Bahn Mi was definitely not the most delicious food I ate on this trip. After the Creative Kid Project ended, I set off for all of the places I had not been able to visit before, especially those rumored to have interesting new foods to taste. In between I took a bit of time to see the touristy sights, but they were secondary. These were the highlights of the trip:
Ho Chi Minh City (a.k.a. Saigon)...
Beef noodle soup, Saigon style. Much stronger broth than North. Northerners appreciate subtlety a bit too much for my tastes.
It's less pleasant but these are some of the photos of Agent Orange birth defects displayed at one of the museums
The Cu Chi Tunnels, where many Vietnamese fighters lived during the American War to escape bom blasts
Another delicious beef noodle soup, part of a food tour of Saigon a friend took me on. I tried 13 different foods that day
Grilled banana pastry for dessert
An after-dessert snack. They look like tomatoes but they're not. Some kind of small tart fruit.
Crossed into Cambodia to visit Angkor Wat and the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields...
Some local Cambodian food. Not bad, but a little less interesting than Vietnamese food
Angkor Wat at sunrise, complete with loads of tourists in front
More Angkor Wat. Someone said it's like walking through an Indiana Jones movie
Cambodian food, like Vietnamese food, includes a lot of rice
The Killing Fields. The depressions in the ground were mass graves
Bits of clothing and bone resurface when the soil shifts
The memorial
Back to Vietnam to visit the central cities of Da Nang, Hoi An, and Hue...
Unidentifiable (but tasty) sweets on the bus
Fresh clams with lemongrass in Da Nang
Roll your own sting ray rice paper wraps
Hoi An, the city of lanterns, custom clothing shops and, unsurprisingly, tourists
Sticky rice with sesame seeds, crushed peanuts, and sugar for breakfast
Noodles and meat again. Never gets old. Actually
In Da Nang, a friend's mom practically forced me to eat dish after dish of amazing food
Hue is known for having some of the best foods in Vietnam. I only had 8 hours to try it all. A friend from Hanoi had compiled a list of all of the must-taste foods, so I rented a bicycle and asked the rental woman to mark on a map all of the best places to taste those foods. "Go here now. Then here. Then here. Then go see the sights for a couple hours while you digest. Then at 4:30 be here, 5:00 here, 5:30 here, and 6:00 here..."
Tiny dishes with a sticky rice something topped with crunchy shrimp flakes
Rice...and other things
A food vendor in the market who tried serve me one of everything she had
More meat and noodles
Meat wrapped around sticks of lemongrass, dipped in some kind of gravy, then rolled with lettuce and veggies
And one last shot of Hanoi, just up the street from where I lived all summer...
About Vietnamese food, it did not blow my mind as much as I might have expected, but it was delicious and I could definitely eat Vietnamese food for the rest of my life.
