Ca phe sua da

It’s been one week since we’ve arrived, and it seems like this city just keeps getting better.  First off, the guesthouse location is a two minute walk to our school (awesome). The two Viet women that run Language Corps here are incredibly nice and helpful and do a great job of fostering a community of past program participants within Saigon. For example, Chi Hien holds a curry-Monday at a lunch stand around the corner from the school for all the program alumni.  Secondly, the guesthouse is in District 3 which is in the heart of downtown and universally regarded as the prettiest (doubly awesome). It has literally been a night and day experience from staying on the very edge of town far from school in Phnom Penh; but then again, Phnom Penh vs. Saigon is like night and day. Being in the heart of downtown, most everything is in walking distance. We have taken the bus twice (both unnecessary trips) but other than that we haven’t needed to take a moto or taxi for anything.

On a typical day of school, you just go get Vietnamese coffee from one of the like 4 vendors on the street that range from 45-65 cents. Vietnamese coffee is great, every Viet person is very proud to tell you that Vietnam is the second largest coffee producer in the world behind Brazil (I skip telling them the minor fact that when it comes to coffee production, quality not quantity are what matters). Anyways, the process of making Vietnamese coffee is similar to a fusion of slow drip coffee and espresso. You pour water over espresso sized grounds (the smallest) and let it soak through the grounds for 30 minutes. The most well-known coffee is Ca phe sua da which is a shot or two of coffee, condensed milk and sugar. Mocha’s can’t compete, neither can Lattes, thankfully, my stomach forced me to drop the condensed milk and go with the simpler and less desert-esque (and slightly cheaper (by about 5 cents)) ca phe da. After your one or two ca phe’s, if you’re feeling hungry, you can get your 50 cent Bahn mi- French bread, fried egg, cilantro, pate, soy sauce, chili sauce, sprouts baguette-literally across the street from the school and the coffee stands. If you’re feeling especially hungry you can get the 1.25 broken rice and pork which is also delicious and is located in the same alley as our school. For lunch, there are an endless amount of options: 2-3 types of noodles, Pho, Vietnamese stuffed pancakes, currey, doner’s, pizza. All of these options are within walking distance of course. Thankfully, with all these delicious eating options there just happens to be a great park also within walking distance where we have already gone running in a few times. The park also happens to be a great place for people watching, at all hours of the day there are always people playing badminton, sometimes having dancing lessons or dancing workouts, the occasional thai kickboxer and people doing what appears to be Wushu? That or Vietnamese karate. On Friday evening, we were having a bottle of wine in the park  when a mother came up to Libby and asked if she could take a picture of Libby with her baby.  The woman said she was from Hanoi (I guess blonde people are more rare up there), needless to say Libby was pretty excited to finally get the coveted “baby pic.” After the park, we went to see some live music. There are dozens of places with live music on a weekly basis and at least four designated music clubs. We didn’t find any rock n roll, but we found some decent Vietnamese music singing pitch perfect American 90’s pop rock which was fun.  The bar (We’ll have to look up the name) was super interesting, super close, and packed with people excited to “cheers” with us.

The next day, Saturday, Christine had gotten one of our students to take her around the city today as her tour guide, and we joined her. The only problem is that ‘Maria,’ knew the city about as well as we did. We ended up walking all around district 1 and little bit of district 4.  She showed us how the bus system worked (kind-of) and we went to her favorite Pho place which was very delicious. She’s been in Saigon for three years and is in her last year of university but came from a small town in central Vietnam. The university students that come from the country run a TIGHT budget which means they pretty much aren’t able to go out and drink like normal college kids get to in the States. That and the whole concept of a “dive-bar” simply doesn’t exist here in Vietnam. It’s kind of sad because Chi Hien was trying to explain that these students might spend the equivalent of a single beer at a “club” for a week’s worth of expenses including food. So for fun, the majority of the students say they like to get coffee for fun. I think this dilemma might stunt their social growth because we asked what Maria liked to do and she said she really enjoyed watching movies. When we asked which movies she liked she said she really liked the Disney Channel and all the shows and movies on Disney (She’s 21 or 22). Anyways, maybe it’s not any worse, just different. She’s really nice, and Libby and I are going to make it a point of hanging out with her again. Our next plan is to go to the water park with her but she still needs to acquire a bathing suit which is kind of funny, will keep you informed.

After we finished our tour with Maria, Libby and I started doing research on roof-top bars. We stumbled upon Chill Sky Bar the first time we explored Saigon but since the photo is on Libby’s iPhone and it’s now out of chronological order, I’ll introduce Chill Sky-bar upon our return visit. All you need to know is that it’s a pretty over the top awesome bar on the 26^th floor of a skyscraper. Needless to say, our interests were piqued in regards to the whole rooftop bar scene in Saigon. Well, after doing a little research we decided our next rooftop bar would be “Broma,” which was awesomeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Set in a four story French colonial building, it has a really cozy feel in the trees, candlelit, great music that ranged from Spanish guitar to French house, and a nice staff. It seems like a keeper. Yes, 4^th floor can’t really compete with 26^th but at least we can go to Broma when it isn’t happy hour. After having a cocktail at Broma, we ventured back to Sax N Art, a jazz club we stumbled across during our tour with Maria earlier in the day. The club is owned and headed by the first, and maybe only Vietnamese saxophone player to get a scholarship to Berklee College of Music. He really is incredible, and for the sake of time (need to watch this movie we bought at the DVD store down the block for the great price of 50 cents) if you want to look him up go to saxnart.com.  In Vietnamese terms it was expensive with a five dollar cover, but it was really really really cool.  He really had his own style of heavy jazz with a bass guitar and a hard-hitting drum player so between Broma and Sax n Art we had a great night. We wrapped up the weekend by going to mass at Notre Dame Cathedral and had a nice “brunch” at this French style Ca phe. Everything about the ca phe seemed French except the food, but who cares!