The first thing we noticed when we arrived in the last country of our world tour was the abundance of motorcycles. We thought we’d seen a lot in Thailand and Cambodia, but Vietnam takes it to a whole new level.
As a result, crossing the street here is a real thrill. Since there are no crosswalks or designated safe zones, you just step out into the street and keep a steady pace, and like a school of fish the bikes will somehow pick their way around you. It’s cool.
Wandering through the central market, we found another cheap thrill: a fruit stand selling durian.
For those of you not familiar with this “king of fruits”, durian is a particularly malodorous fruit which even Bizarre Foods’ Andrew Zimmern finds hard to choke down.
We bought a small sample, along with its cousin, the jackfruit (below),
then Hannah & I had a little taste test outside.
I really didn’t think the taste was that bad, though it had an odd texture similar to mushy onions.
Hannah seemed to feel differently, though.
In any case, we didn’t go back for seconds.
There’s lots of stuff to do in Saigon besides playing in traffic and eating weird produce, but frankly we were tired of sightseeing. The weather wasn’t that great either: insanely hot with periods of heavy rain.
We couldn’t stay long anyway, if we wanted to reach Hoi An in time for the full moon festival.
{ 2 comments }
Jack fruit is great and yes, I did see that episode where Jack Zimmern had trouble getting durian down.
I love the picture of the skyline and the dark clouds.
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