Ho Chi Minh
Ho Chi Minh City. Sigh-gone are we too soon after our two day stopover in Vietnam’s southern metropolis. While our stay in the former Indochine capitol was really much too short to form a strong opinion, it certainly left lasting impressions.
With its French connection as recent as the 1950’s, we were expecting to experience a more obvious Francophone influence. And while there certainly is a western historical feel to buildings such as the Opera House and the Saigon Notre Dame Basilica, very little else would suggest this shared past with France. We were really hoping that our Year in Provence would have come in handy for getting around by using the french language but sadly, we found no locals who spoke French. And very few who spoke English. So needless to say, getting about without a phone plan and thus no access to Google translate, was challenging. This certainly made for a more exotic adventure even in seemingly familiar settings such as Lotte Mart - a large, local department store.
Thank goodness though for the Filipino expats working in HCM. We were lucky enough to encounter Irving during our visit to Vietopia, a vocational playground where kids get to experience a variety of professions through role play, with a stress on play. Irving guided us through the 40 or so “job opportunities” offered, especially the “high” paying jobs! Kids collect bills after their work experience and at the end can deposit their earnings at the Vietopia bank, a sly way of getting repeat customers as the child workforce couldn’t afford much after a day’s work. But for a little more than $50 for 3 kids and 2 adults, a revisit or two wouldn’t be extravagant and seeing as each job play takes an average of 30 minutes or so, you’d need more than one visit for the kids to pad their resumes and experience all the positions available. We left after nearly three hours and added Firefighter, EMS, CSI, Runway model, and News Anchor to their CV’s.
HCM is very much an eclectic city experience, with historical buildings from east and west, sprouting condos, and schools of motorbikes. Once you get over the sticker shock of prices ranging in the hundreds of thousands! Vietnamese dong, however, so it’s still a fairly affordable family experience. Oh and the food is of course, Tom -Yummy!
