Last day in Saigon

This morning we had a meeting at Intel, which was great. We were able to tour their brand new billion dollar facility and hear about the way a company like Intel operates I'm developing countries. I, of course, asked the CSR questions and they actually had the right answers as far as environmental and human capital issues.

We are about to leave for the airport to head to Hanoi, but we had a couple of free hours in the city, so went out on my own to explore. It's Ash Wednesday and I looked into mass times - unfortunately they conflicted with Intel and travel times, but I thought I'd go spend some time in the Cathedral at least. I took a cab up to the church, but it was locked up tightly so that plan was ruined! Instead I peeked into the post office, which was built by the French I'm the 1800s.




Then I set out to walk back towards the hotel and find some lunch. I wound my way through people, bikes and construction (HCMC is growing fast and full of construction) admiring some of the fancy dresses in the windows of the silk shops. Maybe I should have had something made!

I then found my way to a restaurant that I had read about - 13 Ngo Duc Ke - for an authentic Vietnamese lunch. There was just one other foreigner there and despite the availability of an English menu, it was still the real deal. I thought I read to try the shrimp and coconut milk and so i ordered that - what came was six BIG prawns, still in shell, head intact, perched around a coconut full of seasoned coconut milk. I didn't know what else to do but shell the shrimp, but everyone in the place was giving me crazy looks. Once I finished those off I was still hungry, so I tried the crab and asparagus soup. It also wasnt what I was expecting - it was white asparagus! - and laced with sort of a stringy eggwhite something. It was tasty though!! A little heavy on pepper, but good.

See you in Hanoi!

- Posted on the go...