreover, when I was a freshman in NUS, there was a Vietnamese café in Engineering that sold really, really good coffee. The name of the café was Trung Nguyen. Sadly, the café wasn't very successful as the prices of the coffee were significantly higher than the ones in the canteen, and most students are too tight about spending their money on good coffees. Being in Vietnam means that I could get these two things I love abundantly and at low costs! Sweet.
First meal in Vietnam : beef Phở in Pho 24 restaurant. The soup was really tasty and the beef slices were thin and delicious, especially when dipped in Vietnamese chilli sauce. There are also additional serving of vegetables to be eaten with the soup.... Vietnamese love vegetables! The restaurant was named Pho 24 because there are 24 spices added to make the broth for the Phở. 
The Vietnamese rojak at Ky Hoa Night market; it contains strips of rice paper mixed with various vegetables, quail egg, dried shrimp, topped with fish sauce (I think). Really nice and cheap snack!
What's better than to close the day with a perfect cup of ice Vietnamese coffee; anticipation heightened as I watched the coffee dripped from the coffee maker and settled on top of the condensed milk. Pouring the milk coffee in a glass of ice and taking the first sip of this divine drink, my tastebuds burst into a moment of euphoria. Parfait.
