Night

In the morning, Tung went to visit his grandma for the last time, and also to return the wooden placard bearing his family surname because it wouldn't fit in the luggages. I used the cell phone Chu Nhan lent me to call my relations and my parents and let them know I'd be flying home tomorrow.

In the afternoon, Di Oanh took her lunch break off from work to come pick up the cell phone. Today is my vegetarian day, so Di Oanh and I went on a spur-of-the-moment lunch to Viet Chay Restaurant for an unusual vegetarian buffet meal. The place was the ground floor of a temple currently being built, sporting modern design after Chinese decorative influences and a spacious, cool interior with good wood furniture (instead of the more common, low, plastic chairs in cafes and diners). Even with three rooms of tables, the restaurant was so packed that we ended up having to share a long table with two other parties. This is a common scene in Viet Nam, with strangers sharing tables during rush hour, and people hurrying to finish their meal to make room for waiting customers.

I had never eaten at a vegetarian buffet before, and they had such interesting dishes as "banh canh" (fat, round rice noodles in clear broth), "bun rieu" (rice vermicelli with ground "pork" and "crab" cakes), "hu tieu xau" (rice noodles sauteed in garlic), fried "fish" cooked with soy sauce, jackfruit wedges marinated in soy sauce, veggie eggrolls, "ca phao" round eggplants prepared kimchee style, and fried rice. Everything was completely vegetarians and made from either tofu or gluten.

For dessert, there was "che bi" (tapioca-enclosed palm seed kernels), fresh fruits such as pineapples and bananas, and fresh fruit juice. The restaurant was on the ritzy end--right away, you could tell because it cost money to park your motorcycle, the service staff was in full "ao dai," the furniture was real wood, and the decor was modern. It cost $89,000 dong per person for the buffet (around $4-$5: cheap for us, pretty high-scale for Viet Nam). A $10 U.S.-per-person restaurant was expensive-wedding-meal quality. I was really excited to see Di Oanh and ride her motorbike again.

At night, we had our last meal with Co Xuan and an adopted daughter of hers named Phuong. Phuong is a journalist, and she offered to take us on a tour of Downtown Saigon. When people in the city ask, "Have you been to Saigon," what they mean is, "Have you been to Downtown Saigon, where Ben Thanh Market is?" To locals, this area is the heart of the city, and you really haven't visited "Saigon" unless you've gone downtown. At night, it is a whole different place. Familiar daytime cityscape warp into a show of Vegas-like neon lights.





The Cathedral of Notre Dame illuminates in a show of gold, the star in its center pulsating an erratically blinking rhythm.


As we stood in the little square in front of the cathedral, Phuong turned to me and asked, "What do you see and hear around you?" And with those words, from one writer to another, my gawking tourist brain shut off, and on flicked my creative-writing mind. I saw the world around me as only writers could see: everything was sharpened--my hearing more accute, my sight more selective.

I smelled the squid from the little cart as the vendor flattened the pieces between a metal contraption before roasting them on a little burner.



I felt the motor-scooters zipping closely by, a steady emission of honking like the throbbing heart of the city.



I saw youths in hip, trendy clothes, their futures stretched ahead, distant and bright.


I heard the church-goers' chanting prayers, an ethereal wailing sent to their gods upon the air.

I told Phuong all these things, and she told me I was right. She also told me that many of these sights and sounds and smells may not be around for much longer. The government has more than once threatened to shut down street-vendor business in this plaza; under the guise that the food and litter have been making a mess of the city, they wanted all vendors to close up shop. Phuong said countless families had afforded to put at least one of their children through college by hoarding the meager profits from their sales of cuttlefish, fried squid balls, cotton candy. When I asked why the city simply didn't put garbage cans around the plaza and enforce a "No Littering" policy, Phuong smiled at me with a look in her eyes that said, "If only it were that simple."


Phuong continued to guide us around the city, taking us on walks and taxi rides. We saw the magnificent architecture of Town Hall, now called the People's Committee Building, where political leaders gather for meetings.



Five-star hotels decaled their front windows with pictures to welcome the Year of the Ox. Phuong poses in front of one, below:



A woman ran a soup kitchen right in front of her clothing shop, dispensing a warm meal for the poor and homeless once every month.



Young ladies make paper orchid arrangements and sell them to wandering tourists.



The indoor Ben Thanh market closes its doors by evening, and nighttime vendors set up tents outside along the street aisles, selling souvenirs of polo shirts, purses, mother-of-pearl lacquered paintings, and figurines for display. If you didn't know how to drive a bargain, you were certain to get ripped off. Initially quoted prices are usually double or triple what vendors are truly willing to sell at.



I bought Tung a twisted-wire figurine of a palm tree and a siclo, which he made good use of for his iPod: